There are times when I’m in the mood for a high octane, nail biting thriller, and other times when I’m more in the mood for a genteel (yet still murderous) Agatha Christie-type story.

And then there are times when I just want the drama. Bring on the scheming, the backbiting, and all the pointed little barbs beneath the bright smiles of frenemy-ship! Did I Say You Could Go brings all of that and more, with a pair of mother-daughter duos who become BFFs mostly just because the girls go to school together.

The dynamics of the mothers’ friendship is set up early on: Ruth is a wealthy divorcee who latches on to Gemma for friendship; Gemma is a widow / financially struggling single mom, who can’t resist the lure of Ruth’s generosity with her wealth. While they were estranged for some time, a scandal at Gemma’s tutoring company provides Ruth the opportunity to burrow her way back into Gemma’s friendship, and while Gemma has misgivings, she also can’t afford to turn down Ruth’s help.

I love how the author sets up both women as being kinda shady when it comes to their friendship. From the start, it was easy to typecast Ruth as the creepy, too-intense one, so learning that Gemma is also using Ruth for her money added a nice layer of complexity to their relationship.

The story does take a bit of a sadder, more troubling, turn than I anticipated, primarily when it came to the daughters. We learn that Ruth’s neediness for Gemma’s friendship translates to cruelty and abuse when it comes to her own daughter Marley, whose shyness and awkwardness are nowhere near the kind of daughter Ruth wishes she had. The question in the title turns out to be endemic to Ruth’s relationship with Marley, and I found the scene where it was asked to be especially heartbreaking.

In contrast to Marley, Gemma’s daughter Bee is one of the coolest, most popular girls in her class. But we later learn that she has some mental health struggles of her own, and a bad choice in love leads to a downward spiral that’s also heartbreaking to see. As a reader, I wanted so badly to reach out and intervene on both Marley and Bee’s behalf, and help them out before their respective situations turn totally hopeless. Those parts of the book were more emotional than I expected, and kudos to the author for getting us so invested in her characters.

Overall, Did I Say You Could Go is both a taut and fascinating page-turner about a rather toxic friendship, and a heartbreaking and heartwarming exploration of the relationships between mothers and daughters. TW for attempted suicide.

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Thank you to Simon and Schuster Canada for an e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Local Woman Missing is a twisty mystery that’s also rather sad. It flips back and forth between two time periods: 11 years ago, Shelby Tebow goes for a run and never comes home. Shortly after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter Delilah also disappear. Fast forward to the present day, and Delilah is back. She’s spent the last decade in a pitch-black basement, barely cared for by a cruel and abusive couple, and her return sparks renewed interest in the events of the past.

There are quite a few potential suspects behind the disappearance, and a whole bunch of intriguing clues like a professional connection between Shelby and Meredith, and a series of threatening text messages sent to Meredith’s phone.

I didn’t guess the big reveal at all, which is testament to Kubica’s skill at giving us some truly viable red herrings. But more than that, I admire how Kubica presented the big reveal — the author used the perspective of one of the other characters to frame the villain in an almost sympathetic light. There is a lot of imagery of the villain being like a cornered animal, frightened out of their wits, and willing to do whatever it takes to survive. So while their actions are, by all measures, horrible, Kubica’s treatment made me feel mostly just sad that they felt the need to do all that at all.

That being said, near the end of the book, the villain admits they “fucked up” and “never meant to hurt anyone,” and another character shoots back, “You hurt everyone.” (emphasis in the original) And it’s true. No matter how sympathetic Kubica makes the villain, the author also succeeds at taking us into the hearts of other characters, mostly the narrators (Shelby, Meredith, Delilah, Meredith’s son / Delilah’s brother Leo, and their neighbour Kate), but also their loved ones. I love how Kubica uses Leo’s perspective to show us how hard the years have been on his father Josh, and how much her captivity has impacted Delilah. Leo shares his mother’s empathy and intuition, and both his and Meredith’s chapters are especially revealing of the other characters.

Overall, a twisty and gripping mystery. TW for child abuse, as there are scenes of Delilah’s captivity and even after she’s rescued, there are some heart breaking moments where Leo tries to help her cope with her newfound freedom.

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Thank you to Harper Collins Canada for an advance reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

What a ride! Find You First is a high-octane, multi-faceted, full-throttle chase: a tech millionaire wants to track down his biological children to give them important health news and part of his fortune, but someone else wants to find them first, kill them, and make any physical trace of them disappear completely. Barclay keeps probably a dozen narrative balls up in the air the entire time. There was so much going on, and so many potential ways the story could go, and the entire time, you just knew it was all going to come together spectacularly in the end.

Barclay did a good job at keeping me off-balance when it came to the mystery. For most of the book, I was sure I knew who the bad guy was, and I was confident that I had a handle on their motivation. The suspect I had in mind wasn’t the obvious baddie, and while their methods were horrible, the motivation I thought they had made them actually kinda sympathetic.

I was wrong. (My suspect turned out to be shady in other ways, so I’m still pretty proud of myself for sussing that out, but they were not behind the killings.) It took me a long time to even begin to suspect the actual bad guy, and their motivation turned out to be messed up far beyond what I ever expected.

Some of the events in the final few scenes did stretch credulity. I can imagine they’d be pretty awesome to watch onscreen, but on the page, they did require quite a bit of suspending disbelief. Still, by that point, I didn’t care how unrealistic some of the logistical details were; I was fully hooked. I started this book sympathetic to Miles (the tech millionaire) and mildly curious about what was going to happen, but by the final 25% or so, I was speed-reading through the e-galley, and felt almost breathless by the time I was done.

It’s such a fun, entertaining read, and the moments between Miles and Chloe, the first child he tracks down, are both funny and heartwarming.

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Thank you to HarperCollins Canada for an e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.