Time for another round of Yvonne’s Shorties! Since I have a huge pile of backlog reviews of the books I read during my break, I will be featuring an extra book in my shorties posts until I’ve caught up. This time around a detective thriller I enjoyed, a romance story that surprisingly didn’t work and a thriller that failed to hit the mark.

Title: Killing Mind
(DI Kim Stone #12)
Author: Angela Marsons
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Detective
First published: May 13th 2020
Publisher: Bookouture
Finished reading: December 6th 2021
Pages: 374

“Penn was reminded of something his boss often said when it came to things uncovered at a crime scene. Everything meant something.”


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I’m getting close to finally catching up with this series, and it hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down yet. DI Kim Stone is a detective thriller series that has been consistently strong and book number twelve is no exception… This time around things do feel slightly different as Bryant’s character is off balance with him distracted by an old case, and on top of that we have a hangry Stacey and a potentially dangerous undercover operation. I do confess that I’m never a big fan of the whole cult element in thrillers, which means that Killing Mind wasn’t my favorite of the series. BUT. It is still a very engaging and suspenseful story that gives insight in just how dangerous cults can be. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed that we will see more of Tiffany in the future, as I really like what her character adds to the dynamics… And I know it won’t be long before I pick up the next book.

Title: Enjoy The View
(Moose Springs, Alaska #3)
Author: Sarah Morgenthaler
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
First published: January 19th 2021
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Finished reading: December 7th 2021
Pages: 327

“When you’re at the top of the world, everything feels smaller. Your priorities shift. If you’re anything like me, you’ll spend the rest of your life chasing this feeling.”


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I’ve been enjoying this series and I fully expected to have a great time with book number three as well, but somehow I felt like some of that spark was missing in Enjoy The View… I still love the mentions of the town and Easton is still a great character, but somehow this time around the story didn’t work as well for me. It’s not the fact that the focus is mostly on nature and mountain climbing this time around; I actually really enjoyed that aspect of the story… It mostly has to do with the other main character in play: River. I never did warm up to her character, and the fact that both River and the rest of her team keep taking stupid risks and putting themselves and others in danger is beyond exasperating. I didn’t feel the romance this time around either, and was actually quite annoyed by Easton’s reaction to the lack of responsability and respect shown over and over again. I kept reading thanks to the mountain descriptions, but otherwise this was sadly not as good as I hoped it would be after the first two books.

Title: The Hunting Party
Author: Lucy Foley
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense
First published: December 3rd 2018
Publisher: HarperCollins
Finished reading: December 10th 2021
Pages: 400

“Some people, given just the right amount of pressure, taken out of their usual, comfortable environments, don’t need much encouragement at all to become monsters.”


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I’ve been wanting to read The Hunting Party ever since I read and enjoyed The Guest List in 2020, and I’m still not sure why it took me this long… I also didn’t expect to be having the reaction I ended up having to this story. Because the fact is: I was mostly rather bored and exasperated by it all. Unpopular opinion anyone? Anyway, there were many things that didn’t work for me, but there were also a few things I did like. This includes the secluded Scottish setting and the winter weather, which were a perfect backdrop for this story. The multiple POV structure was also perfect for this story as it helps showing the many different angles in play. Sadly, I never did feel the suspense, and the fact that I didn’t like any of the main characters didn’t help either. The flashbacks and mentions of personal problems and secrets only distracted from the present situation, and weren’t able to interest me at all to be honest. The fact that we also have a love triangle and a cheating element to deal with never helps either of course… All in all sadly The Hunting Party was a miss for me, but it might just have been that this type of stories somehow don’t seem to work as well for me anymore.

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