Tropical Girl Reads

SOME TRUTHS CAN’T BE TOLD.

I had the perfect life – a nice house, a loving husband, a beautiful little boy.

But in one devastating night, they were all ripped from me.

It’s been fourteen years, and I’m finally ready to face the past.

I’m taking my son back.

He just can’t know who I am…or why we were torn apart.

A nail-biting thriller packed with twists and turns, perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell and Shalini Boland.

Date published:- will be published on August 27th 2021

Publisher:- HQ

Genre:- Psychological Thriller

Rating:- 3.5/5

What will happen when your child was left for adoption more than fourteen years ago and you want to reunite with him again? Well, that’s what happened to Phoebe who wants to reunite with her son, Charlie, known as Ben and adopted by a rich family.

The plot seemed to be interesting for me. The story is mainly told from Phoebe’s point of view, dividing between Present and the event that happened back in 2005 that caused her to separate from Charlie, and Ben who seemed to be struggling with his school work and have seemed to be having a strained relationship with his adopted parents. There were no unexpected twists and turns you would normally expect in a thriller but surprisingly, I was actually hooked into the story and couldn’t wait for the ending, wondering what the ending was going to be like that, though I personally liked the fact that Phoebe in the end had a happy ending. The characters were ok. The only thing was to me, this was more like a family drama than a thriller to me in my opinion.

Overall, I give this book 3.5 stars! Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC. The review is based on my honest opinion.

I started writing psychological thrillers when I was 7. My teachers raised an eyebrow but it didn’t dampen my enthusiasm for the genre. After studying for a degree in Politics & International Relations, travelling the world for 6 years, and completing 5 ski seasons, I moved to London and became a copywriter, wife and mother. In 2018 I enrolled on the Faber Academy Writing a Novel course and finally learned the craft I loved. I joined HQ Digital in March 2020 and A Mother Never Lies is my debut novel.

Perfect for fans of Liane Moriarty and Joshilyn Jackson, Sarah Warburton’s chilling thriller, inspired by the Moors Murders, explores the twisted side of suburbia.

Framed for embezzlement by her best friend Aimee, museum curator Kacy Tremain and her husband Michael move from New Jersey to a charming Texas suburb to escape their past. Kacy quickly makes new friends–preppy, inscrutable Elizabeth, chatty yet evasive Rahmia, and red-headed, unapologetic Lena. But good friends aren’t always what they seem.

As she navigates the unexpectedly cutthroat social scene of her new town, Kacy begins to receive taunting postcards–and worse, discovers cameras hidden in the wall of her home. Lena and her husband, Brady, reassure her that the cameras are just relics of the paranoid previous homeowner . Once the cameras are removed and Kacy’s fears are quelled, Kacy and Michael make the happy discovery that they are going to be new parents.

Months after the birth of their daughter, Michael accidentally makes a shocking discovery about Brady’s past. And when Lena suddenly goes missing, Kacy and Michael begin to uncover the truth about their neighbors–and it’s more terrible than anyone could have imagined.

Interlaced with transcripts of a chilling “true crime” podcast that follow the tangled threads of the drama, You Can Never Tell is a taut and complex psychological thriller that never lets up until its breathless conclusion.

No. of pages:- 280 pages

Date published:- will be published on 10th August 2021

Publisher:- Crooked Lane Bookes

Genre:- Psychological Thriller

Rating:-

Kacy and Michael Tremaine move to a residential part of town in Texas from Jersey after Kacy was fired from her last job for a thing she didn’t apparently do and was framed by her friend. Kacy soon befriends three women in her neighborhood–Elizabeth, Rahimia and Lena and she and Michael seemed to be living a happy life with a child on the way.

So when their daughter, Grace was born, Michael discovers a secret in Brady, Lena’s husband’s past and Lena goes missing. A couple of serial murders have been taking place in the neighborhood. And Kacy starts getting weird postcards…

nitially, the book started a bit slow but gradually it started to become fast paced. The plot was intriguing and the book was engaging and the writer did a good job drawing the reader into the story. The story is told from Kacy’s perspectives and towards the end, it was all action packed and I couldn’t simply put the book as I want to know what is going to happen in the end! I actually enjoyed reading this thriller, quiet unputdownable with some twists and turns mingling on the way.

Overall, this book gave me a rollercoaster ride–worth four stars!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Crooked Lane for the ARC. The review is based on my honest opinion only.

I’m the oldest of four sisters, raised in Virginia, an avid reader and knitter. After earning a B. A. in Latin from the College of William and Mary, an M.A. in Classics from the University of Georgia and another from Brown University, I studied creative writing at the University of New Mexico with Sharon Oard Warner and Julie Shigekuni, at the Taos Writer’s Workshop with Pam Houston, and in Houston with Justin Cronin. I’ve worked at independent bookstores, and spent ten years as a writer (and eventually lead editor) for UpClose Magazine. My short story, “Margaret’s Magnolia,” appeared in the Southern Arts Journal, I won first place in a WOW! Women on Writing Flash Fiction Contest, and my Pushcart prize nominated story “Survival English” appeared in Oyster River Pages. I live with my family-husband, son, daughter, and hound dog, in the mountains of Southwestern Virginia. I’ve been told that for a “basically happy person” I write very bleak prose.

YOU DON’T SEE HER. BUT SHE SEES YOU.

MIDNIGHT. In the bad part of town, where cats prowl and foxes shriek, a girl is watching…

When Saffyre Maddox was ten, something terrible happened, and she’s carried the pain of it ever since. The man who she thought was going to heal her didn’t, and now she hides and watches him, learning his secrets, invisible in the shadows.

Owen Pick is invisible too. He’s never had a girlfriend; he’s never even had a friend.
Nobody sees him. Nobody cares.

But when Saffyre goes missing from opposite his house on Valentine’s Day, suddenly the whole world is looking at Owen.

Accusing him. Holding him responsible for Saffyre’s disappearance…

No. of pages:- 407 pages

Date published:- Published on August 6th 2020

Publisher:- Cornerstone Digital

Genre:- Psychological Thriller

Rating:- 3.5/5 stars

Lisa Jewell has become one of my favorite psychological thriller authors and after reading The Family Upstairs, I decided to try out her new novel, The Invisible Girl (I haven’t read her latest book yet). The blurb on the book sounds great–there is a girl name Saffyre Maddox and she goes missing one night and the main suspect was the eerie and weird man named Owen Pick, who was recently suspended from the school he was working in.

And being Lisa Jewell’s fan, I decided to try out this book. But unfortunately, it wasn’t as great as the Family Upstairs but at least, it was ok.

The story consists of these following characters

1. Saffyre Maddox a seventeen year old girl who was sexually harassed when she was ten years old and who seek help for three years by a therapist named Roan Fours. Saffyre starts stalking Roan, finding out he is having an illicit affair with a colleague named Alicia behind her back. And while stalking him, she goes missing.
2. Owen Pick–is a thirty something year old man, living with his aunt Tessie across from the street where the Fours family lived. He was weird, eerie and was recently accused of a certain harassment in school he denied doing it. He becomes the main suspect in Saffyre’s case.
3. Cathy Fours–the wife of Roan Fours and the mother of Georgia and Josh Fours, who suspect Owen is behind Saffyre’s disappearance

The story started slow that the first few chapters were boring, though things started get interesting when Saffyre did go missing. Did Owen really involve in Saffyre’s disappearance? Couple with the disappearance is the series of sexual assaults–which Cathy think Owen was involved? Was he really? Not much of twists and turns you would normally expect in a fast paced psychological thriller and was quiet a slow burn. However, the ending was great with a small twist. Saffyre to me was a likable character and Owen’s character creeped me out a bit but the rest of the characters were meh to me.

Overall, this was an OK thriller to me. Worth three and a half stars!

Thank you for visiting my Amazon author page!

My first book, Ralph’s Party, came out in 1999 and was the best selling debut novel for that year.

Since then I have written and published another sixteen books, from the ‘curry and flatmates’ novels of the nineties and noughties like Thirtynothing, One Hit Wonder, A Friend of the Family and Vince & Joy, to more family-themed novels like After The Party, The Making of Us and The House We Grew Up In and more recently, psychological thrillers such as I Found You, Then She Was Gone, Watching You and The Family Upstairs, which charted in the summer of 2019 at number one in the hardback charts.

I live in London with my husband, two daughters, two hairy cats, two nervous guinea pigs and a lovely auburn dog. I write every day, a minimum of one thousand words, in a cafe, with no access to the internet, in two to three hour sessions.

Last night I dreamt about the past for the first time in years. I thought I was over it. I thought I’d finally learned to block it out. But I’m right back there, all over again, inside the house. The room is dark, the corners black with shadow. Then, the scream…

When Louise Taylor is hit by a car as she cycles home in the rain following a fight with her boyfriend, she’s left hurt, frightened and confused. And worse, something tells her it wasn’t an accident.

Housebound in her cramped apartment while she recovers, flashbacks to her traumatic childhood begin to resurface, threatening her hard-won self-control. Desperate to keep busy and distract herself, she hires Edward – a friend of a friend – to repaint her shabby living room and, hopefully, keep the past at bay.

But when Edward arrives – quiet, considerate and handsome – Lou instantly feels like they’ve met before, that she can trust him. Tired of carrying the guilt alone after all these years, Lou tells Edward her secret. And to her surprise, he doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t gasp, or grimace or preach about what she did. And Lou is so relieved to finally be free of this burden at last.

Until she learns that Edward has a secret of his own. One he’s been waiting a very, very long time to tell…

No. of pages- 278 pages

Date published:- will be published on 17th August 2021

Publisher:- Bookouture

Rating:- 3/5 stars

Genre:- Psychological Thriller

Having read Jill Childs’ The Mistress book, I was excited to read her next novel as I enjoyed reading her other novel.

Louise a travel journalist has a bike accident. While at recovering at home, through a friend, she meets Ed Spencer, a former veteran who served in Afghanistan through another friend. Louise has a feeling that the accident wasn’t just an accident but that someone else had wanted to kill her. Louise and Ed develop friendship with each other and soon, Louise confides him a dark secret she has been hiding for many years. And Ed too has his own secrets.

Though the book started slow, it picked up its momentum by the middle of the book. The plot line of the story was interesting and the story is mainly told from the perspectives of Louise and through the middle of the book, was told from the perspective of Ed, sharing his time in Afghanistan, so it was interesting to get into the character’s head to see what they think of each other. Though it is not fast paced, there were some twists. The ending was completely unexpected and baffled me that I actually did not expect that type of ending! What a twisted ending it was!

Overall, it was a good thriller book–not fast paced but it will keep you hooked until the end. Worth three stars!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for the ARC–the review is based completely on my honest opinion.

Jill has always loved writing – real and imaginary – and spent 30 years travelling the world as a journalist, living overseas and reporting wherever the news took her. She’s now made her home in London with her husband and twin girls who love stories as much as she does. Although she’s covered everything from earthquakes and floods, riots and wars, she’s found some of the most extraordinary stories right here at home – in the secrets and lies she imagines behind closed doors on ordinary streets, just like yours.

Her chestnut hair, long and shiny, fanned around her head, moving gently in the wind. Her eyes, still open, stared at the back door, and her hand stretched out in a pleading gesture. Her lips, pale under the rosy lip gloss, were parted slightly as if to whisper one last word, to draw one last breath.

9 HOURS AGO: In a sleepy mountain town, widow Cheryl Coleman stares anxiously out of her kitchen window while a storm rages outside. When the knock comes, she glances back at her daughters before opening the door with trembling hands…

NOW: Detective Kay Sharp vows to get to the bottom of a heartbreaking murder that has rocked Mount Chester. A single mother has been brutally killed in front of her three daughters. The youngest, three-year-old Erin, is lying inches from the body, her pigtails loose, her face tear-stained. Eight-year-old Heather is discovered hiding under her bed. Sixteen-year-old Julie is nowhere to be found.

The first twenty-four hours are critical in child abductions, and the girls are the key to saving their missing sister. But Heather is in shock, unable to communicate, and all tiny Erin can say is “A monster came”. When Kay finds three suitcases lined up in the hallway, it’s clear that the family were about to run away. But why? And who were they trying to escape?

Thanks to her own past, Kay knows all about traumatic childhoods shrouded in tragedy, and she works around the clock to get justice for the orphaned girls. Turning the town upside down, she uncovers the shocking truth about their peaceful community: it’s home to a serial killer who preys on helpless girls. Faced with the most twisted case of her career, can she catch the monster before another innocent life is lost?

Think you know the meaning of gripping? Think again! Leslie Wolfe takes gripping to a whole new level. Fans of Lisa Regan, Robert Dugoni and Kendra Elliot will be totally addicted to this twist-filled page-turner.

No. of pages:- 352 pages

Date published:- will be published on August 19th 2021

Publisher:- Bookouture

Genre:- Thriller

Rating:-

Detective Kay Sharp is back with another case!!

The third book of the Kay Sharp series, the story first starts with a woman Cheryl Coleman, anxiously waiting for her daughter Julie to come as she was preparing to leave the town that night. But when a man arrived at her place, she shouts for Heather to call the police as the man had come to take Julie away…

When Detective Kay Sharp arrives at the scene, the two remaining girls were taken into the the police custody while trying to look for Julie and Cheryl’s killer. Meanwhile Elliot investigates a murder of a John Doe found on the highway. Initially, the two cases were considered separate but when the next door neighbor talks about a certain cult where the first born daughters were abducted on a rainy day and the fact that a man who was seeing around Cheryl’s house was the John Doe, the two cases seem to be related and Kay realizes that there is a delusional serial killer who had been killing first born girls for almost fifty years…

I only have one word to say about this book–WOW! Honestly, I felt like I was watching some sort of action packed movie where I was refusing to turn off the movie and get so hooked into the movie as to what is going to happen next! Too many suspects and too many twists and turns that make my head all muddled up and what a fast paced thriller book this is! So unputdownable and craving to read more and the ending was unexpected! As usual, Kay Sharp is my favorite character and I do like the slow romance developing between Kay and Elliot! The writing was so good that the author did a good job drawing the reader to the story! It was really good and I am looking forward to read the fourth book!

This was truly a roller coaster ride filled with unexpected twists and turns you wouldn’t expect–worth five stars!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Bookouture for the ARC. The review is based on my honest opinion only.