Book List 2025 · Reviews

Review: Cold as Hell by Kelley Armstrong

Title: Cold as Hell
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Series: Haven’s Rock
Trigger Warning: Emotional abuse, cheating (not the MC’s), torture, murder, giving birth in dangerous situations.

About this Book: Haven’s Rock is a sanctuary town hidden deep in the Yukon for those who need to disappear from the regular world. Detective Casey Duncan and her husband, Sheriff Eric Dalton, are starting a family now that they’ve settled into their life here. A resident gets drugged, and then another goes missing and is found dead, and it’s time to figure out not only who committed these crimes but if the screening process they have in place is secure enough.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, and honestly? It scared the shit out of me.

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Book List 2025 · Reviews

Review: As Good as Dead by Holly Jackson

Title: As Good as Dead
Author: Holly Jackson
Series: A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder
Genre: YA, Mystery/Thriller

About this Book: This book is a mystery/thriller starring a teenage true crime podcaster set in either Connecticut or England depending on where you live and what version of the book has been sold to you.

It is the third book in a trilogy, about Pip, who started out in book one solving the disappearance of one of her schoolmates and the suicide of another.

In this book she is ready to head off to college, but unlike a lot of her friends and classmates she is a little less than excited, consumed by the last case she worked on.

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Book List 2023 · Reviews

The Boy Who Cried Bear by Kelley Armstrong

Title: The Boy Who Cried Bear
Author:
Kelley Armstrong
Series: Haven’s Rock
Source:
Netgalley. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Genre:
Murder Mystery.
Trigger Warnings:
Kidnapping, child endangerment.
Explicit?
Not explicit, but gruesome.
Summary:
Haven’s Rock is a well-hidden town surrounded by forest. And it’s supposed to be, being that it’s a refuge for those who need to disappear. Detective Casey Duncan and her husband, Sheriff Eric Dalton already feel at home in their new town, which reminds them of where they first met in Rockton. And while they know how to navigate the woods and its various dangers, other residents don’t. Which is why people aren’t allowed to wander off alone.

When Max, the town’s youngest resident—taught to track animals by Eric—fears a bear is stalking a hiking party, alarms are raised. Even stranger, the ten-year-old swears the bear had human eyes. Casey and Eric know the dangers a bear can present, so they’re taking it seriously. But odd occurrences are happening all around them, and when a dead body turns up, they’re not sure what they’re up

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Book List 2023 · Reviews

Someone is Always Watching

Title: Someone is Always Watching
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Source: Netgalley. I received a free copy of this book for an honest review.
Genre: 
YA Thriller
Explicit? 
No
Trigger Warnings: Gaslighting, Murder
Summary: Blythe and her friends—Gabrielle, and brother and sister Tucker and Tanya—have always been a tight friend group, attending a local high school and falling in and out of love with each other. But an act of violence has caused a rift between Blythe and Tucker . . . and unexpected bursts of aggression and disturbing nightmares have started to become more frequent in their lives.

The strange happenings culminate in a shocking event at school: Gabrielle is found covered in blood in front of their deceased principal, with no memory of what happened.

Cracks in their friendship, as well as in their own memories, start appearing, threatening to expose long-forgotten secrets which could change the group’s lives forever. How can Blythe and her friends trust each other when they can’t even trust their own memories?

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Book List 2022 · Reviews · Uncategorized

Review: Murder at Haven’s Rock by Kelley Armstrong

Title: Murder at Haven’s Rock
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Series: Casey Duncan/Haven’s Rock
Source: Netgalley. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Genre: Thriller, mystery.
Explicit? No.
Trigger Warning: Murder, depiction of killing wounds.
Summary: New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong’s Rockton Novels had one of the most unique towns in crime fiction. Murder at Haven’s Rock is a spinoff, a fresh start… with a few new dangers that threaten everything before it even begins.

Haven’s Rock, Yukon. Population: 0

Deep in the Yukon wilderness, a town is being built. A place for people to disappear, a fresh start from a life on the run. Haven’s Rock isn’t the first town of this kind, something detective Casey Duncan and her husband, Sheriff Eric Dalton, know first hand. They met in the original town of Rockton. But greed and deception led the couple to financing a new refuge for those in need. This time around, they get to decide which applicants are approved for residency.

There’s only one rule in Haven’s Rock: stay out of the forest. When two of the town’s construction crew members break it and go missing, Casey and Eric are called in ahead of schedule to track them down. When a body is discovered, well hidden with evidence of foul play, Casey and Eric must find out what happened to the dead woman, and locate the still missing man. The woman stumbled upon something she wasn’t supposed to see, and the longer Casey and Eric don’t know what happened, the more danger everyone is in.

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Book List 2022 · Reviews

Review: I Know a Secret by Tess Gerritsen

Title: I Know a Secret
Author: Tess Gerritsen
Series: Rizzoli & Isles
Source: Library
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Trigger Warning: Talk of child abuse, children dying, can be quite graphic. This mystery is not cozy folx.
Summary: The crime scene is unlike any that Detective Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles have ever before encountered. The woman lies in apparently peaceful repose on her bed, and Maura finds no apparent cause of death, but there is no doubt the woman is indeed dead. The victim’s eyes have been removed and placed in the palm of her hand, a gesture that echoes the terrifying films she produces. Is a crazed movie fan reenacting scenes from those disturbing films?

When another victim is found, again with no apparent cause of death, again with a grotesquely staged crime scene, Jane and Maura realize the killer has widened his circle of targets. He’s chosen one particular woman for his next victim, and she knows he’s coming for her next. She’s the only one who can help Jane and Maura catch the killer.

But she knows a secret. And it’s a secret she’ll never tell.

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Book List 2018

Review: In the Belly of Jonah by Sandra Brannan

in the belly of jonah.jpgTitle: In the Belly of Jonah

Author: Sandra Brannan

Genre: Thriller

Summary: In the Belly of Jonah is a fast-paced mystery with a likable protagonist and an intricately woven narrative brimming with bizarre yet believable twists. The first in a series, the book expertly lays the groundwork for Liv Bergen, amateur sleuth, and her love interest, FBI Agent Streeter Pierce. Liv becomes involved in the investigation of the murder of Jill Brannigan, a summer intern at the limestone mine Liv manages near Fort Collins, Colorado (a breathtaking setting that unwittingly becomes an accessory to crime). In doing so, she inadvertently puts her friends, her family, and herself at risk of being swallowed in the belly of a madman bloated with perverse appetites for women, surrealistic art, and renown.

As the gripping plot of In the Belly of Jonah unfolds, Liv Bergen takes her place alongside the best female crime-solvers as a woman with smarts, self-confidence, and intuitive savvy.

Review: 

This book was…very…extremely brutal. It was so well written, that my crazy imagination could sadly imagine every single gross detail. Sometimes I wish I couldn’t, but man Brannan is a master of getting you to be a little squicked.

The characters in this novel are full fledged, and interesting. Liv especially, with her fiery nature did capture my attention as did her relationship with Streeter.

This book is driven with strong female characters. And the plot is driven by a total psycho, one that you will not soon forget even after finishing reading the book. The crimes within it are so gruesome they feel real.

This book would be good for anyone who likes a good thriller, and a mystery that’s more on the side of hate, than a crime of passion.

Received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. 

Book List 2018

Review: City of the Lost by Kelley Armstrong

city of the lostTitle: City of the Lost

Author: Kelley Armstrong

Genre: Suspense, Thriller, Mystery

Summary: Casey Duncan once killed a man and got away with it. But that’s not why she’s on the run. Her best friend’s ex has found Diana again, despite all Casey has done to protect her. And Diana has decided the only way she’ll ever be safe is if she finds the mythical town she’s heard of where people like her can go to hide. Turns out the town really exists, and will take Diana, but only if Casey, a talented young police detective, comes too.

Imagine a hidden town, isolated in the Yukon wilderness, where everyone is pretending to be someone they’re not. Even good people can get up to some very bad stuff. The laconic town sheriff dispenses his own frontier justice, but he’s more accustomed to sobering up drunks in the horse trough, than attempting to solve the series of brutal murders that has rocked the town. As much as he hates it, he needs Casey. As for Casey, coming to the far North may have started out as a sacrifice she was willing to make for her best friend. But maybe, just maybe, she needs Rockton as much as the town needs her.

Reviews:

This is my third time reading this book. I still “Oh my god” and flail at the right times, or attempt to hide from what’s going on even though I’m holding the book in hand which is quite a feat as I’m sure you can imagine.

Kelley Armstrong has never done me wrong, and this series is no different. It is electric, fresh, and so well written I wish she would lend me just a tiny bit of her writing mojo so that I could write something just half as good as this.

This book has characters who are all entirely independent and different from each other, but share a very human commonality; they are in situations beyond their control and trying in spite of it. Their vulnerability does not become weakness, instead it becomes something that gives them strength.

I could gush for hours about Casey, and Dalton, but frankly, I think you would get sick of it. But I love them so much. And Anders.

The setting is a Canadian one, but a Canada unfamiliar to someone like me. It is wilderness, and beauty and danger all rolled into one. It is solitude and isolation. This world is an adventure, rife with adversity and yes, in this case, murder.

The wild awakens something in people that might not have been there before in this novel, or was it always there? And it just needed a push? That is the ultimate question.

Do yourself a favour, and pick this book up. You won’t regret it.