I am super excited to share both of these books with you. They were both extremely good and worth it to check them out. They are both thriller/mysteries and masterfully well done. They will both have you sitting on the edge of your seat and turning those pages as quickly as you can to find out what happens next.
Ride or Die (Jay Qasim #3) by Khurram Rahman
Publication Date: March 5, 2020
Summary from GoodReads:
JAY QASIM is finally out of the game and trying to lay low. But then he gets news that rocks his world and drags up everything that he thought he’d left behind. Jay must break his vow never to work with MI5 again and turn to the person who sold him out. But this time he’s determined to do it on his terms.
IMRAN SIDDIQUI once tried to kill Jay but now they have a common adversary. The one thing worse than death is watching the people closest to you die. And after the happiest day of Imran’s life becomes the most tragic, he will stop at nothing to take revenge on the people that have taken away his family.
But when everyone has their own agenda, who can you really trust?
Your most deadly enemy is about to become your closest ally.
Confession:
This is the third book in a series and while I will not spoil this book, there may be spoilers for the first two.
I think this is perhaps the best on of the three books so far. The ending will leave you breathless and wondering what happened. I certainly hope there will be another book as I need to know for sure what happened.
Jay is such a realistic character. He has all of the emotions that any of us would go through in the same circumstances and at times he deals with these emotions in a very realistic way. He really is a lost little soul, that is just trying to find his way in the world, but is also extremely unlucky in what happens to him and to those he cares about.
The book is mostly told through Jay’s perspective alternating with Imy’s. We first met Imy in the last book, and the interactions between these two are less than ideal. Imy is a bit older than Jay and on the surface appears to be a bit more together. He spends most of this book dealing with his grief and anger towards the organization he used to work for. The interactions between these two characters is intense and it was interesting to see them both through the other’s eyes.
If you enjoy thrillers this is a series I highly recommend you pick up. There is non-stop action and a main character with a lot of heart that is just trying to survive and find his place in the world.
Before She Disappeared (Frankie Elkin #1)
by Lisa Gardner
Publication Date: January 19, 2021
Summary from GoodReads:
Frankie Elkin is an average middle-aged woman, a recovering alcoholic with more regrets than belongings. But she spends her life doing what no one else will–searching for missing people the world has stopped looking for. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never paid attention, Frankie starts looking.
A new case brings her to Mattapan, a Boston neighborhood with a rough reputation. She is searching for Angelique Badeau, a Haitian teenager who vanished from her high school months earlier. Resistance from the Boston PD and the victim’s wary family tells Frankie she’s on her own–and she soon learns she’s asking questions someone doesn’t want answered. But Frankie will stop at nothing to discover the truth, even if it means the next person to go missing could be her.
Confession:
I want to be Frankie when I grow up! Seriously this book had me hooked from the first page! I so admire Frankie and what she is doing to help those who have been forgotten and she is not afraid to put herself in there no matter the cost.
Frankie definitely has a way with people, they seem to trust her and tell her things that they won’t tell the police. Frankie also has a knack for figuring things out by putting all of the pieces together. I will say that she does at times put herself in difficult situations that could get her killed, but she has guts and determination and always seems to escape serious harm.
Lots of secondary characters to like in this one. Many of them were the family members just wanting to know what happened to their missing children. All of them were pretty well fleshed out with backstories and circumstances that related well to the plot. There is a slight romance between Frankie and the detective on the case, which was ok, but not necessary. Luckily it did not overshadow the plot.
This is a page turner that will hook you from the start. If you like thriller/mysteries with great main characters and a lot of action and twists to the story this is one you might want to consider. I am looking forward to the next book, One Step Too Far, which comes out in January.
Confessions of a Serial Reader 