Tag: Thriller

Eli North’s life is in shambles when he takes a pity job offer from his mom, sheriff of their resort town in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. A former elite federal investigator, Eli now bears physical and emotional wounds from his army tour in Afghanistan that has led to substance abuse and the dissolution of his once happy family. As he struggles to gain his bearings in his new role as a small town deputy, Eli responds to a call for a noise complaint at one of the town’s resorts only to discover the dead body of one teen and reports of another who is missing, both from some of the town’s affluent summer families. Eli and the town’s small, resource strapped police department are soon over their heads embroiled in a complicated murder investigation.

Northwoods is a well plotted, well paced debut thriller. There are a lot of moving pieces to this story and I personally would have appreciated further development in some areas, but as is there’s a good balance of character and plot that will appeal to many readers. I appreciated the well rendered Northwoods setting and overall found the story very engaging and right in the zone of what I’m looking for in a thriller.

Northwoods would be perfect for your beach/travel/pool bag or backyard reading stack with its summer resort town setting.

Also recommended for fans of True Detective: Night Country. I couldn’t help but picture Jodie Foster as the sheriff in this story!

Tell me: what type of books do you prefer this time of year?

I read a mix, as always, but warm weather reading often has me reaching for more plottier thrillers and romances than usual!

The best time I’ve had with a thriller in a long time!

And by that I mean deeply affected, frantically flipping pages, can’t put it down, anxiety on high alert kind of reading experience, because why else do we read thrillers if not for this experience?!

Home alone with her two young children in their isolated historic home during a blizzard, a mother hears the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs in the middle of the night. Before the intruder can reach them she sneaks herself and her children to the safety of a small room hidden behind a wall where she does everything she can to keep her children, ages 8 and 5, quiet and safe. She can’t see the intruder from their hiding place, but she can hear his heavy footsteps moving through the house she knows so well, the squeaky floorboards she avoids, the doors she recognizes by sound alone. As she hides, the story begins to incorporate flashbacks to her life leading up to this moment providing context and fleshing out the story.

Nightwatching is a fierce, feminist, horror thriller, it’s everything I hoped it might be when I read the synopsis. The narrative is suspenseful and suffocating, I felt as though I were crouched in this little hiding space alongside the characters and I, of course, couldn’t put it down once I started reading.

The story resonated with me deeply and I found the MC incredibly recognizable and relatable as I’m sure many mothers will. This was one of the best thrillers I’ve read in a long time, I think Tracy Sierra has a very clear vision of what she was trying to do here and pulled it off beautifully.