hello everyone! happy freak week day 3! today i am going to be talking about some adult mystery books of 2021. honestly, i feel like so many books that came out this month, so i’m honestly really excited to talk about these and to red them if i haven’t read them yet.
if i disappear by eliza jane brazier. sera loves true crime podcasts, they make her feel empowered in a world where women just like her disappear daily. she’s sure they are preparing her for something, so when rachel, her favorite podcast host, goes missing, sera knows it’s time to act. rachel has always taught her to trust her instincts. sera follows the clues hidden in the episode to an isolated ranch outside, rachel’s small hometown to begin her search. she’s convinced her investigation will make rachel so proud. but the more sera digs into this unfamiliar world, the more off things start to feel. because rachel is not the first woman to vanish from the ranch, and won’t be the last.
arsenic and adobo by mia p. manansala. when lila macapagal moves back home to recover from a horrible breakup, her life seems to be following all the typical rom-com tropes. she’s tasked with saving her tita rosie’s failing restaurant, and she has to deal with a group of matchmaking aunties who shower her with love and judgement. but when a notoriously nasty food critic, who happens to be her ex boyfriend, drops dead moments after a confrontation with lila, her life quickly swerves from a nora ephron romp to an agatha christie case. with the cops treating her like she’s one and only suspect, and the shady landlord looking to finally kick the macapagal family out and resell the storefront, lila’s left with no choice but to conduct her own investigation. armed with the most auntie network, her barista best bud, and her trusted dachshund, lila takes on this tasty and twisted case and soon finds her own neck on the chopping block.
the maidens by alex michaelides. edward fosca is a murderer. of this mariana is certain. but fosca is untouchable. a handsome and charismatic greek tragedy professor at cambridge university, fosca is adored by the staff and students alike, particularly by the members of a secret society of female students know as the maidens. mariana andros is a brilliant but troubled group therapist who becomes fixated on the maidens when one member, a friend of mariana’s niece zoe, is found murdered in cambridge. mariana, who was once herself a student at the university, quickly suspects that behind the idyllic beauty of the spires and turrets, and beneath the ancient traditions, lies something sinsiter. and she becomes convinced that, despites his alibi edward fosca is guilty of the murder. but why would the professor targets one of his students? and why does he keep returning to the rites of persephone, the maiden, and her journey to teh underworld? when another body is found, mariana’s obsession with proving fosca’s guilt spirals out of control, threatening to destroy her credibility as well as her closest relationships.
survive the night by riley sager. josh baxter, the man behind the wheel, is a virtual stranger to charlie. they met at the campus ride board, each looking to share the long drive home to ohio. both have good reasons for wanting to get away. for charlie, it’s guilt and grief over the murder of her best friend, who became the third victim of the man known as the campus killer. for josh, it’s to help care for her sick father. or so he says, like the hitchcock heroine she’s named after, charlie has her doubts. there’s something suspicious about josh, from the holes in his story about his father to how he doesn’t seem to want charlie to see inside the car’s trunk. as they travel an empty highway in the dead of night, an increasingly worried charlie begins to think she’s sharing a car with the campus killer.
the burning girls by cj tudor. welcome to chapel croft. five hundred years ago, eight protestant martyrs were burned at the sakes here. thirty years ago, two teenage girls disappeared with a trace, and two months ago, the vicar of the local parish killed himself. reverened jack brooks, a single parent with a 14 year old daughter and a heavy conscience, arrives in the village hoping to make a fresh start and find some peace. instead, jack finds a town mired in secrecy and the strange welcome package: an old exorcism kit and a note quoting scripture. the more jack and her daughter, flo, gets acquainted with the town and its strange denizens, the deeper they are drawn into their rifts, mysteries and suspicions. and when flo is troubled by a strange sightings in the old chapel, it becomes apparent that there are ghosts here to refuse to be laid to rest.
the girls are all so nice here by laurie elizabeth flynn. a lot has changed in the years since ambrosia wellington graduated from college, and she’s worked hard to create a new life for herself. but then an invitation to her ten year reunion arrives in the mail, along with an anonymous note that reads, ‘we need to talk about we did that night.’ it seems that the secret of ambrosia’s past and the people she thought she’d left there, aren’t as buried as she believed. amb can’t fixating on what she did or who she did it with: larger than life solane sullivan, amb’s former best friend who could make anyone do anything.
never saw me coming by vera kurian. meet chloe sevre. she’s a freshman honor student, a leggings wearing hot girl next door, who also happens to be a psychopath. her hobbies include yogalates, frat parties, and plotting to kill will bachman, a childhood friend who grievously wronged her. chloe is one of seven students at her DC-based college who are part of an unusual clinical study for psychopaths- students like herself who lack empathy and can’t comprehend emotions like fear or guilt. the study, led by a renowned psychologist, requires them to wear smart watches that track their moods and movements. when one of the students in the study is found murdered in the psychology building, a dangerous game of cat and mouse begins, and chloe goes from hunter to prey. as she races to identify the killer and put her own plan into action, she’ll be forced to decide if she can trust any of the fellow psychopaths, and everyone knows you should never trust a psychopath.
the push by ashley audrain. blythe connor is determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother to her new baby, violet, that she herself never had. but, in the thick of motherhood’s exhausting early days, blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter, she doesn’t behave like most children do. or is it all in blythe’s head? her husband, fox, says she’s imagining things, and the more fox dismisses her fears, the more blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what blythe is telling us about her life as well. then, their son, sam, is born and with him, blythe has the blissful connection she’d always imagined with her child. even violet seems to love her little brother, but when life as they know it is changed in an instant, the devastating fall out forces blythe to face the truth.
we were never here by andrea bartz. emily is having the time of her life, she’s in the mountains of chile with her best friend, kristen, on their annul reunion trip, and the women are feeling closer than ever. but, on the last night of their trip, emily enters their hotel room to find blood and broken glass on the floor. kristen says the cute backpacker she’d been flirting with attacked her, and she had no choice but to kill him in self defense. even more shocking: the scene is horrifyingly similar to last year’s trip, when another backpacker wound up dead. emily can’t believe it’s happening again. and back home in wisconsin, emily is struggling to bury her trauma, diving head first into a new relationship and throwing herself into work. but when kristen shows up for a surprise visit, emily is forced to confront their violent past and the more kristen tries to keep emily close, the more emily questions her friend’s motives. as emily feels the walls closing in on their coverups, she must reckon with the truth about her closest friends.
anyway, that is all for today! happy freak week day three. and i honestly had so much fun talking about this list, since i feel like these books all sound so cool and i can’t wait to read so many of these hopefully soon. and hopefully i’ll see you soon for today for the next post.
r.bookish 