Book Review!! Cross My Heart, I Hope You Die by Mallory Arnold

Cross My Heart, I Hope You Die by Mallory Arnold
Genre: Adult Fiction (Mystery/Horror/Thriller)
Expected Publication: July 14, 2026
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press

One isolated cabin. One cheating boyfriend. One plan to get even.

When Nora, Ruby, and Cham discover that they've each been dating the same man, what starts as outrage quickly spirals into a plot for revenge. Together they hatch a plan to lure their boyfriend to a romantic getaway in a secluded cabin at the top of a snow-covered mountain.

Only what was meant to be harmless payback soon takes a chilling turn when their not-so-adoring boyfriend is found dead in the cabin. 

Stranded and snowed in, the women begin to look at each other with increasing suspicion. And as tensions rise, hidden motives come to light. To survive, each woman must confront her own demons as they fight to uncover if one of them is the killer, or if something else lurks in the freezing wilderness, waiting to pick them off one by one. 

Cross My Heart, I Hope You Die by Mallory Arnold pulled me in, in the beginning. I enjoyed getting the back story of each of the women with Jason. They each stood on their own as characters and had their charm. The setting was perfect once they got to the cabin. But, once they got to the cabin is also when things started to really change for me. It became harder to tell Ruby and Nora apart for whatever reason. A death happened way too soon. I wanted to hear more from that person. And, as things started happening, it was so much of the unlikely that it became a little too much to be realistic anymore. I was pleased with how the story wrapped up. Unfortunately, it seemed like there was a possible cliff hanger. I really hope it stays a stand alone. I say that, because I feel like adding any more to this story would take it way over the top.. not in a good way. I do think it'd make a fun movie, and I did enjoy this author's writing style. I'm curious about her other book. I'll have to check it out. This novel will be released on July 14, 2026

The ARC of Cross My Heart, I Hope You Die by Mallory Arnold was kindly provided to me by the publisher through NetGalley. for review. The opinions are my own.

Mallory Arnold is an editor and writer who resides in Nashville, Tennessee with her husband and three cats. She's part of the Women's Fiction Writer's Association and enjoys writing drama, thrillers, and horror.

To learn more about Mallory Arnold and her books, visit her  on Goodreads & Instagram.

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Book Review! Here Lie All the Boys Who Broke My Heart by Emma Simmerman

Here Lie All the Boys Who Broke My Heart by Emma Simmerman
Genre: Young Adult Fiction (Mystery/Thriller)
Date Published: February 3, 2026
Publisher: Avon 

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder meets Tell Me Lies in this binge-worthy debut murder mystery about a college student whose senior year takes a deadly turn when her exes start turning up dead…

Every time a guy breaks my heart, I write him a eulogy in my journal. It’s kind of my thing—closure through creative mourning. They don't actually die... or, at least, they didn't.

Now? These guys aren’t just dead to me, they’re dead to everyone. And I’m the prime suspect.

With my senior year at Pembroke College—and my entire future—on the line, I’ve got no choice but to play detective. Unfortunately, that means teaming up with my long-standing frenemy, Asher, who is insufferable and somehow always there when I need him the least. We bicker, we banter, we occasionally almost hook up, but with the body count rising and my name all over the suspect board, there’s no time to get distracted.

Between college parties, messy exes, suspicious deaths, and a murder investigation I never asked to be a part of—one thing’s for this is not how I thought my last year would go.

Here’s to hoping I can find out who the real killer is... before someone ends up writing my eulogy.

Here Lie All the Boys Who Broke My Heart by Emma Simmerman is a stand alone book that had that I Know What You Did Last Summer / Scream feel to it. Basically, all her exes in her journal of obituaries keep getting murdered. It was a fun mystery. Who did it? The answer wasn't as obvious as some stories out there, which I enjoyed. I wasn't too keen on many of the main characters though. Asher was as the blurb said... insufferable. I have no idea how someone could fall for him. You eventually got his sob story, but it wasn't good enough for me to excuse his brand of mean. And Sloane? She has no sense. On top of that, she clearly has a drinking problem. Every single one of her friends enables her and then get mad at her when she acts like a drunk. Even sober, she makes bad decisions. I liked the premise a lot, because I love these kinds of horror/mysteries. They're just plain fun! And this one was fun too, despite my frustration towards Sloane. I hope this debut author writes more.

The ARC if  Here Lie All the Boys Who Broke My Heart by Emma Simmerman was kindly provided to me by the publisher through NetGalley for review. The opinions are my own.

Emma Simmerman is a debut author with an advertising degree from Kent State University. She is a Youngstown, Ohio, native who now resides in Cleveland with her husband Nick, and her two cats Kitty and Cleo. When she’s not writing, she enjoys reading, crocheting, and drinking overpriced cocktails with her friends.

To learn more about Emma Simmerman and her books, visit her on Goodreads.

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Book Review: The Other Sister by Jessica R. Patch

The Other Sister by Jessica R. Patch
Genre: Adult Fiction (Phychological Thriller)
Date Published: April 1, 2025
Publisher:  Love Inspired Trade

She thought she was the only one lying about her identity. Until she stepped into her sister’s life.

Charlotte Kane has always dreamed of a different life, one where she isn’t living paycheck to paycheck. An existence worlds away from the chaos of her own. Then her estranged mother dies, and Charlotte makes a stunning discovery—she has an identical twin who was given up for adoption.

Acelynn Benedict is polished, successful and seems to have everything Charlotte yearns for—a wealthy, doting family in Savannah, a handsome boyfriend, a great career. She’s just as surprised as Charlotte to learn she has a sister. But when tragedy hits and Charlotte is forced to assume Acelynn’s identity in a desperate moment, she uncovers something altogether darker…

No one in her sister’s life is quite who they seem to be. And every discovery leads Charlotte deeper into a web of deadly secrets. Charlotte may have wanted Acelynn’s life, yet now that she’s living it, she wants out. But if she reveals the truth about herself, it will mean returning to her old life—and she’s already a dead woman there.

The Other Sister by Jessica R. Patch is a phychological thriller full of twists. There are a lot of characters within this story, and you can’t trust most of them. They have something they’re hiding or ulterior motives. Even the main character... You find out some surprising stuff as the story progresses. The only thing I really expected was the epilogue. I just knew it from the start. It ends in a way that leaves room for a sequel. I’m not sure there’d be enough for a sequel though, and I’m happy with how it ends. I kind of hope it’s left as a stand alone with its little bit of mystery left to keep you wondering.

The ARC of  The Other Sister by Jessica R. Patch was kindly provided to me by the publisher through NetGalley for review. The opinions are my own.

I’m Jess Patch, a wife of over thirty years to my real-life hero, a mom of two grown adults with my first grand on the way! I’m a dog-lover and have a super spoiled Shetland Sheepdog (sheltie). Now that my kids are grown, when I’m not writing inspirational romantic suspense and dark twisty thrillers that explore the darker parts of human hearts yet offer a hope-filled ending, you can find me binging audiobooks at my pool during the summer or on my daily walks. If I’m not doing that I’m avoiding household chores with lunch dates over tacos and copious amounts of cheese dip and tortilla chips and the discussion usually surrounds true crime and how we could solve cold cases so easily if given the chance (we do love our delusional state)!

To learn more about Jessica R. Patch and her books, visit her website. You can also find her on Goodreads, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, BookBub, YouTube, Pinterest, and Twitter.

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Book Review: What the Woods Took by Courtney Gould

What the Woods Took by Courtney Gould
Genre: Young Adult Fiction (Horror/Thriller)
Date Published: December 10, 2024
Publisher: Wednesday Books

Yellowjackets meets Girl, Interrupted when a group of troubled teens in a wilderness therapy program find themselves stranded in a forest full of monsters eager to take their place.

Devin Green wakes in the middle of the night to find two men in her bedroom. No stranger to a fight, she calls to her foster parents for help, but it soon becomes clear this is a planned abduction—one everyone but Devin signed up for. She’s shoved in a van and driven deep into the Idaho woods, where she’s dropped off with a cohort of equally confused teens. Finally, two camp counselors inform them that they've all been enrolled in an experimental therapy program. If the campers can learn to change their self-destructive ways—and survive a fifty-days hike through the wilderness—they’ll come out the other side as better versions of themselves. Or so the counselors say.

Devin is immediately determined to escape. She’s also determined to ignore Sheridan, the cruel-mouthed, lavender-haired bully who mocks every group exercise. But there’s something strange about these woods—inhuman faces appearing between the trees, visions of people who shouldn't be there flashing in the leaves—and when the campers wake up to find both counselors missing, therapy becomes the least of their problems. Stranded and left to fend for themselves, the teens quickly realize they’ll have to trust each other if they want to survive. But what lies in the woods may not be as dangerous as what the campers are hiding from each other—and if the monsters have their way, no one will leave the woods alive.

Atmospheric and sharp, What the Woods Took is a poignant story of transformation that explores the price of becoming someone—or something—new.

What the Woods Took by Courtney Gould is a story of survival. Many levels of survival: surviving the wilderness, their personal traumas, themselves, each other… and if that’s not enough, throw in a supernatural element as well. The romances didn’t do much for me. I feel like they took away from the story more than benefitting it. Thankfully they weren’t a focus through most of the story. I really wish we would have gotten more from the ending. Like a flash back to the woods with an incident with the search crew or something. Or maybe even having the survivors seeing “something” that made it out of the woods. I don’t know. It needed something. The ending just didn’t do it for me. Overall, I loved the premise. The execution just wasn’t for me.

The ARC of What the Woods Took by Courtney Gould was kindly provided to me by the publisher through NetGalley for review. The opinions are my own.

Courtney Gould writes books about girls, ghosts, and things that go bump in the night. Her debut novel, THE DEAD AND THE DARK, came out Summer 2021 from Wednesday Books and won the Leslie Bradshaw Award for Young Adult Fiction. Her second novel, WHERE ECHOES DIE, hit shelves on June 20th, 2023 and her next YA novel, WHAT THE WOODS TOOK, is forthcoming in Fall 2024. Her writing is featured in Indie Bestselling anthology THE GATHERING DARK and in the forthcoming THE HOUSE WHERE DEATH LIVES.

She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University in 2016 with a Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing, Publishing, and Marketing. She now lives in Salem, OR where she continues to write love letters to small towns and haunted places.

To learn more about Courtney Gould and her books, visit her website. You can also find her on Goodreads.

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Book Review! Extinction by Douglas Preston

Extinction by Douglas Preston
Genre: Adult Fiction (Thriller / Mystery / Science Fiction)
Date Published: April 2, 2024
Publisher: Forge Books

With Extinction, #1 New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston has written a page-turning thriller in the Michael Crichton mode that explores the possible and unintended dangers of the very real efforts to resurrect the woolly mammoth and other long-extinct animals.

Erebus Resort, occupying a magnificent, hundred-thousand acre valley deep in the Colorado Rockies, offers guests the experience of viewing woolly mammoths, Irish Elk, and giant ground sloths in their native habitat, brought back from extinction through the magic of genetic manipulation. When a billionaire's son and his new wife are kidnapped and murdered in the Erebus back country by what is assumed to be a gang of eco-terrorists, Colorado Bureau of Investigation Agent Frances Cash partners with county sheriff James Colcord to track down the perpetrators.

As killings mount and the valley is evacuated, Cash and Colcord must confront an ancient, intelligent, and malevolent presence at Erebus, bent not on resurrection―but extinction.

Extinction of the first book I’ve read by Douglas Preston, and it didn’t disappoint. I wouldn’t really compare it to Jurassic Park too much, but if you loved Jurassic Park you’ll like this one.  This is more of a mystery. Who’s the bad guy/bad guys? In Jurassic Park, the enemy was always clear, because they weren’t the main point of the story. In Extinction, the story starts with mysterious killings, and it builds from there. I loved the imagery of the mammoths and other prehistoric mammals. It was written beautifully. 

This story was very well told. Especially since it was told from multiple perspectives which can sometimes get messy. This one was put together nicely. It did drag in areas, but when it was going, it really went. There were brutal bits, but they were mainly left to the imagination rather than a full description. Sometimes less is more, and while I’m not one to get queasy, I feel like if you do, this style wouldn’t be as hard on you. It was interesting! You can tell the author did some research here, and that makes it all the better. 

Even though it never ends well, fictionally speaking, I’ve gotta say I’d line up to see these creatures. Dinos. Mammals. It’d be worth the risk to see them. Sign me up!

The ARC of Extinction by Douglas Preston was kindly provided to me by the publisher through NetGalley for review. The opinions are my own.

Olivia lay in the dark, Mark breathing softly next to her. The night was still, without the breath of breeze, the silence profound. It had dropped below freezing, but their sleeping bags were super warm, and she was used to camping in alpine weather. Her dad had taken her and her brothers camping in the Wasatches and Manti-La Sal in all seasons, sometimes on cross-country ski trips in the dead of winter in ten-foot-deep snow and nights to twenty below. God, she missed him. Mark was a little like that, unintimidated by wilderness conditions, totally cool with anything nature might throw at him. The first thing she did with any new boyfriend was go camping. So many of them, despite their big talk, failed the test — all it took was a little rain or snow, a swarm of mosquitoes, or a rattler, and they were in a panic. Or they just didn’t have a wilderness sense — like casually leaving trash or pissing too close to a stream or not knowing how to set up a tent. She shifted her body, not feeling the slightest bit tired. The sun set so early in the fall, it was still probably only eight o’clock. She wished she could fall asleep like Mark, who could drop off anywhere, anytime, in five minutes. It was a dark, moonless night. The mammoths would be sleeping in their hollow below them. She listened, wondering if mammoths snored. But she could hear nothing. Her mind wandered, and she thought of her Olympic medal, sitting in its sock in the back of her underwear drawer in Salt Lake. All those years of work, struggle, risks, crashes, injuries, surgery, rehab, recovery, more work, more struggle — and finally Pyeongchang. All that work had been squeezed up and stamped in a piece of bronze sitting in the back of her drawer. Mark had been upset that she wouldn’t frame it and hang it with a picture of her receiving it on the stand. Why would she? She hated even looking at it. It would be different for her child. Son or daughter, it didn’t matter. He or she wouldn’t make the mistakes she’d made. Olivia had been through it all and knew now how the system worked and what had to be done, and she could guide her child to something a whole lot better than bronze. She suddenly was hyperalert, tense. She heard a sound. A strange plucking sound. Mark was instantly awake too. And then it started, the loud tearing sound of the tent fly, like it was being cut. “What the f***?” Mark sat up like a shot. She pulled a headlamp out of the tent pocket and switched it on. She shined it through the mosquito netting of the inner tent to reveal a long, ragged cut in the outer fly. “What was that?” said Mark. “A branch?” “There’s no wind,” Olivia said. “You think it’s a bear?” he said. “They said the bears had been removed.” “Yeah, but one could have wandered back in over the mountains.” Olivia wondered. Maybe it was an animal, smelling the humans inside and reaching out to scratch the fly just to see what it was. They listened, but the silence was total. “I’m going out,” said Mark. “No, wait.” “I’m not waiting. If it’s a cat or bear, we’d better drive it away. We can’t wait for it to come in here.” He took the headlamp from her, put it on, and pulled his buck knife from its sheath, before slipping out of the bag. He was wearing Capilene full-body long johns. He went to the tent door and unzipped it. He paused. No sound. Then he stuck his head outside the door. “See anything?” “Nothing.” She was filled with uncertainty. It could be a mountain lion in wait. Maybe it ran off when they turned on the headlamp. But Mark was right: they couldn’t just cower in the tent. They had to do something. Calling out for the guide would only put him in a place of danger, and besides, asking for help from the guide ran against her wilderness ethic. She felt around and grasped her own knife and put on her own headlamp but didn’t turn it on yet. “Okay, I’m going out,” he said, and slipped out into the dark. She could see the glow of his light indistinctly through the tent fabric as he swept the area. She tensed, gripping her own knife. The glow quietly moved about for a long thirty seconds. She heard him suddenly grunt—a weird sort of snort — and there was the sound of spilling liquid, and the glow vanished. “Mark?” Olivia cried. “Mark!” No sound. She sprang to the tent flap and looked out, turning on her headlamp and sweeping the area with the light. There was his knife, on the ground. Nearby lay his headlamp in the grass, still lit. “Mark!” she screamed. “Mark! Hey, we need help here!” she cried, leaping out of the tent, gripping the knife. She stopped where he had dropped his knife and headlamp and stared at the ground in horror — just as she felt something strike the back of her neck and slide in, crunching the bone and going through it, as hot as fire and cold as ice at the same time. 

Douglas Preston has published thirty-six books of both nonfiction and fiction, of which twenty-nine have been New York Times bestsellers. He is the co-author, with Lincoln Child, of the Pendergast series of thrillers. He writes about archaeology and anthropology for the New Yorker Magazine, and he worked as an editor at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and taught nonfiction writing at Princeton University. He currently serves as President of the Authors Guild, the nation’s oldest and largest association of authors and journalists.

To learn more about Douglas Preston and his books, visit his website. You can also find him on Goodreads, Facebook, and YouTube.

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Book Review: Creeper by A.M. Shine

Creeper by A.M. Shine 
Genre: Adult Fiction (Thriller/Mystery)
Date Published: September 15, 2022
Publisher: Head of Zeus

Superstitions only survive if people believe in them...

Renowned academic Dr Sparling seeks help with his project on a remote Irish village. Historical researchers Ben and Chloe are thrilled to be chosen—until they arrive...

The village is isolated and forgotten. There is no record of its history, its stories. There is no friendliness from the locals, only wary looks and whispers. The villagers lock down their homes at sundown. A nameless fear stalks the streets...

Nobody will talk—nobody except one little girl. Her story strikes dread into the hearts of the newcomers. Three times you see him. Each night he comes closer...

That night, Ben and Chloe see a sinister figure watching them. He is the Creeper. He is the nameless fear in the night. Stories keep him alive. And nothing will keep him away...

The Creeper is a masterful tale of horror and suspense, by one of Ireland's most talented emerging authors.

Creeper by A.M. Shine is only the second book by this author that I’ve read, and I think I’ll read more. I actually thought this was going to be a sort of sequel to The Watchers. It wasn’t, and I’m okay with that. This was very much its own creepy story. The Irish setting was perfect and really set the stage. I’m not sure if this is based on Irish lore or if it came straight from the author’s mind, but I’m here for it! I just really wish we could have learned more about the Creeper. What is he? Where’d he come from? What’s his story? 

Check out other books by this author!

A. M. Shine is an author of Literary Horror from the west of Ireland. It was there that at a young age he discovered a passion for classic horror stories, and where he received his Masters in history, before ultimately sharpening his quill to pursue a life devoted to all things literary and macabre. His writing is inspired by the trinity of horror, history, and superstition, and he has tormented, toyed with, and tortured more characters than he will ever confess to.

To learn more about A. M. Shine and his books, visit his website. You can also find him on Goodreads, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

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