Tropical Girl Reads

Book Details

Book Name:- Last Girl Ghosted

Author:- Lisa Unger

Date published:- October 5th 2021

Genre:- Psychological Thriller

No. of pages:- 394 pages

Rating:-

Plot:- 4/5

Writing:- 3/5

Overall rating:- 3.5/5

Think twice before you swipe.

She met him through a dating app. An intriguing picture on a screen, a date at a downtown bar. What she thought might be just a quick hookup quickly became much more. She fell for him—hard. It happens sometimes, a powerful connection with a perfect stranger takes you by surprise. Could it be love?

But then, just as things were getting real, he stood her up. Then he disappeared—profiles deleted, phone disconnected. She was ghosted.

Maybe it was her fault. She shared too much, too fast. But isn’t that always what women think—that they’re the ones to blame? Soon she learns there were others. Girls who thought they were in love. Girls who later went missing. She had been looking for a connection, but now she’s looking for answers. Chasing a digital trail into his dark past—and hers—she finds herself on a dangerous hunt. And she’s not sure whether she’s the predator—or the prey.

This is the second book I have read from this author and I thought this was an OK thriller

Wren Greenwood was forced to go on an online dating site and meets a mysterious man named Adam. Adam and Wren soon started dating and Wren started sharing a secret with Adam. But the next day, Adam has disappeared from the face of the earth. Bailey Kirk then approaches Wren Greenwood and tells her about the other missing girls who also had gone on date with Adam through online. Now Wren is determined to find the truth even though it will lead her to a past she wanted to forget.

The story shifts back and forth between past and present–the past detailing about Wren’s childhood and her own relationship with her father. The story itself was fast paced and the part about Wren going back to her hometown was interesting. However, I didn’t feel too much connected with the characters or maybe it was just me. I do like reading about Wren’s childhood which gave us an impression of what her childhood was like, with reasons why she was prompted to write a column known as Dear Birdie, which solves people’s problems. I feel the whole story itself was predictable, even towards the end so I wasn’t surprised about the ending, as I expected that kind of ending. I have to say, this wasn’t a great thriller, but more like OK, which worth three stars in my opinion.

Lisa Unger is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of twenty novels, including her latest SECLUDED CABIN SLEEPS SIX. With books published in thirty-three languages and millions of copies sold worldwide, she is regarded as a master of suspense.

Unger’s critically acclaimed novels have been featured on “Best Book” lists from the Today show, Good Morning America, Entertainment Weekly, People, Amazon, Goodreads, L.A. Times, The Boston Globe, Sun Sentinel, Tampa Bay Times, and many others. She has been nominated for, or won, numerous awards including the Strand Critics, Audie, Hammett, Macavity, ITW Thriller, and Goodreads Choice. In 2019, she received two Edgar Award nominations, an honor held by only a few authors, including Agatha Christie. Her short fiction has been anthologized in The Best American Mystery and Suspense, and her non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, and Travel+Leisure. Lisa is the current co-President of the International Thriller Writers organization. She lives on the west coast of Florida with her family.

Title:- Widow Lake

Author:- Rita Herron

Date published:- will be published on May 31st 2023

Publisher:- Bookouture

No. of pages:- 407 pages

Genre:- Mystery

Rating:-

Plot:- 5/5

Writing:- 5/5

Overall rating:- 5/5

“Help,” a tiny voice cried out into the darkness. Little Betsy trembled, praying someone would hear her, save her. “Please,” she whimpered. “I’m scared.”

On the hottest day of the year, as a heatwave takes hold of the Appalachian Mountains, a five-year-old girl goes missing. Just as the sun is setting, a family vacation becomes a worst nightmare—Betsy, with her green eyes, ponytail and rainbow t-shirt—disappears in the woods by Widow Lake. Detective Ellie Reeves is straight on the scene, promising Betsy’s heartbroken parents that she will stop at nothing to find their precious daughter.

Hours later, Ellie is called back to the lake. One of her team have discovered some remains near where Betsy disappeared. The bones belong to a local girl, Amy Dean, who vanished ten years ago to the day, along with her two-year-old baby girl Paisley. But why was Paisley never reported missing? And could she still be alive?

Ellie is suddenly up against the toughest case of her career. Her instincts tell her that the two cases are somehow connected, and she works day and night to uncover the link. When she comes across some little graves beside the water’s edge, she knows she needs to stop the evil lurking around this tranquil lake.

When Ellie discovers a notebook scrawled with the handwriting of a little girl, it could be the breakthrough she needs. Can she unravel a decades-old mystery, and stop the monster claiming innocent lives?

Detective Ellie Reeves is back again with a pang in Book 8!!!

One of my favorite tropes in a thriller book is abt serial killers and this was one of them.

The book was fast paced, twists and turns in nearly every chapter and the author did a good job of making the reader feel like they are at the edge of the seat. The chapters were short which made it easier for the reader to read and I was literally hooked into the story from the beginning till the end! Overall this is a five star read!

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

USA Today Bestselling and award-winning author Rita Herron fell in love with books at the ripe age of eight when she read her first Trixie Belden mystery. But she didn’t think real people grew up to be writers, so she became a teacher instead. Now she writes so she doesn’t have to get a real job.
With over ninety books to her credit, she’s penned romantic suspense, romantic comedy and YA novels, but she especially likes writing dark romantic suspense and crime fiction set in small southern towns.
For more on. Rita and her titles, visit her at www.ritaherron.com. You can also find her on www.Facebook/ritaherron.com and Twitter.com/ritaherron.

Title:- Unsolved

Author:- Heather Critchlow

Date published:- 11th May 2023

Publisher:- Canelo

No. of pages:- 325 pages

Genre:- Psychological Thriller

Rating:-

Plot:- 5/5

Writing:- 5/5

Overall rating:- 5/5

He won’t rest until he finds out the truth…

Cal Lovett is obsessed with finding justice for the families of missing people. His true crime podcast is his way of helping others, even if he can’t help himself.

His sister, Margot, disappeared when he was a child. Only one man seems to know something. But he’s behind bars and can’t be trusted.

So when the family of a missing Scottish woman begs for his help, he heads to Aberdeenshire in search of the truth.

Does Cal have what it takes to unearth the secrets hiding in the hills? And what if he finds something that leads him back to the heart of his own family’s past?

This book has some of my favorite tropes- missing girls, possible serial killer and a podcast that investigate cold cases. Not to mention that this is the beginning of the series.

The story starts with Cal who wants to know what happened to his sister who disappeared years ago while investigating on another cold case of a missing girl named Layla who mysteriously disappeared in 1986.

The pacing was good, it was fast paced, there were some twists and I like the shift between the past and present so that the reader would have a glimpse of what really happened to Layla. Overall this was a page turner and cannot wait to read the next one in series! Worth five stars.

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

Title:- The Doctor

Author:- Annie Payne

Date published:- will be published on May 25th 2023

No. of pages:- 384 pages

Genre:- Psychological Thriller

Rating-;

Plot:- 3/5

Writing:- 2/5

Overall rating:- 3/5

Care giver, life saver… or cold-blooded killer?

Running away from a past she’d rather forget, Doctor Alison Wilson has moved to a new town to take up the role of Medical Officer at failing hospital Saint Margaret’s.

Tasked with shaking things up, she quickly learns that things are worse than they initially seem: patient records are in disarray, staff morale is low, and there’s something afoot that she can’t quite put her finger on…

As Alison starts to dig into the hospital’s past, she gradually discovers a trail of lies that runs deeper and darker than she could have ever imagined.

There’s a cold-blooded killer in the hospital. And they’re hiding in plain sight…

I got an invitation to review this book. Judging by the book cover, I know this is going to be a medical thriller and I was excited to read this book. But honestly this book did not live up to my expectations.

The story starts with Allison moving to a small town hospital to work as a medical director. But ever since she got there, things are starting to go downhill. Patients seemed to be dying, someone hacked into her account and someone is determined to make her life as miserable as possible. Someone who do not want her to work at that hospital.

The plot was great, writing was ok in my opinion but overall, I didn’t find this book great. The book wasn’t fast paced, there were parts in the book that were utterly boring, not a complete page turner. I would say the character herself seems bit of naive in my opinion. With that being said, this was not a great thriller and was rather slow paced. Worth three stars.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Avon for ARC. Review is based on my honest opinion only.

Title:- The IT Girl

Author:- Ruth Ware

Date published:- July 12th 2022

No. of pages:- 423 pages

Genre:- Psychological Thriller

Rating:-

Plot:- 3/5

Writing:- 2.5/5

Overall rating:- 2.5/5

April Coutts-Cliveden was the first person Hannah Jones met at Oxford.Vivacious, bright, occasionally vicious, and the ultimate It girl, she quickly pulled Hannah into her dazzling orbit. Together, they developed a group of devoted and inseparable friends—Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily—during their first term. By the end of the second, April was dead.Now, a decade later, Hannah and Will are expecting their first child, and the man convicted of killing April, former Oxford porter John Neville, has died in prison. Relieved to have finally put the past behind her, Hannah’s world is rocked when a young journalist comes knocking and presents new evidence that Neville may have been innocent. As Hannah reconnects with old friends and delves deeper into the mystery of April’s death, she realizes that the friends she thought she knew all have something to hide… including a murder.The #1 New York Times bestselling author of One by One returns with an unputdownable mystery following a woman on the search for answers a decade after her friend’s murder.

I was super duper excited when I got hands on Ruth Ware’s latest novel The It Girl. I am a huge fan of Ruth Ware and if you had been following my blog, I have given high ratings to some of her novels The Death of Mrs Westaway and The Turn of the Key. This is the fifth book I am reading from this author.

But my excitement to read this book soon worn down when I started to read the book.

The story starts with Hannah Jones who receives the news that a man named Neville who had been sent to prison for the murder of a socialite and Hannah’s roommate in college April had died in prison. Hannah should move on but soon, when she meets a journalist who insisted that Neville might be innocent and that someone might be responsible for April’s murder. Worse, Hannah’s testimony put Neville behind the bars.

The plot was interesting but I found this book utterly boring compared to her other books. The pace was slow and although there was before and after parts in the books, I didn’t find this book as a page turner like her previous books. Maybe it was just me, but I actually didn’t really enjoy this book as much as I did with her previous books. The after part was the one that was interesting and I do like April’s last name as well. Overall, I gave this book 2.5 stars.

If you want to try Ruth Ware’s books, try Turn of the Key or Death of Mrs. Westaway.

Ruth Ware grew up in Sussex, on the south coast of England. After graduating from Manchester University she moved to Paris, before settling in North London. She has worked as a waitress, a bookseller, a teacher of English as a foreign language and a press officer. She is married with two small children, and In a Dark, Dark Wood is her début thriller.

Find her on twitter at www.twitter.com/ruthwarewriter, on facebook at www.facebook.com/ruthwarewriter or via her website – www.ruthware.com

Title:- The Last Housewife

Author:- Ashley Winstead

Date published:- August 16th 2022

Genre:- Psychological Thriller

No. of pages:- 384 pages

Rating:-

Plot:- 4/5

Writing:- 4/5

Overall rating:- 4/5

From the author of the critically acclaimed In My Dreams I Hold a Knife comes a pitch-black thriller about a woman determined to destroy a powerful cult and avenge the deaths of the women taken in by it, no matter the cost.

While in college in upstate New York, Shay Evans and her best friends met a captivating man who seduced them with a web of lies about the way the world works, bringing them under his thrall. By senior year, Shay and her friend Laurel were the only ones who managed to escape. Now, eight years later, Shay’s built a new life in a tony Texas suburb. But when she hears the horrifying news of Laurel’s death—delivered, of all ways, by her favorite true-crime podcast crusader—she begins to suspect that the past she thought she buried is still very much alive, and the predators more dangerous than ever.

Recruiting the help of the podcast host, Shay goes back to the place she vowed never to return to in search of answers. As she follows the threads of her friend’s life, she’s pulled into a dark, seductive world, where wealth and privilege shield brutal philosophies that feel all too familiar. When Shay’s obsession with uncovering the truth becomes so consuming she can no longer separate her desire for justice from darker desires newly reawakened, she must confront the depths of her own complicity and conditioning.

But in a world built for men to rule it—both inside the cult and outside of it—is justice even possible, and if so, how far will Shay go to get it?

This was one of my most highly anticipated books and after I read Ashley Winstead’s debut book In My Dreams I hold a Knife, I have been anticipating for this one.

I am not sure whether I liked this book or not. Safe to say, I would say, I liked her debut book way better than this one.

Years ago when Shay was attending college in upstate New York, she and her friends Laurel and Clem met a charming man through their roommate. But their lives changed drastically and one of their friends died causing Laurel and Shay to leave behind the past and never turn back. Now Shay is married and is living in Texas when she listens to her favorite crime podcast. Through her favorite crime podcast, she finds out that her friend Laurel is dead. Now Shay along with Jamie who is running the podcast return back to New York as Shay realizes that the cult is getting dangerous with their game…

In the first half of the chapter, the story was interesting and intriguing and it was engaging. I do like the little snippets of the podcast, where we learned a bit about Shay’s life in college, how she met the man named “Don” and how hers and her friends’ lives changed after meeting Don. I do like the total secrecy of the cult atmosphere as well. I did enjoy up to the point when I came to the ending and I didn’t really like the ending much which lowered my five star rating to a four star rating overall. Regardless, I liked the author’s style of writing and I hoping to read more of her books!

Ashley Winstead’s 2021 breakout thriller, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife, was an Amazon Editor’s Best Thriller, an Apple Books Best Book of August, as well as a Library Journal, New York Times, CrimeReads, Parade, and Goodreads best or most anticipated thriller of the year. Her 2022 thriller, The Last Housewife, was a Library Reads pick, a Loan Star pick, an Amazon Editor’s Best Thriller, as well as a Cosmopolitan, Good Morning America, Good Housekeeping, Seattle Times, and Southern Review of Fiction best or most anticipated thriller of the year. Her 2022 romance debut, Fool Me Once, was an Amazon Editor’s Best Romance as well as a USA Today, PopSugar, New York Post, and Goodreads best or most anticipated romance of the year. Her work has been translated into more than a dozen languages and optioned for film/TV.

Title:- Graveyard of Lost Children

Author:- Katrina Monroe

Date published:- will be published on May 9th 2023

Publisher:- Poisoned Pen Press

No. of pages:- 368 pages

Genre:- Horror/ Thriller/LGBT

Rating:-

Plot:- 4/5

Writing:- 3/5

Overall rating:- 3.5/5

Once she has her grip on you, she’ll never let you go.

At four months old, Olivia Dahl was almost murdered. Driven by haunting visions, her mother became obsessed with the idea that Olivia was a changeling, and that the only way to get her real baby back was to make a trade with the “dead women” living at the bottom of the well. Now Olivia is ready to give birth to a daughter of her own…and for the first time, she hears the women whispering.

Everyone tells Olivia she should be happy. She should be glowing, but the birth of her daughter only fills Olivia with dread. As Olivia’s body starts giving out, slowly deteriorating as the baby eats and eats and eats, she begins to fear that the baby isn’t her daughter at all and, despite her best efforts, history is repeating itself.

Soon images of a black-haired woman plague Olivia’s nightmares, drawing her back to the well that almost claimed her life―tying mother and daughter together in a desperate cycle of fear and violence that must be broken if Olivia has any hope of saving her child…or herself.

Baby Teeth meets The Invited in a haunting story of the sometimes-fragile connection between a woman’s sense of self and what it means to be a “good” mother.

This was a creepy and interesting read.

When Olivia Dahl was four months, she was nearly murdered by her own mother Shannon who was then sent to a mental facility. Now Olivia has become a mother herself to a baby daughter, Flora. Being a mother would have made Olivia feel happy and exhilarated but it feels completely opposite to Olivia. She fears that the baby isn’t hers and suddenly, she feels like history is repeating itself. Then Olivia was also haunted by a dark-haired woman tying her mother and Olivia together.

I do like the plot of the story. I also like how there’s a tinge of horror element in the book. The story divides between past and present–past told in Shannon, who is Olivia’s mother POV and present told in Olivia’s side so we can see both their thoughts and feelings. Did Shannon try to kill her own daughter because a certain dark haired woman told her to do? Is Olivia feel like history might repeat itself? The ending was OK to me but nonetheless, this was a good horror read–the middle of the story is where it became fast paced. In my opinion, reading Olivia’s part was interesting. Overall, if you like a thriller with a horror element in it, then try this book out. Worth 3.5 stars.

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

Katrina Monroe lives in Minnesota with her wife, two children, and Eddie, the ghost who haunts their bedroom closets.

Title:- The Silent Wife

Author:- Karin Slaughter

Date published:- August 4th 2020

No. of pages:- 496 pages

Genre:- Psychological Thriller

Rating:-

Plot:- 5/5

Writing:- 4/5

Overall rating:- 4.5/5

Investigating the killing of a prisoner during a riot inside a state penitentiary, GBI investigator Will Trent is confronted with disturbing information. One of the inmates claims that he is innocent of a brutal attack for which he has always been the prime suspect. The man insists that he was framed by a corrupt law enforcement team led by Jeffrey Tolliver and that the real culprit is still out there—a serial killer who has systematically been preying on women across the state for years. If Will reopens the investigation and implicates the dead police officer with a hero’s reputation of wrongdoing, the opportunistic convict is willing to provide the information GBI needs about the riot murder.

Only days ago, another young woman was viciously murdered in a state park in northern Georgia. Is it a fluke, or could there be a serial killer on the loose?

As Will Trent digs into both crimes it becomes clear that he must solve the cold case in order to find the answer. Yet nearly a decade has passed—time for memories to fade, witnesses to vanish, evidence to disappear, and lies to become truth. But Will can’t crack either mystery without the help of the one person he doesn’t want involved: his girlfriend and Jeffrey Tolliver’s widow, medical examiner Sara Linton.

Honestly, I have no idea how many Will Trent series I have read but I can say I didn’t read in any particular order and this may be my third or fourth book I read of Will Trent series and fifth book by Karin Slaughter.

A riot at a prison causes Will Trent and Faith to investigate the matter. But while investigating, an inmate confesses to Will and Faith that he had been framed for the murders of the girls by corrupted officials and that the real serial killer is still out there. Disturbed Will and Faith wanted to know if what the inmates claim was true. The case was once handled by Jeffrey Tolliver who was Sara Will’s girlfriend’s ex-husband.

The story was gripping, fast paced and quiet a page turner I really like the thrillers with a serial killer vibe in it and I saw many favorable reviews and I wasn’t surprised. I couldn’t literally put this book down! It was really good. The book goes back and forth between past and present–past when Jeffrey Tolliver was investigating the crimes before his death and present. As usual, I expected some disturbing scenes revealed in the book, which actually is no surprise in Karin Slaughter’s books. I would say this is one of the best books so far written by Karin Slaughter and I simply couldn’t put down the book (even though it was at times disturbing to read). I do enjoy reading Will Trent series and I do like the relationship issues that both Will and Sara are facing so we can take our mind away from the crime. Overall worth a whopping five stars!