Kari

This was a cute, sad and sweet Cinderella retelling. Stepmother was officially the worst.

Jennifer Hillier writes complicated women the way other authors wish they could.

This was everything I was hoping Sleep Tight was going to be. Extra creepy, gory, high body count and sad. Great spoopy season read!

Sometimes when Murderbot talks I have no idea what they're saying but nonetheless it's always fun!

I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. Alas, I did not.

“true master of the genre” I think not. First of all, I wouldn't call this horror. It was more like a police procedural, thriller more than horror. But that's not my beef with it. This was just one of those “throw everything against the wall and see what sticks” kind of books. Every trope, every cliche was here for the taking, making the entire story ridiculous. Unnecessary POVs (why did we need to be inside the head of Danny?), and characters who weren't clearly defined. This book had pacing issues and could have done with a lot more editing.

And now for the spoilers and true ranting.

Addicted, burnt out cop with a cheating husband who blames herself because she's too invested in her work. She's a mostly absent mother because she works so much and the one time she does school drop off she doesn't take her directly to the door so of course she gets kidnapped. DID done badly with weird hints of supernaturalism in that living people are some of the personalities and maybe the personality and the living person are able to talk to each other through their minds??? Animal mask wearing crazed drug addicts form a cult and dig up a serial killer's body to resurrect with a human sacrifice. Crazy woman is actually mastermind of everything. Small time cops immediately get murdered because despite crazy mask wearing psychos running around with shotguns no one is wearing vests EXCEPT Danny who mentions the vest several times so that when he's finally shot and the chapter ends, moving on to Tess and Justin you're not at all concerned because you know he's wearing a vest. Also, Justin's phone is broken and left in a burning house, yet he gets Tessa's messages?

Practical Magic is one of my all time favorite movies and while I know I read the book 100 years ago, I never got around to reading the prequels. I loved this. I usually don't like historical fiction, especially when placed around such dark times in history, but I was hooked and I learned some things about the witch trials I never knew. I loved Maria so much and after all these years I'm glad to finally know her story.

This reminded me a lot of The Haunting of Hill House. I pictured Claire as Nell the whole time. Esther really got on my nerves. Obviously, there was trauma and this is how she dealt with it but holy moley.

Knew how that was going to end. I feel like the character who truly deserved to suffer was Mommy. She was the worst!

This reminded me of the thrillers I always enjoyed, like the early days of Kathy Reichs books but a little less clinical. Definitely picking up the next book.

I said I would finish this series and so I am. I mean, I don't know what else to say. They're all so predictable despite Deaver trying to make them unpredictable.

Suspenseful and creepy!

Very interesting! I liked that there was a variety of types of cults, not all of them murderous, but all of them wild!

The creepy bits while they were in Italy were creepy, but I hated everyone in this book. I stuck around just to see if everyone died.

The basement scenes were a nightmare and I loved them. A little disappointed with the ending, but not enough to change my rating.

Wish I had read this when I was a kid.

There were some interesting bits and I liked reading about that, but the last few chapters kind of lost me.

This was mostly boring until about 2/3rds of the way through when Opaline made her way back to the bookshop. But otherwise, it was confusing and full of plot holes.

A little sad. The mystery was full of twists, but I just felt bad for Bree and Alice.

Having had so many problems with my teeth I could literally feel Raina's pain!

A small island unable to let go of the grief and the ravages of war. This was full of heartbreak and horror, but isn't it that horror is usually steeped in heartbreak?

I thought this would be a generic sort of mystery, but I was seeing it everywhere so I thought I'd pick it up. I loved it. I laughed out loud and cried! It was wild and unexpected, but not fully unbelievable. There were times when I felt the honesty was too much. Lucy was who we all are.

I wanted this to end. I should have DNF'd it about halfway through when I realized I hated Erena. Asian Manic Pixie Dream Girl on steroids in a sad High Fidelity echo. Young wasn't really much better. I couldn't figure out what his past GFs saw in him.

I always feel like the solution to every mystery in Alex and Milo's lives gets pulled straight out of Alex's imagination and this time it couldn't have been more far fetched. Somehow, still pretty entertaining.

There wasn't much to hold on to. We flitted through time too fast, lingered not long enough and I had a hard time feeling connected after Grimalkin left Eilidh. Still, parts grabbed me and didn't let go.