The Longest Silence (Book Review)

Title: The Longest Silence
Author: Debra Webb
Publication: Mira, 2018, hardcover, also available as Kindle and audio
Genre: Suspense

Plot: A killer stole her voice.  Her only friend has committed suicide. Now she’s ready to take it back.

Joanna Guthrie was free. She had been for eighteen years–or so she needed everyone to believe. What really happened during the longest fourteen days of her life, when she and two other women were held captive by the worst kind of serial killer, wasn’t something she has ever been able to talk about. Not after what they had to do to survive.

But when more women go missing in an eerily similar manner, Jo knows her prolonged silence will only seal their fates. She’s finally ready to talk; she just needs someone to listen. Disgraced FBI special agent Tony LeDoux is that someone and he can’t deny he finds Jo compelling–he’s just not sure he believes her story. But with the clock ticking, Jo will do anything to convince him, even if it means unearthing long-buried secrets that will land them squarely in the cross-hairs of the killer…

Audience: Fans of gritty romantic suspense; authors such as Cynthia Eden and Lori Foster

About the Author: Debra Webb is the USA Today bestselling author of more than 100 novels, including reader favorites the Faces of Evil and the Colby Agency series. She is the recipient of the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for Romantic Suspense as well as numerous Reviewers Choice Awards.

My Impressions: This is a very dark narrative in which two damaged characters come together to solve a long hidden mystery. Jo has never been the same since she was tortured by a killer during a previously carefree freshman year of college. Years later, she is a journalist for an online newspaper so she can work from home, avoid people, and pick up strangers when she feels like having sex. Tony, forced out of the FBI after obsessing about his career at the cost of innocent victims, has relied on alcohol and women to dull the pain; he no longer has a badge to rely on but is determined to find his missing niece, captured by the same killer as Jo. When Jo comes to him for help, they sleep together (well, why not, when there's a killer or three on the loose) but their relationship reveals little sense of connection other than a collaboration to find a killer. Those looking for romance may be disappointed but readers interested in a suspenseful serial killer novel will enjoy an unusual story. 

Technically, this is the fifth in the series but I felt it worked as a standalone, although I assume Tony's FBI disgrace is covered in The Blackest Crimson.   The plot, while not impossible considering the crazy things we encounter on a daily basis via the media, is not very convincingly handled, and I could have done without the gratuitous violence.

Purchase Links: Barnes & Noble  Amazon  IndieBound

Source: I was provided an ebook by the publisher and TLC Book Tours for review purposes. I seem to be the final stop on the tour but you can visit earlier stops below:

EXCERPT TOUR:

Tuesday, February 13th: What is That Book About

Wednesday, February 14th: The Book Diva’s Reads

Thursday, February 15th: Books & Spoons

Friday, February 16th: Book Reviews and More by Kathy

Monday, February 19th: Palmer’s Page Turners

Tuesday, February 20th: Broken Teepee

Wednesday, February 21st: Helen’s Book Blog

Thursday, February 22nd: The Lit Bitch

Friday, February 23rd: Lit Wit Wine Dine

Saturday, February 24th: Clues and Reviews

Tuesday, February 27th: Why Girls Are Weird

Wednesday, February 28th: Kritter’s Ramblings

Thursday, March 1st: Books a la Mode

Friday, March 2nd: Read Love Blog

TBD: Ms. Nose in a Book

REVIEW TOUR:

Monday, March 5th: The Sassy Bookster

Monday, March 5th: Books & Spoons

Wednesday, March 7th: Moonlight Rendezvous

Thursday, March 8th: Tales of a Book Addict

Saturday, March 10th: Books & Bindings

Monday, March 12th: Thoughts from a Highly Caffeinated Mind

Tuesday, March 13th: @athousandbookstoread

Wednesday, March 14th: The Book Diva’s Reads

Thursday, March 15th: Katy’s Library and @katyslibrary

Friday, March 16th: Not in Jersey

Monday, March 19th: Helen’s Book Blog

Tuesday, March 20th: Mama Reads Blog

Wednesday, March 21st: Ms. Nose in a Book

Thursday, March 22nd: Bewitched Bookworms

Thursday, March 22nd: A Bookish Way of Life

Friday, March 23rd: Kritter’s Ramblings

Monday, March 26th: Novel Gossip and @novelgossip

Tuesday, March 27th: Mystery Suspense Reviews

Tuesday, March 27th: A Chick Who Reads

Wednesday, March 28th: Why Girls Are Weird

Thursday, March 29th: From the TBR Pile

Thursday, March 29th: Book Reviews and More by Kathy

Finding Felicity (Book Review and Giveaway)

Title: Finding Felicity
Author: Stacey Kade
Publication: Simon & Schuster, hardcover and eBook, 2018
Genre: YA

Plot: Caroline Sands has never been particularly good at making friends. And her parents’ divorce and the move to Arizona three years ago didn’t help. Being the new girl is hard enough without being socially awkward too. So out of desperation and a desire to please her worried mother, Caroline invented a whole life for herself—using characters from Felicity, an old show she discovered online and fell in love with. But now it’s time for Caroline to go off to college and she wants nothing more than to leave her old “life” behind and build something real.

However, when her mother discovers the truth about her manufactured friends, she gives Caroline an ultimatum: Prove in this first semester that she can make friends of the nonfictional variety and thrive in a new environment. Otherwise, it’s back to living at home — and a lot of therapy. Armed with nothing more than her resolve and a Felicity-inspired plan, Caroline accepts the challenge. But she soon realizes that the real world is rarely as simple as television makes it out to be. And to find a place where she truly belongs, Caroline may have to abandon her script and take the risk of being herself.

Giveaway Link: Enter by 3/29/18 to win a copy of Finding Felicity:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Purchase Links: Goodreads Amazon Barnes & Noble iBooks IndieBound Book Depository

Audience: Fans of books in which the heroines muster their wits, but an older YA audience might find the heroine a bit pathetic or the story too tame.

My Impressions: I never watched the TV show Felicity but I always meant to, as I was living in New York when it began and I always enjoyed stories set at college (a subset of the school story), so was interested in the concept behind this book (also was curious because I remembered one of the actors turned up on Scandal). Finding Felicity is a poignant story about a young woman whose natural shyness has been exacerbated by the departure of her father with his second wife, while Caroline moved across the country and had to start her sophomore year of high school at a new school in Arizona. She is so lacking in self confidence that she literally becomes speechless when confronted by the cool kids at school. Her obsession with the TV show Felicity is an understandable way to escape from the casual cruelties of adolescence (even if she takes it to unbelievable extremes) and I faulted the mother for failing to recognize how miserable her daughter was.

Surely we have all anticipated new beginnings, whether at school, work, or a new home, and yearned to be perceived differently, and I have enjoyed many books with this theme such as Emily of Deep Valley, Don’t Call Me Katie Rose, This Adventure Ends, and a hilariously funny book that turns the theme upside down called How Not to Be Popular in which the heroine/new girl in town tries NOT to make friends because it is so painful when one has to move. However, I did get tired of Caroline’s abject misery and lack of self-esteem. Her story becomes more interesting when she stops moaning and – with the help of her new roommate - starts making an effort to find out who she really is instead of pretending to be someone else.

I liked the character of Lexi, the daughter of the college janitor, who has (with some justification) a chip on her shoulder about being a scholarship student at a college full of rich kids but comes through when Caroline really needs a friend. Even Liam, the boy Caroline foolishly follows to Ashmore, is extremely convincing: the kind of young man who is carelessly kind when he remembers and it does not inconvenience him but ultimately will not consider the feelings of anyone but himself – the best moment of the book is when Caroline turns down his invitation to play Beer Pong. Luckily, there turn out to be some kindred spirits for Caroline and Lexi and, refreshingly, the book ends with the promise of friendship rather than a romance cure-all.  And I think a less cluttered cover would have worked better.


About the Author: The daughter of a minister and a music teacher, Stacey Kade grew up like many of us reading Harlequin romances on the sly. She is the author of two young adult series and recently published her first adult contemporary, 738 Days. She lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and dogs.

Source: I was provided an ebook by the publisher and the Fantastic Flying Book Club for review purposes. Please follow other stops on the tour below:

March 14th

Pink Polka Dot Books- Welcome Post

Match 15th

Vicky Who Reads- Review & Favorite Quotes

Postcards for Ariel- Interview

March 16th

Belle's Book Blog- Review

We Live and Breathe Books- Review & Favorite Quotes

Star-Crossed Book Blog- Spotlight

March 17th

Flying Paperbacks- Promo

Books, Boys, and Blogs!- Creative Option

March 18th

Life at 17- Review

Here's to Happy Endings- Review

March 19th

Bookmark Lit- Creative Option

Book Crushin- Review

The Candid Cover- Review

March 20th

Lauren's Crammed Bookshelf- Review

Sunburn by Laura Lippman (Book Review)

Title: Sunburn
Author: Laura Lippman

Publication: Harper Collins, hardcover, 2018

Genre: Suspense

Plot: New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman returns with a superb novel of psychological suspense about a pair of lovers with the best intentions and the worst luck: two people locked in a passionate yet uncompromising game of cat and mouse. But instead of rules, this game has dark secrets, forbidden desires, inevitable betrayals—and cold-blooded murder.