The Husband’s Secret – Liane Moriarty

 

How well do you know a person? How well do you know the person you are married to? In this book, the past can truly come back to haunt you and one wife has to decide if she can live with things she found out or if she can’t.

Cecilia Fitzpatrick is a successful and happy mother and wife living in suburban Sydney. She is respected in the community, even if she is a little bit of  talker, she is organized and has endless amounts of energy. Everything is perfect. Except when she finds a letter addressed to her, from her husband to read after his death. Curious, she reads the letter and discovers a secret that shatters her entire perfect world and the very foundation on which her life is built. She has to decide what to do with the information, but meanwhile there are other people involved.

Tess’s husband Will, has told her that he is love with her cousin Felicia. Rachel, still grieving after many years about the unsolved murder of her daughter, is heartbroken again because he son and his wife plan on taking their family (including her precious grandson) to America. Her grandson was the only thing filling her days, and now he will be gone. She is left with only the memories of her daughter and the certainty that she knows the killer not only walks free, but lives in the community!

The major theme of the story is sadness. There are marriages that are broken, lies that are revealed, wrongs that were never righted and in the end, prices that have to be paid.

It leads you think…what would you do if your spouse told you a deep dark secret? What could you live with?

After Anna – Lisa Scottoline

I really love Lisa’s books. Simply put, she keeps the reader engaged and even if you can ‘guess’ the plot twist, you are still riveted until the very end. Each chapter ends with a cliff hanger or right in the middle of a conversation, so you have no choice but to continue reading. Sometimes I found myself putting the book down in the middle of a chapter for that reason. Does anyone else do that? Otherwise, I would have had to stay up and finish it all in one reading!

In this story, Dr. Noah Alderman and his son Caleb are happy with their new life with Maggie, a women Noah meets after the death of his wife. Maggie fits in perfectly, loves Caleb as if he were her own and even plans on adopting him. Despite how happy she is, she still longs for the daughter, Anna, that got taken away from her when Anna was just a baby. Now, 17 years later, Anna reaches out to her long lost mother and wants to reunite.

Maggie and Noah know it will be an adjustment having Anna live with them, but they are willing to make it work because they are both so happy that Maggie gets a second chance with her daughter. At first, everything seems okay, despite Anna having some issues with following the rules of the house. Maggie is so overjoyed at having her daughter back, that she misses some red flags that come up. Noah and Caleb, however, do not. This causes a giant rift in the household between Maggie and Anna and Noah and Caleb. Then, the unthinkable happens, Anna is murdered and Noah is charged with the murder.

The story goes back and forth between the time before Anna and the time after Anna, and is told from the perspective of Noah and Maggie. The reader is left wondering who is telling the truth, Anna or Noah? What would another parent do in a situation like this? How awful would be it to be reunited with your kid, only to have them taken away so quickly.

It is a story of betrayal, murder and heartbreak. I enjoyed this book, even if the dialog was a little forced at times. It moved quickly, it had a great beginning, middle and the conclusion wasn’t rushed. I would suggest to any Lisa Scottloline fan, mystery or fiction fans.

Big Little Lies -Liane Moriarty

I really liked this book. It was funny, suspenseful, heart-warming and real. I loved that the characters were people I knew in real life. As a parent in a small community school district, you really do meet most of these ‘types’ of parents. It is also wonderful to read a book where your say to yourself – I want to read more by this author.

In this story we open with a murder investigation. We don’t find out who is murdered until the end of the book (which is great). Also, I believe it is difficult to guess who has been murdered and who did the murder until the end. Unless you are Sherlock Holmes. I admit, I have a hard time knowing Whodunit until the end, but this one I think would have most people guessing.

We meet a new mother to the community, Jane, who has a five year old son Ziggy. She befriends Madeline and Celeste who both have kids starting Kindergarten as well. On the very first day of school, Ziggy is called out for bullying one of the little girls in class. Ziggy says it wasn’t him, and Jane believes her son. Lines are drawn as parents defend Ziggy and Jane or Renata (the mother of Chloe who was bullied). All leading up to a trivia night held at the school when the murder took place.

Leading up to the night, we see into the lives of each of the characters. Their perfect lives are lead bare and we see that what is on the surface or posted on social media, isn’t always the truth. That success doesn’t equal happiness, that profile pictures rarely show the hidden scars and that you should never judge a person based on first glances.

As I said, I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more of her stories.

 

The Obsession – Nora Roberts

I love a good Nora Roberts book. They are predictable, they always end well, and you can pretty much read one in less than a day or two. I took this one camping with me, because of how easy it would be to read and put down. The woman has written more books than I can count – so she is doing something right.

In this story the female protagonist is a photographer with a deep dark past. Her father is the notorious serial killer Thomas David Bowes. She is the one who found one of his victims and she is the one that helped the poor girl escape. Years later she has moved across country and changed her name. Living as Naomi Carson she tries to hide that part of her past, bury it deep and prays that no one will ever know of the evil she is convinced runs through her veins.

Enter in Xander Keaton, a local mechanic and business owner who is intrigued by the newcomer and wants to know more about her and pushes until he gets her to open up. (in a loving respectful way of course)

She is gorgeous (of course), and he is handsome (duh), both are fiery and passionate, both have a strong worth ethic and don’t sit for more than a minute. Things go along just fine until people in town start dying. It looks like someone is copying Naomi’s father and wants her to know about it.

Naomi, Xander and her brother Mason try to find the killer before he kills again.

It, as I said, is a Nora Roberts book. It is tight, has predictable characters, a predictable setting, the required tension between two lovers, and the tidy little ending. If it sounds like I am putting down her work – I am not – I really do enjoy her works for this reason. It is like hanging out with a best friend. You know how the night will go, you know that you will talk about things you’ve talked about before, you know that when you part you will be equally happy and sad. Happy that you got to spend time together and sad that it had to end. That is what makes these books so nice.

Eve and Adam -Katherine Applegate and Michael Grant

This is a fluff book. That is the simplest way I can explain it. At just over 300 pages, it is a very quick read without a whole lot of depth. That being said, I did enjoy it. I feel like there was a lot more the authors could have done with the story, but I did enjoy it for it being what it was.

Evening (E.V) gets into a horrible car accident (no spoiler – that happens in the first page), and is moved to her mothers laboratory to heal. While she is there her mother gives her a task of using DNA coding to create the ‘perfect being’. It is a simulation meant for anyone to be able to use. So E.V. gets working on it, eventually creating the perfect man. As the reader finds out though, what you see isn’t exactly what is going on. The laboratory hides secrets, and people want those secrets to come out and others who will kill to make sure they don’t. E.V. gets torn between two realities and must chose which one she will go with. Solo, a strange boy she meets while she is recovering, or her mother.

After the two tombs I just read, this was a nice escape. A very easy read, moved along at good pace and wasn’t challenging or upsetting. I needed it.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys young adult fiction, science fiction, or is a fan of Michael Grant.

No One Gets Out Alive – Adam Nevill

My second book by Adam Nevill – the being the Ritual which I reviewed here.

First off, I find his writing challenging at times. That is not to say that I don’t enjoy his novels, I do, but sometimes the writing loses the reader if that makes any sense.

This book is basically split into two halves. The first half is a page turner while the second…not so much. I found myself struggling to get through the last 100 pages, and not really caring one way or the other what happened. That is the best way to describe it I think.

In this story, Stephanie is a poor girl who is estranged from her step-mother. She has no family, no close friends and works temporary minimum wage jobs. Therefore, she is forced to find rooms in areas that most people avoid. She finds a room at 82 Edgware Road and thinks she found something nice, the room is at least, bigger than her last and the price is right. She hands over the first month and deposit and, as the reader soon finds out, part of her sanity.

Strange things start happening immediately as in the first night. She doesn’t feel right about the house and tries to leave, but penniless, she has no option but to stay until she gets paid, meanwhile more things happen and the landlord refuses to help her.

It is a psychological suspense novel that dives deep into the breaking point we all have in us. If you take out the supernatural part, it also raises awareness to that seedy, dark, and dangerous place that lives in most cities. Where girls disappear without a trace and without so much as care. It made me want to open a boarding house for women that was safe, warm and caring.

As I said, this book is split into halves, the first being really good and the second meandering toward anticlimactic ending. I think I mentioned that the Ritual meandered too, so maybe that is his style. As always, this is my opinion. I don’t think Stephen King is too wordy, although others won’t read him because they think he is. Maybe Adam’s style works for some people, but I feel like this will be my last book by him.

 

Swan Song – Robert McCammon

I love me a good post-apocalyptic story, but this one was a especially good. I think people who have read and loved The Stand by Stephen King would really like this novel. The book kept popping up in my suggestions on Goodreads, Twitter, my library. Finally I said, alright, alright I’ll read it! I am so glad I did. I can tell that it will be one that I will re-read.

In this story we follow a few people who have some how survived a nuclear attack where one country attacks, then another and before you know it all the countries are firing their weapons. They hit major cities, of course, followed by our military bases. What is left of America is a waste land where nothing grows, the air and water are poison, and food is scarce. You would think people would band together and try to find a way to survive together. But no. This is humanity. It is every man for themselves and unfortunately it isn’t too far of a stretch to read Robert’s view of what people are capable of doing when there is nothing left to live for.

We meet Sister who lived in New York City as a bag lady and survived by taking shelter in an subway tunnel. We meet John (a wrestler )and Swan (a 7 year old girl), who took cover in a bunker at a gas station. Roland (a teenage boy) and Colonel James Macklin who have survived because they had already been in a fallout shelter.

We read what happens to these people moments after the bombs hit, the fires, the flash burns, the blindness. We read what happens weeks and months after, the shock, the depression, the starvation, the sickness.

Sister finds a glass “crown” that allows her to ‘dream-walk’. In those dream-walk’s she sees a person of importance, the closer she is to them the more clear the image, but she is always just a little too far away. Meanwhile, John notices that Swan can make grass grow. He doesn’t think much of it at the time though, he just knows that he must protect Swan at all costs, with his life if it comes to that. Roland and Colonel Macklin have formed, The Army of Excellence. Hell bent on killing anyone that gets in their way of ‘rebuilding’ America.

Then Robert takes us 7 years into the future. Sister has been sweeping the country-side looking for the person in her glass ‘crown’.  Roland and Macklin have grown their army to thousands of solders and have laid waste to any settlement they come against. Swan is now a 17 year old girl and she rediscovers her ‘gift’ of making things grow. It is Swan that is the future of bringing back food, plants, and life to the barren planet. When Colonel Macklin and Roland hear about her, they know they must have her in their possession.

It is all out post-apocalyptic story that gives you everything: rich detail, engaging characters, battles of good and evil, hope, despair, love and hate. Who wins in the end? Is there ever a winner? Is there a lesson to be learned? Is humanity capable of learning that lesson?

This book might hit a bit too close in these troubled times.

Outsider – Stephen King

 

I feel like Stephen King just gets better and better. Which is a huge complement, because I already thought his books were amazing.

Outsider is Stephen King the latest novel in a long line of novels by the “Master of Horror”. I believe one of the reasons that Stephen King remains a master is because he writes about real fear. Yes, monsters are scary, but the scariest monsters are the ones that live next door to us. Our deepest fears are what he writes about it. I believe I have said this before, and it holds true for Outsider.

In this story we open with Detective Ralph Anderson arresting a popular teacher and coach, Terry Maitland at a little league game for the murder of a little boy. In the subsequent chapters, we get a look to why the cops arrested Terry and their compelling evidence of his guilt, and we see Terry’s counter evidence to his innocence. The cops, district attorney, lawyers and detectives are then forced to leave what is black and white and go into a shady gray area that none of them are ready to deal with.

This story is a gripping, page turning ride that leaves the reader, as always, wanting more.

I really enjoyed this book and encourage any Stephen King fan to read it.

The Ritual – Adam Nevill

Do you ever read books that you enjoyed but at the end you can’t really say why? This is what this book was for me. I follow a few people on twitter that give out book recommendations which for me, are some of the best recommendations out there. Times might tell me about a great new author or book, but for some reason when someone I have never met on Twitter says, “This book the reason I don’t go camping”. I just have to read it.

This book is about four friends (Luke, Hutch, Phil and Dom), who go camping for a ‘guys weekend’ to reunite. Life got in the way, marriage, kids, jobs, etc. Two of the men are healthy, avid outdoors men and two of them have as they say, let themselves go. After trekking through the Scandinavian wilderness for a few days, Hutch and Luke realize that Phil and Dom just can’t make the hike they have planned. Dom’s knee is busted and Phil’s feet have painful blisters. They decide to take a shortcut through the woods but unfortunately, (despite Hutch’s knowledge of the forest), they get hopelessly lost. The discover a gruesome sight of a desecrated animal corpse strung out between two trees and that is where things go from bad to worse.

The reader is stumbling, falling, crashing and suffering right along with the men as they try to desperately get out of the forest. Unfortunately, they are not alone and the there are things in this world that cannot be explained and should never be seen.

Although the book (in my opinion) meandered a bit and felt a tad rushed at the end, it was still gripping and Adam’s detail both in character and scenery and scenery description was very rich and at times even too detailed.

I enjoyed this book and will look for others by Adam Neville.

Strange Weather – Joe Hill

 

This is a collection of four shorts stories by Joe Hill and each story has some sort of “weather” attached to it. Except for Loaded – unless it was the heat.

Snapshot is a story about a boy who is taking care of his elderly neighbor who has what appears to be dementia or some kind of senility. He runs into a man with a strange camera and is unnerved when the lady warns him to not let the man take his picture! What follows is the boy leaving the realm of the known into the unknown as he tries to save what is left of his neighbors mind. Come to think of this one doesn’t have anything to do with weather either – unless it is the torrential down pours.

Loaded is just about everyone’s nightmare and one of the hardest ones to read – you will see why. A girl working in a jewelry story is driven to violence and decides to shoot her manger/lover. When a security officer who has a few screws loose comes to the ‘rescue’ and things escalate in a bad way. The fallout is told and the ending leaves the reader shocked and dismayed at the realization that this could happen…and maybe even has.

Aloft was kind of a fun story. Aubrey is terrified of heights but has agreed to go skydiving to impress the girl he is madly in love with. As he gets close to the jump he decides he can’t do it. Unfortunately, the plane has malfunctioned and he has no choice but to jump out to save his life. Him and his instructor jump but instead of making it to the ground they land on a cloud. The story tells of Aubrey discovery that he is on the cloud and his desperate attempt to get off it.

Rain is one of the sadder stories. I don’t think any character in this story doesn’t have either a tragic backstory, or a tragic plot line. One day in Boulder instead of raining normal rain it rains nails, spikes, needles. Tiny crystals that stab and kill people. Scientist are baffled, people die by the thousands and travel is near impossible because the spikes can flatten tires and go through shoes. Yet, Honeysuckle must travel to Denver to tell her girlfriends family that she was caught in the storm. On her travels she sees how quickly things fall apart, how quickly hope turns to despair, how some people try to help while others only look out for themselves. You realize that you never know the person you are with until the end, until it is almost too late.

I would say that out of all the stories I liked Rain the most. I could almost see it being a full length book, but also feel like it wrapped up nicely. In fact, all four stories wrapped up nicely which is one thing I find a problem with usually in short stories. These were perfect, I read them, I enjoyed them; when they were done I was done as well. Great collection for the Joe Hill fans.