Revew: The Girls with No Names (by Serena Burdick)

My Rating: 3.5 stars

Right off the bat, I have to say that I had mixed feelings about this book – which is why, as I sit down to write this review, I’m struggling a bit trying to figure out how best to begin.  In reading the summary, I thought this would be a story centered around the historical House of Mercy, which was a sanitorium of sorts that had once existed in the Manhattan area of New York back in the early 1900s.  To the public, the House of Mercy was a religious institution whose purpose was to “rescue” wayward girls from a life of vice and sin by putting them on a path of reform and redemption – in reality though, the institution was actually a “prison” where girls of various ages were enslaved and forced to work under harsh conditions as restitution for the “immoral” behavior that had gotten them committed in the first place.  The girls at these establishments were often abused and punished for any little infraction and for some, even though their stays were supposed to only be temporary, sadly did not always survive to see their day of release.  

Prior to reading this book, I had heard about these types of institutions, but did not know much about the House of Mercy specifically, so I was thinking I would be able to learn more about what went on there through the fictional story of Effie and her sister Luella.  Unfortunately, it turns out that the summary is very misleading, as only a small part of the story (I would say around 20% or so) actually took place in the House of Mercy – most of the story focused on family conflict, gender and class politics, as well as what life was like for women in New York society during the 1910s.   Narrated by 3 of the main characters – the younger Tildon sister Effie, her mother Jeanne, and one of the girls from the House of Mercy named Mable – majority of the story centered around each of the character’s backstories and, in the cases of Effie and Mable, how they ended up in the House of Mercy and later on, much of the narrative revolved around whether they would be able to escape and whether Effie would be able to see her family again.  While the characters’ backstories (especially Mable’s) were interesting for the most part and did keep me reading to the end, I was a little irked at being misled and unfortunately, this did affect my reading experience somewhat.  It also didn’t help that the story itself was the “slow-burn” type where nothing really happens until around a third of the way in when things start to pick up a bit – even then though, I had some problems with parts of the plot as well as the way some of the characters were depicted. 

In terms of the writing, it actually flowed quite well in that there was a good balance of descriptive prose and dialogue.  Despite the plot as well as direction of the story being mostly predictable and contrived,  the story kept my interest (as I mentioned earlier) and I never felt the urge to skim or set this one aside in favor of another book -- both of which I tend to do when I feel the book/story is boring -- which in and of itself says a lot about how I felt about this one.  With that said however, one area that was a bit lacking with this story was that I didn’t get a strong sense of time and place, which is critical for me when it comes to historical fiction.  Most of the historical elements that would’ve established the time period and setting for me were briefly mentioned for the most part (for example – the suffragettes and women’s marches, a brief mention near the end of what would be the start of World War I, the House of Mercy itself, etc.), to the point that I felt like majority of the story could have taken place anywhere and during any time period. 

Overall, I would say that the story definitely had potential and the writing was mostly solid, it’s just that the execution wasn’t really up to par with what I expected.  Given the premise, I expected both the story and the characters to be ones that I would continue to think about for awhile after I finished reading, but I’m sorry to say that didn’t turn out to be the case with this one -- I liked this one well enough to finish reading it, but not enough to linger on the characters (most of whom I didn’t connect with) or the story.  Basically, I’m ready to move on to something better.

Received ARC from Park Row (Random House) via Edelweiss.

Review: The Stranger Inside (by Lisa Unger)

My Rating: 4 stars

This is the third book of Lisa Unger's that I've read and while I liked this one better than her previous one (Under My Skin, which came out last year), I would have to say my favorite is still The Red Hunter, which I read 2 years ago.  With The Stranger Inside, Unger once again delivers a compelling story of psychological suspense that sets itself apart from other books in the genre through the oftentimes morally ambiguous characters she depicts — characters that often find themselves straddling that blurred line between right and wrong.   With each of her books, Unger does a deep dive into the psyches of her main characters and it is this exploration of their inner thoughts that drives the plot.

The story here revolves around Rain Winter, a former journalist and current stay-at-home mom to an infant daughter, who is living a blissful suburban life that she built with her loving husband Greg.  One day, Rain hears on the news a report about the murder of Steve Markham, a man who was widely believed to have escaped justice when he was acquitted of killing his pregnant wife a year earlier.  Having been one of the journalists who had covered the original murder case, including the trial and subsequent acquittal, the news of Markham's death triggers in Rain a curiosity that piques in her a strong interest to dig into the case on her own.  As she delves deeper and eventually uncovers an unexpected connection to a different case from her past, Rain suddenly finds herself pulled back into the dark memories of a horrific event that had occurred in her childhood — a nightmare that had left one of her friends dead, another friend irreparably damaged, and herself deeply traumatized.  Even when further involvement in the case threatens to rip apart the beloved family she worked so hard to create, Rain still can't seem to pull herself away.   In order to make amends for her past, will she have to sacrifice her family?  Also, in a world where justice is not always on the right side of the law, the idea of morality and right vs wrong ultimately comes into question.

Plot-wise, I would say that this book fell more into the "slow-burn" category, meaning that, even though there were some twists and turns as is expected in suspense novels, the plot was not fast-paced to the point of keeping me on the edge of my seat impatiently waiting to see what happens next.  Instead, most details were revealed gradually, a little bit at a time, through a narrative that jumped back and forth between the past and the present.   While this worked well for the most part, I did feel that there were a few sections that got a bit too bogged down by details, which made those parts of the plot seem to drag a little.  Overall though, this was a relatively minor issue, since things did get back on track pretty quickly after that.

With 3 of her books under my belt, Lisa Unger has become a "go-to" author of sorts for me now in terms of books in the psychological suspense genre.  In addition to continuing to explore her backlist when I get a chance, I'm also looking forward to her next release, whenever that may be!

Received ARC from Park Row via Edelweiss.

Review: Under My Skin (by Lisa Unger)

My Rating: 3.5 stars 

Last year, while searching for a book to complete an A to Z Author challenge I was doing, I came across author Lisa Unger's latest psychological suspense novel The Red Hunter, which ended up being a thrill-ride of a book that I enjoyed from beginning to end and found very difficult to put down.  Not surprisingly, when I heard that Unger would have a new book out this year, another psychologicaI suspense thriller entitled Under My Skin, I jumped at the opportunity to read an advance copy.  

The story revolves around Poppy Lang, whose husband Jack was brutally murdered a year ago, and even though on the surface it appears that she has moved on with her life, underneath she is actually still traumatized and broken, unable to return to the "normalcy" she had once known.  Still haunted by the mysterious circumstances of her husband's death as well as the few days immediately afterward when she herself disappeared, only to resurface later completely confused with no memory of where she had been or what had happened, Poppy begins to dive deeper and deeper into a life of chaos and confusion.  She starts to experience blackouts, moments where she would be lucid one minute but then completely lost the next minute, with things worsening as she dives deeper into a darkness where she is no longer able to distinguish between what is real and what is imaginary.  The only thing that keeps her grounded is the insistence on finding out the truth about her husband's death while also attempting to dig up memories of those lost few days.

This book was a bit of a maze, with quite a few twists and turns as well as a couple red herrings thrown in to mix things up a little.  Out of the many books in this particular genre that I've read in recent months, I would have to say that this one comes closest to  what I would consider a "true" psychological thriller / suspense novel – Poppy's constantly confused psychological state, the concept of dreams versus reality scattered throughout the story, complex characters who all seemed to have another side to them that no one else is able to see, endless mind games and twists, etc.  All of this, coupled with the fact that the narrative is told entirely from Poppy's first person perspective, lent the story a bit of a chaotic, slightly disjointed feel, which I will admit bothered me a little at first – the jumping back and forth between past and present, the difficulty in distinguishing between events that actually happened versus those imagined by Poppy in her confused state of mind, etc. – this made the story slightly difficult to follow at times.  It wasn't until I finished the book that I realized perhaps the story was structured this way intentionally to better flush out Poppy's character and her mindset.

Overall, I did like this one, as it was well-written and both the story as well as the characters were interesting, however compared to Unger's previous book that I had read, I didn't seem to connect with this one as much.  I felt like there was a bit of repetitiveness in some parts which dragged the plot a little, especially in the middle section of the book, to the point that when I actually did have to put the book down in order to attend to personal matters, I didn't feel the pull of urgently wanting to get back to reading.  Perhaps I had different expectations going into this one given that the previous book of hers I had read was so good….or perhaps I'm just burned out with psychological thrillers given how many I've read over the past few months.  With that said though, I would still recommend this one, as it's definitely highly readable, but if this is your first time reading a Lisa Unger novel, I would say start with her previous ones first. For me, I still intend on reading her other works, it's just finding the time to get to them…

Received ARC from Park Row via Edelweiss