My first book by this author and loved it. A bit slow to start and it jumps from present to past but very easy to follow and the story quickly speeds up. No one is as they seem and a great twist at the end. Would certainly read more by liv Andersson

Liv Andersson Little Red House
What an macabre story! I honestly didn't know who to trust right til the end!!!
This story was increasingly harrowing and interesting I was not sure I wanted to find out what happened at the same time couldn't put it down! Well done Liv, you really know how to hook your readers👍

Excellent writing. Deep characters. Thick mystety. Lots of suspense. This was fantastic. A bit long but so worth it. Utterly gripping.

Excellent mystery that kept me guessing right to the end. Through two time lines, the reader follows Constance and her mother, Eve, as they try to navigate the mysteries of a small, rural Town in New Mexico. Well written, compelling twin plot lines and plenty of surprises, I loved this book. 5 big stars from me.

A cruel adoptive mother Eve. A serial killer. A red house in New Mexico. So many suspects. Chapters switch between Eve and one of her daughters.
Unusual plot, however I felt there were too many suspects,

I read The Little red House on vacation. Overall I enjoyed it, it was a bit disturbing/dark at times, but the writing was good and it flowed well.

Thank you NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the copy of Little Red House. Wow, this was quite a book! There was so much going on and it was hard to imagine, much less read about, an evil character like Eve. It actually made for some uncomfortable reading at times, so be warned. The writing was great and I was sucked right into the stories of Eve and Connie. If you love dark and twisty stories you will love this one. There is so much going on you will be kept guessing until the end!

Wow!! I can’t wait to read more from the author! I read this book in four days! I really don’t even know how to explain it?? It is like Mommy Dearest meets a serial killer. This book tells story in two different time lines one from Connie present and her adoptive Mother Eve 1997. The best Thriller to start my summer with a OMG, I didn’t see that coming. You have to read this book it will take you on a ride and have you talking about it long after you read it. ❤️❤️

Constance “Connie” Foster has been playing her mother “Aunt Eve’s games for 20 years but now Aunt Eve is gone so the games should be done too, right? Wrong. Aunt Eve leaves Connie a little red house with more questions than answers. They’re questions that no is willing or inclined to answer. But Eve is determined to get to the bottom of it no matter what..or who it costs her.

This was a dark, thriller type mystery with several twists and turns. The authors writing style was very enjoyable and I found myself not wanting to put it down. The twists weren’t comepletely unpredictable but I won’t say I had it completely figured out either. So all in all it was a great mystery and definitely a thriller! There are some darker topics talked about but it will be average for a regular reader of the genre. There is a lot going on in the book as the summary indicates: Eve’s search for Kelsey, Lisa the good Daughter, Jet the handyman, Connie and the Little Red House. But the author did a great job of balancing all the stories and readers will enjoy seeing the multiple stories unfold as Connie unravels the mystery. I can’t wait for the book to come out so my friends can read it!

What a disturbing ride. The story alternates between two timelines. In one, Eve is a mother searching for her runaway sixteen year old daughter Kelsey, who she believes has been the victim of a serial killer in New Mexico, Thirty years later, Eve has passed away and the bulk of her substantial estate is left to her "good" adopted daughter while the "bad" adopted daughter Connie merely inherits a dilapidated house in New Mexico. Eve has been cruel and vindictive to her daughters, and the mind games continue in her will with the uneven inheritance and various stipulations therein. This is suspenseful and creepy.

I’m not sure how to write my review for this book. I’m not going to lie. It kept my attention. Very dark and very twisty. But in the same sentence, they very dark was sometimes hard to read. (Quite a few triggering subjects that people may try to stay away from, rape, kidnapping, child abuse etc.) So sometimes I had to take a step back and return to the book a few days later.
The rest of the book was written so well. Very suspenseful and I really had NO CLUE where it was going to end up, and that’s hard to do for me. I usually can figure part of it out half way through.

Thank you net galley for allowing me to read and review this book!

Liv Anderson's Little Red House is a tale that has so many twists and turns that it is impossible to predict the ending. But once you get to the end, you see it is the only way it could make sense. This is the highest praise for a murder mystery I can give.

Little Red House is about twins who are adopted at a young age. Their adoptive mother, who wants the twins to call her Aunt Eve, is not kind to them. She is very wealthy but quite unforgiving. She homeschools the twins so they have few others in their lives.

Aunt Eve's death leaves them with some very specific demands or they will not be able to inherit her fortune. She splits up the twins for 3 years and sends one to the west coast while the other stays on the estate in Vermont. They may not visit each other and must stay in the places where they are. From there, things become even more bizarre for both twins.

Little Red House is suspenseful and hard to put down, a must-read for fans of the genre!

Back in 1997 Eve's daughter was the victim of a serial killer. After this traumatic event, Eve adopted Connie and Lisa. Whilst Lisa was the perfect daughter, Connie was a difficult child and Eve had to discipline her continuously. In the eyes of Connie, Eve was nothing but a cruel and sadistic mother. Fast forward to present time, Eve has passed away, leaving her estate to Lisa and a dilapidated Little Red House in the middle of nowhere to Connie.

The book is written via two different storylines which converge at the end. The first one is set in 1997 and revolves around Eve's search for her daughter Kelsey who is lured in by a serial killer. Kelsey wasn't exactly a model daughter and the police didn't do much to help at the time. The second dual timeline is set at present time and describes Connie's life after inheriting the dilapidated house from Even, and subsequent attempts to reconcile her feelings towards her mother. Of course it's not that simple and it turns out that there's more than meets the eye. We soon learn that Eve may have been a tad too strict to her and her sister Lisa for no apparent reason. Why did Eve leave the house to Connie? Why did she never talk about it when she was alive? Could it have a connection to Kelsey's disappearance? Did Eve know more than she let on?

Little Red House was quite a read and I don't say this lightly! I was very impresed by Liv Adersson's imagery and vivid writing, and can definitely see this book being turned into a TV show...! With that being said, they weren't joking when they wrote the book description -Eve's mind games are indeed cruel and sadistic.

The reason why I'm only giving this this novel 4 stars is because it is not for the faint hearted! I confess I skimmed through a few parts because I couldn't handle it. So obviously I am unable to rate it fully. The depiction of Kelsey, Eve's murdered daughter, was so shocking and it was so difficult if not impossible to sympathise with her and then... boom! the twist hits you like a ton of bricks... wow

goodreads.com/booksireadandliked
Disclosure: I would like to thank the publisher and author for my advanced review copy of the book. This is my honest review

This novel had an interesting premise with dual time lines which followed a mother and her daughter.

I found the book a little monotonous with everyone being so secretive. I understand suspense, but it felt as if there was a stand still in the plot as nothing was being revealed until the end of the novel.

I felt there were still lingering questions once finishing and that not all loose ends were tied up.

I did enjoy Connie and Eve as the main characters. They were strong woman able to stand on their own.

The twist in the end was a final flourish.

In 1997, Eve Foster’s daughter, Kelsey, vanishes without a trace in a small town. Eve is convinced that she’s the victim of a serial killer who’s been hunting women in the region—but Kelsey’s body is never found.

Twenty years later Eve has died and left everything to her adoptive twin daughters. Lisa gets the bulk of the fortune and Connie gets the Little Red House in New Mexico what follows is not something I would have expected.

This book switches between Eve's point of view and Connie's twenty year later. The back and forth of the chapters isn't forced and seems to move the reader to continue reading to see what happened at the end of the book.

When Connie gets to the house in New Mexico it is dilapidated and filthy, but the outside of the house is immaculate kept up by a caretaker Jet. Connie wonders why she never heard of the house or the town from her mother..

I definitely will recommend this book to my book club.

Bleak, dark, twisty mind games that keep pulling the rug out from under you! As so many jaw dropping, shocking, mind blowing chapters later you keep asking yourself WTH I just read!

The plot line is so interesting, captivating, gripping! It picks up your interest from the first chapter, making you hate with ever fiber of Eve Foster’s being as you keep reading about her bizarre, sociopathic behavior and her amazement to play dark, dirty games with her adopted daughters to ruin their lives.

The book goes back and between two lines: at the first timeline takes place New Mexico, 1997 : where Eve Foster at the age 30, looking for 16 years old daughter Kelsey who ran away from the house and last seen in this place. From the opening of the book we understand she’s captured by a dangerous man.

And in the present time we met with Constance: one of the twin girls adopted and raised ( mostly tortured by sick games) by Eve. Since she’s sixteen, Eve sends Constance to different big cities, leaving her alone with a little money as a prey for dangerous people. If she can’t survive by living in the streets and calls her back, Eve locks her in the basement for days to punish her. It seems like she teaches her to sharpen her survival skills.

And now the year of the mother Eve is dead under suspicious circumstances. Constance returns back to the estate to unite her twin and obedient sister Lisa to hear the will.

There is no surprise that Eve still plays games from her graveyard. He leaves her good daughter Lisa a thirty million dollars and entire estate as she leaves Constance a dilapidated shack of house in New Mexico and hired a mysterious caretaker Jet Montgomery to live with her for 3 years.

Constance realizes this is one of the sick games of her mother. But she has no idea what kind of dangerous secrets the haunted house holds and what kind of trouble she gets herself into by moving in Nihla/ New Mexico where the throwback girls are raped and brutally killed. Will she be one of those victims or will she dig out to find the connection between Eve’s investigation in the past and the perpetrator of town’s dead girls?

This book is fast pacing, gripping and especially the final twists you never see them coming were absolute delight!

So many thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for sharing this amazing digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.

Little Red House by @liv Andersson
⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

In the 70' a daughter of a wealthy widow disappeared, the quiet town of Nihla, New Mexico happened to be her last known whereabouts. Not so heartbroken Eve sets out to find her daughter. But not for the reasons one would assume of a mother. Flash forward to the now and Eve has passed away. Naming twin daughters in her will . One is set to inherit the entirety of the fortune and estate ; well the other on , gets a severe fixer upper shot gun home in the middle of nowhere with a neighbor/ keeper who happens to live in the shack just outside the back door. .

The entire novel was a heck of a slow burn . BUT , let me tell you !
I was hooked from the very first page and couldnt put it down . The twists and turns . The ups and downs . The sadistically imagined scenes . The heartbreaking truths . And the chain of lies set forth from page one. This book had it all . The ending did break my heart . As I had hoped for a sliver of happiness to come out of the story. But alas. No happy ending here . I deducted one star for not fulfilling my need for the happy ending, and of course for being a slow burn . Regardless of these two personal level issues... the book was great !

I really enjoyed this book because I was actually surprised by some of the twists that happened at the end of the book. I did not give this book five stars because I thought that it wandered a little too much for my liking, but it was still a quality read.

Pleasantly suprised how much I liked this book.

Connie inherits a small, shotgun style house in New Mexico after her adopted mother passes away. More
mysterious than why her affluent mother owns a dingy, broken down house in the desert is that women from out of town tend to end up dead. And the police don’t seem to care.

Many, many twists and turns throughout the plot. Some I guessed, but for the most part, Andersson kept me guessing.

Great suspenseful read.

Thank you Crooked Lane Books and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. IYKYK, my reviews are always honest.

Writing: 2.5/5 | Plot: whyyyy/5 | Ending: no seriously, why?/5

THE PLOT

20-ish years ago, Eve Foster was scouring Nihla, New Mexico for her runaway (frankly out of control) daughter, Kerlsey. Fast forward, Eve has left her adopted daughter, Connie, a dilapidated red house in Nihla. Why? Is this another one of Eve's sick games? Connie is about to find out.

MY OPINION

LE SIGH. First and foremost, if you want to read the equivalent of an HBO series with filmed in sepia tones with lots of long dramatic pauses, b roll, and rando sex scenes, then this is for you. I think this would definitely work as a series, but it wasn't hittin as a book.

I recently reviewed a guilty pleasure read and detailed what differentiates an over the top book from being enjoyable to annoying. Chiefly, it was the author doesn't try to punch above their weight class and attempt something complex, moody, and literary. The multiple storylines were over the top and nonsensical: a deranged mother hellbent on "playing games" with her daughter by sending her to various towns across US with $100 and just a backpack. Absolutely not.

This "plot" heavily relied on everybody being mute. It makes no sense to slip someone a note with a name and then be like STOP ASKING ME QUESTIONSNSONFSNGNKKSGNK!!! Bro?? A good suspenseful story is like Sharon Bolton's Dead Woman Walking, chock full of well-disguised clues and red herrings that give the reader a chance to figure it out. And then when the twisty twist hits you're like AHAAAAAA the math is mathin!!! But since nobody was saying shit, the author could've literally said: aliens with pineapples for eyes did this shit, and you couldn't disagree because there was no hints to say otherwise along the way.

Every character, except Micah the rescued street dog, was unlikeable. Eve? Whack, up her own ass, should take her millions and get a top notch psychiatrist on retainer. Connie? The only way she handled stress was sleeping with the closest guy available. The townspeople of Nihla? Miserable, unhelpful, weird.

Also... did one of three black characters really need to be named LeBron? LEBRON? LEBRON!?!?!? C'mon now.

Ok, I'm wrapping it up. This had potential but should've went for wholesome vibes instead of dark and brooding.

PROS AND CONS

Pros: interesting premise, dual timelines, Micah the dog

Cons: overwritten, trying too hard, illogical, relied heavily on zero communication between main characters