You are currently viewing Readers Imbibing Peril Challenge Wrap-up @PerilReaders #RIPXVI

Readers Imbibing Peril Challenge Wrap-up @PerilReaders #RIPXVI

This challenge is perfect for fans of Horror, Suspense, Mystery, Thrillers, and all things dark..

I’m an little bit behind the ball on getting this one up but.. better late than never!

I hope you all enjoyed a fantastic Halloween!
Now it’s on to the next challenge.. getting through Thanksgiving without gaining ten pounds or going to jail.

But before we jump into that chaos, I’ll be using this post to take a moment to appreciate and share some of the October reads I managed to squeeze in. (And it was a tight squeeze.. There have been a lot of days recently where I can only get in ten minutes of reading here or there. It’s frustrating but I am grateful for what time I do get.)

Many thanks to Diana @ Book of Secrets for sharing this challenge.. without her post I wouldn’t have known such a thing existed and I’m grateful I had the opportunity to take part in it. I will look forward to participating again next year and to finding other interesting reading challenges in the future!

12 books, 10 completed, and 2 DNF.
Not too shabby, if I say so myself..

Enjoy!


(Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. Any purchases made through my links may earn me a small commission at no additional cost to you.)

Phantom Limb: A Gripping Psychological Thriller by Lucinda Berry 4.5/5

Standalone

Read my review here

Emily and Elizabeth spend their childhood locked in a bedroom and terrorized by a mother who drinks too much and disappears for days. The identical twins are rescued by a family determined to be their saviors.

But there’s some horrors love can’t erase…

Elizabeth wakes in a hospital, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak. The last thing she remembers is finding Emily’s body in their bathroom. Days before, she was falling in love and starting college. Now, she’s surrounded by men who talk to themselves and women who pull out their eyebrows.

As she delves deeper into the mystery surrounding Emily’s death, she discovers shocking secrets and holes in her memory that force her to remember what she’s worked so hard to forget—the beatings, the blood, the special friends. Her life spins out of control at a terrifying speed as she desperately tries to unravel the psychological puzzle of her past before it’s too late.

Their laughter seemed real and I couldn’t understand how they could be happy here. I knew by the number of wounds they carried on their bodies that their insides were filled with tremendous pain. How’d they end up in this strange land and who were they before they came here?


Rolling in the Deep by Mira Grant 4.5/5

Read my review here

When the Imagine Network commissioned a documentary on mermaids, to be filmed from the cruise ship Atargatis, they expected what they had always received before: an assortment of eyewitness reports that proved nothing, some footage that proved even less, and the kind of ratings that only came from peddling imaginary creatures to the masses.

They didn’t expect actual mermaids.  They certainly didn’t expect those mermaids to have teeth.

This is the story of the Atargatis, lost at sea with all hands.  Some have called it a hoax; others have called it a maritime tragedy.  Whatever the truth may be, it will only be found below the bathypelagic zone in the Mariana Trench…and the depths are very good at keeping secrets.

Only by looking at the numbers involved can we get a feeling for the true scoped of the Atargatis tragedy. To lose a man at sea is a terrible thing. To lose a crew of this size, with all hands, is to strain the boundaries of belief.


Even Good Girls by Nicholas Jordan 4/5

Standalone

Read my review here

Can do bad things . . .

Tabitha and her best friend Nancy have been inseparable for years, but when Nancy suddenly begins avoiding Tabitha shortly after the beginning of their senior year, Tabitha grows concerned. But before she has a chance to find out why Nancy has driven a wedge between them, she learns that Nancy has been murdered, and what’s even worse, the police seem to be looking at her as their prime suspect. Now not only does she feel like she owes it to Nancy to discover the identity of her killer, she also has to do it if she wants to keep herself from being arrested for a crime she didn’t commit.

But as Tabitha dives deep into Nancy’s life, she discoveries secrets about her best friend that she never knew anything about. Secrets that will make her investigation more complicated and much more dangerous. Can she find out who killed her best friend? Or will her snooping around lead the killer to selecting her as their next victim?

She already intended to do whatever it took to find out who murdered Nancy, but now she was going to have to do it with more urgency, unless she wanted to be arrested for a crime she didn’t commit.


The Essence of Evil by Rob Sinclair (DNF 30% – Lost interest.. was disappointed.)

Book 1 of 4: DI Dani Stephens

He’s your attacker.
He’s a murderer.
He’s your twin. 


When DI Dani Stephens returns to work after an attack that almost ended her life, she’s quickly plunged into a horrific new case, as dead bodies are discovered on the streets of Birmingham.

But with no link between the victims, Dani has to get inside the killer’s mind – so turns to the murderer she knows best. Her own twin brother…

But what makes a psychopath? Can understanding her twin help her find a murderer who leaves no trace? As the circle closes on Dani, the clock is ticking and she needs a breakthrough – before she becomes the latest victim.


Be Not Far From Me by Mindy McGinnis 5/5

Standalone

Read my review here

The world is not tame.
Ashley knows this truth deep in her bones, more at home with trees overhead than a roof.

So when she goes hiking in the Smokies with her friends for a night of partying, the falling dark and creaking trees are second nature to her. But people are not tame either. And when Ashley catches her boyfriend with another girl, drunken rage sends her running into the night, stopped only by a nasty fall into a ravine.

Morning brings the realization that she’s alone—and far off trail. Lost in undisturbed forest and with nothing but the clothes on her back, Ashley must figure out how to survive with the red streak of infection creeping up her leg.

I’m discovering me out here, for the good and the bad. There are thing I’m proud of and stuff I’d rather forget, but it all makes up who I am and what I was, and what I’ve got to work on if I want to become something else. And I don’t get to do those things or be that person if I die out here.


They Did Bad Things by Lauren A. Forry 3.5/5

Standalone

Read my review here

In 1995, six university students moved into the house at 215 Caldwell Street. Months later, one of them was found dead on the sofa the morning after their end-of-year party. His death was ruled an accident by the police. The remaining five all knew it wasn’t, and though they went on with their lives, the truth of what happened to their sixth housemate couldn’t stay buried forever.

Twenty years later, all five of them arrive—lured separately under various pretenses—at Wolfheather House, a crumbling, secluded mansion on the Scottish isle of Doon. Trapped inside with no way out and no signal to the outside world, the now forty-somethings fight each other—and the unknown mastermind behind their gathering—as they confront the role they played in their housemate’s death. They are given one choice: confess to their crimes or die. 

That was their problem. They were always so sure of themselves. That they knew everything. That they were doing the right thing. Even when it was obvious to anyone else how wrong they were.


Survive the Night by Riley Sager (DNF 50% – Couldn’t do it.. So irritated)

Standalone

It’s November 1991. Nirvana’s in the tape deck, George H. W. Bush is in the White House, and movie-obsessed college student Charlie Jordan is in a car with a man who might be a serial killer.

Josh Baxter, the man behind the wheel, is a virtual stranger to Charlie. They met at the campus ride board, each looking to share the long drive home to Ohio. Both have good reasons for wanting to get away. For Charlie, it’s guilt and grief over the shocking murder of her best friend, who became the third victim of the man known as the Campus Killer. For Josh, it’s to help care for his sick father—or so he says.

The longer she sits in the passenger seat, the more Charlie notices there’s something suspicious about Josh, from the holes in his story about his father to how he doesn’t want her to see inside the trunk. As they travel an empty, twisty highway in the dead of night, an increasingly anxious Charlie begins to think she’s sharing a car with the Campus Killer. Is Josh truly dangerous? Or is Charlie’s jittery mistrust merely a figment of her movie-fueled imagination?

One thing is certain—Charlie has nowhere to run and no way to call for help. Trapped in a terrifying game of cat and mouse played out on pitch-black roads and in neon-lit parking lots, Charlie knows the only way to win is to survive the night.


Everett: A Dark Psychological Suspense Novel by Jenifer Ruff 4/5

Book 1of 3: Brooke Waldon

Read my review here

At Everett College, perfection has a DARK side…

Beautiful and brilliant Brooke, a transfer student with a mysterious past, aims to graduate first in her class at Everett and attend medical school. Her classmates and professors are captivated by her achievements and appearance. Only Jessica, a wealthy socialite fueled by prescription pills and a huge case of snobbery, senses there’s something not quite right about the perfect student. What happens during a historic blizzard will settle their differences once and for all.

If she acted as if she truly cared, she might start to feel that way for real.


Baby Teeth: A Novel by Zoje Stage 4/5

Standalone

Read my review here

MEET HANNA: 
Seven-year-old Hanna is a sweet-but-silent angel in the eyes of her adoring father Alex. He’s the only person who understands her. But her mother Suzette stands in her way, and she’ll try any trick she can think of to get rid of her. Ideally for good.

MEET SUZETTE: 
Suzette loves her daughter, but after years of expulsions and strained home schooling, her precarious health and sanity are weakening day by day. She’s also becoming increasingly frightened by Hanna’s little games, while her husband Alex remains blind to the failing family dynamics. Soon, Suzette starts to fear that maybe their supposedly innocent baby girl may have a truly sinister agenda.
A battle of wills between mother and daughter reveals the frailty and falsehood of familial bonds in award-winning playwright and filmmaker Zoje Stage’s tense novel of psychological suspense, Baby Teeth.

It was unacceptable; Mommy was failing her tests to prove her motherly love. And the more she failed, the more opportunities Hanna tried to provide for her to redeem herself. Though she wasn’t always sure of the rules to their war games. And when she scrunched up her brain, she couldn’t quite remember who had started it.


Awake by Natasha Preston 3.5/5

Standalone

Read my review here

She’s on the run from a past she can’t remember in this thriller from Natasha Preston, the New York Times bestselling author of The Cellar and The Cabin

Scarlett Garner doesn’t remember anything before the age of four—until a car accident changes everything. She starts to remember pieces of a past that frighten her. A past her parents hid from her…and a secret that could get her killed.

I didn’t want to sneak around and lie to my parents and Noah, but none of them understood how badly I needed to figure out what was going on in my head. Every time I thought about it, ice settled in my stomach. I couldn’t help feeling that something was very, very wrong.


Scritch Scratch by Lindsay Currie 4/5

Standalone

For fans of Small Spaces and the Goosebumps series by R.L Stine comes a chilling ghost story based on real Chicago history about a malevolent spirit, an unlucky girl, and a haunting mystery that will tie the two together.

Claire has absolutely no interest in the paranormal. She’s a scientist, which is why she can’t think of anything worse than having to help out her dad on one of his ghost-themed Chicago bus tours. She thinks she’s made it through when she sees a boy with a sad face and dark eyes at the back of the bus. There’s something off about his presence, especially because when she checks at the end of the tour…he’s gone.

Claire tries to brush it off, she must be imagining things, letting her dad’s ghost stories get the best of her. But then the scratching starts. Voices whisper to her in the dark. The number 396 appears everywhere she turns. And the boy with the dark eyes starts following her.

Claire is being haunted. The boy from the bus wants something…and Claire needs to find out what before it’s too late.


The Broken Girls by Simone St. James 4.5/5

Standalone

A journalist uncovers the dark secrets of an abandoned boarding school in this chilling suspense novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Sun Down Motel.

Vermont, 1950. There’s a place for the girls whom no one wants—the troublemakers, the illegitimate, the ones too smart for their own good. It’s called Idlewild Hall, and local legend says the boarding school is haunted. Four roommates bond over their whispered fears, their friendship blossoming—until one of them mysteriously disappears….

Vermont, 2014. Twenty years ago, journalist Fiona Sheridan’s elder sister’s body was found in the overgrown fields near the ruins of Idlewild Hall. And although her sister’s boyfriend was tried and convicted of the murder, Fiona can’t stop revisiting the events, unable to shake the feeling that something was never right about the case.

When Fiona discovers that Idlewild Hall is being restored by an anonymous benefactor, she decides to write a story about it. But a shocking discovery during renovations links the loss of her sister to secrets that were meant to stay hidden in the past—and a voice that won’t be silenced….


Well, that’s it for me.. I’m pretty satisfied with these results, many of these books were fantastic reads (a couple weren’t.. ) but altogether? It was a great experience!

Have you read any of these books? What did you think?

I hope you had a safe, wonderful Halloween and thanks so much for stopping by!

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This Post Has 6 Comments

  1. Lady Tessa

    You did an awesome job ❤️ And so many wild books!

    1. Sheri Dye

      Thanks! It turned out to be a great month for reading!
      How about you? Anything really good lately?

      1. Lady Tessa

        I’ve read some fun Christmas stories, and I finally have time to start reading some of the books I’ve bought 😳 That’ll be nice. ❤️

        1. Sheri Dye

          gasp! Christmas!? Already!? Say it ain’t so, Tessa!
          Just kidding.. I hope you enjoy them! 😊

          1. Lady Tessa

            Lol. The downside of receiving ARCs for review – you are always a season ahead of everyone else.

          2. Sheri Dye

            You know.. I didn’t even think about that. 😆
            My apologies!🌷

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