One Was Lost by Natalie D. Richards

Publication Date: October 4, 2016

Series: Standalone

Genera(s): Mystery/Thriller

Subjects: survival, camping, murder

Setting: Southern Ohio

POV/Tense: 1^st person, present tense: Sera

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 320 pgs.

HC/PB: Paperback

List Price: $10.99

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Summary/ product description: “Damaged. Deceptive. Dangerous. Darling. Are they labels or a warning? The answer could cost Sera everything.

Murder, justice, and revenge were so not a part of the plan when Sera set out on her senior camping trip. After all, hiking through the woods is supposed to be safe and uneventful.

Then one morning the group wakes up groggy, confused, and with words scrawled on their wrists: Damaged. Deceptive. Dangerous. Darling. Their supplies? Destroyed. Half their group? Gone. Their chaperone? Unconscious. Worst of all, they find four dolls acting out a murder—dolls dressed just like them.

Suddenly it's clear; they're being hunted. And with the only positive word on her wrist, Sera falls under suspicion…”

My Review:  I received an ARC of One Was Lost from Anderson’s Bookshop for a pre-pub event, which I sadly can’t attend because of a night class.

One Was Lost is a standalone thriller set in the Appalachian wilderness of southern Ohio. A group of 6 teens are on a trip with two teachers. A rainstorm causes a flash flood. The bridge that they were supposed to cross the river with is broken. Sera, Lucas, Jude, Emily and Mr. Walker make it across, but Madison, Hayley, and Ms. Brighton get left behind as the river floods.

The group of five sets up camp, hoping the river level will go down the next day. The next morning they wake up to find word written on their arms and Mr. Walker unable to wake up. They figure out that they were drugged, probably by something in their water bottles. Most of their supplied have been destroy or stolen. Sera’s word is Darling, Lucas has Dangerous, Emily has Damaged, and Jude had Deceptive.

This book is full of brutally realistic survival and a freaky mystery. I had my guesses on who did it, but I didn’t expect who it turned out to be. I enjoyed the romance between Sera and Lucas. I thought Sera being a director of school plays made her a unique and interesting protagonist. I liked the fast pace of the story and I just wanted to know what happened next. I never read anything by this author before, but this book made me want to check her other books out.

I recommend this book to those who enjoy mystery thrillers, like anything by Alexandra Sirowy, Kimberly Derting, or Becca Fitzpatrick.

Cover Art Review: My ARC cover is orange. The new cover has a voodoo-doll made of sticks, which are mentioned in the book.

The Telling by Alexandra Sirowy

Series: Standalone

Genera(s): Horror/Mystery/Thriller

Subjects: murder, death, islands, summer

Setting: Gant Island in Washington state

POV/Tense: 1^st person POV, present tense: Lana

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 387 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $17.99

Publisher: Simon & Schuster for Young Readers

Summary/ product description: “Lana used to know what was real.

That was before when her life was small and quiet.

Her golden step-brother, Ben, was alive, she could only dream about bonfiring with the populars, their wooded island home was idyllic, she could tell the truth from lies, and Ben’s childhood stories were firmly in her imagination.

Then came after.

After has Lana boldly kissing her crush, jumping into the water from too high up, and living with nerve and mischief. But after also has horrors, deaths that only make sense in fairy tales, and terrors from a past Lana thought long forgotten: Love, blood, and murder.”

My Review: The Telling is a standalone murder-mystery thriller set on an island in Washington State, called Gant. Lana’s step-brother was possibly or probably murdered two month ago in June. His ex-girlfriend was suspected in helping a car jacking that led to his dead. Ben had stopped the car for a stranger and was attacked and stabbed and then dragged away. Lana spent about a month after his death moping at home until a note Ben left jolts her out of her grief. She starts hanging out with the popular kids, who she’d never thought would include her in anything.

These kids made fun of her in middle school and some of high school. Now it’s August and soon school starts. These popular kids known around town as the Core (Becca, Carolynn, Rusty, Duncan and Josh) are with Lana and Willa (Lana’s only previous friend) at a spring in the woods hanging out and drinking. They dare each other to jump off a cliff into the lake and when they do they find a body stuck under the water: Ben’s ex-girlfriend, Maggie. And when they report the body they suddenly become suspects. But this murder is only the beginning and Lana and the Core have to find the murderer before they become victims.

Ben, Lana’s stepbrother, has a mysterious past. He arrives with his mother Diane, when he was twelve. Diane became Lana’s father’s new wife. Lana’s mother died when Lana was four. Ben’s been telling Lana fantastical stories of good vs. evil since he came. In these stories, Lana and Ben are always the heroes and Lana’s a brave warrior. These stories are sometimes disturbing a violent. They’re not the sort of thing out of a kid’s imagination. Lana was addicted to those stories. They made her feel strong. She wanted to be brave like that Lana. Ben was obsessed with adventure and getting out of Gant. He wanted to do something important with his life, so he spent some time in Guatemala helping to build wells. Gant is a place full of rich people who have excess and Ben found it disgusting, yet his life was full of riches too. He considered himself a hypocrite, and said he wanted to leave Gant after high school.

I really enjoyed the book. I usually only read sci-fi, fantasy and paranormal stuff, but because this had a ghost-story horror feel to it, I didn’t care. It’s a very atmospheric book. The misty setting of Washington in late summer became a character itself. I recently watched the TV series Dead of Summer and even though that was paranormal and not contemporary, it had the same kind of creepy summer feel. I read The Creeping last year by this author and enjoyed it. 

Also, I really am amazed that I was right about the twist. I had this epiphany when I was maybe a third of the way into the book that if I was the author, I would totally make the killer someone so unsuspected, so I went off on a limb on this idea, was pulled away from it by some possibilities, but inevitably came back to the this conclusion which turned out to be right. I sure it was just foreshadowing or maybe a cliché in classic horror and not actually as clever a twist I thought, or maybe I have a psychic superpower for guessing plot twists, because I right maybe half the time or more. It’s really hard to talk about it because it’s too big of a spoiler, but I saw it coming somehow. I WAS RIGHT!!!!

Cover Art Review: I love the opalline paper this is printed on. The cover itself is creepy and definitely gives you a sense of the story inside.

Nothing Bad is Going to Happen by Kathleen Hale

Series: No One Else Can Have You (bk. 2)

Genera(s): Realistic Fiction/Mystery

Subjects: humor, comedy, murder, mystery, small towns, winter

Setting: Friendship, Wisconsin (which is north of the Wisconsin Dells) before Halloween

POV/Tense: 1st person present tense. Kippy’s POV.

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 260 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $17.99

Publisher: HarperTeen

Summary/ product description: “Geeze Louise, for such a small town, there sure are a lot of murders in Friendship, Wisconsin.

After helping to catch the man who murdered her best friend, Kippy Bushman was looking forward to life returning to normal. Well, at least as normal as it could get in a town like hers. But then the unthinkable happens: Kippy finds her boyfriend, Davey, in his house, barely breathing and surrounded by pills and empty beer bottles.

The sheriff is quick to rule the incident an attempted suicide, but Kippy refuses to believe it. She and Davey are completely in love; there’s no way he’d ever hurt himself. Right?

Kippy swears she saw someone else at Davey’s house that night and is convinced that person tried to murder him. Without any real evidence, though, no one—not even Kippy’s own father—believes her. So she has no choice but to team up with her former nemesis, Bible-thumping Libby, to try to catch this new killer. But in a town where everyone has their own secrets and a next-door neighbor could be a serial killer, who’s left to trust?”

My Review: Nothing Bad is Going to Happen is the hilarious sequel to No One Else Can Have You. I don’t think there will be a 3^rd book, but ya never know. Anyways, despite what other reviewers think, this book was pretty awesome. Maybe they were just being jerks, don’tcha know?

Kippy Bushman was almost murdered and has a leg cast to prove it. She caught her best friend’s killer, but the Sheriff took the credit for it, and made her look like a crazy person. The killer was a friend named Ralph who’s totally a sociopath and now locked up in Green Bay Correctional Facility. He keeps sending her creepy letters and calling her.

When Kippy find her boyfriend passed out on the night they planned to have sex, she calls 911. She think she saw a shadow figure and that no way could Davey commit suicide, but they rule it as attempted suicide because the bottles of alcohol and empty pill bottle. Kippy enlists Libby, a girl who used to be mean to her, but who’s now her only ally, to help her find evidence of Davey’s attempted murder. Filled with mystery, crazy twists and hilarious laughs, it’s the perfect sequel.

This book series is set in (Wisconsin) the hat of the state I live in (Illinois), I place I love dearly and the state that I visited the most. I’ve seen more of Wisconsin than Illinois. And I’m familiar with Wisconsinisms and their love of the Packers and cheese and all that. Friendship, Wisconsin is a real town near Baraboo, which I camped at Devil’s Lake State Park last year. The real Friendship, of course, is nothing like the one in the books.

The humor in this book is my favorite part. Sometimes it’s very dirty and full of swearing and things that make me cringe just thinking of because it sound erotic, but I cracked up reading this so many times that I sure that if I had read this in public, people would be staring at me. I think the characters came along better in this sequel. Kippy seems less strange and more smart than she did in the first book. Libby’s nice to her now and really helpful. Rose, the anger management counselor, is now dating Kippy’s dad Dom. Rosa is so hilarious. She’s Polish and speaks in broken English and calls Kippy by the most hilarious pet names, like Mud Dumpling, and says things like “Soup is on.” I’m like 20% Polish myself and I find her hilarious.

I recommend this series to people who love watching comedies, or reading books by Heather Keeble or Gretchen McNeil.

Cover Art Review: I love the donuts! They’re so cute….until you read the book and realize why they’re on the cover.