Top Ten Tuesday – Books I Meant to Read In 2020 but Didn’t Get To
/46 Comments/by Suzanne
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!
This week’s TTT topic is Books I Meant to Read In 2020 but Didn’t Get To. This topic actually made me chuckle when I saw it because I actually have a list of 50-60 books I meant to read last year but couldn’t fit in. The ones I’m sharing today are books that I’m most hoping to get to sometime in the next few months.
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Books I Meant to Read In 2020 but Didn’t Get To
1. THE GIVER OF STARS by Jojo Moyes
2. THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS AND SNAKES by Suzanne Collins
3. HOUSE OF EARTH AND BLOOD by Sarah J. Maas
4. GODS OF JADE AND SHADOW by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
5. THE HOUSE IN THE CERULEAN SEA by T.J. Klune
6. A PROMISED LAND by Barack Obama
7. READY PLAYER TWO by Ernest Cline
8. THE TOLL by Neal Shusterman
9. TRANSCENDENT KINGDOM by Yaa Gyasi
10. WILD AT HEART by K.A. Tucker
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What books are you hoping to read soon that you didn’t get to in 2020?
Review: THE WIFE UPSTAIRS by Rachel Hawkins
/22 Comments/by SuzannePublished by St. Martin's Press on January 5, 2021
Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Retelling
Pages: 304
Source: Netgalley
Goodreads
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
Rachel Hawkins’ latest novel, The Wife Upstairs, is a domestic thriller that is inspired by the popular Gothic classic, Jane Eyre. Thankfully, however, you don’t have to have read Jane Eyre to thoroughly enjoy this dark and suspenseful tale. Jane Eyre’s Gothic English setting has been updated to a gated community in Birmingham, Alabama, and the Jane in this tale is not a governess, but instead is a professional dog walker.
As in the original tale, Jane is the classic underdog character. She grew up in foster care and has been struggling to make ends meet. She shares an apartment with a loser roommate who eats her food, uses her things without asking, and is just all around rude. Jane has some secrets in her past that she is running from and so she is living somewhat off the grid, making money by walking dogs for rich people in the elite Thornfield Estates and stealing trinkets from their homes to pawn for cash at every opportunity.
Life starts to look up for Jane, however, when she has a chance run-in with a handsome, wealthy widower, Eddie Rochester, while she’s out walking dogs. Because his wife and her best friend drowned in a boating accident and their bodies still haven’t been recovered, Eddie is the talk of the neighborhood amongst the bored housewife set. Jane sees her run in with Eddie as the doorway to a better life for herself, and lucky for her, Eddie is so enamored with her that he goes out and gets himself a dog so that he can hire Jane as his dog walker, which quickly escalates to Eddie asking Jane to move in with him. That’s when Jane starts to realize that what seems too good to be true may actually be just that and that Eddie may have just as many dark secrets lurking in his closet as she does in hers.
One thing that surprised me about The Wife Upstairs is that I didn’t particularly care for any of the characters. That was kind of a bummer since I would normally be rooting for the underdog, but something about Jane and her machinations just didn’t sit well with me and I felt the same way about Eddie. Even feeling ambivalent about them, however, I still found myself completely invested in the story. Why? Because, like those bored housewives, I really wanted to know the dirt on everyone. What is Jane running from? What is Eddie hiding? If those deaths were just an accident, why haven’t the bodies turned up? There were just so many questions and so many deliciously dark twists and each turn of the page would just ramp up the tension and suspense all the more.
I don’t want to say anything else because you really need to experience the unraveling of all of those deep, dark secrets yourself, but if you’re in the mood for a dark and suspenseful domestic thriller and/or are a fan of the original Jane Eyre, definitely check out The Wife Upstairs.
Review: IN THE GARDEN OF SPITE by Camilla Bruce
/24 Comments/by SuzannePublished by BERKLEY on January 19, 2021
Genres: Historical Fiction
Pages: 480
Source: Netgalley
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository
Goodreads
FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.
“Man Shall Inherit the Earth…Unless She Kills Him First.” I’ve been wanting to try one of Camilla Bruce’s books for a while now and when I saw this attention-grabbing tagline on the cover of her latest novel, In the Garden of Spite, I knew I had to read it. In the Garden of Spite is a work of historical fiction that follows the life of Belle Gunness, perhaps better known as “The Black Widow of La Porte,” one of the most famous female serial killers in American History.
Let me start by saying In the Garden of Spite isn’t for the faint of heart. Belle’s preferred methods of dispatching her victims ranged from poisons to cleavers, and she quite literally butchered them, chopping them into manageable pieces to make it easier to bury them in her backyard. So yes, it’s gory and gruesome at times, but if you can get past that, this story is a fascinating, in-depth look inside the mind of a serial killer. I was equally repulsed and riveted the entire time I was reading.
The author takes us through about thirty years of Belle’s life, from when she was a child living in poverty in Norway all the way through to the height of her killing spree once she has immigrated to America. Belle’s early life was not an easy one and the author paints a vivid portrait as to how abuse, trauma, and poverty could have shaped her into the very disturbed woman we meet in this book.
Belle is a truly fascinating character and I found myself drawn to her more than I expected to be. She’s not an especially likeable character, being a serial killer and all, but wow, her resourcefulness and determination is impressive! As twisted as she could be most of the time, I frequently found myself quite impressed by her at other times. How she managed to spin her way out of trouble time and time again, and how she is constantly able to reinvent herself. Normally an unlikeable main character would derail my enjoyment of a book, but Belle is just so fascinating that I found myself glued to the story in spite of myself.
One of my favorite parts of the story though is how Belle’s life is presented. The author uses two perspectives, 1) Belle’s and 2) Belle’s older sister, Nellie, who also lives in America. With Belle’s perspective, we obviously get that intimate look into what she’s thinking and feeling as she commits each heinous murder. With Nellie’s perspective though, we get the perspective of a family member who loves her sister deeply, but who is also torn between her desire to protect her baby sister from the world and her increasing suspicion that there is something truly broken in Belle and that she may be forced to do something about it. I just loved the contrast in these two points of view.
If you’re interested in learning more about The Black Widow of La Porte, I highly recommend In the Garden of Spite. It’s a dark and grisly, yet truly riveting tale.
About Camilla Bruce
Camilla Bruce is a Norwegian writer of dark speculative and historical fiction.
Her debut novel, You Let Me In, is out now from Bantam Press (UK) and Tor (US).
Her dark historical, In the Garden of Spite, will be published by Berkley (US) and Michael Joseph (UK) in 2021.