This year I have been keeping a reading journal. It is just a blank journal, but I keep track of what I read each month and write my thoughts down on the books that I finish. This allows me to be blunt, honest, and able to scream and gush about my interests in a controlled fashion. I rank the book that I read between 1 and 5 stars depending on what I thought of it. It will be thrilling to go back through it at the end of the year and relive my adventures.
Anyway, while reviewing my reads for April I noticed that I had a trend going. Usually I read a variety of genres. In April I seem to have stuck to only one in particular, with one exception. I wish to share my reads with you, Dear Reader, and perhaps you can guess which one is not like the others!
Lock Every Door by Riley Sager
I am a sucker for a good Gothic thriller and Lock Every Door provided what I sought. I will admit outright that the main character in this one is not the brightest bulb in the shack. She is the epitome of a stereotypical horror movie character that never spots the red flags and makes all of the wrong choices. But if she made the correct choices would we actually have a good thrilling tale? Probably not. Sometimes the characters need to make the wrong choices so that we, the readers, can be entertained.
Jules is down on her luck. She lost her job, her boyfriend cheated on her, she lost her apartment, and now she is sleeping on her best friend’s couch with barely a penny to her name. When Jules reads an ad in the paper for an apartment sitting job at the prestigious Bartholomew she believes it to be too good to be true. The Bartholomew is one of the oldest apartment buildings in New York, home to the rich and famous and impossible to access. Jules applies and gets the job. She finds herself living in luxury on the top floor of the building, getting a very nice paycheck, a gorgeous view of Central Park, and she even has her very own gargoyle statue outside of her bedroom window. An added perk is the very attractive doctor living in the apartment next door. The Bartholomew, however, may not be all it seems. Jules soon finds out about its dark past and that previous apartment sitters have been disappearing. Can Jules uncover the truth of The Bartholomew before she becomes the next victim?
I want to say I obsessed over this one for a while and I very highly recommend it. Just the setting had me. I could imagine myself living there. (I have a thing for Gothic settings, no matter how creepy). The mystery was very consuming and the threat had me almost biting my nails and wanting to scream at the main character to not do certain things that were sure to result in something bad happening. I thoroughly enjoyed this one and I hope you will as well, Dear Reader.
Click HERE to request Lock Every Door!
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