My Sister, the Serial Killer – Oyinkan Braithwaite

Posted on May 23, 2019 by Monica @ Hit or Miss Books

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Received: Penguin Random House Canada
Published: November 2018
Publisher: Doubleday
Recommended Age: 14+
Genres & Themes: Adult, Mystery, Thriller, Crime, Siblings, Africa

REVIEW:

This is the story of a woman in love with a man in love with her sister, a serial killer. If that sentence alone doesn’t make you want to go, ”Ooooohhhh… intriguing,” then please do stop reading this review. My heart won’t break. Continue reading →

Jar of Hearts – Jennifer Hillier

Posted on August 27, 2018 by Monica @ Hit or Miss Books

Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Received: Raincoast Books
Published: June 12th, 2018
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Recommended Age: 16+
Pacing: Normal
Genres & Themes: Adult, Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Crime, Death

BLURB:

To the authorities, Calvin is a serial killer. But to Geo, he’s something else entirely. Back in high school, Calvin was Geo’s first love. Turbulent and often volatile, their relationship bordered on obsession from the moment they met right up until the night Angela was killed. For fourteen years, Geo knew what happened to Angela and told no one. For fourteen years, she carried the secret of Angela’s death until Geo was arrested and sent to prison. While everyone thinks they finally know the truth, there are dark secrets buried deep. And what happened that fateful night is more complex and more chilling than anyone really knows. Now the obsessive past catches up with the deadly present when new bodies begin to turn up, killed in the exact same manner as Angela Wong. Continue reading →

Sharp Objects – Gillian Flynn

Posted on May 25, 2018 by Monica @ Hit or Miss Books

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Received: Publisher
Published: June 12th, 2018
Publisher: B\D\W\Y
Recommended Age: 16+
Pacing: Slow
Genres & Themes: Adult, Mystery, Crime, Family, Small Towns, Creepy, Psychological

BLURB:

Fresh from a brief stay at a psych hospital, reporter Camille Preaker faces a troubling assignment: she must return to her tiny hometown to cover the murders of two preteen girls. For years, Camille has hardly spoken to her neurotic, hypochondriac mother or to the half-sister she barely knows: a beautiful thirteen-year-old with an eerie grip on the town. Now, installed in her old bedroom in her family’s Victorian mansion, Camille finds herself identifying with the young victims—a bit too strongly. Dogged by her own demons, she must unravel the psychological puzzle of her own past if she wants to get the story—and survive this homecoming. Continue reading →

Miss Don’t Touch Me – Hubert

Posted on October 8, 2017 by Monica @ Hit or Miss Books

21470683 Miss Don’t Touch Me by Hubert

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Received: Publisher
Publication Date: October 1st, 2014
Publisher: NBM Publishing
Recommended Age: 16+
Pacing: Slow
Genres & Themes: Graphic Novel, Revenge, Crime, Mystery, Sex

BLURB:

Combining both volumes of the bestselling series, these two tales take place in 1930s Paris. In the first story, the Butcher of the Dances” is on the prowl for young, loose women, and local dominatrix Agatha suddenly turns up dead. Everyone assumes it was suicide, but her sister Blanche is convinced that the Butcher is responsible. She decides to take matters into her own hands, and in her pursuit, she ends up hired into a luxury house of call-girls. She soon becomes adept at certain practices, but she does not lose sight of her ultimate goalto find her sister’s killer. In the second volume, Blanche works to sort out her dissolute mother’s life while falling in love with a secretly gay client. Suspenseful and spicy, these narratives feature visual details both beautiful and hideous, with descriptions and dialogue that are deceptive in their realism. Continue reading →

Review: This Is Our Story by Ashley Elston

Posted on August 22, 2016 by Monica @ Hit or Miss Books

23341252 This Is Our Story by Ashley Elston

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Received: Hachette Book Group Canada
Publication Date: November 15th 2016
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Point of View: 1st Person & Feminine
Recommended Age: 13+
Pacing: Fast
Genres & Themes: Young Adult, Crime, Contemporary, Mystery, Romance

BLURB:

No one knows what happened that morning at River Point. Five boys went hunting. Four came back. The boys won’t say who fired the shot that killed their friend; the evidence shows it could have been any one of them.

Kate Marino’s senior year internship at the District Attorney’s Office isn’t exactly glamorous—more like an excuse to leave school early that looks good on college applications. Then the DA hands her boss, Mr. Stone, the biggest case her small town of Belle Terre has ever seen. The River Point Boys are all anyone can talk about. Despite their damning toxicology reports the morning of the accident, the DA wants the boys’ case swept under the rug. He owes his political office to their powerful families.

Kate won’t let that happen. Digging up secrets without revealing her own is a dangerous line to walk; Kate has her own reasons for seeking justice for Grant. As she and Stone investigate—the ageing prosecutor relying on Kate to see and hear what he cannot—she realizes that nothing about the case—or the boys—is what it seems. Grant wasn’t who she thought he was, and neither is Stone’s prime suspect. As Kate gets dangerously close to the truth, it becomes clear that the early morning accident might not have been an accident at all—and if Kate doesn’t uncover the true killer, more than one life could be on the line…including her own. Continue reading →

Review: Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco

Posted on July 24, 2016 by Monica @ Hit or Miss Books

28962906 Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Received: Hachette Book Group Canada
Publication Date: September 20th 2016
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson
Point of View: 1st Person & Feminine
Recommended Age: 14+
Pacing: Slow
Genres & Themes: Young Adult, Historical Fiction, Mystery, (Bad) Romance, Jack the Ripper, Retellings, Crime, Feminism

BLURB:

Seventeen-year-old Audrey Rose Wadsworth was born a lord’s daughter, with a life of wealth and privilege stretched out before her. But between the social teas and silk dress fittings, she leads a forbidden secret life.

Against her stern father’s wishes and society’s expectations, Audrey often slips away to her uncle’s laboratory to study the gruesome practice of forensic medicine. When her work on a string of savagely killed corpses drags Audrey into the investigation of a serial murderer, her search for answers brings her close to her own sheltered world.

The story’s shocking twists and turns, augmented with real, sinister period photos, will make this dazzling debut from author Kerri Maniscalco impossible to forget. Continue reading →

Review: All Fall Down (Embassy Row, #1) by Ally Carter

Posted on July 9, 2016 by Monica @ Hit or Miss Books

22571275 All Fall Down by Ally Carter

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Received: Borrowed
Publication Date: January 20th 2015
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Point of View: 1st Person & Feminine
Recommended Age: 13+
Pacing: Past
Genres & Themes: Young Adult, Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense, Action, Espionage, Crime, Family

BLURB:

Grace Blakely is absolutely certain of three things:

1. She is not crazy.
2. Her mother was murdered.
3. Someday she is going to find the killer and make him pay.

As certain as Grace is about these facts, nobody else believes her — so there’s no one she can completely trust. Not her grandfather, a powerful ambassador. Not her new friends, who all live on Embassy Row. Not Alexei, the Russian boy next door, who is keeping his eye on Grace for reasons she neither likes nor understands.

Everybody wants Grace to put on a pretty dress and a pretty smile, blocking out all her unpretty thoughts. But they can’t control Grace — no more than Grace can control what she knows or what she needs to do. Her past has come back to hunt her . . . and if she doesn’t stop it, Grace isn’t the only one who will get hurt. Because on Embassy Row, the countries of the world stand like dominoes, and one wrong move can make them all fall down. Continue reading →

Review: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Posted on May 30, 2016 by Monica @ Hit or Miss Books

12232938 The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Received: Borrowed
Publication Date: 2002
Publisher: Hachette Book Group
Point of View: 1st Person & 3rd Person
Recommended Age: 13+
Pacing: Very Slow
Genres & Themes: Adult, Death, Family, Ghosts, Life, Love

BLURB:

The Lovely Bones is the story of a family devastated by a gruesome murder — a murder recounted by the teenage victim. Upsetting, you say? Remarkably, first-time novelist Alice Sebold takes this difficult material and delivers a compelling and accomplished exploration of a fractured family’s need for peace and closure.

The details of the crime are laid out in the first few pages: from her vantage point in heaven, Susie Salmon describes how she was confronted by the murderer one December afternoon on her way home from school. Lured into an underground hiding place, she was raped and killed. But what the reader knows, her family does not. Anxiously, we keep vigil with Susie, aching for her grieving family, desperate for the killer to be found and punished. Continue reading →

Review: The Naturals (The Naturals, #1) by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Posted on May 25, 2016 by Monica @ Hit or Miss Books

13597723 The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Received: Borrowed
Publication Date: November 5th 2013
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Point of View: 1st Person & Feminine
Recommended Age: 14+
Pacing: Fast
Genres & Themes: Young Adult, Contemporary, Crime, Mystery, Love Triangle

BLURB:

Seventeen-year-old Cassie is a natural at reading people. Piecing together the tiniest details, she can tell you who you are and what you want. But it’s not a skill that she’s ever taken seriously. That is, until the FBI come knocking: they’ve begun a classified program that uses exceptional teenagers to crack infamous cold cases, and they need Cassie.

What Cassie doesn’t realize is that there’s more at risk than a few unsolved homicides—especially when she’s sent to live with a group of teens whose gifts are as unusual as her own. Sarcastic, privileged Michael has a knack for reading emotions, which he uses to get inside Cassie’s head—and under her skin. Brooding Dean shares Cassie’s gift for profiling, but keeps her at arm’s length. Continue reading →

Review: Sex Criminals, Vol. 1: One Weird Trick by Matt Fraction (Writer), Chip Zdarsky (Artist)

Posted on July 28, 2015 by Monica @ Hit or Miss Books

Sex Criminals, Vol. 1: One Weird Trick by Matt Fraction

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Received: Bought
Publication Date: April 29th 2014
Publisher: Image Comics
Point of View: /
Recommended Age: 16+
Genres & Themes: Adult, Graphic Novels, Superpowers, Crime

BLURB:

Suzie’s just a regular gal with an irregular gift: when she has sex, she stops time. One day she meets Jon and it turns out he has the same ability. And sooner or later they get around to using their gifts to do what we’d ALL do: rob a couple banks. A bawdy and brazen sex comedy for comics begins here!

By Matt Fraction (Satellite Sam, Hawkeye) and Chip Zdarsky (Prison Funnies, Monster Cops).

Named one of Time Magazine’s top 10 graphic novels for 2013.

Collects SEX CRIMINALS #1-5 Continue reading →