bibliosizzle's Reviews (302)

I enjoyed this one. It was quite the departure from Hidden Pictures but I wasn't mad about it. Part family drama, part mystery, part psychological thriller. I was entertained the whole way through and I did not predict any of the many twists and turns. I thought it was really well done.

It follows a father who is recently estranged from his daughter but then finds himself invited to her wedding - which turns out to be nothing like he expected.

The character development was my favorite part. I loved Aunt Tammy and little Abigail, who had me laughing. I loved the big bad Gardner family who was clearly taken from a page out of the Elon Musk family album. I even loved the dad, whose morality was constantly called into question and contrasted with his unconditional love of his daughter. I found myself asking internally what I would do in his situations. What would I do in the daughter's situation? Or even the Aunt's. It was thought provoking and fun.

I would recommend this for anyone who enjoys family drama, billionaire romance, and thrillers with a psychological element.

I need to sit with this one for a minute, but my first gut reaction is three stars. I am annoyed at the lack of plot progression over so many pages. We wind up basically where we started. It's like she has a contract for a certain number of books and needed to stretch to make that happen.

It's a "this meeting could have been an email" vibe for me.

Let me start with the good things. LaRocca is a decent storyteller. The book vibes were spot on, eerie an creepy and the whole time you can't figure out what the character you're supposed to be sympathizing with gives you the ick.

The cover is awesome. Based on the cover and plot, I thought that this was going to be about necromancy, maybe a little necrophilia for shock value, and perhaps someone being haunted. This is where it went south for me.

The horror was gratuitous and ill placed. It felt like LaRocca wrote the book and then said to themself "this wasn't gross enough for my genre" and added additional splatterpunk scenes. The scenes didn't advance the plot or character development at all. It gave us so much information about things we didn't need to know and then absolutely nothing about what we wanted to know - like the end of the story. We are left having no idea what the resolution to the story is.

And finally, it didn't feel queer - it felt homophobic. Child SA just doesn't do it for me. Especially when the graphic nature of it doesn't do anything to add to the story.

I won't be picking up anything from this author again.

I’m down for a Halloween theme any time of the year, so it didn’t bother me one bit reading this in January. It was a fun, short, action packed adventure that always had me guessing. This is my first read by the author and I really enjoyed it.

“What I am is the Indian who can’t die. I’m the worst dream America ever had.”

I absolutely LOVED this. Gothic horror is my favorite genre. Dracula is one of my favorite books of all time. This story feels a lot like Dracula, if Dracula took place in the American frontier. It’s even written in diary passages the way that Dracula was. Imagine your worst vampire nightmare come to life in the wild Wild West.

But if that’s not good enough, it’s also a story about so much more. It has themes of self discovery, forgiveness, revenge, loss, racism, imperialism, all told from the perspective of a Native American. I loved seeing all the beautiful native language that was used and to see such a terrible time period retold from the point of view of the victims.

The characters were so layered and tragic. I hated and loved every single one of them. Even the most evil had some redeeming qualities. It makes you wonder how far you would go to save your family from starving or freezing to death.

Jones is an absolute gem on an author and will forever be on my “automatic read” list.

I had the absolutely pleasure to travel to the Black Hills last year and I was able to visit the Native American Indian museum at Crazy Horse mountain. It was a humbling experience to witness the horrors that we committed on both the buffalo and the Indians and then to see wild buffalo back on the wild prairie in Custer state park.

This is not an easy read. The prose and style is quite advanced, but if you’re an American into horror, check it out!

I would recommend this for everyone. It’s bloody and gruesome, but its such an important reminder about a part of American history that we are so quick to forget.

Thank you to the author, the publisher, and marketing team for giving me this book in exchange for my honest review.

This book had such great promise. It was marketed to me as a thriller, paranormal suspense novel. Set in New Orleans during a hurricane following a somewhat lost attorney named Jim.

Hey! I’m a southern transplant. I’m a lawyer. I love paranormal suspense. This is right up my alley.

This book turned out to be a lot less paranormal and whole lot more Catholic catechism. As someone who attended Catholic school for close to 20 years, and now considers themselves a recovering Catholic, I turned out to be the wrong audience.

The book was well written, the setting was moody and fun, the characters were entertaining to read… but the plot revolved heavily on Mary (Jesus’ mother) and her ability to create miracles that ultimately lead to the salvation and redemption of our protagonist, Jim.

Oof. This was paranormal alright, but not in the way I think the author intended.

I’d recommend this for readers who are devoted Catholics and enjoy reading fiction where Mary and God come to the rescue.

Wow. I cannot believe that this is a debut novel. This is officially the first book I am putting on my "favorite books of the year" list, for 2025.

• The Plot: A 13 year old girl shoots her 14 year old brother and gets arrested. The book follows the mystery of what happened that night, what her motives were, and what the consequences of her actions are. It also examines the people around who are affected by the murder and their own personal journeys with penitence and forgiveness.

• The Characters: The characters were so well developed that I found myself completely engrossed in their feelings, my heart being torn out along with their own. Koval does such a great job at making you feel like you understood their choices, no matter how wrong they may seem externally, and the struggle that each character faced as a consequence of those choices. This book had me thinking to myself, on several occasions, what would I have done if I was in their shoes?

• The Themes: There were a couple of really interesting themes through the book.
- Choices - those that are a split second decision and those that are pondered over for perhaps too long.
- Consequences - those that are understood and those that are not. It questioned whether or not a consequence was deserved or was too harsh or too lenient.
- Judgement - who is the right person to pass judgement? The law? The individual? The church? Peers? What if the person who is passing the judgement doesn't have the ability to consider all the facts. Should it matter?
- Forgiveness - Forgiving yourself and forgiving others, and how that might look different from person to person.
- Penitence - The amount of sorrow, guilt, and regret that someone can feel for a wrong they have committed, or a wrong that they have been affected by.

• Who would I recommend this for? Anyone who enjoys fiction that makes you think, changes the way you perceive the world, and is not afraid to explore the tough questions.

• My rating: Five Stars. So well done. This was a beautiful tragedy on so many levels. It had layer after layer of depth and emotion and it was all wrapped up really well. Bravo to Koval! What a great read.

This was adorable. I think I would find romance as a genre more tolerable if they were all less than 100 pages. It was short and sweet and still found time to have a fun plot.

I liked it. It was funny at times and it was heartfelt. Eleanor was a hot mess expressing and without a doubt was not “fine”. She Felt a bit like an autistic Bridget Jones.

This was hit and miss for me. The characters were interesting but somehow weren’t that deep? I love that we are starting to have a conversation about mental health and trauma but it felt a little like the author was poking fun at the issues.