The Craftsman by Sharon Bolton

Imagine waking up to a dark, cramped space. Feeling around in panic to discover you are in a casket. How could it get any worse? Then you realize you are not alone in the casket. Holy flipping crap! Like nothing I have ever read. Bring on the nightmares! A chilling, creepy, fantastic 5 star read!

1969 we are introduced to a small town called Sabden, a town with an extensive history linked to witchcraft. Everyone knows of the Pendle witches that have been hung for their practice. Except now the town is in the spotlight for missing children. It comes to light what their fate may have been when the first child Patsy is heard screaming for help while buried alive underground. Will she be rescued in time? Who put her there? Was she buried alive with the person that the casket was meant for? Or was the casket dug back up?

30 years later we join up with Florence Lovelady the police officer that cracked the case. She returns to the small town to attend a funeral of all things. The killer has been caught, so why does she still have so many unanswered questions?

I have read close to 70 books this year and this one is in my top 3! To think, I almost passed on reading this book because I was worried it would be too gruesome for me. I decided to brave it and I am so glad I did. It is a creepy, twisted, edge of your seat thriller. I could not put this one down! Now excuse me as I am off to order my next Sharon Bolton book, Daisy in Chains. I have some catching up to do as I have now added another favorite author to my list! I read this with a group of my Traveling Sisters and I know they are just as excited.

Thank you so much to Sharon Bolton, St. Martins Press and NetGalley for this chilling fantastic ARC.

Sneak Peek Sunday

 
Happy Sunday Everyone! That means it is time for Sneak Peek Sunday! This is a day where I share with you what myself and my Traveling Sisters are planning on reading. We only share the ones we are really excited about and this week is no exception!

This week we are looking forward to reading My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing. I was so flipping excited to get my hands on this as were some other Traveling Sisters. 



Please pop in and see what Brenda and Norma at Two Sisters Lost in a Coulee and Christina at Recipe and a Read has to say about it. I think we are all in agreement this is a must read!  There has been a lot of hype around this book even though the pub date is not until March 26, 2019! It just sounds so darn good. My favorite type of book is a domestic psychological thriller and this looks like it has the stuff to be a fantastic one! A combination of Dexter and Mr. & Mrs. Smith.......YES please!!! Have you read this one yet? If so, let us know what you thought!

Goodreads Summary

Dexter meets Mr. and Mrs. Smith in this wildly compulsive debut thriller about a couple whose fifteen-year marriage has finally gotten too interesting...
 

Our love story is simple. I met a gorgeous woman. We fell in love. We had kids. We moved to the suburbs. We told each other our biggest dreams, and our darkest secrets. And then we got bored.

We look like a normal couple. We're your neighbors, the parents of your kid's friend, the acquaintances you keep meaning to get dinner with.

We all have secrets to keeping a marriage alive.

Ours just happens to be getting away with murder.


 Samantha Downing




 Born in the Bay Area and now living in the Big Easy, I consider both to be home. Along the way I went to school, worked a few jobs and learned a thing or two. Throughout it all, I wrote. Never studied writing, it's just a hobby that grew into a passion. A dozen books later, my first novel will be published in 2019. My Lovely Wife is not the first one I wrote, it's the first one I submitted (trust me, the other eleven are terrible).

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When I was a kid, my mom brought me to the library every two weeks. I checked out a stack of new books and new worlds. The best thing was becoming so absorbed in a book I couldn’t put it down. I walked around with it in front of my face, I took it to the bathroom, the kitchen, the book came with me wherever I went. I tripped, ran into walls and stubbed my toes because I never watched where I was going.

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This is why I write. I want to tell stories that make people walk into walls.

Our Little Lies by Sue Watson

Well Sue Watson fans, are  you wondering if she can pull off a thriller genre? Wonder no more, the answer is yes! She was able to spin us a twisted tale worthy of the title psychological thriller.

Marianne Wilson has the world at her fingertips. Living a posh lifestyle with her cardio thoracic surgeon husband Simon and their children.

Marianne's sole job in life is to be a homemaker, the "perfect wife" to Simon aka Dr. Wilson. Of course Simon deserves dinner on the table waiting for him every night, an immaculate home scrubbed to perfection, an attentive wife and obedient children. I mean he deserves it, right? He demands it to be so. Appearance is everything for the doctor and his wife.

I must say this title was extremely fitting for this dysfunctional family dynamics. I was quickly drawn into this story as it was completely believable. Sadly we never know what goes on behind closed doors. I found myself wondering if Simon was really the controlling violent husband portrayed by Marianne. Or perhaps is she riddled with psychiatric disorders and heavy amount of prescription drugs as Simon suggests? Who is telling the truth?

Sue Watson brought us an exciting story of lies, deceit, death and family dysfunction. I often found myself questioning if Marianne was a reliable narrator. It made for an interesting story that kept me guessing all the way until the end!

Thank you so much to Sue Watson, Bookouture and NetGalley for this ARC.

Can't Wait Wednesday

You know what time it is...........

If you don't know, it is Can't Wait Wednesday! If you don't already know this is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings, which is based on Waiting on Wednesday by Jill at Breaking the Spine. 

This is a time that I share with you the books that I have coming up this week and highlight the ones I just can't wait to read. This week it is The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor! Even better than reading it by myself I am so excited that my fellow Traveling Sisters and Traveling Friends are going to be joining in with this read! That way we can check in and freak out together about just how good it is! Please pop in and take a look at our other group reads we are excited about this week with Brenda and Norma at Two Sisters Lost in a Coulee and Christina at Recipe and a Read.

I am sure that everyone that would be reading this blog would be able to relate to this. This is a book that I had to have as soon as it came out in the U.S. I ran straight out and eagerly bought it.......to have it sit on my shelf for months. What???!! Ok to your average Joe this might sound ridiculous but I know you fellow bloggers get it. You have deadlines with other books to meet and there is that one book that you die a little bit inside each time you see a raving review written because you have not read it yet. Well this is definitely that book for me! If you are living under a rock and have not heard of The Chalk Man, I will include a Goodreads Summary so you can see why I am so excited to read it. Happy reading to my fellow Traveling Friends and Traveling Sisters! We are excited about this one.


Goodreads Summary

You can feel it in the woods, in the school and in the playground; you can feel it in the houses and at the fairground. You can feel it in most places in the small town of Anderbury . . . the fear that something or someone is watching you.

It began back in 1986, at the fair, on the day of the accident. That was when twelve-year-old Eddie met Mr Halloran - the Chalk Man.

He gave Eddie the idea for the drawings: a way to leave secret messages for his friends and it was fun, until the chalk men led them to a body.

Thirty years later, Ed believes the past is far behind him, until an envelope slips through the letterbox. It contains a stick of chalk, and a drawing of a figure.

Is history going to repeat itself?

Was it ever really over?

Will this game only end in the same way?

Meet C.J. Tudor

C. J. Tudor was born in Salisbury and grew up in Nottingham, where she still lives with her partner and young daughter.

She left school at sixteen and has had a variety of jobs over the years, including trainee reporter, radio scriptwriter, shop assistant, ad agency copywriter and voiceover.

In the early nineties, she fell into a job as a television presenter for a show on Channel 4 called Moviewatch. Although a terrible presenter, she got to interview acting legends such as Sigourney Weaver, Michael Douglas, Emma Thompson and Robin Williams. She also annoyed Tim Robbins by asking a question about Susan Sarandon’s breasts and was extremely flattered when Robert Downey Junior showed her his chest.

While writing the Chalk Man she ran a dog-walking business, walking over twenty dogs a week as well as looking after her little girl.

She’s been writing since she was a child but only knuckled down to it properly in her thirties. Her English teacher once told her that if she ‘did not become Prime Minister or a best-selling author’ he would be ‘very disappointed.’

The Chalk Man was inspired by a tub of chalks a friend bought for her daughter’s second birthday. One afternoon they drew chalk figures all over the driveway. Later that night she opened the back door to be confronted by weird stick men everywhere. In the dark, they looked incredibly sinister. She called to her partner: ‘These chalk men look really creepy in the dark . . .’

She is never knowingly over-dressed. She has never owned a handbag and the last time she wore heels (twelve years ago) she broke a tooth.

She loves The Killers, Foo Fighters and Frank Turner. Her favourite venue is Rock City.

Her favourite films are Ghostbusters and The Lost Boys. Her favourite authors are Stephen King, Michael Marshall and Harlan Coben.

She is SO glad she was a teenager in the eighties.

She firmly believes that there are no finer meals than takeaway pizza and champagne, or chips with curry sauce after a night out.

Everyone calls her Caz.