Review: Summit Lake

Summit Lake by Charlie Donlea
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I think that its safe to say I'm on a Charlie Donlea book binge. I'll probably have one heck of a book hangover once I'm done with all his books!

One fateful night, Becca Eckersley answers a knock on the door of her family's vacation cabin in Summit Lake, and sees a friend. What follows is a gruesome attack, brutal rape and subsequent murder.

Two weeks later, author Kelsey Castle, on leave from work due to a personal incident, is going stir crazy at home and decides to return to work. Her sympathetic boss decides to send her to Summit Lake to write what he thinks is a "fluff" piece on the death of a young law student. Unbeknownst to him, there is an actual story there, which Kelsey quickly discovers on her first day there.

Kelsey enlists the help of the police chief at Summit Lake, a man who is convinced that something is fishy about Becca's death, but who can't to anything about it because he is being stonewalled by state police, who have been brought in by Becca's father, a prominent lawyer. Kelsey slowly and painstakingly peels back layers of the story, discovering Becca's secrets one by one, and discovering clues about her life and who may have killed her.

This book is written in dual timelines, one focusing on the present - Kelsey's search for the truth, and the other, on Becca's life in the months leading up to the murder. I enjoyed this, because I, as the reader, got to interact with Becca as a character, muddling her way through college with her friends.

I won't go into too much detail, at the risk of giving away spoilers, but I will say this - If you are a fan of mystery and thrillers, you should definitely put this book on your to-read list.

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Review: Don't Believe It

Don't Believe It by Charlie Donlea
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another winner from Charlie Donlea!

So I recently finished Some Choose Darkness by this author and I was craving another book by him, so I picked up this one.

What a ride it took me on!

Grace Sebold was convicted of murdering her boyfriend on the St Lucia island while they were attending a destination wedding. Having already spent 10 years incarcerated, she reaches out to Sidney Ryan, a former schoolmate, for help.

Sidney has gained fame thanks to her true life documentaries, which have helped overturn three wrongful convictions. Intrigued by Grace's story, and her adamant claim that the St Lucia police decided to pin the crime on her, Sidney decides to look into the crime, and produce a ten-episode documentary in real time, sharing her discoveries with the public as she makes them.

As Sidney digs deeper, it is evident that Grace's claim is true and the St Lucia did a shoddy job investigating the claim. Her investigation causes the case to be re-opened and leads to Grace being exonerated and set free.

But things take a twisted turn when Sidney receives a letter telling her that she has got it all wrong. This leads her to dig deeper into Grace's past where she discovers another chilling death, bearing eerie similarities to the crime that Grace was convicted of. Determined to uncover the truth, Sidney risks all. But at what cost?

I thought I had this book all fugured out, but I turned out to be wrong. The author constantly kept me guessing and the last few chapters had me staring at my Kindle in utter shock. Exactly what I love in a good book!

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Review: Some Choose Darkness

Some Choose Darkness by Charlie Donlea
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a read this turned out to be!

I picked up this book on recommendation from a fellow book blogger and it was just amazing.

in 1979, an autistic woman becomes obsessed with the disappearance of young women in the area. Piecing together clues, she eventually discovers who did it, and sends a package to the police detailing her discoveries and disappears, presumed to have been murdered by this man.

Fast forward 40 years, and the murderer is up for parole. Rory Moore, a forensic reconstructionist, reluctantly takes on the case, having inherited it from her later father, Frank, who was the man's lawyer. Being autistic herself, Rory feels a strange connection to Angela, the woman who unraveled the murders back in 1979, and is determined to unravel the mystery of what happened to her.

Told in dual timelines (1979 and 2019), the story details Angela's journey to discovering the identity of the serial killer, and in 2019, Rory's journey to discover more about this enigmatic woman.

It is a very well written book that unfolds at just the right pace. Many clues were scattered throughout the book, and eventually stitched together to a satisfying conclusion. I will definitely be reading more by this author in future!

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Review: Not Her Daughter

Not Her Daughter by Rea Frey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My mind was already somewhere else—on a huge, generic coffee and the gossipy magazine I’d buy—when I saw her. Something inside me wrenched. A little girl, not more than five or six, stood in a red dress with shiny sequins attached to a full skirt that swished when she moved. A red bow perched on her mousy brown ponytail. Slippers that could have been a match for Dorothy’s in The Wizard of Oz hugged compact, white feet. She looked like Christmas. I watched her with a smile on my lips and felt, foolishly, like I recognized her; she was so familiar, she could have been my very own.

While at the airport waiting to board a flight, Sarah spots a sad little girl, Emma with her family. The memory of this far-off encounter stays with her because she feels a strange camaraderie with her because of the way her mother was treating her. (Sarah's own mother did not want her and eventually abandoned her when she was eight.)

Fast forward a few months later, and Sarah has (almost) been able to forget about Emma, and the sad, haunted look on her face. That is, until fate throws them together once again, when Sarah and her business team visit a kindergarten to pitch their line of educational products.

Discovering that Emma and her family live nearby, she begins to watch them, and is a witness to the horrific abuse that Emma suffers at the hands of her mother, Amy.

“Go!” Amy pushed Emma. She snagged her red shoe on the carpet and pitched forward, skidding to a stop on her knees and elbows. The mother, rolling her eyes, hoisted the baby higher and jerked Emma up by her elbow. I watched the red splotches erupt on her arm, splotches that would later bruise and turn purple. Emma pulled herself up and rubbed her sore elbow and carpet-burned knees.

This was a real child in real life with real consequences. I knew I didn’t have any right to inject myself into her life, but I had to know she’d be okay. Somehow. Some way.

There’s one question that cuts across the rest and keeps me rooted to the spot: What if she needs to be rescued?

One evening, during a particularly bad moment between Amy and Emma, Amy locks her daughter out of the house and goes to bed. Sarah, meanwhile, is watching the cottage from the woods, and observes this.

I just want to see her one last time. I want to see her playing, jovial and happy. I want to see her sitter engaged, to have verification that someone is on her side. I want to watch her mom come home, witness the exchange, see just one hug, an arm around her shoulder, something to assure me that this girl will grow up and prosper.

She struggles with her conscience, before making the decision to take Emma and give her the chance to be happy.

Emma had a whole world to gain, and I wanted to be the one to give it to her. I wanted to give her a second chance at a life I wanted to live.

On the run now, from state to state, we watch Emma blossom into a happy little child under Sarah's care.

Meanwhile, back home, Emma's mother seems indifferent to her daughter's disappearance. Amy had always had a tough time connecting with her daughter, probably because she never wanted kids.

Emma was the chaos, and now, in her absence, there was even more. She was like a tiny wrecking ball, knocking down everything in her path just to see how much damage she could get away with.


This book was very well written, taking into account both Amy and Sarah's perspectives, and in three different timelines, "then", "during" and "after". As the reader, you get to explore what makes each of these women tick. I was very curious to see just how it would all eventually unfold, and it did not disappoint.

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Review: Dear Wife

Dear Wife by Kimberly Belle
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

Oh, how I planned for this day. My first day of freedom.

Imagine being so terrified of your husband that you need to run, because you can’t live one more day with him. So you set in motion a plan to leave him. You slowly start setting money aside. You plan everything out well. You get a new car. You set a false trail. You run.

You’re smart, so I have to be smarter. Cunning, so I have to be more cunning.

That is the story of “Beth Murphy”, a woman on the run from her violent and abusive husband. One Wednesday, she packs up and goes on the run.

You have three moods lately: offensive, enraged or violent. That moment when you come around that corner and I see which one it is always inches bile up my throat. It’s the worst part of my day.

Meanwhile, in the same city, and on the same day, Jeffrey comes home to discover his wife Sabine missing. Jeffrey and Sabine have not had the easiest of marriages. Their marriage has been strained for several months, with Jeffrey resenting his wife for bringing home a bigger paycheck and owning the house they live in, and he is known to have been abusive on at least one occasion.

I know how this looks, believe me. I lost my temper with my wife, and now she’s gone. Maybe she’s trying to punish me for what I did, or maybe my earlier hunch is right, maybe something is really, really wrong. Either way, you don’t have to tell me. I am the husband with a history of violence, the man living for free in the house his wife owns, the person with the most to lose or to gain. This doesn’t look good for me.

The story is told through three points of view; that of Beth, Jeffrey and the detective who is investigating Sabine’s disappearance. Beth’s true identity was not revealed until much, much later in the book and it was intriguing to try and discover who she really is. Is she Sabine, or someone else altogether?

Kimberly Belle has woven another expertly crafted tale. The story unfolds, layer by layer, until, eventually, all secrets are laid bare. I highly recommend this book if you love a suspenseful and thrilling read.


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