I read three books this month, and a part of me is curious how many I’ll manage in December. There’s still plenty of time for reading in 2023!
I don’t usually read thrillers, but I did enjoy this one, and I’ve actually enjoyed a few others I’ve read (so maybe I really should read more thrillers– hah!). I’m a sucker for books with the premise of bringing a group of people to an isolated place to solve a mystery or possibly not make it out alive…dun, dun, dun. The story’s pitch seemed to promise something like “Clue” or Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None”, both of which I love, and though I would say that it really didn’t pan out like what I expected, it was still an entertaining read. Seven friends are invited by Ryan Cloverhill (another one of their friends from back in their college days, though now he’s a billionaire head of a social media company) to his private island with the promise of a reunion. When the friends wake up on the second day, however, Cloverhill is gone and there is a tablet in his place with a note. They need to unlock it to figure out what’s going on, and chaos unfolds from there.
I initially stumbled upon “Mexican Gothic” when looking for comps for my book; there are similarities, I would say, in the style and in some of the themes, though I think Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s magical realism leans into horror while mine lilts more Marvel. Either way, I’m grateful to have stumbled upon it as the story was really fascinating. Noemi Taboada, a carefree debutante, makes her way to the mysterious High Place after receiving a mysterious letter from her recently married cousin. The letter seems to imply that her cousin is possibly losing her mind or that something more sinister is going on. Once Noemi arrives at the house in the distant Mexican countryside, she is taken aback by its dreary, unusual status and the silent, unpleasant English family her cousin has married into. The house is clearly haunted…or is it? Something even creepier is going on, and I had to keep reading to find out just what that was!
“This “The Midnight Library” was another book that wasn’t quite what I expected based on the premise, but it ended up being an entertaining read, too. At the start of the book, we’re introduced to Nora Seed, who is depressed and facing a lot of issues in her life, from losing her job and her cat to friends and family who no longer speak to her to just feeling rather aimless. When she attempts suicide, instead of dying, she wakes up in an enormous, mysterious library. Her school library is there, telling her that each of the potential choices of her life are within the different books of this library. Essentially, Nora could pick any of these books and live any of her potential lives, from wanting to follow through on her childhood passion for glaciology to pursuing her Olympic potential with swimming to staying with her brother’s band. The bulk of the story is Nora experiencing these various lives, which is intriguing, though it also made it a bit difficult to connect to Nora’s character; she arrives at each life as an outsider and has to gather a lot of information, at which point she leaves for the next one. Once she became more settled, I felt more invested in the story.
What have you been reading lately?
Words and Coffee Writing 
I hope you have already checked it on my blog, I read “an office and a spy” by Robert Harris.
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Awesome! Thanks for sharing. 🙂
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I’ve started Barbara Kingsolver’s Pigs in Heaven. So far it is interesting but is a little slow in making me feel any connection with these characters… Next on my list is a book my husband is reading Redshirts by John Scalzi.
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Thanks for sharing! I’m also now reading a book where I’ve had a tough time making connections to any of the characters. It’s always a bit of a disappointment, but there are more fish in the sea. 😀
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I really enjoyed Mexican Gothic! Although sometimes it felt really slow, but as a whole I enjoyed the experience!
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Yes, I could see that, too, especially at the start. It was interesting to read it as a comp title because the speculative elements in my story don’t appear into a few chapters in, either, with a similar sort of hint at something being off early on. It was sort of validating in a way to see a similar style in such a well-loved book!
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