Book Review: Who Is Maud Dixon by Alexandra Andrews

 

Who Is Maud Dixon
by 
Alexandra Andrews

Title: Who Is Maud Dixon by Alexandra Andrews

Rating: 4 stars (🌟🌟🌟🌟)

Publisher: Little Brown & Company

This was fun! This was a fresh twist on the Imposter trope & I couldn't stop tapping my screen for the next page. I don't want to give away spoilers because that's the real fun here but do know that it is a little slow at some points. 

Book review: Follow Me by Kathleen Barber

Follow Me by Kathleen Barber

Follow Me by Kathleen Barber
My rating: 4 stars 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Publisher: Gallery Books

I tend to enjoy a good story about the dark turns social media can take. And this one fit perfectly. It was creepy, crazy and quite the twisty tale that was just perfect for diversion during quarantine. 

Book Review: What She Gave Away (Santa Barbara Suspense #1) by Catharine Riggs

What She Gave Away by Catharine Riggs
My rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 (4 stars)
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

Talk about a quick read. I stayed up late reading this one and could not go to sleep until I'd finished. I'm giving no spoilers but I will say that as suspense reads go, this one plays the tension well throughout. Crystal and Katie are the dual narrators here that are thoroughly unlikeable (one is possibly very unreliable because she's downing boxes of wine like it's sport). The twists and turns come pretty quickly and so do the clues as to connections and where true blame should be assessed in the ledger of bad deeds before this culminates in a final showdown.

If I have one complaint it's that the ending is a bit pat and happy ending-esque. Now, I've nothing against happy endings and everything being tied up in a bow but it just wasn't something I needed in this story of suspense. I think the ending without the epilogue would have provided a more powerful read overall. Your mileage may vary.

This is my first read by Catharine Riggs and I'd read another (I plan on reading the next in this series). Recommended.

Summary: Imagining the best way to destroy a person’s happiness is Crystal Love’s favorite game. Devious and unpolished, the plus-sized loan analyst couldn’t be more out of place in her new town of Santa Barbara, where the beautifully manicured women never age and the ocean views stretch farther than the million-dollar lawns. And yet her eye for the power dynamics at play in this tony community is dead accurate.Kathi Wright, on the other hand, has made it her life’s work to fit in with the plastic people who surround her. But when her husband—a wealthy bank president—dies suddenly, she’s left with nothing. Then the FBI shows up, asking questions she can’t answer and freezing assets she once took for granted.
While Kathi struggles to outrun the mess caused by her husband’s mysterious death, Crystal seems focused on her game. But why? And who are her targets?
Spanning two years and told in Crystal’s and Kathi’s alternating voices, this tautly plotted novel reveals the power of choice and the price of revenge.

Book Review: The Retreat by Sherri Smith

The Retreat by Sherri Smith
My rating: 🌟🌟🌟 (3 stars)
Publisher: Forge

I love a good group vacation to a remote location, gone way wrong with bodies stacking up, so this had me from the summary. This also appealed to me because I have been in a book slump and thought a good psychological suspense story could shake me out of it. I didn't find it terribly suspenseful after meeting all our narrators but this still did the trick.

I very much liked Smith's turn of phrase & I truly laughed out loud as I read. Biting, wry wit goes a good way with me, so that was to the good. To the not so great, I figured out early on who was our in-house friend with murderous intent. That's not a deal-breaker for me but the journey to the reveal needs to be interesting enough for such an early telegraph and here, sadly, it wasn't. Also, I never quite cared about the characters (Katie, the ageing & aimless former childhood star; Ellie, the ultra perfect fiancee to Katie's brother, Carmen: the college friend always so financially strapped she routinely sells her eggs and Ariel, the college friend whose life back in her hometown has gone from disappointing to criminal). I didn't hate them or love them and didn't feel much for any of their plights (though I found Ariel's story, the most interesting of the four). They were given things that should have made me feel for them but something was missing for me and their non-self-inflicted problems were a bit too heavy-handed and coercive for sympathy, for this reader.

A couple of my favourite passages:

"Seriously, how can pancakes be gluten-free? It's like taking water out of clouds."

"She missed their little threesome. She missed college when they were still sky-high on their potential. ON their special-ness. When they had yet to open that first nesting doll of adult disappointment and failure."

I'd definitely read another by Smith and this is a good debut. And I'll forever be grateful for this breaking my slump. I am restored.

Summary: Four women.Four secrets.A weekend that will change them forever...if they survive.
Katie Manning was a beloved child star until her mid-teens when her manager attacked and permanently scarred her face, effectively ending her career and sending her on a path of all-too-familiar post-Hollywood self-destruction.
Now twenty-seven, Katie wants a better answer to those clickbait "Where Are They Now?" articles that float around online. An answer she hopes to find when her brother's too-good-to-be-true fiance invites her to a wellness retreat upstate. Together with Katie's two best friends--one struggling with crippling debt and family obligations, one running away from a failed job and relationship--Katie will try to find the inner peace promised at the tranquil retreat. But finding oneself just might drudge up more memories than Katie is prepared to deal with.
Each woman has come to the retreat for different reasons. Each has her secrets to hide. And at the end of this weekend, only one will be left standing.

Book Review: Skin Deep by Liz Nugent

Skin Deep by Liz Nugent
My rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟(4 stars)
Publisher: Penguin

This is my second read by Liz Nugent and I was, again, pulled in and couldn't look away. I was sure that no one could supplant Lydia of Nugent's Lying In Wait from her throne as Character I Most Dread. Delia, now she shares it with Lydia.