Helen’s idyllic life—handsome architect husband, gorgeous Victorian house, and cherished baby on the way (after years of trying)—begins to change the day she attends her first prenatal class and meets Rachel, an unpredictable single mother-to-be. Rachel doesn’t seem very maternal: she smokes, drinks, and professes little interest in parenthood. Still, Helen is drawn to her. Maybe Rachel just needs a friend. And to be honest, Helen’s a bit lonely herself. At least Rachel is fun to be with. She makes Helen laugh, invites her confidences, and distracts her from her fears.
But her increasingly erratic behavior is unsettling. And Helen’s not the only one who’s noticed. Her friends and family begin to suspect that her strange new friend may be linked to their shared history in unexpected ways. When Rachel threatens to expose a past crime that could destroy all of their lives, it becomes clear that there are more than a few secrets laying beneath the broad-leaved trees and warm lamplight of Greenwich Park.
The Review
I have always been captivated by what goes on in small, posh, confined neighborhoods. Greenwich Park is a suspense novel set behind closed doors. And the allure is getting a peek inside.
In this book, there are two women we are focusing on. Helen and Rachel. Helen is kind of overcome by Rachel and her life, possibly enamored by her choices and her -who gives a fuck- attitude. She wants to be like her a little but enjoys being above her all the same.
As the book unfolds so does Rachel as a character. And so does Helen, as she becomes more and more infatuated by Rachel. I enjoyed that aspect of the book. Where the book falls short is in displaying characters that feel different from one another.
Rachel and Helen were too similar. The obsession that I wanted to feel between them did not exist. And it didn’t have the depth I was looking for.
However, if you’re looking for a book to add to your spring break vacation TBR pile, this one would be a great beach or airport read.
Thanks to Netgalley and Gallery Books for this advanced copy!
From the author of The River at Night and Into the Jungle comes a harrowing new thriller set in the unforgiving landscape of the Arctic Circle, as a brilliant linguist struggling to understand the apparent suicide of her twin brother ventures hundreds of miles north to try to communicate with a young girl who has thawed from the ice alive.
Valerie “Val” Chesterfield is a linguist trained in the most esoteric of disciplines: dead Nordic languages. Despite her successful career, she leads a sheltered life and languishes in the shadow of her twin brother Andy, an accomplished climate scientist stationed on a remote island off Greenland’s barren coast. But Andy is gone: a victim of suicide, having willfully ventured unprotected into 50 degree below zero weather. Val is inconsolable—and disbelieving. She suspects foul play.
When Wyatt, Andy’s fellow researcher in the Arctic, discovers a scientific impossibility—a young girl frozen in the ice who thaws out alive, speaking a language no one understands—Val is his first call. Will she travel to the frozen North and meet this girl, try to comprehend what she is so passionately trying to communicate? Under the auspices of helping Wyatt interpret the girl’s speech, Val musters every ounce of her courage and journeys to the Artic to solve the mystery of her brother’s death.
The moment she steps off the plane, her fear threatens to overwhelm her. The landscape is fierce, and Wyatt, brilliant but difficult, is an enigma. But the girl is special, and Val’s connection with her is profound. Only something is terribly wrong; the child is sick, maybe dying, and the key to saving her lies in discovering the truth about Wyatt’s research. Can his data be trusted? And does it have anything to do with how and why Val’s brother died? With time running out, Val embarks on an incredible frozen odyssey—led by the unlikeliest of guides—to rescue the new family she has found in the most unexpected of places.
The Review
GIRL IN ICE
By Erica Ferencik
I imagine the day the author found out she was going to write about this was as much of a surprise to her as anything.
Tricked up at times with the small details. And there’s a lot. I believe the author was simply laden with the details and it bogged the writing down.
While reading a thriller or mystery your mind spends most of its time trying to sift through the information and come to a conclusion as to what details are important to the case and which words and details are just there to heighten the experience.
This book had too many things going on at once and the execution was lacking.
The world is rich, it’s extremely immersive and atmospheric. The plot is structured around a very unbelievable event and I’m still not convinced it fully answered every question it proposed.
Written at a distance with rigid characters, combined with the unforgiving setting left little to warm up to. And I settled at ⭐️⭐️⭐️
If you’ve read this one, let’s chat!
What did you think about it?
Thanks to Scout Press for sending me an advanced copy!
The electric follow-up to Louisa Luna’s acclaimed thriller Two Girls Down, featuring private investigators Alice Vega and Max Caplan.
On the outskirts of San Diego, the bodies of two young women are discovered. They have no names, no IDs, and no family looking for them. Fearing the possibility of a human trafficking ring, the police and FBI reach out to Alice Vega, a private investigator known for finding the missing, for help in finding out who the Janes were—and finding the others who are missing.
Alice Vega is a powerful woman whose determination is matched only by her intellect, and, along with her partner Cap, she will stop at nothing to find the Janes before it is too late.
Louisa Luna is writing new classics of crime fiction, and her partnership of Vega and Cap is rightfully joining the pantheon of the most memorable in crime fiction.
The Review
THE JANES
I’m not sure why I like THE JANES so much less than the first installment in the series TWO GIRLS DOWN. But I’ll explore some of my thoughts today.
I re-read this one in anticipation of the latest release in the series, HIDEOUT. Which came out yesterday.
And I can say with clarity, I’m not really looking forward to it any longer. In fact, I placed HIDEOUT at the bottom of my TBR list for March. I may never pick it up.
I’ve spent a few days considering why the second book in the series was not a success so I looked first at the Goodreads rating…
TWO GIRLS DOWN gets an average rating of 3.85 and I gave it 4.00.
THE JANES has a Goodreads rating of 3.93 and I rated it 3.00 twice.
So where other readers are increasingly enjoying as it goes on I’m enjoying it less.
If you’ve read any part of the series then you know the relationship between Alice and Cap is the main event here. Alice Vega is the main character and the series namesake and her characters badass alpha female presentation are what feels different about the writing.
And I believe the strength in the series is in the introduction and getting to know Alice and respectively Cap. The story and the case we’re following is of course part of the enjoyment but the strength is in the character development.
This is one of those situations where I would’ve let TWO GIRLS DOWN shine as a standalone. The author’s attempt to tease at a romantic relationship was tiresome and this book provided no further depth into the characters.
Sadly, within the case things get murky. If you’re short on character in a thriller your plot should be able to carry the story.
In my opinion, it did not.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
