A Potpourri of Opinions

  The Death of Us Lori Rader-Day Publication Date: October 3, 2023 by William Morrow Genre: Mystery Rating: 4 👢👢👢👢 Summary: From the award-winning author of Death at Greenway and The Lucky One comes a chilling suspense novel in which the discovery of a submerged car in a murky pond reveals betrayals and family secrets that will tear a small town apart. One rainy night fifteen years ago, a knock at the door changed Liss Kehoe’s life forever. On that night, Ashley Hay stood on Liss’s front porch and handed over her brand-new baby Callan. She was never seen or heard from again. Since then, Liss has raised Callan as her own, and loves him as fiercely as any mother would. But in the back of her mind, she’s always wondered whether Ashley is still out there somewhere—and feared what might happen if she comes back. When Ashley does reappear, it’s not in the way Liss expected. After all these years, Ashley’s car has been found…in the quarry pond on Kehoe property. But the discovery of t...

The Prisoner B. A. Paris Publication Date: November 1, 2022 by St. Martin's Press and Macmillan Audio Genre: Thriller, Suspense Rating: 4 👢👢👢👢 Summary: Amelie has always been a survivor, from losing her parents as a child in Paris to making it on her own in London. As she builds a life for herself, she is swept up into a glamorous lifestyle where she married the handsome billionaire Ned Hawthorne. But then, Amelie wakes up in a pitch-black room, not knowing where she is. Why has she been taken? Who are her mysterious captors? And why does she soon feel safer here, imprisoned, than she had begun to feel with her husband Ned? My thoughts : B.A. Paris has become a go-to author for me whenever I'm in the mood for something suspenseful. What began with an abduction turned into the unraveling of a web of lies, cover ups, and murder. While this story started off fast, overall it was a slow build up. Paris use of short chapters helped to keep the reader on the right path. The main ...

Metropolis B. A. Shapiro Publication date: May 17, 2022 by Algonquin Books Genre: Mystery/Thriller Rating: 4 🍷🍷🍷🍷 Summary: In Metropolis we meet six unforgettable characters who never would have met if not for their rental units at Metropolis Storage Warehouse. When a harrowing accident—or is it an accident?—occurs in the building, each character is forced to consider their life circumstances: Serge, a mentally unstable but brilliant street photographer who lives in his unit; Zach, the storage facility owner and an ex-drug dealer, who purchases Serge’s undeveloped photographs and discovers they contain clues to the mysterious accident. Marta, an undocumented immigrant hiding from ICE in her unit. Liddy, an abused wife and mother, who is responsible for the accident, unless she intended it; Jason, a lawyer who has left his big firm and now practices out of his unit; and Rose, the office manager who takes kickbacks to let people live in the facility and has her own disintegrating fam...

The Cloisters Katy Hays Publication date: November 1, 2022 by Atria Books Genre: Mystery/Thriller Rating: 4 👢👢👢👢 Summary: When Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, she expects to spend her summer working as a curatorial associate at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she finds herself assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for its medieval art collection and its group of enigmatic researchers studying the history of divination. Desperate to escape her painful past, Ann is happy to indulge the researchers’ more outlandish theories about the history of fortune telling. But what begins as academic curiosity quickly turns into obsession when Ann discovers a hidden 15th-century deck of tarot cards that might hold the key to predicting the future. When the dangerous game of power, seduction, and ambition at The Cloisters turns deadly, Ann becomes locked in a race for answers as the line between the arcane and the modern blurs. A haunting and magical blend ...

Stay Awake Megan Goldin Publication date: August 9, 2022 by St. Martin's Press Genre: Thriller/Suspense Rating: 5 👢👢👢👢👢 Summary: A murder she doesn’t remember committing. A killer she doesn’t remember meeting.  Megan Goldin’s  Stay Awake  is an electrifying novel that proves memory can be deadly. Liv Reese wakes up in the back of a taxi with no idea where she is or how she got there. When she’s dropped off at the door of her brownstone, a stranger answers—a stranger who claims to live in her apartment. She reaches for her phone to call for help, only to discover it’s missing. In its place is a bloodstained knife. Her hands are covered in scribbled messages, like graffiti on her skin: STAY AWAKE. Two years ago, Liv was thriving as a successful writer for a trendy magazine. Now, she’s lost and disoriented in a New York City that looks nothing like what she remembers. Catching a glimpse of the local news, she’s horrified to see reports of a crime scene where the victim’...