REVIEW: OPEN HOUSE, BY KATIE SISE

 

A decade ago in upstate New York, art student Emma McCullough walked in-to the woods and was never seen again. It’s a mystery that still haunts her bucolic university town and her broken family, especially her sister, Haley, whose need for closure has become an obsession. But now, finally, the first piece of evidence in the vanishing has been found: Emma’s bracelet, lodged in a frozen piece of earth at the bottom of a gorge. For Emma’s three best college friends, for a beloved former teacher, and for Haley, the chilling trinket is more than a clue in a resurrected cold case. It’s a trigger.

Then a woman is attacked during an open house, and the connections between the two crimes, ten winters apart, begin to surface. So do the secrets that run as deep and dark as the currents in this quiet river town.

Open House is a tale of a missing girl and the friends who each have pieces of information about the moments leading to the ten-year-old event.

Emma’s sister Haley, a med student; her fiancé, Dean; and her college roommate Josie and her husband Noah, are all part of the mystery. Brad and Priya also have bits of information.Our story alternates between the past and the present, narrated by the various characters.

Discovering what really happened on the night Emma went missing slowly comes together ten years afterwards, and I was stunned by all who were culpable in some way. 4.5 stars.

HUMP DAY POTPOURRI: WAITING ON “WILDE LAKE”

Welcome to another Waiting on Wednesday event, hosted by Jill, at Breaking the Spine.

Every week, we gather around the blogosphere and search out the upcoming book releases, sharing our thoughts and blurbs.   Today’s featured book will be released on May 3, 2016, and is from one of my favorite authors, Laura Lippman.  Wilde Lake is an evocative and psychologically complex story about a long-ago death that still haunts a family.

 

 

Synopsis:  Luisa “Lu” Brant is the newly elected—and first female—state’s attorney of Howard County, Maryland, a job in which her widower father famously served. Fiercely intelligent and ambitious, she sees an opportunity to make her name by trying a mentally disturbed drifter accused of beating a woman to death in her home. It’s not the kind of case that makes headlines, but peaceful Howard county doesn’t see many homicides.

As Lu prepares for the trial, the case dredges up painful memories, reminding her small but tight-knit family of the night when her brother, AJ, saved his best friend at the cost of another man’s life. Only eighteen, AJ was cleared by a grand jury. Now, Lu wonders if the events of 1980 happened as she remembers them. What details might have been withheld from her when she was a child?

The more she learns about the case, the more questions arise. What does it mean to be a man or woman of one’s times? Why do we ask our heroes of the past to conform to the present’s standards? Is that fair? Is it right? Propelled into the past, she discovers that the legal system, the bedrock of her entire life, does not have all the answers. Lu realizes that even if she could learn the whole truth, she probably wouldn’t want to.

***

I stumbled upon this upcoming release while I was posting a review at Goodreads, and I am so grateful to have done so.  I always enjoy this author’s books.

What do you think?  What are you waiting for?

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TUESDAY POTPOURRI: EXCERPTING “NO ONE KNOWS”

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by Jenn, at Books and a Beat.

Today’s featured book is an e-ARC from NetGalley, to be published on 3/22/16:  No One Knows, by J. T. Ellison.

 

 

Intro:  (Aubrey – Nashville – Today)

One thousand eight hundred and seventy-five days after Joshua Hamilton went missing, the State of Tennessee declared him legally dead.

Aubrey, his wife—or former wife, or ex-wife, or widow, she had no idea how to refer to herself anymore—received the certified letter on a Friday.  It came to the Montessori school where she taught, the very one she and Josh had attended as children.  Came to her door in the middle of reading time, borne on the hands of Linda Pierce, the school’s long-standing principal, who looked as if someone had died.

Which, in a way, they had.

***

Teaser:  (Chase)

He tapped the keyboard again, pulling his notes together.  Cursed his naivete for thinking he could play fast and loose with his own reality. (49%).

***

Blurb:  In an obsessive mystery as thrilling as The Girl on the Train and The Husband’s Secret, New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison will make you question every twist in her page-turning novel—and wonder which of her vividly drawn characters you should trust.

The day Aubrey Hamilton’s husband is declared dead by the state of Tennessee should bring closure so she can move on with her life. But Aubrey doesn’t want to move on; she wants Josh back. It’s been five years since he disappeared, since their blissfully happy marriage—they were happy, weren’t they?—screeched to a halt and Aubrey became the prime suspect in his disappearance. Five years of emptiness, solitude, loneliness, questions. Why didn’t Josh show up at his friend’s bachelor party? Was he murdered? Did he run away? And now, all this time later, who is the mysterious yet strangely familiar figure suddenly haunting her new life?

In No One Knows, the New York Times bestselling coauthor of the Nicholas Drummond series expertly peels back the layers of a complex woman who is hiding dark secrets beneath her unassuming exterior. This masterful thriller for fans of Gillian Flynn, Liane Moriarty, and Paula Hawkins will pull readers into a you’ll-never-guess merry-go-round of danger and deception. Round and round and round it goes, where it stops…no one knows.

***

What do you think?  Do these excerpts make you want to keep reading?  Let’s chat.

 

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TUESDAY POTPOURRI: “BEHIND CLOSED DOORS”

 

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by A Daily Rhythm.

Today’s featured book is from an author I enjoy:  Elizabeth Haynes’s Behind Closed Doors is the spellbinding second installment of New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Haynes’s Briarstone crime series that combines literary suspense and page-turning thrills.

 

 

Intro:  (Scarlett – Rhodes, Saturday 23 August 2003, 04:44)

To begin with, nothing was certain except her own terror.

Darkness, and stifling heat, so hot that breathing felt like effort, sweat pouring off her so her skin itself became liquid and she thought she would simply melt into a hot puddle of nothing.  She tried crying out, screaming, but she could barely hear her own voice above the roar of the engine, the sound of the wheels moving at speed on tarmac.  All that did was give her a sore throat.  Nobody could hear her.

She tried listening instead, eyes wide with nothing to see.  She could hear voices sporadically from somewhere else in the vehicle—two different men—but she didn’t recognize them, nor could she understand what they were saying.  She assumed they were speaking in Greek, but the harsh rasp of the words sounded different from the voices she’d heard over the past week at the resort.  Lots of “th” sounds, rolled “r”s, words ending in “a” and “eh.”

***

Teaser:  (Lou – Thursday 31 October 2013, 19:03)

Ten minutes later Lou was sitting at her desk, Jason across from her in the only other chair, a low visitor’s chair that had been purloined from reception when they’d redecorated it last year.  The facilities team had a container hidden behind the training school where old furniture went to die, and Lou had gone there herself with Ali Whitmore to try to salvage some desks rather than spend her very snug budget on new ones.

***

Synopsis:  Ten years ago, 15-year-old Scarlett Rainsford vanished while on a family holiday in Greece. Was she abducted, or did she run away from her severely dysfunctional family? Lou Smith worked the case as a police constable, and failing to find Scarlett has been one of the biggest regrets of her career. No one is more shocked than Lou to learn that Scarlett has unexpectedly been found during a Special Branch raid of a brothel in Briarstone.

Lou and her Major Crime team are already stretched working two troubling cases: nineteen-year-old Ian Palmer was found badly beaten; and soon after, bar owner Carl McVey was found half-buried in the woods, his Rolex and money gone. While Lou tries to establish the links between the two cases, DS Sam Hollands works with Special Branch to question Scarlett. What happened to her? Where has she been until now? How did she end up back here? And why is her family—with the exception of her emotionally fragile younger sister, Juliette—less than enthusiastic about her return?

When another brutal assault and homicide are linked to the McVey murder, Lou’s cases collide, and the clues all point in one terrifying direction. As the pressure and the danger mount, it becomes clear that the silent, secretive Scarlett holds the key to everything.

***

I have loved two other books by this author, so I’m eager to immerse myself in this one.  What do you think?  Would you keep reading?

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HUMP DAY POTPOURRI: “THE GIRLS”

Welcome to another Waiting on Wednesday event, hosted by Jill, at Breaking the Spine.

Every week, we gather around the blogosphere and search out the upcoming book releases, sharing our thoughts and blurbs.  Today I am eagerly awaiting a book from an author recently added to my favorites list:  Lisa Jewell.  Her upcoming release, due out on June 7, 2016, is The Girls.

 

 

 

Synopsis:  Imagine that you live on a picturesque communal garden square, an oasis in urban London where your children run free, in and out of other people’s houses. You’ve known your neighbors for years and you trust them. Implicitly. You think your children are safe. But are they really?

On a midsummer night, as a festive neighborhood party is taking place, preteen Pip discovers her thirteen-year-old sister Grace lying unconscious and bloody in a hidden corner of a lush rose garden. What really happened to her? And who is responsible?

Dark secrets, a devastating mystery, and the games both children and adults play all swirl together in this gripping novel, packed with utterly believable characters and page-turning suspense. Fans of Liane Moriarty and Jojo Moyes will be captivated by The Girls, the next unforgettable novel by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell.

***

I hope to get an e-ARC of this one, which I have requested from NetGalley…because I don’t think I can wait until June.  What do you think?

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HUMP DAY POTPOURRI: WAITING FOR “THE THIRD WIFE”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to another Waiting on Wednesday, our special day for sharing upcoming book releases.  Hop on over to Breaking the Spine to find out what everyone else is excited about.

Today’s spotlighted book is coming on June 9, 2015:  The Third Wife, by Lisa Jewell.

 

 

 

Blurb:  For fans of Liane Moriarty and Jojo Moyes comes a riveting family drama with a dark mystery at its core, from the internationally bestselling author of The House We Grew Up In.

In the early hours of a summer morning, a young woman steps into the path of an oncoming bus. A tragic accident? Or suicide?

At the center of this puzzle is Adrian Wolfe, a successful architect and grief-stricken widower, who, a year after his third wife’s death, begins to investigate the cause. As Adrian looks back on their brief but seemingly happy marriage, disturbing secrets begin to surface. The divorces from his two previous wives had been amicable, or so it seemed; his children, all five of them, were resilient as ever, or so he thought. But something, or someone, must have pushed Maya over the edge…

With psychological nuance that gets into the heart of its characters, The Third Wife is a gripping story about a man seeking the truth behind his seemingly perfect marriage and the broken pieces left behind.

***

Another book that I can’t wait to read, from an author I have read and enjoyed. (The House We Grew Up In).

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FRIDAY POTPOURRI: BOOK BEGINNINGS/FRIDAY 56 – “WHERE THEY FOUND HER”

Welcome to some bookish fun today as we share Book Beginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader; and as we showcase The Friday 56 with Freda’s Voice.

To join in, just grab a book and share the opening lines…along with any thoughts you wish to give us; then turn to page 56 and excerpt anything on the page.

Then give us the title of the book, so others can add it to their lists!

If you have been wanting to participate, but haven’t yet tried, now is the time!

What better way to spend a Friday?

Happy Friday!  Today I am spotlighting an ARC from Amazon Vine:  Where They Found Her, by Kimberly McCreight, the story of an idyllic suburban town, a mysterious find, and a free lance journalist determined to find the truth.

 

 

 

Beginning:  (Prologue)

It isn’t until afterward that I think about the bag or the bloody towels stuffed inside.  They’re too big to bury, but I can’t just leave them behind.  Maybe I should have been better prepared.  Thought more about the details.  But it’s hard to be ready for something you never imagined you’d do.

***

56:  (Ridgefield Reader – Comments)

(Anonymous) – Because they’re lazy a-holes, that’s why.  All they want is to sell ad space.  What the hell do they care what happens to the people who read their garbage?  And that’s what this is:  Total garbage.  The whole point is to freak us out.  So that we come back here and click, click, click away for more!

***

Blurb:   An idyllic suburban town.

A devastating discovery.

Shocking revelations that will change three lives forever.

At the end of a long winter in well-to-do Ridgedale, New Jersey, the body of a newborn is found in the woods fringing the campus of the town’s prestigious university. No one knows the identity of the baby, what ended her very short life, or how she came to be found among the fallen leaves. But for the residents of Ridgedale, there is no shortage of opinions.

When freelance journalist and recent Ridgedale transplant Molly Sanderson is unexpectedly called upon to cover the disturbing news for the Ridgedale Reader—the town’s local paper—she has good reason to hesitate. A severe depression followed the loss of her own baby, and this assignment could unearth memories she has tried hard to bury. But the disturbing history Molly uncovers is not her own. Her investigation reveals a decades-old trail of dark secrets hiding behind Ridgedale’s white picket fences.

***

This one is just the kind of read that keeps me glued to the pages.  What do you think?

***

 

TUESDAY POTPOURRI: INTROS/TEASERS – “VICTIMS”

 

 

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by Should Be Reading.

Today’s feature is a book by an author I enjoy:  Jonathan Kellerman.  Victims is another book in the Alex Delaware series.

 

 

 

Intro:  This one was different.

The first hint was Milo’s tight-voiced eight a.m. message, stripped of details.

Something I need you to see, Alex.  Here’s the address.

An hour later, I was showing I.D. to the uniform guarding the tape.  He winced.  “Up there, Doctor.”  Pointing to the second story of a sky-blue duplex trimmed in chocolate-brown, he dropped a hand to his Sam Browne belt, as if ready for self-defense.

Nice older building, the classic Cal-Spanish architecture, but the color was wrong.  So was the silence of the street, sawhorsed at both ends.  Three squad cars and a liver-colored LTD were parked haphazardly across the asphalt.  No crime lab vans or coroner’s vehicles had arrived, yet.

***

Teaser:  Two women entered the Quigg condo. First through the door was a tall buxom redhead with short, feathered hair, wearing a green sweater over a black unitard and red Chinese slippers. (p. 101)

***

Amazon Description:  Not since Jack the Ripper terrorized the London slums has there been such a gruesome crime scene. By all accounts, acid-tongued Vita Berlin hadn’t a friend in the world, but whom did she cross so badly as to end up arranged in such a grotesque tableau? One look at her apartment–turned–charnel house prompts hard-bitten LAPD detective Milo Sturgis to summon his go-to expert in hunting homicidal maniacs, Alex Delaware. But despite his finely honed skills, even Alex is stymied when more slayings occur in the same ghastly fashion . . . yet with no apparent connection among the victims. And the only clue left behind—a blank page bearing a question mark—seems to be both a menacing taunt and a cry for help from a killer baffled by his own lethal urges.

Under pressure to end the bloody spree and prevent a citywide panic, Milo redoubles his efforts to discover a link between the disparate victims. Meanwhile, Alex navigates the secretive world of mental health treatment, from the sleek office of a Beverly Hills therapist to a shuttered mental institution where he once honed his craft—and where an unholy alliance between the mad and the monstrous may have been sealed in blood. As each jagged piece of the puzzle fits into place, an ever more horrific portrait emerges of a sinister mind at its most unimaginable—and an evil soul at its most unspeakable. “This one was different,” Alex observes at the start of the case. This one will haunt his waking life, and his darkest dreams, long after its end.

***

I am a fan of Alex Delaware and his sidekick Milo, but it’s been a while since I read one of the books.  I am looking forward to it.  What do you think?  Would you keep reading?

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FRIDAY POTPOURRI: BOOK BEGINNINGS/FRIDAY 56 – “MIDNIGHT BETRAYAL”

Welcome to some bookish fun today as we share Book Beginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader; and as we showcase The Friday 56 with Freda’s Voice.

To join in, just grab a book and share the opening lines…along with any thoughts you wish to give us; then turn to page 56 and excerpt anything on the page.

Then give us the title of the book, so others can add it to their lists!

If you have been wanting to participate, but haven’t yet tried, now is the time!

What better way to spend a Friday?

Today’s feature is a review book I just started reading, from the fabulous Melinda Leigh:  Midnight Betrayal.

 

 

 

Beginning:  (Two weeks ago)

She died faster than I’d expected.  In fact, the whole abduction and killing scheme was easier than I’d anticipated.  I’d allowed several hours for tonight’s task but finished well ahead of schedule.

***

56:  But the simultaneous disappearances of the replica knife and two young women tainted his pleasure.  There were too many twisted connections in the events with Louisa, her intern, and the museum for Conor’s comfort.  Something was brewing.

***

Blurb:  Curator Dr. Louisa Hancock left behind Maine and her troubled past for Philadelphia and a job at a prominent museum. Just when it seems that Louisa’s new life is safe from her dark secrets, the body of a museum intern is found—the victim of a brutal and baffling murder.

Louisa realizes this is no random crime. And when another intern goes missing, the abduction is linked to the only man who has ever tempted Louisa’s heart—Conor Sullivan, the sexy owner of a Philly sports bar. Louisa’s past has taught her to be wary, but her heart refuses to believe Conor is guilty.

Now Conor and Louisa must dodge a police investigation—and their growing desire—as they race to find the real killer before another girl turns up dead. But trusting Conor could be deadly, especially as the evidence against him mounts…and as a merciless killer targets Louisa as the next victim.

***

I love this series, and this newest book promises to be a wonderful addition.  What do you think?

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FRIDAY POTPOURRI: BOOK BEGINNINGS/THE FRIDAY 56 — THE K-FROST CAPER

Welcome to some bookish fun today as we share Book Beginnings, hosted by Rose City Reader; and as we showcase The Friday 56 with Freda’s Voice.

To join in, just grab a book and share the opening lines…along with any thoughts you wish to give us; then turn to page 56 and excerpt anything on the page.

Then give us the title of the book, so others can add it to their lists!

If you have been wanting to participate, but haven’t yet tried, now is the time!

What better way to spend a Friday?

Today’s featured book is a review book called The K-Frost Caper, by James Blakley.

 

 

 

Beginning:  (Prologue)

The late January sky melted into pink and orange air that flickered below increasing layers of lavender clouds.  When the last drops of daylight finally dripped into the Atlantic, the vast ocean shimmered like one big sapphire.

***

56:  “Perhaps a demonstration of my harmonious blend of extra sensory insight and real world awareness will convince you, Ms. Nightcrow?”  Burroughs closed his eyes and reached for something unseen.

***

Blurb:  A cold case heats up when Kelvin Frost, believed to have drowned in Alabama, returns from the dead to apply for more life insurance. Or has he? When a body-a dead body-identified as Kelvin Frost, turns up in Miami, murder complicates matters. Enter Luna Nightcrow, the insurance fraud investigator whose “smartphone never sleeps.” After recovering a valuable Cherokee relic, Nightcrow accepts Charmed Life Mutual Insurance’s offer of $50,000 to sniff out and close down the K-Frost Caper. But it won’t be easy with so few leads or clues. That doesn’t surprise Luna. After all, when is the last time anyone saw Frost … in Miami?

***

What do you think?  I’m intrigued….I hope you will come on by and share your own features and links.

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