Two Twisty Summer Thrillers: Reviews of Jar of Hearts and Lying in Wait

I love to read thrillers in the summer – they make the perfect beach or travel book, and I get less scared when the sun is shining. Anyone with me? Here are two twisty summer thrillers you might want to check out! Reviews of Jar of Hearts and Lying in Wait!

Reviews of Jar of Hearts and Lying in Wait

Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier

To be published on June 12, 2018 by Minotaur

Source: eARC for review

Synopsis adapted from Goodreads: When she was sixteen years old, Angela Wong—one of the most popular girls in school—disappeared without a trace. Nobody ever suspected that her best friend, Georgina Shaw, now an executive and rising star at her Seattle pharmaceutical company, was involved in any way. Certainly not Kaiser Brody, who was close with both girls back in high school.

Fourteen years later, Angela Wong’s remains are discovered in the woods near Geo’s childhood home.  Kaiser—now a detective with Seattle PD—finally learns the truth: Angela was a victim of Calvin James. The same Calvin James who murdered at least three other women. To the authorities, Calvin is a serial killer. But to Geo, he’s something else entirely: Geo’s first love. 

Now the obsessive past catches up with the deadly present when new bodies begin to turn up, killed in the exact same manner as Angela Wong.How long can you get away with a lie? How long can you live with it?

Review of Jar of Hearts

Jar of Hearts turned out to be not what I expected (possibly because I didn’t re-read the synopsis). I thought it would be a Serial-style mystery of what happened to Angela Wong. Instead, it was a thriller – the reader knows who was responsible for her death when years later, after a trial, new bodies start turning up.

I didn’t like these characters as much as I wanted to. Maybe that was the book’s intention. But I did find this book a compelling read with an interesting plot twist. At the very end, things got a bit too cheesy for my taste. (You can read my full opinion on that under spoilers in my Goodreads review.)

But overall, this is a solid thriller for those who like serial killer stories, and stories about people in the thrall of serial killers (think Killing Eve or Silence of the Lambs).

If you want to check this one out, here’s a three chapter excerpt! And be sure to read my spoiler reviews of other Jennifer Hillier books: Little Secrets and Things We Do in the Dark

Lying in Wait by Liz Nugent

To be published on June 12 by Gallery

Source: eARC for review

Synopsis adapted from Goodreads: “My husband did not mean to kill Annie Doyle, but the lying tramp deserved it.” On the surface, Lydia Fitzsimons has the perfect life—wife of a respected, successful judge, mother to a beloved son, mistress of a beautiful house in Dublin. That beautiful house, however, holds a secret. And when Lydia’s son, Laurence, discovers its secret, wheels are set in motion that lead to an increasingly claustrophobic and devastatingly dark climax.

Review of Lying in Wait:

This certainly had a memorable and attention-getting opening line. And, like Jar of Hearts, this is a thriller in which you know who was killed and how and by whom.

Lying in Wait is the story of three people: Lydia, her son Laurence, and Karen, the sister of the girl Lydia helps her husband bury in the backyard. I’m not often a fan of a lot of points of view, but in this case I think the POVs of all three characters were necessary and used well.

On the positive, the story has miniseries worth of unexpected twists and turns.

The downside was that, at times, things got overly weird for me. Lydia is quite the piece of work: manipulative, narcissistic, and single-minded in her pursuit of what she wants. But she did some things that were so strange that they were almost comical. A (non-spoiler) example: she hinks her son is getting too fat and lazy so she starts slipping him diet pills. Then she worries that he’s getting too thin and attractive to women, so she withholds the pills and he can’t figure out why he’s so ravenously hungry. The result is a sort of darkly comic tone that I do like in shows like Riverdale, but that didn’t always work for me here.

Overall: if you like twisty stories that veer between a psychological study and black comedy, definitely try this one!

Do you like to read thrillers in the summer? Or at all? Tell me all about it in comments!