#TNReads: Real Quick Reviews for Lazy Readers featuring Riley Sager

Y’all, this book was a doozy. I loved Riley Sager’s last book, The Last Time I Lied, so I had high hopes for this one. And it did not disappoint.

This story focuses on Jules. She’s pretty much lost everything –  her job, her boyfriend (good riddance), and her family is long gone. So when the opportunity to apartment sit for a unit in one of New York’s most notorious, high-profile apartment buildings lands at her feet, it would be stupid to say no…especially since the pay is $1,000 a week! Easy peasy.

But everyone knows The Bartholomew has a bad reputation. And it turns out it may be well-earned. The other apartment-sitters also have no one to miss them, and as they start to go missing, one by one, Jules makes it her mission to find out the reason why before she becomes the next in line.

From there it’s a race against the clock that will force you to keep turning the page. You’ll need to know what’s happening, and I’ll bet you $100 you won’t see it coming…You know where to find me if you do.

When Passion on Park Avenue opens, Naomi is on the way to her boyfriend’s funeral when she accidentally meets up with his other girlfriend…and his wife. So when an opportunity to move into the building where her mother once worked as a maid arises, she is ready for revenge best served cold and with a Park Avenue address on the side. Of course, nothing goes quite as planned when Naomi comes face to face with her childhood nemesis who is now a handsome 30 thirty-year-old who is caring for his ailing father.

We are fans of Lauren Layne here at That’s Normal, but this is some of her best work.

16th Century France, and all of its violence and turmoil, is brought to life in this historical epic. Part 1 in a series of novels, it centers around the Wars of Religion between Catholics and Protestent Huguenots. There’s a prologue that makes it sound like it will follow the conflict between the same two families throughout the centuries, eventually ending in South Africa. This first novel stays squarely in 16th Century France. Main character Minou is the daughter of a tolerant Catholic bookseller in Southern France.

One day a mysterious note arrives for her, with only four, ominous words. “She knows you live.” Minou has no idea what it means, but it will set her on a journey to discover the shocking secret of her identity, and why someone desperately wants her dead. Her journey intertwines with that of Piet, a Huguenot activist passionate about protecting his fellow Protestants. This book is loaded with historical details and events, and at the very least will make you want to move to the south of France…

Tessa, Sandra, and Harriett are lifelong friends who have seen each other through boyfriends, Latin tests and child rearing. Facing middle age, each struggle with her identity as mom duty gives way to invisibility, or so Tessa is experiencing as an unemployed empty-nester who no longer attracts the glances and whistles of her youth. Their husbands aren’t much help, making them feel like obsolete freeloaders. Tessa’s husband Matt is particularly cruel in his constant reminders of his wife’s changing physique and lack of income.

Each woman copes in her own way, be it romance, reentering the workforce or becoming a different type of caregiver. Invisible Women is not as bleak as it may sound. Though the men are dolts, the women’s friendship, repartee and shenanigans are entertaining and the ending is satisfactorily unpredictable. It is a bit of a cautionary tale, reminding women to invest in yourself and your marriage, because when the kids are gone you don’t want to be that couple who has nothing to say to each other. Read it.