mystery Archives - Books is Wonderful

Book Buzz: The Saturday Night Ghost Club

July 22, 2019 9:50 am , hbludman

Whimsical and tender, The Saturday Night Ghost Club is a coming-of-age story with equal measures pathos and page-turning suspense.

So what’s up with this ghost club?

The Saturday Night Ghost Club

Set in 1980s Niagara Falls, or Cataract City as the locals called it, The Saturday Night Ghost Club hearkens to the sweet days we now remember with fondness, when risks seemed safe to take and the thrill of adventure was the point of every escapade.

Jake Baker is now a successful neurosurgeon, but like many brainiacs, he was a nerdy and awkward adolescent. At 12 years old, he was an outsider with few friends but a vivid imagination, and Calvin, his fun and eccentric uncle who believed in ghosts and the supernatural, was the perfect adventure buddy.

“This city is haunted by ghosts,” is what Uncle Cal told Jake.

“Uncle C used to say this although not to scare me. He’d say it with a cocked eyebrow and an inscrutable smile, a merry jester beckoning me to embark on a grand adventure.”

It is this summer, when Jake was 12, that Uncle Cal, owner of a local shop — the Occultorium — formed the club for just that reason, to introduce Jake to the fascinating and mysterious underbelly of his small town.

In addition to Jake, Uncle C’s willing followers were tobacco-chewing adolescent iconoclast Dove Yellowbird, her brother Billy, and local shop owner Lexington Galbraith. To their delight, Uncle Cal arranged clandestine excursions that exposed them to unsolved mysteries and hidden treasures.

The opening of the novel is a bit jolting, as adult Jake is describing in graphic detail the look and feel of the human brain. But this is natural once we find out his profession, and throughout the novel he expounds on the science of the brain and his work with his patients. By the end of the novel, this will all make sense, and Jake’s special relationship with his uncle becomes even more heartwarming.

I adored this sweet and nostalgic story. I was reminded of my own childhood, the ecstasy of riding a bike pell mell down a hill, the magical days of summer, the dawn of each day ripe with possibility. Even the bumps and bruises of being 12 now seem sweet instead of agonizing. Such is the beauty of time and perspective.

It’s also about parenthood, and the gift of loving your children, as adult Jake develops a new appreciation for the ways his mother and father parented him.

Pack this one in your beach bag. You might have to finish it before the end of the day.

One of my lucky readers will receive a copy of The Saturday Night Ghost Club. Please leave a comment on the Books is Wonderful Facebook page, and a winner will be randomly selected. US addresses only, please.

I received a copy of The Saturday Night Ghost Club from Penguin Books for an honest review, which is the only kind of review I write.

If you like my blog post, please share it!

Posted in: Books , Tagged: 80s, childhood, ghosts, mystery, paranormal

Book Buzz: Those People

July 11, 2019 9:09 am , hbludman

If Those People moved into your neighborhood, trust me, you would not be happy.

Those People

Having read and enjoyed Louise Candlish’s best-selling novel Our House, I was ready for her next novel, this time a domestic drama. While I didn’t like it quite as much as “Our House,” I was caught up in the premise and alternately booed and cheered the “bad guys.”

Who are those people? Well, they are the ne’er-do-wells who just moved into the neighborhood and upset the apple cart — the apple cart being the upscale, somewhat entitled little cluster of homes on idyllic Lowland Way, where families are pretty much as cookie cutter as their tidy abodes.

This is a place where rules are made and followed, and everyone is content with the status quo. One of the moms created a “Play Out Sunday” where the streets are closed to traffic and parents bring their kids to enjoy walking, biking, and street games, receiving widespread attention as a model for other neighborhoods.

Until Darren and Jodie move into the house on the corner, and all hell breaks loose.

Darren and Jodie like to blast loud music at all hours of the day and night. They run a used car business right on their front lawn. They launch a huge renovation project that creates havoc and debris. And no matter how pleasantly the neighbors have asked them to tone it down, they pretty much give the finger to all.

As the neighbors’ patience draws thin, there are rumblings about what to do about Those People. The local magistrate has been unhelpful. Is it time to take matters into their own hands?

And then, an unexpected death shatters the neighborhood, and the action escalates as an investigation is launched to find the person responsible.

There are many characters in “Those People,” married couples, kids, and a single older woman, and each voice is heard throughout the novel. As their stories unfold, we find out that things aren’t quite as perfect on Lowland Way as we had thought. What starts out as a light-hearted romp turns into something more sinister.

Candlish succeeds at capturing the highs and lows of human behavior and portraying how stress can fray the fabric of our lives and lead us astray. She creates multi-dimensional characters whose actions may be inconsistent with their outer selves, but not devoid of our sympathy.

“Those People” is an interesting commentary on modern life and mores, not without its moments of humor, and will probably make you sigh with relief that you don’t live on a street like Lowland Way.

One of my lucky readers will receive a copy of “Those People.” Please leave a comment on the Books is Wonderful Facebook page, and a winner will be randomly selected. US addresses only, please.

I received a copy of “Those People” from Penguin Random House for an honest review, which is the only kind of review I write.

If you like my blog post, please share it!

Posted in: Books , Tagged: domestic drama, domestic thriller, mystery, neighborhood

Book Buzz: The Good Sister

June 12, 2019 10:58 am , hbludman

Martha and Becky are not just sisters, they are best friends. They are confidantes. They have each other’s back. Then the unthinkable happens: one sister is accused of killing the other’s infant, and their world falls apart, in the dark but absorbing The Good Sister.

The Good Sister

Martha and Becky have a solid bond even though they are quite different in personality. Martha is the steady, reliable one, the kind of woman who multi-tasks to perfection. Becky is the one who is fun to be around but can’t seem to get her life together. Her marriage has floundered and she hates her job.

When Martha gives birth to baby Layla, she needs a trustworthy and available nanny who can provide TLC while Martha is at work. In an aha moment, she offers the job to Becky, who readily accepts.

It is not a spoiler to tell you that while in Becky’s care the baby dies, because this is revealed on page two.

Like I said, it is dark.

Author Gillian McAllister recounts the story mostly through Becky’s trial, and with multiple points of view we come to understand the dynamics of this family: relationships between the sisters, between them and their husbands, between them and their children. McAllister skillfully leads us from suspecting a character to absolving them to suspecting them once again.

The courtroom scenes are full of tension as we yearn to know the truth. Becky denies she killed the baby, and Martha wants to believe this so badly, but the facts seem to point to Becky’s culpability.

Who was the good sister?

At first, Becky is delighted to be Layla’s nanny. With a son of her own, she has experience as a parent and thinks this will be a cushy job. But Layla is not the easy child her son Xander was. Layla has colic or acid reflux and cries loudly and continuously. Pretty soon, Becky is a nervous wreck and begins to resent Martha and her husband for being away too much. She regrets taking this job and wants out.

Martha, traveling abroad for her work as a founder of a children’s charity, is unaware of Becky’s misery and certain that everything will be fine while she is away, even though Layla is a very young and demanding baby.

The Good Sister is such an emotionally powerful and thoughtfully told story, so nuanced. The complexities of new parenthood, the agony of a restless, screaming baby, the inadequacies we feel as we measure ourselves against an impossible standard — all this felt very real to me. Loving your baby with every fiber of your being but sometimes wishing the baby wasn’t there: this is an honest reaction that is not often expressed openly. Until recently, post-partum depression was not even recognized as a thing.

As the courtroom proceedings unveil new information about Becky, Martha struggles to reconcile this person with the sister she thought she knew. At the same time, she is consumed with guilt for her own failures as a mother and wife.

The Good Sister is a riveting, fast-paced psycho drama that is hard to put down. I couldn’t wait to find out “whodunit,” and the conclusion was satisfyingly surprising … and credible.

One of my lucky readers will receive a copy of The Good Sister. Please leave a comment on the Books is Wonderful Facebook page and a winner will be randomly selected. US addresses only, please.

I received a copy of The Good Sister from G.P. Putnam & Sons for an honest review, which is the only kind of review I write.

If you like my blog post, please share it!

Posted in: Books , Tagged: courtroom, drama, mystery, psychological thriller, sisters

Book Buzz: One Fatal Mistake

January 30, 2019 8:47 am , hbludman

In the new thriller “One Fatal Mistake,” two story lines arc toward each other — one of a ne’er do well trio about to commit a crime and the other a high school senior keeping a secret from his mom — and you wonder how they will converge. Then it happens, and all hell breaks loose.

One Fatal Mistake

With a title like that, you know you want to get to the end to find out WHAT THAT MISTAKE WAS. Getting to the end is pretty easy because, well, the book is hard to put down. Although at some parts I felt like I was passing a bad car accident and didn’t want to see it but had to look anyway. So, be forewarned if you are faint of heart.

Author Tom Hunt has written an intriguing plot and knows exactly how to heighten the tension. (NO SPOILERS, I promise). In rural Iowa, a high school senior has been in an accident that resulted in a death. Stricken, he leaves the scene and attempts to cover up any sign of his involvement. His single mom, a nurse, suspects that something is wrong by his change of behavior. He is quiet, anxious, and not at all excited when he receives a college acceptance letter he has been hoping for. Ultimately, the truth comes out. Well, it is forced out. But no spoilers.

At the same time, this small band of thieves mentioned above is high on drugs and adrenaline most of the time and attempt to commit a crime that goes wrong. When they have a chance encounter with the mom and son, they seize the opportunity (and the car) to somehow get out of the mess they’ve created. As you can imagine, it only gets worse.

The mom character is the most interesting to me, because it made me stop and think how I would react in a similar (though bizarre) situation. Her first instinct is to call the police so the son can report the crime. But these are desperate times, and she responds in a way she could have never predicted. Her motive is to protect her sons at all costs, and she does pay a price in the end.

Hunt deftly captures the eerie isolation of dark country roads, the panic of being held against your will, the shock of physical pain. The story winds up with a neat twist that should satisfy fans of this genre.

May it remind us that we should never venture out on a deserted country road in the middle of the night.

One of my lucky readers will receive a copy of “One Fatal Mistake.” Please leave a comment on the Books is Wonderful Facebook page and a winner will be randomly selected. US addresses only, please.

I received a copy of “One Fatal Mistake” from Berkley for an honest review, which is the only kind of review I write.

If you like my blog post, please share it!

Posted in: Books , Tagged: murder, mystery, suspense, thriller

Book Buzz: Our House

August 23, 2018 8:42 am , hbludman

Fiona Lawson comes home one day to find her upscale home in suburban London purged of all its contents and another family is in the process of moving in. The house in “Our House” has been sold without Fiona’s consent or knowledge, and Fi’s estranged husband Bram is nowhere to be found.

Book Buzz: Our House

So the mystery begins, and oh how many tangled webs have been woven.

Our House

In the alternating voices of Fi and Bram, the events that preceded this event begin to unfold. We learn that the couple has been separated, amicably, and to minimize the disruption on their two young sons they decide to co-share the house. One parent stays there with the boys while the other retreats to a flat nearby, and then they switch. All goes fairly well until Bram is involved in a terrible car accident, with these complications:

he is driving with a suspended license
there is road rage involved
he leaves the scene
a mother and daughter who were the victims in this accident are badly injured and cling to life in the hospital

From that point, the tension mounts as Bram attempts to elude suspicion. But when someone shows up to blackmail him, he starts to unravel.

Bad Guy? Or Victim of Circumstance?

As I got deeper into the story, my feelings about Bram shuttled between compassion and loathing. I found that things are not always as they seem. With the skill that only a superb mystery writer like author Louise Candlish can infuse, the twists and turns in this story will leave your head spinning and the ending is both shocking and masterfully conceived.

After an explosive beginning, I did find a lull in the action as Candlish focused on the relative normalcy of suburban life for these two, but suddenly the pace picked up and rocked the story to a conclusion. It was like a roller coaster ascending it peak with slow but steady rhythm and then, boom!

Candlish uses an interesting approach for ascribing the points of view to her protagnoists. Fiona’s story is on a podcast called “The Victim,” and Bram’s in written on a Word document that he refers to as his suicide note. With social media comments at the end of each chapter, it felt like I was part of a group following the harrowing developments together.

Our House proposes the age old question: how well do we really know the people closest to us?

One of my lucky readers will receive a copy of Our House. Please leave a comment on the Books is Wonderful Facebook page, and a winner will be randomly selected.

I received a copy of Our House from Berkley for an honest review,
which is the only kind of review I write.

If you like my blog post, please share it!

Posted in: Books , Tagged: domestic drama, domestic thriller, mystery, psychological thriller, suspense

Book Buzz: Believe Me

August 9, 2018 9:32 am , hbludman

Up for a twisty, turny, psychological thriller that never lets up? In the tradition of domestic heart-grabbers that have become so popular of late, JP Delaney’s Believe Me is a veritable spine tingler in this genre.

Book Buzz: Believe Me

Like two in this genre I have read, Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Paula Hawkins’ Girl on a Train, Believe Me features a flawed, unreliable heroine, shady and unpredictable characters, and boom … an ending that you did not expect.

What makes Believe Me stand out is the number of twists. Just when you think the plot is resolved, well, you’re wrong.

JP Delaney is no newcomer to the “Girl” genre. The author’s last book, The Girl Before, became a huge best seller and the film rights were acquired by Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment.

Believe Me

The protagonist is Claire Wright, a struggling actress with a troubled background. Determined to make a go of her career in New York City, she is barely making ends meet and not getting acting jobs. She continues taking classes to hone her craft.

Desperate to “make it” and willing to make sacrifices in that pursuit, she takes a position as a decoy for a law firm specializing in divorce. Her job is to meet and seduce straying husbands, catch them on tape, and produce the evidence to the lawyers.

Not what she had in mind for a career, this gig nonetheless helps her stay in New York and audition for the roles she really wants. Her life explodes, though, when the wife of one of these philanderers she has met turns up dead, and she is sought for questioning by police.

Luckily for her, she is not really a suspect. The police believe it was the husband, Patrick, but they need Claire to help seal the case. Claire, a master at manipulation from her acting training, must pretend to fall in love with this man, secure his trust, and lure him into committing another murder.

An unusual and creepy thread is Patrick’s obsession with the French poet Charles Baudelaire, 1821-1867. Baudelaire’s poetry often dealt with sex and death and had strong, sometimes frightening, imagery. Baudelaire was actually prosecuted for “creating an offense against public morals.” Patrick frequently quotes from Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil), his most famous poem, which features prominently in the novel.

That is the premise, and I won’t reveal any spoilers, but I will say this. There are more twists in this story than you can imagine, and your suspicions will target different characters at different times.

Named an Amazon Best Book of July 2018, Believe Me is a juicy and page turning spellbinder with a tension that never lets up.

One of my lucky readers will receive a copy of Believe Me. Please leave a comment on the Books is Wonderful Facebook page, and a winner will be randomly selected. US addresses only, please.

I received a copy of Believe Me from Ballantine Books for an honest review,
which is the only kind of review I write.

If you like my blog post, please share it!

Posted in: Books , Tagged: domestic thriller, girl, Gone Girl, murder, mystery, suspense, twists

Book Buzz: Closer Than You Know

April 3, 2018 8:43 am , hbludman

In the opening pages of Closer Than You Know, a young mother is running late to pick up her baby at daycare. Knowing how every minute past the deadline will cost her late charges, she sweats each second until she finally arrives. Breathless, she knocks at the door. And knocks again.

No answer.

Do I have your attention yet?

Book Buzz: Closer Than You Know

Drawing on his experience as a newspaper reporter, author Brad Parks has penned a domestic thriller that will make you stop and think, as unlikely as this might sound, could it really happen?

Yes, it could.

Closer Than You Know

The real protagonist in Closer Than You Know, with all its flaws and missteps and misguided notions of due process, is the child welfare system. Created to help children and families, it undoubtedly has saved lives. But when perhaps well-meaning but overwhelmed administrators in the system make a mistake, it can mean a tragic outcome. It was one of these true-life horror stories that inspired Parks to write this novel.

A systemic blunder is the catalyst in this gripping novel. A woman who experienced the worst of Social Services growing up with abusive, drug addicted parents, Melanie Barrick vowed her life as an adult would be “normal” and so far it has been. She is happily married and she and her husband are loving, attentive parents, living a quiet life in rural Virginia. Until their world is violently upended.

In domino-falling fashion, complications materialize one by one after Melanie’s infant is snatched from his daycare by child welfare authorities. To Melanie’s horror, she is told that police were tipped off to a cache of drugs in her house and performed a raid while she was at work. Accused of being a drug dealer and endangering her baby, Melanie frantically tries to swear her innocence and get her baby back, to no avail.

With few resources to back her up, she is alone in this nightmare. A court-appointed lawyer seems uninvested in her case. Her husband disappears. Languishing in jail, she despairs of ever seeing her baby again. And … she is a nursing mother! For me, this made her situation even more horrific.

At the same time, the prosecuting attorney has made her own assumptions about Melanie and is expecting an easy conviction. But then, as snippets of the truth become known, the identity of the real perpetrator is revealed, and it is a stunner.

It’s always extra-compelling to me when fiction is based on fact, and in this case, Parks was inspired by a real-life case that happened in his beat in Newark. Two abandoned children were found locked in a basement. Filthy, starving, and showing effects of abuse, the children were likely close to death. When one of them mentioned he hadn’t seen his twin brother in weeks, the police searched the home and found the remains of the twin.

Part mystery, part legal thriller, Closer Than You Know is an indictment of the system designed to protect, not destroy, individuals and families. It is also about one woman’s resilience when faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

One of my lucky readers will receive a copy of Closer Than You Know. Please leave a comment on the Books is Wonderful Facebook page and a winner will be randomly selected. US addresses only, please.

I received a copy of Closer Than You Know from Dutton for an honest review,
which is the only kind of review I write.

If you like my blog post, please share it!

Posted in: Books , Tagged: crime fiction, domestic thriller, fiction, mystery, nursing mothers, thriller, whodunit

Book Buzz: Winter Sisters

March 14, 2018 8:02 am , hbludman

The March snow fell silently outside my window, the perfect ambience for reading Winter Sisters, which opens with a fierce snowstorm that is the catalyst for an unfolding tragedy.

Book Buzz: Winter Sisters

As you can see in the illustration on the cover, Winter Sisters is not set in the present day but in Albany in 1879. It is the story of the disappearance of two young girls in the aftermath of a dreadful storm.

Winter Sisters

The setting is so powerful in this novel, and author Robin Oliveira does an excellent job of juxtaposing a horrific weather event with the shocking mores of the time, especially regarding women.

Emma and Claire O’Donnell are two little girls who disappear in the storm without a trace, and despite everyone’s best efforts, they are not found for several weeks. Their parents both died in the storm. Police eventually give up the search but close friends of the O’Donnell family, Drs. Mary and William Stipp, conduct their own search and rescue.

When the girls do show up, it is clear they suffered at the hands of an abuser. Their experience was so traumatic that they are rendered silent, so the perpetrator remains unknown. The girls are taken in by the Stipps and slowly nurtured back to health.

As the girls eventually are able to convey what happened, the town is in an uproar and the Stipps continue to search for answers.

Finally, a suspect comes to light and a trial is set. What was on trial? In these times, believe it or not, the age of consent in New York State was ten years old. Author Oliveira used this fact to illustrate the horrid treatment women faced as victims of a crime, the assumption that women were willing partners in cases of sexual abuse. The 10-year-old is put on the stand and questioned about her involvement. That in itself is horrible to visualize.

Although everyone assumed this suspect was guilty, an unexpected development reveals that someone else was to blame.

Winter Sisters is many things. It is a mystery, a gripping whodunit, a treatise about misogyny and sexual abuse, and a glimpse into the past. What I really loved were the strong women in the cast of characters. In a time when women had few rights, Dr. Mary Stipp and other female members of her family show by example that women have a voice and must use it. Mary, a civil war surgeon with a private practice in Albany, was subjected to doubt and scrutiny because women were not supposed to be physicians.

I like to think that, were these women alive today, they would be front and center in the #metoo movement. Pursuing the quest for equality and justice, they persisted.

One of my lucky readers will receive a copy of Winter Sisters. Please leave a comment on the Books is Wonderful Facebook page and a winner will be randomly selected. US addresses only, please.

I received a copy of Winter Sisters from Viking for an honest review,
which is the only kind of review I write.

If you like my blog post, please share it!

Posted in: Books , Tagged: abuse, Albany, Historical fiction, mystery, NY, trial

Book Buzz: The Storm King

February 20, 2018 11:31 am , hbludman

It was a dark and stormy night … or rather, a fearsome hurricane was approaching, and that sets the ominous scene of The Storm King.

Book Buzz: The Storm King

Thirty-something Nate is returning to his childhood home for a funeral of someone he used to love. Upon his return, he finds that it’s not just the weather that is unsettled.

The Storm King

Nate is a complex character, a mishmash of good and bad. As a pediatric oncologic surgeon he is well-respected and devoted to his young patients and their families. He is happily married with a young daughter. But as we discover, Nate was a bad boy in high school. Having survived a terrible car crash that killed the rest of his family, he and his friends sought revenge on the driver of the other car who caused the accident. Their vandalism didn’t stop there. They targeted members of the community whom they felt deserved to be attacked. The abusive mother of one of their friends, for example.

The pranks, which they called Thunder Runs, were malicious and destructive. Hardly good clean teenage fun, kids being kids, etc. No, much worse. They would only realize years later the lasting damage they had caused.

As Nate muses to himself in the present, “(I) was supposed to be a man who built things up, not one who ripped them apart. (I) was supposed to make people better, not bring them pain. Despite the good life (I’d) constructed around this idea of (myself), that wildfire of a teenager still burned inside (me).”

And the funeral? It was Nate’s high school girlfriend, who had disappeared just after graduation. Fourteen years her remains were discovered. Her death was ruled a homicide.

Who was responsible for her brutal murder?

As more is revealed about the past, the more layers are exposed about Nate and his group of friends. Any one of them could have been the perpetrator. Or was it someone else in this creepy town with so many secrets?

What’s more, he finds that a new generation of vandals is committing similar crimes and his own grandmother has been a victim. He is determined to get to the bottom of all the unresolved mysteries this town holds.

In the end, who would be the villain and who would be the hero?

Brimming with atmosphere and a shocking conclusion, The Storm King is an engrossing read if you like page-turning mysteries and heart-pumping tension.

A caveat: I wouldn’t recommend reading it on a stormy night if you’re alone in the house.

One of my lucky readers will receive a copy of The Storm King. Please leave a comment on the Books is Wonderful Facebook page and a winner will be randomly selected. US addresses only, please.

I received a copy of The Storm King from Ballantine Books for an honest review,
which is the only kind of review I write.

If you like my blog post, please share it!

Posted in: Books , Tagged: fiction, horror, intrigue, mystery

Book Buzz: The Child

June 27, 2017 6:57 am , hbludman

Imagine this scene in modern-day working-class London. An old apartment building is being dismantled to make way for new construction in a gentrified area. The demolition crew is hacking away at the debris, when suddenly, amidst the dust and rubble, a shocking discovery is made: the skeletal remains of a newborn baby, apparently buried years ago.

Thus begins The Child, Fiona Barton’s suspenseful psychodrama, whose protagonist is a woman in mid-life, a dogged investigative journalist who frets that her traditional reporting skills are becoming passé in the sensationalist world of new media.

The Child

The community is stunned and the case quickly becomes front page news. Dubbed the “Building Site Baby,” the infant’s identity becomes an obsession. What lead to the child’s demise? Why would an infant be buried underneath all the rubble, and whose child was it?

Whodunit, and whydunit?

Four women’s differing perspectives tell the story of The Child. At first we don’t see the connection, but as the plot unfolds, we learn that each one holds a key to solving the mystery.

Kate is the persistent but empathetic newspaper reporter used to getting her hands dirty in pursuit of the truth. She comes from the old school of journalism, and is dismayed to see layoffs of the old guard at her newspaper in favor of inexperienced young writers whose specialty is click bait-y headlines. The pressure of 24/7 online news goes against her grain and she stubbornly resists. At the same time, she worries that journalists of her ilk are disappearing like dinosaurs and she may be the next one to be let go.

Intrigued by the mystery of the Building Site Baby and begs her editor for the plum assignment. With support of the police detectives, she pursues the identity of residents of the building from years ago who might be able to help.

Then, there is Emma, a young married woman who works from home as an editor. She suffers from depression and anxiety, haunted by secrets of her childhood under the care of her single mom, Jude.

Narcissistic Jude raised Emma in an environment of instability and fear. When Emma turned 16, Jude abruptly threw her out of the house. Now that Emma is an adult, Jude would like to have a better relationship with her, but there is little trust, and their periodic interactions never go very well.

Finally, Angela, the wife and mother of two grown children whose infant daughter Alice was abducted decades ago from the hospital the day she was born. Her child was never found. Could this dead infant be her daughter? She prays that this is the case and she will finally have closure.

The short chapters keep the action going at a rapid pace, and gradually we come to see exactly how these women are connected and find out the identity of the Building Site Baby.

A lively, page-turning whodunit, The Child satisfied me as a good beach book and I particularly related to the personage of Kate, whose angst about competing with the younger generation in the workplace rang very true.

One of my lucky readers will receive a copy of The Child. Please leave a comment and a winner will be randomly selected. US addresses only, please.

I received a copy of The Child from Berkley for an honest review,
which is the only kind of review I write.

If you like my blog post, please share it!

Posted in: Books , Tagged: drama, mystery, psychological thriller

1 2 Next »

Tag Archives: Mystery

Book Buzz: The Saturday Night Ghost Club

The Saturday Night Ghost Club

Book Buzz: Those People

Those People

Book Buzz: The Good Sister

The Good Sister

Who was the good sister?

Book Buzz: One Fatal Mistake

One Fatal Mistake