Maggie
Sarah Penner's debut novel The Lost Apothecary is an intriguing dual time-line narrative of three women. Nella lives in 18th century London, with its horse-drawn carriages and cobblestone streets. It's a time when women have little power over their lives and often find themselves in intolerable, abusive marriages so, in a secret space behind her regular drugstores, Nella concocts special potions which she sells to women to poison their oppressors. Into her shop one day comes Eliza Fanning, a precocious 12-year-old sent by her mistress to obtain the means to murder her adulterous husband. Through a series of mis-adventures, Eliza winds up becoming a quasi-companion and assistant to Nella, who is increasingly unwell, and their relationship forms a strong through-line in the book.
Penner's third protagonist is Caroline, visiting London in the present on what was to have been her 10th wedding anniversary before she caught her husband cheating and decided to take travel alone. While on a mudlarking expedition near the Thames, she discovers an old apothecary vial and on a lark, decides to spend time researching its unusual markings. This leads her to a new friend, Gaynor, who works at the British Library and eventually to an abandoned property where she discovers the ruins of Nella's long-buried shop and her journal detailing her clients and their purchases.
Like many dual time-line novels, one story often outshines the other. For me, the tale of Nella and Eliza proved vastly more compelling than the modern-day narrative, so I felt a bit disappointed whenever the focus left the streets of old London to describe Caroline's growing dissatisfaction with her life's direction and her amateur pursuit of the mystery of the secret apothecary. Her research into historical records never quite captured me as much as the older tale but I did appreciate her growth through the book and the life decisions she made in the last chapters.
With its themes of female power and agency, paired with an interesting mystery and historical underpinnings, this would be a great read for book clubs. Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an advance eARC in exchange for an honest review.
In my mind, this ranks up there with Gone Girl as one of the best psychological suspense novels I've read. Two POV's of two women we root for- from very different lifestyles but both desperate to escape their lives. A page-turner.
We all know couples like Wes and Ivy – always breaking up, always getting back together, toxic yet desperately in love, they can't keep their hands off each other, yet seem destined to make each other miserable. They manipulate each other, stab each other in the back, torture the other until they're at the breaking point, yet somehow always wind up back in each other's arms. We watch them in fascination, one part of us envious of such an all-consuming passion, the other repulsed by how miserable they make each other. The unhealthy dynamic plays out, complete with secrets, lies, and murder and while it may be mesmerizing, I wouldn't wish this type of love on anyone. Downing leads us down the garden path, then rips the story apart. If you're a fan of whack-a-do relationships and fabulous obsessions, this book was meant for you.
Almost totally plot-driven which I guess is his comfort zone but I wasn't all that engaged.
Hands down one of the best books I've ever read. It took me a while to adjust to the author's somewhat odd writing style (run-on sentences, joined with commas) but the story itself reminded me of Jane Harper's The Dry and Elizabeth Wetmore's Valentine in terms of its memorable characters, heart-wrenching situations, and insights into the human condition. Duchess will live in my mind forever. And the last twist that revealed where Star had gone all those years was heartbreaking.
This is not so much a love story, as an ode to New York City and to a unique, life-long friendship between two girls who first meet when they are eight and whose friendship grows and deepens during the next 25 years into something so meaningful and special it will tug at your heart. If you loved Me Before You, you will love In Five Years. It was so not the story I was expecting which delighted me in the best way. I loved both the women characters and the men in their lives, all of them trying the best they knew how to connect and love, and was also surprised in a good way at the ending. This isn't a male/female love story so much as a prose poem to a great bond between two women which made it unique and wonderful.
A perfect little gem of a book - a writer who revealed his small hometown's secrets in his debut novel comes back to town 18 years later when his father falls ill. The story follows his coming to terms with the fallout of his revelations, reconnecting with his family, his HS friends, and his true love and maybe, along the way, discovering the true path to happiness. And bravo to Tropper for a perfect ending.
This is one of the best of this genre (detective/domestic suspense drama) I've read. I'd rank it up with Jane Harper's The Dry and The Lost Man and Susie Steiner's Missing,Presumed which for me is high praise. It's hard to believe this was a debut - I don't like the cover that much, doesn't really telegraph much but the story has a full range of fascinating characters and kept me guessing. But it was mainly the quality of the writing that set this above many for me. Lots of insights into the emotions behind most of the characters and no one was a stereotype.
When was the last time you came to the end of a book and found tears forming at the corners of your eyes and wished you could start reading it all over again? The “plot” of this novel is thin - we meet a young woman writer, Casey, whose working a dead-end restaurant job, whose deeply in debt, who is very close to being evicted, who is finishing a novel she's been working on for six years, who is torn between two men, both or neither of which may be right for her and is mourning the death of her beloved mother a year before. And yet by the time I got to the end, Casey was someone I wanted to keep close, to read more about her, to watch the rest of her life unfold. The last time I had a similar feeling about a fictional character was Olive Ketteridge. I can't recommend this book highly enough. It is a gem. Lily King is my new hero. I liked and admired Euphoria. But I LOVED Writers & Lovers.
Did you notice this book has no chapters? It's one long story taking place over one day but boy, does it keep you turning pages. You'll ache right along with the protagonist as she searches, despite everyone around her pooh-poohing her concern (even the police) that her teenage daughter has gone missing. And the last 50 pages are as harrowing an ending as I can ever remember. I was on the edge of my chair, so anxious to see how this would all turn out.
A good addition to Hillier's growing list of psychological thrillers., although not in the league of Jar of Hearts for me. Initially this story seems to center around the kidnapping of a 4-year-old boy in busy Pike Market in Seattle. Marin, his mother, cannot get over her guilt and grief and begins seeing both a therpist and attending a support group of other parents whose children are missing. But then before the quarter mark, the novel takes a U-turn and becomes much more about Marin's discovery of her husband's affair with Kenzie and her plans for revenge. That's where the book lost me, I'm afraid, because Marin did not seem like a woman who would resort to the measures she puts in place. Also the fact she was willing to continue with her marriage to a cheating spouse as though nothing had happened rubbed me the wrong way. She turned from a grieving mother to a complicit wife concerned with appearances, material success, and maintaining the status quo, which wasn't the character I'd identified with at the beginning. The twists and turns in the plot were deftly handled although I did see the solution coming halfway through (I thought the antagonist was easy to spot) For me, all the characters acted in selfish, self-centered and frankly, over the top ways so when Hillier finally cycled back to the kidnapped child, I'd lost interest in how it all turned out.
My thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.
Excellent fictional account of a young 15-year-old being groomed as a sexual partner by an older 42-year old teacher and her subsequent growth toward understanding how that relationship, which lasted well into her thirties, affected her life. In my experience as a therpist, this rang very true and real.
Written in the style of Dickens, Waugh, Alcott - this harrowing tale of young girls at a forward-thinking boarding school who are caught up in feelings that are labelled hysteria by a medical doctor, told through the perspective of the young female teacher whose father runs the school. Reminiscent of the movie Picnic at Hanging Rock and the play The Crucible.
The mark of a good psychological thriller in my book is whether it keeps me up at night, listening for sounds in the backyard. This one did in spades. There were some detours that didn't add a lot to the story but fleshed out the characters but for the most part, Driscoll stuck to the central story of Alice, a talented reporter, who is being stalked by someone who attacks her every Wednesday. At first the threats are small (a phone call with a garbled voice) but when events escalate, Alice's boyfriend Tom enlists the service of a PI Walter. Before long, we learn Alice is hiding a secret that may point to the person behind the threats. There's a rich mix of characters surrounding Alice (her mother, sister, co-worker, activists she encounters on an expose she's doing) so you're kept guessing until the very end. Definitely worth a read for those who like good puzzles and suspense reads.
4.5 stars - I can easily see why this has made it onto lots of “must read” lists - it's the perfect blend of escapist tale (exotic New Zealand), family secrets (boy, what an engaging and fascinating back story these sisters have) and romance. Well written, true emotional resonance, touching family saga, hell of an initial hook. What stopped it from being five stars for me was the fact that both sisters were fabulously beautiful and both their love interests were not only drop-dead gorgeous, but wealthy and famous as well. I like my characters a bit more true-to-life but I do understand the appeal. The ending was perfect.
Not at all what I was expecting; mostly a back story about a family who was taken over by a charismatic cult-like man so most of the story occurred in the past with some parts catching up to the surviving characters in the present. Did keep my attention and was well written
thought-provoking novel about man's inhumanity to animals. Very quirky and a bit hard to get in to initially, but actually wound up liking it a great deal.
well crafted police procedural as a young FBI agent, on furlough, returns to her hometown, the site of two brutal murders and begins to suspect the people she's known all her life, including her own father, may not be who they seem. Reminiscent of Jane Harper's The Dry and The Lost Man and Tana French's novels.
This novel was an unexpected surprise in that it's marketed more as a psychological thriller, when in fact it's a literate, lyrical, fascinating exploration of not only an unnamed narrator, a young female artist, but also a group of 5 more established artists who have formed a sort of art commune called Pine City. Our protagonist eventually becomes part of this community when a fire destroys the eight major works she's completed for a gallery showing in three months. Through connections, she's able to use the abandoned studio of Carey Logan, one of the five, who drowned herself on the property. I worked as an art consultant for years and so was totally transfixed by the descriptions of this artist's work, so detailed and so intriguing. The only other recent description of how an artist works that I can remember was Mia in Little Fires Everywhere and Bourland has given us even more insight into the creative mind, not only the inspiration for this women's paintings but the sheer physicality and the quite large expense that goes into the production of large-scale works such as these. There is a central mystery to the narrative but no terror/suspense/fear in the sense of the Gone Girl clones. No, this is literary fiction/women's fiction with fully-formed characterJust released in paperback.
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It's very long, with so many POV switches (often in the same scene) you can't be blamed for getting confused. And the interruptions, pauses, hems and haws that all the characters do in conversation can get a bit maddening, and yet – and yet, I loved this intergenerational saga of four daughters and their still-crazy-about-each other-after-all-these-years parents. Ideal for fans who plowed through Little Fires Everywhere and need another fix of a story with honest, flawed, loving humans interacting with each other. Not a stereotype in the bunch.
I'm afraid I have to agree with a lot of other reviewers - the first half was so engaging, fun to read, presented a complex central character and a unique secondary tag-along, written in a “voice” that it was impossible not to like. A solid 5 stars. And then around the middle it fell off a cliff, with so many threads popping in and out, a long slog on a train that seemed to come out of nowhere and go nowhere, that I struggled to finish. So an average 4 stars; 5 for a great first half; 3 for a sloggy second half. But Mina's a favorite; I'll read her again.
I did like the fact this was set in a workplace - in my view, more writers should use the place we spend 40+ hours of our life weekly as a setting. And it did keep me reading. But sorry to say, these women aren't anyone I'd want to know or interact with and from what I know of human psychology, no one behaves like this in real life. I know psychological suspense is a heightened reality but the underlying motivations still have to ring true.
I have now read Megan Miranda's last three books and consider this one the best so far. Writing is excellent - nuanced, thoughtful, and a great mix of description (you can imagine Littleport based on her scene setting alone), action, intrigue. She does a wonderful job with characterization, particularly with the lead character Avery, the “townie” - her backstory unspools as the story proceeds but never in a forced or trite way. There are alternating time frames a year apart, but they are clearly identified and lend a sense of foreboding to the mystery. I got to the “answer” a bit before the end, but not by much and was thoroughly engrossed. Definitely so much more accomplished than others I've read this year in this same genre.