Tag: book review

Posted in Bookish and Bingeable

The Children on the Hill

Posted on by Vikki Lynn Sorensen

By: Jennifer McMahon

1978: At her renowned treatment center in picturesque Vermont, the brilliant psychiatrist, Dr. Helen Hildreth, is acclaimed for her compassionate work with the mentally ill. But when’s she home with her cherished grandchildren, Vi and Eric, she’s just Gran—teaching them how to take care of their pets, preparing them home-cooked meals, providing them with care and attention and love.

Then one day Gran brings home a child to stay with the family. Iris—silent, hollow-eyed, skittish, and feral—does not behave like a normal girl.

Still, Violet is thrilled to have a new playmate. She and Eric invite Iris to join their Monster Club, where they catalogue all kinds of monsters and dream up ways to defeat them. Before long, Iris begins to come out of her shell. She and Vi and Eric do everything together: ride their bicycles, go to the drive-in, meet at their clubhouse in secret to hunt monsters. Because, as Vi explains, monsters are everywhere.

2019: Lizzy Shelley, the host of the popular podcast Monsters Among Us, is traveling to Vermont, where a young girl has been abducted, and a monster sighting has the town in an uproar. She’s determined to hunt it down, because Lizzy knows better than anyone that monsters are real—and one of them is her very own sister.

The Children on the Hill takes us on a breathless journey to face the primal fears that lurk within us all. 

This book was very unique. 

As a serious nod to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, it works well as a mystery/thriller story. 

The hook does grab you and drags you into the story quite quickly. Then, there’s a few bumps and hiccups in the 1st third of the book as you get introduced to the characters, timelines, etc. 

Once you’re there and you know who is who and what is what, the middle lags just a tiny bit I found myself wanting to just get to the good stuff and it took a while. However, as it’s taking a while, you’re treated to chills and such great atmospheric writing, I could almost smell the crisp in the air and the fire burning. 

Then you get to the last third and it’s incredible with a lot of WOWS and OH MY GOODNESSES to keep you sitting on the edge of your seat long after you finish the book. I was exhausted by the time I finished, which was within 24 hours of starting. 

I’m off to find more by Jennifer McMahon. I have to read more of her books!

My Rating: :star: :star: :star: :star: 

Posted in Bookish and Bingeable

Half Sisters

Posted on by Vikki Lynn Sorensen

By: Virginia Frankel

A single lie becomes a defining moment in a family’s life in an unforgettable novel of psychological suspense.

After being gone for two decades, Maddy’s half sister, Emily, is back in town to settle their late father’s estate. Emily’s not the troubled girl Maddy remembers from their volatile childhood. Apparently, all is well. It can’t possibly matter anymore that Maddy married Emily’s first love, but the pictures Maddy finds on her husband’s phone tell a different story. Suspicions of an affair are hard to ignore.

Then again, Maddy hasn’t been herself lately. She’s increasingly confused. She’s losing items that are precious to her. She forgets where she’s going. The line between what’s real and unreal has become a blur. Even the damning photos have disappeared. Though her state of mind starts to become everyone’s cause for concern, Maddy refuses to believe she’s losing her grip on reality. But the one thing she can’t deny is the secret from the past that rewrote all their lives—a secret that’s ready to come out. 

NOTE – Thanks to Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for an eArc in exchange for an honest review. 

ALSO NOTE – POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD!

This book was really, really….odd. 

The synopsis says one lie becomes a defining moment. While one lie might have started the whole ball rolling, it takes several to unravel it. Very strange. 

Let’s talk about the characters. I couldn’t find one character that I could really get behind. But then again, there’s so many lies and twists and turns that I’m not sure we’re really allowed to get to know them. And none of them are likable which was disturbing to me. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book where I completely disliked every single character in it. Even Maddy’s parents aren’t all that great and we don’t really get too much of them. 

If there is any character development, it’s that they all wound up as even uglier versions of themselves than when the story started. 

The storyline was quite predictable. I knew right away Maddy was being gaslighted. But even if she wasn’t, there was no one in her life who wanted to help her. Everyone immediately took sides and there really was no explanation as to why. That was confusing to me. 

The ending was also confusing. The story ramps up, comes to a climax and then…that’s it! Maddy drives away and it’s all over. It’s almost like the writer just petered out, stopped writing and turned in an incomplete assignment. 

Overall, I can’t recommend this book at all. 

My rating: :star:

Posted in Bookish and Bingeable

The Last House on the Street

Posted on by Vikki Lynn Sorensen

By: Diane Chamberlain

1965

Growing up in the well-to-do town of Round Hill, North Carolina, Ellie Hockley was raised to be a certain type of proper Southern lady. Enrolled in college and all but engaged to a bank manager, Ellie isn’t as committed to her expected future as her family believes. She’s chosen to spend her summer break as a volunteer helping to register black voters. But as Ellie follows her ideals fighting for the civil rights of the marginalized, her scandalized parents scorn her efforts, and her neighbors reveal their prejudices. And when she loses her heart to a fellow volunteer, Ellie discovers the frightening true nature of the people living in Round Hill.

2010

Architect Kayla Carter and her husband designed a beautiful house for themselves in Round Hill’s new development, Shadow Ridge Estates. It was supposed to be a home where they could raise their three-year-old daughter and grow old together. Instead, it’s the place where Kayla’s husband died in an accident—a fact known to a mysterious woman who warns Kayla against moving in. The woods and lake behind the property are reputed to be haunted, and the new home has been targeted by vandals leaving threatening notes. And Kayla’s neighbor Ellie Hockley is harboring long buried secrets about the dark history of the land where her house was built.

Two women. Two stories. Both on a collision course with the truth–no matter what that truth may bring to light–in Diane Chamberlain’s riveting, powerful novel about the search for justice.

It’s rare when a book stays with me and haunts me. I finished this book almost a week ago and it’s still marinating in my heart. 

Stories like this should be told over and over lest we forget. I’m not a huge fan of books with a political agenda however, this book wasn’t like that at all. It merely educated as I had no clue SCOPE ever existed. 

That aside, I think I found myself more drawn to Ellie’s story than Kayla’s. Kayla’s story was more of a sub-plot to help Ellie’s story reach the very end. I had a more emotional attachment to Ellie in this story also. 

Kayla’s grief was well-written, including her not wanting to live in the house she designed with her husband. I really liked her relationship with her daughter and her dad. It was honest and open. Kayla’s intrepidations over living the new house are well-founded as she begins to receive threatening messages urging her not to move in. There’s a creepy woman who has some aggressive things to say to her also. The all over creepiness of living in a house with mostly windows and a dark forest is threaded through the book and leaves a significant chilling imprint all over Kayla’s story. 

Ellie is a beautiful character from start to finish. She broke my heart over and over again and as her life is shattered, I felt like mine shattered along with her. It’s rare for me to have such a strong reaction. Her story is one of strength, power, dignity and passion. She’s a character so real and so important that I wanted to go find her so I could sit down and have a chat. 

The subject matter is intense and should not be taken lightly, especially in this day and age when racism is still a hot topic. As a white woman, I felt uncomfortable and challenged and broken. 

I wholeheartedly recommend this book. Over and over and all day long. 

My rating – :star: :star: :star: :star: :star: 

Posted in Bookish and Bingeable

Behind the Veil

Posted on by Vikki Lynn Sorensen

By: E.J. Dawson

In 1920s Los Angeles, Letitia Hawking reads the veil between life and death. A scrying bowl allows her to experience the final moments of the deceased. She brings closure to grief-stricken war widows and mourning families.

For Letitia, it is a penance. She knows no such peace.

For Alasdair Driscoll, it may be the only way to save his niece, Finola, from her growing night terrors. But when Letitia sees a shadowy figure attached to the household, it rouses old fears of her unspeakable past in England.

When a man comes to her about his missing daughter, the third girl to go missing in as many months, Letitia can’t help him when she can’t see who’s taken them.

As a darkness haunts Letitia’s vision, she may not be given a choice in helping the determined Mr Driscoll, or stop herself falling in love with him. But to do so risks a part of herself she locked away, and to release it may cost Letitia her sanity and her heart. 

From the very first page, this book grabbed me and didn’t let go. I was instantly intrigued by Letitia and her world as well as her gift. Alasdair Driscoll was an engaging, maddening and seriously endearing character. 

As a ghost story, this works. There’s enough of the eeriness and creep factor within these pages to make many shivers run up and down your spine. Letitia’s reaction to the first taste of real darkness we come in contact with was enough to have me sleeping with my closet light on. 

As a thriller, this story also works. There’s enough of a who-dun-it to keep you guessing as to why girls went missing and what happened to them as well as Finola’s fate, how it’s all tied to the missing girls as well as Letitia’s fate and who will survive when it’s all over. 

The undertone romance between Letitia and Alasdair was nicely written. It was just that – an undertone; a subplot that didn’t subvert or take over the main plot of the story in any way. It was weaved through the main plot so nicely and so lightly and yet, it was almost pivotal to the outcome of the story. 

I really loved all the glimpses in the readings Letitia did for others as it gives us a view of her gift from the inside. The character of Letitia is strong, broken, vulnerable, and endearing. I loved to see her growth as the story progresses. 

While the ending wasn’t necessarily a shock ending, it provided enough answers to the questions I had to satisfy my desire for a complete outcome. I was very content with how this story ended. 

All in all, this is a wonderful story that’s beautifully written. It’s a fast=paced read perfect for chilly winter nights, wrapped up with a blanket and a nice cup of tea. 

My rating – :star: :star: :star: :star:

Posted in Bookish and Bingeable

The Party Crasher

Posted on by Vikki Lynn Sorensen

By: Sophie Kinsella

It’s been over two years since Effie’s beloved parents got divorced, destroying the image of the happy, loving childhood she thought she had. Since then, she’s become estranged from her father and embarked on a feud with his hot (and much younger) girlfriend, Krista. And now, more earth-shattering news: Greenoaks, the rambling Victorian country house Effie called home her whole life, has been sold.

When Krista decides to throw a grand “house cooling” party, Effie is originally left off the guest list–and then receives a last-minute “anti-invitation” (maybe it’s because she called Krista a gold-digger, but Krista totally deserved it, and it was mostly a joke anyway). Effie declines, but then remembers a beloved childhood treasure is still hidden in the house. Her only chance to retrieve it is to break into Greenoaks while everyone is busy celebrating. As Effie sneaks around the house, hiding under tables and peeping through trapdoors, she realizes the secrets Greenoaks holds aren’t just in the dusty passageways and hidden attics she grew up exploring. Watching how her sister, brother, and dad behave when they think no one is looking, Effie overhears conversations, makes discoveries, and begins to see her family in a new light. Then she runs into Joe–the love of her life, who long ago broke her heart, and who’s still as handsome and funny as ever–and even more truths emerge.

Note – Thanks to Random House Publishing and NetGalley for this eARC in return for an honest review. 

I have always liked Sophie Kinsella. I was a huge fan of the Shopaholic series. I found it sweet, endearing and witty. So, I had high hopes for this book. 

Honestly, I can always tell I struggled with a book when I go to write the review and find that not much of the book stuck with me. 

First, it took me a while to get into this book. Once there, however, it was cute. Nothing super special and nothing quite as charming as The Shopaholic series. Effie is a cute albeit underwhelming main character way too focused on her Dad and step-mom’s divorce. She seems to have tunnel vision where this situation is concerned when she could devote some of her attention to her own life.

Her sister, Bean, is charming and almost annoyingly optimistic. Her brother, Gus, seems to have his head in the clouds, oblivious to what is going on with his family. The stepmom, Mimi, is a bit of a mystery later on in the book, not acting at all like she’s just been through a divorce. And her dad is ridiculously obsessed with his new, bouncy girlfriend, he doesn’t see his family falling apart. The idea of him allowing Krista to rule over his family, regardless of her intentions, was frustrating in the extreme. I wanted to snap her spandex as much as I wanted to slap Effie’s dad. Him sitting silent while several guests bashed his youngest child was infuriating. 

The main theme of this book is family dynamics, or family dysfunction. There’s a lot these characters say to each other that isn’t heard and a lot unspoken that speaks volumes. I thought the premise of Effie running around and hiding in her former house was only going to be part of the story. I didn’t realize it would be the whole story so some disappointment there. 

There was a nice chemistry between Effie and Joe and some memorable moments, like when Bean finally loses it, smashing plates and all, towards the climax of the book. But that’s probably the very best moment in the book. 

Overall, I found this a little silly. A grown woman creeping around at a party her family is attending so she can find a childhood toy felt a little immature for a writer who’s produced some real gems. Not upset I read it but this is a one and done for me. 

My rating – :star: :star: :star: