Hello, Tartlets! I'm so excited to be part of the blog tour for Hidden Pictures. Because I seriously loved this book. (Whew! What a relief. It would've been totally awkward to be part of a blog tour for a book I hated.) Billed as "The Haunting of Hill House meets The Perfect Nanny," this supernatural thriller by Jason Rekulak surpassed all the expectations I had for it. I ripped through Hidden Pictures in just two days. TWO DAYS! Every spare...
You're getting two books in one with The Plot, a story about a novelist who steals an idea from a student, becomes a bestselling author, and then is stalked by someone who wants to reveal "the truth" that the idea for his bestselling novel wasn't his. The majority of the The Plot follows fictional author Jacob Finch Bonner, the "idea stealer," but we also see a fair bit of the story Bonner writes based on the "stolen idea." Yeah, you noticing...
"To the Women." Author Liza Rodman dedicated her memoir, The Babysitter: My Summers with a Serial Killer, "to the women." I always read dedication pages, and when I saw this phrase at the beginning of the book, I thought the sentiment was sweet. But, that's about it. Because I didn't know yet. I didn't know what I was about to read. By the time I finished reading The Babysitter, the full impact of "to the women" hit me like a brick. The...
If you're looking for a darn good suspense novel, The Family Upstairs is what you should be reading next, Tartlets. The hauntingly engrossing story unfurls slowly, nudging the events of twenty-five years prior toward what's being revealed in the present day. Suspense builds steadily, as well as a growing sense of horror at what allegedly took place in an upmarket house in affluent Chelsea, London. It plasters on layer upon layer of disturbing...
I'm not sure how I stumbled across The Girl Who Died; I think author Ragnar Jonasson blurbed another scary book that I'd read and loved. I thought, if I loved that book, I'd probably love books by this author, too. The Girl Who Died, despite its off-putting title, was a really enjoyable read. It's brimming with tension and atmopshere, suspense and mystery. Main character Una spontaneously accepts a teaching job in the ultra-remote Icelandic...
I never really think of December as a spooky time of year, but author Cassandra Parkin manages to change that with her book The Winter's Child. This suspenseful novel is full of twists and turns, ghostly premonitions and ghastly visions as main character Susannah waits for her long-lost -- and possibly deceased-- son to return to her on Christmas Eve. Susannah's a frustrating main character. She's clearly grieving and needs mental help, but...
N0S4A2 is a Christmas book in the way that Die Hard is a Christmas movie. It's a horror novel that just so happens to be centered around Christmas. There are all the entrancing, alluring elements of the holidays that we love – carols, trees decorated with oranaments, the smell of gingerbread in the air – but author Joe Hill doles out each charming tidbit with a sinister twist that morphs the innocent into something incredibly dark and...
The Last Commandment, which is the first book in the Austin Grant of Scotland Yard series by Scott Shepherd, has a really great premise: a serial killer running across two continents, leaving behind murder victims who correspond to The Ten Commandments. If you're a Dan Brown fan -- all about the murder mystery mixed with Christian religious themes -- I'm going to say this one is for you, even though I've never actually read a Dan Brown novel....
I uttered "What the fuck?" an unprecedented number of times while reading Bunny. That’s pretty much the only reaction you can have to this novel by Mona Awad. It's a complete What the actual eff??? ride from beginning to end. Bunny takes place at a prestigious art school. There’s a pack of hoity-toity, grad school women there who behave like middle schoolers; they roam around in a pack, affectionately calling each other “Bunny” like...
A blogger friend recommended The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires to me during one of my reading slumps. I jumped on it since I’m a big fan of author Grady Hendrix’s previous novel, Horrorstor. Also, as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twilight enthusiast (don’t judge), I have a thing for vampires. So, I figured this Hendrix story was worth a shot.
What is The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires about? This...
