Sometimes even your favorite types disappoint you.

18. Bloodline – Jess Lourey

There is a certain kind of story about moving to your fiancée/new spouse’s hometown and finding that all is not as it seems. In many cases, I like that because I have moved many times and found lots of places are not what I thought they would be for a variety of reasons. I like subversion and I like secrets in stories and this kind of story seemed to work really, really well in the 1970s when the 1950s ideals were broken or in the process of breaking. Thankfully, I have never moved to a new potentially creepy town run by a secret society while pregnant or into a place that is weirdly trapped in those 1950s ideals (for appearances, anyway) like that one episode of Supernatural or Bloodline.

Joan is a journalist who gives up her potentially interesting and enjoyable life reporting to move to Lilydale, MN with a guy named Deck. On purpose. She got mugged, what do you want her to do? And it doesn’t go well. As one would expect, her journalistic instincts get triggered by the facades of the townspeople, no one wants her to go anywhere, and she’s also looking into some mysterious disappearances (as if there are another kind). The problem is, despite the inherent interesting qualities of these kinds of things that Joan’s willingness to investigate, and the fact that this is somewhat based on a true story, it’s pretty boring. It took me forever to read it and I could not get immersed in the story even when they were doing research.

 

Peregrine’s instincts are telling her Horace is not confident that he should be king of the pillow. She will investigate and conquer the pillow quickly and with pluck.