Show Me Your Books

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After last month's reads, I just kept reading and reading. Partly because many books I had on hold finally came in and because I finally felt more comfortable in this whole pandemic thing. I think I was watching Netflix and tv shows more than reading because it just required less work. Lazy, yes, but truthful. This month, I read some great books! Enjoy!

The Family Upstairs - Lisa Jewell

The Family Upstairs

This is the second or third Lisa Jewell book that I have read. This was a very quick read for me. It goes back and forth between different time periods...when the kids were younger, present day and in between. The book is about a family who is wealthy and helps others out, but helping others out can put your own family at risk. Who is the family that you let stay with you? How did things change so quickly? 

I figured out parts of the book before they happened, but I think it was set up that way. The big twist, I didn't figure out until close to the end though. I would definitely recommend reading this book.

Here is Amazon's synopsis:

Be careful who you let in.

Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am.

She soon learns not only the identity of her birth parents, but also that she is the sole inheritor of their abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable Chelsea neighborhood, worth millions. Everything in Libby’s life is about to change. But what she can’t possibly know is that others have been waiting for this day as well—and she is on a collision course to meet them.

Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying. When they arrived, they found a healthy ten-month-old happily cooing in her crib in the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone.

Bring Me Back - B.A. Paris

Bring Me Back - B.A. Paris

I have read several of B.A. Paris's books, but I never read this one. The book starts off with a couple stopping at a gas station. The guy (Finn) goes to the bathroom and upon returning, his girlfriend (Layla) is missing. Fast forward 12 years and Finn is engaged to Layla's sister. Everything seems perfect, but then Finn and Ellen start getting messages and items suggesting that Layla is alive. Who is sending the items? Is Layla really alive?

I really enjoyed this book. It kept me guessing and I didn't figure out what happened until the end. I had some ideas about it, but then the twist was even better than I hoped. Read this book. I really enjoyed it.

Here is Amazon's synopsis:

Finn and Layla are young, in love, and on vacation. They’re driving along the highway when Finn decides to stop at a service station to use the restroom. He hops out of the car, locks the doors behind him, and goes inside. When he returns Layla is gone—never to be seen again. That is the story Finn told to the police. But it is not the whole story.

Ten years later Finn is engaged to Layla’s sister, Ellen. Their shared grief over what happened to Layla drew them close and now they intend to remain together. Still, there’s something about Ellen that Finn has never fully understood. His heart wants to believe that she is the one for him...even though a sixth sense tells him not to trust her.

Then, not long before he and Ellen are to be married, Finn gets a phone call. Someone from his past has seen Layla—hiding in plain sight. There are other odd occurrences: Long-lost items from Layla’s past that keep turning up around Finn and Ellen’s house. Emails from strangers who seem to know too much. Secret messages, clues, warnings. If Layla is alive—and on Finn’s trail—what does she want? And how much does she know?

Jar of Hearts - Jennifer HIllier

Jar of Hearts - Jennifer Hillier

Someone had recommended one of Jennifer Hillier's books to me, but that one is still on hold. The name of the book was lost on me at first until you get about half way through the book. Then you get the name. I read this book in one day. I started reading it one morning while I was at the doctor's office and I finished it by the evening. It was really good. It keeps you guessing and wondering what really happened. Plus it is a detective style thriller book, so if you like those kinds of shows, then you will love this book.

Georgina's (Geo) best friend went missing when they were just 16 years old. Fourteen years later, her body is found and everything leads back to Geo and her boyfriend, Calvin. What really happened that night? And why did Geo never come forward with this information? Fast forward to present day and more bodies. They were murdered in the same exact manner as Geo's best friend. Has Calvin returned and committing these murders? 

The twists that are revealed at the end were pretty shocking. This book is definitely worth the read!

Here is Amazon's synopsis:

This is the story of three best friends: one who was murdered, one who went to prison, and one who's been searching for the truth all these years . . .

When she was sixteen years old, Angela Wong―one of the most popular girls in school―disappeared without a trace. Nobody ever suspected that her best friend, Georgina Shaw, now an executive and rising star at her Seattle pharmaceutical company, was involved in any way. Certainly not Kaiser Brody, who was close with both girls back in high school.

But fourteen years later, Angela Wong's remains are discovered in the woods near Geo's childhood home. And Kaiser―now a detective with Seattle PD―finally learns the truth: Angela was a victim of Calvin James. The same Calvin James who murdered at least three other women.

To the authorities, Calvin is a serial killer. But to Geo, he's something else entirely. Back in high school, Calvin was Geo's first love. Turbulent and often volatile, their relationship bordered on obsession from the moment they met right up until the night Angela was killed.

For fourteen years, Geo knew what happened to Angela and told no one. For fourteen years, she carried the secret of Angela's death until Geo was arrested and sent to prison.

While everyone thinks they finally know the truth, there are dark secrets buried deep. And what happened that fateful night is more complex and more chilling than anyone really knows. Now the obsessive past catches up with the deadly present when new bodies begin to turn up, killed in the exact same manner as Angela Wong.

How far will someone go to bury her secrets and hide her grief? How long can you get away with a lie? How long can you live with it? Find out in Jennifer Hillier's Jar of Hearts.

The Mother-in-Law - Sally Hepworth

The Mother-in-Law - Sally Hepworth

The Mother-in-Law was nothing like I thought it would be, but in a good way. We all know the connotation behind mother-in-laws. A lot of people seem to not like their mother-in-laws, but many of us LOVE and adore our mother-in-laws. I am one of the people who adore and love my MIL. Every daughter-in-law wants to impress their MIL, become friends and have a good relationship. But when Lucy meets her MIL, she doesn't get the warm feelings from her. She tries to please her and become best friends with Diana over the years, but it just doesn't work in her favor. Even when Lucy gives birth to Diana's first grandchild. Even after three grandchildren. But then Diana ends up dead and the first signs point to suicide, but things don't add up right. Was she possibly murdered? 

The book goes back and forth between Lucy and Diana in present day and past. I though this was a great book and I loved that it wasn't what I expected to be. Bottom line: read this book.

Here is Amazon's synopsis:

From the moment Lucy met her husband’s mother, she knew she wasn’t the wife Diana had envisioned for her perfect son. Exquisitely polite, friendly, and always generous, Diana nonetheless kept Lucy at arm’s length despite her desperate attempts to win her over. And as a pillar in the community, an advocate for female refugees, and a woman happily married for decades, no one had a bad word to say about Diana…except Lucy.

That was five years ago.

Now, Diana is dead, a suicide note found near her body claiming that she longer wanted to live because of the cancer wreaking havoc inside her body.

But the autopsy finds no cancer.

It does find traces of poison, and evidence of suffocation.

Who could possibly want Diana dead? Why was her will changed at the eleventh hour to disinherit both of her children, and their spouses? And what does it mean that Lucy isn’t exactly sad she’s gone?

Watching You - Lisa Jewell

Watching You - Lisa Jewell

I read The Family Upstairs this month and I read Then She Was Gone a year or two ago. I love the way that Lisa Jewell writes. I haven't guessed her twists in her books yet and that really makes her a good writer. 

As you can tell from the title, it is about someone watching people. It opens up with the police investigating a murder. Who gets murdered in a small British town in their kitchen? You don't get to find out who was murdered until later in the book. The book focuses on a few main characters: Joey who was recently married in Ibiza, Mr. Fitzwilliam who is the new headmaster at the school to try to whip the school into shape, his son Freddie, schoolmates Jenna and her mother and a few others. The whole time you are wondering why is Jenna's mom so paranoid? What is this obsession with Mr. Fitzwilliam? What is the mystery with the painted houses? And so many more questions. I don't want to give too much away.

I thought I had everything figured out until the second part of the book and then I threw out everything I thought I knew. Lisa Jewell is really good at her twists. Bottom line: Read this book. And set aside a day or two because you will want to read it right away!

Here is Amazon's synopsis:

Melville Heights is one of the nicest neighborhoods in Bristol, England; home to doctors and lawyers and old-money academics. It’s not the sort of place where people are brutally murdered in their own kitchens. But it is the sort of place where everyone has a secret. And everyone is watching you.

As the headmaster credited with turning around the local school, Tom Fitzwilliam is beloved by one and all—including Joey Mullen, his new neighbor, who quickly develops an intense infatuation with this thoroughly charming yet unavailable man. Joey thinks her crush is a secret, but Tom’s teenaged son Freddie—a prodigy with aspirations of becoming a spy for MI5—excels in observing people and has witnessed Joey behaving strangely around his father.

One of Tom’s students, Jenna Tripp, also lives on the same street, and she’s not convinced her teacher is as squeaky clean as he seems. For one thing, he has taken a particular liking to her best friend and fellow classmate, and Jenna’s mother—whose mental health has admittedly been deteriorating in recent years—is convinced that Mr. Fitzwilliam is stalking her.

Meanwhile, twenty years earlier, a schoolgirl writes in her diary, charting her doomed obsession with a handsome young English teacher named Mr. Fitzwilliam…

And there you have it! I read 5 books this month and I am already onto my next book: Never Never by Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher.