Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Bitter Falls (Stillhouse Lake Book #4) by Rachel Caine

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I am a sucker for a series with a strong, capable woman.  Add the fact that she’s a mom on a mission? I’m alway sold.  I’m easy…always have been.  To catch you up, the Stillhouse Lake series is about a woman, Gina Royal, who comes home to find out that her husband was a serial killer and that he had been killing people under her nose for years (in a sound proof hobby room in the garage).  People did not believe that she wasn’t aiding him, so when she was finally acquitted, she has to take her children and run because “good people on both sides” (aka other killers who are angry that she testified against her husband and victim’s families) are trying to find her and kill her.  Changing her name to Gwen Proctor, she and her children reinvent themselves and try to keep themselves hidden from those that mean her harm.  And soooo much harm comes at this family for several books.

Now in book four, people have known who Gwen once was (that was revealed books ago) and most of them are letting her live her life (kinda sorta but not really–but I guess it was better than when they were writing DIE on their door in red paint? PROGRESS!). But while she’s been trying therapy for all of them and trying to set a new normal for her children, they are severly damaged from all the experiences from their past.  Gwen realizes that she needs to stop being proud and do what’s best for her kids…but first? She has to take a case that involves a missing college kid and a crazy ass cult that is most definitely going to put her entire family in the utmost danger.  Listen, you can’t relocate without money, I get it.  She was a housewife before she became whatever it is that she is (basically a bounty hunter private investigator) so I’m sure that the job hunt might be a little more difficult especially since she has a very “special set of skills”–I mean she hands the FBI their ass on how capable she is, but uh, maybe selling real estate or working for the postal service might be less harrowing for the kids…I’m just saying…

Book four didn’t disappoint. They’re all basically the same, and yet fast paced enough, and the evil men are different enough that it’s comforting when she tears them down and destroys them. Her love for her children and the man in her life, Sam are equally fun to read about; especially when she has to go all John Rambo and singlehandedly save them book by book. She’s focused on never being vulnerable again and yet being vulnerable enough to mother her kids and experience love with a normal human and not one who got their rocks off by cutting the skin off of women.  Skip these books if you can’t handle depravity. While this one wasn’t gory like the previous books, all of the books deal with subjugating women in one way or another and having those victims either liberating themselves or getting help from Gwen Proctor and company.  I will look forward to Rachel Caine’s next book and Gwen Proctor kicking ass again.

Such a Perfect Wife by Kate White

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Such a Perfect Wife is about the abduction and murder of Shannon Blaine…and then it isn’t…at all.

True Crime writer Bailey Weggins comes to Lake George to write about the unfolding mystery of the disappearance and possible death of Shannon Blaine, 34, gorgeous, wife, mother, and physically fit runner. She disappears while running, which is why I don’t run. I kid, I kid. I don’t run because I ran so much in high school sports my knees are shot. And no, I wasn’t even that good.  For shame.

Bailey is used to writing about death and murder but she’s not used to being pulled into the case.  This is exactly what happens when the killer calls her at her motel and directs her as to where she can find Shannon’s body. The problem is? There’s more than one body there.  Is this now a case of a serial killer? How does the killer know who and where she is? And of course, is she next?

Wow! That paragraph above sounds good, I’d want to read that book. I don’t think the pay off of reading Such a Perfect Wife is all that great. Part of the problem is, for it to have the title it does I thought we’d be exploring whether or not Shannon was as perfect and squeaky clean as she put on outward appearances to be.  We do very little of that.  The red herrings are good, but they take too long–there’s way too much time invested in debunking things. Almost none of the characters are developed and so when one other one happened to be? I knew something bad was going to happen.  The motive behind the murder is simple, perhaps to simple and the bad guys are pretty one dimensional.  If you need a quick mystery to scratch an itch, this will do in a pinch but I think there are better out there.

https://cannonballread.com/2020/01/such-a-perfect-wife-melina/

GET OUT OF THERE!!!

Lock Every Door by Riley Sager

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Jules Larsen just needs a break.  On the same day, she loses her job and comes home to her boyfriend having sex with another woman on the couch.  Up to her eyeballs in college loan debt and nowhere to live, she’s elated when she sees an ad on Craigslist offering $4000 a month to stay in the Bartholomew, a very fancy NYC apartment building that caters to the rich and famous as an apartment sitter.  When she’s shown the space she’s also told the rules:  no visitors, no bothering the other residents (speak only when spoken to), you must sleep in your apartment (it can’t be left unattended overnight), and no photos posted to social media of the inside of the building.  For Jules it’s a no brainer, stay in luxuary for three months and get $12,000.  Her friends are more skeptical, but she presses forward because she needs the cash and she needs a fresh start.

Jules makes the acquaintance of a hot doctor named Nick, pisses off her favorite author for deigning to speak to her, saves a soap star’s little dog and becomes friends with another apartment sitter named Ingrid.  The two of them hit it off right away and send each other little messages through the dumbwaiter that is connected between their apartments (Jules is staying in what was once the servants’ quarters so it makes sense).  Mysteriously, Ingrid disappears in the middle of the night after the two of them made plans to meet up the following day.  Having already lost her sister years prior to a mysterious disappearance, Jules isn’t willing to believe that Ingrid just left on her own volition and begins to peel back the layers of what is really going on at the Bartholomew before it’s too late.

Wow. I really, really liked this book.  Sager dedicates it to Ira Levin (the author of Rosemary’s Baby) and I think it’s such an apt dedication.  Right from the beginning there are red flags everywhere.  We know there’s something really bad going down in the Bartholomew, right when Jules is interviewed for the job.  She has no family, no job and only one friend, she’s not from NYC and she’s desperate for cash.  While I certainly would recognize this red flag, Jules does not, perhaps because she needs somewhere to live and she needs money right away.  I am a little ashamed that I didn’t get what was going on at the Bartholomew until it was revealed to me, but I will say that it was a great book, one that I read in under three hours. Riding high on the Sager book train, I’m sad to announce that he doesn’t have another one coming out until this summer which I look forward to reading.  Sager continues to impress me with each novel–all share common themes and similar main characters in one way or another but the books are not formulaic and definitely not the same.

All Girls Summer Camp? Sounds like a bad idea to me

The Last Time I Lied: A Novel by Riley Sager

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15 years ago, Emma went to summer camp for the very first time.  Being late to arrive, the 13 year old was placed with three girls who were older and were friends already.  There was the queen bee, Vivian, bitchy when she wanted to be, always adventurous and determined.  Natalie and Allison played the role of the queen’s attendents, doing whatever Vivian told them to do. Emma?  Emma just idolized Vivian.  Having been at the camp only two weeks and falling in line with the girls, Emma is angered when the other three leave in the middle of the night and tell her that she’s too young to come.  Emma is terrified when the three girls never return.

Now, 15 years later Emma is making a name for herself as an artist, always painting “her girls in the woods” and covering them slowly with paint and images of trees. Even after she made accusations against the family that owned the camp about the girls’ disappearance, they request that she and some of the other girls return for the camp’s reopening so that closure and healing can happen.  But once there, Emma is sure that someone is watching her every move and is planning something and it doesn’t help that she keeps seeing Vivian everywhere she goes.  It also doesn’t help that the boy she accused all those years later is back, looking hotter than ever…but he might just be a hot killer?? WHO KNOWS?? (I do, but you don’t).

This was the second Riley Sager book that I’ve read.  About two years ago, I reviewed his first book Final Girls https://cannonballread.com/2018/03/74925/ and I liked it a lot.  I thought this second outing was even better than that.  For one, Final Girls, I knew who the “bad guy/girl” was. In this one? I really thought  I had it nailed down and lo and behold, I was way off.  Once I got past the first few chapters, I really couldn’t put this book down and when I did finish, I immediately purchased Sager’s third book.  So, I’m a Sager fan and I’m happy to say that each book is better than the one before it.  If you’re a fan of mystery and suspense you might enjoy this.

It’s Basically a Hallmark Movie…and I Was OK with That

Small Town Rumors by Carolyn Brown

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CW: Stillbirth

Small Town Rumors is about exactly that…our main character Jennie Sue returns from New York to her hometown in Texas after her husband leaves her for another woman and attempting to evade the FBI because of the diamond trade? I’m not totally sure on that one…but just know, he’s an awful human being, who gets no development other than he’s terrible.  Jennie Sue’s mother only sees a woman who hasn’t been keeping up with her hair, nails and weight and actively harasses her about all these things–even though Jennie Sue’s mom knows that she’s been through a harrowing ordeal.  Not only was her husband a d-bag for leaving her, he leaves her when she’s pregnant because he doesn’t want the child.  Alone in New York City, Jennie Sue delivers a baby girl, who was stillborn.

All of these events instead of breaking Jennie Sue, reinforce for her that she doesn’t want the socialite lifestyle that her mother has and that she never wants to be dependent on a man again.  And with that, our heroine begins striking out on her own, sending messages of positivity and happiness like a grown up Pollyanna.  She starts hanging out with the local farmer Rick, who has his own scars (physical ones from being an Army Ranger) and his sister Cricket, who has always been envious of Jennie Sue and has always thought that she was stuck up.  You know they’re going to become friends…right?

Sometimes I just need a book that isn’t going to make me think that much and I don’t mean that in a pejorative way.  I liked this book. I wish the author would use contractions in her dialogue but the story was sweet and the developed characters were well written and interesting.  There was a shocking event that I didn’t see coming that really kicked the end of the book into high gear and actually brought a few tears to my eyes.  To be fair, I was also feeling mighty hormonal when I was reading the book, I’m not sure I’d have that experience if I read it this week.  But anyways, it was a blanket of positivity, cozy with friendship, love and second chances–and I liked it very much.

What Lies Beneath?

The Deep: A Novel of Terror Beneath the Sea by Michaelbrent Collings

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There was a time, starting at the age of 14/15 where I was a scuba diver.  I’d still be one, but children, money and vacation time all get in the way when you’re an adult.  But having been a diver, I feel like this book holds a particularly chilling place in my heart.  So first, I have to ask you, do you like horror?  Oh you do? Excellent! This book is for you!  How about The Thing (it happens to be my favorite movie)?YOU DO? TWINSIES!!! Then you will love this book.  How about Jaws?  Yup, you’ll like it!!  If you don’t like any of those things, don’t even bother reading my words, this is not your cup of tea…which is fine.

Ok, so the book starts the way any decent horror book or movie does, by introducing us to and making us care about the people we’re supposed to care about, be wary of the people with bad agendas and worry about what is in that damn ocean that is killing people!  There are quite a few characters but I’ll sum it up like this, a woman and her estranged father are on the trip because they want answers as to what happened to her sister/his daughter Debi. Also on the boat is a crazy rapist murderer, a crazy meglomaniacal ship owner in search of gold, a lovely woman who seems withdrawn, a hot dive captain and his best friend and a couple of other people (I think maybe just one more…a lawyer?).  Anyways, all of them have their own agendas for being there, some not bad, some pretty bad, some really terrible. As with many horror movies and books they tend to be morality tales and so right off the bat, you know who probably might make it and who might not…but then again?  Sometimes no one makes it.  I’ll never tell.

After finding a corpse in a wetsuit holding a gold coin they are forced by the ship owner to investigate.  To do this, they have to do a pretty technical dive which all passengers were woefully ill-prepared for (either by experience or equipment) each member of the dive experiences creepy things.  Schools of fish, rather than being curious begin to attack on the line down, people are seeing things (things that couldn’t possibly be there), and there is the possibility of massive treasure.  Could this all be stacked up to be nitrogen narcosis?  (which my friends, is a very real thing. I once tried to swim straight into the sand instead of going up). Or is there something otherworldly at work?  Or is it a creature that we’ve yet to discover?  The ocean is less explored than the Moon.  Well, I’m not going to tell you what’s at work here, but if you like a decent easy horror read?  This is a fun, face-paced read.

I leave you with a “sweet” Werner Herzog quote to help you sleep the next time you’re on a beach vacation:

“What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark?  It would be like sleep without dreams.”



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