By Alice Feeney
Flatiron Books, 2021. 294 pages. Mystery
Think you know the person you married? Think again. Things have been wrong with Mr. and Mrs. Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away in Scotland, it might be just what their marriage needs. Self-confessed workaholic and screenwriter Adam Wright has lived with face blindness his whole life. He can't recognize friends or family, or even his own wife. Every anniversary the couple exchange traditional gifts--paper, cotton, pottery, tin--and each year Adam's wife writes him a letter that she never lets him read. Until now. They both know this weekend will make or break their marriage, but they didn't randomly win this trip. One of them is lying, and someone doesn't want them to live happily ever after. Ten years of marriage. Ten years of secrets. And an anniversary they will never forget.
This one is a slow build that ends in one of the most carefully constructed and mind-blowing twists I’ve read in a long time. The Scottish Highlands provides an unpredictable, and sometimes foreboding, setting for this thriller; its snowy isolation building the suspense of the troubled couple. Mr. and Mrs. Wright are equally secretive characters with their own suspicious motives that push the narrative along with purpose. Intricately plotted in a way that every page exposes a new deception propelling us towards an explosive conclusion that had me furiously turning back to the beginning to figure out how I missed it and to admire how the author weaved such a story. I highly recommend this book for those who love a twist ending!
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By Shari Lapena
Pamela Dorman Books/Viking, 2021. 349 pages. Mystery
In this family, everyone is keeping secrets--especially the dead. Brecken Hill is an expensive place to live. You have to be rich to have a house there and they don't come much richer than Fred and Sheila Merton. The Mertons are brutally murdered the night after an Easter dinner with their three adult kids. Who, of course, are devastated. Or are they? They each stand to inherit millions. They were never a happy family, but perhaps one of them is more disturbed than anyone knew. Did one of them snap after that dreadful evening? Or was it someone else? It must be. After all, if one of your siblings was a psychopath, you'd know. Wouldn't you?
By B.A. Paris
St. Martin’s Press, 2018. 291 pages. Mystery
She went missing. He moved on.
Finn and Layla are young, in love, and on vacation. When Finn decides to stop at a service station to use the restroom, Layla is gone when he returns...never to be seen again. This is the story Finn told the police, but it is not the whole story. Ten years later, Finn is engaged to Layla’s sister, Ellen. Their shared grief drew them close, but there is something about Ellen that Finn has never understood. His heart wants to believe that she is the one for him, even though a sixth sense tells him not to trust her. Then, not long before he and Ellen are to be married, Finn gets a phone call. Someone from his past has seen Layla, hiding in plain sight. There are other odd occurrences: emails from strangers who seem to know too much, secret messages, clues, warnings. If Layla is alive, and on Finn's trail, what does she want?
BW
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