Elle MarrReseñas

I'm really sorry to say that I just plain did NOT like this entire story...I wasn't sure where it was heading as we went back and forth in time but I never really liked any of the characters and the ending???? Ugh.....

Elle Marr's 'The Alone Time' is a riveting exploration of family trauma and secrets. Two sisters, Fiona and Violet, survived a wilderness ordeal as children, but the past comes back to haunt them when disturbing details surface. Marr's skillful storytelling and authentic characters keep readers hooked as they unravel the mysteries hidden in the wilderness and within their family. Gripping and emotionally resonant, 'The Alone Time' is a must-read for fans of suspense and family drama.

This well told psychological suspense story started off slow but picked up speed quickly. It's told in alternating chapters by the two sister and the parents. The two sisters chapters go between present day and the day of the plane crash but we only have chapters from the parents during and immediately after the crash.

Twenty five years before the beginning of the novel, Fiona and Violet Seng were in a plane crash with their parents in a small Cessna. The plane crashed in the middle of nowhere in the Washington State wilderness.
and the parents were killed. The two young girls fended for themselves for twelve weeks before they were rescued. This 12 week period is what they refer to in later years as the alone time. Now they are grown but the trauma of the crash still affects each of them. Fiona lives a very solitary life and is an artist who re-purposes leaves and feathers and other natural items into art work. Violet has led a life of addiction and bad boyfriends but is now back in college hoping to become a writer. They work very hard to keep the story of the crash quiet but when they find out that someone is planning a documentary about it, they realize that they need to find a way that their version of the truth of the accident stays the way it has been for all of those years...but it seems that there is new information that is causing their version of what happened to look like a lie. After being estranged from each other for several years, the two sister realize that they need to work together to keep the real truth from being exposed. They've never really talked to each other about their 'alone time' but now is the time to find out what really happened to them and their parents. The truth of what really happened comes out slowly as the two sisters begin to remember things about that time and there are several surprises along the way. What is the real truth??

This book was a roller coaster ride that got bogged down in the middle but in the last 25% picked up speed again to a satisfying ending. I plan to check out some of the author's previous book that are highly reviewed on goodreads.

Editor: How dumb do you want your intended audience?
Author Elle Marr: Yes.

Thus begins this magnificently boring saga of wannabe true crime. Complete with:

- An amateur sleuth who can't decide whether investigating her medical history > investigating her mother's death or vice versa;
- An FBI agent whose intellectual capacity rivals that of said amateur sleuth;
- A star reporter whose reporting skills consist of "disappearance = murder", with a dash of assault and battery;
- A seasoned serial killer who somehow gets taken out by an old woman;
- A small town plagued by said serial killer, which observes a curfew out of fear but doesn't need to lock their doors;
- A rich family that especially doesn't need to lock their mansion doors, except when kicking out unwanted relatives;
- A knockoff Manson Family cult taken straight from the Walmart shelves;
- Doctors who don't know how to diagnose lupus;
- And last but not least, a cop-out plot twist (a supposed murder which didn't happen!) that will test how long you can roll your eyes without stopping.

And that's all for the low low price of $2.98 on Kindle or $14.36 on paperback. What a steal.

As with most indie-authored crime novels (which I'm quickly starting to lose faith in), I really wanted to like this. I gave the first 1/3 of it a good and honest shot before I started skimming to save my life.


Our MC Ivy starts off as a relatively down-to-earth woman, growing up in an adoptive family with undiagnosed health problems that she suspects comes from her biological parents. She submits her DNA for analysis and comes up with a biological cousin, Lottie, who she seems to hit it off with. But she also gets approached by an FBI agent telling her she might be related to a serial killer (in public, where they discuss rather sensitive info, already kinda sketchy, but I thought that was the last of it). Then, Ivy goes out of state to visit her biological family, who helped build the same small town where the killer is known to operate. Here's where things get funky:

- She immediately agrees to stay with her biological cousin despite only having talked to her over the phone.

- THEY DON'T LOCK THEIR DOORS IN THIS TOWN! EVEN WITH A SERIAL KILLER ON THE LOOSE! CAN I SAY THIS ENOUGH!?

- And day 1, a man angrily comes into their house late at night and tries to get into Ivy's bedroom. But no matter. Just an angry relative. No big deal. Let me continue to stick around and ask my relatives very obvious and sometimes incriminating questions about their past, expecting straight answers every time.

- The next third of the book proceeds in this manner. Ivy is slow to gather answers and the whole "investigation" reads like a sleep-deprived high-schooler's attempt to finish a research project, complete with cringy interviews. Also, if you suspect your supposed relative Mr. Serial Killer might be after you, why would you go around telling even complete strangers who you were?

- Ivy's interactions with the killer had me rolling. She meets him at a bar, believes his mega-fake story about why he's there, and proceeds to tell him HER. WHOLE. LIFE. STORY. Then, when he tries to strangle her and she manages to escape with her life (because her elderly grandmother took out this full-grown man without suffering a single scratch) she's STILL left wondering who the killer is. His MO is strangling, so hello?

- But oh yeah, we're expected to believe it's not him, because our aforementioned star reporter claimed that his MO was strangling AND poison. So in what order might that have happened? Strangling the victim after they had died of poisoning? Or poisoning the victim after they had died from strangulation? I have no other words there.

- Finally, the ending. It turns out that Ivy's mother Tatum never died, but was threatened by a fellow family member (a cult member) and went into hiding with her husband. Somehow, the two never tried to reach out to their daughter more than once over the next twenty-eight years, which astonishes me.

- And given the above, the whole suspense buildup of switching between Tatum's and Samson's (the killer's) POV seems pointless after the fact, given that they never even ran into each other! If we were expected to see the family as an additional threat along with the killer, why not give some of their points of view to balance things out? Oh well. Apparently this wasn't necessary from an editor's standpoint. I'm just a dumb reader, right? Right.



I'm glad to say that I only got this book for free from the Amazon Prime monthly list. Can't get back the time I spent on it, but at least I'm learning more about how NOT to write a crime novel.

The mystery was good, though a trifle confusing at the end, but little things kept pulling me out of the story. Narrator says imprisoned relative would not be given family leave to a retreat in Oregon because of danger of escape to Canada. Though entire state of Washington? Retreat was supposedly in eastern Oregon in mountains and forests. Most of eastern Oregon is semi-desert high plains. Mention is made of the forested retreat having been Paiute territory. The Paiutes lived on the high desert. At one point a character declares that she would not have been able to translate product labels printed in Chinese because she does not speak Mandarin or Cantonese--but the whole point of ideographs is that they translate concepts, not the word's pronunciation, and are readable by people of various dialects. It is things like this that pull me out of a story and make me want to hit Google to see whether I am right.

Edge of my seat thriller.

FROM AMAZON: The search for a serial killer leads a woman into the twisted tangle of her own family tree in a chilling novel by the #1 Amazon Charts bestselling author of The Missing Sister and Lies We Bury.

Adopted when she was only days old, Ivy Hon knows little about her lineage. But when she’s stricken with a mystery illness, the results of a genetic test to identify the cause attract the FBI. According to Ivy’s DNA, she’s related to the Full Moon Killer, who has terrorized the Pacific Northwest for decades. Ivy is the FBI’s hope to stop the enigmatic predator from killing again.

When an online search connects Ivy with her younger cousin, she heads to rural Rock Island, Washington, to meet the woman. Motivated by a secret desire to unmask a murderous relative, Ivy reaches out to what’s left of a family of strangers.

Discovering her mother’s tragic fate and her father’s disappearance is just the beginning. As Ivy ventures into a serial killer’s home territory, she realizes that she may be the next victim of poisonous blood ties.

Elle Marr's books just get better and better.

A forest retreat. Isolated. No wireless. A storm. A family of psychopaths. What could possibly go wrong?

The pretty cover of The Family Bones by Elle Marr makes me think romantic suspense. I read the blurb and I thought, this will be a different kind of serial killer story and I was eager to begin reading. It didn’t go like a thought…

The point of view shifts between Olivia, a family member and podcaster searching for answers to the question – nature or nurture, Birdie, and influences and podcaster specializing in missing women, and a Journal.

The mystery begins to ramp up when a body is found floating in the lake. The police are unable to reach them due to the storm and thinking they would be all right. After all, it is a family reunion.

I feel like I am lost in a B movie, unraveling it through the written word. The story felt dry. I thought with the murder(s) it would be more suspenseful, but it just didn’t read that way to me. More of a mystery than a suspense novel.

I will say, there were so many suspects, I would need a murder board to try to figure it out. I know the story is fiction and I am usually able to let the author lead me wherever they want me to go, but this time, I just couldn’t get there. Was it the storyline?…or just me?….

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of The Family Bones by Elle Marr.

See more at http://www.fundinmental.com

I picked up “Strangers We Know” as my monthly Prime freebie and was quickly hooked. An FBI agent meets with adoptee Ivy Hon to tell her that her recent DNA test proves she’s related to a serial killer at large.

It also connects her to a biological cousin who might be able to give context to her recent health issues, so she heads to her familial home in the Pacific Northwest where she learns her birth mother’s true cause of death and is encouraged to investigate further.

The premise is great. I’m excited about an amateur sleuth mystery based on genetic genealogy, but that’s not what this is. Instead, it’s a story about a mysterious illness that is barely fleshed out, about the issues with adoption, the morality of single motherhood, a cult called One Family, and a bit of cat and mouse told in multiple viewpoints that I hoped would be more cohesive.

I didn’t connect with any of the characters. The plot and its resolution feel haphazard. The last chapter seems like an afterthought, and there’s one too many poorly-executed twists. Despite the strong start, I walk away from this one disappointed.

Our narrator is a young woman who was adopted at birth & has an undiagnosed medical condition. We follow her as she tries to learn about her birth family and the local serial killer. The story is a little contrived with some unlikely behavior by the characters, making it difficult to buy into. Having said that, it was interesting enough for me to keep going and read to the end. But I only finished the book a few days ago and have already forgotten about it.
I won a free copy of this book (thanks to the author & publisher!) and am voluntarily providing an honest review.

It was good enough for a thriller, though a little slow. I kinda of had a good idea from early on who the killer was but the twist, was interesting if not a little vague.

Good story well told

not ready for release

The story is a wonderful idea, but the characters are not especially well developed, and a good deal of editing is needed. Had this had appropriate editing, this would likely be a four to figure be star read. Unrealized potential

This was a choice through Amazon Prime First Reads Program. And I am immensely glad that I picked it. I was at the dang end of the dang book and had ZERO clue who the killer was! This was a fast paced read, however, some of the “rules” of the society mentioned within the novel made zero sense. Some of the elements were far fetched and therefore I took a star away, but overall, the story kept me hooked till the end! I would definitely recommend it.

#FirstLine - Blood doesn’t lie, or so the saying goes.

Wow, this book. Creepy, thrilling and unnerving all mixed together. Sheer delight and entertaining as can be! I could see this book being made into a Netflix series because it has all the makings of great book to screen adaptation. It was so well paced. I was engaged from cover to cover!! Be warned, you will want to talk about this book as you are reading it! So this book would make a perfect buddy read!

Shaina’s twin sister is killed and she’s called to Paris to identify the body. Except when she arrives, a cryptic message in her sister’s apartment that only she can read (in their secret twin language) pleads that she’s not really dead. And to trust no one.

Creepy start.

So Shaina picks up the pieces of her sister’s life, following her footsteps around Paris (this was a cool read if you’re looking for a tourist sort of escape to Paris—really great descriptions of popular sites, particularly the catacombs), unsure if she can trust any of the people claiming they want to help her. Bits of backstory are provided as well. You aren’t really sure if you can trust anyone in this story—Shaina and Angela included. I liked all the twists in this one, particularly as we neared the end. There were lots of surprises and red herrings and I was kept riveted all the way through!

Please excuse typos/name misspellings. Entered on screen reader.

So Shanna goes to Paris because she finds out her twin Angela was murdered. While there she discovers clues from Angela that she was not murdered, This sets Shanna on a path to find out what happened to Angela. Now the first thing Angela tells Shanna is trust no one, which of course Shanna promptly ignores. She trusts everyone except the police. She runs arounds Paris doing investigation till eventually she realizes she can't trust anyone then figures out what's going one and who she can trust. Sappy sister stuff and I mean seriously sappy sister stuff like I should be in a sugar coma. Then is 2019 these women trade passports and Angela takes Shanna's passport and gets on an international flight from Paris to the US. Yes they are identical twins, but there is no way that the US Embassy in Paris is not going to know that Angels used Shanna's passport or the Paris police, And just be o-kay Angela just disappeared bye bye Angela see ya later.

This book was a slow start and fizzled in the end

#FirstLine ~ Secrets never stay buried for long.

Intense and original this book is not to be missed. You will be swept up in the amazing story. I loved that this book was unsettling and you were made aware how fragile and powerful the human mind can be and how memories are triggers to the past. A slow burn and a fun and chilling read!

I think the most important thing I carried away from Lies We Bury is the impact a traumatic experience like Marissa's can have on a person's entire life and the monumental effort it takes to overcome it all. As Marissa investigates the crime scenes she's been hired to photograph, readers see a true amateur sleuth. She has no real clue how to investigate, she's easily distracted and prone to run off on tangents.

The author has created a layered portrait of Marissa's life, including a few interesting tidbits of Portland history as well as the memories of the people who survived that basement prison with her. When readers finally get to meet the man who kept these women and children locked in his basement for years, his beliefs as to what he can achieve if he's released from prison are mind-boggling.

Lies We Bury is well-paced and engrossing, but it's not the type of book readers can easily fall in love with. It's edgy and unsettling with uncomfortable subject matter. For me, it boiled down to my uneven track record with unreliable narrators. Marissa is a sympathetic character whom readers learn cannot be entirely trusted. How well you relate to her will have a great deal to do with how much you like the book.

This book is "A novel about secrets and revenge...". The style is a 'now alternating with flashbacks to 20 years ago.' The basic story is that three young girls were held hostage in a basement and escaped when the main character, Claire, was 7. In the "now" chapters, Claire is a newspaper photographer in Portland, and gets drawn into photographing the crime scenes of a streak of murders that also have some clues to her past. It is a tense and page turning novel that ended in a way I appreciated. It was a very good read with and I wish I had set enough time aside to read it in one setting.

As expected, one should be cautioned that there are graphic descriptions descriptions of abuse, murder scenes, and intense struggles.

If you are a twin, you need to read this book. If you grew up with a sister, you need to read this book. A dramatic story of disappearance, code breaking, phobias and traumas, while exploring the depth and complexity of sibling relationships. Who do you trust? A stay up late page turner!

Shayna travels to Paris because she receives a message that her twin sister is dead; but she walks into her sister's apartment she sees a coded message on the board that reads "Alive. Trust No one".
This book is well written and has many twists and turns and will have the reader guessing until the very end. I love it that the catacombs play a prominent part in the story

A bit disappointed with the plot as the synopsis sounded promising, a twin sister apparently murdered in Paris and her twin flies in from California to find things aren't what they seemed. The Paris locations and descriptions are good, building on the (US) author's three years at the Sorbonne, but the plot doesn't really progress fast enough, the searching twin managing to annoy everyone trying to help her. Using the catacombs backdrop could have been more effective and ramped up the tension.