#BookReview: You Can’t Catch Me by Catherine McKenzie

McKenzie Strikes Again. I first began reading McKenzie a couple of years ago with The Good Liar, and she continues to amaze me with the stories she is able to craft. There’s all kinds of things going on here. We’ve got discussions of images and cancel culture. We’ve got discussions of plagiarism and cults. We’ve got … other things that would be a spoiler to reveal. All in a fairly taut mystery with enough action to be awesome. Oh, and absolutely do not read the end first or you’ll spoil everything, moreso than in most books. Very much recommended.

This review of You Can’t Catch Me by Catherine McKenzie was originally written on June 9, 2020.

#BookReview: In An Instant by Suzanne Redfearn

More Tragic if i stay. Probably the singular best way to describe this book is to take a fairly well known book/ movie that has a very similar overall narrative structure – if i stay – and point out that this is a survival tale that is even more tragic than that tale. Going into this blind, I thought from the prologue that something would happen to a particular character (and that this tale would thus become more similar to Catherine McKenzie’s I’ll Never Tell), but the expected tragedy strikes an unexpected character instead. The rest of the book is then a tale about the fight to survive the tragedy, both in the immediate physical fight to live and in the aftermath of dealing with the consequences of that fight. Overall a very powerful, very raw, look at human nature and just what happens in the face of true imminent peril. One made even more powerful by the afterword, where the author reveals a stunningly tragic episode from her real life. Very much recommended.

This review of In An Instant by Suzanne Redfearn was originally written on February 17, 2020.

Featured New Release Of The Weekend: I’ll Never Tell by Catherine McKenzie

This week we’re looking at a book about summer camps, just as summer camp season starts up! This week, we’re looking at I’ll Never Tell by Catherine McKenzie.

This is the story of a family that each experienced the same tragic event years ago – and has been keeping secrets from each other about their own involvement in that event ever since. The story is intriguing and well paced, with a convenient in-story and in-book chart that helps drive the plot along nicely. With the explosive mandate set by their father, will the children be able to come together and finally spill the secrets each keeps? Or will these secrets tear this family asunder?

Structurally, the story is told from the perspective of very nearly everyone involved as each struggles to piece together what really happened that night all those years ago. Because someone truly has secrets that they never intend to tell. This is an excellent technique for telling this story, as it reveals many things to the reader before the characters reveal it to each other, and yet at the same time this very mechanism increases the mystery for the reader.

Overall an excellent book that had this reader hooked from the get-go. Very highly recommended.

And as always, the Goodreads/ Amazon review:
Continue reading “Featured New Release Of The Weekend: I’ll Never Tell by Catherine McKenzie”

#BookReview: The Good Liar by Catherine McKenzie

Let’s put it this way: I finished this 41 chapter book in less than 24 hours. The summary had intrigued me, and the story itself didn’t let me down. I was 20% through the book without realizing it and felt like I had barely scratched the surface (and at that point, knowing what I do now, you really *have* barely scratched the surface). Easily one of the best of the now 25 books I’ve read in 2018, which is saying quite a bit.

This review of The Good Liar by Catherine McKenzie was originally published on April 3, 2018.