Category: Thriller

Title: Confessions
Author: Kanae Minato, Stephen Snyder (translator)
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Mulholland Books
Source: Borrowed from a friend
Release Date: August 5, 2008
Rating: ★★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Her pupils killed her daughter. Now, she will have her revenge.

After an engagement that ended in tragedy, all Yuko Moriguchi had to live for was her four-year-old child, Manami. Now, after a heartbreaking accident on the grounds of the middle school where she teaches, Yuko has given up and tendered her resignation.

But first, she has one last lecture to deliver. She tells a story that will upend everything her students ever thought they knew about two of their peers, and sets in motion a maniacal plot for revenge.

Narrated in alternating voices, with twists you’ll never see coming, Confessions probes the limits of punishment, despair, and tragic love, culminating in a harrowing confrontation between teacher and student that will place the occupants of an entire school in harm’s way. You’ll never look at a classroom the same way again.

Review:

This book is so amazing! 

It has an unusual beginning. The narrator in the first chapter is Moriguchi, and she is speaking directly to her class. She speaks to the reader, making it seem like you are one of the students. This brought me right into the story. For each chapter, the narrator changes. This was hard to get used to at first because it isn’t obvious who the narrator is at he beginning of the chapter. It took a couple of paragraphs to figure out who it was. But in the end, this technique gave different perspectives of the story which was very interesting. 

I like the conflicting feelings between the two students involved in the murder. One regrets that he didn’t succeed in killing the girl, while the other regrets that he did succeed in killing her. It was fascinating to see how these feelings of regret and failure play out in the young minds of the boys. 

Most of the characters are trying to get revenge for something that was done to them. Though their plan usually fails, the person does end up being damaged from the results in some way, just not the way they planned. The ultimate revenge happened at the end. It actually gave me chills. 

I’m so glad I read this book. I highly recommend it for a unique thriller! 

Title: Dead Girls Can’t Lie
Author: Carys Jones
Genre: Fiction, Thriller
Publisher: Aria
Source: NetGalley
Release Date: August 15, 2017
Rating: ★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Best friends tell each other the truth – don’t they?

When North Stone’s best friend Kelly Orton is found hanging lifeless in a tree, North knows for certain it wasn’t suicide. Kelly had everything to live for – a loving boyfriend, a happy life, and most importantly of all, Kelly would never leave North all by herself.

The girls have been friends since childhood, devoted to each other, soul sisters, or at least that’s what North has always believed. But did Kelly feel the same way, or was she keeping secrets from her ‘best friend’ – deadly secrets…

When the police refuse to take North’s suspicions seriously, she sets out to investigate for herself. But her search soon takes her to a glamorous world with a seedy underbelly, and before long North is out of her depth and getting ever closer to danger. Determined to find the truth, she soon wishes that dead girls could lie, because the truth is too painful to believe…

Review:

I was very excited to read this book because I love thrillers. It may be because I’ve read so many good ones recently, but this one didn’t live up to my expectations.

The concept for the story was very good. North suspects that Kelly didn’t kill herself. But at the same time, North has a history of mental problems due to insomnia, so she isn’t taken seriously. Some of the things she did in her past are explained logically, demonstrating that she wasn’t actually crazy, such as the car accident she got in as a teen. But some parts are forgotten and not explained, so her suspicions remain suspect.

There were so many red herrings as to who actually Kelly. There were a lot of possible suspects, but they weren’t really explored or given a justified solution. Also, Elijah was constantly asking North if she was okay. I wanted to shout at him “Of course she’s not okay! She just lost her last loved one!” It made me very suspicious of him and I became frustrated when he wouldn’t leave it alone.

I also don’t think there was a purpose in North’s parents being lost at sea. I’m not sure why they were just presumed dead, rather than actually killed off in the story. I think their death just kept North hanging in this in-between of wondering if they were still alive, which gave her even more pain.

While I was disappointed in the outcome of the story, I did have an emotional response to many parts which connected me to the story. I was frustrated with Elijah and I felt sorry for North. The premise for the story was good, but I wish it was executed better.

Title: The Lying Game
Author: Ruth Ware
Genre: Fiction, Thriller
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Release Date: July 25, 2017
Rating: ★★★★

Isa Wilde’s life changed when she went to boarding school in Salten when she was fifteen. She met Kate, Thea, and Fatima, and they introduced her to the lying game. They would make up lies and the more convincing they were, the more points they would get. But the four girls drifted apart in the seventeen years since they left the school. That is, until Kate texts all three women saying she needs them. They all race to Kate’s home, with Isa bringing her baby, Freya. A body has been discovered close to Kate’s home, and all their lies are coming back to haunt them. 

I liked this thrilling novel. It was very suspenseful. There were so many plot twists throughout the first half, that I didn’t know what was going to happen next. 

I really felt for the characters, which is important to me when reading a book. I kept wanting to tell Isa what to do, which was frustrating, but I also felt sympathetic towards her problems. 

I had kind of figured out what happened by the end of the book. There was a slight twist at the very end, but I had figured out the gist of it. 

I think this thriller will be a big hit this summer. 

Title: Fierce Kingdom
Author: Gin Phillips
Genre: Fiction, Thriller
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Release Date: July 4, 2017
Rating: ★★★★

Joan and Lincoln were leaving the zoo when it happened. Four-year-old Lincoln had been playing with his “guys,” his superhero toys, in the sand when his mother said they should go. The zoo would be closing soon. She kept hearing popping noises, like fireworks. But she didn’t realize what it really was until she saw the bodies on the ground near the exit. She ran when she saw the the gunmen. She carried Lincoln and they ran to a hiding place in an empty animal enclosure.

This story is very realistic right now. These kinds of shootings happen all too often. I think it would be especially scary in a zoo, because there are so many hiding places for both the shooters and the victims.

There were other people hidden in the zoo along with Joan and Lincoln, but I don’t think they were as necessary to the story. I felt more of a connection to Joan because she was the main focus of the story. There was also the hint of the backstory of why the shooters did this. It would have been interesting to know the full story, but it was never told.
Lincoln added some comic relief to the story. He made jokes to make his mom laugh. But I would cringe when he would speak to loudly, possibly alerting the shooters to their position.

I was holding my breath for a lot of this book. It was very thrilling, but I wish there was some more explanation of why the situation happened.

Title: Girl Last Seen
Author: Nina Laurin
Genre: Fiction, Thriller
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Release Date: June 20, 2017
Rating: ★★★★★

Ten years after she was found, Lainey learns that a ten-year-old girl has gone missing. The girl resembles her, so she knows she was taken by the same kidnapper. Lainey was held by him for three years from the time she was ten. However, the police contact Lainey to help them because of her connection to the girl: she’s her birth mother. Lainey has to use her unique position to help find Olivia Shaw while also finding her own kidnapper. 

This is an original thriller with many twists and turns. It reminded me of the stories in the last few years of girls being held captive for many years.

This story also demonstrates the different media coverage that cases get, depending on who the missing child is. Lainey’s story wasn’t as popular because her mother was in jail, whereas Olivia’s family is very wealthy so they had a lot of media coverage.

I really liked this thrilling novel!

Title: Here and Gone
Author: Haylen Beck
Genre: Fiction, Thriller
Publisher: Crown Publishing
Release Date: June 20, 2017
Rating: ★★★★★

Audra Kinney was driving her two children, Sean and Louise, across the country from New York to California when she was pulled over by Sheriff Whiteside. He claimed that he thought her car was loaded down too much at the back, so he offered to help her unload some things into his car. But when he reached into one of her boxes in the trunk, he found a bag of marijuana, more than would be considered for personal use. He arrested her and had his deputy come and take her children to “a safe place.” However, when he brings Audra into the station and she asks where her children are, he says “what children?”

This was a chilling thriller. My heart was racing through the whole book. I was hooked right from the beginning, when I didn’t even know why Audra was escaping something in New York with her children.

I liked that it was a small cast of characters, so they could be developed. The perspective switched between characters too. Even though I knew who had taken the children, the story was exciting because they were still in danger.

I highly recommend this book if you like psychological thrillers!

Title: The Only Child
Author: Andrew Pyper
Genre: Fiction, Thriller
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Release Date: June 6, 2017
Rating: ★★★

Lily Dominick is a forensic psychologist. She analyzes dangerous criminals locked up in New York’s Kirby facility. One day, a man comes in who ripped the ears off a stranger with his bare hands. But he tells Lily that he did it so he could be sent to see her. He tells Lily things about herself to prove that he knows who she is. She lived in a cabin with her mother in Alaska, but her mother was brutally murdered when Lily was six. She never knew her father. Now, this man claims to be her father. Once he escapes police custody and murders one of Lily’s colleagues, she is led on a chase to find out the truth behind the mysterious man, Michael, and her true lineage.

This story had a lot going on. Michael claims to have been the inspiration for Frankenstein, The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, and Dracula. Normally, I like contemporary stories that are based on classics. However, this one had too much going on with Michael claiming to be all three monsters.

I didn’t have a big enough emotional connection to root for Lily in the story. She made a lot of bad decisions and didn’t seem very stable so she wasn’t a very likeable character.

I enjoyed the end of the story. It was a thrilling chase leading to the conclusion. It was very intense. But the story still dealt with too many possible thriller plot lines for me: it had monsters, vampires, spies, murders, fake passports, abandoned cabins, and an orphaned girl. I think if it had less of these typical aspects of the contemporary thriller story, it would have been a better story.