Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six / None of This Would Have Happened If Prince Were Alive

Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six

by Lisa Unger

Publisher: Park Row Books

Ginasbookreport Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre: Family Drama / Thriller

Read This If You Love: Crime Documentaries

In this new suspense novel by the talented Lisa Unger, everyone seems to have something to hide. It was like a mash up of true crime documentary stories collided and formed a suspense novel. Gripping!

When Hannah gathers with her parents, brother, and sister-in-law for Christmas, someone sneaks one last gift under the tree…DNA test kits. Cut to family retreat six months later and all hell breaks loose. Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six is a stormy thunderbolt of action wrapped up in plots you would find in a true crime documentary. I was hooked on this book and would have read it in one night if I hadn’t been so tired from the day. Books often rush through an ending that feels unsatisfying, but not this one. I was fully invested until the last paragraph. This is the right book for you if you like a complex family dynamic with a dressing of crime. 

What’s interesting is families that pretend to be happy, they have a carefully constructed facade, just barely propped up by secrets and lies. One breath and it all falls down. I can’t wait to see yours crumble. 

—Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six 

None of This Would Have Happened If Prince Were Alive

by Carolyn Prusa

Publisher: Atria Books

Ginasbookreport Rating: ⭐️⭐️.5

Genre: Humor / Chick Lit

Read This If You Love: Mom Humor 

I SO loved the title of this book. I mean, it has Prince in it! I immediately raised my hand and wanted to read an advanced copy. Pick me! Pick me! I literally have my own rom-com meet cute Prince story, so this was in my interest zone. Seriously, I went from not knowing a guy to him being my boyfriend during one playing of Purple Rain. It’s a long song…a lot can happen. 🤷‍♀️ That relationship was complicated before social media existed and had a status. We weren’t a good fit, but even that failed relationship had way more rom-com to it than this book. And, that’s a relationship where he proposed to me on the phone when we had been broken up for six months! (I said no and my Gram said, “You better say yes next time. You can’t expect more than two proposals in a lifetime.” LOL. Thanks, Gram.) Anyway, back to the book. It was very much NOT a good fit for me. Well, shame on me for not reading the book description and instead judging a book by the cover and super catchy title. I was lured by Prince and all the purple.

None of This Would Have Happened If Prince Were Alive is not a rom-com. It’s a humor novel geared toward moms. Now, I do not like to give critical reviews. Authors work so hard and publishing is not an easy task. So this is my opinion of the book, and it doesn’t mean that you won’t like it. With all that said, I wasn’t a fan. I found Ramona’s humor to be annoying and her decisions to be nonsense. I kept mumbling, “Oh, come on!” She is a stressed out mom in the middle of a literal hurricane. She suddenly finds herself balancing a life flung into turmoil, which leads to some pretty crazy adventures.