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Nerd Girl Loves Books

Book recommendations and short reviews just for you!

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Mystery/Thriller

The Widows’ Pact by J.L. Cole

Rating: 4 out of 5.

This is a slow burn story about two widows, 50 years apart in age. Evelyn is a 71 year old spunky, nosy busybody who isn’t afraid to dispense her opinion about someone else’s life. Evelyn is a recent widow & she befriends 27 year old Lena, who is also a recent widow. Lena is everything Evelyn is not. She is meek, mild, & numbly stumbling through life after the sudden death of her husband. As the two women strike up an unlikely friendship, we begin to learn more about each woman’s life. Lena begins to realize that her marriage wasn’t as idyllic as she thought, & that if she has any chance of a happy life, she needs to deal with her tragic past.

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A Bitter Remedy (The Oxford Mysteries #1) by Alis Hawkins

Rating: 4 out of 5.

This is a twisty, engrossing historical fiction mystery/thriller set in 1881 Oxford that captured my attention from the start. The author developed two great characters in Basil Rice, an intelligent, nervous Jesus College fellow with a secret to hide (he’s gay), & Rhiannon “Non” Vaughan, a wickedly smart, fearless, outspoken, determined young Welsh woman newly admitted to university lectures at Jesus College.

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The New One by Evie Green

Rating: 3 out of 5.

This is an interesting Mystery/Thriller . Tamsyn & Ed barely make a living. They live in a cramped camper van with their teenage daughter Scarlett. The last year she’s been drinking, taking drugs & lashing out at her parents. One night as Scarlett flees home she’s hit by a car. She is on life-support & not getting better. Then a miracle happens. Ed & Tam are approached about a medical trial in Switzerland. An AI replacement will live with the couple as their daughter & if Scarlett gets better she will replace the AI in the family. They jump at the chance of a new life & are whisked away to Geneva where they are set up with everything they need to live a comfortable life. Better yet, the AI replacement, Sophie, looks & acts just like Scarlett before she changed into a hostile moody teenager. But, all is not as it seems, & as cracks in their new life begin to appear, they must decide if they want to know the truth, or stay in their blissful new life.

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What Have We Done by Alex Finlay

Rating: 3 out of 5.

This was a fun, twisty mystery about three adults that grew up together in an abusive group home. After several kids went missing the group home was shut down and they all went their separate ways. All three became successful but troubled adults and had no contact with each other until someone started trying to kill them. They eventually get together to solve the mystery, causing them to re-live some of the trauma they endured growing up.

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How I’ll Kill You by Ren Destefano

Rating: 4 out of 5.

What the heck did I just read??? I finished the book a few days ago and had to just sit with it for awhile before I could write my review. The book is a a fascinating mystery/thriller/romance that I couldn’t stop reading it.

Sissy is one of a set of identical triplets. They were abandoned when they were newborns and lived their youth in separate foster homes until they aged out. Fiercely protective of each other, once they were free of the system they were determined to never be separated again. No matter what. When Iris is hurt by her boyfriend and kills him in a fit of rage, Sissy steps in to clean up the scene and the triplets’ plan to love men and leave them….dead, is born.

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A Most Intriguing Lady by Sarah Ferguson

Rating: 4 out of 5.

This is a fun historical fiction mystery/romance set during the Victorian era. Lady Mary Montagu Douglas Scott has spent years creating a mousy persona that allows her to go overlooked and underestimated. This allows her to use her keen intellect and power of observation to discreetly assist her peers with matters they want to keep secret. During a dinner party in her family’s Scottish home she quietly works to help a friend, but runs into trouble when the handsome war veteran Colonel Walter Trefusis (Tre) sees her partaking in a dangerous adventure during dinner. Mary tries to do damage control and finds herself drawn to the Colonel. As the duo get to know each other they find their purposes intertwined and help each other out.

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The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz

Rating: 3 out of 5.

3.5 stars

This was a dark mystery/thriller centered around five women’s attendance at a writing retreat with a famously reclusive writer. Once at the retreat location, they discover they need to complete an entirely new novel during their stay. They are given a strict writing schedule and seemingly impossible daily deadlines, but if they succeed, the winner will get a seven figure publishing deal and the mentor’s stamp of approval. It’s every woman for herself – until they start to die.

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A Dangerous Education by Megan Chance

Rating: 4 out of 5.

I really enjoyed this historical fiction mystery thriller set at a boarding school for troubled girls in the 1950s during the Cold War & McCarthy hearings. Rosemary is a teacher at the school & despite warnings from other teachers, & her own instincts, she gets close with a trio of cunning girls who run the school. Just before going to teach the girls, Rosemary discovers that one of the three girls is the daughter she was forced to give up when she was 17 years old. Everyone is damaged in one way or another, & the choices they make have devastating consequences.

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Shadows in the Aftermath by Marianne Scott

BOOK FEATURE

Genre: Suspense, Thriller

Pages: 336

Publisher: FriesenPress

I’m pleased to be part of the Love Book Tours book tour for this book.

Here is a synopsis:

Ruby Draker has found new strength, and is ready to move on after Felix Szabo devastated the Draker estate in Nice, France. Three Drakers are dead leaving Ruby in grief and with thoughts of revenge. The Drakers are a family built of survivors; each rescued from Felix Szabo, a psychopath, who sought to murder his former agents at the CIA whom he believed betrayed him. The Drakers’ sole mission is to stop Szabo from adding more victims to his list, and although he also perished during the invasion, his legacy continues to haunt them. When the Drakers learn that Robert Draker, presumed dead since the shoot-out at Robert’s farmhouse, may be alive and at a rehab clinic in Portland, Maine, the Drakers know it could be a set up, but they have no choice but to try to find him and bring Robert home.

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