Suspense | Book Chatter

Don’t Look For Me
By Wendy Walker
St. Martin’s Press, 9781250198709, September 15, 2020, 352pp.

The Short of It:

Walker hit it out of the park with this one. It met all my reading wants.

The Rest of It:

Molly Clarke suffered a terrible loss. One that involved her young daughter, killed in an accident right in front of her own home. What’s inconceivable to Molly’s family and even Molly herself, is that she was the one behind the wheel. The one who turned as fast as she could, but not fast enough to avoid her daughter running in front of her car.

The family is left utterly distraught. Molly’s older daughter Nic, remembers the moment like it was yesterday and Molly’s husband can’t even bring himself to look at his wife. An accident, yet one so tragic that the family just cannot move past it.

That’s why when Molly Clarke goes missing one stormy night, only to leave her abandoned car and phone behind, people are quick to call it a “walk away”. She just couldn’t live anymore with all those accusing eyes, reminding her every day of what she did.

Did she really walk away? Or has something happened to her?

Don’t Look for Me is a GREAT read and as I mentioned above, it checked all the boxes for me. A good story. Nice plot twists. Characters you care about. Maybe a tad predictable at one point but a good ride to get there. It kept me guessing in a lot of places and had me stopping to piece things together.

I put household chores aside to read it. I read it during the baseball playoffs. I sat on the couch with it when I wasn’t feeling well and it was just what the doc ordered. These days, you gotta keep your mind busy and off of politics and this wretched pandemic. This book helped me do that.

Highly recommend. I’ve read one other book by Walker, Emma in the Night, which I also enjoyed. If you need to immerse yourself into something other than the news, find yourself a copy.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

The Guest List
By Lucy Foley
William Morrow, 9780062868930, June 2020, 320pp.

The Short of It:

The cast of characters have arrived for a wedding on a remote island. What should be a celebratory event turns out to be a deadly affair.

The Rest of It:

Will and Jules are two, beautiful people. Happily successful in everything they do, they are the “it” couple and an invite to their wedding is not something the average person would ignore. Made up of old school chums, fellow colleagues and of course, the families of the bride and groom, the guest list is quite the to-do.

But Will and Jules are rather self-possessed and annoying. Jules has one bridesmaid, her younger sister who shows up to the wedding a bit of a mess. Will’s groomsmen are all extremely immature and juvenile but clearly there is some unfinished business between some of these characters and a big secret which could ruin the entire wedding.

I do enjoy a good story where the characters find themselves isolated with nowhere to hide. That sense of forced confinement really adds to the suspense and that is absolutely the case here. I didn’t see the big reveal coming until it was right in front of me. It was a good and proper ending for this story.

The setup is very similar to Foley’s earlier book, The Hunting Party. In that book, they arrive for a New Year’s Eve party, held at a fancy hunting lodge. The players in that book, share some similarity with those in The Guest List. That story takes place on secluded grounds, as does The Guest List. I feel that The Guest List possessed a bit more oomph in the area of suspense though and its reveal packed a more powerful punch. I was definitely more interested in these characters than the ones in The Hunting Party.

If this is a formula that Foley uses to write her books, then it’s a good one because both books are pretty entertaining and have done pretty well for themselves. Out of the two books, I’d recommend The Guest List for its setting.

Source: Review copy provided by the publisher.
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

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