Thank you Random House, #partner for the advanced e-copy of You Are Fatally Invited and Gallery/Scout Press, #partner for the advanced copy of Count My Lies, in exchange for my honest reviews.
The countdown is on…
The weekend of April 10-13th, I’ll be attending one of my favorite bookish events of the year – the @hamptonswhodunit out in East Hampton, NY.
In preparation, I read these 3 debut thrillers, and all 3 authors will be presenting in the 1st panel of the conference Friday morning & I cannot wait! As I have mentioned repeatedly the debut game this year has been strong and these 3 should not be missed!
YOU ARE FATALLY INVITED by Ande Pliego
Published: February 11, 2025, Bantam Books
Summary:
An exclusive thriller writer’s retreat hosted on a private island turns lethal when one of the authors is found murdered in this twisty locked room mystery.
When renowned anonymous author J. R. Alastor hires former aspiring writer Mila del Angél to host a writing retreat at his private manor off the coast of Maine, she jumps at the chance—particularly since she has an ax to grind with one of the invitees. The guest list? Six thriller authors, all masters of deceit, misdirection, and mayhem.
Confess the crimes, survive the tropes.
Alastor and Mila have masterminded a week of games, trope-fueled riddles, and maybe a jump scare or two—the perfect cover for Mila to plot a murder of her own. But when a guest turns up dead—and it’s not the murder she planned—Mila finds herself trapped in a different narrative altogether.
One by one, you’ll lose your turn.
With a storm cutting off the island, and the body count rising, Mila must outwit a killer who knows literally every trick in the book.
Until only one of us remains…
My thoughts:
A locked-room murder mystery with a bunch of thriller writers…say no more! I couldn’t put this Clue-style read down! The twists, the tropes, the mixed media format – it all comes together for a fantastic read! It had a classic mystery style, which as a fan of Agatha Christie, I really appreciated! All the characters have such interesting pasts and that only adds to the suspense as you try to figure out just what is going on here. This one really kept me guessing all the way through and I loved every second of it!
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COUNT MY LIES by Sophie Stava
Published: March 4, 2025, Gallery/Scout Press
Summary:
A read-in-one-night suspense thriller narrated by a compulsive liar whose little white lies allow her to enter into the life and comfort of a wealthy married couple who are harboring much darker secrets themselves. For the millions of us still chasing those gone girls, this is perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell, Lucy Foley, and Laura Dave.
Sloane Caraway is a liar.
Harmless lies, mostly, to make her self-proclaimed sad, little life a bit more interesting.
So when Sloane sees a young girl in tears at a park one afternoon, she can’t help herself—she tells the girl’s (very attractive) dad she’s a nurse and helps him pull a bee stinger from the girl’s foot.
With this lie, and chance encounter, Sloane becomes the nanny for the wealthy, and privileged Jay and Violet Lockhart. The perfect New York couple, with a brownstone, a daughter in private school, and summers on Block Island.
But maybe Sloane isn’t the only one lying, and all that’s picture-perfect harbors a much more dangerous truth. To say anything more is to spoil the most exciting, twisty, and bitingly smart suspense novel to come out in years.
The thing about lies is that they add up, form their own truth and a twisted prison of a world. And in Count My Lies, Sophie Stava spins a breakneck, unputdownable thriller about the secrets we keep, and the terrifying dangers that lurk just under the images we spend so much time trying to maintain.
Careful what you lie for.
My thoughts:
This popcorn thriller is addictive and crazy with a deliciously unhinged main character that you want to not like but can’t help root for. Maybe this is a bit predictable but isn’t that half the fun sometimes? It’s over-the-top craziness with a jaw-dropping twist at one point that I totally did not see coming and that alone made up for any predictably. I’m not saying anything else because this is best to go into as blind as possible.
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A GIRL LIKE US by Anna Sophia McLoughlin
Published: February 11, 2025, Sourcebooks Landmark
Summary:
Succession meets Saltburn in a crackling locked-room thriller of inconceivable wealth, unchecked power, and the secrets poised to bring a powerful family down
It’s 2004 and former reality TV star and party girl Maya Miller has just married the most eligible bachelor on the planet: Colin Sterling, of the globally famous Sterling family whose history of aristocratic titles and land holdings rival a British royal and whose media empire is comparable to the Murdochs. To some, Maya represents the American dream. To others, a gold digger. But when Colin’s cousin Arianna, the heiress to the family’s immense fortune, is found murdered, Maya is thrust into the spotlight: first as she is revealed to be the next heiress to the fortune, and then as the prime suspect.
Swiftly, the entire Sterling family goes into lockdown at Silver House, the family’s ancestral estate in the English countryside. They’re told it’s for their own safety—but Maya becomes convinced that it’s not to keep threats out, but to keep secrets in. Now, she has no choice but to find and expose the truth hidden within the Sterling family, and why Arianna, a girl she had never met, chose her to take her place. But Maya has secrets of her own. And she knows that in order to survive the Sterlings, she’ll have to beat them at their own game.
My thoughts:
A twisty, engaging psychological thriller where nothing is as it seems. I love dysfunctional family sagas and this one sure kept me guessing, with all the secrets, complex relationships and twists. I loved the diary entries we get – it added to the overall suspense.
Have you read any of these books or do you plan to? Do you go to book events? Plan on attending any soon?
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