Sometimes I get tired of being the one who is responsible; it often means I get stuck doing everything myself. My mother told me to ignore little imperfections and let others do some things for me, but it isn’t easy. I’m working on it, and sometimes people surprise me.
In Megan Abbott’s Give Me Your Hand, Marie Curie lurks in the background as the model for two responsible girls who aspire to make a difference in the world of science, and would rather do it themselves. Kit Owens doesn’t realize her full potential until she is challenged by the seemingly perfect new girl in class, Diane Fleming. Best friends and competitors, the two rise to a final challenge when they meet again as adults, and then their worlds explode.
Secrets challenge the reader’s expectations, and Megan Abbott writes in the same vein as Ruth Ware, with complicated characters and twisting plot notes. Lots of murders dot the landscape, and the story is scary.
When I started to read this book, I thought I had read it before; pieces seemed familiar Sure enough I found I had reviewed it last year, but I had forgotten the plot and how it ended. Has that happened to you?
Ruth Ware is back with another quiet and tense thriller – The Lying Game. With an eerie Gothic setting, human bones found near a boarding school, and a group of schoolgirls who made lying an art, Ware creates a murder mystery with enough red herrings and sudden reveals to keep the reader wondering about the girls’ secret. In a clever twist of plot, the crime seems to be revealed early in the book, but the wary reader will be justified to hold back judgment. Everyone is lying after all – even the author. Not as riveting as Dark Dark Wood or The Woman in Cabin 10, but The Lying Game has Ware’s steady hand as she mystifies and teases; the ending is almost an afterthought as the secrets unravel; a great book to read on a dark and stormy night.
Sometimes a scary novel is a welcome alternative to reality, and Ruth Ware has the right formula in The Woman in Cabin 10. On the eve of the big political debate in the United States, with the two prospective Presidents ready to attack each other on live television, I found myself avoiding the front pages and the review sections of the New York Times, glancing at the arts section and opting instead to read Ware’s book – on the bestseller list now for weeks. Starting slowly with a burglary and escalating quickly into a mystery thriller on an elite ocean liner, The Woman in Cabin 10 successfully delivered me from real political moments to a solvable mystery.
The No Charge Book Bunch 