Forgive and forget? The past and present collide for two sisters who survived a tragedy—and must now survive the truth behind it.

It’s been twenty years since Cara’s boyfriend died in a horrible accident and her sister, Anna, went to prison. The tragedy has become a local legend, but Cara has moved past her grief to have a successful career and a happy family. Pity about Anna. Recently released from incarceration, she’s struggling with addiction, guilt, and shame—a shattered life. Cara’s forgiveness seems to be the only thing that helps her pick up the pieces.

But as Anna pulls herself together, her memories of that night on the bridge start to come into focus. And few of them match her sister’s.

As past secrets unfold and nothing is what it seems anymore, Anna desperately searches for the truth. But what if Cara doesn’t want her to find it?

This is the first book that I have read by this author but I know I will be reading more by her in the future.

Cara Piper Stanley has always been a fixer. But can she fix her younger sister Anna from herself?

Since their young years growing up in Rapid Falls, there has always been jealousy, resentment, sibling rivalry, and what seemed like a love/hate relationship between the two. Cara always felt that Anna was the favorite daughter.

June 6, 1997, was supposed to be the best day in Cara’s life when her boyfriend, the love of her life, attended their prom and graduation party, a tradition in small town Rapid Falls where everyone knows each other. Even though Anna was 1 year younger than Cara, she would be attending the celebration and was the designated driver for the night. But it didn’t end well. Anna, behind the wheel, and under the influence, there was a horrific car accident, which took the life of Jesse, Cara’s boyfriend and soon to be fiancé.

Anna was charged in the death and spent 3 years in prison. Upon her release, her life spiraled downward and became an alcoholic, abused drugs and tried committing suicide 3 times. Cara was always there to pick her up. Anna can’t recall what happened that tragic night, but Cara knows and she holds the secret.

I have been on a psychological thriller reads binge and this one definitely fits that category. I enjoyed the author’s writing style, the twisted turns of the story, the craving to find out what the secret was and the characters, even though some of them I did not like for reasons that I won’t mention to avoid any spoiler.

An exciting read that had me turning the pages, which I’m sure you will too, which I highly recommend!

Purchase Links: Amazon 🔗 | Barnes & Noble 🔗 | Goodreads 🔗

Synopsis:

Boise Montague’s life in Los Angeles has fallen apart. After his wife dies, he returns to the tiny island where he grew up. Unfortunately, coming home doesn’t bring him the peace he’s looking for. Things have changed drastically since his last visit. The island has moved on and so have the people he once knew. When Boise tries to find the one friend he thinks he can count on to be there for him, he’s confronted with another death. A murder. A murder that the police did not think important enough to investigate thoroughly. Boise wants answers. He enlists a local reporter named Dana, who has theories of her own, to help him dig deeper. With not much left to lose, a bone to pick with the justice system, and a relentless partner, Boise sets out to do what the police would not: solve the murder of Roger Black. The island of St. Thomas is a gleaming tropical paradise. Welcome to the Caribbean, where murder is as common as sunshine.
 

Book Details:

Genre: Mystery (Caribbean Noir)
Published by: Acorn Publishing
Publication Date: June 25, 2018
Number of Pages: 336
ISBN: 1947392166 (ISBN13: 9781947392168)
Series: Boise #1
Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Goodreads

Author Bio:

Gene Desrochers hails from a dot in the Caribbean Sea called St. Thomas. He grew up with minimal supervision and free-roaming animals in a guesthouse that also served as a hospital during wartime. He has spent his life steadily migrating west, and now finds himself in Los Angeles with a beautiful wife, cats, and kids. After a lifetime of writing and telling short stories, he ventured into the deep end, publishing his first novel, Dark Paradise in 2018. If you ask, he will regale you with his Caribbean accent and tennis prowess.
 

The most compelling similarity between Boise and I from a plot standpoint is we both had a childhood friend who became a drug dealer get murdered. The way Boise discovers that his friend, Roger, is dead, was somewhat similar to the way of found out a friend of mine was murdered. From there I asked the question, “What if I decided to figure out what really happened rather than accepting the party line that he was murdered in a drug deal gone wrong.” That became the nugget of Dark Paradise.

Physically, Boise and I have a mix of commonalities and differences. He’s one-quarter African and three-quarters European and his skin tone alludes to his heritage, although, he could be Puerto Rican or something else. His appearance is not standard or easily categorized. I too have some ambiguity in my history that makes me hard to characterize. I have olive skin and I’m definitely largely Italian, however, I also have Creole in me and perhaps some more deeply ingrained African blood since my mother’s family had been in the Caribbean for generations, interracial relations were not uncommon. We also have similar hair, although I keep my trimmed short so you cannot tell how bushy and curly it is most of the time. We differ in that Boise is overweight and I am not. He’s a little taller but not much.

The biggest thing that ties us together psychologically is a feeling of not belonging anywhere. Both of us grew up in bars and alcoholism was a major factor in our lives. I had two alcoholic step-fathers and Boise had an alcoholic, controlling father. None of our “fathers” ever got treatment or into a program.

My biological father was not a drinker. He was into a healthy lifestyle, which I have personally mirrored. Boise on the other hand has a drinking problem and eats terribly. Unfortunately for my life, but perhaps fortunately for my writing, I did not spend a lot of time with my father as my parents divorced when I was very young and my mother maintained custody. I do not struggle with eating or drinking disorders, however, I have lived with the consequences and witnessed the results of addiction up close and personal for most of my life.

Boise’s position in life and his lost nature reflect the way I’ve felt throughout my life. I did not fit with my family, particularly my mother and her parents. I felt like something was just not right, but I struggled to fit my round self into the square life of my childhood. Boise has similar feelings of displacement. Los Angeles is a place for those who don’t fit elsewhere. That’s why we both wound up there. I tried to return to a past home at one point, but did not fit and in a few months wound up back in Los Angeles for good. I did not have a powerful catalyst driving me away permanently. Boise on the other hand did. Evelyn’s (his wife) death and the subsequent issues with the local authorities over what had happened to her propelled Boise away with a vengeance. For him, L.A. held too many reminders of his loss. He needed to start over, but do it somewhere he felt comfortable. St. Thomas was that place.

I do believe that both Boise and I are men of convictions and a healthy cynicism about the watchers. Between that common fear and the driftwood nature of our early life with people we did not feel anchored to, Boise and I ultimately have a lot more similarities than differences where it counts. I’m exploring those intersections and trying to entertain while doing it.

Catch Up With Gene Desrochers On:
genedesrochers.com
Goodreads
Twitter
Facebook!

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Mailbox Monday

 
Wednesday:
NO EXIT by Taylor Adams ~ HC from Harper Collins
THE WOMAN INSIDE by E.G. Scott ~ Penguin Group via NetGalley
Thursday:
MY SISTER IS MISSING by Julia Barrett ~ RedDoor Publishing via NetGalley
Friday:
THE LAST TIME I SAW YOU by Liv Cnstantine ~ ARC TPB from Harper Collins

This year, one of the Challenges I signed up for is Blog All About It, hosted by The Herd Presents. The guideline is basically a blogging prompt challenge. Each month there’s a different prompt that you can interpret as you’d like then create a blog post around it. The 2019 list of prompts can be seen here on my Challenge Page. I will be posting for this Challenge on the 2nd Saturday of each month.

Since I signed up for this Challenge, I have been contemplating in which direction I would go with this month’s prompt. And then I thought, at my age, which I will not admit to :-), there have been many firsts in my life. Some celebratory and others somber. Since this is the first of a New Year, I am going to reflect on the happy occcasions.

My first real true love, my husband. This year we will be celebrating our 38th wedding anniversary, not counting the 7 years that we dated before marrying. I still vividly recall that magical day in 1981.

As all marriages, we have had our ups and downs, but together we have weathered them all and experienced many wonderful firsts.

Buying our first house. I remember being so frightened. Would we be able to handle a mortgage? We both lived with our parents and bought our house right before the wedding. And when I think back now, I chuckle because our monthly payments were $300/month (kind of gives you a good idea how long ago that was.

We knew we wanted a family and the birth of our first son in 1983 and our second son in 1986 was such a Blessing. We could never have imagined the profound and unconditional love that entered our hearts. The one thing that we were adamant that they do, was to graduate college, which they both did. One has already received his Master’s and the other son is currently in a Master’s Program. We are so proud of both of them and the men they have become.

And then 2 years ago, we were Blessed once again, with the birth of our first grandchild, Lucy. What an amazing love to see our “baby” with a baby of his own. She has stolen both our hearts and has both my husband and I wrapped around her finger. Next month, we are expecting our 2nd grandchild. Not sure of boy or girl since my son and DIL did not want to know the gender ahead of time. We are counting the days to meet him or her!

What comes to your mind with the word first? Would enjoy hearing your firsts!

1. Don’t _______________ just because ________________.

2. You couldn’t pay me to _________.

3. _________ is my comfort food.

1. Better to be happy than miserable.

2. Don’t do things that make you uncomfortable just because someone says to.

3. You couldn’t pay me to go sky diving!!!

4. Ice cream is my comfort food.

One day, barely fifteen, Tiara viciously attacks a woman in a coffee shop, and claims to have no memory of the attack. Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Eaton believes the reason for her partial amnesia lies in her past as a former star of child beauty pageants. He digs deep in an effort to unlock her memory. What he discovers is so sinister, it will shock you to the core.

I started reading this book and after the first few pages, knew it would be a page turner. However, as I continued, it sounded very familiar to me. I knew I had read other books by this author, SECTION 132 and BIRTHDAYS OF A PRINCESS, so I checked my blog to double check that I hadn’t read this title before and I hadn’t. So I went back to reading but by the time I got to the 9th Chapter, I knew I had read it so this time I checked GR and found this:
Please note: an early version of this thriller was previously published by the author under the title ‘Birthdays of a Princess’.

So I am reposting my review from June 1, 2013!

Birthdays of a Princess is a chilling fictional read, but sadly, is also a real life actuality.  Scary!!  A white knuckle, edge of your seat read!!

Purchase Links: Amazon 🔗 | Goodreads 🔗

THE PERFECT LIAR by Thomas Christopher Greene
Genre: Psychological Thriller
Published by St. Martin’s Press
Publication Date: Jan. 15, 2019
ISBN-10: 1250128218
ISBN-13: 978-1250128218
Pages: 288
Review Copy From: St. Martin’s via NetGalley
Edition: eBook
My Rating: 4

A seemingly perfect marriage is threatened by the deadly secrets husband and wife keep from each other, for fans of B.A. Paris and Paula Hawkins.

Susannah, a young widow and single mother, has remarried well: to Max, a charismatic artist and popular speaker whose career took her and her fifteen-year-old son out of New York City and to a quiet Vermont university town. Strong-willed and attractive, Susannah expects that her life is perfectly in place again. Then one quiet morning she finds a note on her door: I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

Max dismisses the note as a prank. But days after a neighborhood couple comes to dinner, the husband mysteriously dies in a tragic accident while on a run with Max. Soon thereafter, a second note appears on their door: DID YOU GET AWAY WITH IT?

Both Susannah and Max are keeping secrets from the world and from each other —secrets that could destroy their family and everything they have built. The Perfect Liar is a thrilling novel told through the alternating perspectives of Susannah and Max with a shocking climax that no one will expect, from the bestselling author of The Headmaster’s Wife.

Susannah and her son Freddy have been on their own for 16 years after her husband Joseph passed away. And then she met Max “W” at a party that Susannah’s boss was hosting for the art community. Not long after, Max proposed on the very spot that they first met.

They had the perfect life, or at least that’s what it appeared to be. Max’s notoriety soared in the art world, after traveling to give his talk on “You Are The Art”. He was sought after and was then offered an academician appointment at a Vermont College. Three years after settling down in Vermont, the cryptic notes started showing up on their front door.

The first note read I KNOW WHO YOU ARE. Two notes would follow.

But who were these notes intended for since both Susannah and Max had deep buried secrets that neither one of them knew about?

The story was captivating from the start. However, at approximately 30-50% of the story, I found it dragged some. But after that, the suspense and action picked up and at that point, I was frantically turning the pages.

I did figure out who the letters were intended for, but not who wrote them nor the why for the motive. It all came together in a climatic ending.

Another psychological thriller that you should read!!

Purchase Links: Amazon 🔗 | Barnes & Noble 🔗 | Goodreads 🔗

Mailbox Monday

Monday:
THE MOROCCAN GIRL by Charles Cumming ~ ARC TPB from St. Martin’s Press
Saturday:
I AM WATCHING YOU by Teresa Driscoll ~ eBook Prime