psychological thriller

“The thing is, I suppose that one gets into the habit of being oneself. It takes some great upheaval to crack that shell and force us to discover what else might be underneath.”

The Witch Elm by Tana French

November 29, 2018 by narfna Leave a Comment

What Tana French, one of my favorite authors, has done here with The Witch Elm (her first non-Dublin Murder Squad book) is very interesting, but I will acknowledge it probably won’t be for everyone. The two starting points for inspiration on this book are Who Put Bella in the Witch Elm? and the idea of: what if your protagonist was a guy who has never had to work hard for anything in his life? And then you swirl those ideas around for a while in your brain, and out pops a kernel of an idea, which becomes this book. To […]

11/29/2018 narfna's CBR10 Review No:147 |

I felt stupider after reading this

The Girlfriend by Michelle Frances

September 27, 2018 by Aquillia Leave a Comment

I read this a few months ago and am just now reviewing it for CBR10 Bingo. I think it fits best in the ‘Brain Candy’ slot, as I quite like reading psychological thrillers for the ‘escapism’ value–I read them fast and enjoy them then forget about them. This one also fits best under ‘candy’ because it requires no intelligent thought to read. The basic premise is thus: Laura is super posh and a super ‘devoted’ (read: overbearing) mother to her son Daniel, whose only personality trait is ‘nice’. She clings to him even more in the face of her collapsing […]

9/27/2018 Aquillia's CBR10 Review No:14 |

Män som hatar kvinnor (Men Who Hate Women)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

September 16, 2018 by KimMiE" 4 Comments

CBR Bingo entry: And so it begins. And BINGO was his name-o! I originally considered reading this novel for the CBR Bingo square “The book was better?” because I have seen both the American and Swedish versions of the film. In fact, I saw them both on the same day. My husband and I went to see the 2011 Hollywood production starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara and appreciated it, so we decided to come home and watch the original Swedish version on Netflix. Because nothing follows up two and a half hours of murder, rape, and religious depravity like two […]

9/16/2018 KimMiE"'s CBR10 Review No:21 |

FRAMED FOR MURDER!!! (Yawn)

The Guilty Wife by Elle Croft

September 12, 2018 by Melina Leave a Comment

The Guilty Wife was an okay book. That’s where I’d like to leave this review, but I guess that’s against the rules. The Guilty Wife, like all books labeled a “psychological thriller” post Gone Girl attempts to be sly and have at least one (possibly two or three) twists. And quite frankly? I’m sick of the twists…especially when you can see the big old twist a mile away down the road. I teach a fiction writing course and I always tell the kids that there’s nothing wrong with telling a straight forward, honest story…but nope, there’s almost always a […]

9/12/2018 Melina's CBR10 Review No:21 |

If you figure out the secret before the reveal, is it still a secret?

The Secret Mother by Shalini Boland

April 9, 2018 by CatOnMyHead Leave a Comment

Tessa Markham arrives home on a rainy Sunday night to find a young boy sitting in the kitchen of her locked, and otherwise empty, London flat. Instead of calling the police, she calls Scott – her estranged husband and father of her dead twins. The Secret Mother by Shalini Boland tells Tessa’s story as the boy Harry is picked up by the police and returned to his father. As the story unfolds we learn of the tragic loss of Tessa’s children, her mental breakdown, and separation from Scott. Suspected of abduction, Tessa fights to clear her name and uncovers information […]

4/9/2018 CatOnMyHead's CBR10 Review No:2 |

At first intriguing, then merely infuriating

Follow You Home by Mark Edwards

November 7, 2017 by Aquillia 2 Comments

I’m super behind on reviews (tbh, I feel like I’m super behind on life right now as I try to finish the PhD) but I read this one last night and it annoyed me SO MUCH that I had to write a review. Summary: Daniel and Laura are your typical middle-class British holidayers, backpacking around Europe before they decide to settle down, get married, and have a baby. While traveling through Romania, they hit trouble: kicked off a train with only another Romanian woman for company, they find a creepy house in the middle of the forest which has Something […]

11/7/2017 Aquillia's CBR9 Review No:24 |

A book whose reviews might be more entertaining…

The Good Neighbor by A.J. Banner

December 31, 2016 by genericwhitegirl Leave a Comment

I think I read this one while I was on maternity leave and in a post-partum fog. I say that only to warn you that yeah, this review will kinda suck. Not only is it a year-ish overdue, but I probably wasn’t in my right mind as I read it, delirious from trying to keep a three year old and newborn from killing themselves or each other. Speaking of killing people, this story begins with a deadly fire in Sarah’s neighbor’s house. She is able to rescue her neighbor’s daughter, but the parents don’t survive. Sarah ends up trying to […]

12/31/2016 genericwhitegirl's CBR8 Review No:8 |

If the titular widow lived up to the cover blurb, this would have been a book worth reading

The Widow by Fiona Barton

June 7, 2016 by alwaysanswerb Leave a Comment

I must have put this on my TBR because I’m a sucker for marketing and this book was supposed to be this year’s Girl on the Train, which was that year’s Gone Girl, and so on it goes by that publishing rule that says that female authors are good for certain things, and right now that thing is “suspenseful books about marriages where things aren’t all that they seem and also there is an unreliable narrator and someone is dead/missing.” I don’t mind how many books seem to fall into that laughably specific category and/or are clearly “inspired” by their […]

6/7/2016 alwaysanswerb's CBR8 Review No:43 |

Malin on I so wanted to love this. Alas, it was not to be.If I'm going to have any chance of reaching a Cannonball this year, I need to review EVERYTHING I read (re-reads not necessarily included).
Malin on I so wanted to love this. Alas, it was not to be.My review backlog is pretty big right now, but once I get through the ten reviews before it, I will be trying to get my...
Scootsa1000 on I so wanted to love this. Alas, it was not to be.I finished this one recently and was left with just a big “huh, that’s it?” I liked it ok, but really was expecting and wanting...
Bothari43 on Reviewing this makes ME feel like an alien.I love hearing that CBR has helped readers grow! And I think you're spot on with this review. A lot of Clarke's stuff has the...
Bothari43 on I love revisiting books at different times in my life. Perspective is so weird."Perspective is so weird." So true! Now I want to go reread some middle school favorites. It's always so heartbreaking when you figure out your...