When Maggie Holt was five years old, her parents bought their dream home.  Built in 1875, Baneberry House was spacious, grand, and surprisingly cheap.  Maggie's parents laughed off its sinister reputation and moved in, determined to turn the place into the warm family retreat they both desired.  Less than a month later, the family fled Baneberry House in the dead of night, wailing about ghosts and threatening messages from the beyond.  They never returned to the old pile, but Ewan Holt—Maggie's father—wrote a lurid tell-all about the family's terrifying experiences there.  Like The Amityville Horror, it became a hugely popular bestseller, America's favorite ghost story.

Although Maggie's childhood was financed by the proceeds of Ewan's book, she has always detested living in the spotlight of its success.  Especially since she knows the truth—her father made the whole thing up.  

When Ewan dies, 30-year-old Maggie is shocked to learn she has inherited Baneberry House, a property she thought was sold long ago.  With the keys in hand, she now has the chance to prove to the world—and to herself—that Ewan Holt was a liar, that his famous book is nothing but an imaginative hoax.  It's not long after Maggie moves into Baneberry House, intending to spend the summer fixing up the place before she puts it on the market, that strange things start happening inside its walls.  If Ewan was lying through his teeth, then what exactly is Maggie experiencing now, 25 years later?  Is it possible that she has been wrong about her father?  What if everything he wrote was the God's honest truth?  What then?  Baneberry House haunted Maggie when she was young—what if it's not done with her?  

Like Ewan Holt, Riley Sager knows how to spin a deliciously terrifying yarn.  Home Before Dark, his newest, is him at his creepy, spooky, scary best.  The novel unfolds in alternating chapters told from Ewan's perspective (sections from his book) and Maggie's, 25 years later.  It's an effective format, one which heightens tension and suspense throughout the book.  Atmospheric and unnerving, the haunted house setting creates the kind of shivery vibe that has readers jumping at every sound and cowering under the covers.  The fact that the book's already eerie cover glows in the dark is just icing on the creepy-cake.  The best part about Home Before Dark, though, is that the story keeps you constantly off balance, wondering what is real and what is not.  While I guessed some of its plot twists, others surprised me, making the book a fun, mess-with-your-head kind of read.  I'm pretty wimpy, but I still enjoy a ghostly, hair-raising read now and then and this one definitely fits that bill.  If you're up for an unsettling spine-chiller, I definitely recommend Home Before Dark.

(Readalikes:  Reminds me of The Weight of Lies by Emily Carpenter as well as books by Simone St. James, Carol Goodman, and Jennifer McMahon)    

To the FTC, with love:  Another library fine find

Sisters Meg and Sylvie Townsend have a lot on their plates.  Not only do they run their family's bookshop in downtown Chicago, but they also have to keep a close eye on their widowed father, Stephen.  His experiences as a POW during the Civil War still haunt his mind and soul, making him paranoid, confused, and prone to wandering—sometimes carrying a loaded weapon.  Stephen is always warning his daughters of danger on the horizon.  This time, he's right.  As a raging fire engulfs the city, the family must scramble to save their bookshop and themselves.  Although the women get separated from their father in the chaos, their business is destroyed, and Meg suffers debilitating burns on her artist's hands, all three survive the deadly fire.  As the dazed family tries to figure out where to go from here, they receive another shock—Stephen has been accused of murder.  Witnesses say he shot Hiram Sloane, one of his oldest friends, on the night of the fire.  Since Stephen is obviously not in his right mind, he's forced into an insane asylum, despite his daughters' vehement protests.  No matter how sick their father is, he would never murder someone in cold blood.  Would he?

Meg knows her gentle father won't survive another incarceration, especially in a place as soulless as the asylum.  The only way to get him released is to prove him innocent, which Meg vows to do.  Enlisting the help of Nate Pierce, a sympathetic newspaper reporter, she and Sylvie set about investigating the murder of Hiram Sloane.  While doing that, they also have to figure out how to live with no money and little hope of rebuilding their bookshop.  With everything in ashes around them, how will they survive?  Can they free their father before what little is left of his sanity is gone completely?  As their beloved city is being rebuilt around them, can Meg and Sylvie find the strength, the courage, and the hope to go on?

I love me a sweeping family saga, so I was naturally drawn to Jocelyn Green's historical trilogy set in 19th Century Chicago.  The first installment, Veiled in Smoke, introduces the atmospheric setting as well as the likable Townsend family.  Vivid historical detail, especially concerning the Great Fire of 1871, brings the city to life while viewing it all through the eyes of our admirable, root-worthy heroes makes the event and its aftermath feel intimate and personal.  Although there is a murder mystery at the heart of this novel, it's more family saga than thriller so the story moves along at the pace of the former rather than the latter.  The tale does get overly long and the mystery really isn't very mysterious, but I still found Veiled in Smoke compelling enough to keep me reading.  Because this is a Christian novel, it's clean, uplifting, and faith-promoting.  Although it gets preachy in places, the religious themes are not super heavy-handed, which is something I appreciate when reading in this genre.  All these things considered, I found Veiled in Smoke to be an engaging, edifying novel that I liked but didn't absolutely love.  Even still, I've already read the second book and am looking forward to the third.

(Readalikes:  Reminds me of I Survived the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 by Lauren Tarshis and The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner)

To the FTC, with love:  Another library fine find

Top Ten Books About Adoption   

1.  Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery—This book, which is one of my all-time favorites, features the mistaken adoption of a young orphaned girl by an aging brother and sister.  Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert intended to adopt a boy so they would have someone to help on their farm.  Although fiery Anne is not exactly what they had in mind, they soon find themselves thoroughly charmed by their irrepressible new daughter.

2.  How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr—This beautiful YA novel is probably the best book I've ever read about adoption.  It hit me in all the feels, let me tell you!  The story revolves around two teenage girls—one whose grieving mother decides out of the blue to adopt a baby and one who has agreed to place her unborn baby with the family.  As the birth grows nearer and nearer, the three women (each of whom has her own agenda) must figure out how to understand each other, trust each other, and, ultimately, decide what's best for one tiny human when all of their hopes, dreams, and goals are on the line.  It's a lovely read.

3.  The Length of a String by Elissa Brent Weissman—I read this middle-grade novel earlier this year and loved it.  It's about Imani, a 12-year-old bi-racial girl who was adopted by a white Jewish couple when she was a baby.  As her bat mitzvah approaches, Imani begins researching the story of her adopted great-grandmother's WWII escape from Luxembourg while also secretly trying to find her birth parents.  It's a sweet, engaging tale about one girl's heartfelt search for her "real" identity.

4.  A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley—This memoir tells the fascinating story of the author's adoption from India by a white couple from Australia.  Although his adoptive home was full of love and acceptance, Saroo felt an intense, burning need to find his birth family in India.  The fact that he was able to locate them with so little information to go on is nothing short of miraculous.  This is an incredible book, which was made into a touching film called Lion.

5.  Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda—Another beautiful novel, this one tells the parallel stories of two mothers.  One is a California pediatrician who is devastated when she finds out she is infertile.  The other is a poor woman in India who knows she can't afford to keep her newborn daughter.  When the American decides to adopt a baby from an Indian orphanage, their stories converge.    

1.  All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung—Chung's Korean parents placed her for adoption when she was a baby.  Adopted by a white couple and raised in a sheltered Oregon town, Chung experienced the pain of racism and feeling out-of-place in her mismatched family.  Her memoir, which talks about her experiences with transracial adoption, sounds like an intriguing and illuminating read.

2.  The Kindest Lie by Nancy Johnson—I'm not sure how much adoption actually features in this novel, but it still sounds like a good read.  It's about a Black engineer who returns to the dying Indiana factory town where she grew up.  As she digs into her past (including adolescence, when she was forced to give up her baby), she discovers some shocking truths.

3.  The Lost Daughters of China by Karin Evans—This non-fiction book sounds absolutely heartbreaking, but also totally fascinating.  It's about the history of China's one-child policy, which led to numerous adoptions of female Chinese babies.

4.  Silent Tears: A Journey of Hope in a Chinese Orphanage by Kay Bratt—This memoir is about a foreign woman's experience as a volunteer in a Chinese orphanage.

5.  Half a World Away by Cynthia Kadohata—Adopted Jaden thinks he's an "epic fail."  No wonder his parents are traveling to Kazakhstan to adopt another baby!  When they all arrive at the orphanage, they discover "their" baby has already been adopted.  As the family attempts to choose another on the spot, Jaden makes a sweet new friend and comes to some realizations about himself and his family.  

There you go, five books about adoption that I loved and five I plan to read.  Has your life been touched by adoption?  Is it a subject you enjoy reading about?  Which books have you loved on the subject?  If you did the Mardi Gras prompt, which book covers did you choose?  I'd truly love to know.  Leave me a comment on this post and I will gladly return the favor on your blog.

After barely surviving a traumatizing abduction by a vicious serial killer while on the job in Manhattan, former NYPD detective Shana Merchant has moved upstate, taking a position with the Bureau of Crime Investigation (BCI).  Idyllic Alexandria Bay, a charming village in the Thousand Islands area, is the perfect place to lick her wounds.  With her devoted fiancé by her side, she hopes to put her nightmares behind her and make a fresh start in the peaceful riverside town.  

Shana is shocked when her department receives a frantic call about a murder on an island that is privately owned by a wealthy family from the city.  With an incoming nor'easter creating stormy weather and choppy water, Shana and her partner, Tim Wellington, head out to Tern Island.  Nine members of the Sinclair family, a wealthy clan that has made a fortune in the NYC fashion industry, have been vacationing there.  One of them, 26-year-old Jasper, has vanished.  The bed in which he and his girlfriend were sleeping is soaked in blood, but there's no corpse and the girlfriend claims to have no idea what happened.  Tim thinks they're dealing with a spoiled businessman who's gone missing to get attention.  Shana's sure it's murder.  

With only a handful of suspects on the remote island, it seems clear that Jasper has not just been killed but also that he's been murdered by a member of his own family.  All of them had motive, means, and opportunity.  Which one made sure Jasper was out of the way?  And why?  As the storm worsens, isolating Shana and Tim on the island with a dysfunctional family, one of whom is a killer, the situation grows increasingly perilous.  Can Shana and her partner get the truth out of their very reluctant witnesses?  Can they unmask the murderer before someone else turns up dead?  Will that someone be one of them?  

I love me a locked-room mystery set in an isolated locale, so I was all in for Death in the Family, a debut novel by Tessa Wegert.  Atmospheric and absorbing, the mystery is engrossing and twisty.  It kept me guessing until the very end, which is exactly what I like in a mystery/thriller.  Shana is a sympathetic heroine whose vulnerability and determination make her both relatable and admirable.  The Sinclairs are the opposite.  They're snobby, greedy, manipulative, and immature, almost to a one.  In the end, the whole sorry lot pretty much gets what they deserve.  I cared about Shana, though.  That—and an engrossing, can't-look-away plot—is what kept me reading Death in the Family.  Even though it's a depressing story, I enjoyed the thrilling read overall.  I just requested The Dead Season, the second installment in the Shana Merchant series, from the library because I'm excited to see what this intriguing heroine does next.

(Readalikes:  Reminds me of books by Ruth Ware, Lucy Foley, Sharon Bolton, and Jane Casey)