PLBR Book Reviews 2018 - ELLES BOOK BLOG

ELLES BOOK BLOG

THE WIFE STALKER BY LIV CONSTANTINE

5/26/2020

WOW! This book, while extremely frustrating in some aspects, was such a fantastic read! The big twist towards the end if one of the best twists I've seen in a long time! I now need more by the author asap!

Rating: ★★★★
Release Date: May 19, 2020
Genre: Domestic Thriller & Suspense
Series: None. Complete standalone.
Pages: 316 pages
Format: eBook. ARC

The bestselling author of The Last Mrs. Parrish returns with a psychological thriller, filled with chilling serpentine twists, about a woman fighting to hold onto the only family she’s ever loved—and how far she’ll go to preserve it.

Breezing into the upscale seaside paradise of Westport, Connecticut, gorgeous thirtysomething Piper Reynard sets down roots, opening a rehab and wellness space and joining a local yacht club. When she meets Leo Drakos, a handsome, successful lawyer, the wedding ring on his finger is the only thing she doesn’t like about him. Yet as Piper well knows, no marriage is permanent.

Meanwhile, Joanna has been waiting patiently for Leo, the charismatic man she fell in love with all those years ago, to re-emerge from the severe depression that has engulfed him. Though she’s thankful when Leo returns to his charming, energetic self,

LITTLE SECRETS BY JENNIFER HILLIER

5/22/2020

Little Secrets by Jennifer Hillier is a twisted read and I loved every minute of it. If you enjoyed domestic thrillers you won't want to miss this one!

Rating: ★★★★
Release Date: April 21, 2020
Genre: Domestic Thriller
Series: None. Complete standalone.
Pages: 352 pages
Format: eBook. Arc.

Four hundred and eighty seconds. That’s how long it took for someone to steal Marin Machado's four-year-old son.

Marin had the perfect life. Married to her college sweetheart, she owns a chain of upscale hair salons, and Derek runs his own company. They're admired in their community and are a loving family. Up until the day Sebastian is taken.

A year later, Marin is a shadow of herself. The FBI search has gone cold. The publicity has faded. She and her husband rarely speak. The only thing keeping her going is the unlikely chance that one day Sebastian reappears. She hires a P.I. to pick up where the police left off, but instead of finding him, she discovers that Derek is having an affair with a younger woman.

Kenzie Li is an artist and grad student—Instagram famous—and up to her eyeballs in debt. She knows Derek is married. She also

SOMETHING SHE'S NOT TELLING US BY DARCEY BELL

4/28/2020

Something She's Not Telling Us is Darcey Bell's second novel. This is a domestic thriller with a huge twist! For the most part, I liked it. However, it was very slow.

Rating: ★★★
Release Date: April 7, 2020
Genre: Domestic Thriller
Series: None. Complete Standalone.
Pages: 317 pages
Format: eBook. ARC

Charlotte has everything in life that she ever could have hoped for: a doting, artistic husband, a small-but-thriving flower shop, and her sweet, smart five-year-old daughter, Daisy. Her relationship with her mother might be strained, but the distance between them helps. And her younger brother Rocco may have horrible taste in women, but when he introduces his new girlfriend to Charlotte and her family, they are cautiously optimistic that she could be The One. Daisy seems to love Ruth, and she can’t be any worse than the klepto Rocco brought home the last time. At least, that’s what Charlotte keeps telling herself. But as Rocco and Ruth’s relationship becomes more serious, Ruth’s apparent obsession with Daisy grows more obvious. Then Daisy is kidnapped, and Charlotte is convinced there’s only one person who could have taken her.

Ruth has never had much, but now she’s finally on the verge of having everything she’s ever dreamed of. A stable job at a start-up

DARLING ROSE GOLD BY STEPHANIE WROBEL

3/14/2020

Darling Rose Gold is a ripped from the headlines thriller and I enjoyed every single minute of it. This is the authors debut novel and I am so excited to see her career take off because of it!

Rating: ★★★★
Release Date: March 17, 2020
Genre: Domestic Thriller. Based on a true story.
Series: None. Complete standalone.
Pages: 319 pages
Format: eBook. ARC

Mothers never forget. Daughters never forgive.

In her compulsive, sharply-drawn debut, Stephanie Wrobel peels back the layers of the most complicated of mother-daughter relationships.

For the first eighteen years of her life, Rose Gold Watts believed she was seriously ill. She was allergic to everything, used a wheelchair and practically lived at the hospital. Neighbors did all they could, holding fundraisers and offering shoulders to cry on, but no matter how many doctors, tests, or surgeries, no one could figure out what was wrong with Rose Gold.

Turns out her mom, Patty Watts, was just a really good liar.

After serving five years in prison, Patty gets out with nowhere to go and begs her daughter to take her in. The entire community is shocked when Rose Gold says yes.

THE OTHER PEOPLE BY C.J. TUDOR

1/25/2020

WHAT A BOOK! Wow. Just processing this one is giving me major tingles across my body! C.J. Tudor KNOWS how to write a psychological thriller that will CONSUME you.

Rating: ★★★★★
Release Date: January 28, 2020
Genre: Psychological Thriller. Psychological Horror.
Series: None. Complete standalone.
Pages: 324 pages
Format: eBook. ARC.

Q: Why are you called the Other People?
A: We are people just like you. People to whom terrible things have happened. We’ve found solace not in forgiveness or forgetting. But in helping each other find justice.

Driving home one night, Gabe is stuck behind a rusty old car. He sees a little girl’s face appear in its rear window. She mouths one word: Daddy. It’s his five-year-old daughter, Izzy. He never sees her again.

Three years later, Gabe spends his days and nights traveling up and down the highway, searching for the car that took his daughter, refusing to give up hope, even though most people believe she’s dead.

When the car that he saw escape with his little girl is found abandoned with a body inside, Gabe must confront not just the day

THE FAMILY UPSTAIRS BY LISA JEWELL

1/19/2020

Lisa Jewell has written a riveting family thriller in The Family Upstairs and I was glued to this book from beginning to end. I'm so glad I took a chance on a new to me author and grabbed this one in my Book of the Month box!

Rating: ★★★★
Release Date: November 5, 2019
Genre: Domestic Thriller. Gothic Thriller.
Series: None. Complete Standalone.
Pages: 349 pages
Format: Hardcover. Book of the Month Club.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone comes another page-turning look inside one family’s past as buried secrets threaten to come to light.

Be careful who you let in.

Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am.

She soon learns not only the identity of her birth parents, but also that she is the sole inheritor of their abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable Chelsea neighborhood, worth millions. Everything in Libby’s life is about to change. But what she can’t possibly know is that others have

UNSPEAKABLE THINGS BY JESS LOURNEY

1/2/2020

Unspeakable things that all the makings of an excellent read. However, it fell short for me in so many areas. I think the blurb is deceiving as well and doesn't live up to what it says it will be.

Rating: ★★★
Release Date: January 1, 2020
Genre: Mystery. Thriller. Suspense. Crime.
Series: None. Complete standalone.
Pages: 296 pages
Format: eBook. Amazon First Reads.

Inspired by a terrifying true story from the author’s hometown, a heart-pounding novel of suspense about a small Minnesota community where nothing is as quiet—or as safe—as it seems.

Cassie McDowell’s life in 1980s Minnesota seems perfectly wholesome. She lives on a farm, loves school, and has a crush on the nicest boy in class. Yes, there are her parents’ strange parties and their parade of deviant guests, but she’s grown accustomed to them.

All that changes when someone comes hunting in Lilydale.

One by one, local boys go missing. One by one, they return changed—violent, moody, and withdrawn. What happened to them becomes the stuff of shocking rumors. The accusations of who’s responsible grow just as wild, and dangerous town secrets

THE WIVES BY TARRYN FISHER

12/29/2019

Tarryn Fisher has written a mind twist with, The Wives! I gobbled this one up and never wanted to put it down! If you're a psychological thriller fan, grab this book!

Rating: ★★★★
Release Date: December 30, 2019
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Series: None. Complete Standalone.
Pages: 336 pages
Format: Paperback. ARC.

New York Times bestselling author Tarryn Fisher delivers a pulse-pounding, fast-paced suspense novel that will leave you breathless. A thriller you won’t be able to put down!

“You’ll have whiplash until the very end.”--New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover

Thursday’s husband, Seth, has two other wives. She’s never met them, and she doesn’t know anything about them. She agreed to this unusual arrangement because she’s so crazy about him.

But one day, she finds something. Something that tells a very different—and horrifying—story about the man she married.

What follows is one of the most twisted, shocking thrillers you’ll ever read.

FOE BY IAIN REID

12/26/2019

Foe is another mind bending thriller with an epic twist many readers won't see coming. I love his books and cannot wait to see what sort of book he writes next.

Rating: ★★★★
Release Date: August 7, 2018
Genre: Psychological Thriller (ish)
Series: None. Complete standalone.
Pages: 273 pages
Format: Paperback. Purchased.

We don’t get visitors. Not out here. We never have.

In Iain Reid’s second haunting, philosophical puzzle of a novel, set in the near-future, Junior and Henrietta live a comfortable, solitary life on their farm, far from the city lights, but in close quarters with each other. One day, a stranger from the city arrives with alarming news: Junior has been randomly selected to travel far away from the farm...very far away. The most unusual part? Arrangements have already been made so that when he leaves, Henrietta won't have a chance to miss him, because she won't be left alone—not even for a moment. Henrietta will have company. Familiar company.

Told in Reid’s sharp and evocative style, Foe examines the nature of domestic relationships, self-determination, and what it means to be (or not to be) a person. An eerily entrancing page-turner, it churns with unease and suspense from the first words to its shocking finale.

THE AU PAIR BY EMMA ROUS

8/16/2019

The Au Pair is a compelling read- one I had a hard time putting down! It has a Gothic feel to it and left me excited as each twist and turn hit! I highly recommend this one!

Rating: ★★★★
Release Date: January 8, 2019
Genre: Domestic Thriller. Gothic Literature.
Series: None. Standalone.
Pages: 360 pages
Format: Paperback. Purchased.

If V. C. Andrews and Kate Morton had a literary love child, Emma Rous' USA Today bestseller The Au Pair would be it.

One of the most anticipated books of 2019 from Pop Sugar, Bustle, Cosmo, Parade, and Goodreads!

Seraphine Mayes and her twin brother, Danny, were born in the middle of summer at their family's estate on the Norfolk coast. Within hours of their birth, their mother threw herself from the cliffs, the au pair fled, and the village thrilled with whispers of dark cloaks, changelings, and the aloof couple who drew a young nanny into their inner circle.

Now an adult, Seraphine mourns the recent death of her father. While going through his belongings, she uncovers a family photograph that raises dangerous questions. It was taken on the day the twins were born, and in the photo, their mother, surrounded

THE MOTHER-IN-LAW BY SALLY HEPWORTH

4/23/2019

This is my first Sally Hepworth novel and it WON'T be my last! This is an amazing domestic drama/thriller. I was glued to the pages and didn't want to put this book down. I am so excited to read more books by the author- her stories remind me of Liane Moriarty's books.

Rating: ★★★★★
Release Date: April 23, 2019
Genre: Domestic Drama
Series: None. Standalone.
Pages: 352 pages
Format:eBook. ARC.

Someone once told me that you have two families in your life - the one you are born into and the one you choose. Yes, you may get to choose your partner, but you don't choose your mother-in-law. The cackling mercenaries of fate determine it all.

From the moment Lucy met Diana, she was kept at arm's length. Diana is exquisitely polite, but Lucy knows, even after marrying Oliver, that they'll never have the closeness she'd been hoping for.

But who could fault Diana? She was a pillar of the community, an advocate for social justice, the matriarch of a loving family. Lucy had wanted so much to please her new mother-in-law.

That was ten years ago. Now, Diana has been found dead, leaving a suicide note. But the autopsy reveals evidence of suffocation. And everyone in the family is hiding something...

THE STILLWATER GIRLS BY MINKA KENT

4/9/2019

The Stillwater Girls is an excellent domestic drama/thriller that I devoured in one day! I was so invested in this book that I couldn't put it down. I highly recommend it!

Rating: ★★★★
Release Date: April 9, 2019
Genre: Domestic Drama/Thriller
Series: None. Standalone.
Pages: 256 pages
Format: eBook. ARC.

Two sisters raised in fear are about to find out why in a chilling novel of psychological suspense from the author of The Thinnest Air.

Ignorant of civilization and cautioned against its evils, nineteen-year-old Wren and her two sisters, Sage and Evie, were raised in off-the-grid isolation in a primitive cabin in upstate New York. When the youngest grows gravely ill, their mother leaves with the child to get help from a nearby town. And they never return.

As months pass, hope vanishes. Supplies are low. Livestock are dying. A brutal winter is bearing down. Then comes the stranger. He claims to be looking for the girls’ mother, and he’s not leaving without them.

To escape, Wren and her sister must break the rule they’ve grown up with: never go beyond the forest.

THE NIGHT OLIVIA FELL BY CHRISTINA MCDONALD

2/12/2019

Woah! This book blew me away! I devoured it in a day because I simply couldn't take my eyes off the pages. I think this is one of the best domestic thrillers I have read in a long time.

Rating: ★★★★★
Release Date: February 5, 2019
Genre: Domestic Thriller.
Series: None. Standalone.
Pages: 368 pages
Format: eBook. ARC.

In the vein of Big Little Lies and Reconstructing Amelia comes an emotionally charged domestic suspense novel about a mother unraveling the truth behind how her daughter became brain dead. And pregnant.

A search for the truth. A lifetime of lies.

In the small hours of the morning, Abi Knight is startled awake by the phone call no mother ever wants to get: her teenage daughter Olivia has fallen off a bridge. Not only is Olivia brain dead, she’s pregnant and must remain on life support to keep her baby alive. And then Abi sees the angry bruises circling Olivia’s wrists.

When the police unexpectedly rule Olivia’s fall an accident, Abi decides to find out what really happened that night. Heartbroken and grieving, she unravels the threads of her daughter’s life. Was Olivia’s fall an accident? Or something far more sinister?

MY SISTER IS MISSING BY CARISSA ANN LYNCH

2/8/2019

My Sister is Missing is a fast paced, gripping read. It's also one that readers can easily get through in one sitting as the page count is just under 200 pages.

Rating: ★★★★
Release Date: February 8, 2019
Genre: Mystery. Thriller.
Series: None. Standalone.
Pages: 197 pages
Format: eBook. ARC.

“Reminiscent of Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects" Christina Kaye, award-winning author of Presumed DeadA twenty-year-old local mystery that has never been solved.

A bone-chilling VHS tape depicting a horrific crime.

Neighbors with something to hide.

And a sister who is missing.

Emily has to find out the truth. But is her sister Madeline the victim…or the one to blame?

A creepy and chilling thriller that you won’t be able to put down. MY SISTER IS MISSING is the most gripping read of 2019.Readers can’t get enough of this book.

THE TEMP BY MICHELLE FRANCES

1/29/2019

The Temp is an absorbing domestic drama/thriller that I devoured in a day. I really enjoyed and am looking forward to reading more books by the author in the future.

Rating: ★★★★
Release Date: January 29, 2019
Genre: Domestic Thriller.
Series: None. Standalone.
Pages: 432 pages
Format: eBook. ARC.

Wanted: Assistant to provide maternity cover for high-powered TV producer. Must be bright, creative, with killer instincts.

Emma would do anything to work for the woman who has the job she wants. Carrie is at the top of her game, with a dream career, a baby on the way, and a handsome screenwriter husband. For Emma, with parents who don’t understand her ambition and a serious misstep behind her, this temp position might be her last chance.

Carrie has given up more than anyone knows to get to the top of a ruthless business. She won’t give up this baby too. But with Emma filling in for her at the office, her perfect life starts to unravel. Her bank account is inexplicably overdrawn, her husband seems strangely distant and colleagues are all too happy to take Emma’s creative direction. Carrie finds herself dying to get back to work . . . until a letter left at her door changes everything.

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