Review: Bring Me Back

Bring Me Back by B.A. ParisTitle: Bring Me Back

Author: B.A. Paris

Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense

Publication Date: June 19, 2018

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ (3.5 stars)


Finn and Layla are young, in love, and on vacation. They’re driving along the highway when Finn decides to stop at a service station to use the restroom. He hops out of the car, locks the doors behind him, and goes inside. When he returns Layla is gone—never to be seen again. That is the story Finn told to the police. But it is not the whole story.

Ten years later Finn is engaged to Layla’s sister, Ellen. Their shared grief over what happened to Layla drew them close and now they intend to remain together. Still, there’s something about Ellen that Finn has never fully understood. His heart wants to believe that she is the one for him…even though a sixth sense tells him not to trust her.

Then, not long before he and Ellen are to be married, Finn gets a phone call. Someone from his past has seen Layla—hiding in plain sight. There are other odd occurrences: Long-lost items from Layla’s past that keep turning up around Finn and Ellen’s house. Emails from strangers who seem to know too much. Secret messages, clues, warnings. If Layla is alive—and on Finn’s trail—what does she want? And how much does she know?

A tour de force of psychological suspense, Bring Me Back will have you questioning everything and everyone until its stunning climax.

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Review: Jar of Hearts

Jar of Hearts by Jennifer HillierTitle: Jar of Hearts

Author: Jennifer Hillier

Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Publication Date: June 12, 2018

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (5 stars)


This is the story of three best friends: one who was murdered, one who went to prison, and one who’s been searching for the truth all these years …

When she was sixteen years old, Angela Wong—one of the most popular girls in school—disappeared without a trace. Nobody ever suspected that her best friend, Georgina Shaw, now an executive and rising star at her Seattle pharmaceutical company, was involved in any way. Certainly not Kaiser Brody, who was close with both girls back in high school.

But fourteen years later, Angela Wong’s remains are discovered in the woods near Geo’s childhood home. And Kaiser—now a detective with Seattle PD—finally learns the truth: Angela was a victim of Calvin James. The same Calvin James who murdered at least three other women.

To the authorities, Calvin is a serial killer. But to Geo, he’s something else entirely. Back in high school, Calvin was Geo’s first love. Turbulent and often volatile, their relationship bordered on obsession from the moment they met right up until the night Angela was killed.

For fourteen years, Geo knew what happened to Angela and told no one. For fourteen years, she carried the secret of Angela’s death until Geo was arrested and sent to prison.

While everyone thinks they finally know the truth, there are dark secrets buried deep. And what happened that fateful night is more complex and more chilling than anyone really knows. Now the obsessive past catches up with the deadly present when new bodies begin to turn up, killed in the exact same manner as Angela Wong.

How far will someone go to bury her secrets and hide her grief? How long can you get away with a lie? How long can you live with it?

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Review: The Word Is Murder

The Word Is Murder by Anthony HorowitzTitle: The Word Is Murder

Author: Anthony Horowitz

Genre: Mystery, Crime, Fiction

Publication Date: June 5, 2018

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (5 stars)


The New York Times bestselling author of Magpie Murders and Moriarty brilliantly reinvents the classic crime novel once again with this clever and inventive mystery starring a fictional version of the author himself as the Watson to a modern-day Holmes, investigating a case involving buried secrets, murder, and a trail of bloody clues.

A woman crosses a London street.

It is just after 11am on a bright spring morning, and she is going into a funeral parlor to plan her own service.

Six hours later the woman is dead, strangled with a crimson curtain cord in her own home.

Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric man as quick with an insult as he is to crack a case. And Hawthorne has a partner, the celebrated novelist Anthony Horowitz, curious about the case and looking for new material.

As brusque, impatient, and annoying as Hawthorne can be, Horowitz—a seasoned hand when it comes to crime stories—suspects the detective may be on to something, and is irresistibly drawn into the mystery. But as the case unfolds, Horowitz realizes he’s at the center of a story he can’t control . . . and that his brilliant partner may be hiding dark and mysterious secrets of his own.

A masterful and tricky mystery which plays games at many levels, The Word Is Murder is Anthony Horowitz at his very best.

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Goodreads Monday: June 4, 2018

goodreads monday

Goodreads Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Lauren’s Page Turners. To participate, choose a random book from your TBR and show it off!

This week’s pick snuck its way onto my TBR at the onset of the year, and then I promptly forgot all about it. Does anyone else have that problem? This meme is constantly serving as a reminder to me that I do this way too often …

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Stacking the Shelves: June 2, 2018

stacking the shelves

Stacking The Shelves is hosted by Tygna’s Reviews and Reading Reality and is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

After a crazy month, I’m getting back into the habit with these memes, and this was a good week to jump back on board! I grabbed a fun haul from the library bookshop this morning, and I’m so excited for all of them.

If any of these appeal to you, too, check out their Goodreads pages via the links on the cover images.

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Review: Lovesick Gods (Lovesick Series #1)

Lovesick Gods by Amanda MeuwissenTitle: Lovesick Gods

Author: Amanda Meuwissen

Series: The Lovesick Series, #1

Genre: Urban Fantasy, M/M Romance

Publication Date: October 2, 2017

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (5 stars)


Heroes aren’t meant to act like their villains—or fall in love with them.

The elements touch everyone on Earth—Fire, Water, even Light—but every so often someone becomes more attuned to their elemental leaning and develops true power. When an evil Elemental known as Thanatos arrived in Olympus City, it saw the rise of its first hero—Zeus. But the death toll caused by defeating Thanatos changed Zeus, who by day is young detective Danny Grant. 

It’s been six months since Thanatos terrorized the city at the start of Lovesick Gods. Danny should be used to his duty behind the mask, but the recent past haunts him. His girlfriend left him, he snaps at the barest provocation, his life feels empty—he needs an outlet, any outlet to pull him out of his depression.

Enter notorious thief Malcolm Cho, the Ice Elemental Prometheus. There was a time when Danny welcomed a fight with Cho, filled with colorful banter and casual flirtations that were a relief compared to Thanatos. Even as a criminal, Cho had recognized the threat Thanatos posed and promised to help Danny stop him, but the day Danny needed Cho, he never showed. Cho was the reason so many people died that day—including Danny’s mother.

Danny decides to teach the man a lesson and fan the fire of their attraction into something more. At worst, he’ll get some no-strings-attached sex out of the deal and finally blow off steam; at best, he’ll get Cho to fall in love with him and then break his heart to spite him. Danny doesn’t expect to fall for Cho in the process, and he certainly can’t predict the much darker threat on the horizon.

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