Nightcap Books

BOOK INFO

Title: A Simple Favor

Author: Darcey Bell

Publisher: Harper

Publish Date: March 21, 2017

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Series: na

My Rating: 3/5

BOOK BLURB

She’s your best friend.

She knows all your secrets.

That’s why she’s so dangerous.

A single mother’s life is turned upside down when her best friend vanishes in this chilling debut thriller in the vein of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train.

It starts with a simple favor—an ordinary kindness mothers do for one another. When her best friend, Emily, asks Stephanie to pick up her son Nicky after school, she happily says yes. Nicky and her son, Miles, are classmates and best friends, and the five-year-olds love being together—just like she and Emily. A widow and stay-at-home mommy blogger living in woodsy suburban Connecticut, Stephanie was lonely until she met Emily, a sophisticated PR executive whose job in Manhattan demands so much of her time.

But Emily doesn’t come back. She doesn’t answer calls or return texts. Stephanie knows something is terribly wrong—Emily would never leave Nicky, no matter what the police say. Terrified, she reaches out to her blog readers for help. She also reaches out to Emily’s husband, the handsome, reticent Sean, offering emotional support. It’s the least she can do for her best friend. Then, she and Sean receive shocking news. Emily is dead. The nightmare of her disappearance is over.

Or is it? Because soon, Stephanie will begin to see that nothing—not friendship, love, or even an ordinary favor—is as simple as it seems.

A Simple Favor is a remarkable tale of psychological suspense—a clever and twisting free-fall of a ride filled with betrayals and reversals, twists and turns, secrets and revelations, love and loyalty, murder and revenge. Darcey Bell masterfully ratchets up the tension in a taut, unsettling, and completely absorbing story that holds you in its grip until the final page.

MY REVIEW

Stephanie and Emily are best friends. Emily asks a favor of Stephanie – to watch her son one afternoon and she’ll pick him up that evening… but Emily never comes back.

Stephanie is a widow and mommy blogger with a young son. Emily is a working mom with a young son. They don’t seem to have much in common, other than their sons are friends, but soon they also become friends. They also both have secrets in their past that they don’t want to get out.

A Simple Favor is told with alternating points of view – Stephanie, Emily, and Sean. Plus, some of the story is told using posts from Stephanie’s blog. Stephanie is naive, creepy, and fake. Emily is arty, manipulative, and awful. Sean is Emily’s dopey husband.

A Simple Favor is a twisted psychological thriller. I enjoyed the writing style, but the story itself was not that great. Stephanie and Emily are both unlikable, and not in a “they’re morally corrupt, but interesting” way. Even with unlikable characters, I want to root for someone, and this book didn’t have that. There were some interesting happenings and twists. It’s just unfortunate that I never connected with any characters.

Books by Darcey Bell:

1. A Simple Favor
2. Something She’s Not Telling Us
3. All I Want
4. Woman of the Year

BOOK INFO

Title: Baby Teeth

Author: Zoje Stage

Publisher: St Martin’s Press

Publish Date: July 17, 2018

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Series: na

My Rating: 3/5

BOOK BLURB

MEET HANNA: Seven-year-old Hanna is a sweet-but-silent angel in the eyes of her adoring father Alex. He’s the only person who understands her. But her mother Suzette stands in her way, and she’ll try any trick she can think of to get rid of her. Ideally for good.

MEET SUZETTE: Suzette loves her daughter, but after years of expulsions and strained home schooling, her precarious health and sanity are weakening day by day. She’s also becoming increasingly frightened by Hanna’s little games, while her husband Alex remains blind to the failing family dynamics. Soon, Suzette starts to fear that maybe their supposedly innocent baby girl may have a truly sinister agenda.
A battle of wills between mother and daughter reveals the frailty and falsehood of familial bonds in award-winning playwright and filmmaker Zoje Stage’s tense novel of psychological suspense, Baby Teeth.

MY REVIEW

Suzette and Alex’s daughter, Hanna, is a difficult child. They want to raise her in a loving environment, but it is proving more and more difficult as Hanna’s behavior becomes worse.

Baby Teeth is told from alternating points of view – Suzette and Hanna. Suzette is not only dealing with her difficult child, but also suffers from chronic illness. This combination has created a lot of stress and unhappiness in her life. She notices how devious Hanna is, but Alex doesn’t want to believe anything bad about his little girl. Hanna is seven-years-old, but doesn’t speak and displays anti-social behavior. Hannah is super creepy and diabolical. Suzette is to the point where she can no longer handle Hanna’s behavior, and Hanna is only becoming more cruel toward her mother.

I read a lot of mixed reviews on Baby Teeth, and had originally decided to pass on reading it. I ended up borrowing it from my local library. I found it to be an entertaining and quick read. Some parts were compelling, and I was curious what would happen, but other parts fell flat. Good for fans of psychological thrillers like The Perfect Child and other books featuring creepy kids.

BOOK INFO

Title: Give Me Your Hand

Author: Megan Abbott

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Publish Date: July 17, 2018

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Series: na

My Rating: 3/5

BOOK BLURB

You told each other everything. Then she told you too much.

Kit has risen to the top of her profession and is on the brink of achieving everything she wanted. She hasn’t let anything stop her.

But now someone else is standing in her way: Diane. Best friends at seventeen, their shared ambition made them inseparable. Until the day Diane told Kit her secret — the worst thing she’d ever done, the worst thing Kit could imagine — and it blew their friendship apart.

Kit is still the only person who knows what Diane did. And now Diane knows something about Kit that could destroy everything she’s worked so hard for.

How far would Kit go to make the hard work, the sacrifice, worth it in the end? What wouldn’t she give up? Diane thinks Kit is just like her. Maybe she’s right. Ambition: it’s in the blood . . .

MY REVIEW

Kit and Diane were best friends in high school, until Diane told Kit a disturbing secret one day. Now, 10 years later, the two women are vying for a coveted position on a special project in a research lab. Kit is not pleased to see Diane. When Diane finds out a secret about Kit, things become even more complicated.

The story of what happened between Kit and Diane unfolds with alternate timelines. The “Then” is when they were teenagers, best friends with ambitious futures in science. The “Now” is when they are working in research, and competing for a position on the same research team.

Kit and Diane share some similarities, mainly that they are both very intelligent, ambitious, and driven women. Kit has dreamed of a career in research, and has high hopes of landing a position on a groundbreaking project. Unexpectedly, Diane shows up and is hired to work in the same research lab, and along with her appearance comes memories Kit had put behind her.

The research lab has a small group of people whom Kit has been working with, and developed good working relationships. The leader of the project is an equally ambitious woman, but the other team members are all men. The newly funded project deals with premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), and the men seem to think Kit is a shoo-in for the project because she is a woman. When Diane shows up, the work dynamic is changed, and no one is sure who the other person chosen for the team will be… which increases tension in the lab.

Give Me Your Hand was an entertaining read, and I especially enjoyed that a good portion of the story deals with science and research. I also like the strong, but flawed, women characters. The story has some intriguing and intense parts, but also fell flat. I was expecting to be gripped by this book, but it never really captured me.

Books by Megan Abbott:

1. Dare Me
2. You Will Know Me
3. Give Me You Hand
4. The Turnout