#BookReview The Winter Sister by Megan Collins @TouchstoneBooks @AtriaBooks

The Winter Sister by Megan Collins
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In this spellbinding and suspenseful debut, a young woman haunted by the past returns home to care for her ailing mother and begins to dig deeper into her sister’s unsolved murder.

Sixteen years ago, Sylvie’s sister Persephone never came home. Out too late with the boyfriend she was forbidden to see, Persephone was missing for three days before her body was found—and years later, her murder remains unsolved.

In the present day, Sylvie returns home to care for her estranged mother, Annie, as she undergoes treatment for cancer. Prone to unexplained “Dark Days” even before Persephone’s death, Annie’s once-close bond with Sylvie dissolved in the weeks after their loss, making for an uncomfortable reunion all these years later. Worse, Persephone’s former boyfriend, Ben, is now a nurse at the cancer center where Annie is being treated. Sylvie’s always believed Ben was responsible for the murder—but she carries her own guilt about that night, guilt that traps her in the past while the world goes on around her.

As she navigates the complicated relationship with her mother, Sylvie begins to uncover the secrets that fill their house—and what really happened the night Persephone died. As it turns out, the truth really will set you free, once you can bear to look at it.

The Winter Sister is a mesmerizing portrayal of the complex bond between sisters, between mothers and daughters alike, and forces us to ask ourselves—how well do we really know the people we love most?

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I was looking forward to reading The Winter Sister. I love books about cold cases and this book about a young woman's unsolved murder intrigued me. I love reading thrillers and I found this book to be very easy to read. In fact, I breezed through it on a single evening, with even impressed myself. I'm a fast reader, but in this case and in other cases is it just that the story isn't overly complex so that I pretty much can skim the text quickly and still without any problem get the gist. It's probably a gift that I acquired since my days of studying. LOL

Anyhow, as I stated before isn't it an overly complex story. We have Sylvie the surviving sister, guilt-ridden who travels home to take of her sick mother. Her mother hasn't truly been the same person since Persephone was murdered and their relationship is not what it used to. Sylvie starts to unravel the mystery surrounding her sister's death. There are not many suspects, and the red herrings were pretty easy to spot and the book just doesn't have that many surprises. It's simply a decent thriller. Hence, the rating. If the story had grabbed me more, the character moved me more had I been able to give a higher rating. As it is, it's just an OK thriller, the story kept my interest up all the way to the end and I felt that the ending was if not that surprising at least satisfying.

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

#BookReview Out of the Dark by Gregg Hurwitz @GreggHurwitz @MinotaurBooks @FreshFiction

Out of the Dark by Gregg Hurwitz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When darkness closes in―he's your last, best hope. Evan Smoak returns in Gregg Hurwitz’s #1 international bestselling Orphan X series.

Taken from a group home at age twelve, Evan Smoak was raised and trained as part of the Orphan Program, an off-the-books operation designed to create deniable intelligence assets―i.e. assassins. Evan was Orphan X. He broke with the Program, using everything he learned to disappear and reinvent himself as the Nowhere Man, a man who helps the truly desperate when no one else can. But now Evan's past in the Orphan Program is reaching out to him.

Someone at the very highest level of government has been trying to eliminate every trace of the Orphan Program by killing all the remaining Orphans and their trainers. After Evan's mentor and the only father he ever knew was killed, he decided to strike back. His target is the man who started the program and who is now the most heavily guarded person in the world: the President of the United States.

But President Bennett knows that Orphan X is after him and, using weapons of his own, he's decided to counter-attack. Bennett activates the one man who has the skills and experience to track down and take out Orphan X―the first recruit of the program, Orphan A.

With Evan devoting all his skills, resources, and intelligence to find a way through the layers of security that surround the President, suddenly he also has to protect himself against the deadliest of opponents. It's Orphan vs. Orphan with the future of the country―even the world―on the line.

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Evan Smoak is a trained assassin known as Orphan X. He was part of the Orphan Program until he broke with it and used everything he had learned to reinvent himself as the Nowhere Man. Now he helps those that are desperate and have no one else to turn to. However, now someone is killing off all the Orphans, someone very high up in the government. Evan decides to strike back to take out the man behind the killings, the man who started the program, the President of the United States.

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#BookReview The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides @orionbooks

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Promising to be the debut novel of the season The Silent Patientis a shocking psychological thriller of a woman’s act of violence against her husband—and of the therapist obsessed with uncovering her motive…

Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.

Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.

Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him...

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The Silent Patient feels like a book everyone loves, expect me. Yeah, for some reason this book just didn't do the trick for. For one thing, it didn't feel like a thriller, or rather for me it lacked any thrilling moments. The story felt flat, likewise the characters, especially Theo Faber. I'm sorry, but he mostly annoyed me, his obsession with Alicia Berenson and his marriage problem. And, from the beginning is it clear that he's not that mentally sound so I wasn't surprised when "things" happened towards the end.

I felt that the story was just idling along, it never picked up the pace and neither Alicia's diary entries nor Theo's POV really grabbed my interest. At least it was pleasant enough that I could finish the book. Now, of course, there must be some twist to the story and sure enough, when the book was nearly done did it show up. And, yes I have to admit that it was a clever move, alas a bit too late for me and frankly not especially imaginative. It felt a bit like it's been done before and I just felt a bit tired and not that impressed.

Well, my review is pretty negative, but it's hard to think of anything good to write when I mostly felt like it was not the right book for me. I like my thrillers to draw me in, for the characters to be fascinating to read about. This book, nah. 

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

#BookReview Crucible by James Rollins @jamesrollins @WmMorrowBooks @FreshFiction

Crucible by James Rollins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In the race to save one of their own, Sigma Force must wrestle with the deepest spiritual mysteries of mankind in this mind-expanding adventure from the #1 New York Times bestselling author, told with his trademark blend of cutting edge science, historical mystery and pulse-pounding action.

Arriving home on Christmas Eve, Commander Gray Pierce discovers his house ransacked, his pregnant lover missing, and his best friend’s wife, Kat, unconscious on the kitchen floor. With no shred of evidence to follow, his one hope to find the woman he loves and his unborn child is Kat, the only witness to what happened. But the injured woman is in a semi-comatose state and cannot speak—until a brilliant neurologist offers a radical approach to “unlock” her mind long enough to ask a few questions.

What Pierce learns from Kat sets Sigma Force on a frantic quest for answers that are connected to mysteries reaching back to the Spanish Inquisition and to one of the most reviled and blood-soaked books in human history—a Medieval text known as the Malleus Maleficarum, the Hammer of Witches. What they uncover hidden deep in the past will reveal a frightening truth in the present and a future on the brink of annihilation, and force them to confront the ultimate question: What does it mean to have a soul?

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Commander Gray Pierce arrives home on Christmas Eve, only to find out that Seichan, his pregnant lover is gone and his best friend's wife Kat is on the brink of death. Kat is the only one that saw the attack, but how to get someone in a semi-comatose state to speak? A neurologist may have the answer to that. Meanwhile, a terrified young woman witnesses a massacre by a video link and realizes that her invention is the reason for this and now she has to run. These two events will link together and once again Sigma must stop evil people out for destruction.

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#BookReview The Witches of St. Petersburg by Imogen Edwards-Jones @HarperCollins @FreshFiction

The Witches of St. Petersburg by Imogen Edwards-Jones
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Inspired by real characters, this transporting historical fiction debut spins the fascinating story of two princesses in the Romanov court who practiced black magic, befriended the Tsarina, and invited Rasputin into their lives—forever changing the course of Russian history.

As daughters of the impoverished King of Montenegro, Militza and Stana must fulfill their duty to their father and leave their beloved home for St. Petersburg to be married into senior positions in the Romanov court. For their new alliances to the Russian nobility will help secure the future of the sisters’ native country. Immediately, Militza and Stana feel like outcasts as the aristocracy shuns them for their provincial ways and for dabbling in the occult. Undeterred, the sisters become resolved to make their mark by falling in with the lonely, depressed Tsarina Alexandra, who—as an Anglo-German—is also an outsider and is not fully accepted by members of the court. After numerous failed attempts to precipitate the birth of a son and heir, the Tsarina is desperate and decides to place her faith in the sisters’ expertise with black magic.

Promising the Tsarina that they will be able to secure an heir for the Russian dynasty, Militza and Stana hold séances and experiment with rituals and spells. Gurus, clairvoyants, holy fools, and charlatans all try their luck. The closer they become to the Tsarina and the royal family, the more their status—and power—is elevated. But when the sisters invoke a spiritual shaman, who goes by the name of Rasputin, the die is cast. For they have not only irrevocably sealed their own fates—but also that of Russia itself.

Brimming with black magic, sex and intrigue, The Witches of St. Petersburg is an exquisite historical fiction debut novel filled with lush historical details from the Romanov era.

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THE WITCHES OF ST. PETERSBURG is the tale of two sisters that have to fend for themselves at the Romanov court, and they do so by not only befriending the Tsarina, they use black magic as well. Militza and Stana are the daughters of the King of Montenegro. They are forced to marry men with status in the Romanov court and to secure the future for their home country. However, they are shunned by the aristocracy especially the women. But, they soon find out that the lonely Tsarina desperately needs a male heir, and they decide to help her even if that means using black magic.

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#BookReview No Exit by Taylor Adams @WmMorrowBooks @Tadamsauthor @FreshFiction

No Exit by Taylor Adams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A brilliant, edgy thriller about four strangers, a blizzard, a kidnapped child, and a determined young woman desperate to unmask and outwit a vicious psychopath.

A kidnapped little girl locked in a stranger’s van. No help for miles. What would you do?

On her way to Utah to see her dying mother, college student Darby Thorne gets caught in a fierce blizzard in the mountains of Colorado. With the roads impassable, she’s forced to wait out the storm at a remote highway rest stop. Inside, are some vending machines, a coffee maker, and four complete strangers.

Desperate to find a signal to call home, Darby goes back out into the storm . . . and makes a horrifying discovery. In the back of the van parked next to her car, a little girl is locked in an animal crate.

Who is the child? Why has she been taken? And how can Darby save her?

There is no cell phone reception, no telephone, and no way out. One of her fellow travelers is a kidnapper. But which one?

Trapped in an increasingly dangerous situation, with a child’s life and her own on the line, Darby must find a way to break the girl out of the van and escape.

But who can she trust?

With exquisitely controlled pacing, Taylor Adams diabolically ratchets up the tension with every page. Full of terrifying twists and hairpin turns, No Exit will have you on the edge of your seat and leave you breathless.

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What if you're stuck at a rest stop in a blizzard with strangers and discover a kidnapped child? You don't know who to trust and have no way to contact anyone. What would you do? What could you do?

That's the dilemma college student Darby Thorne is faced with in this fast-paced thriller. She's on her way home to see her dying mother when she has to stop at a remote rest stop in the mountains of Colorado. She can't get any cell phone reception, and there is no phone there. Just Darby and three strangers, and the kidnapped child she finds in an animal cage back in the van. But, who's the kidnapper? Anyone of the strangers could be the kidnapper, who to trust?

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#BookReview The Suspect by Fiona Barton @BerkleyPub @BerkleyMystery @FreshFiction

The Suspect by Fiona Barton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The New York Times bestselling author of The Widow returns with a brand new novel of twisting psychological suspense about every parent's worst nightmare...

When two eighteen-year-old girls go missing in Thailand, their families are thrust into the international spotlight: desperate, bereft, and frantic with worry. What were the girls up to before they disappeared?

Journalist Kate Waters always does everything she can to be first to the story, first with the exclusive, first to discover the truth--and this time is no exception. But she can't help but think of her own son, whom she hasn't seen in two years, since he left home to go travelling.

As the case of the missing girls unfolds, they will all find that even this far away, danger can lie closer to home than you might think...

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THE SUSPECT is the very first book I've read by Fiona Barton. I didn't know that this book is the third in the Kate Waters series. However, I found no problems reading this one without having read the previous books. Actually, it made me more curious about the previous two books.

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#BookReview Murder Theory by Andrew Mayne @AndrewMayne @amazonpub

Murder Theory by Andrew Mayne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The desire to kill is becoming contagious in this riveting novel of conceivable mad science by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Naturalist.

Computational biologist and serial-killer hunter Dr. Theo Cray receives an off-the-record request from the FBI to investigate an inexplicable double homicide. It happened at the excavation site where a murderer had buried his victims’ remains. In custody is a forensic technician in shock, with no history of aggression. He doesn’t remember a thing. His colleagues don’t even recognize the man they thought they knew. But an MRI reveals something peculiar. And abnormal.

What on earth made him commit murder?

After discovering that a mysterious man has been stalking crime scenes and stealing forensic data, Cray has a radical and terrifying theory. Now he must race against time to find a darker version of himself: a scientist with an obsession in pathological behavior who uses his genius not to catch serial killers—but to create them.

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I've read all the books published in the Jessica Blackwood series by Andrew Mayne. But, Murder Theory is the first I've read in The Naturalist series. And, I have to admit that at first didn't Dr. Theo Cray, a computational biologist and serial-killer hunter, rock my boat the same way that Jessica Blackwood does. Not a bad story at all, just not on the same interested level and it got a bit "scientific" now and then. Then, BAM one of the best scenes ever happened that pretty much changed how I felt for the book. And, I can't write about it since you know spoilers. However, I will just say this, this is by far the most interesting way to capture a serial killer. Seriously, totally mental and I loved it. After that, I just felt that yup this is a series for me. Any guy that can do something like this is my kind of guy to read about!

So, kudos to Andrew Mayne for the worlds greatest how-to-catch-a-serial-killer-scene!

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