Review: Revenge of a Chalet Girl - Book #5 Ski Season Series - Lorraine Wilson - December 2013 I picked this one up during yesterday's 24-hour readathon, sneaking in chapters whenever I could, and what a delightful escape it turned out to be! Amy's story starts in that awful place we've all seen friends (or ourselves) end up in, heartbroken and lost after being ghosted by someone she thought was her forever. Fast forward a few years, and she's finally taking control of her life, working as a chalet girl in the snowy mountains. It's meant to be her fresh start, her chance to heal. Then Josh walks through the door with a stag party, and suddenly all those carefully buried feelings come tumbling out like an avalanche. The premise hooked me immediately. What are the odds? But here's where it gets even messier Josh isn't just visiting, he's the groom-to-be, and his fiancée Juliet is living up to the "bridezilla" title in spectacular fashion. As ...

Review: Her Husband's Secret - Emily Shiner - May 2023 Well, hello lovelies! I'm just settling back into my reading nook after yesterday's 24-hour readathon (yes, I actually did it!), and let me tell you, this one kept me turning pages between cups of tea and stolen reading moments. Emily Shiner's Her Husband's Secret is one of those deliciously twisty domestic thrillers that makes you want to pull your cardigan a bit tighter. When Eloise discovers her husband Jared has fathered a child with his mistress Tina, she's done but thanks to an ironclad prenup, forgiveness would cost her everything she's worked for. So instead of divorce lawyers, she enlists her cousin Ricky to help plot the ultimate revenge: murder Jared and frame Tina for it. Simple, right? Well, not quite. Here's where things get properly unhinged  Ricky's got his own obsession brewing with Tina, and his grip on reality starts slipping faster than my bookmark when I doze off mid-chapte...

Review: The Five Year Lie - Sarina Bowen - May 2024  There's something deeply unsettling about the past reaching out to tap you on the shoulder, isn't there? That's exactly what happens to Ariel Cafferty one ordinary Monday morning when her phone lights up with a message from Drew - the love of her life who supposedly died five years ago. Just reading the premise gave me goosebumps, and honestly, it made me think about how I'd react if my mum's name suddenly appeared on my screen years from now. Would I be brave enough to follow through like Ariel does? Sarina Bowen crafts a proper page-turner here. Ariel's not some fearless action hero , she's a single mum trying to protect her son while unraveling a mystery that keeps getting darker with every question she asks. The candelabra tree meeting that never happens is just the beginning of lies peeling away like old wallpaper, revealing something far more sinister underneath. What I loved most was how grounde...

Review: The Stone Secret - Amanda Tisevich - 2023 I picked up The Stone Secret from my ever-growing TBR pile, only to discover today that it's been reprinted under a new title, When I Disappear. Same gripping story, different cover - just a heads up if you go hunting for it! This one pulled me in from the start. We meet Sylvia, whose world shattered twenty years ago when her mother was murdered. The man convicted, Rhett Cohen, was a construction worker on her mother's house renovation, and it was young Sylvia's testimony that helped put him behind bars. Now, after two decades, he's being released on a technicality and he's never stopped claiming he's innocent. Just as Rhett walks free, Sylvia receives four chilling letters. Each one more menacing than the last, warning her that she's next. The final letter? It contains her mother's bloody necklace, the very one she wore the day she died. Talk about a cold shiver down your spine while you're curled ...

Review: Gemini Falling - Eleanor Wood - October 2013 As part of my 2026 mission to finally clear out the "digital dust" on my Kindle, I dove into Gemini Falling by Eleanor Wood. I went in expecting a sharp, Mean Girls -style drama set in an exclusive private school. The opening hooked me immediately: ‘First of all, let’s get something straight. This is not going to be one of those stories where the school bitch turns out to have a heart of gold.’ I love a book that promises a complex, unrepentant protagonist! But oh boy, "complex" doesn't quite cover where this story went. The story starts with Amie, the reigning Queen Bee, and her loyal second-in-command, Lexy. It’s that classic social hierarchy we all know (and maybe secretly love to read about). But the status quo is shattered when the mysterious twins, Elyse and Melanie, arrive mid-term. These twins aren't just new students; they have this "magnetic power" that completely disrupts the school’...

Review: Glorious Rivals - Book #2 The Grandest Games Series - Jennifer Lynn Barnes - July 2025 If you’ve been around The Phantom Paragrapher for any length of time, you know that Jennifer Lynn Barnes is one of my absolute favorite authors. Usually, her books are "one-sitting" reads for me—I fly through the puzzles and the prose like my life depends on it. However, I have to be honest with you all: Glorious Rivals was a bit of a strange experience In this latest installment of the Inheritance Games saga, we are whisked away to Hawthorne Island. Seven players have arrived, each carrying their own heavy baggage of secrets and motivations, all desperate to win "The Grandest Game." The stakes are exactly what we’ve come to expect from this series: millions of dollars are on the line, but so are hearts and lives. The players are forced into a high-octane race to solve a myriad of mysteries while trying to survive the increasingly dangerous twists and turns of the is...