The Orchid Girls by Lesley Sanderson

What is your life was built on lies? You had to worry every day about your secrets being revealed. Is it possible to escape your past and never look back? Or will your past come back to haunt you no matter how hard you try to hide it?

I loved this debut novel by Lesley Sanderson! She knocked it out of the park. She managed to create a suspense filled read that had me captivated the entire time. Three 14 year old girls hanging out together. What could go wrong? Plenty can go wrong....

The blurb for this book sums it up perfectly. Three girls deemed The Orchid Girls by the media. One is dead, one is a liar and one is in love.  Were the remaining Orchid Girls the last to see the dead girl? Even if they were, does it necessarily  mean they know anything about it?

Fueled by jealously, lust and lies this is one suspense filled read. I flew through the chapters at the edge of my seat wondering when we would learn who really was lying. Someone must know what happened that day. The question is did the Orchid Girls really know the answer?

 The majority of the story we got to see it through Molly and Grace's eyes in chapters from the present day highlighting their point of view. Each girl took a totally different path in life. It was intriguing to see how each chose to deal with their troubled past. We also got a glimpse into all three of the girls past from diary entries filled with their thoughts and feelings. Were these three girls really as close as the media and public thought? Were they capable of killing someone? I was not really sure who to root for, I struggled to decipher the truth from the lies. So many secrets, all revealed in good time.

What a fantastic debut! I am excited to see what this author has in store for us next!

The Orchid Girls is out now. Get your copy! What are you waiting for?!

About the Author 
 

Lesley spends her days writing in coffee shops in Kings Cross where she lives and also works as a librarian in a multicultural school. She loves the atmosphere and eclectic mix of people in the area. She has lived and worked in Paris and speaks four languages.

She attended the Curtis Brown Creative novel writing course in 2015/6, and in 2017 was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish fiction prize.

Lesley discovered Patricia Highsmith as a teenager and has since been hooked on psychological thrillers. She is particularly interested in the psychology of female relationships.

Lesley is represented by Hayley Steed at the Madeleine Milburn agency.

The Orchid Girls is her first psychological thriller

Can't Wait Wednesday

Happy Wednesday!! Of course that means it is time for another Can't Wait Wednesday. This is a meme hosted by Wishful Endings which is based on Waiting on Wednesday hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. On Wednesdays I share with you what myself and my Traveling Sisters are excited about reading together next. This week it is Watching You by Lisa Jewell. Please pop on over to see what Norma & Brenda at Two Sisters Lost in a Coulee and Christina at Recipe and a Read have to say!

 Well okay Karen, I will tell you anyway. I have to admit I have never read a Lisa Jewell book. I know, it is crazy right? I have no idea why. I just have not gotten around to it. Even though I do have a copy of  I Found You in my bookcase. You know, a book I actually bought and still have not read. 

I know Sheldon, you are so right! So I instantly tried to land myself a copy upon hearing The Traveling Sisters were planning to read it together later this month. I am so excited to say I will be able to read along as I was approved for a advanced copy of Watching You! I am ready to get this Sister read started!

It is getting amazing reviews so far. I can't wait to see what all the buzz is about. Check out Goodreads and see if you are not tempted too! This looks like my kind of book. Has anyone read this one yet?


Goodreads Summary

 Melville Heights is one of the nicest neighbourhoods in Bristol, England; home to doctors and lawyers and old-money academics. It’s not the sort of place where people are brutally murdered in their own kitchens. But it is the sort of place where everyone has a secret. And everyone is watching you.

As the headmaster credited with turning around the local school, Tom Fitzwilliam is beloved by one and all—including Joey Mullen, his new neighbor, who quickly develops an intense infatuation with this thoroughly charming yet unavailable man. Joey thinks her crush is a secret, but Tom’s teenaged son Freddie—a prodigy with aspirations of becoming a spy for MI5—excels in observing people and has witnessed Joey behaving strangely around his father.

One of Tom’s students, Jenna Tripp, also lives on the same street, and she’s not convinced her teacher is as squeaky clean as he seems. For one thing, he has taken a particular liking to her best friend and fellow classmate, and Jenna’s mother—whose mental health has admittedly been deteriorating in recent years—is convinced that Mr. Fitzwilliam is stalking her.

Meanwhile, twenty years earlier, a schoolgirl writes in her diary, charting her doomed obsession with a handsome young English teacher named Mr. Fitzwilliam…

Secrets Between Us by Valerie Keogh

Tia and Ellie have had a challenging life. They lost their mother during childbirth and their father died when they were 15 years old. You would think they would be close because they are all that each other had, but think again. After the death of their father, Tia was sent to a special needs school and Ellie to a boarding school. Ellie moved on and went to college, got married, while Tia stayed at her special needs school, for 15 years. Ellie did not visit her, for 15 years!!What?!

One would think that Tia would be hurt that her sister did not visit her, not even once. That does not appear to be the case, in fact she appears oblivious to this fact. I mean Ellie did write to her every single week. She divulged her innermost feelings about her life. She included strict instructions for Tia to burn the letters, she knew that Tia always did as she was instructed. With little notice the school was shut down and Tia had no place to call home.....unless she were to move in with Ellie and her husband. Then things got a little crazy to put it mildly.

WOW, just flipping wow. This book takes family dysfunction to a whole different level. I literally could not believe what I was reading at times, it was so shocking. I kept thinking, no we are not going to go there and yep we sure went there! This is an absolute enthralling read that I could not put down. I could not wait to get to the end to see how this panned out. It was like a bad train wreck that I could not look away from, even if it was just horrible, twisted and oh so wrong. This book is sinister to the core! I must say I loved it!

Falling Behind Friday

Hi my peeps! Happy Friday!! This means it is time again for the walk of shame in our meme Falling Behind Friday. My Traveling Sisters and I started calling it this as a joke because we just can't get caught up and well it stuck. I am sure you can all relate. Please pop over to see what Norma & Brenda at Two Sisters Lost in a Coulee and Christina at Recipe and a Read have to say about this! For now I am going to hide in my box of shame.....

 

So let's establish that falling behind is NOT because I don't want to read it. In fact, I really want to read this book. It sounds absolutely fantastic and my kind of psychological thriller...The Winters by Lisa Gabriele.

Okay Rachael just simmer down. I know it is hard to believe that I have not read this book that I have been dying to read. In my defense I did just get a copy a couple of days before it's publication date...So I was chatting with my Traveling Sister Brenda from Two Sisters Lost in a Coulee and she admitted that she too was behind on this one. She then suggested we read it as a Traveling Sisters read with a group of us. See my answer below.....

Have you read The Winters yet? It looks like one fantastic read! Check out the Goodreads summary...

 

Goodreads Summary
 “From the brilliant first line to the shattering conclusion, The Winters will draw you in and leave you breathless. . . . A must read.” —Liv Constantine, author of The Last Mrs. Parrish

Inspired by Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, a spellbindingly suspenseful novel set in the moneyed world of the Hamptons, about secrets that refuse to remain buried and consequences that can’t be escaped

After a whirlwind romance, a young woman returns to the opulent, secluded Long Island mansion of her new fiancé Max Winter—a wealthy politician and recent widower—and a life of luxury she’s never known. But all is not as it appears at the Asherley estate. The house is steeped in the memory of Max’s beautiful first wife Rebekah, who haunts the young woman’s imagination and feeds her uncertainties, while his very alive teenage daughter Dani makes her life a living hell. She soon realizes there is no clear place for her in this twisted little family: Max and Dani circle each other like cats, a dynamic that both repels and fascinates her, and he harbors political ambitions with which he will allow no woman—alive or dead—to interfere.

As the soon-to-be second Mrs. Winter grows more in love with Max, and more afraid of Dani, she is drawn deeper into the family’s dark secrets—the kind of secrets that could kill her, too. The Winters is a riveting story about what happens when a family’s ghosts resurface and threaten to upend everything