By Simone St. James
Berkley, 2024. 342 pages. Fiction
July 1995. April and Eddie have taken a wrong turn. They're looking for the small resort town where they plan to spend their honeymoon. When they spot what appears to be a lone hitchhiker along the deserted road, they stop to help. But not long after the hitchhiker gets into their car, they see the blood seeping from her jacket and a truck barreling down Atticus Line after them. When the hitchhiker dies at the local hospital, April and Eddie find themselves in the crosshairs of the Coldlake Falls police. Unexplained murders have been happening along Atticus Line for years and the cops finally have two witnesses who easily become their only suspects. As April and Eddie start to dig into the history of the town and that horrible stretch of road to clear their names, they soon learn that there is something supernatural at work, something that could not only tear the town and its dark secrets apart but take April and Eddie down with it all.
A spine-tingling thriller that borders on horror, Murder Road is the ultimate tale of a honeymoon gone wrong. Simone St. James is the master of blending true crime inspired stories with the supernatural resulting in a realistic and believable ghost story. April and Eddie were fully realized characters with just a touch of mystery to keep the narrative building until the conclusion. I really enjoy how James incorporates citizen sleuths into her stories, not only because I love true crime, but it makes me feel like I’m a part of the investigative process. Overall, this was an atmospheric murder mystery with a supernatural twist sure to please lovers of thrillers and horror alike.
If you like Murder Road, you might also like:
By Carissa Orlando
Berkley, 2023. 344 pages. Fiction
You can survive anything. That's what Margaret tells herself when the walls of her house start to drip blood every September. She's learned how to live with it ... and the other terrifying apparitions that have made the sprawling Victorian house she and her husband bought four years ago turn from a dream home into a living nightmare. But she can outlast all of it. Hal felt differently, though. Her husband couldn't take the hauntings anymore, and he left. But now he's not returning calls, and their daughter Katherine arrives, intent on looking for her missing father, convinced something grim has happened to him. With every desperate attempt Katherine makes at finding Hal, the hauntings at the September House grow more harrowing, because there are some secrets the house needs to keep.
By Jennifer Thorne
Tor Publishing Group, 2024. 291 pages. Fiction
Anna has two rules for the annual Pace family destination vacations: Tread lightly and survive. It isn't easy when she's the only one in the family who doesn't quite fit in. Her twin brother, Benny, goes with the flow so much he's practically dissolved, and her older sister, Nicole, is so used to everyone--including her blandly docile husband and two kids--falling in line that Anna often ends up in trouble for simply asking a question. Mom seizes every opportunity to question her life choices, and Dad, when not reminding everyone who paid for this vacation, just wants some peace and quiet. The gorgeous, remote villa in tiny Monteperso seems like a perfect place to endure so much family togetherness, until things start going off the rails--the strange noises at night, the unsettling warnings from the local villagers, and the dark, violent past of the villa itself. (Warning: May invoke feelings of irritation, dread, and despair that come with large family gatherings.)
BW
No comments:
Post a Comment