Hello friends it’s time for another WWW Wednesday update:
A House With Good Bones by T. Kingfisher
Tools of Engagement by Tessa Bailey
Murder is a Piece of Cake by Valerie Burns
WWW Wednesday
Month: August 2023
The Only One Left Review
*SOME SPOILERS*
The Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred. It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer—I want to tell you everything.
Kit was an interesting main character for sure. She definitely intrigued me straight off the bat, knowing she was on forcible leave after she was involved in an incident at work and caring for Lenora was her only option. It gave her some depth to her character and made me invested in finding out what she did.
Lenora and her story was definitely the most captivating plotline though and the way she told it through the typewriter really dragged out the suspense. However, I just think it dragged a little too long in the middle of the book. The first half when we’re finding everything out is kind of a whirlwind and then the ending is just twist after twist that it’s almost kind of hard to keep up. So the pacing was a little off but I was soo invested and was theorizing in my head who killed the Hope family and what happened that night that it was easy to overlook.
This got a little ridiculous and over the top but it’s something that I’ve come to expect from Riley Sager’s books so I just myself along for the ride. I loved the setting of the decaying manor perched in a cliff I felt it just added to that overall tone of uneasiness and build up of anticipation. Its once of those mystery/thrillers where you have to suspend a lot of your belief and enjoy the twists and turns that just kept coming and coming!
⭐️4/5 stars So OTT that it was actually quite fun!
The Last Housewife Review
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
While in college in upstate New York, Shay Evans and her best friends met a captivating man who seduced them with a web of lies about the way the world works, bringing them under his thrall. By senior year, Shay and her friend Laurel were the only ones who managed to escape. Now, eight years later, Shay’s built a new life in a tiny Texas suburb. But when she hears the horrifying news of Laurel’s death—delivered, of all ways, by her favorite true-crime podcast crusader—she begins to suspect that the past she thought she buried is still very much alive, and the predators more dangerous than ever.
I liked Shay as our main character. I thought she was multifaceted and not the most likeable character which makes her more interesting to me. She absolutely has her demons and even though she tries her best not to succumb it still almost takes over her. I feel as though Jamie didn’t really serve any function other than a way for Shay to tell her story. He didn’t contribute much else to the story and I didn’t really connect with his character at all.
I liked the dual timelines, it gave us a lot of insight into the girls state of mind at the time and the bond that they have that is the main motivator for Shay to come back and fling herself back into the life she has been running from all these years.
All the different names and aliases was kind of hard to keep track of and it was very fast paced so I was never really given time to let everything that’s happening and the various twists that occur throughout the plot sink in. This is a very dark book and I would for sure look up any trigger warnings before you pick it up. I like how macabre it ends up being as the shock and gore kind of elevates the story from being another run of the mill mystery/thriller.
⭐️3/5 stars Shocking, dark and twisted!
⭐️5 Star reads so far⭐️
Since we’re just over half way through 2023 I thought it would be the perfect time to list all of my 5 star reads from the first half of the year. I have 4 five star reads so far which is super exciting to me because this last last year I only had 1! Hopefully I at least double this number for the second half 2023 and I read a lot more great books 🙂
A Court of Silver Flame by Sarah J Maas
Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey
Honey & Spice by Bolu Babalola
📚 Library Haul 📚
It’s been quite a while since I’ve done a library haul 🙂 This is quite the varied selection but all books I’ve had on my radar for a while now and I’m actually quite excited to get around to hopefully reading them all soon!
Amy Leigh Reads 