The Roanoke Girls

When I finished The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel, I texted the friend who let me borrow it and said, “well, this was messed up.” It was a bit of a train wreck that I just couldn’t look away from. When Lane is 15, her mother dies by suicide and she goes home to live with the grandparents and a cousin her age, whom she hasn’t ever met. Over the summer, she learns about her family and all the dead girls it consists of. The story flashes between that summer and the present day when Lane is called home because her cousin has gone missing. The entire book is unsettling – you know there is something else happening, but it takes some time to sort it out. You can expect just about every trigger that exists in this book, too. This one is a wild ride.

The Writing Retreat

The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz is a thriller I am glad I picked up! Five women are selected to go to a remote estate of an eccentric horror writer for a retreat. Then they start to die, but it’s winter and they are trapped on the estate due to a recent storm. I liked some characters and hated others. Of course all of them have secrets and there are plenty of twists and turns to keep you turning the pages. There were some unique elements in this book, combined with some of my go to thriller tropes and I’m glad I read it.

What Lies in the Woods

I simultaneously love and hate picking the thriller option for my BOTM boxes. I love a good quick thriller that I can tear through, but I read them so quickly that I often feel like I am wasting a book choice. But I found myself with another BOTM thriller – What Lies in the Woods by Kate Alice Marshall. As children, three best friends used to play their own made up game – The Goddess Game – in the woods. When when of them is attacked in the woods and left for dead, their entire worlds change. They identified a serial killer and testified at the trial that put him away for life. But, the three of them all have secrets about the attack. Flash forward many years, and the three women come together again. One of them wants to talk about the secrets from that summer.

I really liked this book, especially the setting. I thought it was well done, with some good twists and turns, and only a tad predictable. Overall, a quick thriller that is worth picking up.

No Exit

I picked up No Exit by Taylor Adams forever ago at a used book sale. A friend recently read it – she stayed up until 4:00am and literally didn’t know what was going to happen until the last page. So, that encouraged me to grab it before the end of 2022. College student Darby is driving from Colorado to Utah to see her dying mother when she gets caught in a blizzard. She makes the decision to stop at a rest stop to ride out the weather with four other strangers. Darby discovers the car parked next to her in the lot contains a child locked inside a dog cage. There is no cell service and she isn’t sure who she can trust, but she is determined to save the child.

Should I have read this before a road trip where I was trying to beat a blizzard? Maybe not, but it was SO GOOD. It was suspenseful and full of surprises. I appreciated that there weren’t to many moments where I needed to shout, “no, don’t do that!” like I often feel in a thriller like this. The suspense in this book was so well done.

The Wife Between Us

I picked up The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen at a used book sale. I am always looking for BOTM books at these sales and get excited when I can grab them – I have a vision for an incredible BOTM bookshelf. I love a twisty thriller, especially when I can’t trust the narrator, so this book lived up to the hype. There was one twist where I gasped, and I found the ending of this book to be satisfying. I enjoyed it and rated it at four stars.

Verity

My first Colleen Hoover! I have obviously seen Colleen Hoover’s books all over the internet, but had NO idea where to start. Someone loaned me Verity and I dug right in. I knew this one was pretty messed up, but I love mess, so I was happy to savor it a bit. I honestly don’t even know how to describe this book. It’s just a wild and twisty time. It’s not quite like anything I’ve read before and It got me to pick up another Hoover, so I guess that’s high praise!

The Lies I Tell

For my second June Book of the Month pick, I chose The Lies I Tell by Julie Clark. I got to read this one as a buddy read, which was really fun.

Meg is a con artist and she is back in her hometown for the biggest and most personal con yet. Kat has been waiting years for Meg to return so she can confront her for upending her life years ago. They cross paths and the twists and turns ensue. I really enjoyed this book! It was twisty and had me guessing what was coming next. I can think of two scenes that gave me so much anxiety while I was reading them! This was my favorite mystery/thriller this year.

The President’s Daughter

Every once in a while I just need a good Dan Brown style thriller that I can tear through in a few days. It’s a guilty pleasure of sorts. I like to figure out the twists and turns without needing to really focus on the story. James Patterson and Bill Clinton delivered what I needed with The President’s Daughter. I enjoyed The President is Missing and someone loaned me this book, which I read in a few days.

Former President Keating is a former Navy SEAL who has lost his re-election campaign. His daughter is kidnapped and he won’t stop until he is able to get her back safely and enact revenge on those who took her. The book has all the things I want in the mood for a political thriller – short chapters, jumps in point of view, and multiple story lines. This one was fine, but wasn’t anything earth-shattering for me (can anyone really do this as well as Dan Brown does?).

The Sun Down Motel

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James has so many elements that I like – mystery, crime-solving, and jumps in time/perspective. The story jumps between present day and the 1980s. In the 1980s story line Viv is working at The Sun Down Motel when she suddenly goes missing, never to be seen again. Flash forward 30 years and her niece Carly starts to work in the same motel to honor her crime podcast loving tendencies. She quickly learns something is amiss at the motel.

I really enjoyed reading this and almost gave it 5 stars. However, I wasn’t here for the supernatural elements of the novel. I liked the book, but the supernatural pieces just aren’t my thing. For that reason, I won’t be picking up The Book of Cold Cases which I’ve heard has the same type of supernatural elements.

The Line That Held Us

I am making some progress on my BOTM back list pile! I read one from 2018 – David Joy’s The Line That Held Us. This book is a little thriller/crime/mystery. Darl Moody is out hunting for a huge buck he has been after for years when he accidentally shoots a man who was digging in the woods. He quickly comes to realize the man is the brother of a man known to be violent. He calls on a friend to help him hide the body, but their secrets don’t last long.

This book wasn’t terribly suspenseful, but I kept turning the pages. The story is pretty violent, so if that’s not your thing, I would stay clear. I found myself really torn on who I was supposed to be siding with. There really aren’t good characters – everyone is a bit of a mess and complicated. It reminded me a little of all the things I loved from Razorblade Tears.