Fabulous thriller that kept me eagerly turning the pages!! Fantastic characters and plot, could not put it down.

Thief River Falls

Thanks to the author, publisher, and Netgalley for the eARC. All opinions are my own.

Quick synopsis: Lisa, a writer, stays secluded in her home after tragically losing her family. Then, a runaway boy shows up on her doorstep claiming to have witnessed a terrible crime, that powerful people want to keep covered up. At what cost will Lisa go to protect the boy and bring light what he witnessed...

My thoughts: What a unique premise - the synopsis really hooked me. The author is a great descriptive writer, in terms of character details and setting. In the beginning, the action starts pretty early on, getting me more and more intrigued. Because of this, I was invested in the story very quickly; however, soon, I did start to get a bit frustrated with the protagonist and some of her actions. I also didn't love the twist/ending - hard to talk about with giving any spoilers away. This took away from the overall experience for me, but was still a decent book that I'd recommend.

Review to come on #bookstagram

"Thief River Falls" is a story about an author, Lisa, who by chance has Aldo written a book called "Thief River Falls." So it's a story within a story where reality and fiction meld. Set in the rural lands of Minnesota, this story features a lost child nicknamed Purdue, who has people looking for him, people who will never stop, people who will never forget that Purdue saw something he shouldn't have. It's a story of a woman on her own with this lost kid and everyone turning against her. It's fast-paced, although the believability doesn't always hang together.

I just could not connect with this book. I enjoyed the mystery - where is the nameless boy from? As well as Lisa's own past - caught my attention. But this book just dragged for me.

***Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!***

3.75/5 ⭐

I actually did like this!
The premise of the book is from the beginning really interesting. Even though there is a certain point in the book where the action seems so go a bit off, that wasn't really something I worried about. I was really pleased with the human emotions exposed throughout the action, well-contoured and with nice, deep touches from place to place. And somehow, the scene-building itself was quite well executed!

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* well that was....a wild, wild ride lmao like wow saw it coming but still dang :o

This book has very nice cover, little bit darker so it grab my attention. The book wasn't my best but not the worst.. the beginning of the book was very good, it didn't let you put book down but the rest of the book was little bit slow, cliche and little bit predictable. To be fair it did have some twist and the ending wasn't bad.
So my conclusion is the book was okay but didn't grab me as I wish.
Still thank you very much NetGalley and of course the publisher.

If you love mysteries, ghosts, (sudden) deaths or are a big fan of thriller and horror genre you should definitely read this book! It has everything a reader would want: action, adventure, scary scenes and it's also a light read! I devoured it.

I have been a huge Brian Freeman fan back to his days writing in a Duluth and the early astride novels. A author who puts suspense building in suspense. Thief a River Falls will not disappoint. Highly recommend.

3 for neutral, I could not past the first few chapters. I tried on a few occasions, will update later if able to finish. Started great, but lost interest early on and couldn’t get back into it,

What a wonderfully talented author. As soon as I started this I was hooked.. nothing else happens until I got through the twists and turns on this book.

I have really been in to books based in Minnesota. Mysteries set in Minnesota are especially the best. I really enjoyed how fast paced this book was. It caught my attention and held it the entire time. I couldn't put the book down and finished it in just a few days! Overall, I would highly recommend picking up this book!

The story was captivating at the beginning but unfortunately, I feel the entire plot is based on 'silly' assumptions. Also, the twist was not a surprise. I really wanted to like this one, but it felt short.

I DNFed this book around the 33% mark. Though the plot was mildly interesting, I never could become invested enough in the characters to continue further. There was something juvenile about the writing itself that felt stiff, which in turn made the dialogue unbelievable and resulted in flat characters. I'm sorry to say that it simply didn't work for me in any way.

So this is about an antogonist named, Lisa, a best seller author and basically famous in her hometown, Thief River Falls. She ends up finding a boy who is basically telling her that he witness a murder. This book was a total attention grabber from the very beginning. I like the antagonist's personality and how she is able to find ways to help the little boy despite having vague details of his backstory. It definitely was a total plot twist near the end between her and the little boy, it blew my mind. This is something I would totally watch if this was made into a movie. Best novel I've read and it deserves 5 out 5 stars and more. I am defnintely recommending this to all of you. A great mystery, suspense book. In my opinion, this was a fast pace novel. When you pick up a great book you basically devour it as fast as you can. This is my first Brian Freeman novel I read and I know for sure it won't be my last.

Ugh, cringe, it really shouldn’t take a whole month to read a 300-pager. I thought this was going in a totally different direction when I read “I wanted to know if you have ever been afraid that someone will bring your books to life” by some overly-aggressive-for-no-reason tertiary character. But as it turns out when people are crazy in Minnesota, their doctors and family members enable the crazy to no end. This was a total waste of time, poorly written (characters) book that used the worst scapegoat of a plot twist the author could think of. Pass, no other comments. Almost DNF.

Lisa Power, a writer with a successful novel set in her home town has suffered a spate of family tragedy. In an effort to change her setting, she leaves her family home and buys a remote farm house outside of town where she creates a "writer's cottage."

After refusing to answer the door to two policemen, Lisa later finds a child hiding in her outbuilding. He's scared, dirty, cold, and has no memory of what happened to land him on her property.

It's a suspense thriller and this begins a build-up of tension. The boy would remember little flashes and pieces of his puzzle but there are little things that don't quite make sense and something isn't adding up. The more the boy remembers the greater appears his risk and her unreasonable resolve to protect him--at all cost.

At this point, the reader is sucked into the storyline, marveling at the stoic child, recoiling at some of Lisa's unreasonable decisions on how to proceed. Lisa gets out to investigate after she shows the boy a special place to hide while she is gone. She is well-known in this little town and everywhere she goes is recognized but she gleans more pieces of the puzzle.

As the big reveal comes barreling into a mind-blowing climax, reality swerves head-long into unreality. Difficult to ascertain what is real and what isn't. WAIT! The reader is plunged...well, I can't tell you...but I'm beginning to get woozy...it's the twist! And the twist is a doozy. Now you may have seen this coming. I certainly knew something was wrong but was still in shock at the emotional conclusion. Gulp...just need some time to digest. And then, realized, there were a few holes, tiny things that bugged me and were left unexplained. It was certainly entertaining and is meant to be a standalone.

I received this digital ARC from the publisher through NetGalley and greatly appreciated the opportunity to read and review. My first book by this author, would definitely read another. Recommended.

This mystery/thriller started out well with interesting characters and a fun plot, but the writing worsened and the plot eventually fell apart which made finishing this book quite difficult.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43708240

Do you ever read reviews of novels right before you write your own review, and then feel conflicted about your overall feelings? I made the mistake of doing this earlier today and found myself confused. I read Thief River Falls today and really liked it. I sat down about 1:00 this afternoon to start reading and did nothing else until I finished. Then I made the mistake of looking at other reviews, so I had to take some time to reflect and question my own judgment.

What did I come up with? I still really liked this book.

As stated in the blurb, author Lisa Power lives in a remote cabin north of Thief River Falls, Minnesota which is also the title of her most recent bestseller. The novel opens with her returning home one rainy night, drenched to the bone, worn-out, haggard, etc. although we aren’t told why. After a really strange video chat with a California-based book club, Lisa goes to bed but later awakes to deputies outside of her home trying to get her to open the door. For some reason, she doesn’t open the door and hides. Not long after they leave, she is staring out the window and sees a young boy, dirty and rain-soaked in the yard. After finding this boy and bringing him inside, she realizes that he has suffered some sort of trauma and has no clue who he is or where he came from. She decides, until they figure out his identity, to call him Purdue. Which happens to be the name of the young boy in her latest novel.

After Lisa finds Purdue and takes him in, I then read pages and pages of bad decisions. If you find a young boy in your yard in the middle of the night, please just call the police. Don’t overthink it and do crazy shit. Just call the police, you crazy woman! Lisa, however, does not call the police. Moreover, this is the beginning of a wild ride trying to figure out who the bad guy is (or bad people), who she can trust, where to hide next, and where to search for clues regarding Purdue’s identity and what happened to him. This is the majority of the novel and, at times, I found myself skimming over pages. It started to feel tedious and overwritten. But I warn you not to do what I did because I ended up going back to re-read things because I realized I missed something. Even when things felt insignificant, I later realized that they were not.

Thief River Falls is yet another novel that I have recently read where I was required to suspend belief. Why? Because of all of the things Lisa did in attempts to hide Purdue, the amazing strokes of luck Lisa had while on the run, and all of the opportunities the “authorities” had to find Lisa and Purdue, yet they didn’t. Even worse, after the big twist near the end, I was confused about whether all of the things I had read were even accurate or if I had wasted my time trying to reconcile what I was reading with what I know as sense and reason.

Yet still, I really liked this book.

This is a psychological thriller, people. It is meant to get in your head, make you question things, and perhaps, creep you out a little. Read this with an open mind knowing that a big twist is coming. Just savor and enjoy the psychological thriller aspect of it all and escape for a few hours while reading. Ignore the fact that Lisa has given a cheesy name, “The Dark Star,” to all of her loss and trauma she has experienced over the years. Just read and enjoy it! I recommend this one and as long as you go into it without too critical of an eye, I think you will enjoy it also.

*Thanks to Thomas & Mercer, the author, and NetGalley for providing this review copy in exchange for my honest opinion!

t was like she was caught up in a small town version of "Hotel California". Thief River Falls welcomed her back but refused to let her leave.

Lisa Power author of best selling novel Thief River Falls in in production starring Reese Witherspoon. She has finally pulled it together. A thriller based in her hometown that the main prose is a mother and son and the fight to stay alive. Powers loves to get with her readers and when a question is prompted to her it is the beginning of a nightmare that she finds herself in back in her home town in North West of Minnesota. The question of if she was fearful if someone would bring to life the violence and fear in her books. The question troubled her and later that night in her own home, she is approached by a lost boy who cannot remember who he is but he is deathly afraid of two men after him to kill him. Lisa is drawn to this little boy and their unusual relationships leads to them trying to find answers and to try to escape those that are after them.

The characters were very confusing. It was a disconnect as it became unbelievable. When our family vacation spot of Bemidji was mentioned, I felt some connection to the story. You have to hold on to the very end for the dots to connect. Then you have to decide how it was played. The plot was clever however, it was the main character that remained aloof to me. With all that Lisa went thru, the pain of loss, grief, fear, it was not captured in descriptive detail but in passing. So if your cup of tea is character development vs plot, I always go with character development. In the end, I was to dizzy going in circles.

A Special Thank you to Thomas Mercer and Netgalley for the ARC and the opportunity to post an honest review