Featured New Release of the Week: Third Party by Brandi Reeds

This week, we are looking at a mostly intriguing book by yet another Lake Union author. This week, we are looking at Third Party by Brandi Reeds.

This book opens with a scene shocking enough to suck the reader straight into the mystery and for the most part only gets better from there. Weaving in and out mostly between two female perspectives who at first seem completely unconnected, we are also introduced to a third perspective sporadically – the murder victim herself. And we even, exactly once, get a fourth perspective of events. The topics introduced here, specifically underground sex clubs and the strict yet also laissez faire rules they operate under, are rarely mentioned in these types of books – and in particular, the exact kink featured heavily is almost unheard of in my experience with fiction. So on all of these points, this book is absolutely a thrill of a read.

But ultimately the book disappoints in its final act. Instead of continuing the unorthodox-bordering-on-bold approaches used before a certain point, instead the author chooses to go a direction that can’t be openly discussed as it features major spoilers, but was ultimately disappointing for me. Far too pedestrian, particularly in the current era and particularly after the refreshing nature of the 80%+ of the book that preceded this particular sequence.

Still, a very worthy read even with a disappointing ending, as at least the ending did in fact make sense within the context of the story.

And as always, the Amazon/ Goodreads review:
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#BookReview: The House By The Cypress Trees by Elena Mikalsen

Beautiful House. In this comedic romance, Mikalsen does for all of Italy what Under the Tuscan Sun did for just Tuscany. With Rome, Florence, Milan, Naples, and the Amalfi Coast all making appearances in this tale, we get a wide view of the beauty of the land even as we concentrate on a very specific comedy of errors and miscommunications romance between a Brit and an American, both drawn to Italy for dramatically different reasons and yet finding themselves just as drawn to each other. Excellent work, and I’ll be looking forward to more from this author. Very much recommended.

This review of The House By The Cypress Trees by Elena Mikalsen was originally written on September 1, 2019.