Category Archives: Lori Rader-Day

Review: The Lucky One by Lori Rader-Day

Title: The Lucky One by Lori Rader-Day
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 400 pages
Book Rating: C+

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through Edelweiss

Summary:

From the author of the Edgar Award®-nominated Under A Dark Sky comes an unforgettable, chilling novel about a young woman who recognizes the man who kidnapped her as a child, setting off a search for justice, and into danger.

Most people who go missing are never found. But Alice was the lucky one…

As a child, Alice was stolen from her backyard in a tiny Indiana community, but against the odds, her policeman father tracked her down within twenty-four hours and rescued her from harm. In the aftermath of the crime, her family decided to move to Chicago and close the door on that horrible day.

Yet Alice hasn’t forgotten. She devotes her spare time volunteering for a website called The Doe Pages scrolling through pages upon pages of unidentified people, searching for clues that could help reunite families with their missing loved ones. When a face appears on Alice’s screen that she recognizes, she’s stunned to realize it’s the same man who kidnapped her decades ago. The post is deleted as quickly as it appeared, leaving Alice with more questions than answers.

Embarking on a search for the truth, she enlists the help of friends from The Doe Pages to connect the dots and find her kidnapper before he hurts someone else. Then Alice crosses paths with Merrily Cruz, another woman who’s been hunting for answers of her own. Together, they begin to unravel a dark, painful web of lies that will change what they thought they knew—and could cost them everything.

Twisting and compulsively readable, The Lucky One explores the lies we tell ourselves to feel safe.

Review:

The Lucky One by Lori Rader-Day is an intriguing mystery with an interesting premise.

Alice Fine works for her father’s construction company and spends her spare time on The Doe Pages website.  Having been kidnapped and returned to her family within a few hours when she was a toddler, she would like to make a difference with other families who are missing loved ones.  As she is scrolling through the Doe Pages, Alice is shocked when she recognizes her kidnapper who is now listed as a missing person.

Deciding to find him, Alice teams up with Doe Pages volunteers Juby and Lillian. Although a little reluctant to meet up with them in real life, Alice knows she does not have the skill set to track down her suspected kidnapper Richard Miller.  During their quest for the truth, Alice, Juju and Lillian cross paths with Merrily Cruz whose mother dated Richard. Merrily remains in contact with him and she is alarmed by a birthday message from him.  Her fears seem well-founded when the police pay her a visit in hopes of discovering his whereabouts.

Having lived a pampered life as the apple of her father’s eye, Alice is overly passive and does not take her job seriously.  Despite their troubled relationship, she did nurse her mother through the last years of her life. Although she wants to locate Richard, Alice is antagonistic toward Juby, Lillian and Merrily. With whiplash inducing frequency, she veers between reluctantly  asking them for help and angrily pushing them away.

Merrily is just as frustrating as Alice but she is a bit more likable. She dislikes her job and feels somewhat indifferent toward her roommate. Merrily and her mother share a relatively close relationship but she quickly grows frustrated when her mom refuses to answer her questions about Richard. Ignoring her mother’s plea to leave well enough alone, Merrily soon pieces together a confusing but troubling portrait of Richard’s life after he left them. Although she learns valuable details on her own, she needs help from Alice, Juby and  Lillian in order to fill in the gaps. Merrily is also ambivalent about working with the trio and her relationship with them is uneasy.

Neither Merrily nor Alice are particularly likable characters. Their relationships with people around them are superficial and they hold everyone at arms’ length.  Alice is determined to stand on her own two feet yet she finds it impossible to follow through with many of her decisions. Alice  storms full speed ahead without giving much thought to the consequences of her actions. The push/pull between the women, the over the top anger and wildly ricocheting emotions soon become wearisome.

The Lucky One is a complex mystery with a unique storyline. Unfortunately, the pacing is slow and the plot becomes increasingly convoluted. Lori Rader-Day brings the novel to a twist-filled conclusion. A bit of a dark read that has promise, but ultimately might leave readers dissatisfied since vital plot points are not fully explained.

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Review: Under a Dark Sky by Lori Rader-Day

Title: Under a Dark Sky by Lori Rader-Day
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 416 pages
Book Rating: B+

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through Edelweiss

Summary:

From the critically-acclaimed author of The Day I Died comes a terrifying twist on a locked-room mystery that will keep readers guessing until the last page

Only in the dark can she find the truth . . .

Since her husband died, Eden Wallace’s life has diminished down to a tiny pinprick, like a far-off star in the night sky. She doesn’t work, has given up on her love of photography, and is so plagued by night terrors that she can’t sleep without the lights on. Everyone, including her family, has grown weary of her grief. So when she finds paperwork in her husband’s effects indicating that he reserved a week at a dark sky park, she goes. She’s ready to shed her fear and return to the living, even if it means facing her paralyzing phobia of the dark.

But when she arrives at the park, the guest suite she thought was a private retreat is teeming with a group of twenty-somethings, all stuck in the orbit of their old college friendships. Horrified that her get-away has been taken over, Eden decides to head home the next day. But then a scream wakes the house in the middle of the night. One of the friends has been murdered. Now everyone—including Eden—is a suspect.

Everyone is keeping secrets, but only one is a murderer. As mishaps continue to befall the group, Eden must make sense of the chaos and lies to evade a ruthless killer—and she’ll have to do it before dark falls…

Review:

Under a Dark Sky by Lori Rader-Day is a riveting, suspense-laden murder mystery.

Eden Wallace is still grieving the death of her beloved husband, Bix, when she discovers he planned a surprise anniversary getaway for them before his death. Eden goes on the trip which she hopes will be a turning point in coming to terms of her loss. Eden is optimistic the time away will help her turn the corner on the paralyzing fear of the dark she has experienced ever since the night he died. Upon her arrival at Dark Sky Park, she discovers she is sharing her getaway with six twenty-something strangers. Deciding to stay the night and leave in the morning, Eden is awakened in the middle of the night when one of the men is murdered. The local sheriff insists everyone remain during the early phase of the investigation and Eden tries to piece together who would have reason to murder their friend.

Eden has found it impossible to move past Bix’s death. Their life together was spent moving from base to base where her larger than life husband was always the center of attention. After his retirement from the military, they moved to Bix’s hometown of Chicago where Eden was hopeful his PTSD, nightmares and self-medicating with alcohol would improve. While Bix transitioned into civilian life with relative ease, Eden could not resist his efforts to “improve” her career choices. In the months since his shocking death, Eden has withdrawn from her family and friends and due to her sleep deprivation, she no longer works.

Although Eden is uncomfortable staying with strangers, her fear of the dark overrides this discomfort. The dynamics of the group are fascinating to her but she is quickly made to feel unwelcome by much of the group. She picks up on some tense undertones between the friends, and she is relieved to leave them to their own devices. She is of course upset by the murder, but Eden is confident the sheriff will quickly release her to return home.

However, Eden is stunned by the unexpected revelations that put her smack dab in the middle of the investigation. Unable to convince the sheriff she has no reason to kill anyone, she must remain in town while the police try to sort through the evidence and leads they uncover. When it appears someone has attempted to murder two other members of the group, the sheriff grows even more suspicious of Eden. She attempts to put her fragmented memories into some semblance of order to try to unmask the killer. At the same time, secrets about Eden’s husband are revealed and Eden is forced to confront the truth about Bix.

With unanticipated twists, shocking turns and fantastic red herrings, Under a Dark Sky is an intriguing mystery that is absolutely spellbinding.  Eden becomes increasingly unreliable due to her lack of sleep and her troubling realizations about Bix. The plot is rife with clever misdirects, an atmospheric setting and plenty of suspicious characters.  Lori Rader-Day keeps readers guessing the identity of the perpetrator and the reason for the murder right up until the novel’s dramatic conclusion. A brilliantly executed mystery that fans of the genre do not want to miss!

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Filed under Contemporary, Lori Rader-Day, Mystery, Rated B+, Review, Suspense, Under a Dark Sky, William Morrow Paperbacks

Review: The Day I Died by Lori Rader-Day

Title: The Day I Died by Lori Rader-Day
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 432 pages
Book Rating: C+

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through Edelweiss

Summary:

From the award-winning author of Little Pretty Things comes this gripping, unforgettable tale of a mother’s desperate search for a lost boy.

Anna Winger can know people better than they know themselves with only a glance—at their handwriting. Hired out by companies wanting to land trustworthy employees and by the lovelorn hoping to find happiness, Anna likes to keep the real-life mess of other people at arm’s length and on paper. But when she is called to use her expertise on a note left behind at a murder scene in the small town she and her son have recently moved to, the crime gets under Anna’s skin and rips open her narrow life for all to see. To save her son—and herself—once and for all, Anna will face her every fear, her every mistake, and the past she thought she’d rewritten.

Review:

The Day I Died by Lori Rader-Day is an intriguing mystery about a missing young boy.

Anna Winger is a handwriting analyst who assists federal and local law enforcement with a variety of cases. When two year old Aidan Ransey goes missing, she is asked to aid Sheriff Russ Keller with the investigation. Keller reluctantly turns documents relevant to kidnapping over to Anna but the two continue to clash over his lack of cooperation with her requests. Anna is also growing increasingly concerned over her thirteen year old son Joshua’s increasingly troubling behavior.  When Joshua  begins asking difficult questions that she is reluctant to answer, Anna eventually has no choice but to face the past she has been running from for over thirteen years.

Anna was forced to make a rather decision years earlier which has resulted in an itinerant, solitary lifestyle for her and Joshua.  Having recently relocated to Parks, Indiana, Anna is already second guessing whether or not she made the right choice to settle in the small town. Seriously lacking the anonymity she desperately needs to feel safe, the missing person’s case attracts far more attention that she desires. She is also rather troubled by the parallels between herself and Aidan’s mom, Leila Ransey.  She is already struggling to maintain her objectivity as she examines the documents associated with the disappearance when she meets Aidan’s father, Bo. Their encounters bring back unpleasant memories of her own past and Anna continues to worry about whether or not she can remain impartial during the investigation.

Adding to Anna’s discomfort is Sheriff Keller’s skepticism about the veracity of handwriting analysis. His office is on the periphery of the investigation but he continues to follow leads in an effort to locate the missing boy.  A shocking murder adds another complication to the case and Keller reluctantly continues to seek assistance from Anna as they recover documents that are pertinent to the investigation. Their interactions continue to be a little adversarial as Anna offers her expert opinion on the evidence he provides for her analysis.

The pacing of the novel is somewhat slow as Anna becomes increasingly introspective during the investigation. Her self-confidence is gradually undetermined as she juggles her professional duties with the increasingly tense situation with Joshua. Completely out of her depth as she deals with her suddenly tumultuous relationship with Joshua, Anna is stunned when he takes matters into his own hands after she fails to give him the answers he desperately needs.  With nowhere else to turn, Anna is forced to return to the place where her life went so tragically wrong but will she find what she is searching for?

With an unusual premise and a unique lead protagonist, The Day I Died is a compelling mystery with plenty of twists and turns. Despite the suspense surrounding Aidan’s disappearance, the storyline quickly becomes bogged down in the secrets of Anna’s past. However, the various story arcs finally come together in a rather unexpected (and far too coincidental) manner. Lori Rader-Day brings the novel to an action-filled conclusion that neatly ties up all of the loose ends.

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Filed under Contemporary, Lori Rader-Day, Mystery, Rated C+, Review, Suspense, The Day I Died, William Morrow Paperbacks