Ooooookkkkaaaayyyyy-do you ever read a scary story and think “what happened to that author in his/her life that gave them the inspiration to write such a dark book?” That is exactly what I was thinking when I read A Killer Harvest by Paul Cleave, because this novel scared my socks off! There’s two murders within…
I’ve got to say, Simon and Schuster Canada have been providing me with some amazing thrillers lately. I don’t know what it is about their acquisitions, but I’ve really enjoyed the books they’ve been sending me. Our Little Secret comes from first time Canadian author Roz Nay, and I really hope she continues writing because…
I always get so excited to see the latest Ruth Ware hit the bookstores, and I think this is her best one yet. The Death of Mrs. Westaway has a wonderful gothic feel to it, the atmosphere plays on all the common ‘haunted house’ elements, but it didn’t feel overdone at all. In my review…
Ah yes, the good ol’ unreliable female narrator. You can’t wade into a thriller section of a bookstore these days without finding at least 50% of the books include this oft-used device. This time, our protagonist Jane Norton isn’t reliable because she might be crazy (although that’s hinted at more than once), but she’s an…
It feels like I’ve been reading a lot of ‘dark’ books lately, non-fiction mostly, so I searched for a ‘guilty pleasure’ read to lift the guilt I had been weighed under by reading such devastating memoirs. Strange to some, I chose a thriller, a pretty violent one at that to entertain me after my spate…
My Canadian readers will probably be familiar with this latest can-lit thriller: Hysteria by Elisabeth de Mariaffi. It’s just come out, and it’s getting a hysterical amount of press (obviously I had to use that adjective somewhere in this review, but I promise I won’t do it again). Is this book a page-turner? Yes. Is…
It doesn’t take much to please me these days, as you’ll hear on my latest radio segment with the CBC Homestretch. I admit to wanting to take a vacation on my couch, but don’t we all? An uninterrupted stretch of reading time is all I need for my ‘paradise’, although I realize some people may…
I was hesitant to pick up this book knowing it begins with the grisly discovery of a newborn’s bones, simply because I’m a) pregnant right now, therefore very emotional and b) already a mother of one child, which means I’m much more sensitive to stories that include any harm coming to kids of any age….
I’m going to make an effort to do more video book reviews as people seem to like them, plus, they’re fun to do! My apologies there are no kitties in this video, and as always, please send any feedback my way re: lighting, backgrounds, etc. I need all the help I can get!
I tend to roll my eyes these days when I read a description of a book that includes the term ‘psychological thriller’; it seems to have turned into a catch-all label for stories that have little violence but many twists, however unbelievable. Recently though, I have met my match with Fear by Dirk Kurbjuweit, as…
I’ve reached that sweet spot in my reading list where I can finally pick books to read off my shelf that I simply want to read. I don’t want to seem like I’m complaining, because I love working with different organizations to review books, creating reading lists, etc. but I rarely get to just pick…
It’s hard to imagine a woman named “Norma” as exotic (sorry to all the Normas out there, but you know it’s true), but the latest release from famed Helsinki-based writer Sofi Oksanen features just that: a “Norma” with a fantastic secret. Oksanen’s Norma has hair that grows at an incredible rate, she has to cut…
