Book Review / Don't Breath a Word by Jennifer McMahon

 

 

On a soft summer night in Vermont, 12-year-old Lisa went into the woods behind her house and never came out again. Before she disappeared, she told her little brother, Sam, about a door that led to a magical place where she would meet the King of the Fairies and become his queen.

Fifteen years later, Phoebe is in love with Sam, a practical, sensible man who doesn't fear the dark and doesn't have bad dreams - who, in fact, helps Phoebe ignore her own. But suddenly the couple is faced with a series of eerie, unexplained occurrences that challenge Sam's hardheaded, realistic view of the world. As they question their reality, a terrible promise Sam made years ago is revealed - a promise that could destroy them all. 

 

 

 

Published:     17th May 2011
Publisher:  Harper
Goodreads :  Click here
Series or Stand-Alone:  Stand-Alone
Source:  Owned
 

 

MY REVIEW

I can't remember when I found this author but I have been slowly working my way through her backlist and this one was one of the last ones to read.  I can't believe I have waited this long to read all her books.  They are just so addicting!

We follow Phoebe who in the past hears about a girl who goes missing and visits the place only to see a boy in a window.  Years later she now has a boyfriend, Sam who she realises now was the boy in the window and the brother of the girl (Lisa) who had gone missing all those years ago.  Something tells Phoebe that there is more to this story than meets the eye, as is usually the case.  

I was expecting this story to have quite a few twists and turns but what I had not been expecting was how much 'supernatural' elements are in this story.  Although, for me the best part of the story was the missing girl and what really happened I certainly was intrigued with the supernatural elements and kept me wondering what on earth had gone on in the past.  

A n intriguing thriller that certainly kept me guessing until the very last page. 

Book Review / The One I Left Behind by Jennifer McMahon

Bestselling author Jennifer McMahon is back with a gut-wrenching mystery about an architect whose troubled mother has been found 25 years after being kidnapped-by a killer who is still on the loose.

The summer of 1985 changed Reggie's life. Thirteen, awkward, and without a father, she finds herself mixed up with her school's outcasts-Charlie, the local detective's son, and Tara, a goth kid who has a mental hold over Reggie and harbors a dark secret. That same summer a serial killer called Neptune begins kidnapping women. He leaves their severed hands on the police department steps and, five days later, displays their bodies around town. Just when Reggie needs her mother Vera-an ex-model with many "boyfriends" and a thirst for gin-the most, Vera's hand is found on the steps. But after five days, there's no body and Neptune disappears.

Now a successful architect who left her hometown behind after that horrific summer, Reggie doesn't trust anyone and lives with few attachments. But when she gets a call from a homeless shelter saying that her mother has been found alive, Reggie must confront the ghosts of her past and find Neptune before he kills again.

With her signature style, Jennifer McMahon portrays the dark side of adolescent friendship and introduces characters who haunt the imagination, along with a disturbing web of secrets, betrayals, and murder.

Published:     1st January 2013
Publisher:  William Morrow
Goodreads :  Click here
Series or Stand-Alone: Stand-Alone
Source:  Owned

MY REVIEW

I've read one or two of this author's books so far and I am loving each one of them and if possible they are getting better and better the more I read (no matter in what order - whether it is backlist or new). 

We follow Reggie in this story and follow her story both in the past and the present day.  In the past we follow her when she is thirteen and her mother goes missing and is presumed to have been captured by the serial killer that is going around chopping off hands, leaving them at the police station and then after a period of a few days killing his or her victim.  In the present, we see Reggie who has moved away from her homedown and is a successful architect.  Now she finds that the mother that she had thought had been killed so many years ago is alive, she goes back to her home town. 

What I loved the most about this story was the plot and how many twists and turns could possibly be in this story.  Just when I thought the story was taking me one way it changes and I was left thinking what on earth was going on and I loved it!  The best part by a long shot was the double reveal twist at the end.  I wasn't expecting it.

A truly spectactular thriller that you need to pick up!

Book Review/ Island of Lost Girls by Jennifer McMahon

While parked at a gas station, Rhonda sees something so incongruously surreal that at first she hardly recognizes it as a crime in progress. She watches, unmoving, as someone dressed in a rabbit costume kidnaps a young girl. Devastated over having done nothing, Rhonda joins the investigation. But the closer she comes to identifying the abductor, the nearer she gets to the troubling truth about another missing child: her best friend, Lizzy, who vanished years before.

From the author of the acclaimed Promise Not to Tell comes a chilling and mesmerizing tale of shattered innocence, guilt, and ultimate redemption.







Published:     22nd April 2008
Publisher:  William Morrow
Goodreads :  Click here
Series or Stand-Alone:  Stand-Alone
Source:  Owned

MY REVIEW

If it is possible to say for a mystery thriller style book but this was a fun read!  Being such a short book, it certainly does pack a punch and fits in quite a lot of twists and turns along the way.

There are two separate main time lines in this story - one is back in the past and the disappearance of Lizzie and one is the disappearance of a new girl.  Both had mention of a rabbit in some way - either they were in the woods with a rabbit or was taken by someone dressed as one.   This is one of those classic who done it and are they going to find the girl alive type stories but it is exactly what I wanted when I picked up this story and exactly what I got.

I was not surprised by much of the story, including the twists and turns, but the story of getting to the end was really fun and the writing was so easy to follow with the plot being fast paced, which is exactly what it should be.

Book Review / Girl in the Woods by Jennifer McMahon

"The New York Times" bestselling author of the acclaimed "Island of Lost Girls" and "Promise Not to Tell" returns with a chilling novel in which the secrets of the past come back to haunt a group of friends in terrifying ways.

Dismantlement = Freedom

Henry, Tess, Winnie, and Suz banded together in college to form a group they called the Compassionate Dismantlers. Following the first rule of their manifesto--"To understand the nature of a thing, it must be taken apart"--these daring misfits spend the summer after graduation in a remote cabin in the Vermont woods committing acts of meaningful vandalism and plotting elaborate, often dangerous, pranks. But everything changes when one particularly twisted experiment ends in Suz's death and the others decide to cover it up.

Nearly a decade later, Henry and Tess are living just an hour's drive from the old cabin. Each is desperate to move on from the summer of the Dismantlers, but their guilt isn't ready to let them go. When a victim of their past pranks commits suicide--apparently triggered by a mysterious Dismantler-style postcard--it sets off a chain of eerie events that threatens to engulf Henry, Tess, and their inquisitive nine-year-old daughter, Emma.

Is there someone who wants to reveal their secrets? Is it possible that Suz did not really die--or has she somehow found a way back to seek revenge?

Full of white-knuckle tension with deeply human characters caught in circumstances beyond their control, Jennifer McMahon's gripping story and spine-tingling plot prove that she is a master at weaving the fear of the supernatural with the stark realities of life.

Published:     2009
Publisher:  Little Brown
Goodreads :  Click here
Series or Stand-Alone:  Stand-Alone
Source:  Library

MY REVIEW

What I liked about this story...  I just could not put this down.  At 423 pages, I knew that I would not be able to read this in one sitting but I try, really hard!  The one thing that I am really loving about Jennifer McMahon's writing is that sense of creepiness and a sense of the paranormal or something not quite right.  In this story, we follow Henry and Tess all grown up with a kid of their own.  They seem like a normal family but there's a lot more to this couple than meets the eye.  They certainly have a past that they would prefer to keep hidden but someone or something has other plans about that.  All the trouble starts when their daughter discovers a box of old things and leans about the Compassionate Dismantlers.  Not knowing how bad it would turn out to be, she decides to try and make her parents happy again by sending invitations to those who were part of the Compassionate Dismantlers.   There are quite a few twists and turns in this story that kept me hooked right until the very last page!

 In summary...  A very creepy book with a lot of twists and turns to keep you wanting to read more.  If you love thrillers, you need to pick up this book!

Book Review / Promise Not to Tell by Jennifer McMahon

Forty-one-year-old school nurse Kate Cypher has returned home to rural Vermont to care for her mother who's afflicted with Alzheimer's. On the night she arrives, a young girl is murdered—a horrific crime that eerily mirrors another from Kate's childhood. Three decades earlier, her dirt-poor friend Del—shunned and derided by classmates as "Potato Girl"—was brutally slain. Del's killer was never found, while the victim has since achieved immortality in local legends and ghost stories. Now, as this new murder investigation draws Kate irresistibly in, her past and present collide in terrifying, unexpected ways. Because nothing is quite what it seems . . . and the grim specters of her youth are far from forgotten.

More than just a murder mystery, Jennifer McMahon's extraordinary debut novel, Promise Not to Tell, is a story of friendship and family, devotion and betrayal—tautly written, deeply insightful, beautifully evocative, and utterly unforgettable.

Published:     10th April 2007
Publisher:  William Morrow
Goodreads :  Click here
Series or Stand-Alone:  Stand-Alone
Source:  Library

MY REVIEW

I hereby declare that Jennifer McMahon has been added to my list of favourite authors of all time - and I have only read one of her books so far!!!!  I just could not put this one down.  Initially, when picking this book up I thought it was going to be a thriller, a whodoneit or maybe a chase to catch the killer.  Yes, this is a thriller but it is so much more than that.

This story is split between the past and the present.  You have Kate, the main character who is returning home to care for her ill mother.  On her return, a girl is murdered.  You would think this is disturbing enough but this is not the first time Kate has experienced a death.  In the past, three decades earlier, we see her story when she was a child where she makes friends with the 'potato girl'.  With those two stories running alongside each other, I very much had the sense of something else going on.  Maybe something paranormal?

I adored this book.  If I had to catagorise this I would call it a haunting suspense with quite a few plot twists to keep you on your toes.  Very creepy but addicting!!!  Can't wait to read more from this author.