The day is finally here: SURVIVE THE NIGHT, the highly-anticipated new thriller by bestselling author Riley Sager, is available now—and it is entirely worth the wait. In his newest thriller, Sager invites readers into the passenger seat for a car ride you’ll never forget. The year is 1991, and college student Charlie has just accepted a ride from a stranger she met on her campus ride board. Charlie is desperate to leave school and get back home to Ohio, and Josh is heading that way, too. What could possibly go wrong? Not long after the two have departed, Charlie becomes suspicious of her traveling companion… and before the night is over, Charlie will have reason to believe that she is in the car with a serial killer. In SURVIVE THE NIGHT, Riley Sager delivers a gripping, just-one-more-page thriller that begins with a simple premise, and unfurls into one of the most memorable suspense stories of the year. SURVIVE THE NIGHT has all the key ingredients readers expect from a Sager suspense novel: an endearing, independent protagonist, a horror-movie-worthy premise, and a masterful command of plot and pacing that will keep readers glued to the pages. Add in a jaw-dropping, earth-shattering final reveal in the book’s last few pages and you’ve got yourself a surefire winner in SURVIVE THE NIGHT. Sly, immersive, and wildly original, SURVIVE THE NIGHT is Riley Sager’s best book yet.
Read More
Book Review: HOSTAGE by Clare Mackintosh
After a brief hiatus from crime fiction, author Clare Mackintosh returns to the genre this week with HOSTAGE, a psychological thriller that takes a claustrophobic “locked room”-style premise and sets it aboard a long-haul flight from London to Sydney. A relatively ordinary day at work takes an extraordinary turn for flight attendant Mina when she receives a threatening note from a passenger with a terrifying ultimatum: follow the anonymous passenger’s instructions and help ensure the plane never reaches its destination, or Mina’s young daughter will pay the price. It’s an immediately arresting and horrifying dilemma. Will Mina save the lives of the innocent passengers aboard her plane, or save the life of her beloved young daughter? Clare Mackintosh weaves a gripping story brimming with unreliable characters, shifting points of view, and a terrifying dilemma at its core. A jaw-dropping final reveal in the book’s Epilogue ties this book together with true Mackintosh flair. Clare Mackintosh has become a staple of my personal suspense library over the years, and while HOSTAGE may not be my absolute favorite Mackintosh release (that title still belongs to her debut, I Let You Go!), it nevertheless proves itself a worthy addition to any suspense reader’s collection. It’s a thrill to have Clare Mackintosh back writing crime fiction, and HOSTAGE delivers major entertainment value and edge-of-your-seat suspense.
Read More
New Release Tuesday: THE MAIDENS by Alex Michaelides & BATH HAUS by P.J. Vernon
It’s the best day of the week: new release Tuesday! This week, crime fiction readers will want to clear their TBR lists and their calendars to devour the newest elegant suspense novel by The Silent Patient author Alex Michaelides, and to dive into a twisty, paranoia-inducing thriller by breakout star P.J. Vernon. It’s a huge week for new crime fiction, and to celebrate, I wanted to mix up my review coverage a bit and give you a joint review of my picks for this week’s buzziest new crime fiction: THE MAIDENS by Alex Michaelides and BATH HAUS by P.J. Vernon. Because when the new releases are this good, why limit yourself to just one?! Without further ado, let’s dive on in to today’s two-for-one book review.
Read More
Book Review: I FOUND YOU by Lisa Jewell
No one writes page-turners quite like Lisa Jewell. One of my personal 2021 reading goals is to read my way through Jewell’s backlist suspense novels, and last weekend I had the absolute pleasure of devouring her 2018 thriller I FOUND YOU while on my first real vacation in over a year. If ever there were books built for vacation reading, Jewell’s thrillers are it. In I FOUND YOU, Lisa Jewell weaves an irresistible and immersive story of a group of seemingly unrelated individuals whose lives intersect in tragic and destructive ways. Centering around a quiet seaside town in England, where a woman has just found a man on the beach who has no idea who he is or how he got there, I FOUND YOU tells a hypnotic and atmospheric tale that will keep you glued to the pages from first to last. A cast of compelling characters and years’ worth of long-buried secrets just waiting to be uncovered make I FOUND YOU one of my new favorite Lisa Jewell reads. (Though, let’s be honest, any book by Lisa Jewell is pretty much guaranteed to be a must-read for fans of psychological suspense.)
Read More
Book Review: THE HUNTING WIVES by May Cobb
Summer reading just got a whole lot spicier. May Cobb’s deliciously juicy and wickedly entertaining THE HUNTING WIVES might just be the most gossip-worthy suspense novel of Summer 2021. Centering around an elite clique of wealthy housewives with secrets as big as their home state of Texas, THE HUNTING WIVES invites readers into an exclusive and glamorous world with a dark side. When Sophie relocates her family from Chicago to a small East Texas town, she hopes to give them the kind of peaceful, stable upbringing that was missing from her own childhood. But Sophie’s world is turned upside down when she meets charismatic and mysterious Margot, the ringleader of a group of local affluent housewives who call themselves “The Hunting Wives.” As Sophie falls under Margot’s spell, she is drawn into a dark and dangerous world of parties and hookups. And when someone close to the group turns up dead, and suspicion falls on Sophie, her world threatens to be destroyed forever. THE HUNTING WIVES is dripping with glamour and excess, a razor-sharp thriller about the complexity of female relationships wrapped up in an irresistible, reality-TV-worthy package. Fans of Desperate Housewives and Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies will relish this irresistible story of wealthy women behaving very badly, and the (maybe not-so-) innocent woman caught in their crosshairs.
Read More