Fireflies & Free Kicks Fiction Reviews

The Wedding Day by Sue Watson is a different kind of psych thriller. Instead of events making the plot come together, I felt more confused the further I read.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing – because it certainly kept me guessing. But it was a little odd.

Alice is a mess. There is no other way to put it. She’s lost her husband to an affair, spiraled into drinking, and lost her job because of that…a perfect storm of misery.

So, when she runs into said ex-husband and new chick – and realizes something disturbing – she can hardly be blamed for being upset, right?

Well…..she’s more than that. This meeting is the catalyst for all that follows in the book.

In short order, Alice finds herself on the island of Corfu – and that’s when the plot really takes off. I’m not going to give away any spoilers, but you can read the blurb for what occurs next.

There are some parts of the book that feel very repetitive. Yes, we get it – Alice and her sister really like crime shows. Does that help them, or does it make them paranoid? And why is Alice obsessing over posters of missing women on the island?

I will say that I thought the author was going a different direction with that plotline, especially in light of recent news about a certain island in the Caribbean. So, kudos for leading me down that path.

The author also did a good job of laying in just enough clues and red herrings that the reader remained as off-kilter as Alice. The end requires a bit of suspended disbelief, but I’m not mad at it. It is just soapy enough to be entertaining.

In fact, that describes the whole book, really.

The Wedding Day is a “take your brain out and go for the ride” type of psych thriller. It is good enough that I’ll continue to look for books from Sue Watson.

The Summer Holiday by S.E. Lynes is a psych thriller that takes a minute to get going but then ends up quite satisfying. And a lot happens in between.

Kate is in a marriage that she feels might be one-sided. But she makes it work for years. She and Jeff don’t seem to be very evenly matched, but as with any couple, they probably have their reasons.

Too bad the reasons aren’t the same for both of them.

While on vacation in Spain (because Jeff provides), they run into Coco Moss – a person Kate was enamored with in college. And someone who Jeff may or may not have ties to…somehow.

Trying really hard not to drop any spoilers.

Suffice it to say that Coco Moss might be the undoing of all of them. (I like the way the author has Coco doing “confessionals.” It breaks up the style and is effective in the overall plot

There are secrets galore in this book – everybody has them. Some are just worse than others. And some of them are just plain horrible. Poor Kate.

The book takes a while to get going. We get a lot of how Kate feels inadequate, how she tries to compensate (for what?), and how she wishes she could be…well, more like Coco.

Until she finds out some info that throws all of her perspectives into disarray.

There are a few characters who don’t figure much in the plot – they just seem to be window-dressing. But late in the game, there are still a few more secrets that make their presence more plausible.

And there’s that lovely last-minute twist I’ve come to love in a psych thriller.

S.E. Lynes is at the top of my list of psych thriller authors, and The Summer Holiday is one of the best.

The Guilty Mother by Sam Vickery is a solid psych thriller that details how far a mom might go for her children – and what secrets may have to be hidden in the process.

And there are a LOT of secrets flying around in this book. Most of them felt natural to the book. However, there were a few places where I thought I missed something because they seemed almost like a throwaway.

I’ll try to explain without giving away any twists.

It’s apparent from the very beginning that both Lisa and Victoria have ulterior motives for their actions – not to mention several secrets to keep hidden.

I thought Lisa was admirable. Even as she was put in horrible positions, and yes, she is the guilty mother, she maintained her stance to protect her family. And it never seemed martyrish – just what a mama bear would do for her family.

Victoria was a little bit harder to get a grip on. Her background with Russell was fairly obvious to me (if you read enough psych thrillers, you can find those hints fairly easily). But there are moments in the story where she veers off and it feels almost like she is a different character.

Is that the result of what she put up with in her marriage? Or is it uneven writing? I honestly couldn’t tell. Not that it mattered much. There was only one moment where I actually thought, “Wait – what?” because it came out of left field and then there was essentially no follow-through.

However, maybe there is follow-through. It is in Victoria’s final decisions. I didn’t catch that during reading, but in retrospect it makes sense.

Additionally, the twists toward the end are pretty good. I was back and forth about how something happened and thought I had it figured out. Until it became clear that Lisa was VERY good at hiding her secrets!

And now I’m verging into giving those away.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Guilty Mother. Sam Vickery is becoming a favorite, and I look forward to the next psych thriller!

I totally thought that The Marriage Counselor was going to go in a different direction than Dea Poirier actually took it. I like it when a psych thriller author can do that.

However, there were times when the direction shifts (and yes, that’s plural) made it feel like I was reading an entirely different book – almost like the author couldn’t exactly decide which way the plot should actually go.

That doesn’t mean it wasn’t enjoyable though, because it was. And all of those switches had me turning pages to try and figure out what was going on.

Adele struggles with ghosts of her past, especially her parents who were tv personas. Following in their footsteps in a more practical way, she is the marriage counselor – and has built a steady business. Everything seems fine.

Until it isn’t.

Her husband disappears. She learns there may be more to the accident that claimed her parent’s lives. Her ex-boyfriend is an officer working on her husband’s missing person case. Lucas, her husband’s ex-business partner is…angry. Her assistant is angrier.

It all turns into a big mess. But what is really going on with her husband? How many lies has she built her life around? Who is responsible for events that make her feel hunted?

While it mostly works, there are a few things that I think got short shrift. The ex-business partner plotline feels more like a red herring than a legitimate thread. It didn’t feel complete. The same goes for the secrets about her parents. The impact of that was “blink and you’ll miss it” making it feel more like a device than an actual storyline.

The whole arc with her assistant, Emma, felt disjointed to me. I was left wondering how I was really supposed to feel about it…especially in light of the biggest twist of all – literally in the last pages. There were simply some holes that should have been filled.

But I’m not going to give anything away. You’ll have to read it for yourself to find out what I’m talking about.

In spite of what I mentioned, I did like The Marriage Counselor. There was enough psych to keep the psych thriller aspect, and there’s that aforementioned last-minute twist that had me wondering if I’d read everything the “right” way. It was certainly enough to make me look forward to the next novel by Dea Poirier.

The Lie by Kathryn Croft is a psych thriller that takes the reader in one direction before completely switching it up, leaving one wondering what the truth of the situation is.

I know that sounds convoluted, but I’ll try to explain.

In this case, Lucy and her family hold a bbq. Her son’s girlfriend (Rose) goes missing that same night. Blame falls on her son, Jacob, who isn’t exactly forthcoming in what was going on that night.

The story unfolds via alternating chapters with points of view from Lucy and Rose’s mom, Carrie. And every so often, there is a chapter from Rose. But it is difficult to tell when and where Rose is speaking from.

That, of course, comes clear, but not until later in the book. Most of the plot centers around where Rose is, and what actually happened that night.

As such, there are a lot of repetitive moments. Lucy had no idea what was going on with Jacob. Should she have known? Could she have paid more attention? Who knows. But she asks herself that several times. Carrie does the same. These are the parts that put the psych in psych thriller.

There’s a lot of introspection.

Ava, Jacob’s sister, goes between being a bookworm to screaming that she hates everyone. A mention late in the story of bullying and a potential diagnosis from Rose herself seems contrived and unsupported.

Carrie has a relationship with Joe, but it obviously isn’t working for them, as they both show interest in other people. I’m not saying who, because that would give away part of the plot. And it’s an important part.

I was intrigued by the story, but in retrospect, there are a lot of characters and points that go nowhere. Carrie’s ex, issues in London, Lucy’s quest to protect Jacob by doing something rash…all feel somewhat contrived.

That being said, at the end of Part II (there are three parts) my jaw literally dropped. And that’s when everything comes together.

While The Lie isn’t perfect, Kathryn Croft has written a solid psych thriller that had me reading late into the night to find out what happened to Rose.