Pippa Fitz-Amobi is done with being a detective. After solving the Andie Bell case with Ravi Singh she has released her podcast and is looking forward to going to Colombia University. Then, Jamie, her best friend Connor’s brother goes missing, the very night of Andie and Sal’s six-year memorial anniversary. Pip knows that the police won’t do anything about it and that something secretive is going on behind the scenes for everyone in Fairview. The more she uncovers about Jamie’s disappearance, the more secrets are revealed.
Six People. One killer. Only five survive. In this thriller, a girl named Red goes on a senior trip with her friends - her best friend Maddy, Maddy’s brother Oliver, Oliver’s girlfriend Reyna, Arthur Moore, and Simon Yoo. It seems like the perfect summer until a course of events lead to the sudden break down of their RV. They soon realize that this is no accident, and that someone is out to get them. In this story, secrets are revealed with all kinds of twists and turns that leave one dead.
Red Kenny, a teenager struggling with the death of her mother, embarks on a road trip with five of her friends. The trip starts well, but, partway through, their RV breaks down. They have no cell service, no way to fix the truck, and no civilization in sight. When trying to fix the RV, the group realizes something is very wrong when they are shot at from the dark. They are stuck in the van, hostage, by the mysterious man outside. The man reveals that he needs the secret one of them is keeping, and that he will kill anyone who attempts to escape.
Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson, is a young adult mystery thriller set in Ellingham Academy, a famously selective boarding school in Vermont. True crime obsessed Stevie Bell applies to the school for one reason: to solve the murder of Albert Ellingham’s wife and daughter, who were killed years ago when the school first opened. The killer, known as Truly Devious by the public, is supposed to be long gone.
The Lost City of Z, a nonfiction historical biography, written by David Grann, tells a story of exploring the dense Amazon rainforest. Percy Fawcett, an explorer who wanted to find the “Lost City of Z”, believed that there were indigenous groups of people living in the Amazon and had built a great city. In the forest, Percy must overcome many challenges such as disease carrying mosquitoes, vicious animals, starvation, and exploring uncharted territory.
This book is brilliantly bizarre. Then She Was Gone, by Lisa Jewell, had presented itself as something different to me, but although it's not my favorite genre, this book kept me hooked and waiting for the next twist. Each twist was riveting and unique, and my jaw dropped several times. The plot unraveled beautifully at the end, in a way that made you think, "That makes sense." I felt that the book explored the antagonist beautifully, if not too in detail.
Growing up in an unconventional place, the main protagonist Kya Clark is outcasted as the “marsh girl”—Delia Owens's novel Where the Crawdads Sing takes place in North Carolina in the 1960s. The tale is similar to the classic fable “Boy Who Cried Wolf”, where Kya calls an isolated marsh her home. Abandoned by her family at a young age, we start from the very beginning of Kya’s unfortunate upbringing. This story then goes chronologically, telling the story of Kya’s life through a first-person perspective.
This mystery thriller, Ink and Ashes by Valynne E. Maetani, follows the story of a girl named Claire Takata, who lives in a family of four with her mom, stepdad, and two brothers. On the anniversary of her dads death, Claire finds a letter from her deceased father that was written to her now stepdad. Turns out, Claire's father is a part of a Japanese crime syndicate. Her new discovery opens up many previously closed doors, with secret agents coming at her left and right.
If I could read this book all over again for the first time, I would. Delia Owens did such a beautiful job capturing themes of isolation, love, and trust. The captivating imagery and word choice throughout the book contributed to the whole plot of the story, and it made me feel as though I was with Kya in the marsh. At first, I didn’t think I would enjoy the book. The build-up to the climax was more of a slow burn.
Avery Kylie Grambs is barely scraping by, trying to make money from her job and make it through high school, but her future changes in an instant when Tobias Hawthorne, a millionaire philanthropist, leaves her with a billion-dollar fortune. The downside is Avery has no idea who Tobias is and on top of that, in order to receive her inheritance, she must move into the mysterious Hawthorne House, full of unexpected riddles and puzzles. Forced into a world of wealth that is unfamiliar to Avery, she must play their games to survive.
