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.

Isabella's Reading Corner: True Crime Story

True Crime Story

Author: Joseph Knox

Publication Date: December 7, 2021

Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark

True Crime Story by Joseph Knox is an intriguing and unique novel. Written in ‘documentary’ style, the author includes himself as both narrator and character in his own book. This creates a highly immersive experience, which I found to be extremely effective. At times it’s difficult to remember this is a fictional account. I’ve not read anything quite like it and if you’re a true crime enthusiast or a fan of suspense thrillers like I am, this is a book I highly recommend. 

From the publisher:

What happens to all the girls who go missing?

The thrilling story of a university student's sudden disappearance, the woman who became obsessed with her case, and the crime writer who uncovered the chilling truth about what happened...

In 2011, Zoe Nolan walked out of her dormitory in Manchester and was never seen or heard from again. Her case went cold. Her story was sad, certainly, but hardly sensational, crime writer Joseph Knox thought. He wouldn't have given her any more thought were it not for his friend, Evelyn Mitchell. Another writer struggling to come up with a new idea, Evelyn was wondering just what happens to all the girls who go missing. What happens to the Zoe Nolans of the world?

Evelyn began investigating herself, interviewing Zoe's family and friends, and emailing Joseph with chapters of the book she was writing with her findings. Uneasy with the corkscrew twists and turns, Joseph Knox embedded himself in the case, ultimately discovering a truth more tragic and shocking than he could have possibly imagined...

Just remember: Everything you read is fiction.

You can read my original Isabella's Reading Corner post on True Crime Story here.

Current Read: A History of Wild Places

 

A History of Wild Places

Author: Shea Ernshaw

Publication Date: December 7, 2021

Publisher: Atria Books

From the publisher:

Travis Wren has an unusual talent for locating missing people. Hired by families as a last resort, he requires only a single object to find the person who has vanished. When he takes on the case of Maggie St. James—a well-known author of dark, macabre children’s books—he’s led to a place many believed to be only a legend.

Called Pastoral, this reclusive community was founded in the 1970s by like-minded people searching for a simpler way of life. By all accounts, the commune shouldn’t exist anymore and soon after Travis stumbles upon it…he disappears. Just like Maggie St. James.

Years later, Theo, a lifelong member of Pastoral, discovers Travis’s abandoned truck beyond the border of the community. No one is allowed in or out, not when there’s a risk of bringing a disease—rot—into Pastoral. Unraveling the mystery of what happened reveals secrets that Theo, his wife, Calla, and her sister, Bee, keep from one another. Secrets that prove their perfect, isolated world isn’t as safe as they believed—and that darkness takes many forms.

Hauntingly beautiful, hypnotic, and bewitching, A History of Wild Places is a story about fairy tales, our fear of the dark, and losing yourself within the wilderness of your mind.

You can read my original Isabella's Reading Corner post on A History of Wild Places here.

Isabella's Reading Corner: Nanny Dearest

Nanny Dearest

Author: Flora Collins

Publication Date: November 30, 2021

Publisher: Mira

Shortly after her father passes away, Sue Keller unexpectedly runs into Annie. Annie remembers Sue quite well from her days as her childhood nanny. Sue’s initial reaction toward her former nanny is ambiguous, but her feelings slowly evolve into something different. Is it Annie herself or is it what she represents that brings up such deep emotions within her?

Annie is ultimately a mysterious and shadowy figure. As the novel progresses and more about the past is revealed, there are startling surprises - some not so pleasant, but debut author Flora Collins manages to convey them in a way that serves the purpose of the story. 

From the first page I experienced an immediate sense of apprehension, and this inexplicable eeriness continues throughout the book. With themes of alienation, obsession, memory and betrayal, Nanny Dearest is a riveting read - disturbingly dark and twisted.

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

From the publisher:

In this compulsively readable novel of domestic suspense, a young woman takes comfort in reconnecting with her childhood nanny, until she starts to uncover secrets the nanny has been holding for twenty years. 

Sue Keller is lost. When her father dies suddenly, she's orphaned in her mid-twenties, her mother already long gone. Then Sue meets Annie. It’s been twenty years, but Annie could never forget that face. She was Sue’s live-in nanny at their big house upstate, and she loved Sue like she was her own. 

Craving connection and mothering, Sue is only too eager to welcome Annie back into her life; but as they become inseparable once again, Sue starts to uncover the truth about Annie's unsettling time in the Keller house all those years ago, particularly the manner of her departure—or dismissal. At the same time, she begins to grow increasingly alarmed for the safety of the two new charges currently in Annie's care. 

Told in alternating points of views—Annie in the mid-'90s and Sue in the present day—this taut novel of suspense will keep readers turning the pages right up to the shocking end.

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

Isabella's Reading Corner: You'll Be the Death of Me

 

You'll Be the Death of Me

Author: Karen M. McManus

Publication Date: November 30, 2021

Publisher: Delacorte Press

A day off turns deadly for three old friends, in the exciting new thriller by One of Us is Lying author Karen M. McManus! 

Told from the multiple viewpoints of the three leads, the story is fast-paced and exciting. The suspense of what was going to happen next kept me glued to my chair! I loved the interaction between the main characters and how it contributed toward their development. I’ve immensely enjoyed all of Karen’s books and You'll Be the Death of Me is a solid YA mystery that does not disappoint. 

Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada and Penguin Teen Canada for the advanced copy provided for review.

From the publisher:

From the author of One of Us Is Lying comes a brand-new pulse-pounding thriller. It's Ferris Bueller's Day Off with murder when three old friends relive an epic ditch day, and it goes horribly—and fatally—wrong. 

Ivy, Mateo, and Cal used to be close. Now all they have in common is Carlton High and the beginning of a very bad day. Type A Ivy lost a student council election to the class clown, and now she has to face the school, humiliated. Heartthrob Mateo is burned out from working two jobs since his family’s business failed. And outsider Cal just got stood up . . . again.  
  
So when the three unexpectedly run into each other, they decide to avoid their problems by ditching. Just the three of them, like old times. Except they’ve barely left the parking lot before they run out of things to say. . .  
  
. . . until they spot another Carlton High student skipping school—and follow him to the scene of his own murder. In one chance move, their day turns from dull to deadly. And it’s about to get worse. It turns out Ivy, Mateo, and Cal still have some things in common...like a connection to the dead kid. And they’re all hiding something.  
  
Could it be that their chance reconnection wasn’t by chance after all?  

You can read my original Isabella's Reading Corner post on You'll Be the Death of Me here.

Book Birthday: The Witching Tree by Alice Blanchard

The Witching Tree 

A Natalie Lockhart Novel (Natalie Lockhart, 3)

Author: Alice Blanchard

Publication Date: December 7, 2021

Publisher: Minotaur Books

Happy Book Birthday to The Witching Tree and author Alice Blanchard!

This is the third title in the thrilling Natalie Lockhart series. If you’ve not read them yet, now is the perfect time to get started!

From the publisher:

Welcome to Burning Lake, a small, isolated town with a dark history of witches and false accusations. Now, a modern-day witch has been murdered, and Detective Natalie Lockhart is reluctantly drawn deep into the case, in this atmospheric mystery from Alice Blanchard, The Witching Tree.

As legend has it, if you carve your deepest desire into the bark of a Witch Tree, then over time as the tree grows, it will swallow the carvings until only a witch can read them.

Until now.

Detective Natalie Lockhart gained unwanted notoriety when she and her family became front and center of not one, but two sensational murder cases. Now she’s lost her way. Burned out and always looking over her shoulder, Natalie desperately thinks that quitting the police force is her only option left.

All that changes when a beloved resident―a practicing Wiccan and founder of the town’s oldest coven―is killed in a fashion more twisted and shocking than Natalie has ever seen before, leaving the town reeling. Natalie has no choice but to help solve the case along with Detective Luke Pittman, her boss and the old childhood friend she cannot admit she loves, even to herself. There is a silent, malignant presence in Burning Lake that will not rest. And what happens next will shock the whole town, and Natalie, to the core.