Rachel Howzell HallReseñas

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...

Obit writer returns to island where her family was muerfered

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.

Collette Weber sneaked out of her house one night. When she found her way back, her mother, father, and brother had been brutally murdered. They had just moved to Catalina Island, where her father was a teacher. At 16 she went to live with her aunt Gwen, her father's sister in LA. At the age of 35 she returns to Catalina Island after a break up with her husband, Micah. Collette is an award winning obituary writer for the Los Angeles Times. She is hired by the local newspaper as a journalist. The newspaper owner was her college roommate. The house her parents bought in 2001 was being lived in by Gwen, her aunt, although the house belongs to Collette. It has fallen on hard times and needs a lot of work. After being on Catalina Island only a short time, Collette feels like she is being watched and vandalism happens to her house several times. Then she discovers that older women are being murdered and their houses put on the real estate market. A man tries to kill her, but he leaves a fingerprint on her cheek along with DNA under her fingernails.

What Never Happened by Rachel Howzell Hall is a highly recommended investigative mystery.

Twenty years before, Colette “Coco” Weber was the only survivor of a deadly home invasion the took the life of her parents and brother. She was more than willing to leave the Catalina Island home she inherited with her Aunt Gwen in residence and make a career on the mainland. She does well and finds success as an award winning obituary writer. Later, when her relationship breaks up and she learns Aunt Gwen may need some assistance, she accepts a job with the local paper and moves back to Catalina. Once she returns, strange and ominous things begin to happen.

Both Coco and Gwen are fully realized characters while the rest of the characters simply fulfill various roles in the plot. Coco has a prickly personality which may be off-putting, however she also has perfectly legitimate reasons for her attitude. The island and the inhabitants in general also become characters in the novel.

What Never Happened is plot driven by two different mysteries that beg to be solved. The first is who murdered Coco's family as new evidence exonerated the man convicted years earlier. The second mystery that officials seem unconcerned with involves the large number of elderly women who have recently been found dead on the island.

The pace of the novel is uneven. There were sections were I was fully engaged with the plot and immersed in the action. There were other times my interest in the narrative waned. Even with the murder mysteries I had to force myself to keep reading. At over 400 pages perhaps a bit more editing could have tightened up the narrative to keep the action moving along smoothly. Still, this is a very entertaining mystery.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Thomas & Mercer via NetGalley.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2023/07/what-never-happened.html

Started out really good and interesting, and then just dragged on and on and on. Mickie is a classic mystery-thriller dumb bitch, but at least the author wrote that into the plot fairly early. Also, Mickie's reaction to her "family secret" was ridiculously overdramatic. The plot was predictable, but I did enjoy it for what it is-which is a pretty basic thriller, though it could've definitely been shorter (specifically all of Mickie's personal/family drama could have been removed or cut down significantly. I feel like it didn't add anything to the story).

3.5 stars

A really interesting well told mystery.

Good story. Got bogged down midway through but picked back up towards the end. Will def be reading more books by this author.

Loved the addition of “Beloved” to the story.

Short Story - A sister suspects that her future sister-in-law is not the person her brother believes her to be . A camping pre-wedding meeting in Zion National part = glam camping pre-wedding is not what it appears

From Amazon: A gripping short thriller about a young woman whose dreamy “glamping” weekend becomes her worst nightmare.

Still mourning the death of her own fiancée, Lauren Hudson must put on a brave face for her family as they gather in Zion National Park for her brother’s wedding. He’s co-founded a “glamping” (glamorous camping) start-up with Sadie, the soon-to-be bride whom the rest of the Hudsons have yet to meet, and they’re hosting their small destination wedding for their nearest and dearest right on their own campgrounds. But not long after Lauren arrives on the scenic property, doubts creep in about Sadie - could she be harboring a sinister secret? Or is the trauma of Lauren’s own past clouding her judgment? With the wedding looming ever closer, can Lauren discover and expose the truth before it’s too late?

Please note: This audio contains strong language, distressing situations, and descriptions of violence that some listeners may find upsetting. Discretion is advised.

Grayson is on a case as a PI. She is on the search for Isabel.... But does Isabel want to be found?
This is a true cat and mouse game.
At first I was a little worried.... Started out a little slow. By the 3rd chapter I was really getting into the book.
Graysons search becomes very dangerous.
I loved the twists and turns the book had. It's was very easy to read.
My first time reading anything from this author and I'll be glad when she writes another novel.

Thank you NetGalley for this Complimentary read!

If you have mental disorders in your family, you will especially relate to the themes touched on in this story. Bipolar disorder is a horrible illness that wrecks lives and families. Thankfully, the drugs to treat this are getting better than they were in the time period of this book's setting.
Another theme explored in this book is parents and their favoritism for one child over others of their children. This, combined with mental disorders, can be deadly. When a society, and families, refuse to admit to and treat mental illness, that's when the United States suffers as a country with one of the highest rated of gun violence in the world. Well, the NRA doesn't help.
Kudos to the author for a well-written work that deals with these difficult themes.

I was looking forward to reading We Lie Here by Rachel Howzell Hall because most times family dramas and mysteries are a good read. And I had read that this author’s writing career was to be admired. But Yara Gibson and her family add so much dysfunction to this story that it is almost impossible to find a character who is at least bearable. Yara is a television writer in California and she uses her vacation time to organize a twenty-fifth wedding anniversary celebration for her parents in Palmdale. Sounds pretty good. But the more I read, the more I wanted to get to the end quickly. So many chapters are spent discussing Yara’s inhaler and other uninteresting subjects. There are a lot of possibilities here but most are not put to good use. The drama in this family is over the top and even a great ending does not make this novel shine. I will make a point of reading other books by Rachel Howzell Hall because I assume that We Lie Here is a one-off. Thank you to Thomas & Mercer, NetGalley and the author for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A very well written story of a dysfunctional marriage, and a husband who goes missing and presumed dead. However You are never quite sure if he is alive or dead, or haunting his wife, or perhaps she is just losing her mind. Then again maybe her friends are conspiring to make her lose her mind. It will keep you guessing until the end.

We Lie Here by Rachel Howzell Hall is a recommended domestic thriller.

Yara Gibson, a writer on a television crime drama, reluctantly leaves L.A. and returns to her childhood home in Palmdale, California, to oversee her parents’ 20th wedding anniversary party. Her 19 year-old sister can't help in any constructive way. Her dominating, bossy, and demanding mother wants a party, so Yara feels pressured into making sure she gets what she wants. Adding to the stress is the fact that Yara is asthmatic. The desert dust storms already present a problem, but her mother's demand that Yara stay at the family's home among the pervasive cigarette smoke surely mean nothing but wheezing and struggling for the next breathe.

Then, soon after her arrival, a stranger sends her a text saying, "I have information that will change your life." The message is from a woman called Felicia Campbell, who claims to be a childhood friend of Yara’s mother. She is insistent that the two have to talk. She leaves a key to remote lakeside cabin for Yara, but soon after this Felicia's body is found. What is the big secret and who would kill Felicia to prevent her from telling it to Yara.

Yara is the narrator of the novel and she is a completely realized and sympathetic character. She is really the only appealing character in the novel. She is likable, which kept me reading, but at the same time, there are a couple of fundamental questions that immediately came to mind. The first is the reliability of Yara as a narrator. She has admitted she's forgetful and has anxiety issues. The second is her maturity or inner strength. She is seemingly incapable of saying no to her mother. She didn't just tell her mother: No, I am staying at the hotel. I am trying to quit smoking and will not stay at the smoke filled house. Additionally, her mother demanded that Yara throw her big party for a 20th anniversary, not a really common thing to do.

The greatest drawback to We Lie Here, however, is the very slow pace through most of the novel. It requires a commitment to stay with it until the more intriguing questions arise. Once mysteries begin and secrets begin to be revealed, the plot quickly becomes more interesting, twisty, and intriguing. The ending was worth the long slog through most of the novel.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Thomas & Mercer via NetGalley½

Well, it was okay. Michaela "Mickie" was overly naïve and desperate over a man. She was way too accommodating to sour puss Riley. But I liked that she came from a happy family who loved her. It was unique to see a twenty-four year old who still mostly lived with her parents. I also loved learning about her job; it sounded fascinating.

The mystery felt fast-paced in the accusations and suspicious behavior, but the other elements felt so slow. At times, it felt like the story would never end. As it dragged on so did my enthusiasm. Gentrification also played a big part in the background. The romance here was crusty dishrag dry. It felt like it was here as an obligation.

I don't have much experience with mysteries that aren't from the perspective of a detective, so I was oblivious to whatever common mystery/thriller tropes. But I guessed the Tyler Perry twist and the killer but it took me a while, so there's some praise in order.

Ending spoiler: Nadia's reasoning makes me itch. she started killing vulnerable women because she was a boring plain jane. make it make sense.

Disappointing takeoff of "And Then There Were None" without any real suspense.

Such A Sight In Your Life
Review of the Audible Original audiobook edition (April 7, 2022)

I needed a few short books to keep my April 2022 book-a-day streak going and the novella length See How They Run stood out due to its intriguing cover image and the title allusion to the old Three Blind Mice nursery rhyme. It didn't really live up to either of those.

The dialogue here is pitched at a millennials level with influencer-type people referring to their "socials" and using various other youth slang. I felt several decades removed from that and it was difficult to identify with anyone, except perhaps the parents who were offscreen for most of the story anyway.

A reformed alcoholic is asked to her brother's rather spontaneous wedding at his camp grounds. The parents are supposed to attend as well but are stopped due to a supposedly cancelled flight. The sister spots the future sister-in-law canoodling with a stranger at the airport and her suspicions are up. Will she be able to convince her brother to stop the wedding in time and is there some other sort of plot afoot? Due to her own past issues and loss of a fiancé through an accident, her opinion is doubted by others and undermined by the suspicious bride-to-be. The plot was intriguing enough and the narration was ok, but the dialogue was often cringe.

I've read that Audible Originals authors sign Audible exclusivity contracts for at least a six-month period before they are allowed to issue the work in print or eBook formats, so non-audio Howzell Hall fans will have to wait for a bit. Meanwhile, her next novel We Lie Here is available soon, expected July 12, 2022.

An updated story of And Then There Was None. The book has his good and bad points. I wish there was a little more humor. It wasn't a bad story, but I don't think it completely capture the essence of the book it is to aspire to. Sometimes I wanted to slap the protagonist and didn't really have a lot of sympathy toward her.

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

I read and enjoyed a couple of this author's Elouise Norton books, but this one was a big disappointment. The only character who was at all likeable and normal was Yara's boyfriend Shane, and he was barely in it. Other than that the novel consisted of people quarrelling spitefully with one another, sending each other mysterious and/or threatening and spiteful text messages, Yara losing things and discovering things and repeatedly going places which would exacerbate her asthma. I am not a big fan of novels where the female protagonist's memory cannot be trusted because of past trauma or because she is on medication, but mainly this didn't work for me because it was all a lot of a fuss over not very much, and the characters were just so exhausting and unpleasant.

We still have a week of January left and this is the second book that I've abandoned. I feel like I should be giving an, 'It's not you, it's me' speech. Except it's not all me this time. Take a look at that cover. See where it says 'A Thriller'. That right there is the problem. I'm halfway through and I'm not feeling the thrill. Not even a little.

I can see that I should be and that, maybe, the last half of the book will suddenly become tense as the person or persons who are stalking our heroine finally take action beyond sending scary notes and threatening texts. I'll never know.

The thing I regret about setting this book aside is that I like Rachel Howzell Hall's writing. When I was a quarter of the way through 'These Toxic Things', I was having fun, mainly because of how well Mickie Lambert, the heroine of the story, was described. Her whole experience of life was so different from my own and I don't know anyone like her yet I found her very credible.

The thing that surprised me most is her relationship with her family. She's a grown woman, a college graduate a few years into a job with a start-up in an interesting field yet her baseline expectation is that, whatever happens, her family will take care of her. She breaks up with her lover, who is also her boss and she moves back home to mum and dad. She gets threatening messages and thinks she's being followed, she asks her father and her uncle (OK, they're cops) to fix it. Her relationship with her family is enviable but also feels juvenile. The degree to which she expects to be protected astonishes me. She seems to have led an incredibly sheltered life. She expects to be loved and she expects things to work out OK in the end.

Mickie has a strong tendency to romanticise her life, to turn everything into a story and usually a story in which everything is sweet and nice and people are good even if bad things do happen. She's been clever enough to turn this way of looking at the world into a job for herself. She 'curates' memories related to objects and places and people and stores them in a digital Memory Box. I know this idea would sell but I hated it as soon as I heard it. It's a turn-your-life-into-a-Hallmark-movie-with-you-as-the star approach that turns me off.

At the start of the book, I thought this was all good. I assumed that, when the toxic things promised by the title turned up, Mickie's worldview would be shattered, she'd discover that she's vulnerable to the nasty things in life and it would either break her or make her stronger. There are some good hints that her family know more than they're saying and it seems likely that Mickie is being pursued by two dangerous people, at least one of whom is a serial killer.

How can I walk away from all that? Well, because nothing is happening. I'm waiting for Little Red Ridinghood to meet the wolf but the wolf hasn't shown. And Mickie's groundless optimism and endless romanticisation alternating with complete panic when under any kind of pressure are beginning to irritate me. I'm starting to wonder if I'd end up cheering the wolf.

I'm six hours and a half hours into the audiobook. There are six more hours to go. I could almost read another whole book in that time. So, it's bye-bye Mickie. I hope your family can protect you from the monsters when they finally arrive - unless, of course, they are the monsters.

Michaela Mickie Lambert is a digital archaeologist. She makes digital memory ‘scrapbooks’ for clients to record the images and provenance of cherished items for clients to ensure they are remembered. When her latest client, Nadia Dunham, owner of a curio shop and in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, commits suicide just as the project is startng, Mickie decides to continue with it since it is already paid for. As she researches each item Nadia has left for her, she discovers they were all from women Nadia had helped in the past but, as Mickie, dives deeper into their stories, she discovers they are all either missing or dead. And now Mickie is receiving threatening messages under her door..

I really enjoyed the premise of These Toxic Things by Rachel Howzell Hall and the first chapter offered the promise of a fast-paced and engrossing story. Unfortunately, it didn’t fuly live up to this promise. Instead, it often got bogged down in other sub-plots that added little to the main story and too often served only to slow it down. I also didn’t much care for Mickie who I found very hard to relate to.

Still, I did finish it and the ending certainly went a long way to mitigate these criticisms so, overall, I would recommend it for fans of thrillers looking for something a little different and aren’t concerned about the pace.

Thanks to Netgalley & Thomas & Mercer for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review½

Unique and Thrilling
These Toxic Things by Rachel Howzell Hall is an amazing and unputdownable thriller. Each and every page has something new to offer. The climax will definitely blow your mind. The book turned out to be real page turner with a superb plot. Also, each and every character has a different story. The book is a wonderful thriller recipe for 2021. I am glad that I have read the book. You would not be disappointed by adding it to your TBR. I would definitely give the book 5 stars. Also, I am thankful to Netgalley for providing me an opportunity to read the book.

1.5 stars

Best of an island is once you get there—you can’t go any further … you’ve come to the end of things.
AGATHA CHRISTIE, AND THEN THERE WERE NONE

This is supposed to be inspired by/reimagining of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, I've never read that book, so I can't speak to any of that. I can speak to my own likes and dislikes and I greatly disliked the style and structure of the writing and story. It's in first person pov, not my favorite but I can handle it, but what I couldn't handle was the stream of consciousness writing paired with an unreliable narrator. Both are styles and techniques that I struggle with, if you don't have the same dislike, your mileage would greatly vary and be better than mine with this book.

We Have a Winner!

Our pov character is Miriam and she is getting ready to take off to vacation on an island off Mexico, Mictlan Island. She won a vacation through her email and will be joining six other contestants on a reality tv show competition. The whole thing isn't quite clear and Miriam must not have watched as many horror movies as me because she doesn't see anything wrong with surprise free vacations to islands off Mexico. But, the author does set-up Miriam as a woman looking for an escape. It's murky in the beginning but Miriam is recently divorced (caught her husband cheating on her with their daughter's ballet teacher), just was found not guilty in a bullying case that involved a high school girl who was bullying her daughter, is an unreliable narrator to us, the reader, and in her own life, and has lost her job. Yeah, Miriam's life is a mess.

A sick man. A country chick. A shaggy nurse. A cokehead cook. An uppity banker. And a mass shooter. My competition, ladies and gentlemen.

We meet the other six contestants when she gets down to Mexico and they take the boat to the island that is 40miles away and has spotty wi-fi and phone service. The first 50% was all about getting Miriam to the island and introducing us to the characters but the stream of consciousness writing, Miriam having, quick, but annoying (to me, anyway), additive comments about their clothing or some such, her job was writing short fun copy for luxury items on second hand websites, made the first half feel chaotic and dragged out in pointlessness all at the same time. If you're looking for characters to like, root for, or even intriguing, I don't think you're going to find them here. The author even put in her acknowledgments that she wrote a story about awful people. I don't have a problem reading about awful characters but they all were that way and the story structure of personal dislikes didn't make up for it.

Detective Giorgio Hurley had left me a voicemail: “Ms. Macy, hi. Just checking in with you. We need to talk, either at your home or here at the station. Sounds like there was some type of altercation last night? Sounds like folks were hurt, you included? Sounds like—”

50% is when we get our first murder and from there on out its pretty fast paced, because of how slow the first half was, felt manic when bodies started dropping like flies. Miriam and the other six learn that the reality tv contest and lure of winning money was all a ruse and they were actually brought there by their lawyer. The lawyer got them all off on their cases but apparently had a come to Jesus moment on his deathbed and now wants to punish them for their crimes they committed that he got them off on. There's a diorama of the seven deadly sins in the house's foyer that they're staying on and as each person gets murdered, the statue of the sin that their crime corresponds with, disappears. It's a locked room mystery because of the island setting and with a storm keeping communication out to the outside world, they are on their own to survive.

This is what you do: lie. Make up stories. Create something out of nothing.

While the murders are going on, we have Miriam thinking about her own case, we get some flashbacks and reveals to what she did to the girl that was bullying her daughter but it's cloaked in Miriam's unreliable narrator, the constant alluding to her “cry wolf” personality, and at first she's taking Valium at a decent clip and drinking. There's some discussion of racism, Miriam being a black woman and the “angry black woman” stereotype but the author mostly (there's more social commentary on one of the other six who is a cop who killed a black man) stays away from higher social commentary as Miriam, yes, contorts instances in her own mind. There was also two components added in, the island being formerly owned by a notorious drug dealer and Miriam keeps seeing(?) the ghost of a young girl, that I guess are supposed to be red-herrings and add to mystery. All they did for me was help to the chaos feel of the story and how none of the ideas the author had seemed to be fully formed to gel together.

I wanted her to lose. That’s all. To lose for once in her life.

The last 80% was speedy and messy in giving the ending, at one point Miriam just takes a nap??? while on the run/hiding from a murderer. There's no one to cheer for or like in this, usually not a problem for me, but my personal dislikes and the messy storytelling structure made me not a fan of this. One thing I did like was that after someone was murdered, the next page had a newspaper clipping of their court case, what they were accused of and how they got off. I liked how their murders had a tie-ins with their crimes, a' la the movie Saw. As far as thriller, never felt on the edge of my seat, as far as mystery, meh-fairly easy to work out what is happening, and as far as ghost story, mostly a non-entity.