Can a soon-to-be ex-husband sell Our House without warning?
Bram and Fi are a typical London family with two young sons and most of their money tied up in their house. When Fi throws Bram out for adultery in their kids’ playhouse, Bram moves in with his mother until their finances are divided equally between them. When Fi pushes to keep the house “for the boys’ sake”, Fi and Bram decide to alternately stay in the house with their sons and in a separate small London flat. Fi comes home early from a business trip to find strangers moving into her house. Bram has sold the house to them and absconded with the 2 million selling price. Using alternating chapters with a podcast for Fi and Word documents for Bram, the real reason for the sale and the marriage dissolution is slowly revealed.
Despite having absolutely no empathy for either main character, I enjoyed this twisty tale of their lives. Stripping off the clothes of propriety shows some amazingly ugly truths. There are crimes both committed by and done to both Fi and Bram up to and including murder. Though the book drags a bit in the middle, the finale is well worth sticking with it. This book is highly recommended for readers who like a multitude of unexpected twists and turns in plot. As long as character likeability and a uniformly fast pace is not a requirement, Our House is worth 4 stars.
Thanks to the publisher, Berkeley, and NetGalley for an advanced copy.
Posted in Mystery & Thrillers, New Books Tagged with: Aug 7 2018, family drama
Claire desperately wants to find her missing father to discover his reasons for living A Double Life.
Claire was only eight when her father bludgened her live-in babysitter Emma to death and attempted to do the same to her mother. After her mother escaped the house, her father disappeared. When she is told he may have been found, Claire reminisciences about her mother and father’s romance and life before the crime. Claire’s father is the first British Lord accused of murder in the 20th century. He and her mother were separated and planning to divorce before the incident. Could her mother have set up the crime to keep her father’s wealth?
A Double Life begins slowly with a very long flashback about how Claire’s parents relationship began. If I hadn’t been reading this book to review it, I probably would have stopped reading as it was boring and seemingly pointless. The book does have an eventful conclusion. However, the overall melancholy feel and depressingly dark inevitability was just not for me. A Double Life is recommended to those readers of literary fiction who enjoy escaping into someone else’s, so much worse, life. 3 stars.
Thanks to the publisher, Viking Books, and NetGalley for an advanced copy.
Posted in Literary Fiction, Mystery & Thrillers, New Books Tagged with: family drama, Jul 31 2018
Baby Teeth is a good Bad Seed thriller.
Hanna doesn’t speak but has an abundance of thoughts. Hanna loves her Daddy but hates her Mommy. Hanna is evil. Hanna is four.
Hanna has some mental health issues but feels if she can get rid of her Mommy, she would have Daddy all to herself. However, Mommy appears to have some mental health issues of her own.
The reader has to suspend their disbelief that a four-year-old could think this “rationally” and plan complex schemes to punish people. In the original Bad Seed, the child was nine, which seems more reasonable. However, once past that hurdle, the reader is in for a crazy fun ride.
Baby Teeth is highly recommended for those wanting to read a character-based thriller with an unusual protagonist. It is an intense journey into a demented and unusual worldview. 4 stars!
Thanks to the publisher, St Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for an advanced copy.
Posted in Mystery & Thrillers, New Books Tagged with: family drama, Jul 17 2018
Liar Liar is an engrossing study of a woman willing to do anything, regardless of the impact on her family, to achieve her dreams.
Didi Storm wants riches and fame. When her acting career is derailed with a teen pregnancy, she becomes a celebrity impersonator in Vegas. Realizing she’ll never be rich, she attempts a long con by giving birth to a rich man’s twins and trying to get paid for the male infant. Remmi, her teenage daughter, sees it end horribly with both Didi and the twins missing, possibly dead. Fast forward to the present, someone has published a true crime book about Didi’s life when Didi is sighted in San Francisco.
Nice mystery with a few twists. Recommended for fans of mysteries more than than thrillers as the slow build of the family dynamics is what drives the plot. 4 stars!
Thanks to the publisher, Kensington Books, and NetGalley for an advanced copy.
Posted in Mystery & Thrillers Tagged with: family drama, Jun 26 2018
Romance, history, southern charm, friendships, family and secrets swirl in the High Tide Club.
At 99, Josephine is dying on her half of an island off the coast of Georgia. She calls Brooke, an attorney, to help search for her best friends, Ruth, Millie and Varina, from over 80 years earlier. Josephine had a falling out with her friends but now wants to deed her island home to them or their descendants. She also wants Brooke to stop the state from taking her home under eminent domain.
Brooke is a single mother with a 3-year old son and has a past as a runaway bride. She also has plenty of bills that are barely covered by her one-woman law firm. She needs to keep Josephine as a client despite the ethical issues of one of the friends being her grandmother. To setup the trust for Josephine, Brooke asks her old boss and mentor, Gabe, for help.
Alternating between the 1940s and current day, the reason for the friends’ schism and the disappearance of one’s finance is slowly revealed. The High Tide Club is a perfect beach read: light and frothy with a murderous undertow. It is recommended for both mystery, thriller, historical fiction and especially romantic suspense fans. 4 stars!
Thanks to the publisher, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for an advanced copy.
Posted in Historical Fiction, Mystery & Thrillers, Romance Tagged with: family drama, May 8 2018, WWII
Then She Was Gone is recommended to thriller rather than mystery readers. Mothers especially will relate to this moving family story.
Fifteen-year-old Ellie Mack disappears one day. Did she run away or was she kidnapped? Her disappearance tears apart her family. Laurel, Ellie’s mom, has two older children and a husband but she is obsessed with finding Ellie. Ten years later, Laurel finally meets a man, Floyd, almost as nice as her ex-husband. Floyd has two daughters. The younger daughter, Poppy, bears an uncanny resemblance to Ellie. Poppy’s mother left Poppy with Floyd one day and was never seen again. When Laurel discovers the identity of Poppy’s mother, the plot really takes off.
While this was a thriller, it was not successful as a mystery. Almost from the beginning, it was obvious what was going to happen next. The format of alternating narrators and time periods was used well. Most of the characters were interesting, if not very likeable or relatable. Some of their actions seemed contrived. However, the gripping plot still resonates long after finishing Then She Was Gone. Even though I guessed the plot twists, I was still compelled to finish the book as quickly as possible. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.
Thanks to the publisher, Atria, and NetGalley for an advanced copy.
Posted in Mystery & Thrillers Tagged with: Apr 17 2018, family drama
Maggie and Noah were married and happy as they could be
After Anna arrived, chaos occurred as all will agree
Range Rovers, sexual allegations
Inappropriate pics on vacations
Within the court and out, there are two sides to the couple’s tale
Hopefully this one won’t end with Noah locked up in a jail
Ultimately who was Anna’s killer?
To find out read this excellent thriller
#FrugalFriday’s short review is being presented this week
In rhyme for National Poetry Month-I’m just a word geek!
Even if this poem’s gobbledygook,
The author deserves 4 stars for the book!
Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an advanced copy.
Posted in Mystery & Thrillers Tagged with: Apr 10 2018, family drama
Complex and completely different from other thrillers, the Last Equation of Isaac Severy is highly recommended.
Isaac Severy is a famous mathematician. Now retired, he is still working on his last equation: how to use chaos theory to predict Los Angeles traffic. As the book opens, Isaac is preparing a breakfast for two in his home. The next day Isaac is found dead in his hot tub along with a set of live Christmas lights with a single bulb crushed. His death is accepted as a suicide. At his funeral, his adopted granddaughter, Hazel, opens a cryptic note from Isaac mailed the day before his death. Isaac tells Hazel that he is only the first of three people soon to die. He commands her to destroy the work he left behind in a mysterious room 137 and deliver his last equation to the elusive John Raspanti. Hazel is advised to not involve other members of the family or the police. Isaac states that he selected Hazel for these tasks because she would be the least likely to be suspected. He says that he cannot do the tasks himself because he is being followed.
Isaac’s note leads Hazel on a merry chase through literature, mathematics and physics. Hazel works with various family members while trying to follow the instructions in Isaac’s puzzling letter. Neither Hazel nor the reader can identify who is a hero and who is a villain. This book has a multitude of side plots. What is the elusive and wealthy P. Boone Lyons after? Why is a physicist who has been dead for sixty years attempting to contact Hazel?
Ostensibly a thriller, the family dynamics are almost more intriguing. Phillip is a tenured physics professor at CalTech. However, his opportunities of winning a coveted Nobel prize are slipping away and his best years are behind him. Tom is released from a long prison term. Why was he in prison and how does that relate to Hazel and Gregory’s fear of his release?
Since the family relationships are rather confusing, I created this handy family tree.
Since Isaac’s work is with chaos theory, it follows that the reader truly doesn’t understand what is going on until almost the end of the book. It is reminiscent of the movie Chinatown, where there are a multitude of plot layers that don’t cohere until the end. I like that uncertainty but some may not. However, the resolution definitely is worth the wait.
The Last Equation of Isaac Severy is a brilliant tour-de-force from a debut author. It is highly recommended to thriller readers. It would also appeal to fans of quirky family dynamics like those in movie, The Royal Tenenbaums. 5 stars!
Thanks to the publisher, Touchstone Books, and NetGalley for an advanced copy.
Posted in Diane's Favorites, Mystery & Thrillers Tagged with: family drama, Mar 6 2018, math, science
While doing your job as a CIA Analyst, you find something that will rip your family apart. Do you reveal it to your superiors?
Vivian is a counterintelligence agent with the CIA. While employed, she developed a new program to find Russian sleeper cells inside the United States. She is married with a perfect husband and four kids including a set of infant twin boys. Without providing spoilers, Vivian discovers something that may rip her family apart. Even with confirmation, she decides to approach the problem from a unique angle leading to a twist-filled tale of conflicting loyalties.
The author was formally a CIA Analyst so she knows of what she writes. To be honest, that is actually scary since the security at the CIA seems remarkably lax.
Need to Know is an enjoyable fast-moving read. The best part is the fantastically unexpected ending. It has been optioned to be a movie with Charlize Theron. I can’t wait! 4 stars!
Thanks to the publisher, Ballantine Books, and NetGalley for the review copy.
Posted in Mystery & Thrillers Tagged with: family drama, Jan 23 2018, sleepers, Spy