February was a lighter read because work was more hectic and I had less time in the evenings and weekends to read my books. Most of the books I read last month fall in the mystery/thriller/suspense category and I loved that for me. I dub the theme for February as: PLOT TWIST!
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NO ONE WILL MISS HER BY KAT ROSENFIELD
I picked this book up from the library because after reading the official synopsis, I wasn’t sure that I would actually enjoy it. However, there were so many good reviews on Goodreads that I decided to pick it up. I’m so glad that I did because I thoroughly enjoyed it.
In Copper Falls, a hard-luck town in rural Maine, the state police arrive to find the local junkyard burning and the town pariah Lizzie Oullette is found dead at her lake house with her husband Dwanye nowhere to be found. As the news ripples through the town, Detective Ian Bird’s investigation leads him away from Cooper Falls to a swanky townhome in Boston. Adrienne Richards, social media influencer and wife of a disgraced billionaire, was renting Lizzie’s lake house as a country gateway. How did she end up crossing paths with Lizzie? How might she be involved in the swirl of Copper Falls?
This book is a great read that gets better with each chapter. Once you get a handle on who Lizzie and Adrienne are and how they wound up tangled together, the plot twist slams you in the face and makes you question how you missed the lead up. In my opinion, the overall theme of this book is the haves versus the have-nots and what the have-nots will do to get a taste of the “good life.” But you have to be careful what you wish for. This was my first book by Rosenfield and I can’t wait to get my hands on more of her books!
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
WE LIE HERE BY RACHEL HOWZELL HALL
I’ve shared Rachel Howzell Hall’s books here before. With each book, they have gotten better and this one, by far, was my favorite. TV writer Yara Gibson’s hometown of Palmdale, California, isn’t her first choice for vacation, but she’s throwing her parents’ 20th anniversary. Everything’s going according to plan until she receives a disturbing text from a childhood friend of Yara’s mother, Felicia Campbell: I have information that will change your life. Felicia keeps insisting that they talk “before it’s too late.” When Felicia’s body is found floating in Lake Palmdale, Yara is stuck on trying to figure out why Felicia left her a key to a remote lakeside cabin and what Felicia wanted her to know. As Yara keeps digging for answers, she stumbled upon a mysterious tragedy, unsolved since 1998. The deeper Yara digs for answers, the more she fears that Felicia was right. This book is a slow burn and keeps building as the chapters go on. The unexpected plot twist really sent me when everything was revealed at the end.
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING BY ALYSSA COLE
This book has been on my radar for a while. And ever since I added it to my tbr list, I feel like I saw it everywhere, enticing me to read it next instead of putting it off. I finally read it, and I really wanted to enjoy this book more than I did. 🥴
Sydney Green is Brooklyn born and raised, but her beloved neighborhood changes every time she blinks. Condos are sprouting like weeds, FOR SALE signs are popping up overnight, and the neighbors she’s known all her life are disappearing. To hold onto her community’s past and present, Sydney channels her frustration into a walking tour and finds an unlikely and unwanted assistant in one of the new arrivals to the block—her neighbor Theo. As Sydney and Theo dive deeply into the neighborhood’s history, it becomes a dizzying descent into paranoia and fear. As Sydney’s old neighbors disappear for the new ones to enter, is the push for gentrification a coincidence or a conspiracy?
Regarding the mystery, it keep me captivated and guessing the entire book. There were many times I said out loud, what is really going on here?! I couldn’t distinguish between Sydney reading too much about things or if it was actually happening. Another thing this book made me the question is the concept of gentrification. I’ve shared on here many times how much I despise gentrification because it has colonzier vibes all over it. The idea of adding a thriller/suspense vibe to the concept of gentrification made it more creepy and disheartening in a real way. For me, the overall plot and interactions between Sydney and Theo felt forced and rushed, making it hard to read.
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️☆
THE MIDNIGHT LIBRARY BY MATT HAIG
**TRIGGER WARNING: THIS BOOK TALKS ABOUT SUICIDE**
I randomly added this book to my save for later list at the library. I can’t remember if I read the synopsis before checking it out, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed reading it. Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe, there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. Would any of these other lives truly be better? Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, and realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.
It’s an interesting story about regret and how changing one decision could change your life’s outcome but not always for the better. While Nora took the long route to figure this out, it was a great reminder for me about making peace with the decisions you make. In the end, we can’t change the past, but we can focus on living the best we can in the life we do have.
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
THE SILENT PATIENT BY ALEX MICHAELIDES
When I read this summary, I was intrigued by the premise, but I wasn’t completely sold – it’s why I decided to check out the book. Boy, was I wrong! I could not put this down and was so captivated by the story. Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. She’s a famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, living ins a big house in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening when her husband returns home late from a fashion shoot, Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word. Alicia’s refusal to speak or provide an explanation adds a mystery to the tragedy and gives Alicia notoriety. Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who is determined to get Alicia to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband. Will he be consumed during his quest for the truth?
This book contained another plot twist that shook me. The story is told from the perspective of Theo, who proves to be an unreliable narrator. 😬 The story unfolds on his quest to get Alicia to talk. It’s a bit uncomfortable at times because I questioned how ethical it was for him to go to the lengths that he did to get her talk. When the truth is revealed, you’ll yell like I did. It was so good that I immediately bought The Maidens, another Alex Michaelides book, to add to my tbr pile.
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
SILVER SPARROW BY TAYARI JONES
This book disturbed my spirit in a way I was not expecting. Not because it was a mystery but just how negligent the adults were about how all of their decisions would affect their children bothered me. Taryai Jones has a knack for writing the souls of her characters that makes you feel as deeply as they feel. I really enjoyed this book, but it was heartbreaking and tough to comprehend the dysfunction that the father caused and yet seemed not to want to take any fault.
The book revolves around James Witherspoon’s families – the legal and the secret ones. Set in Atlanta in the 1980s, the daughters from each family meet and form a friendship, but only one of them knows they are sisters. It is a relationship destined to explode when secrets are revealed and illusions shattered.
What I couldn’t seem to fathom was grown women blaming children, who didn’t ask to be born or be in this messed up situation, for the circumstances they found themselves in. Like the other book I’ve read by Tayari Jones – An American Marriage – it was heartbreaking yet beautiful. The way she writes the authenticity of the characters makes it hard to remember that they are not real.
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A POCKET FULL OF RYE BY AGATHA CHRISTIE
This will probably be my last Miss Marple book for a while. Not because of anything bad, but the old English is starting to get to me, and I just need a break. This mystery was a little easier to solve, or maybe it’s because I’m more cognizant of how Agatha Christie lays out her clues to reveal who the killer is. Either way, I was more confident about the killer at the end of the book, but the reasoning was still something that I was bewildered about. The one thing that continues to annoy me about Miss Marple is the fact that she always feels the need to downplay her ability to solve crimes. There are 12 books and 20 short stories about her solving or helping the police solve crimes. Own it sis!
Goodreads Synopsis:
A handful of grain is found in the pocket of a murdered businessman!
Let us explain. Rex Fortescue, king of a financial empire, was sipping tea in his ‘counting house’ office when he suffered a sudden and agonizing death. On later inspection, the pockets of the deceased were found to contain rye grain. What is that all about? It was a second incident, this time in the parlor at his home, which confirmed Jane Marple’s suspicion that here she was looking at a case of crime by rhyme!
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
WHAT BOOKS DID YOU READ IN FEBRUARY?
