Cover Reveal: Two Truths and One Liar by Deirdre Riordan Hall

Two Truths and One Liar
Deirdre Riordan Hall
Publication date: December 28th 2021
Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Young Adult

Knives Out meets One of Us is Lying with a hint of the Inheritance Games. Like the original whodunnit, Clue, this suspenseful mystery also has three possible endings explaining what could have happened.

They all have secrets. They all have motives. They all tell lies.

Every year, at a prestigious boarding school, Professor Groff hosts the Midnight Masquerade. But this year, before the festivities, he’s discovered dead in his office. Yet six students still receive invitations. The same six students who’re questioned about his murder.

The show must go on. At the Masquerade, two additional students claim to know the truth. The lights go out and when they come back on, one of them is dead. Anyone could’ve been at fault.

Francisca blind in one eye and deadly on the rugby field. Toshi a number ninja and the campus punching bag. Taz who struggles with anxiety and lingers in the shadows. Fish the golden boy hiding wounds and not only in his heart. Caroline the heiress and the image of perfection. Gorgeous George the resident Greek God with nothing to lose.

The six receive anonymous notes, making them question themselves and the assumptions they’ve made about each other. Brought back together, they must prove their innocence before the all-school meeting the next morning, otherwise, they risk humiliation if their secrets are exposed exposed—and worse, if they’re found guilty.

It’s a long night of theft, danger, and threats by a secret society that shows Professor Groff was right during his final lecture.

Everything that can go wrong will.

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Author Bio:

Deirdre Riordan Hall is the author of the contemporary young adult bestsellers Sugar and Pearl as well as the High School Murder Mystery series. She’s in an ongoing pursuit of words, waves, and wonder. Her love language involves a basket of chips, salsa, and guacamole, preferably when shared with her family.

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Book Review: Parallel Planets by James E Lee

3/5 Stars 180 pages, Published December 27th 2017 by Booksgosocial

This is the story of Tom, a small town sheriff, and Julia, a doctor in the making. They meet later in life, fall in love, and live the rest of their lives together in perfect harmony. That is, until half way through the book, when the aliens are introduced.

And when I say half way, I really mean that my kindle app literally said 50%. Up until then, I wasn’t so sure where the story was headed. It seemed like it was a small town murder mystery kind of vibe, and it morphed into a scifi adventure right when I was wondering if it was for me or not. And I really loved that.

Written in a very straight forward was, I enjoyed how unique it was, but I also felt like it’s written in such a passive way, that I didn’t really even realize when the action was happening at some parts, and had to go back and re-read.

Definitely an interesting and enjoyable read, but it’s not my new favourite. But not every book is going to be exactly what I want, and that’s okay. I think it took too long to get into the scifi parts of the story, and I got a little bored waiting for it to show up. Overall, I think that many people would like this book, but it’s just not for me. If you like scifi and small town mysteries, than check it out for yourself!

If you’d like to grab a copy, you can here!

Thanks for reading! Hope you’re having a great day, and you don’t get abducted by aliens, unless that’s something that you want.

Book Review: Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff Vandermeer

After coming off the intense wild ride that is Annihilation, I was really excited to learn that I got a copy of Jeff Vandermeer’s newest book, Hummingbird Salamander. With a plot just as unique as the title and as beautiful and bright cover, this book was very mysterious, and nothing like I expected. Eco terrorists, murderous strangers, clown stalkers and taxidermy with numbers behind their eyes, I can safely say that I’ve never read anything like this before.

4/5 Stars 351 pages
Published April 6th 2021 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

The story follows a woman who doesn’t want you to know her name. A badass bodybuilding and hardworking woman who we just know as Jane, who also has a husband and daughter and a great job. But unfortunately, she’s also a woman caught in the middle of a very dangerous conspiracy theory that has become a reality. And you’re right in there with her, seeing everything through her eyes.

Her life is pulled into a spiral the day the coffee shop barista hands her an envelope. Inside, a key to a strange locker and an address. In the letter, it claims that the writer is already gone, and that the main character is on her own now, but not completely alone. And that’s just the prequel. After arguing with herself about it, she decides to go check it out and finds a preserved hummingbird with a note that just says, simply, Hummingbird Salamander. Like that’s the answer to all the world’s questions. This, if you can believe it, sets the tone for the entire book. A mysterious confusing, and even maddening at times wild goose chase, this amazing book is unlike any other that I’ve read, and I never saw the ending coming.

The only thing that this book has in common with Annihilation aside from the same author, is that it’s just one of those books that are impossible to speed through. If you start skimming over stuff, you’re going to be lost, and it requires the entirety of your attention. A slow burn that has a lot of violence and just really unsettling scenes.

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Overall, this is a really great book, and it’s something I never could have imagined it would be. Better for more mature readers, I recommend it to anyone looking for a good mystery, but also someone with a strong stomach. And also someone who will stick through to the end no matter what. But that’s just coming from me, someone who would buy the book just to display the cover.

If you’d like to grab a copy, you can here!

And if you’d like to keep up with the author, he posts a ton of cute racoon content, you can here on twitter!

Thanks for reading! Hope you’re having a great day.

Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.ca and affiliated sites.

Review: The Devil Whispered by Shawn Starkweather

3/5 Stars 413 Pages (in paper) Published February 1st 2021 by Shawn Starkweather Publishing Company

Honestly as great as the plot and the characters were in this book, I had the hardest time getting immersed into it. For whatever reason, I still haven’t figured it out over five hundred pages later, I Just couldn’t keep my attention on this book. Whether that’s a me problem or a book problem I’m not sure, but I do have these good things to say about it. If you’re looking for an action packed cyberpunk mystery novel mixed with military personnel, robotic limbs and internal computers, and crazy body mods and just crazy tech in general, than this is definitely something you should look into checking out next.

At the beginning of this book we find out main character, Jacobi, hunting down a man for some kind of mob boss. He finds him surrounded by drugs and girls and easily apprehends him, and brings him back to his father. This is just the beginning though, because the favour he gets in return will really help him out later in the book. What’s really going on here, Jacobi learns after visiting his friend in jail after he has brutally murdered his wife, is that someone seems to be hunting down the members of his old army team. But why would someone do that? Their names and team were all under lock and key, not just anyone would be able to have that information. But his friend says it wasn’t his fault and that someone made him do it. How could someone just control another person like that? All these questions and more are all wrapped up by the end of the book.

Out of all the characters I think I like Risa and his other friend with the robotic limbs the most. I read another review that says this book seemed sexist, and while that opinion is valid, I really didn’t get that vibe from it. I would say the vibes I got from this book were more military James Bond with all the cyberpunk goodness and crazy tech we love that comes along with that genre. The world around the characters wasn’t explained in depth, and honestly neither were the characters themselves, and maybe that might be why I had trouble really getting into it. That being said, though, I did enjoy it, and I don’t think I lost any time while I was reading it. It just took me longer than usual to get through it because of those things.

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Overall, If you’re looking for something exciting and action packed, with lots of tech and storylines within the bigger storyline, than this might be something you want to check out next. I would say that anyone aged sixteen and up would be able to read this, there’s not really any explicit scenes, and what very little sexual scenes there actually are in this book, I counted two, they’re glossed over very quickly and don’t get too in depth with them other than saying yeah, they did this. Which I appreciated. I don’t think that this is one of those kinds of books. The plot twists were exciting and everything weaved together really nicely in the end. And I’m left wishing I had an internal computer or robotic limbs, or those cool night vision mods that turn your eyes all black.

If you’d like to grab a copy, you can do so here!

And if you’d like to follow the author on Twitter, you can here!

Thanks for reading! Hope you’re doing well and staying safe.

Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.ca and affiliated sites.

Cover Reveal: Gulf of Deception (Gulf Shores Mysteries #1) by Kelly Ann Hopkins

Gulf of Deception
Kelly Ann Hopkins
(Gulf Shores Mysteries, #1)
Publication date: March 8th 2021
Genres: Mystery, Young Adult

Fort Myers Beach has it all: sun, sand, music…and murder.

On the cusp of her high school graduation, Lily Harmony needs to figure out how to break it to her lawyer parents that she doesn’t want to follow in the family footsteps and go to law school—especially with her band in high demand on the Fort Myers beach scene. But when her father is killed inside his office and their mother accused of his murder, Lily and her estranged sister Annabelle know the police have the wrong person.

Clues are hard to come by until a mysterious man hands Lily a flash drive and warns her the information contained on it might get her killed. As Lily works to unravel what the files and pictures mean, a stunning discovery reveals the murderer might be closer than she thought.

With the help of her gamer BFF and a drone named Felix, Lily and her sister scour the Everglades for connections to her father’s killer. But what they find hidden in the canopy of cypress tress is more dangerous than they ever imagined—a long-lost secret worth millions.

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Author Bio:

Kelly Ann Hopkins is the author of Misled (coming 2021) and Buried Beneath (coming 2022). She spends her days as a high school librarian and creative writing teacher, where she challenges her students to read with abandon. When she’s not creating perilous adventures for her characters, she is dreaming of her next trip to the Florida Gulf Coast. Kelly lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, two children, and too many books.

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Jubilee by Jennifer Givhan Review

4/5 Stars 320 pages
Published October 6th 2020 by Blackstone Publishing

Are you looking for a book that’s going to make you cry? Because that’s this book. You think from the synopsis that this is just a mystery book, maybe some kind of thriller, it’s very vague on that topic, but really it just was sad and made me hysterically cry and honestly is one of those books that maybe they should have a trigger warning on for the harsh topics discussed in the story. Does that make it a bad book? Absolutely not. It’s just intensely emotional and upsetting at times. But the silver lining is that you know the character made it out on the other end, alright, but shaken.

Told in alternating chapters of before and with, and occasionally letters to and after Jubilee, this story is about a young woman named Bianca who after a suicide attempt and some kind of horrible trauma causing her to bleed down her legs, finds herself with her dog and her baby doll Jubilee, at her brothers house with him and his husband. Very confused at why she’s so hysterical, he’s desperate to help her, and calls their mother over to help. She then finds herself in the hospital, crying for her baby, Jubilee.

And this begins an emotional journey of finding yourself and living your life after trauma, and hard memories of an abusive boyfriend, and lost pregnancies. Bianca has always wanted someone to love her, but has had a hard time finding that without getting hard love instead. An abusive and alcoholic father who turned his life around a little bit too late, a mother who refused to accept things that were happening in front of her eyes, and a brother who gets angry basically because he can’t control how she feels about her now ex boyfriend.

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If you’re really affected by story telling including rape, lost pregnancies, and suicide attempts, than this might not be the book for you. That being said, I did get through the book and come out on the other side, but I did cry for a bit there. That’s just the kind of book it is, though. It was amazing and emotional and just so much more than I ever expected it could be. It’s a story of feminism, and continuing to live after immense trauma, even when you don’t think you can. I’m really glad I got to check this book out, even though it was hard at times, and I think that’s how it’s going to be for a lot of people to read.

If you’d like to grab a copy of this book with it’s beautiful cover, you can here with my link through Amazon Associates.

And if you’d like to keep up with the author, you can do so here.

Thanks for reading! Hope you’re having a great day, and I hope you are having a great beginning to the new year.

The Reader (Immortal Series #1) by M.K. Harkins Review

5/5 Stars 262 pages
Published July 2018

If you haven’t noticed, I’ve really been into these books about people with special powers, immortal or not. And this book has fit perfectly with that mood I’ve had lately. A story about people who can read minds, but with a few twists, one of which being that their people live in an underground compound build into a mountain. How amazing would that be to explore? I wouldn’t even mind living underground, if that were the case. This book was everything I wanted it to be and more.

Ann has lost her memory. Waking up on a beach with a face full of sand and a bullet wound, she’s devastated by her loss, and has no idea what to do from here. That is, until two guys show up to help her. Though she doesn’t know them, and a voice inside her head says that she can trust only one of them, she’s compelled to go with them to what they call their compound, a mansion built into the side of a mountain and surrounded by fake houses. Little does she know this is the easiest thing that will happen to her from now on.

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Turns out, she’s a Reader, an immortal being who can read minds. And not only that, but she may just be The Lost One, a person that might as well be mythical for all anyone knows. A mix of the three immortal races, The Seers, who have been extinct due to war, The Jacks, an evil group bent on destroying the world to get what they want and who have to switch bodies every fifty years to keep their lives going, and of course The Readers. But she’s not convinced that she’s even a Reader, despite everyone around her knowing. That is, until she escapes from her amazing prison, and out into the real world where the humans are, and some of the Jacks are able to track her down. Will she regain her memory and put a stop to the evil group?

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Like I said, this book was everything I wanted it to be and more. I wasn’t quite sure what I was getting myself into when I started it, but once I read the description again, I knew I was going to be hooked. This book is exciting and very mysterious, with characters I love and characters I hate, and really just a story that kept me guessing. I read it in less than a day, and once I found out that there was a second book to this duology, I knew I would have to get my hands on it. My favourite character was probably Lucy, because she’s just so nice and upbeat and just the perfect best friend. If you love books about people with mysterious powers and immortal bodies, than this is a book you should pick up next.

If you’d like to grab a copy, you can do so here through my Amazon Associates link.

Here’s a link to the author’s Twitter, if you’d like to keep up with them!

Thanks for reading! Hope you’re doing well and staying safe.

The Sensation (Salvi Brentt #2) by Amanda Bridgeman Review

5/5 Stars 400 pages
Published October 13th 2020 by Angry Robot

Has it really been two years since the first book? I absolutely loved that one, and my opinion hasn’t changed about the series with this one. From the second I started it, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to put it down until it was finished, and that’s exactly what happened. I really had trouble reading other things while my phone was charging, and that’s exactly what I love about this series. It worms its way into your head, and once you’re in, you’re not getting back out. Kind of like the subject matter in this novel specifically.

Salvi Brentt is back, and even though she’s been put on a desk job for the time being, she’s sick of it, and all the therapy she’s been having to go through since the events of the last book. But that’s about to change, because her therapist is just clearing her to go back on the street, and start the job that she loves all over again. Only with a new partner. This time, however, it’s not about The Subjugates. It’s about people going missing, and occasionally, turning up with their bodies horrifically carved into. It’s about the club scene, and the drug scene. And most of all, it’s about control, and in some cases, the lack of control.

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At around four hundred pages, this solid novel never even gives you a chance to breathe once you’re in it. It’s a rollercoaster that just keeps going up. And then at the end, it finally goes down. Just not in the way you’d expect. It’s one of those that I’m just hoping and praying I’m not going to have to wait another two years for the next one. I love Salvi so much, she’s so strong and she has such a rich backstory that we’re just beginning to learn about. She’s everything you could ever want to be in a person, and she knows it. And I just think she’s the perfect character to tell stories like these.

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The thing that I love the most about these books, is how much it reminds me of one of those crime scene investigation shows, not only in the way the events are laid out in front of you, but also in the way that the characters interact with it, and each other. I really feel like I’m watching a tv show when I’m reading these books, and I think that’s a very hard thing to do. I can’t get enough. And I love the little scifi twist that’s put in. The author writes an intricate web, until you have no way of knowing where to look, who’s to blame, and can’t possibly guess what’s going to happen next, and then it’s all destroyed in the last ten percent of the book, and you’re left thinking, how did all of that happen so fast and I didn’t get lost? And what’s going to happen next?

If you’re into scifi, and you’re into mysterious detective books, than I highly suggest you give this series a chance. At only two books, I have a feeling that this is just the beginning, and I’m really stoked to see what Salvi gets herself into next time, while she’s just trying to make the world around her act right, and save lives.

If you’d like to grab a copy, you can do so here through my Amazon Associates link!

And if you’d like to keep up with the author, you can on Twitter here!

Thanks for reading! Hope you’re doing great.

Tartarus Volume 1 by Johnnie Christmas & Jack Cole Review

Are you looking for an epic and action packed graphic novel full of mystery and also has characters that speak sign language? Then this is the one you’ll want to check out next. I’ve never read a comic with sign language in it, and now that I have, I don’t know why more don’t have it in their stories. I really enjoyed this. I think the art is beautiful and fits really perfectly, too.

4/5 Stars 160 pages
Published October 6th 2020 by Image Comics

The beginning of the story is kind of a prequel to the rest of it, showing Surka, an impressive and ruthless female warlord who’s determined to make the people she dislikes pay for what they’ve done. She fights her way out of an underground prison, letting out the rest of the prisoners in the process, and causing a massive riot on the planet once they’re out. She’s willing to take down everyone and everything in her path to get to what she wants: a baby. But things don’t always work out how she wants them to.

Turns out, that baby is her daughter. Seventeen years later we see Tilde as a teenager, grown and in the military. It breaks her sick grandmothers heart to see her like that. But there’s a story in there, and she doesn’t expect any of it. After finding out her grandmother isn’t really her grandmother, she’s very confused, and the location she’s in goes into lockdown as she’s been labeled a security threat.

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Her boss thinks that she can’t be trusted, as she’s part of Surka, someone they wanted gone long ago. He tells her the story of how Tartarus, a mining planet circling the planet Styxx came to be, and that through war and destruction, the Djinn have created insane tech weapons. He wants her to kill herself, but Tilde has other plans. And that’s when the real adventure begins.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book, even though my laptop kept dying while I was really starting to get into it, and I had to keep stopping and taking a break. I’m glad I got a chance to read it, and I think that anyone who likes scifi comics full of action and excitement will love this book as much as I did.

If you’d like a copy, you can grab one here through my Amazon Associates link!

And if you’d like to follow the creators on Twitter, you can do so here!

Johnnie Christmas

Jack Cole

Thanks for reading! Hope you’re doing well and staying safe.

Keeper of the Bees (Black Bird of the Gallows #2) by Meg Kassel Review

5/5 Stars 304 pages
Published September 4th 2018 by Entangled: Teen

Keeper of the Bee’s is a book that I wasn’t expecting to fall in love with, but I did. Though I haven’t read anything by author Meg Kassel before, I’m very much interested in checking out more in the future! This is just one of those books I haven’t stopped thinking about since I read it, and I’m glad. And not in the way that something’s missing, just thinking back and appreciating it.

 

Though the character of a boy full of bees isn’t a brand new idea, it is something that I don’t read about hardly ever, especially when he’s basically immortal, lonely, a murderer, and just looking for a direction in life other than killing. The other main character in this book, who the viewpoint rotates to throughout the book, is a young girl who suffers from a mental illness like schizophrenia, but isn’t. She and the other women in her family just call it a curse, as it affects a lot of them. It’s draining, but she knows what she needs to do to keep it mostly under control, and that is chewing on peppercorns to cut through the hallucinations. However, when she meets the boy full of bees with the face that won’t make up it’s mind, the peppercorns just don’t cut it.

 

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Though this book is part of a series that I haven’t been caught up in, it was an amazing standalone novel as well, and I loved every minute of it. I’d love to check out the other book as well. My only complain I have about it, is that it always seems really weird and kind of makes me uncomfortable when an immortal man who looks like a young man, begins a relationship with a teenage girl. Wouldn’t that just be a really old man who looks young dating a teen girl?

 

The story follows the two as they have to face their problems, learn to love despite those problems, and also save the entire town from crazy mythological beings that bring death everywhere they go. I thought it was really unique, and it was something I really enjoyed getting to learn everything about. I didn’t have any questions that weren’t answered by the end of the book, and that’s just how I like it. I couldn’t get enough of it.

 

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Overall, this is a book that I won’t forget about anytime soon. Though I read it over a month ago, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, and would love to get a physical copy for my bookshelf just to have and read whenever the mood strikes. I recommend checking it out if you like cute love stories about accepting your partner no matter what their problems are, and however magical they are, which is mixed with murder, mystery, and fantastic creatures that I’ve never even imagined before.

 

If you’d like to get a copy for yourself, you can grab one here.

Here’s a link to the author’s Twitter, if you’d like to keep up with them.

Thanks for reading! If you have any thoughts about this book, I’d love to chat with you in the comments! Hope you’re doing good, and staying safe. Have a great day!