Orley Farm (1861)

Wrong Place Wrong Time

Gillian McAllister

2022 · 408 pages · 3 reviews

Others: Mostly positive

Can you stop a murder after it’s already happened? It is midnight on the morning of Halloween, and Jen anxiously waits up for her 18-year-old son, Todd, to return home. But worries about his broken curfew transform into something much more dangerous when Todd finally emerges from the darkness. As Jen watches through the window, she sees her funny, seemingly happy teenage son stab a total stranger. She doesn’t know who the victim is, or why Todd has committed such a devastating act of violence. All she knows is that her life, and Todd’s, have been shattered. After her son is taken into custody, Jen falls asleep in despair. But when she wakes up… it is yesterday. The murder has not happened yet—and there may be a chance to stop it. Each morning, when Jen wakes, she is further back in the past, first weeks, then years, before the murder. And Jen realizes that somewhere in the past lies the trigger for Todd’s terrible crime… and it is her mission to find it, and prevent it from taking place.

Last night in Montreal

Emily St. John Mandel

2009 · 252 pages · 1 review

Others: Positive

Lilia Albert has been leaving people behind for her entire life. She spends her childhood and adolescence traveling constantly and changing identities. In adulthood, she finds it impossible to stop. Haunted by an inability to remember her early childhood, she moves restlessly from city to city, abandoning lovers along with way, possibly still followed by a private detective who has pursued her for years. Then her latest lover follows her from New York to Montreal, determined to learn her secrets and make sure she s safe. Last Night in Montreal is a story of love, amnesia, compulsive travel, the depths and the limits of family bonds, and the nature of obsession. In this extraordinary debut, Emily St. John Mandel casts a powerful spell that captures the reader in a gritty, youthful world charged with an atmosphere of mystery, promise and foreboding where small revelations continuously change our understanding of the truth and lead to desperate consequences. Mandel s characters will resonate with you long after the final page is turned.

Reservoir 13

Jon McGregor

2017 · 339 pages · 1 review

Others: Positive

Snowbound

Blake Crouch

2010 · 1 review

Others: Positive

At the start of this overwrought thriller from Crouch (Abandon), attorney Will Innis's wife, Rachael, fails to come home from a late night at work. Her car is found on an Arizona desert highway, the driver's side window smashed, but no sign of blood. After a belligerent cop interrogates him about his wife's disappearance, Will packs up his 11-year-old daughter, Devlin, who suffers from cystic fibrosis, and flees. Five years pass until FBI agent Kalyn Sharp tracks down Will, who's lived in several towns under various identities, to tell him she believes he's innocent. For a lawyer, Will is incredibly gullible. Based on nothing, he fears he'll be prosecuted, and Devlin will have no one to take care of her. He forgets that the girl has loving grandparents as well as aunts and uncles, and ignores that her disease, though in remission, can be life threatening. He accepts Kalyn's involvement with little thought. The story comes to a less than credible climax at a remote Alaskan resort.

The wife between us

Greer Hendricks

2017 · 352 pages · 7 reviews

Others: Leaning positive

When you read this book, you will make many assumptions. You will assume you are reading about a jealous wife. You will assume she is obsessed with her replacement - a woman who is about to enter a new marriage with the man she loves. You will assume you know the anatomy of the relationships. Assume nothing. Read between the lies. Twisted and deliciously chilling, The Wife Between Us deftly explores the hidden complexities of marriage and the dangerous truths we ignore in the name of love. The divorce has just become final, and Richard is already engaged to someone. One woman is determined to change that situation-- no matter what it takes. Soon a tangle of lies binds her life with those of Richard and his new fiancée. A tangle of lies-- that hide some dangerous truths.

An Untamed State

Roxane Gay

2014 · 384 pages · 3 reviews

Others: Overwhelmingly positive

Mireille Duval Jameson is living a fairy tale. The strong-willed youngest daughter of one of Haiti’s richest sons, she has an adoring husband, a precocious infant son, by all appearances a perfect life. The fairy tale ends one day when Mireille is kidnapped in broad daylight by a gang of heavily armed men, in front of her father’s Port au Prince estate. Held captive by a man who calls himself The Commander, Mireille waits for her father to pay her ransom. As it becomes clear her father intends to resist the kidnappers, Mireille must endure the torments of a man who resents everything she represents. An Untamed State is a novel of privilege in the face of crushing poverty, and of the lawless anger that corrupt governments produce. It is the story of a wilful woman attempting to find her way back to the person she once was, and of how redemption is found in the most unexpected of places. An Untamed State establishes Roxane Gay as a writer of prodigious, arresting talent.