Title: The Boyfriend
Author: Friday McFadden
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
Length: 368 pages
Release Date: October 1, 2024
Source: Library (Audiobook)
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Find it Here: Amazon // Goodreads

She's looking for the perfect man. He's looking for the perfect victim.

Sydney Shaw, like every single woman in New York, has terrible luck with dating. She’s seen it men who lie in their dating profile, men who stick her with the dinner bill, and worst of all, men who can't shut up about their mothers. But finally, she hits the jackpot.

Her new boyfriend is utterly perfect. He's charming, handsome, and works as a doctor at a local hospital. Sydney is swept off her feet.

Then the brutal murder of a young woman―the latest in a string of deaths across the coast―confounds police. The primary suspect? A mystery man who dates his victims before he kills them.

Sydney should feel safe. After all, she is dating the guy of her dreams. But she can’t shake her own suspicions that the perfect man may not be as perfect as he seems. Because someone is watching her every move, and if she doesn’t get to the truth, she’ll be the killer’s next victim...

A dark story about obsession and the things we’ll do for love, #1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden proves that crimes of passion are often the bloodiest…

My review: 

I am a big fan of Frida McFadden and I have listened to many of her audio books. I really enjoyed listening to The Boyfriend and found myself listening on the edge of my seat (the driver's seat because I was always driving while I was listening!). 

I really enjoyed the back and forth format of the book, Tom's perspective from when he was a teenager and Sydney's present time point of view. I really though I knew what was happening and how the characters were correlating from past to present but it turns out, as usually, I was very wrong! 

Sydney was a god character but I felt like she was dramatized at times. It was almost like I was watching a horror movie in my head and I would be yelling at the main character, "why did you set down your phone!!!" She was dumb at time, especially since she knew there was a killer out there and the killer was somewhat close to her. She didn't' have a very good gut instinct and she didn't make very smart decision. 

Overall, it was a pretty entertaining book! My only criteria for mystery/thriller type books is that they are fast-paced and that the ending surprises me. The Boyfriend by Friday McFadden has both of those checked off so it was four stars in my book!

Audio Book Review: It Happened One Summer by Tessa Bailey

Title: It Happened One Summer
Author: Tessa Bailey
Publisher: Harper Audio
Release Date: July 13, 2021
Series: Bellinger Sisters #1
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Length: 10 Hours and 48 minutes
Source: Library
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Find it Here: Amazon // Goodreads

Piper Bellinger is fashionable, influential, and her reputation as a wild child means the paparazzi are constantly on her heels. When too much champagne and an out-of-control rooftop party lands Piper in the slammer, her stepfather decides enough is enough. So he cuts her off, and sends Piper and her sister to learn some responsibility running their late father's dive bar... in Washington.

Piper hasn't even been in Westport for five minutes when she meets big, bearded sea captain Brendan, who thinks she won't last a week outside of Beverly Hills. So what if Piper can't do math, and the idea of sleeping in a shabby apartment with bunk beds gives her hives. How bad could it really be? She's determined to show her stepfather--and the hot, grumpy local--that she's more than a pretty face.

Except it's a small town and everywhere she turns, she bumps into Brendan. The fun-loving socialite and the gruff fisherman are polar opposites, but there's an undeniable attraction simmering between them. Piper doesn't want any distractions, especially feelings for a man who sails off into the sunset for weeks at a time. Yet as she reconnects with her past and begins to feel at home in Westport, Piper starts to wonder if the cold, glamorous life she knew is what she truly wants. LA is calling her name, but Brendan--and this town full of memories--may have already caught her heart.

My Review: 

I have been chomping at the bit to write my review of It Happened One Summer by Tessa Baily. I listened to this book on audio and I loved it so much! I literally could not wait until I could listen to it again! It has almost everything I love in a contemporary romance and I can't wait to get into it! 

Now, I don't usually read contemporary romance; it's not the genre that I generally gravitate towards. But I had been seeing it on BookTok pretty regularly with a lot of glowing reviews so I tucked it away in the back of my mind. When I was browsing through Hoopla's instant title, It Happened One Summer popped up and I bumped it up to the top of my audio book list. 

I pretty much loved It Happened One Summer from the moment I started listening. The main character, Piper, messes up pretty badly while in LA, so her step-father cuts her off and ships her off to her home town in Washington State. In this little tiny town she meets Brendan, a local, grumpy, good-looking fisherman who tries to stay away from her, but fate has other ideas. 

I would have assumed that a character like Piper would bother or annoy me, but I found her to be charming and kind. I really enjoyed the grumpy-sunshine trope. I think it may be the first I've ever read. As much as I loved the (which I really did), I found it to be a little unbelievable. Like a rich girl getting cut off and then falling in love with a man who is secretly wealthy. And the whole ending scene in LA just rubbed me the wrong way for some reason. Other than those few points, I really did love the book and I am really looking forward to diving into the next one and many more Tessa Bailey books! 

Audio Book Review: The Perfect Mother by Aimee Molloy

Title: The Perfect Mother

Author: Aimee Molloy

Publisher: HarperAudio

Release Date: May 01, 2018

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Length: 9 hours, 29 minutes

Source: Library

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Find it Here: Amazon // Goodreads

They call themselves the May Mothers—a collection of new moms who gave birth in the same month. Twice a week, with strollers in tow, they get together in Prospect Park, seeking refuge from the isolation of new motherhood; sharing the fears, joys, and anxieties of their new child-centered lives.

When the group’s members agree to meet for drinks at a hip local bar, they have in mind a casual evening of fun, a brief break from their daily routine. But on this sultry Fourth of July night during the hottest summer in Brooklyn’s history, something goes terrifyingly wrong: one of the babies is abducted from his crib. Winnie, a single mom, was reluctant to leave six-week-old Midas with a babysitter, but the May Mothers insisted that everything would be fine. Now Midas is missing, the police are asking disturbing questions, and Winnie’s very private life has become fodder for a ravenous media.

Though none of the other members in the group are close to the reserved Winnie, three of them will go to increasingly risky lengths to help her find her son. And as the police bungle the investigation and the media begin to scrutinize the mothers in the days that follow, damaging secrets are exposed, marriages are tested, and friendships are formed and fractured.

My Review: 

The Perfect Mother by Aimee Molloy is about a young mother who's infant son goes missing and chronicles the events before and during the incident. 

The main character, Winnie, joins a group of expecting women called the May Mothers, all of their babies expected to arrive during the month of May. Winnie is very reserved and doesn't really become friends with any of these women but one night they force her to leave the baby with a babysitter and go out with them for some drinks. While they are out, her 4 month old baby goes missing. The women, who don't even really know Winnie, take it upon themselves to find the baby and so the book is told from their four perspectives. 

While on the whole the book was good, I found most of the characters to be unlike-able, especially Nell, who just seemed to act like she knew better than everyone else. There was also a POV who turned out to be someone else entirely. I was also shocked at the ending but that's pretty much the point. I had originally given the book 4 stars but after I sat on it for a while, I ended up switching it to 3 stars. The Perfect Mother by Aimee Molloy was a really fast paced audiobook that had me guessing until the end!

Audio Book Review: The Girl from Everywhere by Heidi Heilig

Title: The Girl from Everywhere
Author: Heidi Heilig
Series: The Girl from Everywhere #1
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Narrator: Kim Mai Guest
Genre: YA/Fantasy
Length: 10 hours and 9 minutes
Source: Library
Rating: ⭐
Find it Here: Amazon // Audible // Goodreads

Nix has spent her entire life aboard her father’s ship, sailing across the centuries, across the world, across myth and imagination.

As long as her father has a map for it, he can sail to any time, any place, real or imagined: nineteenth-century China, the land from One Thousand and One Nights, a mythic version of Africa. Along the way they have found crewmates and friends, and even a disarming thief who could come to mean much more to Nix.

But the end to it all looms closer every day.

Her father is obsessed with obtaining the one map, 1868 Honolulu, that could take him back to his lost love, Nix’s mother. Even though getting it—and going there—could erase Nix’s very existence.

For the first time, Nix is entering unknown waters.
She could find herself, find her family, find her own fantastical ability, her own epic love.

Or she could disappear.

My Review:

I really thought I was going to love The Girl from Everywhere because everything in the synopsis appeals to me and it right in my reading wheelhouse. We have time-travel, fantasy, a story taking place in the late 1800's, probably very little romance (but you never know until you read it) and a girl who is going on this awesome adventure! What could I not love about a story about maps that all people to time-travel to when the map was drawn? Turns out, a lot.

I actually did enjoy probably the first half of the book. It started off really great and interesting. Nix and the crew come into 2016 from some far away time in the hopes that her father can acquire a map of Hawaii of 1868, believed the be drawn in the year of 1868. They get the map and go back to when Hawaii had it's own king, but as soon as they get there, they realize that the map was not drawn in 1868 and therefore, they are not in 1868 Hawaii. The map was a trap and now Nix's father in on a mission to figure out how he is going to get to 1868. 

After a while, the story just got boring. The audio book narrator was great, I just found that the story was just not interesting anymore. I also felt like it was going completely off path of what had been set up in the beginning. As things are happening, I'm thinking to myself, "why are they doing this and why is this happening." 

I literally listened to 90% of the book until I just couldn't do it anymore. I had had enough of this story that was seemingly going who knows where and I was completely lost because it had become so boring that I found myself tuning it out. Needless to say, The Girl from Everywhere was disappointing and poorly executed when it sounded like it could really be a great YA fantasy series. 

Audio Book Review: I See You by Clare Mackintosh

Title: I See You
Author: Clare Mackintosh
Narrator: Rachel Atkins
Publisher: Berkley Books
Release Date: February 21, 2017
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Length: 10 hours & 58 minutes
Source: Purchased
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Find it Here: Amazon // Audible // Goodreads

Every morning and evening, Zoe Walker takes the same route to the train station, waits at a certain place on the platform, finds her favorite spot in the car, never suspecting that someone is watching her...

It all starts with a classified ad. During her commute home one night, while glancing through her local paper, Zoe sees her own face staring back at her; a grainy photo along with a phone number and a listing for a website called FindTheOne.com.

Other women begin appearing in the same ad, a different one every day, and Zoe realizes they’ve become the victims of increasingly violent crimes—including murder. With the help of a determined cop, she uncovers the ad’s twisted purpose...A discovery that turns her paranoia into full-blown panic. Zoe is sure that someone close to her has set her up as the next target.

And now that man on the train—the one smiling at Zoe from across the car—could be more than just a friendly stranger. He could be someone who has deliberately chosen her and is ready to make his next move…

My Review:

Have you ever read or listened to a Clare Mackintosh book? No? Well I'm telling you, you need to change that right now. Mackintosh's books have some of the most shocking twits at the end that I've ever read!

I loved that I See You follows the main character Zoe in her everyday life. She rides the subway everyday, her everyday interactions with her kids and her boyfriend and Zoe going to work. So you see the ends and outs of her life and it really makes you realize how everything can just be the same and how easy it is for someone to start following you without you noticing it.

I See You also opened my eyes to the dark side of the internet. Although I do know that the dark net exists but to come face to face with what can happen on the internet is just terrifying. I use the internet for Youtube and discovering books to read and blogging and paying my bills. I don't usually think about all the bad things that can happen on the internet.

I See You is one of those audio books that makes me want to sit in my car and continue listening. Towards the end of this book I was a little bit shocked to find out who the perpetrator was. But then the last five minutes of the book shocked me so hard, I was in such disbelief that I just could not believe it!! If you haven't read Clare Mackintosh yet, you're lucky because she has two novel out for you to read and you need to go get them right now! 

Audio Book Review: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty

Title: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory
Author: Caitlin Doughty
Narrator: Caitlin Doughty
Publisher: W.W. Norton Company
Release Date: September 28, 2015
Genre: Non-Fiction/Memoir
Length: 7 hours and 44 mintues
Source: Purchased
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Find it Here: Amazon // Audible // Goodreads

Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty—a twenty-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre—took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life’s work. Thrown into a profession of gallows humor and vivid characters (both living and very dead), Caitlin learned to navigate the secretive culture of those who care for the deceased.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters and unforgettable scenes. Caring for dead bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, Caitlin soon becomes an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. She describes how she swept ashes from the machines (and sometimes onto her clothes) and reveals the strange history of cremation and undertaking, marveling at bizarre and wonderful funeral practices from different cultures.

Her eye-opening, candid, and often hilarious story is like going on a journey with your bravest friend to the cemetery at midnight. She demystifies death, leading us behind the black curtain of her unique profession. And she answers questions you didn’t know you had: Can you catch a disease from a corpse? How many dead bodies can you fit in a Dodge van? What exactly does a flaming skull look like?

Honest and heartfelt, self-deprecating and ironic, Caitlin's engaging style makes this otherwise taboo topic both approachable and engrossing. Now a licensed mortician with an alternative funeral practice, Caitlin argues that our fear of dying warps our culture and society, and she calls for better ways of dealing with death (and our dead).

My Review:

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty is one of the most interesting and unique memoirs I've ever read. I'm actually not all that into memoirs because the ones that I usually come across are celebrity memoirs and they just don't hold any interest for me. I believe I first heard about Smoke Gets in Your Eyes on the My Favorite Murder podcast and they only had good things to say about it.

Do you ever wonder why we do the things we do with our dead? Why do we preserve them and keep them looking as life like as possible? Why are we so afraid of letting them go? As Caitlin begins her career in the death industry, these are the questions she begins to ask not only herself but America.

Caitlin begins her career in death at a crematory to fulfill her somewhat morbid curiosity with death. As she goes deeper into the industry and learns more about the business, she comes face to face with other cultures and only just begins to scratch the surface of this aversion that Americans and the modern world have to death. As I continued listening to this memoir, the history nerd in me was hoping that she would go deeper into the way various cultures differ in how they deal with their dead. Luckily for me, her new book that's coming out soon is about just that!

If you're a bit of a nerd like me and you've always wondered what happens behind the closed doors of the crematories or funeral homes, I highly recommend Caitlin Doughty memoir. The audio book is just great and I guarantee you will learn more than you think! **Side note** If you like true crime and murder especially, I highly, highly recommend the My Favorite Murder podcast. You won't be disappointed! 

Audio Book Review: The Witness Wore Red by Rebecca Musser

Title: The Witness Wore Red: The 19th Wife who Brought Polygamous Cult Leaders to Justice

Author: Rebecca Musser
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Release Date: June 17, 2014
Genre: Non-Fiction
Length: 14hrs and 10min
Source: Purchased (Audible)
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Find it Here: Amazon // Goodreads

Rebecca Musser grew up in fear, concealing her family's polygamous lifestyle from the "dangerous" outside world. Covered head-to-toe in strict, modest clothing, she received a rigorous education at Alta Academy, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' school headed by Warren Jeffs. Always seeking to be an obedient Priesthood girl, in her teens she became the nineteenth wife of her people's prophet: 85-year-old Rulon Jeffs, Warren's father. Finally sickened by the abuse she suffered and saw around her, she pulled off a daring escape and sought to build a new life and family.
The church, however, had a way of pulling her back in-and by 2007, Rebecca had no choice but to take the witness stand against the new prophet of the FLDS in order to protect her little sisters and other young girls from being forced to marry at shockingly young ages. The following year, Rebecca and the rest of the world watched as a team of Texas Rangers raided the Yearning for Zion Ranch, a stronghold of the FLDS. Rebecca's subsequent testimony would reveal the horrific secrets taking place behind closed doors of the temple, sending their leaders to prison for years, and Warren Jeffs for life.
THE WITNESS WORE RED is a gripping account of one woman's struggle to escape the perverse embrace of religious fanaticism and sexual slavery, and a courageous story of hope and transformation.

Review:

I've always been fascinated with religious cults especially the FLDS Mormons and their polygamous ways. After reading The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner I knew that I would pretty much want to read anything that had to do with women escaping this harmful and dangerous cult.

I listened to The Witness Wore Red on audio book and I actually think that was a disservice to the book. It's read by it's author, Rebecca Musser, and she's not exactly a trained voice actor. While I know that all audio book narrators read the book off the page, most of the time it doesn't sound like they're just reading it off the page because they're pretty good a voice acting. Rebecca Musser sounded like she was just reading the book off the page and it made the narration sound forced.

As far as the validity of this book, I have no doubt that all of the horrors and atrocities actually took place just like Rebecca Musser says they did. But as far as remembering all the details from many years ago and which dresses each of her sister wives wore and the exact words from all the conversations she had with Warren Jeffs and the other various leader of the FLDS church, there was probably a lot of filling in the blanks. I can't remember what I had for lunch last week much less a word for word conversation that I had with my mom over ten years ago.

Rebecca Musser is so brave and courageous for being able to just escape the church and lie low much less to go public to testify against Warren Jeffs and then write about book about her experiences in the church. There are a lot of personal details and her personal experiences of being married to a man who was more than fifty years older than her. She truly is an inspiration to those who are in a bad place and want to change their life.

If you interested in more information on the FLDS Mormon Church I highly recommend both The Witness Wore Red by Rebecca Musser and The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner. Both are great and encouraging stories of women who would not all themselves to be oppressed or held back any longer!