Tag: Sexual Assault

Letters to the Lost #2: More Than We Can Tell – Brigid Kemmerer

I’m so late to the party with this book and it had already well and truly sucked me in before I realised it was a sequel to a book I haven’t read. Thankfully this didn’t matter.

I fell for Rev and Emma straight away. I can’t go past an outcast, troubled teen story, especially when the characters are dealing with so many huge things on top of simply surviving adolescence.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Seeing me.”

Rev was fostered and eventually adopted by Geoff and Kristin after he was removed from his preacher father’s care. Rev’s father has made contact with him for the first time in ten years and it’s bringing back all of the emotions and memories he’s tried so hard to bury. Rev hides beneath his hoodie.

Emma’s mother is critical of her and her father, who she adores, is too busy with technology to be aware of anything that’s happening in her life. Emma is really proud of the game she designed but online isn’t the safe space it used to be. Emma hides behind her computer.

“I think I need someone real, too”

Rev and Emma worked so well together. I am a tad obsessed with the scene where they sit back to back texting because it’s easier than sitting face to face talking.

“I’m not good at this.”

“Not good at what?”

He gestures between us. “This. I’m not – I’m not good with people.”

“I’m not either.”

Their awkwardness endeared them to me. Their courage to face their past and present encouraged me. The fact that they retained some softness rather than being made up entirely of sharp edges inspired me. I love underdog stories!

Where Emma’s arc led her was predictable and we never found out for sure who N1ghtmare was, although I suspect they were the person she was in the car with when she sent Rev her location.

I would step in front of a speeding train for Texas, Emma’s Labrador. She can have as many chicken nuggets as she wants.

I hurt for Matthew. The secrets he’s been carrying are absolutely heartbreaking. I need to know what his life looks like in the years after this book.

I spent most of the book wanting to know more about Declan, wishing I could read his story. Lo and behold, the author has already worked their magic. Dec is one of the stars of the first book, which I bought as soon as I finished reading this one. It’ll be my next read. Because Dec and Rev are best friends, I’ll also get to hang out with Rev some more.

My main niggle was with Cait’s character. She had so much potential, yet she was pushed to the background for most of the story. I need her to teach me how to do makeup.

Once she made her face look like she was unzipping her skin

I’ll be her guinea pig whenever she wants to experiment with new weird and wonderful makeup ideas.

As usual, I sent a test email to Robert and Rev’s email addresses. Neither of them wanted to talk to me; both emails were undeliverable.

Favourite no context quote:

“We all push sometimes, just to make sure someone is on the other side, pushing back.”

Content warnings include emotional abuse, foster care, miscarriage, online harassment, physical abuse, religious abuse, sexual assault and stalking. Readers with emetophobia may have trouble with one scene.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Children’s Books, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing, for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Every day Rev struggles with the memories and demons of the time before he was adopted. He’s always managed just fine, until a letter from his birth father brings hellfire, fear and danger back into his life.

Emma escapes her life in an online game she built herself. Virtual reality is so much easier than real life. But then another player joins the game and suddenly ultra-violent threats start to stream in…

When Rev and Emma meet, they are fighting a darkness they can’t put into words. But somehow they hear each other and together they might be able to find a way out…

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The Witch Haven – Sasha Peyton Smith

Spoilers Ahead! (marked in purple)

“Something bad is coming”

Frances Hallowell is mourning the recent death of her brother. Her life gets a lot more complicated when her super slimy boss attacks her after hours and she sorta kinda accidentally kills him. Oops!

When it looks certain that Frances is going to be convicted as a murderer, salvation comes to her by way of an ambulance. She’s told she’s very unwell and is promptly taken to Haxahaven Sanitarium to be ‘treated’. Only Haxahaven isn’t what it’s advertised to be. It’s actually a school for witches…

The premise of this book hooked me: secret witchy school, murder mystery, underdog battling the Big Bad. The reality of the book surprised me, and I’m still conflicted.

I was entirely engaged until I learned that the witchcraft that was being taught at Haxahaven was limited to producing good little wives and domestic help. I switched off a little at that point and was even able to put the book aside for a few weeks without any trouble.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to finish reading but figured I’d give it another try. I found it easy to get back into. I hadn’t forgotten who the characters were or what was happening for each of them when I pressed pause. It didn’t take me long to get into the rest of the story, the parts that didn’t involve magical bread-kneading.

While I wasn’t the hugest fan of Frances, I absolutely adored Maxine and Lena. I wanted to get to know Oliver better.

I think perhaps this is how we survive in the world. Passing little bits of our magic back and forth to each other when the world takes it from us. It’s survival. It’s love. It’s family.

Content warnings include attempted sexual assault including suffocation, domestic abuse, mental health and a character who was removed from her home and taken to a residential school. Readers with emetophobia may have trouble with some scenes.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

In 1911 New York City, seventeen year old Frances Hallowell spends her days as a seamstress, mourning the mysterious death of her brother months prior. Everything changes when she’s attacked and a man ends up dead at her feet – her scissors in his neck, and she can’t explain how they got there.

Before she can be condemned as a murderess, two cape-wearing nurses arrive to inform her she is deathly ill and ordered to report to Haxahaven Sanitarium. But Frances finds Haxahaven isn’t a sanitarium at all: it’s a school for witches. Within Haxahaven’s glittering walls, Frances finds the sisterhood she craves, but the headmistress warns Frances that magic is dangerous. Frances has no interest in the small, safe magic of her school, and is instead enchanted by Finn, a boy with magic himself who appears in her dreams and tells her he can teach her all she’s been craving to learn, lessons that may bring her closer to discovering what truly happened to her brother.

Frances’s newfound power attracts the attention of the leader of an ancient order who yearns for magical control of Manhattan. And who will stop at nothing to have Frances by his side. Frances must ultimately choose what matters more, justice for her murdered brother and her growing feelings for Finn, or the safety of her city and fellow witches. What price would she pay for power, and what if the truth is more terrible than she ever imagined?

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The Girl in the Green Dress – Jeni Haynes & George Blair-West

With Alley Pascoe

Four years of police interviews, 900,000 words in victim statements, endless therapy sessions, a lifetime of pain

I thought I was going to tell you that this is one of the best books I’ve read about mental health and sexual assault but, while that’s accurate, it falls short of what I really want to say. This is one of the best books I’ve ever read. One of the most painful and difficult to read, sure, but absolutely one of the best.

I’ve read about Multiple Personality Disorder/Dissociative Identity Disorder (MPD/DID) before so I thought I already knew the basics and I guess I did. Before this book, though, I’d never truly appreciated how incredible people with MPD/DID are.

There are three factors that typically cause DID: the experience of the most extreme forms of abuse, usually extending over many years; this abuse is perpetrated by caregivers, typically parents, that the child relies upon; and it begins while the child’s mind is young, or plastic, enough, to employ high-level dissociative strategies.

The fact that such unimaginably horrific abuse is perpetrated on young children by people they should be able to trust to protect them is mind-boggling. That the brain is able to develop such a highly developed coping strategy to survive abuse of this magnitude is awe-inspiring.

Told by Jeni, some of her alters and their psychiatrist, Dr George Blair-West, this is the most comprehensive account of MPD/DID you are likely to ever read. Jeni has Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM) so is able to recall, in detail, her experiences from when she was an infant.

MPD/DID is a response to being a victim of extreme criminal acts.

Because so much of what Symphony and the alters she created have experienced is more brutal than anything you’ll likely see in your worst nightmare, this isn’t a book you’ll want to binge. You’ll need time out to take care of yourself: go for a walk, remember that the world still holds beauty, remind yourself that Jeni, against all odds, is okay.

I really appreciated the care shown by both the publisher and Dr Blair-West, warning readers of the potential impacts of reading this book before you’ve even begun. A couple of times Jeni warns you that the content you’re about to read is even more difficult than what you’ve encountered to that point, giving you the option to skip that section.

While I read those parts, I was grateful for the warnings so I could prepare myself as best I could. At the same time, though, the fact that Jeni and her alters spent their entire childhood protecting her mother and siblings and is now taking steps to protect readers both touched and saddened me. No one protected Jeni from the torture she experienced, yet she cares enough about people she’ll likely never meet to want to make sure they’re okay.

Jeni even protects the reader by not including all of the details of the unrelenting abuse she was subjected to. Her police statement, at 900,000 words, didn’t even cover everything that happened to her. For context, that’s significantly longer than the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Jennifer Margaret Linda was the original birth child, with Symphony taking her place when she was six months old. Symphony then created the alters. In this book we hear from Jennifer Margaret Linda, Symphony, Erik, Little Ricky, The Rulebook, The Assassin, Jenny, Linda, Muscles, Captain Busby, Janet, Squadron Captain, Amber, Judas, Happy, Zombie Girl, Magsy, The Joker, Maggot, Volcano, The Student, Ed the Head, Charlotte, Gabrielle, Mr Flamboyant, Jeni and The Entity Currently Known as Jeni.

That Jeni even survived her childhood is a testament to how incredibly well her system works. The fact that she’s able to function and is even surthriving is remarkable.

Life should be about thriving as we find meaning and purpose – hence the idea of rising above to ‘surthrive’.

Everyone who works in a helping profession should read this book. Jeni’s case was the first to use a diagnosis of MPD/DID for the prosecution, not the defence, paving the way for other survivors of extreme abuse to seek justice. This book, because of the openness of the alters who contributed to it, will provide much needed insights, so hopefully others with MPD/DID won’t be failed by the people who should be helping them the way Jeni was.

My abuse didn’t happen in a vacuum. It happened before a school fete, behind the closed doors of my father’s respectability.

I’ve spoken a lot about Jeni and her alters but I need to point out that I found the insights Dr Blair-West gives in this book so helpful. He has the ability to take something that’s complex and explain it in a way that makes it feel like it’s not complex at all. I’ve read a lot about PTSD, dissociation and the way the brain manages trauma but Dr Blair-West’s explanations have given me a much better understanding of them.

To Jeni, Symphony, the alters who contributed to this book and those I haven’t met: Thank you for telling your story. I feel honoured to have been introduced to so many of you. I can only imagine how traumatic it was to revisit these experiences in order to write about them. Your story means more to me than you’ll ever know. You are brave and resilient and I’m in awe of you. You are truly extraordinary.

Content warnings include death by suicide, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, mental health, miscarriage, neglect, physical abuse, sexual assault, suicidal ideation and torture.

Thank you so much to Hachette Australia for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

‘I didn’t know that you’re only supposed to have one personality. I didn’t realise that having lots of voices in your head was abnormal. But you are protecting yourself. You are protecting your soul, and that’s what I did.’

An intelligent, poised woman, Jeni Haynes sat in court and listened as the man who had abused her from birth, a man who should have been her protector, a man who tortured and terrified her, was jailed for a non-parole period of 33 years. The man was her father.

The abuse that began when Jeni was only a baby is unimaginable to most. It was physically, psychologically and emotionally sadistic and never-ending. The fact she survived may be called a miracle by some – but the reality is, it is testament to the extraordinary strength of Jeni’s mind.

What saved her was the process of dissociation – Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) or Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) – a defence mechanism that saw Jeni create over 2500 separate personalities, or alters, who protected her as best they could from the trauma. This army of alters included four-year-old Symphony, teenage motorcycle-loving Muscles, elegant Linda, forthright Judas and eight-year-old Ricky.

With her army, the support of her psychiatrist Dr George Blair-West, and a police officer’s belief in her, Jeni fought to create a life for herself and bring her father to justice. In a history-making ruling, Jeni’s alters were empowered to give evidence in court. In speaking out, Jeni’s courage would see many understand MPD for the first time.

The Girl in the Green Dress is an unforgettable memoir from a woman who refused to be silenced. Jeni Haynes is an inspiration and her bravery and determination to live is a powerful reminder of the resilience of the human spirit. This is a unique and profoundly important book as it is not only a story of survival, it also includes incredible insight from Dr George Blair-West, Jeni’s psychiatrist and an expert in DID.

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All Good People Here – Ashley Flowers

with Alex Kiester

If you’ve ever involuntarily blurted out ‘And I’m Britt’, this is the book for you. If you’ve pounced on this book before reading the blurb, allow me to enlighten you: this is a novel, not a super long episode of Crime Junkie in book form. Not that I’d ever open a book, see A Novel after the title and question every assumption I’ve ever made.

All Good People Here (A Novel) primarily takes place in Wakarusa, Indiana, where Ashley and Britt grew up. It’s also somewhere I need to visit because of two really important words: Pumpkin Tree!

description

In 1994, six year old January Jacobs died. Everyone in town knew Krissy, January’s mother, murdered her but the case has officially remained unsolved.

“You don’t want to go back to that sad little town where that terrible thing happened.”

Margot hasn’t lived in Wakarusa for twenty years but has returned to care for her beloved Uncle Luke. When a young girl is reported missing in a nearby town, Margot believes the person who killed her childhood friend has struck again. Margot is determined to use her crime reporting skills to solve the cases but she seems to be the only one seeing their similarities.

This may be a small town but many of its residents are living with secrets.

“What did you do?”

Hearing the story from Krissy and Margot’s perspectives, you learn about the dynamics of the Jacobs’ family, how the investigation into January’s death unfolded and the impact it has had on everyone close to the case in the subsequent years. A few key details about January and her death made me think of JonBenét Ramsey. Once I made that connection, I had trouble seeing anything else.

I enjoyed tagging along as Margot followed up leads, although I did get a bit bogged down at times with what was happening with Luke. I guessed some of the reveals but, rather than being disappointed by this as I usually would be, it made me feel like I was being a good Crime Junkie.

It’s taken me two weeks since finishing this book to attempt writing a review and that’s mostly due to the last time we see Margot in this book. Readers will likely either love or hate this scene. I loved it but, because I don’t want to get all spoilery, I can’t tell you why I loved it and that’s what I really want to talk about.

I’m looking forward to reading future books by Ashley. Until then, I’ll keep getting my Crime Junkie fix whenever I can and remembering to always “Be weird. Be rude. Stay alive.”

Content warnings include mention of death by suicide, domestic abuse, kidnapping, miscarriage, murder and sexual assault.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

What really happened to January Jacobs?

A MYSTERIOUS COLD CASE…

Twenty-five years ago, January Jacob’s parents awoke to find their daughter’s bed empty, a horrifying message spray-painted onto their wall. Hours later, January’s body was found discarded in a ditch. Her murder was never solved. But the town remembers.

A DANGEROUS OBSESSION…

Journalist Margot Davies is tired of reporting meaningless stories. One night, she stumbles upon a clue in the most infamous crime in her hometown’s history: the unsolved murder of six-year-old January.

A TOWN FULL OF SECRETS…

As Margot digs deeper, she begins to suspect that there is something truly sinister lurking in the small community: a secret that endangers the lives of everyone involved…including Margot.

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Girls From the County – Donna Lynch

If ghosts exist, perhaps this is how it happens. The marks of things that happen in a place never really go away, nor do the pieces of us we leave there.

Girls From the County explores dark truths: personal stories and those of young women the author grew up with, as well as rural legends and folklore. It’s about trauma and the illusion of safety. Given the subject matter, this was at times a difficult read.

I had a number of favourite poems but my top five were Drag, Plot, Girls From the County, Education, and Thirty-two Years (Eighteen Years Reprise).

The one that’s probably going to stay with me the longest, though, is Grave. While it’s the shortest poem in the collection, it certainly packs a punch.

She grew up and became a mortician

so that when he finally died

she could make sure.

Content warnings include mention of addiction, death by suicide, mental health, murder, sexual assault and trauma.

Thank you so much to Raw Dog Screaming Press for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

This book is merely a record of dark events, the kind that you can sometimes move on from, yet can’t help but see in every old house, high school, or crumbling bridge.

In the county, eerie stillness can be mistaken for stagnation. In the county, rumination on pain and guilt can be confused with omens and curses. In the county, feelings of claustrophobia stem from understanding what the encroaching darkness brings with it.

You’ve heard of country girls, and city girls, but what of the forgotten girls from the in-between space of the county? Confronting the things too wild for urban areas, and too methodically malevolent for the countryside, girls from the county are often dismissed by popular narratives, left to solve riddles of grief and rage for themselves.

Known for weaving folk horror with confessional poetry, unflinching true crime approaches with myth and fable, contemporary appetites with gothic literature, award-winning author Donna Lynch has composed a lyrical reconstruction for readers to navigate the lives – and deaths – of girls from the county.

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When Women Were Dragons – Kelly Barnhill

“All women are magic. Literally all of us. It’s in our nature. It’s best you learn that now.”

Sometimes a cover image is enough to reel me in. Sometimes I only need to read the blurb to know for sure that a book is destined to become a favourite. Sometimes, just sometimes, I’ll only make it to the third page before I buy the ebook so I can highlight passages to my heart’s content. This is that book.

Marya Tilman’s transformation on 18 September 1898 was the “earliest scientifically confirmed case of spontaneous dragoning within the United States” but there were records of dragoning occurring centuries prior. You might believe that it was all over after the Mass Dragoning of 1955 but you’d be wrong. So very wrong.

For those whose feet remained firmly on the ground on 25 April 1955, life went on. People still went to work. Children still went to school. It was business as usual. But this new normal came at a cost.

Dragoning is unmentionable. Don’t talk about what happened.

Forget those who dragoned. They never existed in the first place.

Keep your eyes on the ground. You don’t want any dangerous ideas.

Perhaps this is how we learn silence – an absence of words, an absence of context, a hole in the universe where the truth should be.

This is Alex’s memoir (of sorts). Alex saw her first dragon when she was four. She was still a child when the Mass Dragoning happened. Through her eyes, we not only see how the Mass Dragoning changed society as a whole but also how it impacted upon Alex’s own family.

Through dragoning, this book explores trauma and the silencing that often takes place in its aftermath. It’s about how women diminish themselves to fit into the shape that society prescribes and the toxicity of secrets. It’s the power of women taking up space and refusing to be gaslit anymore.

When I started this book I thought it was going to be about an alternate 1950’s, one where women got pissed off with the patriarchy and turned into dragons. And it is. Sort of. But it’s so much more. There’s rage in this book but there’s also joy.

It is joy that burns me now, and joy that makes my back ache for wings, and it is joy that makes me long to be more than myself.

I fell in love with auntie Marla and Beatrice. I met the best librarian ever. I felt rage and helplessness alongside determination and hope and love. I ugly cried. Oh, did I ugly cry.

I felt a kinship with the characters who dragoned and a fire inside that I fully expected to result in my own dragoning. I love this book so much!

“Today’s the day!”

Content warnings include mention of alcoholism, death of animals, domestic abuse, racism and sexual assault.

Thank you so much to Allen & Unwin for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

In a world where girls and women are taught to be quiet, the dragons inside them are about to be set free …

In this timely and timeless speculative novel, set in 1950’s America, Kelly Barnhill exposes a world that wants to keep girls and women small – and examines what happens when they rise up. 

Alex Green is four years old when she first sees a dragon. In her next-door neighbour’s garden, in the spot where the old lady usually sits, is a huge dragon, an astonished expression on its face before it opens its wings and soars away across the rooftops.

And Alex doesn’t see the little old lady after that. No one mentions her. It’s as if she’s never existed.

Then Alex’s mother disappears, and reappears a week later, one quiet Tuesday, with no explanation whatsoever as to where she has been. But she is a ghostly shadow of her former self, and with scars across her body – wide, deep burns, as though she had been attacked by a monster who breathed fire.

Alex, growing from young girl to fiercely independent teenager, is desperate for answers, but doesn’t get any.

Whether anyone likes it or not, the Mass Dragoning is coming. And nothing will be the same after that. Everything is about to change, forever.

And when it does, this, too, will be unmentionable…

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Black Mouth – Ronald Malfi

Any day that includes me being able to say that I’ve found a new favourite author is a good day. Today is a good day!

I’m a tad embarrassed to admit that this is my first Ronald Malfi read. On the flip side, because I’m late to the party, I’ve got so many books to catch up on and new favourites to find. Did I mention today is a very good day?

Black Mouth is essentially a big melting pot of the types of characters and themes I will always want to read about. You’ve got your group of outcasts who experienced something scary, traumatic and potentially supernatural when they were kids. The ghosts of the past, possibly even the literal kind, haunt said kids well into adulthood. Adults who have been trying to outrun their childhood trauma can’t run anymore, and it just keeps getting better and better.

The things that happened down in the heart of Black Mouth that summer had been inexplicable, magical, and ultimately deadly things – things I still can’t fully comprehend or even care to dwell on.

There’s a carnival. Magic. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. A group of friends I want to join. And best of all? There’s Dennis, who is now one of my all time favourite characters. I adore Dennis!

I loved this book so much! The characters, the location, the atmosphere, the way the past bled into the present, even the surprise misty eyed moment. I loved it all!

I can’t wait to read more books by this author.

As usual, I sent test emails to the email addresses listed for two characters in this book. As usual, they were undeliverable. Yes, I’m going to keep sending random emails to book characters until one finally responds.

“Do you want to see a magic trick?”

Content warnings include abuse of animals, alcoholism, bullying, child abuse, death by suicide (including method used), domestic abuse, sexual assault and a suicide attempt. Readers with emetophobia, beware. There are also a bunch of cringeworthy slurs that I won’t be repeating here; although I hated reading the words, it made complete sense that those characters would be saying them.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

For nearly two decades, Jamie Warren has been running from darkness. He’s haunted by a traumatic childhood and the guilt at having disappeared from his disabled brother’s life. But then a series of unusual events reunites him with his estranged brother and their childhood friends, and none of them can deny the sense of fate that has seemingly drawn them back together.

Nor can they deny the memories of that summer, so long ago – the strange magic taught to them by an even stranger man, and the terrible act that has followed them all into adulthood. In the light of new danger, they must confront their past by facing their futures, and hunting down a man who may very well be a monster. 

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We Will Rise – Tim Waggoner

Spoilers Ahead! (marked in purple)

It’s a chilly February day and Echo Springs is about to be painted red. The dead have returned and they’ve got something special planned for the people they knew when they had heartbeats.

“Evidently, people are starting to see ghosts.”

description

Those whose pasts are about to collide with their present include substitute elementary school teacher Mari, business major Faizan, homeschooled son of religious parents Oliver, café owner Karen, librarian Jerome and EMT Julie.

There’s nowhere to run because what’s happening in Echo Springs isn’t an isolated event; the entire planet is experiencing a reddening.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had this much fun watching peoples’ insides become their outsides. The death scenes are gory and imaginative. Some are even worthy of a chuckle. On second thought, maybe they’re not supposed to be funny and my inner Karen is showing…

The blood flows freely, the organs are on show and the body count is ginormous. I had planned on tallying up all of the deaths but am pleased to report that I became overwhelmed by the task and gave up. I’m having trouble choosing a favourite death scene but the atrocities I witnessed at Smiles, Inc. are probably going to stay with me the longest.

This would have been a much quicker read if I hadn’t been compelled to stop every time I got to a particularly graphic description so I could read it to the person beside me, interrupting their current read. I definitely need to see this book made into a movie.

Had I visited Echo Springs before the dead decided to add to their ranks, I would have visited the library (obviously) and Icing on the Cake.

The fact that my Kindle looked like it was haunted every time I opened it while reading was just perfect.

My only niggle was that, of all of the people I met in Echo Springs, it was Oliver who was destined to spend most of the book either entirely or very nearly naked. I wish someone had found some pants for him at some point during the carnage.

Content warnings include mention of death by suicide, emotional abuse, gun violence, homophobia, miscarriage, physical abuse, racial and religious slurs, racism, sexual assault, suicidal ideation and transphobia. If you’re squeamish or have emetophobia, this may not be the read for you.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

In Echo Hill, Ohio, the dead begin to reappear, manifesting in various forms, from classic ghosts and poltergeists, to physical undead and bizarre apparitions for which there is no name. These malign spirits attack the living, tormenting and ultimately killing them in order to add more recruits to their spectral ranks.

A group of survivors come together after the initial attack, all plagued by different ghostly apparitions of their own. Can they make it out of Echo Hill alive? And if so, will they still be sane? Or will they die and join the ranks of the vengeful dead?

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Rizzoli & Isles #13: Listen to Me – Tess Gerritsen

“Did I mention a homicide?” “No, but you’re Detective Rizzoli. Everyone knows who you are.”

Can you believe this is the first Rizzoli & Isles book published since 2017? That was pre-pandemic, so by my calculations it’s been 142 years since I read the twelfth book, give or take.

I’ve missed Jane and Maura so much and I loved being able to catch up with them again. Even though it’s been so long since I was able to tag along during one of their investigations, it took no time at all to reacquaint myself with them.

I was able to read from Angela’s perspective for the first time and if you know Angela, you know she’s going to be spending a considerable amount of time getting into someone’s business. And their business and maybe theirs as well… She absolutely delighted me as I followed her around her neighbourhood.

“I’ve lived on this street for forty years and I try to keep an eye on it, that’s all. You can’t prevent bad things from happening if no one notices those things.”

Angela spends her time investigating the mystery of why the new couple renting number 2533 aren’t being neighbourly and the case of a missing teenager, all while facing off against her archenemy and checking out the man across the street. Basic what I’m saying here is that Angela did more than enough to convince me she needs her own spin-off series.

I’m guessing all of my training with Rizzoli over the years has started paying off as I figured out one of the mysteries straight away and got another one half right.

Something I’ve always loved about the Rizzoli & Isles books is how all of the puzzle pieces end up fitting together, even when some of them originally look like they belong in separate pictures. This was the case here as well.

Some books in the series have more of a focus on Jane and others spend more time with Maura. With more page time dedicated to Jane this time, I’m hoping next time I’ll get to hang out in the morgue some more, “reading the language of death” with Maura.

I feel like I’ve just caught up with some old friends I haven’t seen in years and I’m tempted to reread the entire series and binge the TV series (again) while I wait to be invited to join their next investigation.

Bonus points for the ringtone allocated to Angela on Jane’s phone and the reveal of Maura’s secret talent.

Content warnings include domestic abuse and mention of sexual assault.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Bantam Press, an imprint of Transworld Publishers, Random House UK, for the opportunity to read this book.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Mothers know best … But who will listen?

Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles are newly plagued by what seems like a completely senseless murder. Sofia Suarez, a widow and nurse who was universally liked by her neighbours, lies bludgeoned to death in her own home. But anything can happen behind closed doors, and Sofia seemed to have plenty of secrets in her last days, making covert phone calls to traceless burner phones. When Jane finally makes a connection between Sofia and the victim of a hit-and-run from months earlier, the case only grows more blurry. What exactly was Sofia involved in? One thing is clear: The killer will do anything it takes to keep their secret safe. 

Meanwhile, Angela Rizzoli hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in all the years since her daughter became a homicide detective. Maybe the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree: Nothing in Angela’s neighbourhood gets by her – not the gossip about a runaway teenager down the block and definitely not the strange neighbours who have just moved in across the street. Angela’s sure there’s no such thing as coincidence in her sleepy suburb. If only Jane would listen – instead she writes off Angela’s concerns as the result of an overactive imagination. But Angela’s convinced there’s a real wolf in her vicinity, and her cries might now fall on deaf ears. 

With so much happening on the Sofia case, Jane and Maura already struggle to see the forest for the trees, but will they lose sight of something sinister happening much closer to home?

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Three Days in the Pink Tower – E.V. Knight

Tomorrow. Everything will be different tomorrow.

As far as I’m concerned, any book that includes sexual assault could easily be shelved as horror, but this one truly earns that classification. This novella recounts the author’s experience of being kidnapped and raped by two men when she was seventeen. To say that this was a difficult read is the understatement of the year.

Much of the dialogue between Josey and the men come directly from the author’s statement to the police; this added a whole other layer of reality to something that was already painfully real.

If you have experienced sexual assault, you need to know that the sexual assaults described in this novella are brutal. Please take good care of yourself while reading by upping your self care, taking breaks when you need them and ensuring you utilise any supports you have available to you.

I want women to read this and know that no one can take your story from you. It is yours, and you can do whatever you want with it.

Rescripting can be such a helpful tool for sexual assault survivors, particularly in managing flashbacks. Here, the author incorporates tarot and symbolism into her story to rewrite the ending.

“You choose the cards from this point on.”

Content warnings include domestic abuse, gun violence, kidnapping and sexual assault.

Thank you so much to Creature Publishing for the opportunity to read this novella.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Josey Claypool begins the summer before her senior year at a carnival, where a fortune teller with milky-white eyes gives her a foreboding tarot reading. She’s spooked, but nothing could prepare her for the following day when two strange men show up at her front door.

Josey is kidnapped at gunpoint and brought to a pink cabin in the woods where she is held prisoner. In her darkest moment, the fortune teller appears and gives her a deck of tarot cards, which she must cast and interpret in a fight for her life.

In this work of speculative autofiction, award-winning author EV Knight reclaims the narrative of her own past in an exploration of trauma, agency, and survival.

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