Some books have the ability to haunt us; to linger in our minds long after we close the cover, to make us think and question in ways we have never done before. They pull us in and don’t let us out for a long, long time. They keep us up at night, turning pages in…
In Wendy Corsi Staub’s latest thriller Scared to Death, a book with nary a spec of romance in it, a knife-happy serial killer is plotting to harm not one but three children. I found the angst-filled plot hard to follow and even harder to enjoy. For starters, Scared to Death is a sequel to a…
What if your whole life was a secret? A lie meant to protect another lie? And what if those closest to you had lies of their own? Little secrets that they would kill to keep? What tales would you tell to set yourself free? And what secrets would you carry to the grave? Marissa Fordham…
A man cannot free himself from the past any more easily than he can from his own body. Andre Maurois. One of the things that fascinates me about parenthood is that we do not just give our children DNA. Along with all our little genetic quirks, we also pass on those quirks – emotional, habitual…
I’m certainly not unaccustomed to reading books or watching TV shows or movies that have violence; some of my favorites are romantic suspense or crime dramas. But rarely do they upset me quite as much as Katia Lief’s You Are Next did. Before the book started, former Detective Karin Shaeffer’s husband and baby daughter were…
Whenever Annie Sullivan sees a poster of herself she can not help thinking that the “Missing” caption is absolutely accurate. Even though she has physically returned from a year of horrific captivity, the woman who left is indeed still missing. In fact, Annie knows she always will be. Primarily told as a series of sessions…
It’s hard to pick up a contemporary book these days and not run smack into small town living. Most books capture the small towns we want to live in, a sort of Cheers with homes and streets, where everybody knows your name and is interested in your life. Few capture the insulated, isolated world that…
A noble hero, near-perfect in looks and conduct, is easy to admire. However, I have to admit that well-drawn characters who are rougher around the edges draw my attention just as easily. After losing his job as a police officer, Dylan Scott’s marriage imploded and his wife has kicked him out. To compound things, Dylan’s…
Are our childhood memories ever as accurate as we think they are? Do our minds sometimes force us to forget the unthinkable, shielding us from things that might make it hard for us to heal? Live to Tell is all about memories that destroy, but more, it is about the dangerous place that the human…
I’m not a big fan of ice cold wilderness survival stories, probably because I live in the North and am very aware of just how deadly a pristine winter wonderland can be. But used right, this setting can really add an eerie element of suspense to a novel as the surroundings suddenly become not just…