There’s a lot to appreciate in Bad Intentions. This is clearly a very thoughtfully constructed story, with plenty of twists and surprises along the way. I definitely had a few moments where I thought, okay, I did NOT see that coming! For me, though, it was a very slow start. It took me getting to approx. the 55% mark before I felt like the story really started picking up, and by then I was having a hard time getting fully invested. I also found the timeline jumps a little tri

DID YOU HEAR? They say a girl died here… Anna and her family have just moved to Harper’s Creek, a little nowhere town with a dark history. But that’s all been resolved, so why is Anna feeling trapped? Why is her little sister afraid that she’ll be next? And WHY is Anna’s grandmother spinning out of control with paranoid episodes? I had the opportunity to read They Say A Girl Died Here early through an advanced listener copy (ALC), so first, thank you to Sarah Pinborough for t

Three gal pals, Hope, Ash, and Caro decide to go on a little girls trip and disappear from their lives for a little bit of time in this novel. These girls met when they joined a book club, and their friendships took off from there. When each woman seems to be at a difficult point in their lives, they decide to go on this little trip and get away from it all. But we learn quickly that the books they read for their club aren’t the only things hiding secrets. My rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ M

A summer vacation in the Adirondacks is flipped, turned upside down when a woman’s body is discovered in the nearby lake. Let’s all get to know sisters Esme, Piper and Regina a little bit better, as we follow them to their family summer house for their annual gathering. Each sister is bringing her own set of problems to the house this year, and of course, their husbands and children are about to get caught up in it all as well. But when a young woman’s body is found practical

Alice is trying to deal with the fact that she has killed a man. A young man was breaking into her home, a home where her young daughter and two friends were having a play date, and she jumped into action to keep those little girls safe. Charges are not laid against her, as she was found to have been acting in self-defence, and her friends and family tell her to try to move on from it all. But, of course, Alice can’t move on. She still has no idea why this young man busted in

We have a set-in-Canada debut thriller from Emma White that features four friends/book club besties who are about to go out for a little reading retreat on a beautiful lake, in a secluded cabin. This weekend is all about getting trashed on rosé and reading and talking about books, but one morning, a member of their group is found dead on the shore. But what really happened? These women are all hiding many, many secrets, but how far will they go to cover it all up? I had the c

We’re seeing Kirby Cornell in two different parts of her life: when she’s 29 and a reporter for a small, local newspaper and living with roommates in a crappy flat with a crappy landlord in a town known for some horrific murders that happened in the 90s, and suddenly, a new roommate shows up one day. Then, we also have her a year later, and she’s now 30, she hasn’t been back to the small town of Crowhurst in 12 months because of the events that happened back then. The story l

A much beloved mother/wife/sister disappears, and the entire condo building turns into a potential crime scene. What happened to her? Is she still alive? Is she actually dead? If so, where is she? How could a potential murderer get her out of the building without anyone seeing it? How could her perfect life end in such an imperfect way? That’s what we need to figure out! My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 My Thoughts I have mixed feelings about this one. But regardless, I’m always going to

It’s been 5 years since Lily and her best friend Mary Louise moved from Montana to Paris. Both women moved with the goal of becoming great artists, but these five years have not been kind to them or their friendship. When Mary Louise decides to move out of their shared apartment, leaving Lily on her own, Lily realizes she needs to get her act together. Lily is hired on at the American Library in Paris (ALP), a place she’s heard about all her life from an elderly neighbour in

In City of the Muse by Kate Hilton, a female researcher/papyrologist named Helen arrives in Egypt to join an excavation crew in the early 1900s, and though she is thrilled to be a part of the team, she learns that the only reason she is there is because her predecessor disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Then, in Toronto in 2019, a different female researcher named Maddie is feeling like her whole career has hit a dead end/stalled out, you name it. But in a weird way,

One day, Selena finds herself working late in the city and she must suddenly run for the late train back home to her husband and children. She takes a seat beside a beautiful stranger in the busy train car, and they strike up a conversation as they wait for a track delay to clear. In this weird situation they’re in, both ladies start spilling secrets - let's call it spilling confessions - about their lives, and a kind of bond forms. When the train starts moving again, it’s li

This is a family’s descent into utter darkness. When Peggy, Drew and their teenage son move to a small canal boat, they think all their family problems will be solved, but it’s really just the beginning. Both Peggy and Drew are writers, and when Peggy finds sudden success, Drew’s jealousy knows no bounds. He moves their boat further and further away from the rest of civilization, just adrift in the middle of nowhere, and where Peggy was once the glue that held this family tog