Everyone Who Can Forgive Me Is Dead

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

What if everything you know about the worst night of your life turns out not to be true?

Nine years ago, with the world’s eyes on her, Charlie Colbert fled. The press and the police called Charlie a “witness” to the nightmarish events at her elite graduate school on Christmas Eve—events known to the public as “Scarlet Christmas”—though Charlie knows she was much more than that.

Now, Charlie has meticulously rebuilt her life: She’s the editor-in-chief of a major magazine, engaged to the golden child of the publishing industry, and hell-bent on never, ever letting her guard down again. But when a buzzy film made by one of Charlie’s former classmates threatens to shatter everything she’s worked for, Charlie realizes how much she’s changed in nine years. Now, she’s not going to let anything—not even the people she once loved most—get in her way.

Review

A solid debut! I thoroughly enjoyed this intriguing psychological thriller. As the synopsis states, Charlie is a woman who went through a traumatic experience at her school. Her mind has blocked out the details of that night to protect her and she’s done her best to move on with her life. But she still deals with anxiety and being triggered by certain things.

A former classmate upends her fragile existence by wanting to make a movie that will tell the real truth of that night. Charlie needs to make it go away and she also decides with the help of her therapist to remember everything she has repressed. Charlie is an unreliable narrator so she just might have her own reasons for not wanting the movie made.

What happened that Christmas Eve? Charlie is clearly traumatized but is she more involved in what happened than she’s let on? I love that I never knew what to expect and the twists were shocking. Go into this with an open mind and enjoy the ride. I was impressed and I will definitely read whatever Jenny Hollander writes next!

Thank you St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the e-ARC.

Expected Publication Date: February 6, 2024

Where You End

⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3 out of 5.

From bestselling nonfiction author Abbott Kahler comes a spellbinding fiction debut: an unusual form of amnesia upends the lives of identical twins, forcing them to face the indelible, dangerous shadow of the past.

When Kat Bird wakes up from a coma, she sees her mirror image: Jude, her twin sister. Jude’s face and name are the only memories Kat has from before her accident. As Kat tries to make sense of things, she believes Jude will provide all the answers to her most pressing questions:

Who am I?
Where am I?
What actually happened?

Amid this tragedy, Jude sees an irresistible opportunity: she can give her sister a brand-new past, one worlds away from the lives they actually led. She spins tales of an idyllic childhood, exotic travels, and a bright future.

But if everything was so perfect, who are the mysterious people following Kat? And what explains her uncontrollable flashes of violent anger, which begin to jeopardize a sweet new romance?

Duped by the one person she trusted, Kat must try to untangle fact from fiction. Yet as she pulls at the threads of Jude’s elaborate tapestry, she has no idea of the catastrophe she’s inviting. At stake is not just the twins’ relationship, but their very survival.

Intensely creepy and beautifully written, Abbott Kahler’s Where You End is an unforgettable tale of intrigue, revenge, and the quest for redemption.

Review

Kat and Jude are twins. Not only that but they are specifically mirror twins. After an accident Kat wakes from a coma to discover she remembers nothing about herself or her life. The only thing her mind held onto is her sister. Once they’re back home, Jude starts to tell her all about their lives now and when they were children. She also tells Kat to not leave their place because she’s fragile.

Kat has to explore their town despite Jude telling her not to. Eventually she starts to question what Jude has told her and wonders why she’d have to lie. The present is in the early 80s but there are also flashbacks set in the 70s that reveal their time in a New Age cult.

This is a three star read for me because I did like it, I just didn’t fully enjoy it. I will say it does have the feel of a dark gritty 80s movie. And the flashbacks do have a trippy sense of unreality to them. Those parts weren’t as seamless and kinda threw me off after being in the present with a totally different feel to those scenes.

So I guess the tone of the book does work considering the subject matter. And the ending was satisfying. Even though the story was nothing like what I was expecting I still liked it for what it was, more literary thriller than psychological, so keep that in mind.

Thank you Henry Holt & Company and NetGalley for the e-ARC.

Expected Publication Date: January 16, 2024