Book Review: This is Why We Lied by Karin Slaughter

 

publication

August 20, 2024 by William Morrow

buy on Amazon

Everyone here is a liar, but only one of us is a killer…

A secluded cabin retreat

For GBI investigator Will Trent and medical examiner Sara Linton, McAlpine Lodge seems like the ideal getaway to celebrate their honeymoon. Set on a gorgeous, off-the-grid mountaintop property, it’s the perfect place to unplug and reconnect. Until a bone-chilling scream cuts through the night.

A murderer in their midst

Mercy McAlpine, the manager of the Lodge, is dead. With a vicious storm raging and the one access road to the property washed out, the murderer must be someone on the mountain. But as Will and Sara investigate the McAlpine family and the other guests, they realize that everyone here is lying….Lying about their past. Lying to their family. Lying to themselves.

Who killed Mercy McAlpine?

It soon becomes clear that normal rules don’t apply at McAlpine Lodge, and Will and Sara are going to have to watch their step at every turn. Trapped on the resort, they must untangle a decades-old web of secrets to discover what happened to Mercy. And with the killer poised to strike again, the trip of a lifetime becomes a race against the clock…

MY REVIEW:

This is Why We Lied by Karin Slaughter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The 12th book of the series. I had only read one other book in the series but you didn't need to read the rest if you are just looking for the mystery. But if you want to know the characters then you should start from the beginning.
Will is on his honeymoon with Sara. He is an investigator and she is a medical examiner. They are both also married to their jobs.
Will made this honeymoon happen and got this secluded cabin retreat where you have to hike to get there. Luggage and other deliveries are taken there by a small back road.
Mercy has been running the resort for quite awhile. Her father is in a wheelchair, and makes her fell like shit along with her mother.. Mery's brother and ex husband also work there. She is raising her son there and wants to be able to run it with h. Someone wants to buy the place but Mercy doesn't want to sell. There is a big blowup and nasty things are said to her. Then that night she is killed.
There are several other couples renting the cabins and it seems like everyone is lying who they are and what they do.
I loved getting to know all the characters and what they are thinking. Trying to figure out who would want to hurt Mercy the lost was on my mind and I was wrong.
Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for the book to review.
#ThisIsWhyWeLied #NetGalley

View all my reviews

Karin Slaughter

Bornin The United States

January 06

Website

https://linktr.ee/karinslaughter

Twitter

@slaughterKarin

Genre

Mystery & Thrillers, Fiction, Thriller

Karin Slaughter is the author of more than twenty instant NEW YORK TIMES bestselling novels, including the Edgar–nominated COP TOWN and standalone novels THE GOOD DAUGHTER, PRETTY GIRLS, and GIRL, FORGOTTEN. She is published in 120 countries with more than 40 million copies sold across the globe. PIECES OF HER is a #1 Netflix original series starring Toni Collette. The Will Trent Series is on ABC (and streaming on Hulu in the U.S and Disney+ internationally). THE GOOD DAUGHTER and FALSE WITNESS are in development for film/tv. Slaughter is the founder of the Save the Libraries project—a nonprofit organization established to support libraries and library programming. A native of Georgia, she lives in Atlanta.

Facebook: Facebook.com/AuthorKarinSlaughter

Website: http://www.karinslaughter.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karinslaugh...

Book Review: More Than Meets the Eye by Iris Johansen

                                                     Published February 7, 2023

                                                    Buy from Amazon

New York Times bestselling authors Iris Johansen and Roy Johansen team up for another electrifying thriller that pits a serial killer against Kendra Michaels' heightened powers of deduction.

After scoring a plea deal in a high-profile murder trial, serial killer James Michael Barrett leads a grim parade of law enforcement officers to the body of his last victim. At the alleged burial site, the officers swing their shovels down and are met with a strange metallic sound they weren’t expecting. In a blink, a terrific explosion rocks the woods, killing Barrett and most of the officers instantly.
The detonation is only the beginning of a shocking case for FBI consultant Kendra Michaels—a string of heinous murders in the style of the very-dead Barrett mysteriously continue, and it becomes clear that he may not have been working alone. As the crimes accelerate, Kendra reluctantly accepts help from college student Tricia Walton, the only survivor of Barrett’s attacks. But the killer has a terrifying plan that Kendra and her team are only beginning to understand.

                                               MY REVIEW:

More Than Meets the Eye by Iris Johansen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received this from NetGalley and as an audio from the publisher.
Another serial killer for Kendra Michaels to catch. I like the characters in this book and the narrator for the audio did a great job. I enjoyed listening to it,

View all my reviews

Iris Johansen is a New York Times bestselling author. She began her writing after her children left home for college. She first achieved success in the early 1980s writing category romances. In 1991, Johansen began writing suspense historical romance novels, starting with the publication of The Wind Dancer. In 1996 Johansen switched genres, turning to crime fiction, with which she has had great success.

She lives in Georgia and is married. Her son, Roy Johansen, is an Edgar Award-winning screenwriter and novelist. Her daughter, Tamara, serves as her research assistant.


http://www.irisjohansen.com

Book Review: The Girl Who Survived by Lisa Jackson

 

                                                          Kindle Edition, 452 pages
                                                     Expected publication: June 28th 2022

                                                        Buy on Amazon

In this deviously volatile, deliciously creepy thriller from the #1 New York Times bestseller, the lone survivor of a brutal family massacre must uncover the awful truth about the fateful night that left her forever marked…

Has she already had her last chance to be the final girl?

All her life, she’s been the girl who survived. Orphaned at age seven after a horrific killing spree at her family’s Oregon cabin, Kara McIntyre is still searching for some kind of normal. But now, twenty years later, the past has come thundering back. Her brother, Jonas, who was convicted of the murders has unexpectedly been released from prison. The press is in a frenzy again. And suddenly, Kara is receiving cryptic messages from her big sister, Marlie—who hasn’t been seen or heard from since that deadly Christmas Eve when she hid little Kara in a closet with a haunting, life-saving command: Don’t make a sound.

As people close to her start to die horrible deaths, Kara, who is slowly and surely unraveling, believes she is the killer’s ultimate target.

Kara survived once. But will she survive again? How many times can she be the girl who survived?

                                                 MY REVIEW:

The Girl Who Survived by Lisa Jackson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

20 years ago, most of a family was murdered. 18 year old Marlie woke up her 7 year old sister and told her to be quiet and to follow her. Marlie locked her in the attic and told her not to come out until Marlie got her. There is a bad person and something bad going on. Kara waited and then picked the lock. Went downstairs and found her parents and step siblings all dead except for Jonas and Marlie was missing, Jonas was injured and told her to get help and run.
Present day and Jonas is getting out of prison for killing his family, which he denies and Kara doesn't really know what happened. There was a neighbor who had saved Kara but had died while saving her. His son is now a reporter and wants answers.
The investigators want to really know what happened and are getting back into finding answers.
We find out that Jonah's attorney and Kara's aunt have depleted the inheritance and Kara is supposed to be getting it all real soon.
Then murders start happening again and left me with questions and having a hard time putting the book. down and finding out who the murderer really is.
Thanks to Kensington Books and NetGalley for the book to review.

View all my reviews

                                 Lisa Jackson


Bornin The United States

Website
http://www.lisajackson.com/

Twitter
readlisajackson

Genre
Suspense, Mystery & Thrillers


URL
https://www.goodreads.com/readlisajackson



Lisa Jackson is the number-one New York Times bestselling author of more than 85 novels, including Afraid to Die, Tell Me, You Don’t Want to Know, Running Scared, Without Mercy, Malice, and Shiver. She is also the co-author of the Colony Series, co-written with her sister, Nancy Bush. There are over 20 million copies of Lisa Jackson’s books in print in twenty languages.

Before she became a nationally bestselling author, Lisa Jackson was a mother struggling to keep food on the table by writing novels, hoping against hope that someone would pay her for them. Today, neck deep in murder, her books appear on The New York Times, the USA Today, and the Publishers Weekly national bestseller lists.

With over thirty bestsellers to her name, Lisa Jackson is a master of taking readers to the edge of sanity – and back – in novels that buzz with dangerous secrets and deadly passions. She continues to be fascinated by the minds and motives of both her killers and their pursuers—the personal, the professional and downright twisted. As she builds the puzzle of relationships, actions, clues, lies and personal histories that haunt her protagonists, she must also confront the fear and terror faced by her victims, and the harsh and enduring truth that, in the real world, terror and madness touch far too many lives and families.

Blog Tour: A Venomous Love by Chris Karlsen

A Venomous Love

by Chris Karlsen

on Tour April 1-30, 2020

Synopsis:

The killer whispered-“A pretty damsel...worth a pretty risk."

A veteran, Detective Rudyard Bloodstone has fought a brutal battle and witnessed war horrors that haunt his nightmares. Now one of those horrors has followed him home from Africa.

A vicious predator, the Cape cobra, can kill a man in thirty minutes. A suspect using the snake as a weapon in robberies is terrorizing London.

When the crimes escalate into murder, a victim’s daughter, Honoria Underhill, becomes the focus of the killer. After several attempts on her life, Scotland Yard threatens to take over the high profile case. With few leads to follow, Bloodstone and his partner must now fight department politics and catch the killer before Underhill becomes another murder victim.

Book Details:

Genre: Historical Suspense

Published by: Books to Go Now

Publication Date: February 28, 2020

Number of Pages: TBD

ISBN: 979-8600864139

Series: Bloodstone Series, #3

Purchase Links:

Amazon.com

Amazon.ca

Amazon.co.uk

BN.com

Kobo.com

Apple.com

Goodreads

                                MY REVIEW:

A Venomous Love by Chris Karlsen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A robber is using a King Cobra as a weapon to rob people. Then 1 man dies in front of his daughter ,Honoria Underhill,. Since she saw what happened she becomes the focus of the robber. To silent her. Detective Ruddy Bloodstone must find out who this suspect is and try to keep Honoria Underhill safe. This is the 3rd book of this series and I had not read the other 2 but I don't think it was necessary to know what was going on.
I received this from Partners In Crime for review.


View all my reviews

Read an excerpt:

Puzzled, Ruddy asked, “You say the body is still in the chapel? Couldn’t the nurse bring an exam table to put him on and start treatment?”

“She did. Young and I attempted to help but he suffered violent convulsions. Because the hospital is for children, they don’t have restraints. The head nurse instructed us to leave him back on the floor. She was afraid he’d fall off the table.”

“Makes sense.” The timeframe of Underhill’s death didn’t make sense. At minimum it usually took an hour and more often, hours for the venom to kill. A horrible thought occurred to Ruddy. What if it was a different suspect with a different lethal snake? “But he died while you were still here?”

“Yes. He convulsed brutally hard a few more times and an excessive amount of drool came out his mouth. Then he lost consciousness. A nurse put a blanket over him and a pillow under his head. He died as she was making him comfortable.”

“Strange. This is abnormally fast even for cobra venom.” Flanders stepped up on Ruddy’s right. “What is it, constable?”

“Shall I leave you to start my search?” Flanders asked.

“Yes. Collect anything, and I mean anything, you find that looks out of the ordinary,” Archie told him. “This case is so unusual we can’t be sure what is important and what isn’t.”

The nurse led them to the curtained-off bed. Honoria Underhill lay on her side softly sobbing. Her legs were curled up so she fit on the short bed meant for a child. The nurses had covered her with a blanket. When she saw Ruddy and Archie, she sat up and swung her legs down to the side of the bed.

“Yes. We know this is traumatic for you but we need to ask you to repeat what happened with as much detail as you can recall,” Ruddy told her.

“I understand.” Her shoulders trembled. She buried her fists in her skirt and kept her head down as she fought to control her emotions.

Ruddy brought the conversation back to the crime. “Did the suspect say anything when he attacked?”

“’A pretty little damsel, worth a pretty risk,’ he said as he rushed toward us. Then he leapt at me with the snake in hand inches from my face. Father pushed me out of the man’s reach and stepped between us. My father tried to knock the man’s hand away and swatted at the animal.”

She dabbed at her nose again and then offered the handkerchief back to Archie who waved off the return. “It happened so fast,” Honoria continued. “In the time it took me to blink, the snake’s throat blew outward, like a fan opening.” She demonstrated the action with her hands. “A second later it lunged and struck.”

***

Excerpt from A Venomous Love by Chris Karlsen.  Copyright 2020 by Chris Karlsen. Reproduced with permission from Chris Karlsen. All rights reserved.

Author Bio:

I was born and raised in Chicago. My father was a history professor and my mother was, and is, a voracious reader. I grew up with a love of history and books.

My parents also love traveling, a passion they passed onto me. I wanted to see the places I read about, see the land and monuments from the time periods that fascinated me. I’ve had the good fortune to travel extensively throughout Europe, the Near East, and North Africa.

I am a retired police detective. I spent twenty-five years in law enforcement with two different agencies. My desire to write came in my early teens. After I retired, I decided to pursue that dream. I write three different series. My paranormal romance series is called, Knights in Time. My romantic thriller series is Dangerous Waters. The newest is The Bloodstone Series, which is historical suspense with romantic elements. Each series has a different setting and some cross time periods, which I find fun to write.

I currently live in the Pacific Northwest with my husband and four wild and crazy rescue dogs.

Catch Up With Chris Karlsen On:

ChrisKarlsen.com, Goodreads, BookBub, Instagram, Twitter, & Facebook!

Tour Participants:

Visit these other great hosts on this tour for more great reviews, interviews, guest posts, and giveaways!

Enter Now!!!:

This is a rafflecopter giveaway hosted by Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours for Chris Karlsen. There will be Three (3) winners. One (1) winner will receive an Amazon.com Gift Card and Two (2) winners will each receive A Venomous Love by Chris Karlsen (eBook). The giveaway begins on April 1, 2020 and runs through May 2, 2020. Void where prohibited.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Virtual Book Tours