bethreadsandnaps's reviews
2632 reviews

In Alice Feeney’s latest novel BEAUTIFUL UGLY, the reader meets Grady, an author who has lost his writing mojo since his wife Abby’s disappearance a year ago. When his agent offers him the use of her inherited cabin on a remote Scottish island (population: under 30), Grady jumps at it. Once there, he sees what looks like his missing wife and also finds a completed manuscript of a recently deceased writer. If you enjoyed THE PLOT, THE SEQUEL, or YELLOWFACE, you’ll see echoes of those plots in this one. In my opinion, those novels were a tad stronger than this one though. 

I really enjoyed the novel up until Grady got to the island. The island life got a little frustrating for me as a reader, as Grady seemed to lose almost all agency and IQ points. It was entertaining enough, and, while my early guess about the plot wasn’t completely correct, it was close enough. 

There are two audiobook narrators for this novel (one male, one female). The male author gets more air time, as Grady’s perspective is most of the book. There are some sound effects added which do make the audio feel more atmospheric. Those effects tend to be at the beginning of chapters and aren’t distracting. Due to the good production value, I think this one would be better to take in on audio than paper.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an advance listener copy in exchange for an honest review. 

BEAUTIFUL UGLY publishes January 14, 2025. 

 

3.25 stars

WHY is this detective novel 1,300 pages? WHY? It's about the mysterious death of an online game creator, and the reader is privy to SO MANY in-game chat messages. SO MANY! And they are simultaneous, often three columns of separate text at a time. 

The author (Robert Galbraith aka J.K. Rowling) obviously wanted to get her 2020 bad publicity in here, so there are many Twitter takedowns of these characters that are parallels to her life. 

As for the actual story, I don't really feel the chemistry between Strike and Robin. I like them individually and feel they are each well-formed, but this modern-day Moonlighting (partner PIs that keep missing each other) doesn't have a ton of appeal for me.

As I said, the mystery is dragged out so much in this one that I felt like it was going to have a much bigger and better conclusion than it did. It was actually kind of a letdown. 

I was touched at what Strike did for Robin at the end of this one - more of a professional kindness than a personal one because, as I said, not really caring for them to be a couple. 

If this were half the page count, I probably would have given it 4 stars.    

 

In Kristin Koval’s debut PETINENCE the reader enters the world of forgiveness, as the title suggests, for some truly unforgivable actions. Angie and David’s 13-year old daughter Nora shoots and kills her 14-year old brother Nico. They enlist Angie’s first love Julian’s mother Martine as Nora’s criminal defense attorney. This brings up the convoluted past, denoted by both tragedy and secrets, between Angie and Julian. 

While I thought at first this would be like DEFENDING JACOB, but PENITENCE doesn’t stay in the legal space. I’d say it’s more of a mash-up of DEFENDING JACOB with an Angie Kim novel.  

PROs:

* This novel gives the reader a lot to think about.

* The world consists of shades of gray, and that haziness is explored. 

* The twists weren’t shocking and were expected well in advance. I’d say this is a pro because it indicates the plot had good groundwork. This isn’t a popcorn thriller so I don’t want twist after twist.

CONs:

* It does come across a bit heavy-handed with its themes. 

* I thought it could have explored Nora’s motivations more than it did, and it was difficult to get to know the main characters. 

* Possibly tied with the previous, I didn’t always like the writing style. I tend to like a closer third person or even first person narration, and this felt too far removed from the characters, more tell and less show.

Therese Plummer is the audiobook narrator. I thought she did an okay job - not bad, not great. I’d suggest sticking with how you tend to like to read books with this one, whether that be print or audio.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an advance listener copy in exchange for an honest review. 

PENITENCE publishes January 28, 2025. 

4.75 stars

Oftentimes, I like a memoir because I learn about another person, sometimes deep enough that you really understand what makes a person tick. 

But this one goes even deeper, to those raw emotions, that Lisa Marie felt as a young girl and how these manifested as she grew. I think the added reflections from her daughter Riley really make this impactful because there is an additional lens for those memories. 

Outstanding!

 

Jessie Garcia’s debut adult thriller novel THE BUSINESS TRIP brings a lot of heart-pounding suspense with a good amount of believability until the very end. Justine is fleeing a violent partner, and Stephanie is on her way to a work conference for news directors. They get on the same flight, and then they can’t be found after except for clues that lead them to the same man. Were they both victims at the hand of a serial killer? 

I thought this novel had a nice balance of action and getting into the head of the “bad guy.” As a reader, I don’t always see that a complete confession happens, so I did like that we got a rationale and play-by-play. It did get a little implausible at the very end (at about 90%), which is a lot longer than I usually go before rolling my eyes at a popcorn thriller. I was hopeful to get through the whole novel without an eyeroll, and, while that didn’t happen, I did get through the vast majority of the novel before it occurred.  

There are ten audiobook narrators for this novel, one for each perspective. However, each perspective doesn’t have the same amount of “air time,” so to speak. Don’t feel pressured to be able to identify each of their voices. I thought all the narrators did a great job. I’d recommend taking in this novel on audio.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an advance listener copy in exchange for an honest review. 

THE BUSINESS TRIP publishes January 14, 2025. 

4.25 stars 

 

I have read all three of Tracey Lange’s novels now, and I have to say that her upcoming novel WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MCCRAYS? is my favorite. The author has a theme in all her writing so far, and that’s healing after crisis/tragedy. Her other two novels focused on big family sibling dynamics, but this one focused on divorced couple Kyle and Casey. 

 

I think you might not know what to expect by looking at the cover. Were the McCrays taken from their house in the dead of winter? No. The McCrays are a divorced couple, and Kyle has been summoned back to his hometown to help out after his father is hospitalized. Casey still lives in the town. This novel moves back and forth between present day and the history of their relationship. 

 

There are plot-related triggers in this novel (two big ones!), so check a more thorough summary if you feel that would turn you off. 

 

Why I didn’t rate this higher is the main thrust of this novel isn’t very original. I’ve seen it quite a bit. I did think Lange had a deft hand in her writing though. She drops enough hints that you can piece together what happened before it’s revealed. Because this is a novel about healing and not one of suspense, I was completely good with not having any jaw-dropping moments. 

 

I thought the main characters  were good people going through stuff, so I had a good amount of empathy with them. 

 

There were two audiobook narrators, one male and one female, for this novel. Since the perspective switched between Casey and Kyle, the two narrators made sense. It also made it easier to keep track whose perspective the reader was in, and both narrators did a great job. I’d recommend taking in this novel on audio. 

 

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for an advance listener copy in exchange for an honest review. 

 

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MCCRAYS? publishes January 14, 2025. 

 

#whathappenedtothemccrays #traceylange  #netgalley #netgalleyreviewer  #bookstagram  @Macmillanaudio 

 

3.5 ⭐️

Colleen McCullough’s THE THORN BIRDS takes the reader through Meggie’s life, starting when she was just 4 years old and the youngest in a family of older brothers through the end of her life. I found her role in the family interesting and how it impacted some of her decisions. 

There were parts of this story that seemed a bit implausible and overwrought. Fundamentally, I’d say this is a romance, and I think that’s a downside of that genre, in general, to me. 

How Luke was crafted annoyed me. He seemed like a decent guy and then became evil the moment they married. A few elements felt too simple. 

However, this novel has been on my list for a while, and I’m glad I finally got to it.

3.75 ⭐️

The author Griffin Dunne is the son of Dominick Dunne, the nephew of Joan Didion, and good friend of Carrie Fisher. This is a who’s who of the 1970s/early 1980s. I might be a hair too young to fully appreciate some of the pop culture moments, actors (though I recognized most of the names), and movies discussed in this memoir. Much of this felt name drop-py and self—serving. One part I particularly liked was how he told his perspective on his sister Dominique’s murder and subsequent trial of her murderer John Sweeney.

I always find it interesting to see what an author focuses on in their memoir. This memoir ends in 1990 with the author’s wedding to Carey Lowell and birth of his child Hannah. I’m not sure if this was intended to be Part 1 or if he thinks nothing noteworthy has happened in his life since 1990. 🤷‍♀️ This reader would have preferred the author to include post-1990 reflections. 

3.75 stars

Glad I finally got to this, read it because my daughter had to read it for school. The timing of reading this before a second Trump administration is appropriate. 

 

4.75 stars

While I have several of Jonathan Evison’s books on my list, his upcoming release THE HEART OF WINTER is the first novel I’ve read by him. I was so blown away by it! 

In this novel, we are introduced to an elderly (on the cusp of 90 years old) married couple Abe and Ruth. Ruth discovers a loose tooth in 2023, and that leads to a cancer diagnosis. The reader is then taken through the journey of them meeting and their marriage from the 1950s through 2024. This is a study of these two people as individuals and their marriage together. They had a tough early marriage with a child right away, causing Ruth to feel saddled by domesticity, and Abe making decisions for both of them without talking to his wife. When things evened out some, they lost their second daughter. Life was often bumpy, but these two stuck it out. 

I felt like I identified with each Ruth and Abe in some ways, and I felt that Evison drew the characters so well. There were specific scenes toward the end that broke my heart - and one that also made me laugh when Abe was looking for prune juice at Safeway. 

Character-driven readers who enjoy reading about a character over a lifetime (think THE HEART’S INVISIBLE FURIES) are the target demographic for this book. I think this will strike a chord for middle-aged readers, like me, as well. They can identify with the life decisions these characters experienced for much of the novel, and they can also see a preview of what’s coming in the future or perhaps identify with what their parents are dealing with. I loved how the author created scenes, but sometimes there was more narration when I thought a scene or longer scene would make the point better. 

“Sometimes we need a complement, a contradiction, a counterpoint to be our best selves.”

Thank you to NetGalley and Dutton Books for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. 

THE HEART OF WINTER publishes January 7, 2025.