BOOK REVIEW: Perfectly Famous by Emily Liebert.

Today I’m going to look at Perfectly Famous written by Emily Liebert. I received an eARC of the title from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Its release date is July 8th 2020, so please enjoy it once it’s out. If you like reading about writers, and big plot twists this one is for you.

Perfectly Famous opens with the reader meeting Ward DeFleur, a famous author who has anxiety about being in front of people, like at a book signing. As she’s about to wrap up the first signing on her most recent book tour, she notices her assistant isn’t around, and then finds out she’s been on the phone because people are trying to reach Ward to notify her that her daughter was abducted and murdered. The tour is over, and Ward will never write again.

One of the fans that attended the book signing, is Bree Bennett. At the time of the book signing she and her then husband had recently decided to divorce, and Ward consoled her. As we move further into the story they have separated, and are beginning to figure out how to co-parent from two households, and Bree is trying to re-enter the workforce as a journalist at a local paper.

Bree pitches the idea that she is going to find Ward and bring her out of hiding as her big break through story. It’s a bit of a hard sell, but her editor goes for it and Bree begins heavily researching Ward’s past. Finding Ward’s brother, and maybe falling for him a bit a long the way. As she goes deeper into the story it becomes apparent that Stevie’s murderer is still out there, and searching for Ward is not the safest idea.

All the while Bree is trying to deal with the life changes her divorce is bringing to her life, including dating, raising her daughter, and psychologically adjusting. While I haven’t experienced these life stages, I thought Liebert handled them well. However, I found Bree a bit too self-centered for my liking, and I often found myself annoyed with her. Ward is a whole other story, but I don’t want to divulge too much leading into one of the many plot twists of the book. It was still an enjoyable read even though I couldn’t relate to the characters.

Happy reading 🙂

BOOK REVIEW: Chase Darkness With Me: How One True-Crime Writer Started Solving Murders by Billy Jensen

This review is going to take a look at Billy Jensen’s new book: Chase Darkness With Me: How One True-Crime Writer Started Solving Murders. It was released on August 13, 2019 so it is still relatively new. I was lucky enough to purchase an autographed copy from the Poisoned Pen!

I am a somewhat new listener of the My Favorite Murder Podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, and have been binging episodes pretty much everyday. While listening to My Favorite Murder, I learned about the rest of the podcasts on the Exactly Right Network, and have been a proud listener of Jensen & Holes: The Murder Squad since the beginning of the show.

For those of you not familiar with the Murder Squad podcast, it is a true-crime podcast hosted by Billy Jensen, who is a crime reporter and the author of the book covered in this review, and Paul Holes a retired homicide detective who helped solve the Golden State Killer (GSK) murder case. The premise of the podcast is in line with what Jensen has written in Chase Darkness With Me in that they both aim to put the general public to work to help solve cold cases, whether they are murder cases, missing person cases, or something else.

Obviously, for the sake of time they can’t go into too many details on the podcast to instruct listeners how they can help the cause. That is what this book does. It covers some of Jensen’s white whale cases from his career, and how he has worked diligently over social media to help get tips on these cases and more. He goes into depth on how the civilian citizens can help do the same.

One of his white whale cases, known as the Allenstown Four, happened in my home state and I was immediately interested when I heard them cover it on the podcast. I had never heard of the crime before, but since I listened to the podcast I have heard it referred to more and more. And for good reason! Three of the four victims have since been identified by a librarian. It was fascinating to learn more about the Allenstown Four while reading Jensen’s new book.

It was touching to learn about how his relationship with his father trained him to spot crimes, and how he followed up on posting the social media campaigns related to these cases after the death of his close friend Michelle McNamara.

I highly suggest everyone go out and pick up a copy of Chase Darkness With Me by Billy Jensen. It was an excellent read, and really meaningful to connect with readers that can help solve some of these crimes in the future. Also, take a few minutes and check out their website to learn more about some of the cases they are working on and how you can help: The Murder Squad.

Instead of my usual sign off, I’ll use Billy’s–“Don’t be an irony”

BOOK REVIEW: Speaking of Summer by Kalisha Buckhanon

This review is going to cover Speaking of Summer by Kalisha Buckhanon, who is also the author of Upstate. I received a finished copy in lieu of galley from Counterpoint Press. It was released on July 30th.

This was a more difficult book for me to read, not the page turner I was expecting from cover to cover. Although, this book did pick up speed for me as I went on.

Buckhanon tells the tale of Autumn Spencer, whose twin sister Summer has gone missing, and nobody really wants to look for her. Autumn is also dealing with the grief of her mother’s death at the same time.

As the book continues on, Autumn has more and more trouble coping, turning to her sister’s boyfriend, alcohol, and drugs. She also starts researching other murdered women, and their killers, imagining whether they also killed her sister.

Although the book started out slow for me, it did speed up about mid-way through and kept a steady fast pace from there. It spoke to several current social issues, such as race relations, alcohol and drug abuse, and mental health. It’s a hard hitter that will keep you thinking afterwards. I hope some of you head out and pick up a copy!

Happy reading 🙂