Isabella's Reading Corner: The Personal Assistant

 

The Personal Assistant

Author: Kimberly Belle

Publication Date: November 29, 2022

Publisher: Park Row

Alex Hutchinson is living the dream! She has a wonderful husband, two lovely daughters and as unapolageticallyalex, is a wildly popular influencer… until she wakes up to a nightmare. A nasty post, apparently written by her about a famous actress, has appeared on her Instagram. 

Overnight Alex has become a pariah. Her followers have turned against her, her career is in jeopardy and she and her family are receiving death threats. Alex has no recollection of writing the post and her personal assistant AC is missing. Did AC, the only other individual with access to Alex’s social media accounts, set her up and if so, why?

The Personal Assistant is a fast, easy read and I say this with the highest of compliments. Author Kimberly Belle’s writing style is direct - a style I appreciate, free of flowery embellishments and innuendos. What’s left is a great story, well-rounded characters, excellent pacing and just the right amount of suspense to keep you turning the pages. Highly recommended.

Thank you to Harper Collins Canada for the advanced copy provided for review.

From the publisher:

USA TODAY bestselling author Kimberly Belle returns with a deeply addictive thriller exploring the dark side of the digital world when a mommy-blogger’s assistant goes missing.  

When Alex first began posting unscripted family moments and motivational messages online, she had no intention of becoming an influencer. Overnight it seemed she’d amassed a huge following, and her hobby became a full-time job—one that was impossible to manage without her sharp-as-a-tack personal assistant, AC.

But all the good-will of her followers turns toxic when one controversial post goes viral in the worst possible way. Alex reaches out to AC for damage control, but her assistant has gone silent. This young woman Alex trusted with all her secrets, who had access to her personal information and front row seats to the pressure points in her marriage and family life, is now missing and the police are looking to Alex and her husband for answers. As Alex digs into AC’s identity – and a woman is found murdered – she’ll find the greatest threat isn’t online, but in her own living room.

Written in alternating perspectives between Alex, her husband, and the mysterious AC, this juicy cat and mouse story will keep you guessing till the very end.

You can read my original Isabella's Reading Corner post on The Personal Assistant here.

Isabella's Reading Corner: The Perfect Family

The Perfect Family

Author: Robyn Harding

Publication Date: August 10, 2021

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Thomas and Viv Adler, along with their two teenaged children, appear to be the ideal family, living a picture perfect, flawless life. After a seemingly isolated prank escalates into more alarming incidents, it becomes clear that at least one person isn’t fond of the Adlers! Each member of the family is harbouring a dangerous secret, one of which could be the reason behind the disturbing attacks. 

Wow, this is quite a book! Robyn Harding is a stupendous writer, this was such a fast-paced, compelling read, extremely clever and fun. The story is told from the alternating viewpoints of each member of this crazy dysfunctional family, and I couldn’t get enough. The suspense builds as more revelations are uncovered. There are many twisty-turns throughout and the author kept me guessing every step of the way. Highly recommended! 

From the publisher:

In The Perfect Family—which has received starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Booklist—#1 bestselling author Robyn Harding explores what happens when a seemingly perfect family is pushed to the edge...and beyond.

Thomas and Viv Adler have a picture-perfect family. Affluent and attractive, with two well-mannered kids almost out of the nest, they live in a beautifully restored Craftsman house in a well-to-do neighborhood in Portland, Oregon. Their jobs are secure; their children are thriving; the world is their oyster.

Until one morning, when they wake up to find that their house and car have been pelted with eggs. Thomas dismisses it as the work of a few out-of-control kids, but when a smoke bomb is tossed on their front lawn, and the tires on their BMW are punctured, he begins to worry. The family installs surveillance cameras but they show nothing but grainy images of shadowy figures in hoodies. Unable to identify the perpetrators, they are helpless as the assaults escalate. The police assure them that this is just the work of bored teenagers. But no one in the Adler family believes it. After all, each of them has a secret—kept not only from the outside world but from each other.

Seventeen-year-old Tarryn is dabbling in a seedy online world; her older brother, Eli, has dropped out of college and refuses to tell his parents why; and Thomas and Viv have their own secrets that began as harmless fun and relief from the pressures of everyday life, but have grown into something darker and more dangerous. As the Adlers grapple with their guilt, fear, and shame, the assaults grow deadly. Their “perfect” façade is crumbling, and it may be too late for any of them to do anything about it in this addictive and twisty suspense novel that will keep you turning pages until its explosive ending.

You can read my original Isabella's Reading Corner post on The Perfect Family here.

Isabella's Reading Corner: Such a Quiet Place

 

Such a Quiet Place

Author: Megan Miranda

Publication Date: July 13, 2021

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Hollow’s Edge is the perfect place to live, that is until the murders! Ruby Fletcher is convicted of killing Brandon and Fiona Truett. After serving 14 months in prison, she’s released and now she’s back in Hollow’s Edge. This is much to the surprise and dismay of the residents, who testified against Ruby at her trial. Were they all telling the truth or was Ruby innocent of the crimes and is now out for revenge?

Such a Quiet Place is a chilling and twisty whodunnit. It’s an atmospheric mystery with a compelling and unnerving cast of characters. The story starts off slowly with an opportunity to get to know more about them and the circumstances surrounding the killings. If Ruby isn’t the murderer, it could be any one of them! 

Miranda has a delicate, yet convincing way of revealing the layers underneath the surface of the personas. There is definitely a lot more going on in Hollow’s Edge than meets the eye and I enjoyed the tense build up that led to the conclusion! 

From the publisher:

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Last House Guest—a Reese Witherspoon Book Club selection—comes a riveting, “suspenseful” (BookPage, starred review) novel about a mysterious murder in an idyllic and close-knit neighborhood.

Welcome to Hollow’s Edge, where you can find secrets, scandal, and a suspected killer—all on one street.

Hollow’s Edge use to be a quiet place. A private and idyllic neighborhood where neighbors dropped in on neighbors, celebrated graduation and holiday parties together, and looked out for one another. But then came the murder of Brandon and Fiona Truett. A year and a half later, Hollow’s Edge is simmering. The residents are trapped, unable to sell their homes, confronted daily by the empty Truett house, and suffocated by their trial testimonies that implicated one of their own. Ruby Fletcher. And now, Ruby’s back.

With her conviction overturned, Ruby waltzes right back to Hollow’s Edge, and into the home she shared with Harper Nash. Harper, five years older, has always treated Ruby like a wayward younger sister. But now she’s terrified. What possible good could come of Ruby returning to the scene of the crime? And how can she possibly turn her away, when she knows Ruby has nowhere to go?

Within days, suspicion spreads like a virus across Hollow’s Edge. It’s increasingly clear that not everyone told the truth about the night of the Truetts’ murders. And when Harper begins receiving threatening notes, she realizes she has to uncover the truth before someone else becomes the killer’s next victim.

Pulsating with suspense and with Megan Miranda’s trademark shocking twists, Such a Quiet Place is Megan Miranda’s best novel yet—a “powerful, paranoid thriller” (Booklist, starred review) that will keep you turning the pages late into the night.

You can read my original Isabella's Reading Corner post on Such a Quiet Place here.

Isabella's Reading Corner: Girl in Ice

Girl in Ice

Author: Erica Ferencik

Publication Date: March 1, 2022

Publisher: Gallery/Scout Press

Val Chesterfield is devastated upon receiving the harrowing news of her beloved twin brother’s suspected suicide. As a climate scientist, Andy had been researching in the Arctic Circle. His body was found after he had intentionally gone outside unprotected in below zero temperatures. 

Following his death, Val is surprised to receive an email from Wyatt Speeks, Andy’s close friend, professor, and mentor. Wyatt has made a seemingly impossible discovery - a young girl frozen in ice who has subsequently thawed out alive. He invites Val, an exceptional linguist, to come to the frigid north to decipher the girl’s language, as it is unlike any heard before and there is something the child is desperate to convey.

Val has reservations and is reluctant to go. Despite suffering from crippling anxiety, she makes the decision to travel to the remote station off the coast of Greenland, in the hope of communicating with the girl and also in an attempt to understand why her brother killed himself. 

From the claustrophobic atmosphere inside the buildings where the characters dwell to the vastness of the frozen landscape, Author Erica Ferencik writes with a visually descriptive style devoid of unnecessary embellishments. Her characters are distinctive. Their emotional development and interactions as the story progresses is comprehensible. There’s a lot of action and suspense - Girl in Ice is most certainly a page turner. I was impressed by this thrilling novel and am excited to read Ferencik’s previous books.

From the publisher:

From the author of The River at Night and Into the Jungle comes a harrowing new thriller set in the unforgiving landscape of the Arctic Circle, as a brilliant linguist struggling to understand the apparent suicide of her twin brother ventures hundreds of miles north to try to communicate with a young girl who has been thawed from the ice alive. 

Valerie “Val” Chesterfield is a linguist trained in the most esoteric of disciplines: dead Nordic languages. Despite her successful career, she leads a sheltered life and languishes in the shadow of her twin brother, Andy, an accomplished climate scientist stationed on a remote island off Greenland’s barren coast. But Andy is gone: a victim of suicide, having willfully ventured unprotected into 50 degree below zero weather. Val is inconsolable—and disbelieving. She suspects foul play. 

When Wyatt, Andy’s fellow researcher in the Arctic, discovers a scientific impossibility¬—a young girl frozen in the ice who thaws out alive, speaking a language no one understands—Val is his first call. Will she travel to the frozen North to meet this girl, and try to comprehend what she is so passionately trying to communicate? Under the auspices of helping Wyatt interpret the girl’s speech, Val musters every ounce of her courage and journeys to the Artic to solve the mystery of her brother’s death. 

The moment she steps off the plane, her fear threatens to overwhelm her. The landscape is fierce, and Wyatt, brilliant but difficult, is an enigma. But the girl is special, and Val’s connection with her is profound. Only something is terribly wrong; the child is sick, maybe dying, and the key to saving her lies in discovering the truth about Wyatt’s research. Can his data be trusted? And does it have anything to do with how and why Val’s brother died? With time running out, Val embarks on an incredible frozen odyssey—led by the unlikeliest of guides—to rescue the new family she has found in the most unexpected of places.

You can read my original Isabella's Reading Corner post on Girl in Ice here.

Cover Reveal - Cherish by Tracy Wolff

Cherish

Author: Tracy Wolff

Publication Date; November 8, 2022

Publisher: Entangled TEEN

About Cherish:

What happened at Katmere definitely isn't staying at Katmere...

Grace has finally graduated from Katmere Academy, but the dangers from school aren’t quite done with her. Now she and her friends must travel to the Shadow Realm to rescue one of their own. But there are still a few new surprises waiting for Grace—along with a betrayal that could destroy them all.

Cherish is the 6th book in the Crave series by New York Times bestselling author Tracy Wolff!

Current Read: Twenty Years Later

Twenty Years Later

Author: Charlie Donlea

Publication Date: December 28, 2021

Publisher: Kensington

My first book of the year...

From the publisher:

In the gripping, fast-paced new thriller from USA Today, IndieBound, and #1 internationally bestselling author Charlie Donlea, a TV news host sets out to uncover the truth behind a gruesome tale of sex, betrayal, and murder twenty years after the investigation was abandoned in the wake of 9/11.

Avery Mason, host of American Events, knows the subjects that grab a TV audience’s attention. Her latest story—a murder mystery laced with kinky sex, tragedy, and betrayal—is guaranteed to be ratings gold. New DNA technology has allowed the New York medical examiner’s office to make its first successful identification of a 9/11 victim in years. The twist: the victim, Victoria Ford, had been accused of the gruesome murder of her married lover. In a chilling last phone call to her sister, Victoria begged her to prove her innocence.

Emma Kind has waited twenty years to put her sister to rest, but closure won’t be complete until she can clear Victoria’s name. Alone she’s had no luck, but she’s convinced that Avery’s connections and fame will help. Avery, hoping to negotiate a more lucrative network contract, goes into investigative overdrive. Victoria had been having an affair with a successful novelist, found hanging from the balcony of his Catskills mansion. The rope, the bedroom, and the entire crime scene was covered in Victoria’s DNA.

 

But the twisted puzzle of Victoria’s private life is just the beginning. And what Avery doesn't realize is that there are other players in the game who are interested in Avery’s own secret past—one she has kept hidden from both the network executives and her television audience. A secret she thought was dead and buried . . . 

 

Accused of a brutal murder, Victoria Ford made a final chilling call from the North Tower on the morning of 9/11.

Twenty years ago, no one listened.

Today, you will.

TWENTY YEARS LATER, to understand the present, you need to listen to the past...

Current Read: Hide

Hide

Author: Kiersten White

Publication Date: May 24, 2022

Publisher: Del Rey

Isabella recently got her greedy little paws on the upcoming Hide by Kiersten White, so she and I will be starting it this weekend. It’s a supernatural thriller about a hide-and-seek competition that takes place in an abandoned amusement park… yes, please!

From the publisher:

A high-stakes hide-and-seek competition turns deadly in this dark supernatural thriller from New York Times bestselling author Kiersten White. 

The challenge: Spend a week hiding in an abandoned amusement park and don’t get caught. 

The prize: enough money to change everything. 

Even though everyone is desperate to win—to seize a dream future or escape a haunting past—Mack is sure she can beat her competitors. All she has to do is hide, and she’s an expert at that. 

It’s the reason she’s alive and her family isn’t. 

But as the people around her begin disappearing one by one, Mack realizes that this competition is even more sinister than she imagined, and that together might be the only way to survive. 

Fourteen competitors. Seven days. Everywhere to hide but nowhere to run. 

Come out, come out, wherever you are.

You can read my original Isabella's Reading Corner post on Hide here.