Category: Mystery

Ever After

by Olivia Vieweg. Pub Date 9/1/2020

5 Stars. Best enjoyed when you want to see some gorgeous illustrations of zombies.

Ever After is a beautiful post-apocalyptic adventure that takes place in Germany and features two very different girls fighting their own demons who get lost outside of the barricaded city where they live. Eva meant to get lost while Vivi was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The world has been taken over by a plant-based plague that affects human beings and is passed by bites or scratches. Barricaded in Weimar city in a mental hospital, Vivi is haunted by the ghosts of her past and barely sleeps in order to escape them. She is deemed well enough to help on the outskirts of the city with to do some work and is put on Eva’s team. Horrible events unfold, causing Vivi to have to escape from the asylum and hide on a train. However, when that train start to move outside the city, she finds she’s not the only one on it, and she’s bound for a life changing adventure in the dangerous wilds of the world.

The illustrations are truly beautiful and the friendships that form in the vast post apocalyptic world of rural Germany are not sweet, but are nonetheless potent. Amid the pages of vivid, pastel-colored landscape, Vivi and Eva both discover things about themselves and overcome past, festering wounds under the surface. Survival doesn’t always mean taking care of one’s body, sometimes it means taking care of your soul as well. Sometimes it also means doing things you never thought you would for someone else.

Thank you to NetGalley and Lerner Publishing Group for the advanced copy of this adorably dark graphic novel in exchange for a fair and honest review. ❤

Fantasy Horror Mystery Romance

Kingdom of the Wicked

By Kerri Maniscalco. Pub date: 10/27/2020

Five Stars! ***** Best enjoyed on a fall day when you’re not too hungry or thirsty–there are a lot of super delicious food references in this one, along with some seriously hot love interest moments.

Emilia and her twin sister Vittoria work in their family’s restaurant in a village located on the coast of Sicily. They are also witches, called strenghe, who live secretly amongst the superstitious populace of their home, carefully avoiding suspicion and the witch hunters that may follow it. Emilia is content in her place in the restaurant’s kitchens where her family creates some of the best loved dishes in the village. That is until she stumbles across her twin sister’s desecrated body in the basement of the local Catholic church, her heart viciously removed from her body. All contentment disappears as vengeance begins to take hold of her heart. In her search for her sister’s killer, she invokes some forbidden magic, accidentally summoning Wrath, one of the very Princes of Hell and part of the court of the Kingdom of the Wicked that she has been warned against since she was a child. However, Wrath, despite being pissed that she has entrapped him, is more than willing to help her. As they delve deeper into the mystery of her sister’s death, it seems that Vittoria was not the first witch whose heart has been stolen, and Emilia may be the next target. That is, if Wrath doesn’t steal her heart first.

https://beyondwords.life/sicily-dreamy-adventure-along-coast/

I loved the setting of this book. It’s not often that a YA is written that sets itself in a Mediterranean country, and just hearing “seaside village in Sicily” invoked visions of weathered brick buildings and cool blue waters. It was the perfectly contrasting backdrop for a dark mystery with a tense, delicious romance. Maniscalco is truly an artist when it comes to building three-dimensional characters with truly deep emotions and motivation for revenge as well as grief, loss, betrayal, and love. I could practically feel the heat coming from my kindle in some scenes and found myself gripping the edges during others.

A mark of a truly good book is how lost you can get in what is happening. When I finally came up for air, I was shivering in my hammock and it was practically morning. That should alone should drill home how good I thought this was, and I am so excited for this October!

Thank you to Netgalley and Little Brown for the advanced copy in exchange for this review ❤

Horror Mystery Survival

The Wild

By Owen Laukkanen, pub date September 14, 2020

Best enjoyed outside where you can smell fresh air and dirt–even better if you can surround yourself with forest.

Dawn messed up. Dawn messed up bad enough that her mother and her step dad showed up at her middle aged drug dealing boyfriend’s house to pick her up and drag her off the Out of the Wild, a program for wayward teens. Now, Dawn is experiencing some of the toughest situations she’s ever had to deal with…at least the ones she’s willing to talk about.

Along with other messed up kids like her and int he company of two counselors, it looks like Dawn is going to be hiking non-stop over the course of the next three months until she can prove that she is responsible and respectful and has turned her life around. Maybe it will give her the opportunity to confront ‘WHAT SHE DID,’ the thing that started her down this path in the first place.

When things go horribly awry, Dawn is not only going to learn–quickly–about what she is capable of and what she is willing to do in order to survive, she will also need to learn what Doing the Right Thing really means if she has any intention of living with herself.

I’m a sucker for survival stories, especially those where someone who is completely unprepared to get lost in the woods does exactly that. Extra points when something nefarious or untoward is occurring at the same time. So many extra points. I really dug this whole story and I practically gobbled it all down in one sitting.

It reads as a very matter of fact guidebook without losing its flavor. Even with the obvious foreshadowing–and I mean, the author literally tells you that something bad is going to happen and points out mistakes that the characters make–there were still some surprising twists and turns. It gets very Lord of the Flies-y while also maintaining the dark, urgent, survival-driven vibe of the movie “The Edge.”

Laukkanen did an amazing job of describing the landscapes and scenes, the struggles, aches, and pains, and even the scent of the very air. You are sucked right into the story, experiencing it right next to the characters and embracing the exhaustion, excitement, and fear as if you are there. Highly recommend.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children’s for the advanced reader copy, provided in exchange for an honest and fair review.

Historical Fiction Mystery

Court of Miracles

by Kester Grant Publishing Date

4 Stars–Best enjoyed all in one sitting.

In an alternative revolutionary-era France, there is a silent war waging between the rulers of the day and those who rue the night. The nobility, after having brutally crushed the revolution and all those who supported it, rule the common people with a clenched iron fist of oppression. However, those on the fringes of society–beggars, thieves, assassins, smugglers, prostitutes, and drug runners, also known as The Wretched–have created their own courts in which to rule the city’s darker dealings and the very night itself, a place that Those Who Walk by Day only hear as passing whispers; a society of legend: The Miracle Court.

After witnessing her father sell her older sister, Azelma, to the man known as The Tiger, enacting Lord of the Court of Flesh, young Nina Thenardier, with vengeance in her heart, takes her cat burglar talents to the Court of Thieves, where she pledges her self to the Lord there in exchange of a home and protection after stealing from the crown prince himself. The Lord knows talent when he sees it and Nina is known henceforth as the Black Cat.

Over the years, Nina continues to plan some what to get her sister, Azelma, out of the clutches of the nefarious Tiger. However, when one of her plans go awry and she finds herself saddled with a new sister, Ettie, whom the Tiger has his sights on, Nina feels she must do all she can to protect this beautiful, young girl from the same fate as Azelma. Her plans and plots take her from the sewers of Paris to the deepest darkest prisons, and to the very palace itself in pursuit of her ends. Throughout her story, she meets handsome princes and revolutionaries, all while dodging danger pursuit of a better life for her sisters.

This is an amazing story against the living backdrop of Mother Paris. Nina is a savvy girl who experiences moments of romantic interlude with various characters but never for one second allows it to distract her from her goals and her higher purpose. On this, she remains fixated.

The story is only further enhanced by the setting and characters, both which were described in a way that made it feel real and alive. Every character of the story was well fleshed out. I could see the dust on the ghosts, the shine of the gold around the thieves’ necks, and could practically feel myself drowning in the overwhelming gilt and brocaded silk of the palace and the honey-sweet venom of the Queen’s words. All in all, it was absolutely fantastic and I cannot wait to get my hands on another Grant offering.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Children’s for the advanced copy of Court of Miracles in exchange for a fair and honest review. All of the above opinions are my own.

Contemporary Fiction Fantasy Mystery

Burn Our Bodies Down

By Rory Power. Release Date 7/7/2020

4 Stars. Best enjoyed during the daytime with the windows open.

Margot has been secretly searching for her past behind her emotionally distant mother’s back for as long as she can remember. That’s a hard task to accomplish when you have to walk on egg shells in a tiny, run-down apartment in a city you hate. However, when buying back some of her mother’s possessions from the local pawn shop with squirreled away money, she finds a clue tucked away in an old bible on the back of a photo.

Phalene.

Margot plots an escape to the small farming town. Seeking her family and the story of her past, everyone seems to know who she is, but no one can tell her much of anything. Things turn hostile when she finds a dead girl who shares her own face in a blazing field fire. A girl no one seems to have ever seen before. A girl her grandmother also ever knowing.

As Margo dives deeper and deeper into the mystery of her own origins and searches for answers to who this doppelgänger girl could be, she finds herself in the middle of a dark, deep mystery spanning generations. As she spirals into the horrors of her family’s history, she struggles with the choice between keeping the family and sense of belonging she has finally found or the rabbit hole that is the past.

Burn Our Bodies Down was an unexpected ride. It was a slow, aching build up of intertwined mysteries that overflowed in a rush of blood and horror. It was one of those horror stories that keeps you guessing until the bitter end. The ideas were original, the setting and plot were well fleshed out, and the larger themes were made clear in the end.

I highly recommend this to any YA horror fans out there who want a summer mystery to sink their teeth into.

Fantasy Historical Fiction Mystery Romance

The Guinevere Deception

By Kiersten White

3.5 Stars–best read if you’ve already enjoyed the Arthurian legends

Guinevere is on her way from the abbey where she has been living to the waiting arms of the kingdom of Camelot where she is to marry its beloved King Arthur. Guinevere has many secrets and very few confidants. For instance, Guinevere isn’t Guinevere, and Camelot is not safe from the magic it has only very recently beaten away from its borders during the war waged against the Dark Queen. However, the magic continues to be a threat to the kingdom and Arthur himself, shifting and terrorizing the land and forests beyond the King’s influence. Guinevere-not-Guinevere may be the only protection the king has from the dark forces that wish to work their way into the veins of Camelot. And she may have the answer to defeating it…if she could only remember who and what she really is.

The Guinevere Deception was a novel full of twists, turns, and deeply buried secrets. Curiosity is definitely a driving force throughout the book. There are some points where it gets a little tedious, and iif you have not read the tales of King Arthur and Camelot, you may not connect as well with the story itself.

I have not read the classic tales and I felt a little lost at some points, but I also learned quite a bit about the stories themselves. However, i believe i would have enjoyed it much more if I had known they were required reading. Nevertheless, there are so many loose ends yet to be tied that I will be picking up the sequel.

Fantasy Mystery Romance

Diamond City

By Francesca Flores

3 Stars. Best enjoyed when you’re feeling cagey.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for a fair and honest review.

In a post-civil war city where religion is dangerous, possessing raw diamonds can get you executed, and criminals roam the streets freely, who can you trust?

Aina is a blade, a hired assassin, who has worked for The Blood King since he found her passed out in a tavern from sniffing glue in her early teens. Orphaned at a young age after having watched her parents murdered for their religious beliefs, she never really hoped to make anything of herself before The Blood King, Kohl, found her and trained her to be one of his blades. Now, six years later, he has given her the biggest job of her life, one that may give her the chance to secure a future outside of the Dom where she can run her own trade house.

Aina has been given the opportunity of a lifetime, even if her target is a member of one of the richest families is the city. But Aina is undoubtedly one of the best blades in the city. However, when something goes dreadfully wrong and she finds herself outside of the protection of The Blood King, she is given only one chance to make it right before the city eats her alive. Who can she turn to in a city that now has a price on her head and enemies around every corner?

I enjoyed Diamond City. I pictured the city in tiers with a piratical edge. The world building was well done, the characters well rounded, and the cast was probably one of the most diverse I’ve ever experienced in a YA novel. There were twists, turns, and surprises all over the place. Was it a little predictable? For some people it might be, but for me, the various plotlines that were braided together left a lot of mystery and by the end I was kicking myself for not putting it all together.

The issues that the characters face are also very relatable. Loss, addiction, and being unable to know who to trust as well as cleansing yourself of toxic relationships are all very relatable concepts. I didn’t relate that well with Aina as she was very self-serving at times, but she grew as a person throughout the book and I would really like to see where the the author takes her character arc. I did love Teo, Kyuu and Raurie, and I loved the descriptions of Tannis and Jane, I felt like they were the best described. However, the relationships that Aina has with each character could probably be fleshed out a little more, and perhaps they will be. This is one of those books that doesn’t feel like a stand-alone. Matter of fact, the action picked up a lot in the last 40% of the book. The end felt a little too rushed for that and things were only as tied up as a first book in a series would allow.

Overall, I think it was worth a read. I feel like the world is alone is worth it. The author does an amazing job building the world itself and the structural/social hierarchy. I enjoyed it.

Adventure Mystery

The Gilded Wolves

By Roshani Chokshi.

3 Stars. Best Enjoyed in a room of luxurious appointment.

The Gilded Wolves is set in the late nineteenth century in the lush and luxurious streets of Paris beating with an undercurrent of ancient magic harnessed by some of the people who walk amongst its denizens. Severin Montagnet-Alarie is one of them. Hailing from one of the first forging families, he should be a part of the Order of Babel, which is the secretive body that governs the magical underground made up of the elite first families who received the gift of forging from God. Unfortunately, his seat in this glittering group has been taken from him. However, he has every intention of regaining his seat amongst the magical elite—even if he and his rag-tag team of talented misfits have to steal back his rightful inheritance.

The characters in this one are hard not to love although the story is missing some depth because of the jumping POVs, but with the mysteries that each character is clearly holding, it’s not hard to latch onto each story in anticipation of the inevitable reveal of each. Plus, there are a few romances at play that flash their bits at you from time to time to keep the reader longing for more.

The rich setting and adventure are enticing. Chokshi is a literary artist when it comes to setting the scene. The descriptions provided are able to paint not only descriptions but also the very air of the places that Severin and his team travel through, bringing the reader along for the ride.

Overall, the story is a fun adventure with magical settings, an interesting cast of characters, and an intriguing and fast-paced storyline that will keep readers rooting until the end.

Contemporary Fiction Horror Mystery Romance

The Shape of Night

By Tess Gerritsen, Pub date 10/1/2019

4 Stars. Best enjoyed at night. Alone.

Tess Gerritsen has been one of my favorite authors for the last 15 years, so I was super excited to be approved for this one–thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for the below fair review!

Ava is a food writer who trades a few months in Boston for a new backdrop in Brodie’s Watch, a large, beautiful rental house on the coast of Maine. It’s the perfect place to finish her latest book on New England coastal cuisine, and also far enough away to try to escape the secrets that have haunted her since New Year’s Eve. However, it soon becomes clear that she is not the only resident haunting the stately home perched on the seaside cliff outside of Tucker’s Cove, Maine. It seems that the master of the house, Captain Jeremiah Brodie, also walks the halls of the historic home, and has his sights set on being more than just a spectral presence to Ava. However, it soon becomes apparent that there are dangerous forces at play both inside and outside of the cliffside estate…and that Ava is not the only person in Tucker’s Cove with deadly secrets.

The Shape of Night is a much different fare than I am used to coming from Gerritsen, but it was nonetheless a wonderful escapist read. It was part mystery/thriller, part paranormal romance. As always, she wrote characters that were well fleshed-out, places that I felt I could step into, and described smells and flavors that lifted themselves off the pages. I found my mouth watering at some of the descriptions of the food that Ava created for her book. There are other scenes that are delicious, hot, and completely unrelated to roasting meats and simmering soups. I also really felt for Ava. Her need for redemption for her heinous secret was palpable, and it was clear that no matter how much she tried to bury herself beneath empty wine bottles and distance herself from the place it happened, she couldn’t escape the pain on her own, and, not to give too much away, the house seemed to be well aware of that fact.

Gerritsen also proves that she remains a master of mystery–there were so many different questions that needed to be answered that it was enough to keep the reader guessing at every turn until the epilogue. The imagery lent a creepy, fall-worthy vibe to the entire story, absolutely perfect for the season.

Mystery

In the Hall with the Knife: A Clue Mystery

Post author By Lady Nightwolf
Post date September 16, 2019
No Comments on In the Hall with the Knife: A Clue Mystery

By Diana Peterfreund. Pub Date 10/8/19

4 Stars. Best enjoyed wrapped in a blanket with cocoa and a lead pipe. Just in Case.

When a disastrous winter storm hits the remote Blackbrook prep school on the coast of Maine, most of the students and faculty are able to leave. However, eleven people find themselves stranded at the historic Tudor House, the only building on campus that doesn’t immediately flood in the ensuring storm surge, which also eliminates all paths to the main land. Of course, wet clothes and what little belongings they could grab aren’t the only baggage they brought with them. When the Headmaster is found in the conservatory the next morning with a knife through his chest, the students and faculty that are left in the dark, cold mansion start to suspect that someone amongst them might have secrets they would would kill to protect.

In the Hall with the Knife is told from the revolving perspectives of five of the seven students left in the house, Orchid McKee, Finn Plum, Scarlet Mistry, Samuel “Mustard” Maestor, and Beth “Peacock” Picach. Each of them have secrets that they would protect at any cost, but would they resort to murder to keep them under wraps?

That very question is what kept me reading late into the night. Usually I don’t enjoy changing perspectives because there is always at least one character I don’t care for or want to hear about. This wasn’t an exception to the latter, there were two characters I found myself rolling my eyes at because they were just insufferable, but regardless, I still desperately wanted to know what their secrets were and if they may have had something to do with the murder. There was also the atmosphere of the post-disaster campus, which was described so well that I found myself shivering with cold at the mention of the ice surroundings and frigid pools of water that frequently popped up. Tudor House was also enticing with its rumored hidden passages, marble staircase, and parquet floors from the 1890s. I could picture the fire-lit rooms, dusty book shelves, and worm furniture so perfectly. Peterfreund really stayed true to the mood that so often defines other media based on Clue, which keeps fans like me super happy–that’s why I love the movies, books, and games that base their premise on the classic board game.

The best part is that this is the first book in an upcoming series, and I am super here for it! So many little questions left unanswered and enticing secrets yet to be revealed, like tendrils left trailing to tickle your curiousity. I can’t wait for the next!

Thanks to NetGalley and Amulet Books for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. As always, the opinions written here are fully my own!