[REVIEW] Mother May I

title: Mother May I

author: Joshilyn Jackson
genre: adult, suspense
published: April 6th 2021 by William Morrow
my copy: eGalley, 336
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 3 / 5 stars
goodreads

Revenge doesn’t wait for permission. 

Growing up poor in rural Georgia, Bree Cabbat was warned by her single mother that the world was a dark and scary place. Bree rejected her mother’s fearful outlook, and life has proved her right. Having married into a family with wealth, power, and connections, Bree now has all a woman could ever dream of: a loving lawyer husband, two talented teenage daughters, a new baby boy, a gorgeous home, and every opportunity in the world. 

Until the day she awakens and sees a witch peering into her bedroom window—an old gray-haired woman dressed all in black who vanishes as quickly as she appears. It must be a play of the early morning light or the remnant of a waking dream, Bree tells herself, shaking off the bad feeling that overcomes her. 

Later that day though, she spies the old woman again, in the parking lot of her daugh­ters’ private school . . . just minutes before Bree’s infant son, asleep in his car seat only a few feet away, vanishes. It happened so quickly—Bree looked away only for a second. There is a note left in his place, warning her that she is being is being watched; if she wants her baby back, she must not call the police or deviate in any way from the instructions that will follow. 

The mysterious woman makes contact, and Bree learns she, too, is a mother. Why would another mother do this? What does she want? And why has she targeted Bree? Of course Bree will pay anything, do anything. It’s her child. 

To get her baby back, Bree must complete one small—but critical—task. It seems harmless enough, but her action comes with a devastating price, making her complicit in a tangled web of tragedy and shocking secrets that could destroy everything she loves. It is the beginning of an odyssey that will lead Bree to dangerous places, explosive confrontations, and chilling truths. 

Bree will do whatever it takes to protect her family—but what if the cost tears their world apart?

lacks on certain aspect but I do like the overall point of it.

When I requested this, I didn't really read through the plot. Then reading the first chapter or two, I found out that it involves a kidnapping of a child (so there's that for ❗❗ trigger warning). But unlike See How They Run and The Couple Next Door, Mother May I is a revenge plot.

[REVIEW] The Other Widow

title: The Other Widow

author: Susan Crawford
genre: adult fiction, mystery
published: April 26th 2016 by William Morrow
my copy: ARC, 352 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 3 / 5 stars
goodreads

The author of The Pocket Wife explores the dark side of love, marriage, and infidelity in this sizzling novel of psychological suspense.

Everybody’s luck runs out. This time it could be theirs . . .

It isn’t safe. That’s what Joe tells her when he ends their affair—moments before their car skids off an icy road in a blinding snowstorm and hits a tree. Desperate to keep her life intact—her job, her husband, and her precious daughter, Lily—Dorrie will do everything she can to protect herself, even if it means walking away from the wreckage. Dorrie has always been a good actress, pretending to be someone else: the dutiful daughter, the satisfied wife, the woman who can handle anything. Now she’s going to put on the most challenging performance of her life. But details about the accident leave her feeling uneasy and afraid. Why didn’t Joe’s airbag work? Why was his car door open before the EMTs arrived? And now suddenly someone is calling her from her dead lover’s burner phone. . . .

Joe’s death has left his wife in free fall as well. Karen knew Joe was cheating—she found some suspicious e-mails. Trying to cope with grief is devastating enough without the constant fear that has overtaken her—this feeling she can’t shake that someone is watching her. And with Joe gone and the kids grown, she’s vulnerable . . . and on her own.

Insurance investigator Maggie Devlin is suspicious of the latest claim that’s landed on her desk—a man dying on an icy road shortly after buying a lucrative life insurance policy. Maggie doesn’t believe in coincidences. The former cop knows that things—and people—are never what they seem to be.

As the fates of these three women become more tightly entwined, layers of lies and deception begin to peel away, pushing them dangerously to the edge . . . closer to each other . . . to a terrifying truth . . . to a shocking end.

could have been better.

This is one of those books I randomly picked up from the discarded piles of ARC on the bookstore I used to work in. I grabbed it because it looks like a psychological-thriller and somehow it is. But also, it isn't. OR it just isn't good. for me.

[REVIEW] Nine Elms

title: Nine Elms (Kate Marshall #1)

author: Robert Bryndza
genre: adult fiction, crime fiction, thriller
published: December 1st 2019 by Thomas & Mercer (first published November 1st 2019)
my copy: kindle, 392 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 4 / 5 stars
goodreads

From the breakthrough international bestselling author of The Girl in the Ice, a breathtaking, page-turning novel about a disgraced female detective’s fight for redemption. And survival... 

Kate Marshall was a promising young police detective when she caught the notorious Nine Elms serial killer. But her greatest victory suddenly turned into a nightmare. Traumatized, betrayed, and publicly vilified for the shocking circumstances surrounding the cannibal murder case, Kate could only watch as her career ended in scandal. 

Fifteen years after those catastrophic events, Kate is still haunted by the unquiet ghosts of her troubled past. Now a lecturer at a small coastal English university, she finally has a chance to face them. A copycat killer has taken up the Nine Elms mantle, continuing the ghastly work of his idol. 

Enlisting her brilliant research assistant, Tristan Harper, Kate draws on her prodigious and long-neglected skills as an investigator to catch a new monster. Success promises redemption, but there’s much more on the line: Kate was the original killer’s intended fifth victim… and his successor means to finish the job.

your usual crime fiction.

I read a couple of books from Bryndza's previous series, his Detective Erika Foster series, and I really enjoyed them. So even though I haven't read them all (this cheap-ass me is waiting for further price drop on Kindle. I need books 3 and 5. lmao), I decided to grab this one when I saw it on Kindle Deals!

[REVIEW] The Couple Next Door

title: The Couple Next Door

author: Shari Lapena
genre: adult fiction, mystery, thriller
published: August 23rd 2016 by Pamela Dorman Books
my copy: hardcover, 308 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 4 / 5 stars
goodreads

It all started at a dinner party. . .

A domestic suspense debut about a young couple and their apparently friendly neighbors--a twisty, rollercoaster ride of lies, betrayal, and the secrets between husbands and wives...

Anne and Marco Conti seem to have it all--a loving relationship, a wonderful home, and their beautiful baby, Cora. But one night when they are at a dinner party next door, a terrible crime is committed. Suspicion immediately focuses on the parents. But the truth is a much more complicated story.

Inside the curtained house, an unsettling account of what actually happened unfolds. Detective Rasbach knows that the panicked couple is hiding something. Both Anne and Marco soon discover that the other is keeping secrets, secrets they've kept for years.

What follows is the nerve-racking unraveling of a family--a chilling tale of deception, duplicity, and unfaithfulness that will keep you breathless until the final shocking twist.

desperation, pride, greed, secrets.

I was in a slump when I picked this up and boy did it help me get out of it! 

[REVIEW] See How They Run

title: See How They Run
author: Tom Bale
genre: adult fiction, thriller
published: May 6th 2016 by Bookouture
my copy: kindle, 411 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 2 / 5 stars
goodreads

How far would you go to save your family? 

In the dead of night, new parents Alice and Harry French are plunged into their worst nightmare when they wake to find masked men in their bedroom. Men ruthless enough to threaten their baby daughter, Evie.

This is no burglary gone wrong. 

The intruders know who they’re looking for – a man called Edward Renshaw.

And they are prepared to kill to get to him.

When the men leave empty handed, little do Alice and Harry realise that their nightmare is just beginning. Is it a case of mistaken identity? Who is Renshaw? And what is he hiding?

One thing is clear – they already know too much.

As Alice and Harry are separated in the run for their lives, there is no time to breathe in their fight to be reunited. And with their attackers closing in, there is only one choice:

STAY ALIVE. OR DON’T.

Terrifying, unputdownable and full of twists and turns, this stunning thriller will have you on the edge of your seat right to the very last page.

wild thrilling chase with lots of should I trust this?

I got this one during my Bookouture addiction time. I was at the height of loving thrillers  by Angela Marsons and Robert Bryndza. Then they promoted Tom Bale and the premise of novel is just too intriguing.

[REVIEW] The Mist

title: The Mist
author: Stephen King
genre: adult, horror
published: June 5, 2018  by Scribner ( first published 1980)
my copy: Trade Paperback, 176 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 4.5 / 5 stars
goodreads

In the wake of a summer storm, terror descends...David Drayton, his son Billy, and their neighbor Brent Norton join dozens of others and head to the local grocery store to replenish supplies following a freak storm. Once there, they become trapped by a strange mist that has enveloped the town. As the confinement takes its toll on their nerves, a religious zealot, Mrs. Carmody, begins to play on their fears to convince them that this is God’s vengeance for their sins. She insists a sacrifice must be made and two groups—those for and those against—are aligned. Clearly, staying in the store may prove fatal, and the Draytons, along with store employee Ollie Weeks, Amanda Dumfries, Irene Reppler, and Dan Miller, attempt to make their escape. But what’s out there may be worse than what they left behind. 

This exhilarating novella explores the horror in both the enemy you know—and the one you can only imagine.

great combination of scifi and horror

II saw the movie a few months back and I became extremely curious of the novel as I've also found out that they concluded differently. BUT either way, I will still be reading it because of my interest on how the characters fear are presented in the book. And I have to say that my expectations were well met.

[REVIEW] Confessions

title: Confessions (告白 / Kokuhaku)
author: Kanae Minato, Stephen Snyder (Translator)
genre: adult, thriller
published: August 19th 2014 by Mulholland Books (first published August 5th 2008)
my copy: Paperback, First English language edition, 235 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 5 / 5 stars
goodreads

HER PUPILS KILLED HER DAUGHTER.
NOW, SHE WILL HAVE HER REVENGE. 

After calling off her engagement in wake of a tragic revelation, Yuko Moriguchi had nothing to live for except her only child, four-year-old Manami. Now, following an accident on the grounds of the middle school where she teaches, Yuko has given up and tendered her resignation. 

But first she has one last lecture to deliver. She tells a story that upends everything her students ever thought they knew about two of their peers, and sets in motion a maniacal plot for revenge. 

Narrated in alternating voices, with twists you'll never see coming, Confessions explores the limits of punishment, despair, and tragic love, culminating in a harrowing confrontation between teacher and student that will place the occupants of an entire school in danger. You'll never look at a classroom the same way again. 

highly intriguing and horrifying.

I've been hoping to read this and last year's #Burtontober pushed me to finally pick it up.

Confessions is about the revenge of middle school teacher and single mother, Yuko Moriguchi, for the death of her child. During her last day as a teacher, she tells the class the full story of the death of her child and explained her revenge. The novel covers the results of the said revenge and it is not pretty.

[REVIEW] The Long Walk

title: The Long Walk
author: Richard Bachman (Stephen King)
genre: adult fiction, dystopia
published: April 19, 2016 by Pocket Books (first published July 1979)
format: paperback, 400 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 4 / 5 stars
goodreads

In this #1 national bestseller, “master storyteller” (Houston Chronicle) Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman, tells the tale of the contestants of a grueling walking competition where there can only be one winner—the one that survives. 

In the near future, when America has become a police state, one hundred boys are selected to enter an annual contest where the winner will be awarded whatever he wants for the rest of his life. Among them is sixteen-year-old Ray Garraty, and he knows the rules—keep a steady walking pace of four miles per hour without stopping. Three warnings and you’re out—permanently.

and I thought a book about walking will be boring.

This is one of the Stephen King books I've been hoping to read and I'm so glad that I finally did. The premise itself really is something. It's simple yet knowing that it's written by Stephen King assures me that the psychological aspect of the characters will be its best asset.

[REVIEW] Perfect Blue

title: Perfect Blue (Pāfekuto Burū: Kanzen Hentai)
author: Yoshikazu Takeuchi;  Nathan A. Collins (translator)
genre: adult fiction, thriller
published: February 6, 2018 by Seven Seas (first published in March 1991)
format: paperback, 288 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 4 / 5 stars
goodreads

Kirigoe Mima is in the third year of her career as a pure and innocent pop idol. Feeling like something big needs to change, she plans to give her image a major update. When the new Mima is revealed, complete with a sexy outfit and a risqué photo book, one of her most obsessive fans refuses to accept her transformation. To restore Mima to the innocent girl of her debut, he puts a terrifying plan to action that throws her life into chaos and mortal peril.

horrifying, disturbing, and nightmarish obsession

This landed on my radar because of Satoshi Kon who directed the anime adaptation of this novel. Satoshi Kon is the author of Opus, a metafiction novel I read late last year as well as directed and written the the psychological thriller anime Paranoia Agent.

[REVIEW] Girl in Snow

title: Girl in Snow
author: Danya Kukafka
genre: adult fiction, mystery, thriller
published: August 1, 2017 by Simon & Schuster
format: hardcover, 368 pages
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository
rating: 2 / 5 stars
goodreads

Who Are You When No One Is Watching? 

When a beloved high schooler named Lucinda Hayes is found murdered, no one in her sleepy Colorado suburb is untouched—not the boy who loved her too much; not the girl who wanted her perfect life; not the officer assigned to investigate her murder. In the aftermath of the tragedy, these three indelible characters—Cameron, Jade, and Russ—must each confront their darkest secrets in an effort to find solace, the truth, or both.  

In crystalline prose, Danya Kukafka offers a brilliant exploration of identity and of the razor-sharp line between love and obsession, between watching and seeing, between truth and memory. Compulsively readable and powerfully moving, Girl in Snow offers an unforgettable reading experience and introduces a singular new talent in Danya Kukafka.

Girl in Snow tried but failed. *shakes head*

Mystery thrillers are a thing, ya know? Cheating husbands are a thing, ya know? Unreliable main characters with memory loss are a thing, ya know? And this just combined that but ya know what? It failed. It failed so much I can't even believe I finished it. I  finish it because I was curious as to who actually killed the girl and why and how it will be revealed. Mysteries keep me going, you see. And when it's poorly done, I get sad and disappointed af.

[SPOTLIGHT] Two Days Gone

Two Days Gone excerpt + giveaway!!

title: Two Days Gone (Ryan DeMarco Mystery #1)
author: Randall Silvis
genre: adult fiction, mystery, thriller
publish: January 10, 2017 by Sourcebooks Landmark
purchase: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository | IndieBound
goodreads

The perfect family. The perfect house. The perfect life. All gone now. 

Thomas Huston, a beloved professor and bestselling author, is something of a local hero in the small Pennsylvania college town where he lives and teaches. So when Huston’s wife and children are found brutally murdered in their home, the community reacts with shock and anger. Huston has also mysteriously disappeared, and suddenly, the town celebrity is suspect number one. 

Sergeant Ryan DeMarco has secrets of his own, but he can’t believe that a man he admired, a man he had considered a friend, could be capable of such a crime. Hoping to glean clues about Huston’s mind-set, DeMarco delves into the professor’s notes on his novel-in-progress. Soon, DeMarco doesn’t know who to trust—and the more he uncovers about Huston’s secret life, the more treacherous his search becomes.