Chosen and listened to prior to gathering titles for Reading Ireland Month, I read both of these authors before and thought I’d try again. I do enjoy both police procedurals and domestic thrillers. (Title links are to Amazon.)
See How They Hide by Allison Brennan
Publisher: Harlequin Audio
Narrator: Suzanne T. Fortin
Quinn & Costa #6
I read Book 3 in the Quinn & Costa series, The Wrong Victim, which didn’t totally excite me, and then read two additional books in her other series, both of which I found much the same.
This installment discovers victims some distance apart, left in the same dispassionate position, covered with red poppies. The main characters of Kara Quinn and Matt Costa are okay, though I can’t seem to become thoroughly engaged with either or their interest in each other.
When they find Riley Pierce, it appears they will get the answers they seek and will be able to get to the bottom of it soon. But it’s not so easy and I was a little dismayed to discover it was another of the cult-type plots. You can check in but you can never leave.
Riley is sympathetic but doesn’t seem to get a lot of slack from Kara. The antagonist is truly despicable. I wrestled with the pace of the narrative, MCs I didn’t love and a story that feels a bit trite and overdone. The suspense is rather deluted and the setting tends to change location often.
A fan may enjoy this one, or find it a bit of a slog, but in my case, having sampled several of her series now, I’m not sure I’ll try another.
My Husband’s Wife: A Novel by Alice Feeney
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Narrators: Bel Powley, Henry Rowley, Richard Armitage
Amazon Charts #11 this week
Oh, yes, I’ve read Feeney before, too, the last one being Beautiful Ugly. I have to give it to Finney for coming up with some unusual plots. On the surface, this novel appears to be one of the old switcheroos we’ve read before, but this is Feeney. Maybe not.
Eden comes home from a run sans purse, money, or ID and discovers her home, Spyglass, appears to be occupied by someone who looks like her but denied entry.
Her key won’t fit, her husband denies knowing her, her daughter does as well, and the wife looks like her. Sound familiar? That’s where it ends. A favorite character, Olivia Bird (Birdy) is in town on a related matter, gets in on the whole debacle and works to help clear the mystery.
Prepare for the twists.
It’s chaotic, building suspense, building drama, building unreliable narrators. Who do you trust? No one.
Feeney is an author who is hit or miss for me. The number of twists and disbelief this one creates just blows the whole thing out of the water. Contradictions, some nonsensical dialogue. The conclusion gets so nutsy for me I have to just shake my head and give it a “whatever.”
I greatly enjoyed the narrators who helped me hang in there until the end.
Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to listen to these audiobooks. Any opinion expressed here is my own.
©2026 V Williams
Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
The conclusion to the story illuminates the thinking of absurdly rich people with no morals. I was both exasperated and aghast at the cruelty exhibited by this ludicrously rich family. 4 stars – CE Williams
Rosepoint Publishing 