The Secrets of Hartwood Hall by Katie Lumsden

Nobody ever goes to Hartwood Hall. Folks say it’s cursed…

It’s 1852 and Margaret Lennox, a young widow, attempts to escape the shadows of her past by taking a position as governess to an only child, Louis, at an isolated country house in the west of England.

But Margaret soon starts to feel that something isn’t quite right. There are strange figures in the dark, tensions between servants, and an abandoned east wing. Even stranger is the local gossip surrounding Mrs. Eversham, Louis’s widowed mother, who is deeply distrusted in the village.

 Lonely and unsure whom to trust, Margaret finds distraction in a forbidden relationship with the gardener, Paul. But as Margaret’s history threatens to catch up with her, it isn’t long before she learns the truth behind the secrets of Hartwood Hall.

Publisher: Penguin Audio | Narrator: Olivia Vinall  | Length: 9 hours, 35 minutes  | Genre: Historical Suspense/Fiction | Source: Purchased | Rating: 1.5   

An isolated country estate, cursed family, governess with a secret, things that go bump in the night? Yes, please!

Margaret is a young widow with a bit of mystery surrounding the death of her husband. Wanting to escape, she takes the position as a governess at Hartwood Hall. While she enjoys spending time with her young charge, Louis, and developing a relationship with Paul, the gardener, there’s something strange about Hartwood Hall and Mrs. Eversham’s concealing something.

I picked this one up because of my love for Jane Eyre and atmospheric gothic novels.  I have to say, I did get that spooky, gothic atmospheric vibe that I love and the vibe of the book was very similar to Jane Eyre. There was a bit of mystery, some possible hauntings, an illicit affair, and so many things going bump in the night. This was what I wanted in a gothic, historical suspense novel. The first 70% of this novel was brilliant.

The last 30% of the book had me wondering if this was even the same book. I really liked Margaret at the start and enjoyed watching her almost forbidden relationship develop with Paul but she ended up treating him like something she’d toss in the bin and I didn’t care for the character change. She became cruel and hateful and suddenly took on this, ‘I don’t need a man’ attitude when in the first 70% of the book she’s mooning over how much she loved and needed him.

Then there was the reveal behind the spookiness of the house and the secret Mrs. Eversham was keeping. I’m not going to go into too much detail as I don’t want to ruin the book for potential readers. I don’t know why the author spent so much time creating a spooky gothic atmosphere if this was the big reveal she was planning. It just felt like such a letdown and had me questioning why an outsider (Margaret) was allowed in the house if Mrs. Eversham was trying to conceal this particular secret.

The first 70% of the book was slow and focused on building up the gothic atmosphere. The last 30% was rushed and didn’t match the pace or tone. In one way, I feel like the author felt the word count creeping up and decided that she needed to come up with an ending so she threw something out there and hoped it would work to explain things. Had there been something offered up in the first 70% regarding the truth of Mrs. Eversham’s secret, I might have enjoyed it but this one just came out of left field.

I’m a bit on the fence about rating this one. The first 70% would be a 4.5 for me but the last 30% ruined the book, especially since the author went to so much trouble to set a specific tone early on.

Olivia Vinall’s narration was brilliant.

Overall, the audiobook is nearly 10 hours, that’s a lot of time spent building up something and failing to deliver. It’s really disappointing because this was one of my most anticipated books of 2023.

The Hunting Party

All of them are friends. One of them is a killer.

During the languid days of the Christmas break, a group of thirtysomething friends from Oxford meet to welcome in the New Year together, a tradition they began as students ten years ago. For this vacation, they’ve chosen an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands—the perfect place to get away and unwind by themselves.

They arrive on December 30th, just before a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world.

Two days later, on New Year’s Day, one of them is dead.

The trip began innocently enough: admiring the stunning if foreboding scenery, champagne in front of a crackling fire, and reminiscences about the past. But after a decade, the weight of secret resentments has grown too heavy for the group’s tenuous nostalgia to bear. Amid the boisterous revelry of New Year’s Eve, the cord holding them together snaps.

 Now one of them is dead . . . and another of them did it.

 Keep your friends close, the old adage goes. But just how close is too close?

Publisher: William Marrow | Genre: Thriller/Suspense | Source: Purchased| Rating: 3.5

An isolated setting? Check!

A blizzard? Check!

A murderer on the loose? Check!

 

Ringing in the New Year at a remote hunting lodge in the Scottish Highlands sounds the idyllic spot for an annual reunion although they weren’t prepared for a blizzard to trap them there. With secrets and old resentments bubbling up, what’s supposed to be a week of catching up with old friends soon turns into tension and anger. When a member of the group ends up dead, everyone becomes a suspect and no one is safe.

 

I’m a bit on the fence about this one. I liked it. It had all the markers for a great thriller/suspense. I didn’t love it though. I made the mistake of reading The Guest List first and I loved it but had I read this one first, I think I would have enjoyed it better.

There are a lot people popping up in this book. While we do get multiple POVs, I don’t feel as though we got to know who the characters truly were. Everyone had a convoluted agenda. Everyone was concealing something, which turned everyone into unreliable narrators. All of the characters, except for Doug, the groundskeeper, and Heather, the manager of the lodge, were horrible people.   

 

This is very much a classic whodunit with a slight twist. While we know one of the seven friends was murdered, it’s not revealed who was murdered for some time and it wasn’t easy to pinpoint because none of the characters are likable. Each of them has their own secrets and secret resentments. It also made sussing out the murderer a little more difficult. I did have a feeling about certain things going on, which turned out to be correct, but I don’t feel as though it pulled me out of the mystery. There were a few red herrings thrown in, possibly one too many, but it didn’t bog down the flow.

 

What really drew me into this one was the descriptive setting. The Scottish Highlands in the middle of a crippling snowstorm became its own character. I loved how the author drew me into to this rugged landscape.

 

If you’ve read The Guest List, this has the same formula: a group of friends are trapped in some foreign location, one of them dies and one is the murderer. With the Guest List, I feel as though I knew the characters better. They were more fleshed out and I understood their motives.  

 

Overall, if you’re looking for an atmospheric thriller that will pull you into the cold, wintery, snowed in, isolated setting this is the book for you. Lucy Foley is brilliant at making the reader feel as though they’re right in the book experiencing the elements along with the characters. 

The Resting Place by Camilla Sten

Deep rooted secrets.

A twisted family history.

And a house that will never let go.

Eleanor lives with prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize a familiar person's face. It causes stress. Acute anxiety.

It can make you question what you think you know.

When Eleanor walked in on the scene of her capriciously cruel grandmother, Vivianne’s, murder, she came face to face with the killer—a maddening expression that means nothing to someone like her. With each passing day, the horror of having come so close to a murderer—and not knowing if they’d be back—overtakes both her dreams and her waking moments, thwarting her perception of reality.

Then a lawyer calls. Vivianne has left her a house—a looming estate tucked away in the Swedish woods. The place her grandfather died, suddenly. A place that has housed a chilling past for over fifty years.

Eleanor. Her steadfast boyfriend, Sebastian. Her reckless aunt, Veronika. The lawyer. All will go to this house of secrets, looking for answers. But as they get closer to uncovering the truth, they’ll wish they had never come to disturb what rests there.

Publisher: Macmillian Audio | Narrator: Angela Dawes | Length: 10 hrs 30 min | Genre: Mystery. Thriller, Suspense  | Source: Libby App | Rating: 2.5 

Camilla Sten is an author that I’ve wanted to read for a while. I’ve had The Lost Village on my TBR for eons— it’s even one of my 23-in-23 books—but I’ve been a little apprehensive, so when The Resting Place was selected as a local book shops book club pick, I decided to give the author a go. Sadly, I found the book to be a little meh but still an okay read.

Here’s a quick recap. When Eleanor witnesses her grandmother’s murder, unfortunately, due to her face blindness, she’s unable to identify her grandmother’s killer. When a lawyer calls, five months later, informing Eleanor that she’s inherited Solhöga an isolated country estate, and needs to complete an inventory, she’s a bit apprehensive but also curious as to why her grandmother never mentioned the estate. When Eleanor, Sebastian (her boyfriend), and her estranged aunt Veronika arrive, strange things start happening and a hidden journal is found. When someone dies and others are injured, they know they need to leave but find themselves stranded as a murderer is on the loose.

In this one, we have dual timelines. Eleanor is the present narrator. Eleanor has some issues, not only does she have face blindness, she witnessed her grandmother’s murder, and she’s suffering from anxiety all while dealing with issues from her past and reconnecting with an estranged aunt at a location foreign to her. Anushka is the past narrator. She’s a maid from Poland that’s related to Eleanor’s grandmother. She’s trying to settle into her new life, in a new country, while being treated rather poorly.

I had a hard time finding Eleanor likable. I felt that she was overly paranoid but her actions didn’t match up to the way she was acting. She kept secrets that would have cleared things up and made questionable decisions. Anushka was a bit more interesting, to a point, but, again, her actions and choices were questionable and I didn’t feel like we got her entire story.

While the premise was interesting, this one fell a bit flat with the delivery. So much page time was given to Eleanor discovering this diary and trying to decipher it but, unfortunately, she keeps the discovery to herself and then seems to lose interest when the answer she’s seeking is contained within. I also wanted an explanation as to why one of the characters made such a drastic personality change. Unfortunately, this book ended with several plot holes.  

I also had an issue with the pacing. The book opens straight into a flurry of activity, which should have set the pacing for the entire book but, sadly, the pacing slowed as the plot progressed. While there was a lot going on, it was one of those cases where nothing really happened for chunks of time.

The mystery in this one fell a bit flat for me and I ended up figuring most of it out before the middle of the book. I was expecting Eleanor’s face blindness to come into play a bit more rather than it just being something randomly mentioned. While it was said that she recognized people by their markers, she was quick to identify people, especially when she was so paranoid.

I think I went into this book expecting a bit more seeing as this is being labeled, “Crimson Peak meets The Sanatorium”. While I’ve not read The Sanatorium (it’s on my TBR list), I loved the mix of gothic, horror, and romance in Crimson Peak, so I was expecting to see that in The Resting Place and none of that was delivered. Honestly, I’m not even sure why it’s being compared to Crimson Peak. I wouldn’t classify this as horror and I would only say that it’s a light thriller or thriller adjacent. This one mostly felt like a family drama with a bit of suspense.

I enjoyed Angela Dawe’s narration. At times she was a little overly frantic but still enjoyable. I did end up adjusting this to 2x speed.

Overall, this was just a bit meh for me. I don’t think it delivered the story that it promised. I was expecting the house to come into play a bit more or a paranormal element, which wasn’t the case. I ended up borrowing the audiobook from Libby and I was happy with that choice because I don’t think this would be a book I’d want to own.

Prosopagnosia (face blindness), an isolated winter setting, and someone terrorizing the characters are very reminiscent of Rock, Paper, Scissors by Alice Feeney. Out of the two, I’d have to recommend Rock, Paper, Scissors by Alice Feeney.

The Sunday Post: 🍁Hello October and Welcome Spooky Season 🦇

Hello, My Fellow Spooky Season Lovers, I hope you’re all doing fang-tastic! What have you all been up to? I’ve been away for far too long and I need to know all the things!

There’s been some things going on.

The porch saga continues…The front porch redo has been a drama of its own. What they poured last year didn’t set up right, they had to come back and jackhammer it up, pour new concrete, and set the posts and rails. Well, they’ve done everything but set the posts and rails. It’s the easiest part of the entire job but they’ve failed to showed for 2 ½ weeks. So, it’s been a fight with the construction company and the city since they had to grant an extension on the bond on the grounds that they were actively working. I’m really not sure why they won’t show up because it would only take them about an hour to completely finish the job.

Mosquito bites are no joke…Most of the summer I was feeling a bit off, I attributed it to the smoke from the wildfires triggering more migraines than my normal (I have chronic migraines) and stirring up my allergies. I ended up calling the telenurse and based on my symptoms she thought I had West Nile Virus and suggested I go to Urgent Care. Thankfully, I didn’t have West Nile but something called Skeeter Syndrome. Apparently, there’s two types, one is where you’re allergic to the venom injected from a mosquito bite and you have a localized reaction, which I am allergic to mosquito bites (mine usually swell up to the size of a softball). The second form of the syndrome is where you have so much mosquito venom in your body that your immune system views it as a toxin. They said the symptoms and the way your body

reacts is similar to having a bad case of mono, which I’ve never had but feel sorry for anyone who has. The only treatment for this type of Skeeter Syndrome is oral steroids, which I cannot take so I was prescribed high dose Vistaril and lots of rest. I’m on the mend but I still have days where I’m exhausted. I did find that spraying Cutter Skinsations (directly on my clothing and shoes) and rubbing the STEM onto my exposed skin (not my face) has been keeping them away.

In other news…

I went exploring recently and stumbled across this place called The Black Barn in Lebanon, Ohio. It’s a lovely sunflower field and produce market. The produce market is housed in a rustic barn that’s decorated with antique farming equipment. They had so many tasty looking treats—and I really wanted to take their fresh pressed apple cider home—but I had a long trip home and wouldn’t be able to keep them cold. I did pick up a ½ peck of honeycrisp apples. Freshly picked honeycrip apples are the best and these are delicious.

The sunflower field was massive. It was so relaxing to stroll through and hear the bees buzzing by and watching the crows pick at the seeds. I was surprised to see a fully-grown Jamestown weed (a.k.a jimsonweed, Datura, thorn apple, devils trumpet) that already seeded hidden amongst the sunflowers. I always think it’s fun to spot historic plants, especially ones with fascinating histories.

If you don’t know, Jamestown weed (modernly known as jimsonweed) was originally brought to Jamestown by the first English colonists to grow and make into

a healing salve to treat burns, it didn’t really go as planned as all parts of the plant are poisonous. The Celtic tribes would soak their arrowheads in what they called Datura (Jamestown weed) to ensure their enemies would die in battle. While you do need to absorb a certain amount to be fatal, the smallest trace can cause delirium. In fact, there’s a recorded history about a group of British soldiers that consumed parts of the plant during Bacon’s Rebellion and spent 11 days in various states of delirium.

I have a few things I want to check out in the next few weeks so I think I’m going to become an autumn exploration girly. I just need to remember to bring my camera this time! There’s also a few local events I want to check out as well!

Here’s what been going on blog/reading-wise…

Last week on the blog…

The Last Word by Taylor Adams—audiobook review

Chasing Dreams by Carolyn Brown—audiobook review

Witch of Wild Things by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland—arc review This is an autumn must read!!!!

Books that’s arrived…

From authors/publishers

Death and the Sisters: A Mary Shelley Mystery by Heather Redmond (finished review copy)

The Cry of the Banshee by Heather Graham (finished review copy)

Better Hate than Never by Chloe Liese (e-arc)

Never Blow a Kiss by Lindsay Lovise (e-arc)

Lady Charlotte Always Gets Her Man by Violent Marsh (e-arc)

From the library

Accidentally Amy by Lynn Painter (audio from Libby)

Pumpkins in Paradise by Kathi Daley (audio from Libby)

Purchased

I won an Amazon gift card and picked these up. I’m still wanting on theme to arrive.

Belladonna and Foxglove by Adalyn Grace

Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman

On my ‘To Buy’ list

Gallop Toward the Sun by Peter Stark—this is about the fight between Tecumseh and Harrison during the War of 1812. I’m definitely buying this one, I want to check out to see if I can pick one up at one of the Hopewell or heritage sites. If not, I’ll see if Wheatberry Books, in the neighboring town, has a copy to buy. I want to try locally before I head to Amazon.

Here’s what I read last week…

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving (audiobook, reread)

Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn (audiobook)

You Shouldn’t Have Come Here by Jeneva Rose (audiobook)

Currently Reading/Listening to…

The Witches At the End of the World by Chelsea Iversen (e-arc)

The Betrayed (Krewe of Hunters #14) by Heather Graham (audiobook)

*I still need to pick up a print book for this week so I’ll draw something out of the 23 books in 2023 jar.

Bookish things I need to do…

-Update my reading journal—I’ve been actively updating as I read but I have some extras I need to fill out as the journal is nearly filled.

-Pull books for Fraterfest Readathon—I’m really tempted to start The Cry of the Banshee but I’m going to be good and keep it to start off the readathon with. Starting with a novella always make me motivated.

-Update GoodReads—I’ve been using my private StoryGraph account to keep track but I really need to update GoodReads before I forget.

-I need to do an un-haul of 10-20 books—One of my 2023 goals is to un-haul books that I didn’t like, won’t read, won’t read again, or have duplicate copies. I’m a bit behind on that so I’ll either tackle my old romance books (I know I have several duplicates here) that I have stashed away or go through some of my old TBR totes.

Bloggish/Bookish happenings

-Kimberly @ Caffeinated Reviewer is hosting her annual Fraterfest Readathon October 12^th—16^th

-Blogtober—I will be participating all month long over on Instagram, so stop @simplyangelarenee and check out what I’ll be posting.

-Banned Books Week is October 1^st—7^th—there’s a few online and in-person events that I’m hoping to check out. I’m also going to be picking up a few banned books this week.

I managed to snap a few pictures of the harvest moon. 

The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead. Join in weekly, bi-weekly or for a monthly wrap up.

FraterFest 2023 Tracker Post

It’s that time of year again...Kimberly over at Caffeinated Reviewer is hosting Fraterfest 2023! Cue the spooky music!

 

If you don’t know, Fraterfest Readathon is a fun spooky season readathon that runs from October 12^th—16^th. 

 

What can you read? Per Kimberly’s rules: Approved Reads/listens: Thrillers, Urban, Paranormal, Cozy, Suspense, Mystery, Historical, Zombies, Horror, Dystopian, Ghosts, Serial Killers, Fantasy, Urban, Science Fiction, Post-Apocalyptic and Supernatural. I don’t care if there is romance. You pick your fear level. Sparkle, bloody… all approved. Novellas and graphic novels count too!

 

To find out more about this spook-tacular time, check out the sign-up post HERE

 

I’m so excited to be joining again this year. It’s one of my favorite readathons. I feel like I’m always in my spooky reads era but now I have an excuse to read more!

So, I’m not sure what I’m going to be reading or how many books I’ll read. I do have a few Heather Graham books I’m wanting to get through as well as a few from my TBR pile. I’m very much a mood reader, so a set TBR doesn’t always go with my reading flow. I’m just going to play it by ear and see how it goes. 

Witch of Wild Things by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

Legend goes that long ago a Flores woman offended the old gods, and their family was cursed as a result. Now, every woman born to the family has a touch of magic.

 

Sage Flores has been running from her family—and their “gifts”—ever since her younger sister Sky died. Eight years later, Sage reluctantly returns to her hometown. Like slipping into an old, comforting sweater, Sage takes back her job at Cranberry Rose Company and uses her ability to communicate with plants to discover unusual heritage specimens in the surrounding lands.

 

What should be a simple task is complicated by her partner in botany sleuthing: Tennessee Reyes. He broke her heart in high school, and she never fully recovered. Working together is reminding her of all their past tender, genuine moments—and new feelings for this mature sexy man are starting to take root in her heart.

 

With rare plants to find, a dead sister who keeps bringing her coffee, and another sister whose anger fills the sky with lightning, Sage doesn’t have time for romance. But being with Tenn is like standing in the middle of a field on the cusp of a summer thunderstorm—supercharged and inevitable.

Publisher: Berkley |  Genre: Romance/Magical Realism  | Source: Publisher | Rating: 5 Cups

Magic, second chances, healing, and family drama interweave in this magical tale that needs to be on your TBR pile this autumn.

 

After a situation at her former job, Sage is returning home, which isn’t going to be easy considering she ran from her family after the death of her sister eight years before. While things are tricky with her aunt and sister, and the ghost of her other sister is haunting her, Sage has found it easy to return to her former job at Cranberry Rose Company and it allows her to use gifts of communicating with plants. There’s only one tricky situation to navigate, working with Tennessee Reyes, the boy that broke her in high school.

 

Witch of Wild Things was magical, sweet, funny, heartbreaking, healing, cozy and comforting. One of my favorite reads of 2023.

 

Sage has been through a lot. Her mother left when she was young and their aunt took in her and her sisters but Sage ended up being the caretaker. After the death of her youngest sister, Sky, it seemed easier to blame Sage than face the situation so there’s a lot of tension and unresolved feelings when she returned home. I loved how Sage eventually found her voice and was able to confront things.

 

The romance in this one was a bit second chance-ish. Sage and Tennessee communicated via AOL when they were in high school and while Sage knew his identity, hers was a mystery to him. The situation ended with Sage getting emotionally hurt, so when they’re back in each other’s lives, Sage kind of views him as her enemy. There’s a lot of healing that needs to take place and Tennessee has some issues of his own that he needs to face. What I’ve loved about this book was the fact it was a bit of a slow burn romance, which is what they needed. I did have an issue with the secret Sage was keeping but I could see the twisted logic she had about not wanting to get hurt.

 

While this is a romance, it’s more of a family drama, which I enjoyed. There’s a lot of healing the Flores women need that originated from their own issues and hurts but they’ve transferred those hurts onto Sage after the death of Sky. It was nice to see each of them facing things they’ve buried for so long.

 

I loved the magical aspect of this book and how it was woven into the characters realistically. Each of the Flores women has a magical gift passed down from the old gods. Sage can communicate with plants, Teal can affect the weather, and Sky could communicate with animals. Each of their aunts has gifts as well, which are revealed throughout the book.

 

There’s a lot going on in this one but I felt that the pacing was even and the romance and the family aspect of the book both received equal amounts of attention. I would have liked a bit more about the old gods that gave the family their powers but that’s just a me thing of wanting to know more and not something that would have added to the story.

 

Overall, this was a fantastic read and I want to know more about the Flores women. If you’re looking for a cozy book for the autumn then I highly recommend this book. 

Chasing Dreams by Carolyn Brown

Nita, Sharlene, and Billy Joe, all about to turn 80, are tired of waiting their turn for a funeral dinner. They each have a bucket list and are determined to tick off at least a few of the items before they go. So what’s left but to hit the road? They enlist two drivers—Billy Joe’s great-grandson, Ford, who has just gotten out of the Air Force, and Sharlene’s great niece, Joelle, a schoolteacher who has the summer free.

 

Spending the summer with three bickering old people in a tricked-out VW bus isn’t what Joelle or Ford had planned, but they aren’t about to let the trio go that far without help. Both at a crossroads in their lives, neither expect to discover an attraction simmering between them. But somewhere between horseback riding at a dude ranch and slow dancing at the Grand Ole Opry, they discover that their elderly companions aren’t the only ones who need to take some risks in life...and in love.

 Publisher: Audible | Narrator:  Bailey Carr | Length: 1 hour 58 minutes | Genre: Contemporary Romance  | Source: Publisher | Rating: 3.5 

When Nita, Sharlene, and Billy Joe decide they want to go on a road trip to tick items off their bucket list, they know that Ford and Joelle must be their designated drivers. And while they do want to see and do the things on their list, they want Ford and Joelle to use this time to consider taking over their ranches and possibly play a bit of matchmaking.

Carolyn Brown is one of my go to feel good authors and I love her novellas. They’re like little rays of sunshine and the perfect listen after reading so many thrillers.

Ford and Joelle are adorable together. They both have some things going on. Ford is dealing with PTSD from the war and Joelle’s trying to figure out if she wants to uproot her life to take over her aunt’s ranch.

Joelle had a crush on Ford when she was younger but the timing wasn’t right. Now that they’re spending so much time together, they’re developing this closeness and they have this undeniable chemistry but they need to sort out if ranching is in their futures.

While I did have fun with this one, the majority of it takes place in the confines of a van with 3 elderly chaperons so it would have been nice to see more of Ford and Joelle alone together. It also would have been nice to see them explore more of their relationship but since the audio was a little under 2 hours, we didn’t get to see a lot of development.

Overall, I had fun with this one. If you’re looking for a quick, fun little road trip romance then I highly recommend this book. 

The Last Word by Taylor Adams

Emma Carpenter lives in isolation with her golden retriever Laika, house-sitting an old beachfront home on the rainy Washington coast. Her only human contact is her enigmatic old neighbor, Deek, and (via text) the house’s owner, Jules.

One day, she reads a poorly written—but gruesome—horror novel by the author H. G. Kane, and posts a one-star review that drags her into an online argument with none other than the author himself. Soon after, disturbing incidents start to occur at night. To Emma, this can’t just be a coincidence. It was strange enough for this author to bicker with her online about a lousy review; could he be stalking her, too?

As Emma digs into Kane’s life and work, she learns he has published sixteen other novels, all similarly sadistic tales of stalking and murder. But who is he? How did he find her? And what else is he capable of?

Publisher: Harper Audio | Narrators: Carlotta Brentan, Jim Meskimen  | Length: 9 hours 57 minutes | Genre: Thriller/Suspense | Source: Audible | Rating: 3 

Wanting to escape from a personal tragedy, Emma is house sitting at a remote beach house. Spending her free time reading e-books and communicating with her nearest neighbor via a whiteboard and telescope seemed an easy way to spend a week, but when she reads a poorly written horror novel by H.G. Kane, she feels obligated to leave a review stating just how bad the book was, and she doesn’t hold back her feelings. She doesn’t think anything of it until the author reaches out and demands that she remove the review then strange things start happening leaving Emma to wonder if the author is stalking her.

As a reviewer, and a lover of thrillers, this one intrigued me and it was one of my most anticipated released on 2023. Sadly, it didn’t wow me.

While I did like it—or rather liked the concept of this one—I felt that this one rambled a lot and I do mean a lot. The events take place in one night and, my goodness, it must have been one long night as I started wondering if the book was ever going to end. There were so many twists and turns and red herrings that it started to get annoying because it was obvious from the start how everything was going to play out.

The book is told through two different perspectives. We get Emma’s point of view about what’s currently happening then we get snippets from the new book HG Kane’s currently writing. It would have been nice if we would have received more from HG Kane. And for some random reason, we also get snippets of Laika’s thoughts, just because, you know, dog’s thoughts are needed in a thriller/mystery.

I think that my problem with this book was the length. Things that should have been mentioned in passing, such as going to look for a bottle of peroxide, were written about in length. The ‘fight’ scene went on for hours. I found myself looking at the time remaining thinking it was near the end and discovering I still had hours left in the book. At times, I felt the author was trying to aggravate the reader.

While I liked the narrators, Carlotta Brentan’s accent slipped out several times and pulled me from the book, which I was already struggling to stay in the world the author created.

Overall, I feel like giving this a 3 is being generous. I think it had potential to be great had it been condensed. I do think it would have made a better movie than book.