KelleyArmstrong – A Take from Two Cities

SOMEONE IS ALWAYS WATCHING by Kelley Armstrong

Their lives are a lie. Their memories may not be their real memories. A new psychological thriller by #1 NYT bestselling author, Kelley Armstrong.

The experiment began with the best of intentions. Take a young child who is responsible for a traumatic death. Maybe their entire family perished in a fire they set. Maybe they shoved their sibling off a balcony during an argument. If the child is too deeply traumatized — and stigmatized — to ever lead a normal life, wouldn’t it be better if they just . . . forgot?

It was a three-pronged approach: erase their memories, insert new ones, and return them to their parents or place them with a new family.

Blythe and her friends Tucker, Tanya, and Gabrielle, are now teenagers, attending a local high school, falling in and out of love with each other. But then a shocking event happens at school: Gabrielle is found covered in blood in front of their deceased principal, with no memory of what happened. It’s becoming apparent that their pasts weren’t erased — they were just walled up, and now those walls are crumbling.

Title : Someone Is Always Watching
Author : Kelley Armstrong
Format : eARC
Page Count : 352
Genre : YA mystery
Publisher : Tundra Book Group
Release Date : April 11, 2023

Reviewer : Hollis
Rating : ★ ★ ★

Hollis’ 3 star review

I highly recommend going into this without reading the synopsis, which is what I did, because I see now that it actually gives almost the whole game away. This thriller works a lot better when you have the mystery of set-up (the whats and the whys) to contend with, too — though I’ll admit it isn’t full-on thriller, though maybe it’s enough for the YA demographic?

Having said that, obviously this has not become my new favourite thing but I still think it was a fascinating premise and enjoyed how the events, and reveals, unfolded. With one major exception being the whoddunit of it all. While I absolutely think the little twist about their role in the whole thing is great, and the quandaries it reveals (about the whole thing, really), the methods seem.. sus.

Yep, I’m being even more vague than usual, but it’s a mystery (I’m calling it this now instead of thriller), come on, how else can I talk about this?

Regardless, if you’re an Armstrong fan, I’m sure this is already on your radar and while it’s more mystery than edge of your seat suspense, the issue at the heart of the story is compelling. Will I forget about this one in a month’s time? Probably. But I still had a good time.

** I received an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher (thank you!) in exchange for an honest review. **

MURDER AT HAVEN’S ROCK by Kelley Armstrong

New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong’s Rockton Novels had one of the most unique towns in crime fiction. Murder at Haven’s Rock is a spinoff, a fresh start… with a few new dangers that threaten everything before it even begins.

Haven’s Rock, Yukon. Population: 0

Deep in the Yukon wilderness, a town is being built. A place for people to disappear, a fresh start from a life on the run. Haven’s Rock isn’t the first town of this kind, something detective Casey Duncan and her husband, Sheriff Eric Dalton, know first hand. They met in the original town of Rockton. But greed and deception led the couple to financing a new refuge for those in need. This time around, they get to decide which applicants are approved for residency.

There’s only one rule in Haven’s Rock: stay out of the forest. When two of the town’s construction crew members break it and go missing, Casey and Eric are called in ahead of schedule to track them down. When a body is discovered, well hidden with evidence of foul play, Casey and Eric must find out what happened to the dead woman, and locate the still missing man. The woman stumbled upon something she wasn’t supposed to see, and the longer Casey and Eric don’t know what happened, the more danger everyone is in.

Title : Murder at Haven’s Rock
Author : Kelley Armstrong
Format : eARC
Page Count : 352
Genre : contemporary / mystery thriller
Publisher : Minotaur Books
Release Date : February 21, 2023

Reviewer : Hollis
Rating : ★ ★

Hollis’ 2 star review

As much as I was looking forward to a fresh start for this spinoff series, while still featuring both characters and a similar setting to the original series, this felt a liiiiittle too samesies for my liking. I’m worried I have to maybe call time of death on this one even after only one book (even if, technically, the other series makes it more like book eight).

In this post-Rockton existence, Casey and Eric are trying to build a new home, with a similar purpose but less corrupt bureaucracy, but before they can even get their town finished, their residents installed, two workers have gone missing. Along the way there’s an unexpected dead woman to deal with, a miner and associated claims to navigate, and a new set of locals who will undoubtably be trouble for Haven’s Rock’s future.

This didn’t do anything wrong. There was no particularly heinous addition to the cast. We had a good red herring or two along the way to solving things. But.. neither did this feel like it added anything new. We just have different scenery and less hierarchy to contend with. Equally, the familiar faces felt fairly cardboard-y which certainly didn’t help with my overall feelings about wanting more time with them.

I may push on but this was not the exciting fresh take I expected it to be. But, you know, your mileage may vary if all you wanted was to not say goodbye to the main characters of series one.

** I received an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher (thank you!) in exchange for an honest review. **

A RIP THROUGH TIME by Kelley Armstrong

In this series debut from New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong, a modern-day homicide detective finds herself in Victorian Scotland—in an unfamiliar body—with a killer on the loose.

May 20, 2019: Homicide detective Mallory is in Edinburgh to be with her dying grandmother. While out on a jog one evening, Mallory hears a woman in distress. She’s drawn to an alley, where she is attacked and loses consciousness.

May 20, 1869: Housemaid Catriona Mitchell had been enjoying a half-day off, only to be discovered that night in a lane, where she’d been strangled and left for dead . . . exactly one-hundred-and-fifty years before Mallory was strangled in the same spot.

When Mallory wakes up in Catriona’s body in 1869, she must put aside her shock and adjust quickly to the reality: life as a housemaid to an undertaker in Victorian Scotland. She soon discovers that her boss, Dr. Gray, also moonlights as a medical examiner and has just taken on an intriguing case, the strangulation of a young man, similar to the attack on herself. Her only hope is that catching the murderer can lead her back to her modern life . . . before it’s too late.

Outlander meets The Alienist in Kelley Armstrong’s A Rip Through Time, the first book in this utterly compelling series, mixing romance, mystery, and fantasy with thrilling results.

Title : A Rip Through Time
Author : Kelley Armstrong
Series : A Rip Through Time (book one)
Format : eARC
Page Count : 352
Genre : mystery / sci-fi / historical fiction
Publisher : Minotaur Books
Release Date : May 31, 2022

Reviewer : Hollis
Rating : ★ ★ ★

Hollis’ 3 star review

Once upon a time I used to associate Armstrong with paranormal novels. Now not only are detective/mystery plots her speciality but she seems to be using time travel a lot, too. Not that I’m complaining..

This one veers in a different direction from her last time travel story and whereas that was a romance this has none to speak of — though.. maybe set up for something in the future? there were glimmers — due to some complicated dynamics but also the strangeness of the whole situation Mallory suddenly finds herself in. One minute, it’s 2019 and she’s a detective on leave in Edinburgh, just out for a jog. Next, she wakes up after having been attacked, but it’s 1869 and she finds herself in the body of an unrecognizable housemaid. Not only does she have to quickly adjust, adapt, and come up with a plausible reason for being confused and out of sorts (beyond being attacked), but she also has to solve her own case; and the case of a local murder or two.

If this had been a standalone, well, a) that would’ve been a very unsatisfying ending (but it also would’t have ended that way) and b) this would be a very different rating. It’s still not as high as I think it might be in the future because, now that we have the set-up out of the way, and know our cast of characters, I think the next book (books?) will be very very good. I really enjoyed both siblings that Mallory finds herself, as Catriona, working for — one is a funeral director (well, what passes for one in the times) and also has a side hustle with the police as a medical examiner, and the other is more or less a chemist. Both intelligent, if a little unusual, for the times and for even more reasons than I’ve mentioned (leaving some surprises for you). Another character is the local criminal investigator who is also a friend to both.

It was fascinating to see Armstrong, through Mallory, try and determine what criminology and forensic sciences were already at work at the time and navigate the conversations and investigations with her own knowledge while, somehow, trying to make it fit. She didn’t always succeed, and often surprised those around her, but I think that made it more believable. I always side-eye a story that has the time traveler way too prepared to blend in to new surroundings.

While the mystery and reason behind why Mallory was attacked in the first place, and why she continued to be targeted, was kind of.. well, not exciting, I also respect having this kind of storyline play out. So often we expect big nefarious reasons for these crimes but rarely are they so dramatic.

So, yes, overall I had a good time with this but I’m very glad we got this stage of the story out of the way and now things can get even better. Can’t wait to see what adventures await this ensemble in the coming books.

** I received an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher (thank you!) in exchange for an honest review. **

THE DEEPEST OF SECRETS by Kelley Armstrong

It’s not always easy to live in the hidden town of Rockton, something Detective Casey Duncan knows firsthand. Tucked away in the Yukon wilderness, the community survives―and thrives―because the residents’ many secrets stay just that―secret.

But what happens when these secrets start to come out? Overnight, no one is safe. It’s not a question of if your secret will come out―but when

Casey and her boyfriend, Sheriff Eric Dalton, need to find the culprit while protecting those who have been thrust into the spotlight. For a place built on privacy and new beginnings, Rockton isn’t handling these revelations very well. People are turning on one another, and when one of the loudest complainers turns up barely alive, it’s clear that their trickster is actually a murderer.

Title : The Deepest of Secrets
Author : Kelley Armstrong
Series : Rockton (book seven)
Format : eARC
Page Count : 352
Genre : mystery/thriller
Publisher : Minotaur Books
Release Date : February 15, 2022

Reviewer : Hollis
Rating : ★ ★ .5

Hollis’ 2.5 star review

This wasn’t at all how I thought this series would wrap. I mean, in some ways, yes, because we’ve known the end of Rockton was literally nigh for these characters but.. between the somewhat meandering mystery and cases to solve and how it does, actually, end? Rather disappointing.

What makes it extra sad is that book six had felt like a resurgence in a series that hadn’t been satisfying me like the early instalments had. So my hope had been restored we would go out with a bang. Instead it was a bit of a whimper, both with the villain(s) of the week and any kind of romance element. There just wasn’t much here.

This is still such an interesting series overall, with a great and exciting and challenging concept, and if you’re looking for something different amongst all the various procedural mysteries, this is definitely one to try. I just had much higher hopes for how we would say goodbye to these characters and what their futures would look like.

** I received an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher (thank you!) in exchange for an honest review. **