In this family, everyone is keeping secrets–especially the dead. Brecken Hill in upstate New York is an expensive place to live. You have to be rich to have a house there. And they don’t come much richer than Fred and Sheila Merton. But even all their money can’t protect them when a killer comes to call. The Mertons are brutally murdered the night after an Easter Dinner with their three adult kids. Who, of course, are devastated.
Or are they? They each stand to inherit millions. They were never a happy family, thanks to their capricious father and neglectful mother, but perhaps one of them is more disturbed than anyone knew. Did one of them snap after that dreadful evening? Or was it someone else that night who crept in with the worst of intentions? It must be. After all, if one of your siblings was a psychopath, you’d know.
Another Shari Lapena review! Although the previous books I’ve read by her weren’t my all-time favourites, she always delivered when it came to the suspense, and this book was no different. Of her novels that I’ve read so far, this one was so far my favourite. The elements of mystery and psychological suspense were well executed and I was wondering until the very very end what happened.
Not a Happy Family revolves around a very familiar plot. Two high status rich parents are murdered in cold blood, with three children who stand to gain a substantial inheritance. Was it a mere robbery gone wrong? Or is there something much more sinister at play? With a whole melange of suspicious characters without alibis, just who is telling the truth? Told through the POVs of almost all the characters (and even the detectives), Lapena takes us through a riveting whodunnit with twists and turns galore, all the way to its exciting finish.
You have 24 hours to win. If you break my rules, she dies. If you call the police, she dies. If you tell your parents or anyone else, she dies.
Are you ready?
When Crystal Donavan gets a message on a mysterious app with a video of her little sister gagged and bound, she agrees to play the kidnapper’s game. At first, they make her complete bizarre tasks: steal a test and stuff it in a locker, bake brownies, make a prank call.
But then Crystal realizes each task is meant to hurt—and kill—her friends, one by one. But if she refuses to play, the kidnapper will kill her sister. Is someone trying to take her team out of the running for a gaming tournament? Or have they uncovered a secret from their past, and wants them to pay for what they did…
As Crystal makes the impossible choices between her friends and her sister, she must uncover the truth and find a way to outplay the kidnapper… before it’s too late.
Author of All Your Twisted Secrets, Diana Urban’s explosive sophomore novel, These Deadly Games, will keep you riveted until the final twist is revealed.
**These Deadly Games comes out February 1, 2022**
Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for this copy in exchange for an honest review.
Fast paced, exhilarating and full of twisted games, These Deadly Games had me on the edge of my seat the whole time as we race with Crystal against the clock to save her sister.
This is Diana Urban’s second novel and I fell in love with this one even more than the first. Written in the same storytelling method I have come to expect from her, we are not given too much information about certain aspects of the protagonist and friends’ past that only slowly unfolds as we move forward in the present time. How this impacts the present day characterization of the main group of friends we are following is brilliant as it shaped who they each are.
Besides characterization, the mystery flows super well that it’s very hard to put down. Right from the get go, we know Crystal’s group is up for a gaming tournament with high chances of winning the team component. Is someone hunting them down one by one so they wouldn’t qualify for it? There are plenty of motives and suspects who may not want to see any of them succeed. Guessing who the culprit(s) may be was fun, though I will admit I had a sneaking suspicion who it was around the 50% mark, but that didn’t lessen how much fun it was to see it all being pieced together.
This book is also aptly named because, oh boy, those sure were some DEADLY games this unknown entity put Crystal through. What seemed like innocent enough gestures alone soon became separate ways that were hurting people she loved. And if the “truth” of these deadly acts came to light, all the evidence would point to Crystal alone, wouldn’t it? It was such a brilliantly devised plan and this evil mastermind had me applauding their, well, genius the whole way. They were so creative, and I have to praise Urban for devising up such things.
There was a lot to love about this book. I felt the secondary characters, all of Crystal’s gaming group, were unique enough although we don’t get to spend a lot of time with each since we really are just following Crystal during this 24 hour period. It also explored some of Crystal’s family life and the feelings she had about the dysfunction present there, along with her instinct to put her little sister above all else. Unfortunately I couldn’t quite give it a 5 star rating. I felt like it was just missing a “wow” factor, but that really could only be me since I might’ve guessed whodunnit rather early on.
However, how the ending wrapped up was pretty solid and amazing. I can’t give away much, but let me just say it made a lot of sense and still had me gripping my seat until the very last page. I think Urban couldn’t have written a better ending for this story with the perfect amount of allure and openness. It was definitely far better than the dumpster wreck ending of her debut.
I would definitely recommend you pick this one up when it comes out if you’re looking for a fast read that takes some turns you may not expect. These Deadly Games is sure to thrill and have you flipping through the pages to find out how it would all resolve.
Overall Recommendation:
These Deadly Games is a wonderful mystery/thriller that features a cunning mastermind tormenting Crystal and her friends on the weekend eve of a big gaming tournament they’re posed to win. Its fast-paced storytelling set in a 24 hour period as Crystal races against the clock to save her kidnapped sister had me rushing to get to the bottom of it. I enjoyed the characterizations of Crystal’s friend group, but particularly learning who Crystal was and the lengths she’d go to juggle the hardest decision she’d ever have to make: save her friends or her sister. The ending was spectacularly handled, although I kind of guessed who the mastermind was some time earlier. Overall this was a solid mystery but may have missed a little wow factor for me to reach 5-star. Diana Urban’s sophomore novel definitely set the bar and I look forward to seeing where she goes next because it’s only getting better!
A gothic tale full of mystery and romance about a willful female surgeon, a resurrection man who sells bodies for a living, and the buried secrets they must uncover together.
Edinburgh, 1817.
Hazel Sinnett is a lady who wants to be a surgeon more than she wants to marry.
Jack Currer is a resurrection man who’s just trying to survive in a city where it’s too easy to die.
When the two of them have a chance encounter outside the Edinburgh Anatomist’s Society, Hazel thinks nothing of it at first. But after she gets kicked out of renowned surgeon Dr. Beecham’s lectures for being the wrong gender, she realizes that her new acquaintance might be more helpful than she first thought. Because Hazel has made a deal with Dr. Beecham: if she can pass the medical examination on her own, the university will allow her to enroll. Without official lessons, though, Hazel will need more than just her books – she’ll need bodies to study, corpses to dissect.
Lucky that she’s made the acquaintance of someone who digs them up for a living, then.
But Jack has his own problems: strange men have been seen skulking around cemeteries, his friends are disappearing off the streets. Hazel and Jack work together to uncover the secrets buried not just in unmarked graves, but in the very heart of Edinburgh society.
**Anatomy: A Love Story comes out January 18, 2022**
Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin’s Pressfor this copy in exchange for an honest review
I will be upfront and acknowledge that this book may not be for absolutely everyone, and I will break down why it worked for me.
In the vein of Lydia Kang’s historical novels on medicine (see Quackery), Anatomy: A Love Story is very much, well, on anatomy and surgeries. But unlike what we may think of as modern day surgeries, the early 1800s was a scary place if you needed to be operated on. Think dirty conditions, hospitals packed for the poor while the rich had doctors come to their own homes, and operations conducted with no anesthesia.
In such a time like this, we meet our protagonist Hazel. I absolutely adored her! She had a lifelong passion to be a surgeon, which was an inconceivable notion for a woman, let alone a lady of her status. Surgeons were also considered a lesser profession than physicians because they cut into bodies, something a *gasp* woman could never do with her sensitivities (insert heavy sarcasm). Nonetheless, she fought every obstacle in her way and this is what was the heart of this story. If this excites you, then congratulations, this book will make your heart leap for joy at her successes and rave at everyone when those obstacles grew so large.
This is a story about defying the boundaries and expectations placed on you in order to achieve what you’re meant to do. It reminded me a lot on the fight for woman’s rights (such as found in A Mad, Wicked Folly) and I wanted to fight with Hazel so much as a woman in science myself.
Now, there are two other elements in this story that were just as lovely but were not as represented as one may have initially expected from the synopsis.
Meeting Jack and partnering with him comes a little later in the book, probably closer to the halfway point. We do get POVs from Jack prior to this decision, and Jack and Hazel do also meet at some point before as well, but this doesn’t develop for a while. There was a lot of foundational set up of the time and Hazel’s desperation to become a licensed surgeon.
But once we do have this potential relationship going, it was just all hearts from there! Jack is such a gem, and it helped that we got to know him outside of his interactions with Hazel at first. He’s had a rough life on the poorer outskirts of society, but he’s worked hard to care for himself. Although he and Hazel could not be more different in many ways, their love story filled my heart and I just yearned for the very best for them. I will admit that I wanted MORE of this precious relationship on the pages, but I can understand why it wasn’t necessarily the focus.
There is also the mysterious element regarding disappearing people. This was a little predictable to me – perhaps I read too many thrillers and mysteries – but it connected with the overall story well and didn’t feel like a throwaway.
It is by far the least of these 3 focal points of the book so please don’t come in thinking it plays in a super major way. It’s present and definitely comes to the forefront at some point, but this isn’t a mystery book. I will say I enjoyed its connection to the story but it’s not suspenseful or particularly thrilling to my standards.
So if you have a love of science (even in a minuscule way) and stories about overcoming all the obstacles to achieve your goals, this is the book for you. The romance was beautiful and the story flowed together, albeit less focused on these areas.
I got to the end and my heart needed a moment to stop and take a deep breath. I was so immersed in the story and just wished I had more. I thought the ending was beautifully written with the right amount of open-endedness for interpretation.
Overall Recommendation:
Anatomy: A Love Story delivered well on its central theme of overcoming obstacles to do what you love. Hazel was the perfect protagonist in this situation, a young lady who wanted to be a surgeon in a purely male-dominated field. It really immersed us into early 1800 Edinburgh as she fought so many obstacles in her way to pursue her dream and passion. The romance with Jack, a resurrection man aka a grave digger, happened later in the book but their partnership was just the cutest and most wholesome thing ever! There was also a mystery in play but these elements were not the focal points, although they were all connected well with the main part of the story. This may not be for everyone, especially if you thought it was purely a great romance novel, but I personally loved the historical science of it. Dana Schwartz is definitely being added to my list of writers to look out for.
Down the Rabbit Hole 