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Book Review:: Wrong Place Wrong Time | Gillian McAllister

It started with a feeling. Deja vu? Something like it? A bad feeling. The calm before the storm type of feeling. Like in the next instant, the world will change. Irreparably.

Wrong Place Wrong Time Gillian McAllister Book Cover

Jen knows something is wrong as she’s waiting up for her teenaged son to come home late on an October evening. Propelled by this supernatural feeling, she goes to the window and witnesses her son stab a stranger, killing him. The next hours are a nightmare as she and her husband Kelly grasp for answers about what happened and why. Somehow, they make it home to sleep in the wee hours of the morning. When she wakes, it is to the previous morning, before the crime. Her son is there, safe and happy. The next morning, it’s another day earlier. Somehow, she’s stuck in a backwards time loop, moving further and further back through time. Every day, she notices something new – signs she missed that led to that moment with her son holding a knife. She’s convinced it’s an opportunity for her to change things – to prevent that dark day from ever happening. But the more she discovers about the past, the more impossible it seems to untangle her family from the web of events that led them there.

We’re all familiar with the groundhog-day trope – living the same day again and again until things set themselves right – but this one does it different. Jen continues traveling back in time, weeks, months, years – gathering information she will need to unravel the mystery of that night and the truth everyone around her has been hiding.

There are twists and turns and each piece of the puzzle built the suspense and had my mind engaged the entire time. The pacing was just right; not so quick that you missed things because the details were too quick or subtle, and not so slow that any part of it was boring.

I don’t read this genre often because I have a soft heart that can’t take much evil, and though there are dark things in this book, for me, it was the perfect amount of darkness to still be able to enjoy it. I especially hate when books get darker at the end, taking a gruesome turn that haunts you. This one does not.

I’ve been reading a lot of books this year with protagonists who are mothers. I’m devouring them. There are certain things that are universal, and a mother’s love and falling into the trap of not paying enough attention to the every-day things are two of them. This is the suspense/thriller side of the same coin as Maybe Next Time by Cesca Major, one of my favorite books of the year. I highly recommend both!

Details

Title:: Wrong Place Wrong Time
Author:: Gillian McAllister
Genre:: Mystery/Thriller
Publisher:: William Morrow
Length:: 416 pages
Audio Length:: 10h 7m
Audiobook Narrator:: Lesley Sharp
Audiobook Publisher:: Harper Audio
Published:: August 2nd, 2022
The Litertarian Rating:: 5-Stars

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The Midnight Feast | Lucy Foley
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Book Review:: The Midnight Feast | Lucy Foley

One cannot escape the past. Crimes cannot be erased. And those who were affected cannot simply be forgotten.

The Midnight Feast is another edge-of-your seat, layered, multiple POV mystery by Lucy Foley that tells of the secret trauma of one fateful summer night on the English coast, and its rippling effects through time.

The Midnight Feast Lucy Foley Book Cover

Opening weekend at The Manor is slated to be the event of a lifetime with Francesca Woodland at its helm. The cabins are full, the facilities impeccable, and every detail has been fussed over and perfected down to the architect, the staff, the wine, and the turndown service. But by the time it’s over, the police are called in to investigate the dead bodies left in the aftermath.

The first 15% of this book followed the same blueprint as The Guest List (also by Lucy Foley), which had me scratching my head a little bit. Doubling down on a good thing, I guess. Instead of a new, exclusive, wedding venue on an Irish island, this book is based on a new, exclusive, glamping resort-type facility on the English coast. I feel like it probably could have been a little more original, but it’s ultimately forgivable.

We flip back and forth between the present and past diary entries kept by one of the characters on a summer holiday, revealing one entry at a time what happened all those years ago to create so much tension in the present. Probably my favorite part of a book like this one is how each of the POV characters fit into the grander story, and that is one thing this book does so well. Everyone has a link to the past, and they all have a role to play in the present, too.

I loved the folklore thread in the weave. Like any good English town, this one has a longstanding lore surrounding a hundred-eyed tree deep in the forest, and The Birds who seek justice on wrongdoing done in the community. It was a little exhausting reading the words “the birds, the birds, the birds” again and again, but the layer of uncertainty and supernatural it adds really worked for me.

About halfway through I knew this was going to be a banger. I listened as an audiobook and was honestly surprised when I looked down and saw I was only at the midpoint. It has the punch of a climax already at that point, but we get so much more, and the true climax is even more satisfying. If you’re looking for something thrilling and satisfying with elements of horror, this book is for you. Good luck putting it down!

Details

Title:: The Midnight Feast
Author:: Lucy Foley
Genre:: Thriller/Suspense
Publisher:: William Morrow
Length:: 354 pages
Audio Length:: 10h 20m
Audiobook Narrator:: Joe Eyre, Sarah Slimani, Roly Botha, Laurence Dobiesz, Tuppence Middleton
Audiobook Publisher:: Harper Audio
Published:: June 18th, 2024
The Litertarian Rating:: 5-Stars