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Book Review: We Don’t Talk About Carol by Kristen L. Berry
A psychological thriller about missing Black girls, fertility stress, and intergenerational trauma’s impact on mental health.
Summary:
In the wake of her grandmother’s passing, Sydney Singleton finds a hidden photograph of a little girl who looks more like Sydney than her own sister or mother. She soon discovers the mystery girl in the photograph is her aunt, Carol, who was one of six North Carolina Black girls to go missing in the 1960s. For the last several decades, not a soul has talked about Carol or what really happened to her. But now, with her grandmother gone and Sydney looking to start a family of her own, she is determined to unravel the truth behind her long-lost aunt’s disappearance, and the sinister silence that surrounds her.
Unfortunately, this is familiar territory for Sydney: Years earlier, while she worked the crime beat as a journalist, her obsession with the case of another missing girl led to a psychotic break. And now, in the suffocating grip of fertility treatments and a marriage that’s beginning to crumble, Sydney’s relentless pursuit for answers might just lead her down the same path of self-destruction. As she delves deeper into Carol’s fate, her own troubled past reemerges, clawing its way to the surface with a vengeance. The web of secrets and lies entangling her family leaves Sydney questioning everything—her fixation on the missing girls, her future as a mom, and her trust in those she knows and loves.
Review:
Psychological thrillers are a genre I love, but they have a real diversity problem, overwhelmingly featuring white women. When I saw this take on a psychological thriller by an own voices author centering Black women’s experiences, I was so excited to receive a review copy.
Sydney has a lot going on when we first meet her. Her grandmother has recently passed away, and she and her mother and sister are cleaning out her house. There are complex family dynamics at play that get slowly revealed as the book progresses. Sydney is also undergoing fertility treatments, which has put a strain on both her mental health and her marriage.
While in the process of cleaning out the house, she discovers an aunt she never knew existed who went missing in her teens. We learn that Sydney was once was an investigative journalist, a career she abandoned after a psychiatric break on a story. But she can’t let go of trying to find out what happened to her aunt. Especially when she discovers five other teen Black girls went missing at the same time, and no one ever truly looked that hard for them.
This is an incredible set-up. Berry places missing Black girls, who historically receive little media attention, into the exact narrative space normally occupied in pyschological thrillers by:
- marital infidelity
- blackmail
- mysterious inheritances
In most psychological thrillers, those are the inciting forces. Here, systemic neglect is. (For a similar critique of this issue but in a YA horror book, check out Burn Down, Rise Up by Vincent Tirado.)
This matters because the novel positions those missing Black girls not as a shocking anomaly, but as a painful, known reality within the community. That’s where representation truly matters. It places a real life issue ifront an dcenter, then builds the psychological thriller around it.
For context, the NAACP reports that Black US Americans make up 34% of all missing persons cases but only 12.85% of the population.
In spite of Sydney’s previous psychiatric break feeling a little over the top, it was heartwarming to see how kindly and normally her husband and medical team treat it. She’s not othered; she’s just encouraged to keep the stress down. (Which, as the main character of a psychological thriller, she obviously doesn’t do very well.) I also appreciate that the climax of the book doesn’t rely whatsoever on her mental health or illness.
Despite the blurb suggesting a struggling marriage, Sydney’s marriage is quite solid. She and her husband just have a couple of difficult conversations, which makes sense with everything they have going on. I liked having a healthy marriage represented in a psychological thriller. Similarly Sydney’s relationship with her sister and mother is one of seeking repair and not one of just walking away from each other. There’s a lot of relational health in this book.
I suspected early on where the story might be heading, but the details were definitely not something I had figured out. So it was sufficiently twisty to hold my interest. That said, the pacing was just a bit off for a thriller. Perhaps because it was so grounded in reality, it was more of a pace of up and down rather than a rapidly building just can’t put it down escalation.
As I strive to provide content notes, be aware that while it is not depicted on the page, a character hears and partially witnesses the rape and murder of two young girls (hearing banging from another floor and seeing a vehicle shaking.) For representation, the cast is predominantly Black, the main character has psychiatric issues as did her father, addiction is represented but without much hope for healing, and I do not recall much if any sexual orientation diversity. One historical character is presented as possibly being on the Autism spectrum though the overall arc is not particularly positive in terms of representation.
Overall, this is a welcome, diverse addition to the psychological thriller genre. Its focus on missing Black women and girls brings a refreshingly underrepresented plot to familiar genre territory. The pacing is a little up and down. You likely will be able to put it down and sleep for the night. But it still calls for completion to resolve the mystery.
Especially recommended for:
- Readers of psychological thrillers with social commentary
- Book clubs interested in discussions about systemic neglect
- Readers looking for mental health representation in suspense
- Those wanting stories centered on missing Black women and girls
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 336 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: NetGalley
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Book Review: Model Home by Rivers Solomon
When Ezri’s parents die under mysterious circumstances, they return to their Texan childhood home—possibly haunted—in a gated community where their family is the only Black family.
Summary:
The three Maxwell siblings keep their distance from the lily-white gated enclave outside Dallas where they grew up. When their family moved there, they were the only Black family in the neighborhood. The neighbors acted nice enough, but right away bad things, scary things—the strange and the unexplainable—began to happen in their house. Maybe it was some cosmic trial, a demonic rite of passage into the upper-middle class. Whatever it was, the Maxwells, steered by their formidable mother, stayed put, unwilling to abandon their home, terrors and trauma be damned.
As adults, the siblings could finally get away from the horrors of home, leaving their parents all alone in the house. But when news of their parents’ death arrives, Ezri is forced to return to Texas with their sisters, Eve and Emanuelle, to reckon with their family’s past and present, and to find out what happened while they were away. It was not a “natural” death for their parents . . . but was it supernatural?
Review:
I’ve read most of Rivers Solomon’s books—they’re auto-reads for me at this point. I love their unique perspective and creative twists on speculative fiction. Solomon’s books always challenge me, so even though haunted house stories aren’t my favorite subgenre, I picked it up—and I’m glad I did. This turned out to be a queer psychological thriller that was hard to put down, keeping me up late reading.
The mystery starts early, with Ezri receiving texts from “mom,” but they suspect it’s the “other mother”—the ghost that haunted the family home in a gated community when they were children. It doesn’t take long before Ezri and discovers their parents dead in the backyard in what initially seems like a murder-suicide—but the siblings suspect it’s something far more complicated.
I appreciated how Solomon depicted the family dynamics under stress—three siblings thrown together for an unexpectedly long visit during a family tragedy. It’s the messy, real stuff of love and tension between people who care about each other but don’t always get along perfectly in a pressure cooker situation. The haunting also impacted each sibling differently, not just because of their age but due to the way their parents parented them, shaped by birth order.
I can’t discuss the most shocking part of the book without spoiling the twist. Suffice it to say, it was dark, gritty, and far less supernatural than anything else I’ve read by Solomon. That’s what made it so powerful—it felt so close to being like other psychological thrillers I’ve read but conveyed something profoundly different. It was deeply rooted in the Black experience in America, and it left me almost breathless.
Along with being a story about a Black family, Ezri is nonbinary, and both they and their child have diabetes. I really appreciated how Ezri’s gender identity was never an issue for their family—even when they were a child. This was refreshing and grounded in a sense of acceptance and love.
Please note that this book includes an explicit sex scene that is consensual. It also discusses predation on a minor and child sexual abuse (CSA).
Due to these sensitive topics, this was not a five-star read for me. While the book was beautifully written, I reserve five-star ratings for books I feel personally connected to. Books with such content usually don’t end up in my favorites category. (Grown by Tiffany D. Jackson was a big exception for me.)
Overall, this is a unique take on both the haunted house and psychological thriller genres. It offers a scathingly insightful analysis of being Black in America, while giving voice to a nonbinary sibling. Highly recommended for readers looking for a Black perspective on the haunted American house.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 304 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Library
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Book Review: Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth
When bones are discovered beneath their childhood home, three adult, Australian foster sisters are forced to confront their past as key witnesses—or prime suspects—in a dark family secret.
Summary:
For as long as they can remember, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia have been told how lucky they are. As young girls they were rescued from family tragedies and raised by a loving foster mother, Miss Fairchild, on an idyllic farming estate and given an elusive second chance at a happy family life.
But their childhood wasn’t the fairy tale everyone thinks it was. Miss Fairchild had rules. Miss Fairchild could be unpredictable. And Miss Fairchild was never, ever to be crossed. In a moment of desperation, the three broke away from Miss Fairchild and thought they were free. Even though they never saw her again, she was always somewhere in the shadows of their minds. When a body is discovered under the home they grew up in, the foster sisters find themselves thrust into the spotlight as key witnesses. Or are they prime suspects?
Review:
I’ve read most of Sally Hepworth’s books and enjoyed them, so I was excited to receive a review copy of her newest release.
The story features three narrators, each alternating between the present and their childhood. While that could be confusing, it’s actually well-executed, with the shifts between timelines feeling seamless. The timing of these shifts works well, never feeling contrived for the sake of holding back secrets for a twist.
And those twists? They’re big, and one in particular made me gasp out loud. While they were surprising, they made perfect sense, leaving me thinking, “I should have seen that coming.” That said, I did feel a bit frustrated by the final twist. I’m starting to tire of a specific depiction of women that seems to be a recurring theme in psychological thrillers, and this book doesn’t escape that trope.
In terms of representation, there’s a lack of racial or ethnic diversity. However, the book does feature one bisexual sister pursuing a relationship with a woman, and one sister dealing with substance use issues, while another has anger management struggles. I found the portrayal of foster care and the foster system is both realistic and sensitive, and especially appreciated learning that Hepworth conducted research with adults raised in the foster system. As someone who works in addiction and recovery, I found the representation of substance use disorder to be authentic and tasteful.
Overall, this is a gripping psychological thriller set in Australia, with enough twists and intriguing characters to keep you turning the pages. While readers may not relate to all of the characters, the juicy plot is sure to keep them engaged. Recommended for fans of psychological thrillers.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 359 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: NetGalley
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Book Review: One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware
A scientist and her boyfriend join a tropical reality tv show, only to find themselves battling for survival as the deserted island game turns deadly.
Summary:
Lyla is in a bit of a rut. Her post-doctoral research has fizzled out, she’s pretty sure they won’t extend her contract, and things with her boyfriend, Nico, an aspiring actor, aren’t going great. When the opportunity arises for Nico to join the cast of a new reality TV show, The Perfect Couple, she decides to try out with him. A whirlwind audition process later, Lyla find herself whisked off to a tropical paradise with Nico, boating through the Indian Ocean towards Ever After Island, where the two of them will compete against four other couples—Bayer and Angel, Dan and Santana, Joel and Romi, and Conor and Zana—in order to win a cash prize.
But not long after they arrive on the deserted island, things start to go wrong. After the first challenge leaves everyone rattled and angry, an overnight storm takes matters from bad to worse. Cut off from the mainland by miles of ocean, deprived of their phones, and unable to contact the crew that brought them there, the group must band together for survival. As tensions run high and fresh water runs low, Lyla finds that this game show is all too real—and the stakes are life or death.
Review:
I’m already a big fan of Ruth Ware’s, but when I heard her 2024 release was a locked-room mystery set in a reality tv show on a tropical island, I was sold. (Technically, I put it on my wishlist, and it was sold to my siblings-in-law who got it for me as a gift.) This did not disappoint.
Last year’s release featured a woman in a stereotypically male job, and so does this one. It was quite fun to see a postdoctoral researcher in a psychological thriller, let alone a woman doing it. I loved the play on gender roles of Lyla being the brain of the couple and her boyfriend being the beauty. How Lyla agrees to be on the show is believable also. There’s a nice variety of characters, both the couples cast for the show, and the folks working on it. You can tell that Ware did her homework with regards to how reality tv is run behind-the-scenes. It comes across as real, right down to what should be making the contestants suspicious.
My favorite representation in this book was the secondary character with Type 1 Diabetes. Again, this is very realistic. (Ware acknowledges advisors/sensitivity readers she had for Type 1 Diabetes in the afterword.) The impact of her illness on her predicament is realistic. But she’s also simply herself. She’s not some inspirational heroine nor is she someone with no agency simply to be saved.
The mystery is solid. I definitely didn’t guess at the final twist before it happened. All the twists felt reasonable and realistic, especially within the world of reality tv. I wish that we’d had a bit more closure at the end.
Overall, this novel is recommended for fans of psychological thrillers. It offers a unique blend of reality TV drama, relationship dynamics, and environmental challenges.
If you found this review helpful, please consider tipping me on ko-fi, checking out my digital items available in my ko-fi shop, buying one of my publications, using one of my referral/coupon codes, or signing up for my free microfiction monthly newsletter. Thank you for your support!
4 out of 5 stars
Length: 385 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Gift
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