Four Dead Queens - Astrid Scholte

The inaugural #FirstPageFriday of the year! Can it be inaugural if I've already been doing #FirstPageFridays for a while? Who knows...who cares? Hopefully none of you. I've been waiting to read Four Dead Queens for a while, so I am pumped about this review. Also, I'm changing up the way I post and just posting my reviews on Friday, so y'all don't have to remember to check back. Woo! So, first things first, take in this gorgeous cover.

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Seventeen-year-old Keralie Corrington may seem harmless, but in fact, she's one of Quadara's most skilled thieves and a liar. Varin, on the other hand, is an honest, upstanding citizen of Quadara's most enlightened region, Eonia. Varin runs afoul of Keralie when she steals a package from him, putting his life in danger. When Varin attempts to retrieve the package, he and Keralie find themselves entangled in a conspiracy that leaves all four of Quadara's queens dead.

With no other choices and on the run from Keralie's former employer, the two decide to join forces, endeavoring to discover who has killed the queens and save their own lives in the process. When their reluctant partnership blooms into a tenuous romance, they must overcome their own dark secrets in hopes of a future together that seemed impossible just days before. But first they have to stay alive and untangle the secrets behind the nation's four dead queens."

AHHH! I give this book an extremely enthusiastic five stars. It's off to the races from page one (seriously, my first note is "I mean, I know it's called Four Dead Queens, but it got so real so fast!), and it does not let up. The character development, the plot twists, the world-building...

Chef's kiss!

Mackiel creeps me out from the jump, I might be a little in love with Varin, and I for sure have a tiny lady crush on Keralie. I stayed up way past my bedtime trying to figure out what was happening, and I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. This book was so unputdownable, I read it on the way to the grocery store with my husband, and when there was a line at the butcher I seriously contemplated pulling it out to read more while we waited. IT'S. SO. GOOD. I wish I could gush more without including spoilers, because all I want to do now that I've finished it is talk about this book, but no way am I ruining the mystery for other readers. Go read it. Experience it. Message me along the way and let me know what you think. Drop a comment with your thoughts. The messaging and commenting is optional - reading the book is not!

Two Can Keep a Secret - Karen McManus

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Echo Ridge is small-town America. Ellery's never been there, but she's heard all about it. Her aunt went missing there at age seventeen. And only five years ago, a homecoming queen put the town on the map when she was killed. Now Ellery has to move there to live with a grandmother she barely knows.

The town is picture-perfect, but it's hiding secrets. And before school even begins for Ellery, someone's declared open season on homecoming, promising to make it as dangerous as it was five years ago. Then, almost as if to prove it, another girl goes missing.

Ellery knows all about secrets. Her mother has them; her grandmother does too. And the longer she's in Echo Ridge, the clearer it becomes that everyone there is hiding something. The thing is, secrets are dangerous--and most people aren't good at keeping them. Which is why in Echo Ridge, it's safest to keep your secrets to yourself."

💭💭💭

After their mom lands herself in rehab, Ellery and her twin brother, Ezra, move away from California to live with their grandma in Echo Ridge, a small town in Vermont. Echo Ridge is a far cry from what they're used to, but while Echo Ridge may seem like a sleepy little town on the surface, it has a dark past. The twins' aunt went missing her senior year in high school and was never found, and just five years ago the town's homecoming queen was strangled to death at the aptly named local theme park, Murderland. Ellery, obsessed with True Crime and unsolved mysteries, is wary of Echo Ridge from the moment they arrive, and for good reason when ominous threats begin to appear, suggesting that whomever murdered Lacey Kilduff might be back for more. Ellery is determined to get to the bottom of the unsolved mystery of Echo Ridge's missing girls, but will her digging into the town's secrets stir up more trouble than she is prepared to handle? 

WHEW, my friends, Karen McManus does not mess around! I started reading this book in the early afternoon yesterday with every intention of taking it slow...nope. Stayed up past my bedtime to finish it because it was impossible to put down. I started off with every intention to take notes as I read and document my theories, but I pretty much got "it's always the boyfriend" a couple of chapters in and then could not stop reading long enough to write anything else down. This book is fucking intense, and it will leave you chilled to the bone, right down to the last chapter.