Armed with only hazy memories, a woman who long ago witnessed her friend’s sudden, mysterious death, and has since spent her life trying to forget, sets out to track down answers. What she uncovers, deep in the woods, is hardly to be believed….
Maya was a high school senior when her best friend, Aubrey, mysteriously dropped dead in front of the enigmatic man named Frank whom they’d been spending time with all summer.
Seven years later, Maya lives in Boston with a loving boyfriend and is kicking the secret addiction that has allowed her to cope with what happened years ago, the gaps in her memories, and the lost time that she can’t account for. But her past comes rushing back when she comes across a recent YouTube video in which a young woman suddenly keels over and dies in a diner while sitting across from none other than Frank. Plunged into the trauma that has defined her life, Maya heads to her Berkshires hometown to relive that fateful summer–the influence Frank once had on her and the obsessive jealousy that nearly destroyed her friendship with Aubrey.
At her mother’s house, she excavates fragments of her past and notices hidden messages in her deceased Guatemalan father’s book that didn’t stand out to her earlier. To save herself, she must understand a story written before she was born, but time keeps running out, and soon, all roads are leading back to Frank’s cabin….
Utterly unique and captivating, The House in the Pines keeps you guessing about whether we can ever fully confront the past and return home.
This was one of the ones I picked out of a list of thrillers just to get started on for the season, and unfortunately it wasn’t a great hit for me. Maybe it was just the themes, but I didn’t find it particularly enthralling on any level. Just when it was going to redeem itself, it didn’t, so all in all it was pretty disappointing.
The House in the Pines follows our unreliable, memory-suppressed protagonist, Maya, who is brought back to a past she had run away from when a video pops up with of her ex-boyfriend. Two girls having dropped dead in front of the same man, with no explanation, and Maya has no recollection of how it went down the first time around. Seeking a resolution for her missing memories, Maya heads back to her home town to hunt down the truth.
Nora Spangler is a successful attorney but when it comes to domestic life, she packs the lunches, schedules the doctor appointments, knows where the extra paper towel rolls are, and designs and orders the holiday cards. Her husband works hard, too… but why does it seem like she is always working so much harder?
When the Spanglers go house hunting in Dynasty Ranch, an exclusive suburban neighborhood, Nora meets a group of high-powered women–a tech CEO, a neurosurgeon, an award-winning therapist, a bestselling author–with enviably supportive husbands. When she agrees to help with a resident’s wrongful death case, she is pulled into the lives of the women there. She finds the air is different in Dynasty Ranch. The women aren’t hanging on by a thread.
But as the case unravels, Nora uncovers a plot that may explain the secret to having-it-all. One that’s worth killing for. Calling to mind a Stepford Wives gender-swap, The Husbands imagines a world where the burden of the “second shift” is equally shared–and what it may take to get there.
This is one of those books that I randomly picked off the shelf because it was available, and had an intriguing enough premise. Unfortunately, it ultimately fell under the class of what I call underwhelming. The ultimate mystery explanation wasn’t satisfying enough for me, which kind of cast the rest of the book in an unfavourable light, unfortunately.
The Husbands is a book revolves around our protagonist, Nora Spangler, who is struggling with her slightly distant husband and her young child, all while trying to balance making partnership at her law firm. Nora is pregnant, and in contemplation of her second child, the family needs an upgrade in the living situation. Cue in Dynasty Ranch, a neighbourhood full of amazingly successful women that Nora looks up to. When Nora begins to help out with a wrongful death case in the neighbourhood, more and more secrets become clear, as if hiding just beneath the surface. Just what is going on in this seemingly idyllic neighbourhood?
Two couples, two close friends, one missing husband…
Jake Hayes is missing. This much is certain. At first, his wife, Nina, thinks he is blowing off steam at a friend’s house after their heated fight the night before. But then a day goes by. Two days. Five. And Jake is still nowhere to be found.
Lily Scott, Nina’s friend and coworker, thinks she may have been the last to see Jake before he went missing. After Lily confesses everything to her husband, Christian, the two decide that nobody can find out what happened leading up to Jake’s disappearance, especially not Nina. But Nina is out there looking for her husband, and she won’t stop until the truth is discovered.
I think I saw a friend “recommend” this on social media, so I decided to give it a shot myself. I think overall I did enjoy it, but it was far from what I would rate as an amazing thriller. That being said, in terms of actual thrill (which may be the most important part in a thriller anyway), it certainly delivered! So adjust the rating as you see fit for how much it matters to you.
Just the Nicest Couple actually revolves around two main couples, and we follow half of each pair in Christian (married to Lily) and Nina (married to Jake). Jake goes missing from the start, and Lily seems to be the last person who saw him, for which Christian attempts to protect her at every end. Nina, after having fought with Jake, thinks it was their recent fight that triggered his leaving, but he hasn’t come home in way too long. Just where is Jake, and is he still alive? Nina gets increasingly desperate as the clues slowly come trickling through, though it is not until the very end where everything comes to light.
The characters were decent in this one. I didn’t hate them, but they were certainly very human and I really couldn’t agree with a lot of their actions. This kind of annoyed me (in the way that any character’s books with opposing morals would), and it felt to me like the story would (obviously) have played out differently if the characters had chosen to go on a different path in dealing with the issue rather than what they actually chose to do. But, keeping in mind that it is a work of fiction, the characters were well-built and fleshed out, and were generally quite consistent in their character, which I really appreciated. Though I was sometimes put off by what they would choose to do, I could really see each character in my head clearly as I was reading, and this really helped with clarity even as we flip back and forth between the two POVs.
The suspense was excellent and I would probably give it a 4.5 star rating if that were the only thing I were judging on. The paranoia that was built through the perspectives was very well-executed, and this really helped to drive the pace forward. I finished this book in one sitting (and it’s not too long) as I just could not put it down. I certainly had to stop here and there though because I was afraid of what was coming, which I think is the sign of a very very exciting book. The way we get the third person view that is also missing gaps in the information really helped to deepen the suspense and make it unclear just what was really going on.
The slight drawback here, for which I didn’t give the full 5 stars for suspense was because it was slightly predictable. Although the suspense really was very good, I felt that perhaps some of the foreshadowing was too strong in some places, which instantly took my mind to some of the possibilities. As a result, some of the twists weren’t as shocking as I would have hoped. That being said, overall because of the way it was written, I still felt that it was really high tempo and suspenseful. There were no huge giveaways or anything egregious that I’d point out, but as a seasoned reader I think I wasn’t blown away by the creativity in terms of the way the plot was crafted. If this is not your concern though, you won’t mind this at all.
The ending, which of course really is only a small part of any thriller novel, but a great bonus if the author does it right, was disappointing for me. I did not see it coming at all, but that meant really not seeing it coming at all—as in, that chapter felt out of place. It all came crashing down and became really clear right at that chapter, but it didn’t feel like a sense of clarity, it just felt like an “oh, okay,” moment, which I experience every so often in a thriller book. But, it really was a very small part of the book, and the rest of it was already really suspenseful and excellent. So as an overall journey it was really good as a thriller and taking me on an emotional rollercoaster, it just wasn’t my favourite in terms of the specific elements, or blowing me away on the plot.
Overall Recommendations
Just the Nicest Couple revolves around two couples, when one husband goes missing. Taking place in the POV of one half of each of the couples, the story revolves around one side searching for the truth, and the other couple deliberately trying to hide the truth. Clues slowly come up, but not before threats seem to appear around every corner for the wife searching for her missing husband. Just what will the other couple do to try and protect themselves? Full of suspenseful fast-paced writing, if you’re a fan of just pure emotional rollercoasters and uncertainty, this may be the book for you!
Down the Rabbit Hole 