Staff Picks: August 2022
TORI’s PICK: Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister
GENRE: Thriller
WHY SHE PICKED IT: I love a good spooky read for fall- and this was the perfect one. The moving backwards in time was really interesting, an original way to reveal a mystery. Every time I thought I had guessed the ending, there was a new twist.
THE SYNOPSIS: Can you stop a murder after it’s already happened?
Late October. After midnight. You’re waiting up for your seventeen-year-old son. He’s late. As you watch from the window, he emerges, and you realize he isn’t alone: he’s walking toward a man, and he’s armed.
You can’t believe it when you see him do it: your funny, happy teenage son, he kills a stranger, right there on the street outside your house. You don’t know who. You don’t know why. You only know your son is now in custody. His future shattered.
That night you fall asleep in despair. All is lost. Until you wake... and it is yesterday.
And then you wake again... and it is the day before yesterday.
Every morning you wake up a day earlier, another day before the murder. With another chance to stop it. Somewhere in the past lies an answer. The trigger for this crime—and you don’t have a choice but to find it...
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LISA G’s PICK: Finding Me by Michelle Knight with Michelle Buford
GENRE: Nonfiction, True Crime, Memoir
WHY SHE PICKED IT: Written by the first of three and longest held victim of the Cleveland kidnapper, Michelle Knight disappeared in 2002 without much notice from family, friends, police, or the public. She would eventually be joined by two other young women who were abducted by the kidnapper before their escape in 2013. 'Finding Me' tells the story from Michelle's point of view, in her own languaege. At the time of the abduction, she was a 21 year old struggling single mother with no close ties-she was aware that nobody was looking for her, and relied on herself and the memory of her child and her own will to get through. This book is a great companion to 'The Lost Girls' by John Glatt and 'Hope' by Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus, the other two Clevland kidnapping victims.
THE SYNOPSIS: Michelle was a young single mother when she was kidnapped by a local school bus driver named Ariel Castro. For more than a decade afterward, she endured unimaginable torture at the hand of her abductor. In 2003 Amanda Berry joined her in captivity, followed by Gina DeJesus in 2004. Their escape on May 6, 2013, made headlines around the world.
Barely out of her own tumultuous childhood, Michelle was estranged from her family and fighting for custody of her young son when she disappeared. Local police believed she had run away, so they removed her from the missing persons lists fifteen months after she vanished. Castro tormented her with these facts, reminding her that no one was looking for her, that the outside world had forgotten her. But Michelle would not be broken.
In Finding Me, Michelle will reveal the heartbreaking details of her story, including the thoughts and prayers that helped her find courage to endure her unimaginable circumstances and now build a life worth living. By sharing both her past and her efforts to create a future, Michelle becomes a voice for the voiceless and a powerful symbol of hope for the thousands of children and young adults who go missing every year.
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LISA S’s PICK: Things We Do In the Dark by Jennifer Hillier
GENRE: Thriller
WHY SHE PICKED IT: Tori chose my pick for this month, so this was my second favourite read in August. The plot kept me interested from page one, and while I did figure out the twist beforehand, it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book. Things We Do In The Dark is a great fall read, perfect for spooky season.
THE SYNOPSIS: When Paris Peralta is arrested in her own bathroom—covered in blood, holding a straight razor, her celebrity husband dead in the bathtub behind her—she knows she'll be charged with murder. But as bad as this looks, it's not what worries her the most. With the unwanted media attention now surrounding her, it's only a matter of time before someone from her long hidden past recognizes her and destroys the new life she's worked so hard to build, along with any chance of a future.
Twenty-five years earlier, Ruby Reyes, known as the Ice Queen, was convicted of a similar murder in a trial that riveted Canada in the early nineties. Reyes knows who Paris really is, and when she's unexpectedly released from prison, she threatens to expose all of Paris's secrets. Left with no other choice, Paris must finally confront the dark past she escaped, once and for all.
Because the only thing worse than a murder charge are two murder charges.
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