Book Reporter | July 11, 2021

Sisters Lynne Constantine and Valerie Constantine (aka Liv Constantine) are masters at building suspense. They start with a couple in seeming bliss and then mess with their happiness. THE STRANGER IN THE MIRROR is no exception.

Talented photographer Addison Hope feels like she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. Her life is a dream come true right now. Her photographs are getting attention in Philadelphia, where she lives. She’s recently gotten engaged to a wonderful man, Gabriel, who has everything to offer: charm, love, money and a well-respected family. He absolutely dotes on her. His sister is her best friend. Gabriel’s mother, while cautious, embraces Addison as her future daughter-in-law. What could possibly be better? Well, knowing who you really are, for one thing.

THE STRANGER IN THE MIRROR races along like a rocket on steroids. Once you’ve opened the book, figuring out who Addison Hope is and how she got to Philadelphia will become your reason for waking up in the morning. Just give into it, set aside a day or two, and immerse yourself. But prepare for spine-tingling thrills.

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the Skimm | July 8, 2021

“The Hunting Wives” by May Cobb
For when your book club exclusively reads thrillers…

Add this one to the queue. A woman leaves behind big-city life to settle down with her husband and son in Texas. It at first seems like the perfect idyllic community. But she soon feels boredom start to kick in...until she meets the Hunting Wives — an alluring secretive group of women that lead her directly into trouble. The plot twists? They keep on coming. (Amazon, Bookshop)

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Gizmo's Reviews | July 8, 2021

The Stranger in the Mirror hooks readers with riveting drama, told with Liv Constantine’s hallmark blend of glamour, tense psychological thrills, and jaw-dropping twists.

This is another one of those stories where you have an unreliable narrator in Addison as well as another character with deep seeded darkness to his persona that slowly gets revealed as more and more about Julian is revealed by the authors. Of all of the characters involved in this story, the one I found the most innocent is the daughter Valentine.

Liv Constantine is the pen name for author / sister duo Lynne and Valerie Constantine. This is their follow up to Last Time I Saw You.

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Book Reviews and More by Kathy | July 8, 2021

The Stranger in the Mirror by Liv Constantine is a mesmerizing domestic mystery.

Addison Hope is engaged to Gabriel Oliver who works in his family-owned art gallery. Between her upcoming marriage and photography show, she should be on top of the world. Instead, Addison is anxious about her future because she has no memories of her past. Her life began two years ago when a helpful trucker picks her up when she was hitchhiking. Ed and his wife, Gigi, have become surrogate parents who help her as she navigates her new life. Outside of a few disturbing flashes, Addison has absolutely no recollections from before Ed found her. With the assistance of her future mother- and sister-in-law, Addison and Gabriel’s wedding planning is underway. She loves Gabriel, but Addison’s continued memory loss remains deeply troubling.

Dr. Julian Hunter has been raising his seven-year-old daughter Valentina on his own because his beloved wife Cassandra vanished two years ago. Although the detective he hired turn up no trace of her, he remains hopeful she will one day return. What could have happened Cassandra? Is she still alive? If so, where could she be? And more important, will Julian find her?

The Stranger in the Mirror is a clever domestic mystery with an intriguing storyline and interesting characters. Addison remains uneasy about her upcoming nuptials and the few glimpses of memory leave her questioning what type of person she used to be. Gabriel’s love for her is steadfast and he is unconcerned about her past. Julian mourns the disappearance of his wife but without any leads, will he ever locate her? The plot is quite well-executed but some of the late in the story twists require a suspension of disbelief. With a few shocking turns, Liv Constantine brings this fast-paced domestic mystery to a very unanticipated conclusion.

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New York Journal of Books | July 8, 2021

Addison Hope is living a new life in Pennsylvania. Two years prior she was found confused, disheveled, and wandering down a lonely country road. Middle-aged cross-country trucker Ed stops and offers her a ride.

Though hesitant, Addison is exhausted and climbs aboard. She requests water after Ed assures her he is not going to harm her. Her pants are ripped, and she has dried blood on her hands. They travel a while before Ed asks why she is hitchhiking and, seeing her condition, suggests taking her to the hospital.

Each character offers their own voice in this moving storyline, giving credence to each disturbing scenario. Beautifully written and articulate, the only puzzling portion of this novel is in Part III, (Four Years Earlier) before Addison/Cassandra fled. As Julian works with her through hypnosis, he discovers she has a Facebook page where she sends pictures of Valentina to Ed and Gigi. But she does not meet Ed and Gigi until two years later after fleeing from Julian with no recollection of him. An uncaught glitch? If so, the completely unexpected and shocking conclusion more than makes up for this error.

It must be difficult to lose everything one remembers of their life, and there should be a legitimate reason for this after medical explanations are ruled out. Did Addison/Cassandra commit a crime? Did she witness a crime? The Stranger in the Mirror is a nail-biting, page-turner with several subplots. The suspense and terror prove to be horrifying, making this a powerful read.

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Bustle | July 8, 2021

Years after she woke up with amnesia, Addison still doesn’t know who she was. Some time after his wife disappeared, Julian’s still trying to find out if it was a case of abandonment... or abduction. Is Addison the long-lost Cassandra, or is the truth far more sinister?

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The New York Times | July 7, 2021

‘Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong,’ by Prudence Shen, illustrated by Faith Erin Hicks, colored by Alison Acton (First Second, June 22)

Even books get a makeover sometimes, and that’s exactly what happened with “Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong.” The book, originally published in 2013 in black and white, has now been fully colored for this summer reissue. The book follows Charlie and Nate, high school students on opposite sides of the popularity spectrum — Charlie is the captain of the basketball team, who once dated the head of the cheerleading squad, while Nate is the president of the robotics team. In an effort to maintain school funding for their clubs, the cheerleaders and the robotics team combine forces in a local competition, resulting in a story of unlikely friendships.

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Library Journal | July 2, 2021

Slaughter’s latest stand-alone thriller (following The Silent Wife) tells the story of Leigh and Callie Collier, two sisters trying to run away from their childhood filled with uncertainty and abuse that culminated in murder. When they were in their teens, the sisters babysat a young boy whose father abused them both. They killed their abuser, cleaned up the crime scene, and hid the body. Leigh escaped and went to college, then built a family and a successful career as a criminal defense attorney. Callie, after a gymnastics injury, became addicted to drugs, living only for the next high with no hope or will for anything better. When the son of the man they murdered so many years ago hires Leigh as his defense counsel after being charged with a brutal rape, the sisters know they have to stop running and confront their past, no matter the cost.

VERDICT

Slaughter skillfully and assuredly relates the violence of a sociopath, while creating an emotional connection to lives touched by tragedy and addressing current events. Her latest will be a favorite for thriller lovers, as well as fans of Jennifer Hillier, Michael Koryta, and Alafair Burke.

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The Big Thrill | July 2, 2021

Karin Slaughter recalls reading about the Spanish flu in high school—passages in textbooks that only skimmed the surface of a pandemic that killed 50 million people worldwide. It wasn’t until she read Katherine Anne Porter’s Pale Horse, Pale Rider, though, that she got a more visceral and emotional understanding of its devastating—and long-lasting—consequences.

The book, a fictional account of the author’s own struggle with the Spanish flu, detailed the disease’s grisly side effects—body temperatures so high that people’s hair turned white, skin that took on a purplish hue, financial insecurity, and so much more.

“All of that stuff is not what they teach about the pandemic,” Slaughter says. “What I read about in the textbooks didn’t impact me psychologically. But fiction can capture details in a way that nonfiction can’t—and shouldn’t. I wanted to talk about the fact that our hand sanitizer smells like tequila and that there are ‘maskholes’ who wear their mask below their nose. Look at the number of divorces in the past year, or the staggering number of kids who are going to lose out on a learning opportunity. I wanted to talk about all of that within the framework of a thriller.”

It wasn’t a decision she took lightly. Slaughter says she spoke to a number of authors at the start of COVID-19 to gauge how they planned to address the pandemic in their contemporary fiction. Most wanted to avoid it altogether.

“Mike Connelly was the only one who said he was going to include it,” Slaughter says. “And so I thought if Mike is going to do it, and he doesn’t catch shit for it, I’m going to do it too.”

The result is FALSE WITNESS, a novel with the life-changing impact of the past year and a half at its core. In traditional fashion, Slaughter gives readers a no-holds-barred view of humanity’s dark side as they navigate the pandemic and the issues it has brought to light. But of course, this is not a book about COVID-19, it’s a thriller—a Karin Slaughter thriller—and so fans know to brace themselves. FALSE WITNESS is a visceral, gut-wrenching page turner that will have you reading with one eye closed as she works to pry your eyes wide open.

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Garden & Gun | July 1, 2021

When the best-selling crime novelist Karin Slaughter needs to bounce out of Atlanta to find the time and mental space to write, she beelines for the hills and her writing cabin in the North Georgia mountain town of Blue Ridge. “You can’t look out from a cabin, see trees, and not be relaxed,” she says. We chatted with the author, whose next novel (she has published nearly two dozen), False Witness, comes out later this month, about her latest projects, the pit stops she makes on the way out of town, and her favorite spots once she reaches cooler mountain air.

You’ve got False Witness coming out in July, and then Netflix is working on a series of yours right now as well, about Pieces of Her?

They filmed the bulk of it in Australia, but there will still be some filming coming up in Atlanta and Savannah—it’s set in South Georgia, and you just can’t transport bougainvillea and the real look of guys walking around in Bass shoes and shorts with a crease.

Where do you stop on the way out of town from Atlanta?

There’s both a QuikTrip and a RaceTrac on the way to and fro, each on opposite sides of the road, so I generally try to make a pit stop and get a Coke Icee, which is one of the treats I used to get when I was a kid. I don’t drink sodas, so it’s an extra punch of sugar when I need it most.

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Booklist | July 1, 2021

This fairy tale of a novel kicks off with, “Once upon a time,” and its hero completes a classically harrowing journey. But instead of becoming a prince, he ascends as a self-effacing, humanrights-advocating president of an unnamed Latin American country, positioned in stark and pointed contrast to a certain megalomaniacal leader to the north. De Robertis (Cantoras, 2019) based her hero on the much-heralded, real-life José Mujica, former president of Uruguay. Here, her fictionalized protagonist prepares for an interview with a foreign journalist at his modest home, leading to a dual labyrinth of memory. The tale alternates between this retired public official looking back on his storied career under the gaze of an outsider, and full immersion in the subterranean, dark, and dirty "Hole" as this brave guerrilla relives torture and degradation. How does he survive? By talking with a frog. Their conversations draw him back to his original youthful inspiration and the love of his life, Sofia, comrade and spouse. Readers will be inspired by De Robertis' timeless, lucidly told tale of a leader committed to his people.

Library Journal | July 1, 2021

A woman is found hitchhiking in New Jersey in ripped clothing, with bloodstained hands. Diagnosed with retrograde amnesia, she adopts the name Addison Hope and begins a new life in Pennsylvania with a kind couple who become her surrogate parents. Over the next two years, she falls in love and becomes engaged to gallery owner Gabriel Oliver. Despite a happy life, Addy is plagued by recurring violent flashbacks that frighten her and might hint at her past. Suddenly, Addy’s promising new life tilts off-kilter when a man named Julian Hunter claims she is Cassandra, his missing wife and the mother to his young daughter Valentina. As Addy attempts to piece together her past, she is pulled in two directions. Does she belong with Gabriel, or is she obligated to rejoin a life she doesn’t remember?

VERDICT
This latest novel (after The Wife Stalker) from sisters Lynne and Valerie Constantine (writing as “Liv”) is a deliciously disorienting psychological thriller that will keep mystery lovers second-guessing everything they read as they struggle to unravel the complex tapestry of Addy’s life.

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Publishers Weekly | June 29, 2021

De Robertis (Cantoras) meditates on the fight for democracy in her pleasing latest. An unnamed 82-year-old former president of a “near-forgotten” Latin American country “at the bottom of the world” answers a journalist’s probing questions: How did the former guerrilla fighter rise from obscurity and imprisonment to become “The Poorest President in the World,” and how can his country serve as an international symbol of hope? As he considers his replies, he recalls lessons from his darkest hours: 40 years before, he was captured after a failed revolution and condemned to isolation in a dirty pit, where his only companion was a talking frog. To satisfy the creature’s demand for “true stories,” the narrator recalls memories that inspired his love of his country and his care for its people, such as strangers coming together during the initial military crackdowns to dig underground tunnels and free prisoners. Though he understands the frog is a manifestation of madness, the president ruminates on the sacrifices of the poor and abuses of the powerful as the narrative strands of past and present become one. While the allegorical aspects can feel a bit pat, the tale’s simplicity belies considerable depth and resonance: “Even horror is an opening, every moment a new beginning, until we reach the end.” In such a charged political moment, this lands as both a balm and a paean to national pride and unity.

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Publishers Weekly | June 11, 2021

I’ll be frank—there were times working on this book when I definitely felt like I was just diving into the water in the dark,” admits novelist Carolina De Robertis. She’s seated in front of a wall of books—“just a fraction, of course, of the books in the house”—in the home she shares with her wife and their two school-age children in Oakland, Calif., for a Zoom call. “At times, the only way I could continue to work on the book and really give it my best as a writer was to secretly call it the Weird Book.... Yes, just put a neon sign over the metaphorical door, it’s weird.”

In The President and the Frog (Knopf, Aug.), her sixth book, the 45-year-old writer says she’s seeking something greater than truth, or, as she puts it, the ability of fiction to “use invention to more freely explore the truth.”

It opens with an 82-year-old former leader of an unnamed Latin American country being visited by a Norwegian journalist for an interview. Noticing in her something the narrator calls “the listening gift,” he wonders if he should finally reveal a long-kept secret: that talking to a frog during his time in solitary confinement when he was imprisoned for inciting revolution was what kept him alive.

The basis for the character of the aging politician was Uruguayan president and former guerrilla José Mujica, who spent 12 years in prison and later became known for his quest for human rights. Mujica, president from 2010 to 2015, donated most of his salary to charity and stayed in his own humble home, where he continued to work the land himself. And the frog is inspired by, well, a frog.

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Booklist | June 1, 2021

Another twisty and unsettling domestic psychological thriller (following The Last Time I Saw You, 2019) from established book-club favorite Liv Constantine, the pen name of sisters Lynne and Valerie Constantine. Their previous titles are in development for both TV and film. So who is Addison Hope? She doesn’t even know. Two years ago, she was rescued by a kind driver who found her injured on the side of the road. She does not remember anything that happened before that, but is tortured by intermittent violent images from what she assumes is her earlier life. Addie has made a new life for herself in Philadelphia and is engaged to be married. Her wealthy prospective mother-in-law hires a private investigator to investigate what she fears is feigned amnesia. Meanwhile, a man in Boston wonders what happened to his wife, who disappeared without a trace, leaving him and their seven-year-old daughter behind. At the intersection of their lives there is a shattering truth that unfolds in a toney drama, certain to appeal to fans of the genre.

Fresh Fiction | May 27, 2021

Sophie had all she wanted: a loving husband, a beautiful son, and a lovely home in a town she chose.  But, she is bored and feels like something is missing. That changed when she met Margot, a local socialite. Sophie found everything about Margot alluring and she became obsessed with her. Sophie was thrilled when Margot invited her to join her exclusive club. As it turned out, her relationship with Margot could cost Sophie all she held dear.

In The Hunting Wives by May Cobb, readers are launched into a world of seduction, debauchery, excessive drinking, and worst of all: murder. Margot and her inner circle are all about excesses and loyalty to each other, but any other redeeming characteristics seem to be missing. Margot is clearly the glue that keeps them together, but why? Even Sophie was conflicted about her feelings and attraction towards Margot but didn't have the strength to walk away when her world began to spiral out of control. What was the secret to her magnetism?

The Hunting Wives is a skillfully told, haunting, and memorable tale. From start to finish it is totally engrossing. I couldn't put it down. Highly recommended. 

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Crime Reads | May 26, 2021

Fill up your beach bag with Kristen and Layne’s summer reading recommendations, featuring shotgun-toting housewives, stabby backpackers, sexy ballerinas, and so much more. All books for sale at the official Unlikeable Female Characters Bookshop (or an indie bookstore near you!).

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the Skimm | May 25, 2021

A frothy page-turner and the beach go together like peanut butter and jelly. There’s simply nothing better. And you can always go for more. So we rounded up the best new reads you’ll want to bring to the ocean, the pool, or wherever you’re hunkering down for some sun and good vibes this summer.

“The Hunting Wives” by May Cobb

For when your book club exclusively reads thrillers…

Add this one to the queue. A woman leaves behind big-city life to settle down with her husband and son in Texas. It at first seems like the perfect idyllic community. But she soon feels boredom start to kick in...until she meets the Hunting Wives — an alluring secretive group of women that lead her directly into trouble. The plot twists? They keep on coming.

Follow the link above to learn more.