2020 Book #85 – Invisible Girl by Lisa Jewell

Title: Invisible Girl
Author: Lisa Jewell
Date finished: 11/20/20
Genre: Thriller, suspense
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication Date: October 13, 2020
Pages in book: 365
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: NetGalley
NOTE: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone returns with an intricate thriller about a young woman’s disappearance and a group of strangers whose lives intersect in its wake.

Owen Pick’s life is falling apart. In his thirties and living in his aunt’s spare bedroom, he has just been suspended from his job as a teacher after accusations of sexual misconduct—accusations he strongly denies. Searching for professional advice online, he is inadvertently sucked into the dark world of incel forums, where he meets a charismatic and mysterious figure.

Across the street from Owen lives the Fours family, headed by mom Cate, a physiotherapist, and dad Roan, a child psychologist. But the Fours family have a bad feeling about their neighbor Owen. He’s a bit creepy and their teenaged daughter swears he followed her home from the train station one night.

Meanwhile, young Saffyre Maddox spent three years as a patient of Roan Fours. Feeling abandoned when their therapy ends, she searches for other ways to maintain her connection with him, following him in the shadows and learning more than she wanted to know about Roan and his family. Then, on Valentine’s night, Saffyre disappears—and the last person to see her alive is Owen Pick.

My rating:  4.5 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review.

I had read one of Jewell’s other recent releases last year, The Family Upstairs, and really loved it so I was excited to read her most recent release. And this author did not disappoint! This book was really great, it kept me guessing right up until the very end. Literally – the very very end had a great plot twist to it. Saffyre’s character was really complex, she had so many layers and she was such an interesting person to learn about. I was suspicious of Josh but I still really liked the mysteriousness of his character. This book also had some interesting narratives around therapists as human beings – they’re just people like the rest of us and have their own quirks and (in some cases) psychoses. How do therapists like that help people when they have issues themselves that they should be addressing? Anyways, this book was very suspenseful, I didn’t want to put it down and it had my heart racing. The plot was great with lots of layers and lots of twists thrown in there throughout the story. I really enjoyed it and I’d definitely recommend it!

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

2018 Book #10 – The Burial Society by Nina Sadowsky

51j018gCG4LTitle: The Burial Society
Author: Nina Sadowsky
Date finished: 1/28/18
Genre: Fiction, thriller, suspense
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: January 30, 2018
Pages in book: 319
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: Publisher
NOTE: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

A woman running from a dark past stumbles upon a tangled nest of seductions and secrets in this psychological thriller of obsession and betrayal.

Catherine, no last name, doesn’t bury the dead. She rescues the living—from intolerable, abusive, dangerous lives. Her darknet-based witness protection program, the Burial Society, is the last hope for people who desperately need to disappear. Catherine takes care of them and provides new identities. She is effective and efficient—until she discovers that her slipup may have compromised a client, maybe even killed her. Powerless to help without exposing her shadowy profession, Catherine makes a drastic move.

With her covert service relocated to Paris, Catherine’s done her best to move on. But when a dark part of her past suddenly appears in the City of Light, she refuses to run—and her life takes a harrowing turn.

Using all the tricks of her unusual trade, Catherine weaves her way through a dangerous landscape of treachery, infidelity, paranoia, and secrets that bind as deeply as blood. But the evil of the enemy she’s pursuing runs deeper still—to the bone. And even Catherine’s most cunning skills may not be enough to save herself.

My rating:  4.25 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review.

This book alternates between present day, when Natalie and Jake’s father is found murdered, and three years ago, when Natalie and Jake’s mother, Mallory, disappeared without a trace. The book also alternates between multiple different characters’ points of view, allowing the reader into multiple characters’ thoughts. The author did a great job of transitioning between time frames and mind sets but it was still a lot to keep up, so it did get a bit confusing at times. The plot also was really well done, and there were some great twists and turns in the book. It was just very sad, what happened to pretty much everyone in the book and all the events that occurred. But overall it was a really good story and I enjoyed it a lot.

Catherine was my favorite character in this book. There were some vague references to what had happened to her in her past but I would’ve loved to get more details about her back story. Maybe that will be a sequel

Link to author website

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2016 Book #14 – Try Not To Breathe by Holly Seddon

412ZKAIR+wLTitle: Try Not To Breathe
Author: Holly Seddon
Date finished: 2/24/16
Genre: Fiction, thriller/suspense
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: February 23, 2016
Pages in book: 368
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: NetGalley NOTE: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

Some secrets never die. They’re just locked away.
Alex Dale is lost. Destructive habits have cost her a marriage and a journalism career. All she has left is her routine: a morning run until her body aches, then a few hours of forgettable work before the past grabs hold and drags her down. Every day is treading water, every night is drowning. Until Alex discovers Amy Stevenson. Amy Stevenson, who was just another girl from a nearby town until the day she was found unconscious after a merciless assault. Amy Stevenson, who has been in a coma for fifteen years, forgotten by the world. Amy Stevenson, who, unbeknownst to her doctors, remains locked inside her body, conscious but paralyzed, reliving the past.
Soon Alex’s routine includes visiting hours at the hospital, then interviews with the original suspects in the attack. But what starts as a reporter’s story becomes a personal obsession. How do you solve a crime when the only witness lived but cannot tell the tale? Unable to tear herself away from her attempt to uncover the unspeakable truth, Alex realizes she’s not just chasing a story—she’s seeking salvation.
Shifting from present to past and back again, Try Not to Breathe unfolds layer by layer until its heart-stopping conclusion. The result is an utterly immersive, unforgettable debut.

My rating:  4.25 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. This book will count towards my “Holiday 2015 Bookish Bingo” reading challenge, marking off the “2016 Debut” square, since this was Seddon’s debut novel and it was released in 2016. This book is kind of jointly about Amy Stevenson and Alex Dale. Alex is a freelance journalist and professional alcoholic. Seems to me she only works about 2 hours every day, she goes for a run after she wakes up and then she has to be home by noon to lock herself away and turn off all her phones and electronics so that drunk Alex doesn’t get barely sober Alex into any trouble.
Lately she has been writing medical columns, which is how she ended up coming upon Amy Stevenson in the Bramble Ward at the hospital. Amy was abducted at fifteen and beaten almost to death and she was basically left in a vegetative state. Recent research by Dr. Haynes though, suggests that about half the “vegetables” of the world are actually fully conscious people who simply can not move, maybe due to paralysis or something else. This is the case with Amy, she has thoughts and memories and can hear what people are saying to her but she can’t figure out why she can’t talk back. Alex starts to investigate what happened to Amy that put her in this hospital, the case has been left unsolved for fifteen years. Along the way she interviews many people who knew Amy when she was fifteen and Alex can feel herself getting closer and closer to the truth.
Overall I really really liked this book. It kept me on the edge of my seat pretty much through the whole book, and I honestly just did not want to put it down. I couldn’t wait to figure out who the bad guy was and what had happened to Amy and what was Alex’s story. Alex is a severely flawed character but she is also deeply lovable not just in spite of but because of her vulnerabilities. There were a couple characters in the story that I wasn’t thrilled with overall but they each had their part to play and the plot overall was honestly just great. I thought it was well paced and interesting at all times and was just such a great debut novel, I can’t wait to see what else this author has in store!

The bottom line: Oh my gosh what a great book. Riveting, I didn’t want to put it down!! Alex was such a flawed main character but I loved her and I loved learning Amy’s story.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page