Don't You Cry by Mary Kubica & My Life in Books @MaryKubica

In downtown Chicago, a young woman named Esther Vaughan disappears from her apartment without a trace. A haunting letter addressed to My Dearest is found among her possessions, leaving her friend and roommate Quinn Collins to wonder where Esther is and whether or not she's the person Quinn thought she knew.

Meanwhile, in a small Michigan harbour town an hour outside Chicago, a mysterious woman appears in the quiet coffee shop where 18 year old Alex Gallo works as a dishwasher. He is immediately drawn to her charm and beauty, but what starts as an innocent crush quickly spirals into something far more dark and sinister.

As Quinn searches for answers about Esther, and Alex is drawn further under the stranger's spell, Mary Kubica takes readers on a taut and twisted rollercoaster ride that builds to a stunning conclusion.

Don't You Cry by Mary Kubica was published by Harlequin MIRA (Harper Collins) in hardback on 19 May 2016, the paperback edition is published on 25 August.


A missing girl and the appearance of a mysterious girl in a town just an hour away; this is the plot of Don't You Cry, and most people, me included, would read that blurb and assume that they know what will happen. Do Not Assume!  Don't assume anything because this author is skilled at throwing a curve ball or two and nothing is ever quite what is assumed.

Told from two viewpoints. Quinn is the roommate of Esther, the girl who has gone missing, and Alex is a young man who lives a pretty isolated life, works as a dishwasher and befriends an agorophobic neighbour. It's difficult to work out just how Quinn and Alex's stories are connected, but the author has a knack of drawing in her reader and there are snippets along the way that are clues to what is to come .... or what you may assume is to come ....

That's the main thing with Don't You Cry, it is full of the unexpected and lots of twists and turns and surprises and it kept me hooked.

Surprisingly, for a story that really is a psychological thriller, Don't You Cry is fairly slow moving, especially at the beginning, but the development of the characters are done very well and the action and pace cranks up quickly as the end of the story approaches.  And, what an ending! It certainly took me by surprise and was expertly done.

Great writing, well developed and interesting characters that contrast really well and a plot that delivers lots of surprises.

My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy of Don't You Cry for review.

I'm thrilled to welcome Mary Kubica to Random Things today, she's talking about 'My Life In Books'.

My Life In Books ~ Mary Kubica

Reading has always been an important part of my life.  I still remember the excitement as a child of gathering heaping loads of books from my local library and bringing them home to read.  There are a few books that have had a lasting impact on me, both as an author and as an individual.

The Babysitters Club by Ann M Martin  – I give credit for my earliest obsessions of reading to Ann M. Martin’s popular series, The Babysitters Club.   I was eight-years-old when the first book – Kristy’s Great Idea – released and by and large wanted to be one of the members of the club.  It’s no secret that I idolized Kristy, Claudia and the others, and even fashioned my own babysitters club with friends, created fliers and passed them out around my suburban Chicago neighborhood.  But more so, these books ignited a love of reading in me as I tore through them at warp speed and stayed up long past my bedtime to devour them all.      

Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt – There are books that stay with you for nearly forever, and this is one of them.  I read it with my mother when I was a child – there was nothing I loved more as a little girl than snuggling up in bed and listening to my mom read to me aloud.  I adored the Tuck family and for a young girl, this book was the first that raised thought-provoking questions for me about love and life and death.    

The Eyes of the Amaryllis by Natalie Babbitt – This Natalie Babbitt novel I read as a child, and still have entire chapters of it committed to memory.  With The Eyes of the Amaryllis, I fell in love with mystery novels, and was truly swept off my feet by the notion of ghosts and the unknown.  I’d like to think this novel had an impact on the kind of writer I would one day be. 

A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway – While most of my teenage years were spent devouring V.C. Andrews’s gothic novels, in college I fell in love with the classics – Dickens, Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald.  Of the many I read during that time, Hemingway’s A Farewell To Arms is the one that resonated most deeply.  His rendering of World War I kindled in me a love of history, while the relationship between Lieutenant Henry and Catherine Barkley completely broke my heart.

The Things They Carried by  Tim O'Brien – If A Farewell To Arms kindled a love of history for me, then Tim O’Brien’s Vietnam War memoir The Things They Carried firmly cemented it.  I read this book when I was studying to be a history teacher and now easily credit it as being my favorite book of all time.  Though it’s rare I read books more than once, this is one I pluck from my bookshelf every few years to read, like a visit with an old friend.

The Last Time They Met by Anita Shreve – I’m a fan of all things Anita Shreve, but The Last Time They Met has one of those bombshell endings that makes readers question everything they believe – and left me feeling as though the wind had been knocked from my lungs.  It’s a sensation that has stuck with me for the ten or more years since I’ve read the book, and one I hope to emulate in my own readers.  It had a huge impact on my writing style, and though isn’t a psychological suspense itself per se, the finally left me truly aghast in the very best way.

 

Before I Go To Sleep by S J Watson – As a writer of psych suspense, I’d be

remiss not to include in My Life in Books what I believe to be one of the most brilliant of its kind, S.J. Watson’s masterpiece, Before I Go To Sleep.  Smart and unique, Watson sets the bar high for authors in his genre.


Mary Kubica ~ August 2016 

Mary Kubica is the New York Times bestselling author of THE GOOD GIRL and PRETTY BABY. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in History and American Literature. She lives outside of Chicago with her husband and two children and enjoys photography, gardening and caring for the animals at a local shelter. Her third novel, DON'T YOU CRY, was released in May of 2016.

Visit Mary at http://www.marykubica.com/

Follow her on Twitter @MaryKubica

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