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Release date: July 4, 2017

Genre: Mystery

I’m doing something a little different here and I’m giving a warning before I even share the blurb for this one. If you haven’t read the first book in this series, stop reading here. Seriously, the blurb for this has major spoilers and it’s an awesome read, don’t let it be ruined for you! Go check out my review for Everything We Keep, then come back and read my review for this after you’ve read the first book. Trust me, you’ll thank me later! 

Blurb: 

From the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Everything We Keep comes the highly anticipated sequel. Told from one man’s two perspectives, Everything We Left Behind effortlessly blends suspense, mystery, and romance in an exploration of loss, resilience, and the compelling need to protect the ones we love at all cost.

Two months before his wedding, financial executive James Donato chased his trade-laundering brother Phil to Mexico, only to be lost at sea and presumed dead. Six and a half years later, he emerges from a dissociative fugue state to find he’s been living in Oaxaca as artist Carlos Dominguez, widower and father of two sons, with his sister-in-law Natalya Hayes, a retired professional surfer, helping to keep his life afloat. But his fiancée, Aimee Tierney, the love of his life, has moved on. She’s married and has a child of her own.

Devastated, James and his sons return to California. But Phil is scheduled for release from prison, and he’s determined to find James, who witnessed something in Mexico that could land Phil back in confinement. Under mounting family pressure, James flees with his sons to Kauai, seeking refuge with Natalya. As James begins to unravel the mystery of his fractured identity, danger is never far behind, and Natalya may be the only person he can trust.

Review: 

I’ve been dying to read this book since the first one ended in a massive cliffhanger, it’s easily one of my most anticipated books of the year and I’ve become a huge fan of Lonsdale’s work. Knowing I would finally get to hear James side of the story had such a strong appeal to me as I just knew it would be utterly fascinating. The entire idea of a dissociative fugue is crazy interesting to me, can you even imagine waking up one day and having no earthly idea who you are? Not knowing your kids or your significant other?! Insanity and such a compelling premise for a book. 

There is something about Lonsdale’s writing style that completely captivates me. It’s smooth, polished and just has a really easy feel to it. You know how sometimes when you’re reading a really good book by a talented author and you’re startled when you realize how many pages you’ve turned or how much time has passed as you’ve been caught up in a fictional world? That’s what happens to me every time I read one of her books, it’s awesome! 

The dual timelines here are highly unique as they’re told from James as he snaps out of his fugue and Carlos in the months/years beforehand. Essentially they’re the same person, but not really. That may sound confusing, but it’s not at all and it really helped to answer all the lingering questions that have been running through my mind for months now. 

I’m not going to discuss the plot too much, but in her true fashion Lonsdale managed to pull off several surprises. It was an emotional read as James/Carlos worked through a wide range of feelings, everything from loss and heartbreak to new love and hope. I wasn’t quite as connected to him as I was to Aimee, but I still really enjoyed this one. It’s the perfect light mystery for this summer, it’s not violent or graphic, more of an emotional mystery than anything. And book three in the series is out next summer!!

Overall rating: 4.5/5

Thanks to the author for my review copy. 

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Release date: February 2, 2016

Genre: YA, Historical Fiction

Blurb: 

It has been a long and difficult year for the Decker family, especially for sixteen-year-old Brooke. Her grades have plummeted. She deliberately breaks curfew. She makes out with boys she hardly knows. 

And now her father has totally lost it. When Tim Decker signs up his family of three to be contestants on a Hollywood reality show, Brooke’s life turns upside down. The place: The North Carolina backcountry. The year: 1861. 

Brooke is forced to trade in her Victoria’s Secret bra for a rib-cracking corset, her comfy jeans for an ugly farm dress, and her private bathroom for an outhouse. Television cameras will follow her every move as she lives the grueling life of a mid-nineteenth-century farm girl: milking a cow, churning butter, fetching water countless times a day, and riding in a horse-drawn wagon along a rutted road to spend pennies in town. 

This will be Brooke’s life for four awful months. Unless, of course, she breaks the rules and the producers kick her off the show…

Other families are scattered throughout Sweet Sugar Gap. The snotty Prudence Miller soon becomes Brooke’s rival. Wendell Murphy, who works at the local mercantile, is instantly smitten with Brooke—but also makes her suspicious. Does the only cute boy in town really like her, or is he merely showing off for the cameras?

Brooke Decker may just have to find a way to make it in the backcountry, leaving behind the modern frills she can’t live without. But can a young girl’s wishful heart surrender to a time and place she believes she can never call home? 

Review: 

One of the first series that I fell in love with was The Little House on the Prarie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder and I know I’m not alone there, she’s a legend. So when I read the blurb for this book I was super intrigued by the idea of a throwback to those books with a contemporary twist. On top of that, I’m a reality TV junkie so I couldn’t have been more invested even before I turned the first page. This book was everything I had hoped for and more, it had fantastic messages and themes for young adults, witty dialogue and it brought history to life in a totally captivating manner. 

Brooke is a fairly typical teenager acting out in a semi normal way. Her mother passed away one year earlier and she’s clearly struggling. Her dad is doing his best, but raising two young girls on his own is so challenging and on top of that he lost his wife. I was completely taken in by the Decker family and felt so much sympathy for them. Brooke was crying out for help in her own way, Tim was just trying to keep going, one day at a time and sweet Rebecca Lynn is only ten and totally broke my heart. When Tim signs them up for the reality show, Brooke isn’t exactly pleased as you can well imagine. 

This book was so historically accurate, it’s very apparent that the author spent a good chunk of time researching the 1860’s. Entering Sweet Sugar Gap was like entering a time warp and I was enchanted by the setting she created. History was never one of my favorite subjects as a kid, but reading about the era in such a creative and fun way was amazing! I learned so much about how life was for people back then and I can’t wait until my own kids are a little bit older to read this with them. I only say I’ll wait a few years because my oldest daughter is eight and there are a few references to drinking and drugs that are a tiny bit too mature for her now, but for the teenaged crowd this is ideal. 

The character development was outstanding here, especially in Brooke but every member of the Decker family grew so much over the course of the book. Living exactly as people did back in the 1860’s was not easy and stripping away the creature comforts they had become dependent upon caused them all to do some soul searching and find out what is truly important. This was one of those books that made me feel all the feelings, I laughed, cried, was mortified and scared, any emotion you can think of I probably experienced while reading this gem of a book. I highly recommend this to anyone, but especially to those with teenagers, I think it’s a story that can really resonate with them and teach some great lessons without them even realizing it. 

Overall rating: 5/5

Thanks to the author for my review copy. 

Goodreads|Amazon
Release date: October 7, 2014

Publisher: Berkley NAL

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Blurb: 

If you liked Gone Girl, don’t miss this twist-filled thriller…

The past has arrived uninvited at Jason Danvers’s door… 

…and it’s his younger sister, Hayden, a former addict who severed all contact with her family as her life spiraled out of control. Now she’s clean and sober but in need of a desperate favor—she asks Jason and his wife to take care of her teenage daughter for forty-eight hours while she handles some business in town.

But Hayden never returns.

And her disappearance brings up more unresolved problems from Jason’s past, including the abrupt departure of his best friend on their high school graduation night twenty-seven years earlier. When a body is discovered in the woods, the mysteries of his sister’s life—and possible death—deepen. And one by one these events will shatter every expectation Jason has ever had about families, about the awful truths that bind them and the secrets that should be taken to the grave. 

When the opportunity presented itself to participate in a special “tour before the tour” in honor of Bell releasing his seventh novel and to highlight his earlier work, I knew I had to take it! I’ve teamed up with the publisher to host an awesome giveaway, one lucky duck will win a copy of both TFG and BHH! Entry form is at the end of this post. Bring Her Home is out next month, stay tuned for my review of that, but for now read on to see what I thought about The Forgotten Girl. 

Review: 

The premise of this book hooked me instantly, I’m always drawn to books that have a past mystery merging with one in the present day and with the addition of a missing person, I’m all in! Maybe it’s because the possibilities are endless in terms of where the misper is and what actually happened to them, but these types of mysteries are always one of my go to choices. Then, you have the bonus of it being a Bell novel and his books are guaranteed fantastic reads, true page turners. 

Bell shines the brightest in how well drawn his characters are, he writes people that are ordinary citizens that are placed in extraordinary circumstances. There is nothing far fetched about these scenarios, they’re wholly believable, something that could truly happen to anyone and I think that is exactly why I love his work so much. Jason and Nora are an average couple in their forties living back in his hometown of Ednaville after spending some time in NYC. They don’t have any children and live a peaceful, sedate lifestyle for the most part. As the hits kept coming for the couple, I found myself wondering what I or my husband would do in the same situation and most of what Jason did was easy to understand and identify with. 

This was a compelling read, I kept wondering where the heck Hayden was and if she was alright and I also wondered how what happened on Jason’s graduation night would all tie in. It was a constant guessing game, exactly what I crave when I’m reading a mystery. It’s a multilayered story with good old small town secrets and a tightly wound plot. Bell is such a great writer, the pages just fly by as you get caught up in his characters lives. 

Overall rating: 4/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy. 

About Bring Her Home: 

In the breathtaking new thriller from David Bell, bestselling author of Since She Went Away and Somebody I Used to Know, the fate of two missing teenage girls becomes a father’s worst nightmare…. 

Just a year and a half after the tragic death of his wife, Bill Price’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Summer, and her best friend, Haley, disappear. Days later, the girls are found in a city park. Haley is dead at the scene, while Summer is left beaten beyond recognition and clinging to life.

As Bill holds vigil over Summer’s bandaged body, the only sound the unconscious girl can make is one cryptic and chilling word: No. And the more time Bill spends with Summer, the more he wonders what happened to her. Or if the injured girl in the hospital bed is really his daughter at all.

When troubling new questions about Summer’s life surface, Bill is not prepared for the aftershocks. He’ll soon discover that both the living and the dead have secrets. And that searching for the truth will tear open old wounds that pierce straight to the heart of his family…

Giveaway: 

Open to my US friends only please, good luck! Enter here. 

Goodreads|Amazon|Author Website
Release date: June 27, 2017

Publisher: Dutton Books

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Blurb: 

A riveting psychological thriller inspired by the never-caught Zodiac Killer, about a young detective determined to apprehend the serial murderer who destroyed her family and terrorized a city twenty years earlier.

Caitlin Hendrix has been a Narcotics detective for six months when the killer at the heart of all her childhood nightmares reemerges: the Prophet. An UNSUB—what the FBI calls an unknown subject—the Prophet terrorized the Bay Area in the 1990s and nearly destroyed her father, the lead investigator on the case.

The Prophet’s cryptic messages and mind games drove Detective Mack Hendrix to the brink of madness, and Mack’s failure to solve the series of ritualized murders—eleven seemingly unconnected victims left with the ancient sign for Mercury etched into their flesh—was the final nail in the coffin for a once promising career.

Twenty years later, two bodies are found bearing the haunting signature of the Prophet. Caitlin Hendrix has never escaped the shadow of her father’s failure to protect their city. But now the ruthless madman is killing again and has set his sights on her, threatening to undermine the fragile barrier she rigidly maintains for her own protection, between relentless pursuit and dangerous obsession.

Determined to decipher his twisted messages and stop the carnage, Caitlin ignores her father’s warnings as she draws closer to the killer with each new gruesome murder. Is it a copycat, or can this really be the same Prophet who haunted her childhood? Will Caitlin avoid repeating her father’s mistakes and redeem her family name, or will chasing the Prophet drag her and everyone she loves into the depths of the abyss? 

Review: 

Having seen every single episode of Criminal Minds I like to fancy myself an amateur behavior analyst. Not in the sense that I can actually analyze human behavior with any skill, but more along the lines of; I know the right terminology and how profiling works in a general way. So the minute I saw the title of this I was interested, Unsub stands for unknown subject and my hours of watching CM taught me this along with terms like victimology and escalation. This stuff fascinates me and UNSUB read just like one manic episode of one of my favorite shows. 

Caitlin is a new officer and this is her first major case. I really liked her as a lead, she’s strong yet vulnerable inside, and she’s also super sharp and witty. The mix of her personal and professional lives was perfectly balanced, and her fathers connection to the Prophet killer was a nice addition. 

The construction of this complicated plot was totally brilliant, the first half is fast paced enough, but around the halfway point things really get kicked into high gear and the tension is through the roof. It’s a deadly game of cat and mouse and the pacing is relentless. The Prophet was one of the scariest fictional killers I’ve ever come across, for as much as I read books with serial killers I normally don’t get that frightened but I have to admit that I was scared witless this time! He’s meticulous, ruthless, calculated and cunning and though he’s laid low for twenty years, he’s back with a vengeance. History is repeating itself in the worst possible way and things come to a head in an explosive, gripping conclusion. 

I’ve been deliberately vague in terms of the plot, but trust me when I say, if you like serial killer novels or shows, this is a must read! 

Overall rating: 5/5