This challenge was SO fun! Jane is so creative! I just wish I hadn't been in a reading slump for most of it 😅 BUT I did it! I completed the challenge!
Wednesday, June 24, 2026
Tuesday, June 23, 2026
Review: The Haunting of Paynes Hollow by Kelley Armstrong
Title: The Haunting of Paynes Hollow
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Genre: Adult, horror
Publication date: October 2025
Published by: St. Martin's Press
Source: Purchased hardcover
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Synopsis: From New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong comes a nail-biting supernatural horror about a haunted lakeside property and twisted family secrets.
When Samantha Payne’s grandfather dies, she figures she won’t even get a mention in the will. After all, she hasn’t seen him in fourteen years, not since her father took his own life after being accused of murdering a child at their lakefront cottage. Her grandfather always insisted her father was innocent, despite Sam having caught him burying the child’s body, his clothing streaked with blood.
But when she does attend the reading of the will at the behest of her aunt, she discovers that her grandfather left her the very valuable lakefront property where the family cottage sits. There’s one catch: Sam needs to stay in the cottage for a month. To finally face the fact she was wrong and her father was innocent, in her grandfather's words.
Traveling to Paynes Hollow, Sam is faced with the realities of her childhood and the secrets kept hidden in the shadows of her memories. When her aunt goes missing a couple days into their stay, Sam begins to question everything again. Plagued by nightmares and paranoia, she begins hearing sounds in the forest and seeing shapes crawling from the water as the rippling waves of the lake promise something unspeakably dark lurking just below their surface.
"What's in there?" I asked.
"The headless horseman.”
"The headless horseman.”
Kelley Armstrong writing horror?
Monday, June 22, 2026
Thursday, June 18, 2026
Review: If Something Happens to Me by Alex Finlay
Title: If Something Happens to Me
Author: Alex Finlay
Genre: Adult, mystery thriller
Publication date: May 2024
Published by: Minotaur Books
Source: Borrwed from library
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Synopsis: For the past five years, Ryan Richardson has relived that terrible night. The car door ripping open. The crushing blow to the head. The hands yanking him from the vehicle. His girlfriend Ali’s piercing scream as she is taken.
With no trace of Ali or the car, a cloud of suspicion hangs over Ryan. But with no proof and a good lawyer, he’s never charged, though that doesn’t matter to the podcasters and internet trolls. Now, Ryan has changed his last name, and entered law school. He's put his past behind him.
Until, on a summer trip abroad to Italy with his law-school classmates, Ryan gets a call from his father: Ali's car has finally been found, submerged in a lake in his hometown. Inside are two dead men and a cryptic note with five words written on the envelope in Ali’s handwriting: If something happens to me…
Then, halfway around the world, the unthinkable happens: Ryan sees the man who has haunted his dreams since that night.
As Ryan races from the rolling hills of Tuscany, to a rural village in the UK, to the glittering streets of Paris in search of the truth, he has no idea that his salvation may lie with a young sheriff’s deputy in Kansas working her first case, and a mobster in Philadelphia who’s experienced tragedy of his own.
I read The Night Shift by this author a couple of years ago, and I loved it! And after all this time, I finally got my hands on another of his books, and it was another solid mystery thriller.
Wednesday, June 17, 2026
Review: Spy x Family (Vol. 4) by Tatsuya Endo
Title: Spy x Family: Volume 4
Series: Spy x Family #4
Previous books in this series: Spy x Family (#1) | Spy x Family (#2) | Spy x Family (#3)
Author: Tatsuya Endo
Genre: YA, adventure, humor
Publication date: March 2021
Published by: VIZ Media
Source: Borrowed from library
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Synopsis: Master spy Twilight is unparalleled when it comes to going undercover on dangerous missions for the betterment of the world. But when he receives the ultimate assignment—to get married and have a kid—he may finally be in over his head!
The Forgers look into adding a dog to their family, but this is no easy task—especially when Twilight has to simultaneously foil an assassination plot against a foreign minister! The perpetrators plan to use trained dogs for the attack, but Twilight gets some unexpected help to stop these terrorists.
Bond! I love Bond!
