Please Don't Lie

 Fiction by Christina Baker Kline and Anne Burt

https://www.amazon.com

Hayley has experienced a lot of tragedy in the past year or so: her parents died and her younger sister Jenna subsequently killed herself. Then a "true-crime" podcaster got the story and claimed to have evidence that it was Jenna who had set the fire that killed her parents, possibly while strung out on drugs. Hayley is wracked with guilt and anxiety for not helping avoid any of this tragedy, and in this vulnerable state she meets a handsome man called Brandon.

Swept off her feet, Hayley marries Brandon and moves out to the remote mountain town of Crystal River, New York, with him to use her inheritance restoring his family property. But what does she really know about Brandon? And can she trust him?

This was a pretty good thriller with some surprises. 

It doesn't seem like the same style I've read from the first co-author before, so I think probably the second co-author did the actual writing. This is a NEW book that I got on pre-release from Amazon Prime "First Reads;" it actually releases on September 1st.

I also read from Amazon Prime "First Reads": Those Empty Eyes

I also read by (one of) these authors: The Exiles

A Mouthful of Air

 Fiction by Amy Koppelman

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

At the beginning of his story, Julie Davis is a pretty young mother of an almost-one-year-old son. She's going about her day in 1997 New York City, trying to tell herself that everything is okay. The problem is, she's just recently emerged from a private mental hospital after a serious suicide attempt a month ago, and she is really REALLY not okay. Her mental state will not improve when she visits the gynecologist the next day and discovers she is pregnant again.

This novel is an affecting and believable portrait of a woman suffering from severe depression. It's hard to read. There was a movie starring Amanda Seyfried, and I would imagine that watching her beautiful face experiencing this much emotional pain would be particularly sad.

It's well written but way too despondently bleak. And the ending is not happy either...

Speak Softly, She Can Hear

 Fiction by Pam Lewis

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

In 1965 Carole and her friend Naomi, a pair of private-girls'-school seniors, go on a spring break trip to Stowe, Vermont, together. They tell their parents --that is, they tell Carole's parents; Naomi's self-absorbed father and stepmother barely notice her absence-- that they are learning to ski. Really, however, they are on a mission to lose their virginities before they graduate with a guy named Eddie. YES they are planning on BOTH doing it with him. Wait, what?

This is a really weird premise to me, but since Carole is slightly overweight and insecure, and Naomi is an unconventional thrill-seeker, I guess it's possible. Then something very bad happens that will affect them forever, and Carole spends most of the rest of the book trying to get away from Naomi and Eddie in order to forget it.

This is a pretty good character story with a great ending. I don't think the title fits the book at all, however. The title suggests a completely different kind of story. It's not a creepy suspense tale, or even a mystery novel. I think I'd call it What Happened in Stowe, or something like that.

Not that anyone asked my opinion...

The Devil's Arithmetic

 Fiction by Jane Yolen

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

In this classic story, Hannah, a young Jewish girl in the early 1990's, is kind of dreading Passover. She's bored by all the history her parents and grandparents seem hung up on. But then she's mysteriously transported back in time to take the place of a girl her own age in 1942 Poland...

This was a well-written story that would really help a young person understand the Holocaust.

Secrets to the Grave

 Fiction by Tami Hoag

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This is book two in the "Oak Knoll Series" (see below for the first one). It begins with a woman brutally murdered in her kitchen beside her four-year-old daughter. The child is alive, but just barely. It's up to Detective Tony Mendez to find out who is responsible for this terrible crime, but this time his mentor Vince Leone has retired from the FBI and will be available to help full-time. 

This was an exciting mystery with a surprise ending.

I also read recently by this author: Deeper than the Dead

A Well-Trained Wife

 Nonfiction by Tia Levings

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

I couldn't get interested in this one.

By the Pricking of My Thumbs

 Fiction by Agatha Christie

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This story, starring recurring characters Tommy and Tuppence Beresford (see The Secret Adversary and N or M?) was not as engrossing as most of Agatha Christie's stories. Still, there was a good mystery and a surprising ending.

I also read recently by this author: At Bertram's Hotel