Title: Along Came a Spider Author: James Patterson Series: Alex Cross #1 Rating Out of 5: 3.5 (Liked this) My Bookshelves:Mystery, Thriller Pace: Slow Format: eBook, Novel Year: 1993
I used to absolutely love thrillers, and whilst Along Came a Spider was a brilliant book, I’ve realised that this is most definitely not my genre anymore. I think because I have children now and a lot of emotionally taxing roles in my life. Thrillers used to give me, well, a thrill, but now I really don’t need that in my life.
There is so much evil seeping off of the pages of Along Came a Spider. Everything about this story kind of hurt my heart. Again, I’ve noticed that since becoming a mother, the idea of children being victims of violence makes me break a little bit inside. It’s what’s supposed to happen, this isn’t going to be a happy story. But at this point in my life, I read for joy, not for thrills.
Along Came a Spider has so many twists and turns. Every time I thought that I had a handle on the trajectory of this story, something happened. It meant that, whilst I didn’t necessarily feel comfortable reading this, I also didn’t want to look away from this story. It was a very well named story – a spider web of insanity and intensity that continuously closes in around Alex Cross. It might be a long time before I read Kiss the Girls, but at least I know this is a well crafted thriller that will keep me guessing continuously.
Title: City of the Lost Author: Kelley Armstrong Series: Rockton #1 Rating Out of 5: 4.5 (Amazing, but not quite perfect) My Bookshelves:Crime, Mystery, Thriller Pace: Fast Format: eBook, Novel Year: 2016
It took me a while to get through this book, not because it was easy to put down. But because it was just dark enough that reading it at night, before bed was not the greatest of ideas. So many twists and turns, and somewhat gruesome deaths filled these pages. And, just like all of the other books I’ve read by Kelley Armstrong, I freaking loved this.
Although Diana didn’t seem like the greatest of friends even from the beginning of this story, I was shocked at the depths of badness that she went to. I mean, her steady unravelling while Casey is able to find herself… it was horrible and a little heartbreaking. Also a little bit too familiar. Everyone has had a toxic friendship, and as someone who has recently said goodbye to one such friendship, it was a little bit eerie and too relatable.
Actually, this story had a few unexpected twists and betrayals throughout it. I spent the whole time trying to figure out just who the killer was, and it wasn’t until literally moments before the big reveal that I guessed it. Which completely doesn’t count as anticipation, because it was literally the moment that Casey puts it all together. I love those surprises, and I would love to go back one day and reread this, finding all of the clues that I totally missed. Having said that, I didn’t actually have any good guesses as to WHO the murderer was…
I loved everything about this book. It was absolutely amazing and fun and delicious. The idea of a town in which people are trying to disappear hide out is so very cool. And I love that it highlights all of the ways in which people are likely to resort to less-than-desirable behaviours if the rules of society are removed. It makes you stop and think about what social rules shape us.
Title: Hollywood Lanes Author: Megan Abbott In: Murder and Mayhem in Muskego (Jon & Ruth Jordan) Rating Out of 5: 3 (On the fence about this one) My Bookshelves:Crime, Thriller Dates read: 31st March 2021 Pace: Medium Format: Short story Publisher: Down and Out Books Year: 2012 5th sentence, 74th page: She was talking about Sherry.
Hollywood Lanes is a bowling alley filled with a lot of drama and intrigue. But that doesn’t mean that it’s a positive place to be.
I knew from the collection that I found this short story in that there would be a death at some point in this story. What I didn’t predict was the form of death and the victim. Or how the story would get there. It was seriously enjoyable and a fun little ride.
One of the aspects of this story that I thoroughly enjoyed was the flickering point of views. It made this story a little more difficult to follow in some ways and added to the confusion of the tale. All of which works well for a crime and thriller story.
I’m completely intrigued by this short story. It is one that I will probably read again, find some new aspects that I missed in the last read through. It’s a fun adventure, and one that I found I enjoyed far more than expected, particularly since it’s a genre that I don’t normally read much in.
Title: Misery Author: Stephen King Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!) My Bookshelves:Horror, Thriller Dates read: 16th – 17th August 2020 Pace: Fast Format: Novel Publisher: Hodder Year: 1987 5th sentence, 74th page: ‘Better?’
Misery Chastain was dead. Paul Sheldon had just killed her – with relief, with joy. Misery had made him rich; she was the heroine of a string of bestsellers. And now he wanted to get on to some real writing.
That’s when the car accident happened, and he woke up in pain in a strange bed. But it wasn’t the hospital. Annie Wilkes had pulled him from the wreck, brought him to her remote mountain home, splinted and set his mangled legs.
The good news was that Annie was a nurse and has pain-killing drugs. The bad news was that she was Paul’s Number One Fan. And when she found out what Paul had done to Misery, she didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all.
I have seriously got to stop reading Stephen King novels when I know I’m going to be home alone for the night… I keep thinking that I’m tough and I want get all wiggy… and then I get all wiggy. This time I was a little smarter, I put aside a whole day and started reading Misery in the morning. Just so that even though I did get wiggy… it wasn’t during the night. Rather, it was when there was still a lot of sunlight…
I both admire and fear Stephen King. I absolutely love his writing. It is just completely impossible to put down and forget. I also fear that he has a mind that is capable of this kind of story. It’s pretty damn intense and hard to forget. This story is definitely one of those that is a thriller – and spine tingling. Plus, every time I had hope… it was completely dashed away. Each time more brutal than the last.
Aside from the heart pumping, pulse tingling, craziness of this story I also really loved that it was a story that featured the act of writing. There was the weird hatred that the writer feels for his own work, the process of creating a story and the ways in which fans become just a little too connected to the storyline. It was a really great insight into an aspect of writing that I’ve vaguely experienced, but not truly (since you know, I’m not actually an author). I love how this fascinating look into a writers’ psyche was partnered with just total and utter, brutal insanity.
As someone who works in mental health, anything that investigates the different ways in which people can break kind of fascinates me. Partnering that with the amazing way in which King is able to show the damage of psychological torture… this is most definitely not a novel that I’m going to forget anytime soon!
Countless theories have been put forward by Ripperologists as to the identity of the notorious Victorian serial killer, but in the absence of proof how can we hope ever to unearth his real identity? How many more plausible new theories based on known facts can the experts hope to come up with?
In this wonderful collection of newly commissioned stories, Jakubowski has compiled an extraordinary array of fresh explorations into the identity and activities of Jack the Ripper – this time unabashedly fictional, unrestrained by the facts of the case. Contributors include Vaanessa de Sade, Sarah Morrison, Betsy van Die, Alvaro Zinos-Amaro and Sally Spedding.
Cummulatively, they propose numerous possible identities, some already suggested by historians, others more speculative, including some famous names from history and fiction – even Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson are on the case!
You know from the very beginning that this collection is going to be quite twisted. I mean, it’s a collection of 40 stories about Jack the Ripper. That is never going to be a nice collection. But it was an incredibly interesting one. One that I’m incredibly glad I read and found very difficult to put down.
I’m glad that I read The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper before reading this. It made a few things make a little more sense as I read these short stories. Plus, there were SO many different takes on the events of 1888. Or adaptations to modern day society. It filled my head with a lot of wonderful information.
After reading this, I know even more about Jack the Ripper. I’m not actually sure that this is such a good thing. Because wow. There’s a reason why he’s (or maybe she’s) such a notorious killer. There are just so many things that are known and not known…
Title: Reel Life Author: Steven Savile Series: Glass Town #1.5 In: Urban Enemies (Joseph Nassise) Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again) My Bookshelves:Fantasy, Science fiction, Thriller Dates read: 17th December 2019 Pace: Slow Format: Short story Publisher: Gallery Books Year: 2017 5th sentence, 74th page: Taking him out of this place was the easiest way he knew how to hurt Eleanor.
His jealousy caused him to steal the girl of his brother’s dreams and keep her trapped in limbo with him. Now he wants out in the real world. But his reality might just stop him from finally getting everything he wants. After all, this is reel life.
There’s something about tales of obsessive love that really pull me in. I never like the people / characters who have this tendency. I always find it annoying and want to smack the moron who is being so intense… but I also always love them. Not sure why. Don’t want to know what that says about me. And this was one such story. I hated the lead character (he’s a villain, I think that you should hate him). I felt sorry for his victims. I couldn’t put this story down.
I think that jealousy is one of the worst emotions. It seems to be the driver for some of the worst acts committed. Which, of course meant that every bad act that the villain in this committed had it’s roots in this disgusting emotion. I know that the colour green on me is often when I do and say the worst things… apparently that is also the case in this story. But getting your revenge for this and what you wished for? Luckily, as Seth found out… that revenge often isn’t the best thing in the world. 😊
I think that one of the things I loved most about this short story is the playing around with time. It’s often been discussed in my anthropology classes and studies that time is a human construct. It’s our understanding of it that shapes time. Of course there is still a passage of time… but yeah, it’s super philosophical and I freaking love that discussion. Threads of it make their way through this story. Which might be why I just couldn’t make myself put it down and / or stop thinking about it.
Title: Pet Sematary Author: Stephen King Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again) My Bookshelves:Family, Horror, Thriller Dates read: 4th – 15th December 2019 Pace: Medium Format: Novel Publisher: Hodder Year: 1983 5th sentence, 74th page: ‘Caa,’ the young man said, and now Louis fancied he could smell death on his breath, internal injuries, lost rhythm, failure, ruin.
‘Sometimes… dead is better.’
The house looks right, feels right to Dr Louis Creed. Rambling, old and comfortable. A place where the family can settle; the children grow and play and explore. The rolling hills and meadows of Maine seem a world away from the fume-choked dangers of the city.
It’s only those big trucks on the road outside which growl out unnerving threats.
Behind the house there’s a carefully cleared path up into the woods to a place where generations of local children have walked in procession with the solemn innocence of the young, taking with them their dear departed pets for burial.
A sad place maybe, but safe. Surely a safe place. Not a place to seep into your dreams, to wake you, sweating with fear and foreboding…
Let me start this by saying that I basically read the whole book in one day. While I was home alone. It is not something that I recommend. To make my decision making all that much more questionable… I’d actually gone to start it late one night before bed (when my partner was next to me) and, after reading that King thinks this is the scariest story he’s ever written. So I put it down and decided it was a day time read. Which, to be fair, I did start it in the morning. Thought I’d stop when it got scary. I didn’t. I finished it at about 6 pm, realised I had a long, lonely night ahead of me… not what I would recommend at all.
Actually, after reading this, I realised that a) Stephen King was right, this shit is terrifying; b) I needed a super hot shower to wash off the insanity of what I had just read; and c) I really needed to call someone, anyone to distract me. To make matters worse, I have a beagle that likes to find dark corners from which to just… watch me. A little like Church, the creepy not-so-dead cat.
To be fair, Part One of this book isn’t too bad. Don’t get me wrong, bringing a pet cat back from the dead isn’t great… but it was a just enough tingling level of creepy. Then you started Part Two. It started to get worse there. Because you just knew that the decision making was not going to be great. By the time I got to Part Three… I actually really didn’t want to continue. I felt physically ill. But I had to know what happened. Especially, since most horror stories have an ending that will let you sleep at night. This one doesn’t. When I told my partner the storyline a few days later… I kind of just paused, stared at him and realised that I wasn’t going to be getting to sleep anytime soon.
One of the things about King that I love is that although the horror comes from supernatural beings, it’s truly the actions of the people that have caused it. The death of innocents (such as children and pets) is always horrendous, but the ways that people act afterwards? The decisions that they make? There is something FAR more unsettling about that than anything else…
Title: We’re Never Inviting Amber Again Author: S. P. Miskowski In: Haunted Nights (Lisa Morton & Ellen Datlow) Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!) My Bookshelves: Family, Thriller, Urban fantasy Dates read: 8th December 2019 Pace: Fast Format: Short story Publisher: Blumhouse Year: 2017 5th sentence, 74th page: Meredith forced a polite grin.
We’ve all got awkward family members. But, Amber is even more different. And mixing her special brand of crazy with Halloween might not have been the brightest idea…
The narrator of this story is kind of Captain DoucheNugget. Like seriously. If my partner treated my sister like that… I would punch him in the face. Repeatedly. There is something seriously not okay about this storyline. Something that made me incredibly ragey – just because he was a serious DoucheNugget.
Having said that there is a DoucheNugget of epic proportions in this story… it was actually the most scary so far in this collection. And there have been some seriously creepy tales. But this one just hit on a whole new level. There was just something about it that made me not want to walk past the windows late at night…
This story was incredibly awkward. Not awkward because of the writing. The writing was brilliant. The storytelling was brilliant. The story itself was brilliant. But the actual occurrences in this story – the treatment of the aforementioned sister in law. It felt entirely cringe-worthy.
Title: The Monster’s Leather Apron Author: Adrian Ludens In: The Mammoth Book of Jack the Ripper Stories (Maxim Jakubowski) Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!) My Bookshelves:Crime, Thriller Dates read: 5th December 2019 Pace: Medium Format: Short story Publisher: Robinson Year: 2015 5th sentence, 74th page: He concentrated on the drifting sensation that now buoyed him, curled in his murky womb.
Edward is just trying to teach these women how they should be… or at least, that’s what he thinks. Then he has to flee the country with his leather apron. When a tribesman begs for his help, he finds the perfect partner in crime.
This short story definitely didn’t end the way that I anticipated. Actually, I sat there in my living room in a feeling of kind of suspended horror… there was just something scary about the Ripper hooking up with a cannibal. “Teaching” the women of their sins… like I said, suspended horror at the conclusion of this.
The beginning of this story highlights brilliantly Edward’s madness. There is no motive to his actions throughout. Or at least, not an obvious enough one for me to feel settled… but, it does go a long way to explaining the obsessive needs and tendencies of this incredibly creepy man.
There is a point in this story at which you think Edward, the villain, is going to die. And it makes you happy. Even though this story is told from his POV, there is nothing redeemable about this character. You’ll be disappointed. He doesn’t die… he lives… and tortures and dances around the streets in his creepy leather apron…
Title: Cold Feet Author: Brenda Novak Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again) My Bookshelves:Contemporary, Romance, Romantic suspense, Thriller Dates read: 2nd November – 2nd December 2019 Pace: Medium Format: Novel Publisher: Harlequin Year: 2004 5th sentence, 74th page: Where’s my girl?
When the past won’t go away…
The Seattle police suspect Madison Lieberman’s father was the serial killer they call the “Sandpoint Strangler.” Madison refuses to believe it. Her father is now dead, and all she wants is the chance to create a new life for herself and her six-year-old child.
Then she discovers something in the crawl space beneath her parent’s house. Something that makes her question her father’s innocence. Or the innocence of someone else who’s equally close to her…
When another woman turns up dead, crime writer Caleb Trovato wonders whether they’re dealing with a copycat killer. Or is the real Sandpoint Strangler still alive? Caleb’s sure Madison knows more than she’s telling, and he’s determined to find out what. But he doesn’t expect to fall in love – or to lead Madison and her child into danger…
I have never read a Brenda Novak story, nor have I heard of them. This was just the only book I could find with the word “feet” in the title… and I needed that for a reading challenge. It turns out that it was a brilliant choice. I absolutely adored this book. And I was completely blown away by who the villain in this tale was. Actually, the mix of romance and suspense in this novel was not at all expected, and seriously enjoyable.
Normally I tend to guess who or what is going to be the killer fairly early on. Or at least, I get pretty damn close with my guess. I DID NOT see the identity of the bad guy coming at all! I started to have an inkling of the fact that: a) my initial hunch was wrong. And b) who the actual bad person was. I’m not normally this damn surprised, and every time I thought, hmmmm… maybe… there was something that quickly disproved my theory. It was brilliant!
I like that this romance featured a divorcee and her young daughter. That it was all about perceptions, loyalty and trying to find your way in the world. Rather than a twenty-something woman who had never experienced love, was a virgin, ya da, ya da, yay da… she had already had some really difficult experiences. And so had he. The older I get, the more I appreciate older characters in romances… after all, their experiences seem to start being a little more in line with mine.
The only reason I didn’t gobble this book up in just a day was that it was an eBook. There is something about eBooks that tend to take me a little more time to read… yet, the physical copy of this (which I now want to find a second hand version of) would have been completely inhaled in a matter of hours… late at night… when I was supposed to be sleeping.
Earth and Skye 