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.

Glimmer by Phoebe Kitanidis

Series: STANDALONE

Genera(s): Paranormal Romance/Mystery

Subjects: supernatural, ghosts, small towns, memory loss, magic

Setting: Summer Falls, Colorado

POV/Tense: 1^st person POV, present tense, rotating between Elyse and Marshall

Age/Grade Level: Teen

Length: 347 pgs.

HC/PB: Hardcover

List Price: $17.99

Publisher: HarperCollins: Balzer and Bray

Summary/ product description: “When Marshall King and Elyse Alton suddenly wake up tangled in each other's arms with zero memory of how they got there or even who they are, it's the start of a long journey through their separate pasts and shared future.

Terrified by their amnesia, Marshall and Elyse make a pact to work together to find the answers that could restore their missing memories. As they piece together clues about their lives, they discover that they're in the idyllic mountain resort town of Summer Falls. Everyone seems happy there, but as Marshall and Elyse quickly learn, darkness lurks beneath the town's perfect facade. Not only is the town haunted by sinister ghosts, but none of its living inhabitants retain bad memories of anything—not the death of Marshall's mom, not the hidden violence in Elyse's family, not even the day-to-day anguish of being a high schooler.

Lonely in this world of happy zombies, Marshall and Elyse fall into an intense relationship founded on their mutual quest for truth. But the secrets they're trying to uncover could be the death of this budding love affair—and of everyone, and everything, they love in Summer Falls.”

My Review:  I’ve had Glimmer sitting on my shelf waiting to be read for year. It came out in 2013. I bought it because I liked the cover and I love a good mystery with paranormal elements. And nothing says paranormal mystery like amnesia, a strange small town and ghosts.

Glimmer was different from how I expected it. It wasn’t scary or dystopian or full of odd twists. It kept me guessing, and sometimes I was able to predict things correctly, but I liked it when I was surprised. I also really enjoyed the setting. I visited Colorado in 2003 on a family vacation and it was beautiful.

Summer falls is this magical made-up Colorado town in which it’s always balmy summer weather and tourist feel like they’re on a drug when they are there. It sounds great, except anyone who experiences anything negative, like a fight or sadness, suddenly passes out in a “heat nap” caused by ghosts. Only Elyse can see the ghosts are causing it.

I also enjoy stories about memory loss. It’s always interesting to see character deal with the present without knowing their pasts. Elyse and Marshall don’t even know their names when the wake up, but since their names are already in the book’s description, it’s not read a spoiler. They wake up in bed with each other, naked. They don’t know how they got there. Elyse think’s she was kidnapped, that Marshall drugged her. It’s a real mess and they find clothes and leave out the window. And soon after Elyse sees a ghost.

I really did enjoy the characters. They didn’t like it when they found out about their pasts. Things didn’t fit to them. But their personalities were pretty interesting. Elyse was stubborn and strong willed, but also honest. She didn’t like how everyone noticed her. She used to be popular apparently. Marshall had a strong ego, but everyone seemed to treat him like he was invisible. Everyone else in Summer Falls suffered from selective memory loss, and acted like happy zombies or pod people.

I recommend this book to those who enjoyed the Shadowlands series by Kate Brian, Blood Magic by Tessa Gratton, or books with ghosts or people with memory loss.

Cover Art Review: Pretty colors and I like the effect on the type, but I realize now that this it generic and kind of boring for a cover actually.