The Invited

 The Invited by Jennifer McMahon                                       Ghost Mystery/Suspense

(from Amazon)  In a quest for a simpler life, Helen and Nate have abandoned the comforts of suburbia to take up residence on forty-four acres of rural land where they will begin the ultimate, aspirational do-it-yourself project: building the house of their dreams. When they discover that this beautiful property has a dark and violent past, Helen, a former history teacher, becomes consumed by the local legend of Hattie Breckenridge, a woman who lived and died there a century ago. With her passion for artifacts, Helen finds special materials to incorporate into the house--a beam from an old schoolroom, bricks from a mill, a mantel from a farmhouse--objects that draw her deeper into the story of Hattie and her descendants, three generations of Breckenridge women, each of whom died suspiciously. As the building project progresses, the house will become a place of menace and unfinished business: a new home, now haunted, that beckons its owners and their neighbors toward unimaginable danger.

(My Review)

This was a seriously spooky book. It was a great story, but it dragged a bit, but it was really worth it at the end.

Holly

Holly by Stephen King                                        Psychological Thriller/Horror

(from Amazon)  Stephen King’s Holly marks the triumphant return of beloved King character Holly Gibney. Audiences have witnessed Holly’s gradual transformation from a shy (but also brave and ethical) recluse in Mr. Mercedes to Bill Hodges’s partner in Finders Keepers to a full-fledged, smart, and occasionally tough private detective in The Outsider. In King’s new novel, Holly is on her own, and up against a pair of unimaginably depraved and brilliantly disguised adversaries.  When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down.  Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harboring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie’s disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless.  Holly must summon all her formidable talents to outthink and outmaneuver the shockingly twisted professors in this chilling new masterwork from Stephen King.

(My Review)  

First of all, I did not know this was a part of a series - although I did read "The Outsider" (they had completely different feels).  However, it did not affect my reading of this book.  I loved this!  This was probably one of the best Stephen King I have ever read, and I definitely want to go back and read the other Holly Gibney book.  I felt it was a bit different from other King books I've read, in that it was more thriller and less supernatural (even from the first Holly Gibney book).  It was a solid thriller, and even though you know who the evil-doers are, the suspense is held all the way to end.

You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight

 You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron                          YA Horror

(from Amazon)  Charity has the summer job of her dreams, playing the “final girl” at Camp Mirror Lake. Guests pay to be scared in this full-contact terror game, as Charity and her summer crew recreate scenes from a classic slasher film, The Curse of Camp Mirror Lake. The more realistic the fear, the better for business.    But the last weekend of the season, Charity’s co-workers begin disappearing. And when one ends up dead, Charity’s role as the final girl suddenly becomes all too real. If Charity and her girlfriend Bezi hope to survive the night, they’ll need figure out what this killer is after. As they unravel the bloody history of the real Mirror Lake, Charity discovers that there may be more to the story than she ever suspected . . .

(My Review)  This was a fun, campy but scary read.  It had many of the classic horror movie/book themes (teens at a summer camp), that kept me reading.

Fourth Wing

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros                                            Fantasy, Action, Dragons

(from Amazon)  Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.  But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.  With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.  She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.  Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.  Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.    

(My Review)

This book has been wildly popular - and hard to get a copy of.  I felt it lived up to the hype.  Young Violet is well-suited for a life among scholars, but her life is turned upside down when she is summoned to join the "dragon riders".  As a "dragon rider" cadet, she faces many dangers, not just trying to bond and ride a dragon, but also from other cadets (due to who her mother is).  What Violet lacks in physicality, she excels in intelligence and quick thinking.  She even finds romance.  

Yellowface

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang                                                  Asian American Literary Fiction

(from Amazon)  Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.

So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I.

So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.

But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.

(My Review)

June is a struggling author, who makes a life-changing decision when her successful-author friend, Athena Liu, dies in her presence, along with a manuscript she has just completed.  June decides to re-edit it, and claim it as her own.  This satire is such an interesting discussion of authorship, plagiarism, and representation. Interesting read.

 

Warrior Girl Unearthed

Warrior Girl Unearthed (The Firekeeper's Daughter, Book 2) by Angeline Boulley     

                                                                                     Multicultural Thriller and Suspense for Teens

(from Amazon)  Perry Firekeeper-Birch was ready for her Summer of Slack but instead, after a fender bender that was entirely not her fault, she’s stuck working to pay back her Auntie Daunis for repairs to the Jeep.  Thankfully she has the other outcasts of the summer program, Team Misfit Toys, and even her twin sister Pauline. Together they ace obstacle courses, plan vigils for missing women in the community, and make sure summer doesn’t feel so lost after all.  But when she attends a meeting at a local university, Perry learns about the “Warrior Girl”, an ancestor whose bones and knife are stored in the museum archives, and everything changes. Perry has to return Warrior Girl to her tribe. Determined to help, she learns all she can about NAGPRA, the federal law that allows tribes to request the return of ancestral remains and sacred items. The university has been using legal loopholes to hold onto Warrior Girl and twelve other Anishinaabe ancestors’ remains, and Perry and the Misfits won’t let it go on any longer.  Using all of their skills and resources, the Misfits realize a heist is the only way to bring back the stolen artifacts and remains for good. But there is more to this repatriation than meets the eye as more women disappear and Pauline’s perfectionism takes a turn for the worse. As secrets and mysteries unfurl, Perry and the Misfits must fight to find a way to make things right–for the ancestors and for their community.                                   

(My Review)

Perry stumbles into an internship working in her tribe's museum, and begins to learn more about stolen artifacts and the struggles to repatriate tribal artifacts that have been stolen by private, and even by scholarly collectors for hundreds of years.  The author is excellent at introducing and even educating readers to important multicultural information, without feeling you are being lectured.  The story also covers the very real topic of the high rates of disappearance among indigenous women. The characters are real and engaging.  There is a suspenseful mystery and even romance.  This was an excellent sequel, but could definitely be read as a stand-alone.  

 

How to Survive Your Murder

 

How to Survive Your Murder by Danielle Valentine       YA Horror/Thriller/Mystery

(from Amazon)  Alice Lawrence is the sole witness in her sister’s murder trial.  And in the year since Claire’s death, Alice’s life has completely fallen apart. Her parents have gotten divorced, she’s moved into an apartment that smells like bologna, and she is being forced to face her sister’s killer and a courtroom full of people who doubt what she saw in the corn maze a year prior.  Claire was an all-American girl, beautiful and bubbly, and a theater star. Alice was a nerd who dreamed of becoming a forensic pathologist and would rather stay at home to watch her favorite horror movies than party. Despite their differences, they were bonded by sisterhood and were each other’s best friends.  Until Claire was taken away from her.  On the first day of the murder trial, as Alice prepares to give her testimony, she is knocked out by a Sidney Prescott look-alike in the courthouse bathroom. When she wakes up, it is Halloween night a year earlier, the same day Claire was murdered. Alice has until midnight to save her sister and find the real killer before he claims another victim.

(My Review)

This book was a big slasher mess.  It had elements from so many other stories I've read.  There were bits I found interesting and felt could really work, but I felt it just got lost in the....craziness of the story.  I wanted to like it.