#BookReview The Invited by Jennifer McMahon @FreshFiction @doubledaybooks

The Invited by Jennifer McMahon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A chilling ghost story with a twist: the New York Times bestselling author of The Winter People returns to the woods of Vermont to tell the story of a husband and wife who don't simply move into a haunted house, they start building one from scratch, without knowing it, until it's too late . . .

In a quest for a simpler life, Helen and Nate abandon the comforts of suburbia and their teaching jobs to take up residence on forty-four acres of rural land where they will begin the ultimate, aspirational do-it-yourself project: building the house of their dreams. When they discover that this charming property has a dark and violent past, Helen, a former history teacher, becomes consumed by the legend of Hattie Breckenridge, a woman who lived and died there a century ago. As Helen starts carefully sourcing decorative building materials for her home--wooden beams, mantles, historic bricks--she starts to unearth, and literally conjure, the tragic lives of Hattie's descendants, three generations of "Breckenridge women," each of whom died amidst suspicion, and who seem to still be seeking something precious and elusive in the present day.

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Helen and Nate think they have found the perfect spot for building their dream house. What they don't know is that the area is said to have been cursed since a witch was hanged in 1924. At first, life there seems harmonious. They are working together, but slowly things start to happen, for instance, tool and other things go missing and one day there is a strange bag outside there temporary home. Could it really be that the place is haunted...?

READ THE REST OF THE REVIEW OVER AT FRESH FICTION!

#BookReview Burntown by Jennifer McMahon

Burntown by Jennifer McMahon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Eva grew up watching her father, Miles, invent strange and wonderful things in the small workshop behind their house on the river that runs through their old mill town. But the most important invention of all was the one that Miles claimed came from the mind of Thomas Edison himself--a machine that allowed one to speak with loved ones long passed. Smuggled out of Edison's laboratory, the blueprints were passed down to Miles, and he's been using them to protect Eva, her mother, Lily, and her brother, Errol, ever since.

Then, one night when a storm is raging and the river is threatening to flood, the machine whirrs to life on its own. Danger, it says. You're in terrible danger. The next thing Eva knows is waking up on the side of the river and seeing her mother's grim face. Eva's father and brother are dead, their house has been washed away and an evil man is searching for them both. They need to hide.

Eva changes her name to Necco--a candy she always loved--and tries to put everything in her past behind her as she adapts to her new life off the grid. But when her boyfriend is murdered and her mother disappears, she knows that the past is starting to catch up to her.

What really happened the night of the flood? As Necco searches for the truth, her journey unites her with two women who are on desperate quests of their own. And as the trio follows the clues to solving the mystery of Necco's past, they discover that sometimes it's the smallest towns that hold the strangest secrets.

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I read The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon last year and I loved and I was thrilled for the chance to read this book.

Burntown, in my opinion, did not have the same intense storyline as The Winter People had. What I loved about the Winter People were the dual-timeline and the paranormal aspect of the story. It was thrilling and fascinating to read. Burntown lacked that and the story about Eve (Necco) just never got that intense. At first, it felt like what Necco went through was some sort of apocalyptic event. It was fascinating, but then it kind of fizzled out and I kept on wanting the story to pick up speed again and get interesting again. What made me stick with the story was the machine that made you speak to the dead, I was curious about it and I was also curious about whom killed Milo's mother. Did the killing of Milo's mother have something to do with what happened to Necco's family? 

For me was this book not especially memorable. It's not so long ago that I read it, but I found it was hard to write a review for the book since the story just didn't intrigue me so much. However, I did find it got better when Necco started to search for answers together with two very unlikely allies. I would say that the first part of the book before they got together and help each other was not as interesting as when they started to search for answers. 

For me was Burntown just not as good as The Winter People. That doesn't mean that this book was not good, it just didn't live up to my expectations I guess.

I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through Edelweiss for an honest review!   

The Top 15 books of 2016

My Top 10 books of 2016 quickly turned into top 15 instead of 10 when I started to go through the books I've read. It could just as easily have been top 20, but I had to draw a line somewhere. The books are in no particular order because that would just mean hours of agony and indecision. So, on to the books: 

From New York Times bestselling author and famed former Manhattan prosecutor Linda Fairstein comes a chilling new Alexandra Cooper novel, Entombed, in which Alex matches wits with the master of detective fiction himself-Edgar Allan Poe...

READ MY REVIEW OF THE BOOK HERE

Sometimes I wish that she’d just leave me in peace . . .

Psychologist Evi is worried about one of her patients – a woman who is convinced her little girl is still alive. Two years after the fire that burnt their house down.

Meanwhile, the new vicar in town is feeling strangely unwelcome. Disturbing events seem designed to scare him away.

And a young boy keeps seeing a strange, solitary girl playing in the churchyard. Who is she and what is she trying to tell him?

READ MY REVIEW OF THE BOOK HERE

Media calls him "The Birthday boy" because he kidnappers girls just before they turn thirteen and then he sends pictures of them home to their families showing how he slowly tortures them to death. Every year they get a new card. 5 years ago Detective Constable Ash Henderson's daughter Rebecca was kidnapped. One year later get a card, but he keeps that a secret for his colleagues and because if they would know would he not be able to stay on the investigation...

READ MY REVIEW OF THE BOOK HERE

From the bestselling author of Girl in Translation, a novel about a young woman torn between her family duties in Chinatown and her escape into the world of ballroom dancing...

READ MY REVIEW OF THE BOOK HERE

West Hall, Vermont, has always been a town of strange disappearances and old legends. The most mysterious is that of Sara Harrison Shea, who, in 1908, was found dead in the field behind her house just months after the tragic death of her daughter...

READ MY REVIEW OF THE BOOK HERE

Mary Russell is used to dark secrets—her own, and those of her famous partner and husband, Sherlock Holmes. Trust is a thing slowly given, but over the course of a decade together, the two have forged an indissoluble bond...

READ MY REVIEW OF THE BOOK HERE

Jerome Burnel was once a hero. He intervened to prevent multiple killings and in doing so damned himself. His life was torn apart. He was imprisoned, brutalized.

But in his final days, with the hunters circling, he tells his story to private detective Charlie Parker. He speaks of the girl who was marked for death but was saved, of the ones who tormented him, and an entity that hides in a ruined stockade...

READ MY REVIEW OF THE BOOK HERE

The world is on the brink of an apocalyptic disaster. An ancient species, long dormant, is now very much awake...

READ MY REVIEW OF THE BOOK HERE

Lorena "Hick" Hickok is assigned to cover Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1932 political campaign. This is the start of a love story that would last for years, despite long periods of separations and the fact that Eleanor Roosevelt was to become The First Lady of United States. But, this love story could not last. Madame, that Hick so lovingly called Eleanor could never become someone anonymous again, even after FDR death.

READ MY REVIEW OF THE BOOK HERE

In her storied career as a Texas Ranger, Caitlin has confronted all manner of villains, but nothing that’s prepared her for the terrorist group ISIS’s pursuit of a devastating weapon on Lone Star State soil. The land in question lies on an Indian reservation where a drilling operation steeped in mystery and controversy is about to commence under the auspices of shadowy billionaire Cray Rawls...

READ MY REVIEW OF THE BOOK HERE

Beautiful and brilliant, Kendra Donovan is a rising star at the FBI. Yet her path to professional success hits a speed bump during a disastrous raid where half her team is murdered, a mole in the FBI is uncovered and she herself is severely wounded. As soon as she recovers, she goes rogue and travels to England to assassinate the man responsible for the deaths of her teammates...

READ MY REVIEW OF THE BOOK HERE

Held captive for eight years, Lily has grown from a teenager to an adult in a small basement prison. Her daughter Sky has been a captive her whole life. But one day their captor leaves the deadbolt unlocked...

READ MY REVIEW OF THE BOOK HERE

Samantha Whipple is used to stirring up speculation wherever she goes. As the last remaining descendant of the Brontë family, she's rumored to have inherited a vital, mysterious portion of the Brontë's literary estate; diaries, paintings, letters, and early novel drafts; a hidden fortune that's never been shown outside of the family.,,

READ MY REVIEW OF THE BOOK HERE

The dead don’t tell secrets… unless you listen.

The girl’s smashed-in face stared unseeing up to the blue sky, soil spilling out of her mouth. A hundred flies hovered above the bloodied mess.

READ MY REVIEW OF THE BOOK HERE

A five-year-old boy from a remote farm on the plains of Skåne disappear late one summer evening in 1983. The only trail after him is a shoe in the tall corn fields. 

Although the whole neighborhood gets involved in the search do they not find him, and rumors and suspicions spread quickly. And, the clumsy criminal investigation is, in the end, closed down when they can't find the boy, and the grief and uncertainty get the boy's family to slowly fall apart.

READ MY REVIEW OF THE BOOK HERE

Thoughts and honorable mentions:

The hardest part was I found other really great books while making this list. But, I decided when I made this list that I would not change since it would only make everything messy. And, soon I would be up in Top 25 instead of top 15...;)

But, I would like to mention some really great books that I read during 2016 that I found to be brilliant: Dead Man Walking by Simon R. Green, Arrowood by Laura McHugh, Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire, Melody Bittersweet and The Girls' Ghostbusting Agency by Kitty French and Redemption Road by John Hart...Honestly I could go on and list all my 5-star books, but instead just check out my Goodreads page! 😉

When you are done here can you check out my friend's lists/wrap ups:

Layered Pages

The Maiden's Court

2 Kids and Tired

The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon

The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

West Hall, Vermont 1908. Sara Harrison Shea is found dead in the field behind her house just months after the tragic death of her daughter. She has been acted weirdly since then and her death is horrifying. 


In the present day is nineteen-year-old Ruthie living in Sara's old farmhouse with her mother Alice and her younger sister. They have always lived a very simple life, farming what they need staying away from the modern world as much as possible. When Alice comes home late one night can she see that the little farmhouse is lit and that her mother is probably waiting for her. But, when she comes in she notices that the even though the kitchen is lit, her mother isn't there. Thinking that her mother has gone to bed she shrugs it off and goes to sleep in her room. But, the next day her little sister wakes her up and tells her that mom isn't in the bedroom. They search for clues in the house to find out what has happened to their mother and it is during the search that they discover a paperback version of Sara Harrison Shea diary...

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Have you ever read a book that sucks you into the story from page one? The Winter people did that  to me. I just couldn't stop reading the book. Both the present and the past story was both very interesting and I loved how the mystery slowly unraveled itself. It's not really a terrifying book, but it's engrossing and I found myself totally drawn into the mystery of Alice's disappearance and what it had to do with Sara Harrison Shea. 

I also completely loved the paranormal part of the book, the legend that you can wake up a loved one from the dead and how that legend plays a part in this story. Ruthie is a wonderful character, and as much as I enjoyed reading the past story with Sara was I a bit more interested in Ruthie's search for her mother. But, I guess that's because there is so much going on in the present, things that she learns about herself in the search, why they live as they do and also because in the present we learn the consequence of the past events in 1908. 

The book is great, one of the best I have read this year. It's a perfect read if you want an interesting story, not too terrifying, more poignant, but still a dark story.