Rachel Howzell Hall

It's in my Nature
Review of the Amazon Original Stories eBook (March 19, 2024), released simultaneously with the Audible Original audiobook.

In Southern California, there are four prevalent species of scorpions. Five, if you count Shane and Jocelyn Mayer. I'll have to watch my back as I drop down into that hole.

The title of this one made me immediately think of the fable rel="nofollow" target="_top">The Scorpion and the Frog and it did live up to that precedent. Francesca (Frankie) has made her living as a caregiver to a cantankerous senior named Ruben, after losing her college scholarship and becoming a petty thief. When she is turfed out by the uncaring current wife at the time of Ruben's passing, Frankie finds a note and a treasure map to stolen loot buried down an abandoned mine shaft by Ruben and the gang of his youth. But Frankie isn't the only one on the hunt.

The tension here is well done as the suspense builds while the reader wonders which of the current band of treasure seekers will betray the others and when. Or will the Death Valley desert and its scorpions get them first? An ironic ending is tacked on to close things off.

Scorpions is the fourth of six Amazon Original Stories eBooks/Audible Audio audiobooks released on March 19, 2024 as part of the Never Tell Collection of short stories which are promoted with the collective description:

"How well do you know people? How well do they know you? Six award-winning, bestselling authors of suspense explore the lingering threat of secrets and the inescapable fear that they can’t stay buried forever. No matter how dark the hiding place, the consequences of revealing the truth can bring out the worst in lovers, friends, family, and strangers."

Trivia and Links
Rachel Howzell Hall is the author of several novels, the most popular of which is What Never Happened (2023). Her most recent novel is What Fire Brings (expected publication June 11, 2024).

You can watch for current and past Amazon Original Stories which are usually paired with their Audible Original narrations at an Amazon page here (link goes to Amazon US, adjust for your own country or region).… (más)

How It Ends is a short, quick listen that follows Marty through her divorce and into her new single life. Sounds easy peasy until her almost ex, Emory, just doesn’t seem to understand she’s over him.

After Marty is attacked by a seeming stranger, the stakes become very high when Marty’s PTSD has her thinking every man was her attacker.

How It Ends comes with a punch that will leave your jaw hanging and leave you realizing you too might commit murder under the 'right' circumstances...… (más)

I picked this as my Kindle FirstReads book for August. It has a very unique concept and I was looking forward to digging in! It tells the story of Mickie Lambert, a 24-year old memory maker, who is hired to curate a collection of 12 items from a store owner, Nadia Denham. But she isn’t the only one who’s lurking around - Someone is sending her threatening messages and killing young women in the area. Mickie’s family is also hiding something, and it seems, so is everyone else in the area where Nadia works, and then her strange family starts showing up. And they have secrets, too.

This book has a lot of twists and almost everyone has a secret. The ending was a shocker, one I did not see coming. I did want to know what happened, what everyone’s secret was, and who the killer is. The family subplot was an interesting addition. And the stories behind each of Nadia’s 12 items were super interesting to read about.

I did find it a little hard to make it through to the end, for the reasons below, but I pushed through anyway.

However…I had a number of problems with the book. I wasn’t a fan of all the racist undertones. The author focused on people’s skin color an awful lot, and it almost came off as “Black = good” and “White = bad” (with a couple exceptions, of course). And why, when describing someone, was Black capitalized but white was not? And there were a lot of stereotypes surrounding both ethnic groups. I normally don’t pay attention to these things and instead choose to focus on the story, but here, it felt like it was shoved in my face repeatedly. The whole coronavirus mention felt randomly tacked in and caught me off guard. There are enough books referencing the pandemic and the virus, I didn’t want to read about it in a story where I read to escape reality for awhile. And, too many woke narratives for my liking (and I’m liberal leaning).

The main character, Mickie, was very unlikeable and annoying. She is 24 years old but acts like a spoiled, melodramatic, bratty teenager. Her friends weren’t much better, either, and I’m still not sure what their purpose was in the story. I didn’t find them likeable or relateable, either. Unfortunately the book is told in Mickie’s 1st person POV for 90% of it (and some chapters from the killer’s POV), so you’re spending the majority of time with this character. I didn’t agree with her motivations, either - she brought herself into this whole mess simply because she’s nosy.

Lastly, the writing style. I loved the author’s descriptions of places and things. But the writing style overall is very abrupt and disjointed and felt like reading the thoughts of a distracted person. The story didn’t flow well in some parts and I had to go back a few pages to see what I missed.

And the genre labels it as a thriller, but I found it to be more mystery with thriller elements. It was very slow and didn’t pick up until the last 1/4 of the book. So those who come in expecting a fast paced, exciting read will be disappointed. The first chapter and last 2-3 were the most exciting, IMO.

I hate giving any book lower than 4 or 5 stars because as a writer myself, I know books are a labor of love. Except this book just wasn’t for me and I’m not sure I’ll be reading any further works from this author.… (más)