The Tenant Review

Author: Freida McFadden

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press

Release Day: May 6, 2025

Thanks to the publisher for a complimentary arc of this title for review. Opinions expressed are my own.

Review first published in Mystery & Suspense Magazine

#1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden knocks at your door with a gripping story of revenge, privilege, and secrets turned sour…

Review:

Author Freida McFadden returns with another tension laden thriller leaving readers scrambling to figure out who can be trusted once again. All the author's signature wicked plot twists are here up to and including the final last chapter shocker readers have come to expect. Fasten down the hatches before diving into THE TENANT. You won't be able to stop until the final page is read.

Blake Porter is a man on top of the world. He has it all - the perfect fiancé, a lovely brownstone in a desirable neighborhood and a lucrative job in marketing he loves. He's a man on the move upward to better things . . . until he's suddenly fired from his job with accusations of selling trade secrets to the competition. He's stunned and devastated that his boss won't listen to his protests of innocence. Blake knows he's innocent of the accusations, but he's forced to pack his things and get out. Before long, his savings run out, debt mounts, and he's in danger of losing their home. When his fiancé suggests they take in a tenant, he's hesitant but being between a rock and a hard place, he caves and agrees. After a line of misfit applicants, Whitney strolls into their lives with cash in hand, appearing to be the answer to their prayers. However, over the next few weeks, Blake's unease escalates as weird, disturbing things begin happening, testing his patience and shooting his stress level through the roof. Even his neighbors are acting differently towards him. What's happening to him? His fiancé doesn't notice anything wrong and is becoming close friends with Whitney. As events escalate, Blake realizes he made a fatal mistake allowing Whitney to move in. Who is this woman and why is she trying to destroy him? Or could it be his own guilty secret haunting him at night?

Author Freida McFadden's THE TENANT is an intriguing, taut thriller that touches on subjects of revenge, privilege, betrayal and dark secrets that come back to haunt you. As always, her characterizations are vivid and realistic. As in most of her books, emotional stress, paranoia and a fear of the unknown play a role in a character's unraveling. McFadden excels at keeping characters and readers on their toes, guessing and searching for answers to an intricately woven puzzle until the very end. The pace intensifies with the increasing downward spiral of Blake's psyche. I enjoyed the point of view of a well-crafted, male main character perfectly portrayed by Blake as a man clueless as to why his world is crashing down around him.

THE TENANT is one of the only books by this author that I've figured out before the final reveal. Maybe it's because I've read everything McFadden's written and have learned to read the clues a little better, but I saw the climax coming early on. However, it didn't lessen my enjoyment as I burned through pages to see what else would happen and how it would play out. While this isn't my favorite offering from this talented author, it's still a masterpiece in deception and betrayal. Highly recommended to fans of mysteries and thrillers.

Synopsis:

There’s no place like home…

Blake Porter is riding high, until he's not. Fired abruptly from his job as a VP of marketing and unable to make the mortgage payments on the new brownstone that he shares with his fiancee, he's desperate to make ends meet.

Enter Whitney. Beautiful, charming, down-to-earth, and looking for a room to rent. She's exactly what Blake's looking for. Or is she?

Because something isn't quite right. The neighbors start treating Blake differently. The smell of decay permeates his home, no matter how hard he scrubs. Strange noises jar him awake in the middle of the night. And soon Blake fears someone knows his darkest secrets...

Danger lives right at home, and by the time Blake realizes it, it'll be far too late. The trap is already set.

Hidden Nature Review

Author: Nora Roberts

Publisher: St. Martins Press

Release Day: May 27, 2025

Many thanks to St. Martins Press for a complimentary arc of this title. Opinions expressed are my own.

Review first publisher in Mystery & Suspense Magazine

The #1 New York Times-bestselling author presents a new novel about an injured cop who must fight to bring down a pair of twisted killers…

Review:

HIDDEN NATURE by Author Nora Roberts is a tantalizing blend of mystery, suspense thriller and romance. Roberts once again delivers a heartfelt story with authentic, highly relatable characters, vivid settings and immersive plot lines. Once I settled in, I couldn't put this page turner down.

Natural Resources police officer Sloan Cooper walks into a convenience store and interrupts a robbery in progress. A quick on the trigger thief leaves her fighting for her life. With a long recovery ahead of her, Sloan returns to her parent's home in Heron's Rest, the small town where she grew up. While diligently working on her rehabilitation, Sloan's interest is piqued by a missing woman's case, and she decides to work the case on her personal time. A chilling pattern soon emerges - multiple people of all genders and ages spread across three states disappeared with their vehicles left abandoned suggesting the work of a serial killer. What is the common thread among these victims? How does the killer choose them? Sloan relies on her expertise, wits, and family ties to guide her as she stalks a killer unaware of how close they may be.

Meantime, Nash Littlefield moves to Heron’s Rest from New York, leaving behind an established career while cutting final ties with his estranged parents. Having purchased an old house in need of renovation, he begins work while deciding on his future path. When his younger brother, Theo, joins him also looking for a fresh start, they form The Fix-It Brothers, a handyman business. Soon, they have enough local clients in need of their services to keep them busy, and their skills bring them into contact with Sloane and her sister, Drea, through the Cooper family's rental business. Sparks flare between Drea and Theo, and Nash is intrigued with both Sloan and the case she's investigating and offers to lend her a hand with the investigation with the added benefit of spending more time with her. As the pair pursue a killer, Nash soon realizes the woman he is coming to care about will do whatever it takes to get justice for the victims . . . including putting her life at risk again.

Author Nora Roberts excels at rendering immersive small town, family-oriented stories that draw readers in with vivid prose, complex, relatable protagonists and just the right blend of romance and suspense. Her expert skills at world building and character development are evident in HIDDEN NATURE through her detailed descriptions of community life in a typical small town with a menage of colorful characters. As is often the case, the theme of family both born and found is woven throughout with examples of a close knit, supportive family in the Coopers who welcome Nash and Theo with open arms in contrast to their estranged birth family. The increasing tension drives the pace through thrilling twists as Sloan gets closer to unmasking a killer. I appreciate the author's diligence with details while taking time to develop both suspense and romance over the course of the book as it lends an authentic feeling to the unfolding events while affording the reader an opportunity to connect with each main character. Fans of romance suspense and mysteries will enjoy this latest offer from Author Nora Roberts.

Synopsis:

Natural Resources police officer, Sloan Cooper, and her partner had just taken down three men preying on hikers in the Western Maryland mountains. Driving back, she pulled in at a convenience store—and walked right into a robbery in progress. One gunshot from a jittery thief was about to change her world.

After being shocked back to life on the operating table, she has a long recovery ahead, so she moves back to her parents’ peaceful house in Heron’s Rest. As for the boyfriend who dumped her via text while she was in the hospital, good riddance.

She may be down, but she’s not out. So when a woman vanishes, leaving her car behind in a supermarket parking lot, Sloan searches online for similar cases. She finds them, spread across three states. Men and women, old and young—the missing seem to have nothing in common. And the abductions keep happening.

Luckily, the new man in her life shares her passion for solving this mystery. But it will take every ounce of endurance to get to the dark heart of this bizarre case—and she's willing to risk her life again if that's what it takes to stop the horror.

This Is How We End Things Review

Author: R.J. Jacobs

Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark

Thanks to the publisher for a complimentary arc of this title. Opinions expressed are my own.

 Riley Sager meets If We Were Villains in a compelling new psychological thriller by RJ Jacobs, following a tight-knit group of graduate students studying the psychology of lying. When one of them is discovered dead after an experiment, everything the group thought they knew about deception crumbles...

A foreboding new dark academia thriller of deception and suspense, This is How it Ends follows the unraveling of a close group of students as they contend with what it means to lie, and be lied to.

Review:

Six graduate students enter a study of the psychology of lying to assist Joe Lyons with a project. Scarlett is a single mother and appears as the peacemaker of the group. Robert, a senior assistant on the project, is highly disciplined, earning the nickname of "teacher's pet". Tattooed Britt is impulsive and prefers keeping things to himself. Bad boy Chris is reckless and has a past connection to Britt. Beautiful Elizabeth is secretive and cunning and generally disliked because of her affair with Joe. New team member, Veronica, is a lawyer who assists with legal advice and apparently has had a conflict with one of the group in the past. Each graduate has dark secrets, and a past they prefer to keep buried. When a brutal murder is discovered, each one of them is suspect, but how do you figure out which one among a group who are masters in the art of lying?

THIS IS HOW THINGS END is a well-written, intelligent murder mystery with a sea of red herrings all who are liars, all with dark secrets. To unmask a killer, detectives will have to unravel a web of lies and dig into each character's past. This is an eerie, page burning mystery, a dark academia style story, that challenges readers to figure out whodunnit. While I managed to do so shortly before the reveal, it in no way impacted how much I enjoyed trying to solve this puzzle of a mystery.  Highly recommended to fans of dark academia books and murder mysteries.

Synopsis:

Campus is empty, a winter storm is blowing in, and someone is lurking in the shadows, waiting for their chance to kill again.

Forest, North Carolina. Under the instruction of enigmatic Professor Joe Lyons, five graduate students are studying the tedious science behind the acts of lying. But discovering the secrets of deception isn't making any of the student's more honest though. Instead, it's making it easier for them to guard their own secrets – and they all have something to hide.

When a test goes awry and one of them is found dead, the students find themselves trapped by a snowstorm on an abandoned campus with a local detective on the case. As harbored secrets begin to break the surface, the graduates must find out who's lying, who isn't, and who may have been capable of committing murder. It turns out deception is even more dangerous than they thought...