Tag: thriller

3.5 star

Review: One Big Happy Family by Jamie Day

Fives @ Down The Rabbit Hole

The Precipice is a legendary, family-owned hotel on the rocky coast of Maine. With the recent passing of their father, the Bishop sisters—Iris, Vicki, and Faith—have come for the weekend to claim it. But with a hurricane looming and each of the Bishop sisters harboring dangerous secrets, there’s murder in the air—and not everyone who checks into the Precipice will be checking out.

Each sister wants what is rightfully hers, and in the mix is the Precipe’s nineteen-year-old chambermaid Charley Kelley: smart, resilient, older than her years, and in desperate straits.

The arrival of the Bishop sisters could spell disaster for Charley. Will they close the hotel? Fire her? Discover her habit of pilfering from guests? Or even worse, learn that she’s using a guest room to hide a woman on the run.

With razor-sharp wit, heart, thrills, and twists, Jamie Day delivers a unique brand of SUMMERTIME SUSPENSE.

I saw this ARC ready to be picked up on Netgalley and figured, why not? It sounds right up my alley. And overall, I’d say that it was, and it does kind of fit into that “summertime suspense” that is advertised above. Thanks to them for providing this in exchange for an honest review.

One Big Happy Family is an aptly named book, in two ways. It speaks of two families: the Bishops, who have just inherited the Precipice Hotel after the tragic demise of their father. It also speaks of the “family” that now finds themselves trapped at The Precipice after the storm, Larry, hits. In a typical closed-room fashion, strange things start happening, including deaths. How can these deaths be explained, and who will be next on the killer’s list?

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2 star

Review: The Good Sister by Gillian McAllister

Fives @ Down The Rabbit Hole

An electrifying novel about the unyielding bond between two sisters, which is severely tested when one of them is accused of the worst imaginable crime.

Martha and Becky Blackwater are more than sisters–they’re each other’s lifelines. When Martha finds herself struggling to balance early motherhood and her growing business, Becky steps in to babysit her niece, Layla, without a second thought, bringing the two women closer than ever. But when Layla is found dead one morning, at only eight weeks old, Becky is charged with the unthinkable: the murder of her sister’s child.

Nine months later, Becky is on trial and maintains her innocence–and so does Martha. Unable to shake the feeling that her sister couldn’t possibly be guilty, Martha sets out to uncover exactly what happened that night, and how things could have gone so wrong. As the trial progresses, fault lines between the sisters begin to show–revealing cracks deep in their relationship and threatening the family each has worked so hard to build. With incredible empathy and resounding emotional heft, The Good Sister is a powerhouse of a novel that will lead readers to question everything they know about motherhood, family, and the price of forgiveness.

This is one of the ones I just picked up the library since it was free to read and I had the time. The premise was super interesting and engaging, and reading back, it still was. Unfortunately, this book didn’t execute in the way I thought it would. I still made it through, and I wouldn’t call it terrible, but I certainly call it good—at least for my standards. Read on to maybe see if I was being too harsh.

The Good Sister is a courtroom mystery thriller that revolves around a tragic family incident, the death of Martha’s child, Layla. Worst of all, Martha’s sister, Becky, is on trial for the murder, and the odds are not looking good. Once each other’s closest lifelines, inevitably the family is literally and emotionally split apart as the trial threatens to reveal all the deep secrets of the family’s past, and air out every time detail of one’s personal life for all to see. Needless to say there cannot be a winner in this court game.

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4 star

Review: Everyone Here is Lying by Shari Lapena

Fives @ Down The Rabbit Hole

Welcome to Stanhope – a safe neighbourhood. A place for families.

William Wooler is a family man, on the surface. But he’s been having an affair, an affair that ended horribly this afternoon at a motel up the road. So when he returns to his house, devastated and angry, to find his difficult nine-year-old daughter Ella unexpectedly home from school, William loses his temper.

Hours later, Ella’s family declare her missing.

Suddenly Stanhope doesn’t feel so safe. And William isn’t the only one on his street who’s hiding a lie. As witnesses come forward with information that may or may not be true, Ella’s neighbours become increasingly unhinged.

Who took Ella Wooler?

I’m not entirely sure why the synopsis on goodreads says the daughter’s name is Ella when in the book, it’s Avery. But nevertheless, this was the latest book from Shari Lapena in 2023, and I really enjoyed it! There were a couple of things that threw me off, but overall it was such an exciting page-turner I finished reading it in about 2 hours. That’s a win in my books.

Everyone Here is Lying is about a safe neighbourhood in which a 9-year-old girl suddenly goes missing. The book takes place over more and more POVs as we follow two detectives trying to solve the mystery of this small town. The missing girl’s father was a respected doctor in the town, who was having an affair with a woman in their neighbourhood. More and more characters from the neighbourhood are introduced, but all seem to have a secret agenda. The book really lives up to the title—just who is telling the truth in this town?

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