a few more quick reviews - Stone Mothers; Erin Kelly and Restoration Heights; Wil Medearis

TITLE: Stone Mothers
AUTHOR:  Erin Kelly

PUBLISHER:  Minotaur

PUB. YEAR: 2019

SETTING: Outside of London
FORMAT:  - ARC

RATING - 3.5/5

Marianne Thackeray has built a good life for herself with her husband Sam and daughter, Honor.  She also has a darker side that she has done a good job of keeping hidden from her family. Her dark secrets are from 30 years earlier (1988) in Nusstead (outside of London) when she was just 17. She moved out of that area long ago and thought her secret and body she and her boyfriend, Jesse had buried would never be brought up again.

Now Marianne's mother is suffering from dementia and Sam wanted to make things easier for his wife so he purchased a second home at Park Royal Manor, a luxury apartment complex located in a former mental hospital, a place Marianne would prefer to forget.

This story has (3) different timelines (1958), (1988) and (2018) and is told mainly from (3) POVS, Marianne, her daughter Honor and a woman named Helen Greenlaw who also had her secrets surrounding Stone Mothers, the victorian mental asylum.

I started this book on audio and had trouble following the multiple POVs and the fact the book was divided into 4 parts, so I switched to the print version which worked out much better.  I loved that much of this story had a Gothic feel. The first part was awfully slow and I felt frustrated but as the story progressed it began to make sense.  The images of life at the old asylum were very chilling and just awful to read about, but I liked the way it drew me into the story.  If you like books with a Gothic feel or reading about mental asylums of days gone by, you might want to try this one.

TITLE: Restoration Heights
AUTHOR:  Wil Medearis

PUBLISHER:  Hanover Square Press

PUB. YEAR: 2019

SETTING: NY
FORMAT:  - ARC

RATING - 3.5/5

Reddick is a 30 something artist who works as an art handler in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, a black neighborhood undergoing gentrification. One day he notices a beautiful blond woman, who seems out of place, stagger into one of the apartments. She appears drunk.

The next day, coincidentally, when Reddick arrives at the apartment of a client, the Seward family, a wealthy family in the city, he overhears a conversation and realizes that the young woman he saw is named Hannah and was the fiancee of his client. Oddly, he's pulled into the girl's disappearance by yet another wealthy family who wants answers. What has happened to Hannah and why does one family not want the police involved yet another family is wanting answers?

This is a debut novel that I'd have to say was part mystery, part psych thriller.  I thought the whole plot line setup was a bit too convenient, but yet, it's the kind of story that would make for a lively group discussion.  I do think it could have benefited from some deeper character development - overall an okay read.