WHISPERS OF DEAD GIRLS.....A TEACHER'S TRAGIC PAST BECOMES DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN.....(****)

 Whispers of Dead Girls by Marlee Bush (2025)

     This swifty paced engrossing thriller deals with those particular unsavory crimes that captivate   the headlines - teen high school girls besotted with their male teachers, some of whom take cruel, sexual advantage of their immature, naive students.

     Biology teacher Ren Taylor survived such an episode when she was in high school but due to fatal tragic circumstances, her older sister Margo did not. Years later, she's come back to the same school to teach while at the same time still actively haunted by conversations with her late charismatic Prom Queen sister, whose shadow she perpetually lived in..

     Ren's grim history starts to repeat itself as she reaches out to befriend Olivia, a student possibly distraught after an encounter with popular physics teacher Bryson Lewis. Very much like the teacher in Ren's terrible past, the handsome, outgoing Mr. Lewis is admired and beloved by the student body, especially the girls in his class.

     And that's as much detail as I'd dare discuss here, at the risk of spoiling the twists and reveals this story takes. for Ren, Olivia, Bryson Lewis and the much celebrated and admired Margo. herself. All of this unfolds as Ren's relentless, reckless amateur investigation into what's going on opens a Pandora's Box of secrets and surprises.....present and past.

     This one does what you expect a solid, skillfully crafted thriller to do......hold you fast in its grip from first page to last. I realize some readers may not get on board with the over-the-top, loaded-with-exposition theatrical ending, but at that point, I was so glued to the book I went with it fully. All in all, a suspenseful ride that poses an age old, unsettling question during its epilogue. A definite double-check for thriller-mystery fans.

     4 stars (****).

COME AS YOU ARE.....A SHARP WITTED GIRL SHAKES UP HER BOARDING SCHOOL (AND ONE GUY IN PARTICUAR)....(*****)

 Come As You Are by Dahlia Adler (2025)

     Confession time - I barely suppressed a resigned sigh and eye roll before heading into this one. Another boarding school romance, filled with gossip, hook-ups, break-ups, quirky girls, grumpy guys, villainous mean queens, dumb jocks, heart-of-gold besties, inner turmoil, wardrobe fails, bad hair days, bad parents days, nuclear sibling rivalries..... and kisses that sail right off the Richter scale.

     True, all that stuff is duly in place here. But author Dahlia Adler deploys such a wicked sense of humor and telling insights, that by the time I reached the last pages, I was sorry to see it end.

     I would've loved spending more time with the perfectly mis-matched Everett 'Evie' Riley and Salem Grayson. Evie arrives at school already a nursing a bruised heart (a loser boyfriend stolen from her by her ultra popular older sister). Adding insult to injury: she's mistakenly assigned to the boys' dorm (only partially corrected by giving her a private room there). But she's never at a loss for memorable comeback repartee aimed at boys who dare to ridicule her as the girl stuck in a sea of testosterone and a variety of foul male odors.

     Speaking of boys, in her effort to pursue the elusive goal of being cool, she engages in a pact with Salem, a darkly coiffed, darkly tempered emo guy. He needs to fulfill his parents' expectations of his becoming what's thought of a normal good student.. Their deal: he schools Evie on cool (and maybe even 'bad' a few times) and Evie transforms him into a traditional, socially acceptable boy (even trying out for team sports).

     Evie and Salem's agreement, to the surprise of absolutely no readers of this book, goes spinning off in all manner of different directions.....laugh out loud funny and dead on in the depiction of characters finding out who they are and what they want. And I lost count of how many times I wanted to rush out and find friends to quote the hilarious, astute dialogue exchanges here.

     If all the boarding/high school opposites-come-together romances were as sharply written and amusing as this one, I'm afraid I'd end up reading three of them per week. Don't pass up this one.

       5 stars (*****)

THE SAFARI.....A TROUBLED FAMILY DYNASTY RUMBLES IN THE JUNGLE.....(****)

  The Safari by Jacklyn Goldis (Release Date 5/20/25.)

     Now here's a set up no mystery lover could possibly resist. A large dynastic family, filthy rich and nursing no end of deep dark secrets and hatreds, come together at their very own South African Safari lodge. Their trips into the bush are only for hunting the wild animals with cameras, but at least one person (or persons) among them has set their sights on human prey.

     The Babel family, headed by iron-willed Matriarch Odelia, runs a fashion empire that's built its reputation on conservation and planet-saving. as it churns out top-of-the-line couture.. But there's a rumble in the jungle brewing inside their lush lodge surrounded by lions, elephants, leopards, monkeys, rhinos and hippos. Widowed Odelia has brought along her much younger boy-toy fiance Asher, himself a renowned designer for the company.. This doesn't sit well with her three grown children, Sam and twins Joshua and Bailey. Also in the Babel orbit are characters harboring their own long held set of scandals and secrets - Odile's life-long companion-secretary Gwen, safari guide Markus and lodge manager Violett.

     We all know that sooner or later, this Tower of Babels (sorry, couldn't help myself) is going to crumble like a herd of elephants T-boned it. And how much a reader will enjoy this book comes down to when author Jacklyn Goldis will get down to business and start sprinkling the landscape with some dead bodies. As in....murder victims.

     Prepare yourself.......cause the author forces you to spend an inordinate amount of eventless time with this bulging nest of unlikeable people until you're ready to cry out, "Enough already! We get it, they're all terrible, dysfunctional and suspicious......time for one of 'em to go belly up before I bail out!"

     Here's the good news. When a murder and disappearances start poppin', the book goes into overdrive with more twists and reveals than the several barrels of monkeys hanging around the lodge. And these twists never stop coming at you right up to the very final pages.

     I loved the exotic setting, which shows the author's enormous amount of research (and affection) for the magnificent wildlife and scenery of South Africa. For those willing to hang on (as I did) for the impressively large pile-up of genuine surprises, 'The Safari' finally does deliver a solid entertaining mystery read. Looking for a dangerous getaway? You can't beat a place with a river full of crocodiles and some predatory humans......

     4 stars (****)

SUMMER GIRLS......2 UNLIKELY OPPOSITE GIRLS FALL INTO SUMMER LOVE.....(****)

Summer Girls by Jennifer Dugan  (2025)

    All the familiar tropes and settings surround this basic, sweetly rendered sapphic YA romance..

    Such as:.....the beach town dominated by wealthy one-percenters and populated by the year 'round working class families whose kids work service jobs for the town's elite uppercrust.
.
     Our loving couple - 'Trust fund heiress and popular teen influencer Birdie Gordon. Once her best friend when they were toddlers is hard working lifeguard/waitress Cass Adler, whose father works to find affordable housing for town residents pushed out by Birdie's dad, a real estate wheeler-dealer for the wealthy. (And oddly enough, Cass's dad also toils for Mr. Gordon at the same time, managing his properties.)

     Birdie, in in a rage about her cheating boyfriend (also a careless trust fun baby), crashes her expensive car. Of course it all goes viral, so Birdie's dad enlists Cass to supervise Birdie for the summer as a combination babysitter- camp counselor. Spoiled Birdie and salt-of-the-earth-no-nonsense Cass clash as expected but they've been nursing lifelong crushes on each other since their toddler-hood. Cass humanizes Birdie into the caring, heart-of-gold person she was all along and Birdie's fundamental sweetness causes Cass to lower her defences. .

     Anyone care to guess what happens next? Anybody? Yes, head-over-heels romance finally blooms, but the girls bring a host of pre-conceived attitudes toward each other that often sours their cute and ultra-adorable moments together. Will it all work out in the end?

     Once again, anybody care to guess? No need to all raise your  hands in unison........

     With a storyline this well-trod, everything depends on how much you like the girls and how much you love it when they're together. And in this area, author Jennifer Dugan excels. You can't help falling for Birdie and Cass as they fall hard for each other and the book leaves you warm and fuzzy inside just the way it should.

     Light and refreshing as a cool drink on any summer night. 4 stars (****)

THE LANGUAGE OF THE BIRDS.....AN BRILLIANT YOUNG GIRL SOLVES IMPOSSIBLE PUZZLES TO RESCUE HER MOM .....(***)

 The Language of the Birds by K.A. Merson (2025)

     If I wasn't so completely captivated by this book's main character, 17 year old Arizon  I would've rated this book far lower than 3 stars.

     Neurodivergent, brilliant and homeschooled after a painful childhood of schoolmate taunts, Arizona soaks up knowledge as she travels around the country with her parents....(via their Airstream camper). But then, amid the breathtaking landscapes of the Sierra Nevada mountains, her dad dies in what looks like an accident and her mom's kidnapped by people seeking a lost secret of antiquity.

     The kidnappers leverage against Arizona is to use her spectacular analytical and mathematical mind to discover this eternal secret's hiding place. With her beloved boxer Mojo in tow and with a new found friend (a first for the socially awkward 'Az') she embarks on a 'Da Vinci Code' type quest to uncover the mystery and free her mom.

     As much as I loved seeing Arizona cope with the real world during her Sherlock Holmes-ian hunt, the book lost me as it buries itself (and Arizona) in mountains of geometric riddles puzzles and lengthy impenetrable poetry packed with equally convoluted clues. For puzzle lovers, this sounds like a Godsend, but readers with minimal interest in this stuff may find themselves flipping through those pages with only a bare glance at them. (And there's a whole lot of that to flip through.....)

     Arizona's adventures, which take her everywhere from scuba diving to ghost towns to Hoover Dam, are indeed both exciting and informative, a clever mixture of Dan Brown novels and the "National Treasure' films. But sorry, those endless pages of puzzles and poems functioned like (to me, anyway) cholesterol constantly clogging up the flow of the story.

     A mixed bag, for sure. Loved Arizona, but I wish the author could've found ways to make the clues more digestible and entertaining, instead of like a textbook for a college course everyone tries to avoid.

      3 stars (***) and that's strictly for the unstoppable 'Az'.

      

FEVER BEACH......ANOTHER HIAASEN FOOLS PARADE OF FLORIDIANS.....(*****)

 Fever Beach by Carl Hiaasen (2025)

     What can I possibly say about a Carl Hiaasen book that hasn't already been said by thousands upon thousands of reviewers?

     You'll laugh out loud to yourself. To the point of tears. A lot. A whole lot. All through the book.

     (And how many books these days promise that reaction for readers but rarely achieve it.?)

     We're back of course, in the author's favorite stomping ground, Florida. Where the steamy weather serves to incubate and hatch a host of crazies......some corrupt, some stupid some just plain out of their minds and some of them a combination of all three of those conditions.

     A recipe for all manner of hilarious disasters? Oh, you bet.

     A recipe for readers continually shaking into hopeless laughter while turning the pages? Guaranteed.

     As much as I'm sorely tempted to reveal the most riotous moments and dialogue, I wouldn't dream of messing up anyone else's fun; Just read it and have a ball.

     This last sentence of my review doesn't need a spoiler warning. You may have guessed it already.

     You just read a 5 star review.  (*****)

OUT OF AIR......A YOUNG SCUBA QUINTET OF FRIENDS DIVE INTO DEEPEST PERILS.....(****)

 Out of Air by Rachel Reiss (2025)

     Now here's the very definition of a breathless adventure.......breathless in the sense that it kept me worried that our five 18 year old, scuba diving aficionados would run out of oxygen during their dangerous underwater explorations.

     Phoebe (or 'Phibs') and her Scuba-Doo gang (Lani, Isobel, Will and Gabe) actually do find some rare ancient coins during one of their many dives in those wondrous waters off the Florida Keys. But that discovery comes back to put them in no end of danger while on their 'final-farewell-before-college) diving adventure near an island off the Australian coast.

     There, their discovery of a long hidden underwater cave, (and its potential huge buried treasure) touches off not only internal strife and external threats for the group but brings them in contact with something unknowable.....and horrific.

     I can't think of a better summer action-adventure beach read than this one (or also perfect for those cold winter nights, too) It's filled with all the beauties, mysteries and terrors of the deep along with some startling twists and turns for its characters. Some readers may not get on board with the story's rather fantastical turn in its final pages, but I myself embraced it fully and enjoyed a vicarious, refreshing blue water armchair vacation. So wipe off your diving masks, check your air supply and sign up with this crew real soon.

      4 stars (****)

NO ONE WAS SUPPOSED TO DIE AT THIS WEDDING.......A STAR STUDDED WEDDING IN A HURRICANE? WHAT COULD GO WRONG? (*****)

 No One Was Supposed to Die at This Wedding by Catherine Mack (2025)

     With open arms, I welcome back Eleanor Dash, best selling mystery author and world's most luckless traveler to beautiful places. Because where El goes, fictional murders turn into real ones. Yes somehow, with her first person narration dripping with witty sarcasm, she stumbles her way into identifying the killer. And readers get a far more sunny, funny vacation than Eleanor's coterie of friends, enemies, frenemies, lovers and suspects.

     After her calamitous book tour through Italy, El's on gorgeous Catalina Island not only to watch the filming of her book, but to attend the wedding of her movie star friend Emma and her co-star Fred. From the cast and crew, the guest list is of course rounded out with every Hollywood arch=type you can think of., along with the Eleanor's current love-of-her-life novelist Oliver and the never ending thorn-in-her-side, the dashing rogue, Connor. (She's still living with the mistake of making him the romantic lead in her mysteries.)

     Like almost all murder mysteries set in islands off the coastline, a hurricane's headed for Catalina to coincide with the wedding. Also coinciding with the nuptials......simmering rivalries, ominous secrets, threatening notes, mysterious near fatal 'accidents'.......and dead bodies.

     Loaded with laugh out loud moments, author Catherine Mack takes multiple whacks at the foibles of the publishing world and Hollywood's cast of A-Listers, Hangers-on and Bottom Feeders. Eleanor's self-depreciating narrative makes her the most endearing character amid this nest of oddballs and vipers, and you don't want to miss her further comic asides via her footnotes.

     I had the same great time with this one as with the first book in the series and will definitely book my ticket for wherever El lands next. One of the most delightful 5 star beach reads you'll find this year.

     5 stars (*****)

ALL WE LOST WAS EVERYTHING......HUUUUGE DARK SECRETS UPEND THE LIVES OF TWO YOUNG LOVERS....(****)

 All We Lost Was Everything by Sloan Harlow (2025)

    This book certainly knows how to seize your attention and hold it to the last page. For sure, readable with a capital R. It's a romantic thriller with generous amounts of steam and spice, as well as a twenty car pile-up of 'are-you-kidding-me?' twists that come hurling at you one after the other.

    But in its tireless strivings to reduce a reader to tears with heart-clutching family tragedies, the sheer amount of those twists (some of them off-the-rails outlandish) undercuts all the emotions on display. I'll admit I couldn't stop reading, but I suspect it was the kind of enjoyment you get out of a Guilty Pleasure read..

    Aspiring singer-songwriter River Santos has suffered the woes of Job. A raging house fire killed her beloved father Jay and destroyed the rest of what she held dear in life, including her guitar and songbooks. Her devoted best friend Tawny started a GoFundMe recovery fund for her.....to which person or persons unknown contributed two million dollars. Who and why? You'd better believe that had me hooked for the whole ride.

    In the midst of her personal chaos, River's wealthy boyfriend Noah suddenly broke up with her, as she clashes with Logan, her surly co-worker at the town diner where she waitresses. Logan, for the most dark, secretive of reasons, struggles to keep his growing attraction to River under control. (Yeh, good luck with that.....)

    Inevitably, River and Santos go head over heels for each other, but long hidden reveals throw their lives into all kinds of turmoil and surprises that neither of them saw coming......(nor did we, the readers.)

    I wasn't bored for a second, but that may be due to the twists that sound like they came out of a staff writers room of a soap opera that needed to pump up the ratings. with outrageous plotlines. Readers can feel free to roll with it that way, or just sit back and revel in those tender yet feverish moments between our troubled young lovers.

       If you're in the mood for 'Seriously???' twists combined with fog-up-the-windows' romance, here's a beachy read for you......4 stars (****).

THE MANOR OF DREAMS......GENERATIONS OF CHINESE WOMAN TRY TO SURVIVE A HAUNTING......(****)

  The Manor of Dreams by Christina Li  (Release Date 5/6/25)

     Where do I even begin here trying to describe this incredibly ambitious multi-genre book. A sprawling, family saga, filled with high emotion and terrible tragedies......a brutal portrait of Hollywood life and all its jealousies, conniving and dashed dreams.......a telling portrait of several generations of Asian women pursuing the American dream, struggling for opportunities often denied to them. And finally, an all out tale of horror set in a crumbling, forbidding mansion infected and haunted by an unforgiving entity out for bloody revenge.

     Yes, all of the above and more has been crammed into this one book. That makes for never less than a compelling read but prepare for a book with a lengthy, lopsided structure that wanders from past drama to current horror and back again.

     An untypical assortment of women have gathered at the now decrepit mansion of the late Chinese movie star Vivian YIn, including her surviving daughters Lucille and Rennie, as well as Lucille's twenty-something daughter Madeline. But also there for the reading of Vivian's will are Elaine Deng, the daughter of Vivien's longtime nanny and gardener, along with Elaine's daughter Nora, who's Madeline's age.

     To everyone's astonishment, Vivien's will, changed just before her death, contains stunning surprises, which pits Elaine and the two Yin sisters into a hateful rivalry. Caught in the middle of their families bitter war, Nora and Madeline form an unlikely bond to combat a horrific threat to all of them......the house itself, with its constant growing vines that seem poised to engulf anything they come near......or comes near them.

     Author Christina Li whips up a frightening depiction of a haunted house that's every bit the equal 0f any other fictional gothic abode, a nightmarish place whose soul sucking rot literally clogs the pipes. And not a good idea to go plucking flowers in the garden either. But after that chilling set-up, the book launches into an extended flashback that lays out the misery filled life and times of Vivien Yin. We see how her groundbreaking Academy Award win leads to a descent into a series of unspeakable events that will come back to torment her heirs.

     For hardcore horror fans, this part of book might test your patience, as you wonder 'when do we get to the good stuff.". Hang on because 'The Manor of Dreams' finally does deliver the creepy good stuff in quite a spectacular, cinematic finale.

     As much as I admire the huge swing-for-the-fences that this book takes, I couldn't help wondering if all the genres it samples wouldn't have been better served (and more effective) if presented in three separate books. Or at least the Grand Opera family drama and the horror hauntings could have been blended together more smoothly. instead of existing in separate sections.

     There's great stories told here for both readers of generational sagas and bone shaking scares......but fair warning - you'll have to wait your turn til the author gets around to each one at a time.

        4 Stars (****).