This Spring Into Horror readathon has been quite the lethal ladies' night of reading

 

Now that May is here, the end of Seasons of Reading's Spring Into Horror readathon has arrived as well. As usual for me, I didn't get to everything on my list but there was much to enjoy.

My first completed read was Samantha Downing's My Lovely Wife, where a supposedly typical suburban married couple takes up a new hobby to liven up their relationship. Only trouble is, that leisure activity is rather lethal to those pulled into their serial killer fun and games.

Narrated by the unnamed husband(who uses the alias Tobias while seeking out fresh victims), we met Millicent, the beautiful spouse of the title, who initiates this murder habit and goes far beyond with it than her life mate ever dreamed.

At first, these sets of  deadly trysts seem to be one or two times a year but when the body of Lindsay, their latest kill, is discovered by the police, Husband is terrified of being caught. Also, it turns out that Lindsay wasn't simply dispatched and disposed as they originally agree on. Instead, her demise is all too similar to Owen Oliver Riley, a local serial killer who vanished from the area years ago after getting off on a technicality in court.

Millicent insists that changing their standard procedure is an excellent way to throw the authorities off   track from their crimes, which her dear husband is not sure about yet eager to go along with there. While this sudden media attention adds a little extra spice to their shared slaughter fest, things start going way out of hand,causing Husband to have doubts about what his beloved bride really wants from him.

This story is a sinister thriller with more twists than a M. Knight Shyamalan movie and certainly more scarily suspenseful at times. Downing gives a vivid glow to her characters and the upper class world they live in, adding a note of satire to the proceeding that makes this domestic terror tale all the more riveting and real:

After that, I needed a little comfort food reading so I took up Eggsecutive Orders by Julie Hyzy, which had White House chef Ollie Paras trying to solve a dinner time death by poisoning before the annual Easter Egg Roll.

 I do like how as this series goes along, we get more character development from the supporting cast and that Ollie broke up with her jerk of a Secret Service boyfriend(never trusted that guy!).

My next read was also a comforting joy, the latest in the Noodle Shop Mystery series by Vivien Chien, Fatal Fried Rice.  While leading lady Lana Lee is great at managing her family's restaurant, her older sister Anna May loves to remind her that she can't cook any of the dishes that made Ho-Lee Noodle House the local legend that it is.

To show up her sister once and for all, Lana decides to take a community college cooking class in secret, planning to surprise everyone with her culinary skills. Unfortunately, she's the one who gets surprised by discovering the body of her cooking teacher, Margo Chan, not long after her first class.

With a new detective determined to think that she's behind this literal stab in the back(due to Lana's talent for solving murders placed in her path), Lana has no choice but to get involved despite the warnings from her law enforcement boyfriend Adam and her family(including her sister's legal eagle romantic partner!).

 Can she uncover the killer in enough time to clear her name and manage to learn a few simple recipes to finally get an one-up on Anna May?

I do enjoy the expansion of Lana Lee's world as the books go forth, with crime fighting friends such as her roommate Megan and the contentious Kimmy Tran(whose forthright nature makes her a great partner when it comes to confronting suspects!) and now that Anna's boyfriend is finally in the picture, hopefully her big sis can join this Scooby Gang at some point!

Oh, and yes, Lana does go back for another cooking class but is not too successful at the title dish, due to being distracted by sleuthing. Nonetheless, she does want to try again but at least she's not at a Worst Cooks in America level:

And yes, I did intend to read a Ruth Ware novel but as I tend to do with these readathons, a last minute change was made and this time, I truly don't regret it.

Layne Fargo's They Never Learn is set on a college campus, where literature professor Scarlett Clark makes it her duty to eliminate one male predator at a time, with both the student body and the staff being equal opportunity offenders.

Her latest kill,a prominent athlete on campus involved in a frat house sexual assault, draws the unwelcome attention of the local authorities as well as sets off an in-house investigation led by Mina Pierce, a top notch psychology expert.

In order to get ahead of the game, Scarlett makes herself part of Mina's team and while she finds an unexpected kinship with her, Scarlett is determined to throw both Mina and the cops off course as she plans for her next target to be taken down.

Meanwhile, Carly Schiller is a freshman looking to find her place in the world and her friendship with lively roommate Allison may be a good start for that. However, upon discovering Allison being assaulted during a rowdy party, things change between them. Carly wants to either get help or seek revenge for what happened while Allison just wants to forget the whole thing.

How the paths of Carly and Scarlett cross each other is something that I refuse to spoil but let's just say that it's a journey worth taking. Fargo creates an emotional atmosphere that doesn't conflict with the pace of the story, rather it enhances the range of the characters and their end goals. The growing tension of this tale is a live wire of page turning energy that made this an up-all-night book for me.

They Never Learn is one of the best books that I've read this year and I was well into it during Oscar season, reminding of a potential contender for the awards, Promising Young Woman(which did win Best Original Screenplay for writer/director Emerald Fennell).

While I haven't seen PYW yet, I do hope that Fennell considers this amazingly intense novel as her next project. They Never Learn would make for an excellent Patricia Highsmith pairing with that film indeed:

 

Well, I hope everyone else who took part in Spring Into Horror had as much fun as I did and thanks to Michelle Miller of Seasons of Reading for making this all possible.

While I didn't get to every book(I am making Final Sentence by Daryl Wood Gerber, the first in her Cookbook Nook cozy mystery series, part of my regular reading rotation), there's always a next time. Speaking of next time, my TBR for June's Sci-Fi Summer is being built and with two of my choices set in outer space, my reading for this challenge should be truly intergalactic: