#miranda smith

inktober!

i guess i’m doin antagonists from our last tabletop rpg campaign

The One Before - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A very thrilling, suspense-filled novel that is worth the read! I greatly enjoyed this psychological thriller with sooo many murder mysteries... they just kept piling up!! It's a rollercoaster of a ride, and it is really really fun to try and pin the murder on the culprit because the focus shifts to so many people! You might think you have the whole story figured out, but then a new chapter makes you completely second-guess what you thought was happening! There are a lot of twists and turns in this book, and they come at a fast speed once you cross a certain percent of the book. Read carefully or you'll miss details that come back to haunt the reader as they try to piece together what's happening before the characters themselves can! The mysteries literally keep unraveling until the very last page of the book!

The pacing of this story was really good. It hooked me in at the beginning as it starts right into the day the main character moves to a different town with her fiancé and the pacing stays consistent throughout, the plot never gets boring or drags from one chapter to another. The chapters themselves are back-and-forth between multiple narrators, and the past and the present. The best thing about this novel was that it never gets confusing where the past and present timelines are concerned. The chapters titles always let the reader know what to expect, if the chapter content didn't make it obvious already.

I would recommend this book to people who love suspense, along with murder mysteries, multiple-narrator stories, young white couple romance, old-rich-privileged families, and of course, a happy and satisfying ending!

There is a queer character in this book, and a queer relationship, however, it is not focus of any major plotline and is mentioned as a minor detail a few times in the story. There's also a small amount of homophobia directed at the queer person in the limelight of the major characters so beware of that as well - but there's a safe ending for this person and their significant other, no queer person died or was physically harmed in this novel!

All in all, this was a great book and I'm glad I got to enjoy it, I read it in two days, and I rate it at 5 stars, and I highly recommend it to anyone considering it to check it out!

2025 Reads

Smile for the Cameras by Miranda Smith

I forgot to post my June reads so here they are!

For accessibility:

Whispers of Dead Girls by Marlee Bush ⭐⭐1/2

What Happened to Nina? By Dervla McTiernan ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Best of All Worlds by Kenneth Oppel ⭐⭐1/2

Holly by Stephen King ⭐⭐⭐

Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia Butler ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Bad Creek by Peyton June ⭐⭐

The Final Scene by Steph Nelson ⭐⭐1/2

With a Vengeance by Riley Sager ⭐⭐1/2