![]() ![]() It was a beautiful, meandering character study leading up to a startling twist that truly caught me off guard.ĭaisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid I resisted it longer than I should have, simply because so many novels don’t live up to their hype. While this book contains a provocative murder mystery and courtroom procedural, it’s also part romance, part character study, part nature study…a true genre mash-up. This is one of those novels that you’ll never imagine will conclude the way it does-and upon reflection, you’ll realize it was inevitable. Emerging as a complex character whose strengths and weaknesses are at times exquisitely indistinguishable. While Camille breaks your heart, she’s hardly a pitiful victim. Not only is this book a true page-turner with an intricate story and well-rounded cast of characters, but it combines a couple of my favorite plot points-amnesia and missing persons-and leads to an exquisite eleventh-hour shocker.Īlison Gaylin’s latest thriller is a taut, harrowing tale of grief and revenge, with a brittle-but-not-broken heroine who’s lost her only child to a killer who escapes punishment. Burke is a master at plotting and pacing, and doesn’t disappoint here. ![]() Newly released, Find Me centers around two strong heroines, friends whose deep bond goes back to an unsolved mystery in their past. If you’re a fellow fan of final hand grenades, here are some other novels you’ll enjoy, from brand new releases to decades-old gems: When I set out to write my latest, The Other Family, I knew what would happen on the shocking last page long before I’d even figured out how the story would open. They want to be kept guessing, from the first page of the first chapter to the last page of the last.Ī decade ago, Bookreporter’s senior reviewer Joe Hartlaub wrote about my novel Sleepwalker: “There is a revelation at the end that you will never see coming and that goes off like a hand grenade lobbed into a small room on a quiet summer afternoon.” Ah, the bar was set, and those words rang in my head as a challenge. They don’t want to figure things out early on and have the story unfold in a predictable manner. Now, three decades into my own career publishing twisty psychological suspense novels, I’m grateful to the authors who inspired me and to my own loyal and smart readership. Browsing library shelves, I gravitated toward modern-day suspense over past-era cozies, but checked out Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd more than once, a sucker for the surprise ending long after I knew what was coming.Įven then, I was studying craft as much as I was being entertained, an aspiring writer in training. Sci-fi novels or films were never my cup of tea back then (or now), but I remain captivated by the chilling final reveal in Planet of the Apes. I remember skidding into the shocking denouement and then promptly backtracking to reread the entire story, looking for clues and marveling at Jackson’s brilliant literary sleight of hand.įrom then on, I was drawn to any author-screenwriters, included-capable of wrapping up a story with a blindside.
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