Mallory Books

  What it’s about: Hal Westaway comes home to find a letter about an inheritance left to her by her grandmother. However, Hal knows it can’t be meant for her, even though it is her name and address on the paper, her grandparents have been dead for years. Hal has been scraping by financially after the tragic death of her mother, working as a Tarot reader on the pier, not to mention, she’s also got involved with some sketchy loan sharks. She wants so badly for there to be even a little money left to her, anything to help her back to her feet. She ends up at the funeral, and then the family home, assuming a role, but everything is not what it seems in the giant estate full of secrets and lies.  My thoughts: I really enjoyed this! I had no idea what to expect going into this which I think is the best way to read a horror/mystery. Hal was a strong protagonist, and I really rooted for her as she faced so many problems, however, some of her inner monologue felt repetitive. The pacin...

What it’s about : Ten years ago, two young girls went to play in the woods, only one came back. Delia Skinner, Dee, has been thinking about that fateful day in the woods for the last ten years, wondering why her best friend Sibby was taken instead of her, and especially feeling the lasting guilt of not being able to prove the authority’s with anything that could bring Sibby back. Ten years later, Dee now hosts and anonymous true crime podcast where she tries to help locate missing people with the help of her listeners. But then Layla Gerrard goes missing from the exact same house Dee lived in ten years ago, and evidence shows the two cases are connected. As the case grows, mysterious tips about Sibby’s whereabouts appear too. With the help of the mysterious new girl, Sarah, and her best friend, Burke, Dee tries to get to the bottom of it all.  My thoughts : This story was super quick paced! I finished it in less than a day actually. The most important part of a mystery novel is th...

All Our Worst Ideas Vicky Skinner Published by: Swoon Reads Publication date: August 11th 2020 Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult Two teens who have nothing in common work together at a record store in All Our Worst Ideas , a powerful and voice-driven YA novel from Vicky Skinner. When Amy, on her way to becoming valedictorian of her graduating class and getting accepted to her dream school, gets dumped by her long-term boyfriend, she takes a job at a record store to ease the pain. She needs a distraction, badly. Oliver, Amy’s record store co-worker, isn’t so sure about Amy—his complete opposite—but what he is sure of is his decision not to go to college. He just can’t figure out how to tell his mother. As they work late-night shifts at the record store, Amy and Oliver become friends and then confidantes and then something more, but when Amy has a hard time letting go of what she thought was her perfect future with her ex, she risks losing the future she didn’t even know she w...

                                          Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson  What’s it’s about: Ellingham Academy is a private school for the most elite, creative thinkers. Albert Ellingham, who was the richest man in America, founded it to create a special place of learning, games, and riddles. During its first year, Albert’s wife and daughter are kidnapped. Only one real clue from the case is ever connected, a creepy poem that was previously mailed to Albert signed “Truly, Devious”. The crime was never solved. Decades later, crime-lover Stevie Bell is beginning her first year at Ellingham Academy. She has one goal: solve the Ellingham Case. But it’s not so simple, she has her hard curriculum and strange housemates to figure out too. But then, Truly Devious returns to The Academy, and so does death. The two mysterious start to connect and Stevie is determined to figure out the...

Her Royal Highness by Rachel Hawkins  What it’s about : Millie Quint is having an ideal summer break, until she sees her best-friend-sort-of-girlfriend, Jude, kissing someone else after blowing her off. Millie has been dreaming of Scotland for years, thats why she applied to a prestigious boarding school on a whim. Weirdly enough, an acceptance letter arrived earlier that summer, but Millie was hesitating because of Jude. But now that acceptance letter is her perfect escape. Her new Scotland school is receiving its first class of girls and Millie is making history. Everything about Scotland is a dream, until Millie meets her roommate Flora. Millie calls her out for her bad attitude only to find out later Flora is an actual real life Princess. They can’t stand each other, until well, they can. But Flora is the most off-limits crush Millie could have, and everything will try to keep them apart.   . . . My thought s: This book met all my favorite tropes: enemies to lovers, ...

                                        A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson What it’s about : Sal Singh murdered Andie Bell five years ago. Everyone knows he did it, everyone but Pippa Fitz-Amobi, who takes on the case as the topic for her final capstone project. She starts finding connections and secrets everywhere that someone in town is desperate for her to unsee. If the killer is still on the loose, is it safe for Pippa to keep investigating, especially when she might be on to them?  . . My thoughts : I’ve been craving a good thrilling mystery novel and I’ve seen this one around a lot, and it did not disappoint! It was very complex and twisty. I was amazed how everyone seemed to be connected and tied together in that town. It was so captivating to see Pippa’s thought process unfold in her project logs. The audiobook experience made it even more incredible, with the in...

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall What it’s about : Luc O’Donnell is going to be fired from the only job left that will have him: a charity to save beetles. Luc is the son of long ago rockstar parents who split when he was young, leaving him with anger and resentment towards his absent father, and just enough left-over-fame to warrant bad publicity. After a compromising photo from a night out lands in the tabloids, the threads keeping his life together snap. He decides to fix his image by finding a respectable, perfect (fake) boyfriend. Who better than, ethically conscious, vegetarian, lawyer extraordinaire, Oliver Blackwood. It turns out, Oliver could benefit from having a fake boyfriend in return, but their mutual need for each other is about all they have in common... or so it seems. And fake-dating starts to become something more.  . . . My thoughts : OKAY SO PREPARE FOR GUSHING!!!! I so did not expect to fall in love with this book and ALL the characters. Firstly, Luc was suc...

  Night Owls and Summer Skies by Rebecca Sullivan *eARC copy provided by Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.    What it’s about : Against her wishes, Emma is being sent to spend the summer with her mom. However, as soon as she arrives her mom whisks her away to Camp Maplewood, while she goes on a cruise with her new husband. Everything Emma hates is at Camp Maplewood, phobias, enemies, and the past she’s been running from since the first summer she stayed there. She devises a plan to get out: she must get kicked out. But the mysterious Camp Counselor, Vivian Black, seems determined to keep her there.   . . What I liked :  One of the main things I liked about this story was Emma’s secureness of her sexuality. I feel like so many books I read with LGBTQ+ characters revolve the whole plot around coming out or discovering their sexuality, ect. It was refreshing to see Emma be confidant and secure. Even the simple point of her dad ca...

REVIEW: Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff  What it’s about : This is the second book in the Illuminae Files series, which continues the space saga to expose a corrupt company that invaded a planet and stay alive. This is a companion series so while we still get some story from the previous characters, the main plot shifts to a new location with new characters. We follow Hanna Donnelley, the daughter of the space station’s commander, and Nik Malikov, a member of an illegal crime family on board the station. They are a very unlikely pair connected only by thee deals they do together. The space station is unaware that Kady Grant and the Hypatia are on their way to being news of the invasion. Beitech send an operative strike team to invade the space station and further erase their tracks, and Hanna and Nik, along with the Little Spider (Niks cousin) must come together as the last defense for the space station and and the truth. But don’t worry, they just have to get past an elite...

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff  What it’s about : Kady Grant broke up with her boyfriend and thought things couldn’t possibly get worse, but then her planet was invaded. She was forced to flea and fight her way to evacuation with none other than said now-ex-boyfriend, Ezra Mason. Kady and Ezra make it onto one of the three evacuees ships (of course not the same one) but this is only the beginning of the story. They are being chased through space by an enemy warship, desperate to erase and survivors from telling the rest of the universe of their attack, a mutating plague has started circulating a ship, something is up with the ships Artificial Intelligence, and the command is keeping secrets. Kady uses her hacking skills to figure out what’s really happening, and she needs help from Ezra to do it. The best part is this story is told through hacked classified documents, weird AI files, emails, IMs, security video transcripts, and MORE.    My thoughts : INCREDIB...