mystery

Book Review: THE BOG WIFE by Kay Chronister

| Jessica Crawford

The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister is a 336 page standalone novel published by Counterpoint in 2024.

Genre/Subgenres:

Gothic, Contemporary Magical Realism, Mystery

Blurb:

In this atmospheric Appalachian gothic, the Haddesley siblings of West Virginia must unearth long-buried secrets to carve out a future when the supernatural bargain entwining their fate with their ancestral land is suddenly ruptured

Since time immemorial, the Haddesley family has tended the cranberry bog. In exchange, the bog sustains them. The staunch seasons of their lives are governed by a strict covenant that is renewed each generation with the ritual sacrifice of their patriarch, and in return, the bog produces a “bog-wife.” Brought to life from vegetation, this woman is meant to carry on the family line. But when the bog fails—or refuses—to honor the bargain, the Haddesleys, a group of discordant siblings still grieving the mother who mysteriously disappeared years earlier, face an unknown future.

Middle child Wenna, summoned back to the dilapidated family manor just as her marriage is collapsing, believes the Haddesleys must abandon their patrimony. Her siblings are not so easily persuaded. Eldest daughter Eda, de facto head of the household, seeks to salvage the compact by desecrating it. Younger son Percy retreats into the wilderness in a dangerous bid to summon his own bog-wife. And as youngest daughter Nora takes desperate measures to keep her warring siblings together, fledgling patriarch Charlie uncovers a disturbing secret that casts doubt over everything the family has ever believed about itself.

Brimming with aching loss and the universal struggle between honoring family commitments and the drive to strike out on one’s own, The Bog Wife is a haunting invocation of the arcane power of the habits and habitats that bound us.

Opening Line:

On winter nights, they burned heavy bundles of dried peat in the hearth and inhaled the scent of sacred ground burning while their father paced the length of the room, reciting the history of the Haddesley compact.

My Thoughts:

Anything that lives and does not live alone makes compacts.

This book is not horror, per se, but it’s still a great fit for spooky season! Described as “Appalachian Gothic”, it’s basically a family drama/saga about a group of adult siblings who struggle to know what to do when the compact between their family and the bog on their land doesn’t play out the way their father always instructed them it would when he died (to borrow words from another Goodreads review I got a real kick out of, the promised swamp tart is a no-show!) Have they failed as custodians of the bog? Did they perform the rituals wrong? Is the whole thing just totally insane…or a lie passed down through the generations?

We see this story unfold while following each of the Haddesley siblings: Eda, who has dedicated her life to making sure her family maintains the compact through ritual; Charlie, the eldest son who was always a disappointment as the one set to inherit the family legacy as patriarch; Wenna, the one who tried to escape it all and lived in the “real world” for ten years before returning for her father’s burial; Percy, the custodian of the bog; and Nora, who just wants the whole family to get along and to feel accepted as one part of the whole. Then there is the matter of their mother, the last bog wife, who disappeared over a decade ago…

The occult parts of the story were really interesting, and the tension was ratcheted up by discord among the siblings and their plight to understand what went wrong and how to fix it. I do have to admit that I felt let down by the last 50 pages–the resolution just had a very different feel from the rest of the book, which was a 5 star read for me. So altogether I’d probably call it 4.75 stars.

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Book Review: THE ART OF A LIE by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

| Jessica Crawford

The Art of a Lie by Laura Shepherd-Robinson is a 304 page standalone novel published in 2025 by Atria Books.

Genre:

Historical Fiction

Subgenres:

Mystery, thriller

Synopsis:

In 18th-century England, a widowed confectioner is drawn into a web of love, betrayal, and intrigue and a battle of wits in this masterful historical novel from the author of the USA TODAY bestseller The Square of Sevens.

Following the murder of her husband in what looks like a violent street robbery, Hannah Cole is struggling to keep her head above water. Her confectionary shop on Piccadilly is barely turning a profit, her suppliers conspiring to put her out of business because they don’t like women in trade. Henry Fielding, the famous author-turned-magistrate, is threatening to confiscate the money in her husband’s bank account because he believes it might have been illicitly acquired. And even those who claim to be Hannah’s friends have darker intent.

Only William Devereux seems different. A friend of her late husband, Devereux helps Hannah unravel some of the mysteries surrounding his death. He also tells her about an Italian delicacy called iced cream, an innovation she is convinced will transform the fortunes of her shop. But their friendship opens Hannah to speculation and gossip and draws Henry Fielding’s attention her way, locking her into a battle of wits more devastating than anything she can imagine.

Opening Line:

Nine times out of ten, when a customer walks into the Punchbowl and Pineapple, I can guess what will tempt them.

My Thoughts:

This author’s previous novel was my favorite book I read in all of 2024. This one wasn’t as much of a homerun for me.

The writing style is quite good, and it is evident that a lot of research went into bringing 18th century London to life upon the pages here. From Hannah Cole’s confectionary shop to the various parks, grand homes, and gambling houses, the details all rang as authentic and do an admirable job dropping the reader directly into the setting. This story is a decent one featuring widows, murderers, con artists, and one satirical novelist turned crime-busting magistrate based off of a real historical figure. There is a mystery that largely stems from not knowing which information you can and cannot trust.

However, I found myself kind of annoyed spending time with the main characters. The story alternates between two points of view, and while the reader knows when one person or the other is being lied to, it can be quite frustrating when the characters themselves are unaware of this. You spend your reading time wondering if and when things will come to light for them, or if their part of the tale will continue to see them reacting to false pretenses. This set up had me feeling kind of angsty, and knowing what I knew as the reader sort of left a bad taste in my mouth as I read on.

Many other reviewers seemed to really appreciate the ending, but I have to say that to me it seemed rather sudden and underwhelming. Especially considering this author’s other work, I was expecting the rug to be pulled out from under me in much more dramatic fashion at the last moment. There were still unexpected twists throughout, but the final one didn’t really wow me the way I think it was intended to.

But in all this is still well written historical fiction with some twisty mystery for added spice. I just had difficulty enjoying my time with the characters in this one.

Much gratitude to NetGalley for the eARC.

Book Review: GIRL IN THE CREEK by Wendy N. Wagner

| Jessica Crawford

Girl in the Creek by Wendy N. Wagner is a 272 page standalone novel published in 2025 by Tor Nightfire.

Genre:

Horror/Sporror

Synopsis:

The Girl in the Creek by Hugo Award winner Wendy N. Wagner is an atmospheric and eerie story about a Pacific Northwest forest that seems to be devouring all who enter. A perfect read for fans of T. Kingfisher and Jeff VanderMeer’s cli-fi cosmic horror.

The Clackamas National Forest has always been a sanctuary for evil—human and alien. The shadows of looming trees and long-abandoned mines shelter poachers and serial killers alike. Then there’s the ruined hotel on the outskirts of picturesque small town Faraday, Oregon, nestled in the foothills of Mt. Hood. The one drowning in mushrooms and fungus not even the local expert can identify. Not to mention the stacks of missing persons cases. Freelance writer Erin Harper arrives in Faraday to find out what happened to her brother, whose disappearance in the forest has haunted her for years. But someone else has gone missing. And when Erin finds her in the creek, the girl vanishes again — this time from the morgue, and days later her fingerprints show up at a murder scene. Maybe it’s a serial killer, or maybe it’s the spores infecting the forest and those lost inside. Erin must find answers quickly, before anyone else goes missing. But she might be next…

Opening Line:

The body lay at the very limit of daylight, the last clear place on the stones before woods framing in the ancient adit began to peel away from the walls and pile up in moldy heaps.

My Thoughts:

Buckle up, Readers, and prepare yourselves for Sporror galore!

Erin is ostensibly writing a piece for a travel a magazine when she visits a town in the foothills of Mt. Hood with a group of friends and acquaintances for a rafting trip. But she and her bestie Hari have an ulterior motive – they are investigating as part of their research for a podcast episode addressing the numerous mysterious disappearances in the area over the past several years. Erin’s own brother is one of those missing people. At the same time, readers are treated to occasional chapters from the POV of various lifeforms that have been infected by something called the Strangeness, all becoming various extensions of some central creeptastic intelligence.

There were a lot of characters introduced all in a short span of time, but Erin is the only one we learn about beyond surface level, and she is our only POV character beyond the chapters of the Strange. The other characters probably could have used a little more delving into; some side characters such as the police deputy and the Steadman brothers felt especially thin. On the other hand, the idea of the Strangeness was a super compelling one, and I thought its origins and history were really neat.

The pacing in this book is not quite perfect. It doesn’t lag at all, but rather somewhere around 66% or so things ratchet up from 0 to 60 suddenly, and then readers are just hit over and over again with some truly wild and grisly things happening with little lulls in between each crazy encounter.

Some of my all time favorite books are parasitic fungal horror, and while I enjoyed this story, it wasn’t quite to the same degree as those others. Perhaps because the tension and dread were a little less insidious and more in your face? I’m not sure I can explain the exact reason, but overall I still found this to be a 4 star read and think it’s a decent addition to the subgenre. A creepy as heck tale that keeps the reader engaged from start to finish.

Much thanks to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

Book Review: THE GHOSTWRITER by Julie Clark

| Jessica Crawford

The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark is a 328 page standalone novel published in 2025 by Sourcebooks Landmark.

Genre:

Mystery, Thriller

Synopsis:

June, 1975.

The Taylor family shatters in a single night when two teenage siblings are found dead in their own home. The only surviving sibling, Vincent, never shakes the whispers and accusations that he was the one who killed them. Decades later, the legend only grows as his career as a horror writer skyrockets.

Ghostwriter Olivia Dumont has spent her entire professional life hiding the fact that she is the only child of Vincent Taylor. Now on the brink of financial ruin, she’s offered a job to ghostwrite her father’s last book. What she doesn’t know, though, is that this project is another one of his lies. Because it’s not another horror novel he wants her to write.

After fifty years of silence, Vincent Taylor is finally ready to talk about what really happened that night in 1975.

Opening Line:

“I know what your dad did.”

My Thoughts:

This is an engaging mystery told through the lens of a ghostwriter penning the memoir of an unreliable narrator and trying to puzzle out the truth about an old murder case. It’s written in the first person present tense, and chapters rotate through three POVs in two timelines – Olivia in the present time, and her father and aunt in the months leading up to the murders in 1975. There’s a lot of nostalgia for those who grew up in the seventies here! We see a lot of flashbacks (and actual video footage from fourteen year old Aunt Poppy’s Super 8 camera) displaying family life and social issues of the era.

Did I side eye some of the details in this book? Sure. Did I remain hooked to the unfolding story anyway? You bet!

I’m beginning to realize that once you lie about your past, you wall yourself off from the present. From the people that care about you.

Book Review: THE LAST FERRY OUT by Andrea Bartz

| Jessica Crawford

The Last Ferry Out by Andrea Bartz is a 320 page standalone novel published in Ballantine Books May 20, 2025.

Genre:

Thriller, Mystery

Opening Line:

Blood hits limestone and splatters for a second before the rain beats it back, diluting it and sluicing it away in pink rivulets.

My Thoughts:

What a nice, original thriller!

Abby’s fiancée died four months ago while spending a few weeks on an isolated Mexican island in order to finish her capstone project in a peaceful location free of distractions. Eszter had died from an apparent allergic reaction. Now, Abby herself travels to Isla Colel in an effort to feel closer to her lost love, to see how she spent her last days alive, to understand how the unthinkable could have happened. As Abby meets and learns the secrets of the island’s residents and the group of expats who have fallen in love with the desolate locale (as well as the blank slate it offers), she begins to see that she never knew the woman she loved as well as she thought she did.

Abby was a wonderful main character, a grieving woman who learned to survive by being bold and valuing efficiency. Eszter was the daughter of Hungarian immigrants, and desired her parents’ approval despite their strictness and unyielding expectations. Isla Colel was a beautifully evocative setting, with the fonda, tropical beaches, limestone cliffs, and bioluminescent bay…and also with the abandoned resort hotel and rusting comm tower lending a more menacing air.

Just before her death, Eszter texted Abby, “There’s something I need to tell you.” The mystery of this story stems from Abby trying to understand what that might have been, and as she talks to the people her fiancée spent her last days with, it becomes clear that someone knows more than they’re saying. This was a refreshingly unique and decently smart mystery/thriller. Some readers are happy with the works of certain prolific authors who can’t be bothered to fact check the details in their books or to worry that the plot makes sense, as long as they’re telling an interesting story. To me, this book was a cut above that type of thing, for sure. And then just when you think it’s over and the resolution complete, out trots a twist that is just ::chef’s kiss::. Good stuff! 4.5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books of Penguin Random House for the eARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

Book Review: THE LANGUAGE OF THE BIRDS by K. A. Merson

| Jessica Crawford

The Language of the Birds by K. A. Merson is a 368 page standalone debut novel from Ballantine Books with a publish date of May 13, 2025.

Genre:

Mystery, Thriller

Opening Line:

Arizona cradles the figure-eight pendant between her thumb and finger and counts the days since her dad died–seventeen, the same as her age, and a prime number.

My Thoughts:

This is an impressive debut by an author who cites the following influences: Andy Weir for showing that science and math writing can be accessible, Blake Crouch for demonstrating how genres can be blended and bent seamlessly, Steig Larsson for writing an inspirational heroine, and Stephen King for inspiring others to make a serious effort at writing.

Arizona is a neurodivergent seventeen year old traveling with her mother to spread her recently-deceased father’s ashes in some of the places he loved. After her mother goes missing at Bodie State Historic Park in California, Arizona receives a phone call from a stranger – he is part of a group that has her mother, is familiar with Arizona’s idiosyncrasies, and demands that she help them solve a cryptic puzzle if she wants to see her mother returned safely. But how do they know this about her, and how is the group that kidnapped her mother tied to her late father?

There were flavors of The Davinci Code in this story, as Arizona works her way through multiple puzzles using ciphers and all sorts of logic exercises with which I can’t pretend to be familiar. There are a lot of diagrams and maps in this book, as we follow Arizona and her dog Mojo along on this high-stakes adventure. Did I skim over many of the parts trying to explain how she figured out what the encrypted messages and riddles meant (fractals, Euclidean space, monoalphabetic substitution ciphers, frequency analyses)? You bet. Did I get a kick out of the story featuring the history of alchemy and U.S. history and geography anyway? Heck yeah!

This books tells a smart puzzle-filled adventure of a story while also showing us personal growth in Arizona as she learns a bit more about learning to trust people enough to form relationships, and that emotions can’t be dealt with in the same way as mathematical equations. On display is the author’s own love of historical mysteries, literature, and even topography/U.S. geography and an outdoor/nomadic lifestyle. Well done!

I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley and Ballantine Books of Penguin Random House in exchange for my unbiased review.

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Book Review: HOW TO SEAL YOUR OWN FATE by Kristen Perrin

| Jessica Crawford

How to Seal Your Own Fate by Kristen Perrin is a 320 page novel, the second in the Castle Knoll Files series, from PENGUIN GROUP Dutton with a publish date of April 29, 2025.

Genre:

Mystery

Synopsis:

Kristen Perrin is back with the second novel in her Castle Knoll series. Annie Adams is caught in a new web of murder that spans decades, returning us to the idyllic English village that holds layers of secrets.

Present Annie Adams is just settling into life in Castle Knoll when local fortune teller Peony Lane crosses her path and shares a cryptic message. When Peony Lane is found dead only hours later inside the locked Gravesdown Estate, Annie quickly realizes that someone is out to make her look guilty while silencing Peony at the same time. Annie has no choice but to delve into the dark secrets of Castle Knoll in order to find out just what Peony Lane was trying to warn her about, before the new life she’s just begun to build comes crashing down around her.

1967: A year has passed since her friend Emily disappeared, and teenage Frances Adams finds herself caught between two men. Ford Gravesdown is one of the only remaining members of a family known for its wealth and dubious uses of power. Archie Foyle is a local who can’t hold down a job and lives above the village pub. But when Frances teams up with Archie to investigate the car crash that claimed the lives of Ford’s family, it quickly becomes clear that this was no accident—hints of cover-ups, lies, and betrayals abound. The question is, just how far does the blackness creep through the heart of Castle Knoll? When Frances uncovers secrets kept by both Ford and Archie, she starts to What exactly has she gotten herself into?

Opening Line:

Her name had always been too plain, she thought, as she looked at the prison register in front of her, which required her signature.

My Thoughts:

This was another engaging murder mystery in the Castle Knoll Files.

I do think I would have benefitted from rereading How to Solve Your Own Murder before jumping into this one, to better remember the characters we were previously introduced to, their relationships and motivations. In general they are an interesting collection of folk from a seemingly idyllic English countryside, one of whom offers the possibility of a future romance for our main character, Annie.

This time, it’s the intriguing figure of Peony Lane, the fortune teller who set Great Aunt Frances on her life’s course of trying to solve her own murder before it occurred, that gets caught up in the middle of the action. What might she have to do the Foyles, Sparrows, as well as the Gravesdowns of yore? And why do these crimes always seem to come knocking right at Annie’s door?

Alternating chapters between Annie’s current timeline (in present tense POV) and young Frances’s diary entries got a bit confusing to me, as both included many of the same characters and events, and so it became difficult to keep straight who already knew what in their respective investigations. And the particulars of this mystery wind up being quite convoluted and at times a bit of a stretch.

That being said, I was still definitely entertained by this contemporary whodunnit, and would happily read the next installment of Annie’s adventures in investigating secrets in order to solve crimes.

Thank you to Dutton, Penguin Random House, and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

Book Review: A DROP OF CORRUPTION by Robert Jackson Bennett

| Jessica Crawford

A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett is the second book in the Shadows of the Leviathan series with a publish date of April 1, 2025.

Genre:

Fantasy, Mystery

Opening Line:

Before there was memory, before there was history, there were the leviathans: the colossal, monstrous creatures that lumbered ashore each wet season and went wandering the plains, bringing death and panic with them.

My Thoughts:

“You know, you are not a stupid person, Din.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” I said, pleased.

“Or, rather, not an unusually stupid person.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” I said, far less pleased.

Ana and Din return in this solid installment in the Shadow of the Leviathan series, investigating another puzzler of a crime.

The events of this book take place in a different corner of the fantasy world than those of book one, but magical corruption and contagion are still things to watch out for. The Empire is in negotiations with the kingdom of Yarrow regarding its impending annexation when a member of the Imperial treasury goes missing from a locked room at the top of a tower, parts of him later found floating in the canals. Once Ana and Din arrive to look into the matter, they come to realize they are pitted against a mastermind of uncanny intelligence and the ability to parse patterns and predict their next moves before they themselves even know what they plan to do.

The investigation sees our unusual duo team up with the local wardens led by a woman named Malo, and an organization of Apoths tasked with obtaining the reagents that provide the people of this fantasy world with their special augmentations directly from the corpses of the dreaded leviathans. We also delve more into Din’s circumstances, his desire to return to Talgaray in service to the Legion in order to both be a hero and to be closer to his lover, as well as into the mystery of what, exactly, Ana is that allows her to accomplish the things she does.

The mystery was good and twisty, and the writing amusing, and the lessons once again go beyond magical mayhem to say something about the ills that come part and parcel with society. I will certainly continue reading on on this series to see what Ana and Din find themselves dealing with next.

Thank you to Del Rey of Random House Publishing and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for my unbiased review.

Book Review: SALTWATER by Katy Hays

| Jessica Crawford

Saltwater: A Novel by Katy Hays is a 336 page standalone novel from Ballantine Books with a publish date of March 25, 2025.

Genre:

Thriller, Family Drama, Mystery

Opening Line

(After a news article regarding the death of a woman while vacationing with her wealthy family in 1992.)

Money is my phantom limb.

Synopsis:

In 1992 Sarah Lingate is found dead below the cliffs of Capri, leaving behind her three-year-old daughter, Helen. Despite suspicions that the old-money Lingates are involved, Sarah’s death is ruled an accident. And every year, the family returns to prove it’s true. But on the thirtieth anniversary of Sarah’s death, the Lingates arrive at the villa to find a surprise waiting for them—the necklace Sarah was wearing the night she died.

Haunted by the specter of that night, the legendary Lingate family unity is pushed to a breaking point, and Helen seizes the opportunity. Enlisting the help of Lorna Moreno, a family assistant, the two plot their escape from Helen’s paranoid, insular family. But when Lorna disappears and the investigation into Sarah’s death is reopened, Helen has to confront the fact that everyone who was on Capri thirty years ago remains a suspect—her controlling father Richard, rarely-lucid aunt Naomi, distant uncle Marcus, and their circle of friends, visitors, and staff. Even Lorna, her closest ally, may not be who she seems.

As long-hidden secrets about that night boil to surface, one thing becomes not everyone will leave the island alive.

My Thoughts:

Saltwater by Katy Hays is a tense and twisty thriller featuring family secrets and Rich People Behaving Badly, with a strong sense of place transporting the reader to the glistening shores and plummeting cliffsides of the Italian island of Capri.

The Lingate family is Old Money with a fixation on maintaining appearances, even when this means closing ranks when one of their own dies suspiciously. As an adult, Helen, the daughter of the deceased, just wants to live in the present, but her family seems tied down by the past. She would do anything to escape the bonds of her overly controlling family in order to experience true freedom for the first time in her life. Lorna is similarly ready to free herself from the life she is forced to live in the shadow of the rich and powerful. The two women plot together to free themselves from the unwanted constraints of the Lingates and other families like them.

This was a decent thriller with conspiring, betrayal, and murder, all set in enticing locales such as an Italian villa and on the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Who can trust whom? One aspect of this story that didn’t work so great for me was that the chapters alternating amongst three timelines, but each occurring in the same locations with almost the exact same characters present, got confusing at times. “Okay, so this chapter picks back up with Helen on a boat with Ciro, but is this the time Freddy was there with them, or Lorna? Was this before or after that other event? I can’t remember!”

Things get a tad bit convoluted and farfetched as truths are revealed, but overall I enjoyed this bracing story of suspense.

There is sexual content in this story, but nothing that happens on the page. There is violence, but nothing super graphic.

Thank you to Ballantine Books and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

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