Such A Quiet Place by Megan Miranda

Hello everyone.  I hope your day has been very nice.

Hubby and I are house people.  We love looking at houses and have owned all different kinds.  We bought our first house the month before we were married with our honeymoon money (yes, I realize I recently told you this...I'm not losing it...well, I am, but I'm just rounding out my story, geez).  When we had a house built, it was lots of fun.  Choosing the lot, then house plan and all the interiors.  It was a lot of firsts for us, including the first time we had a Home Owners Association.  Now if you aren't aware of what that is let me enlighten you.  It is a group that you hand over a bunch of your money to that then turns around and tells you all the stuff you can't do with your own house.  Now, I can support this to a point.  I don't want my neighbor to paint their house hot pink and reduce my value.  However, we received a nasty letter for putting our trash can in the wrong place, on the side of our house.  They wanted it always stored in the back.  In the back?  We had a patio and a lot that sloped away. My trash can would have either have to have been lashed to our house or would have been half way to Georgia with the slightest breeze.  Oh sure, I see you laughing.  It's all fun and games until you have to put your trash can in your garage when it's 195 degrees outside. 

I recently read Such A Quiet Place by Megan Miranda.  I have read this author before and while I liked that book I was disappointed.  It was being sold as a thriller and was much closer to a mystery.  This time, despite the description being thriller, I went into it expecting a mystery.  Ahhh, much better.  This is the story of a neighborhood of just a few houses.  We follow Harper Nash whose husband has left her and her friend Ruby Fletcher has been convicted of murdering two of the neighbors.  When Ruby turns up, after having her conviction overturned and being released from jail, all the residents are on edge.  They fear a killer now is among them.  As we follow the story to find out why Ruby would come back to the scene of the crime, the reader is also urged to discover if she was even guilty in the first place, or had the group of homeowners worked together to send her to prison.  As with most places, we soon discover that everyone has secrets, some worse than others.

Expecting a mystery, I was much happier this time.  I thought perhaps it was a slow read or too wordy but then read a chapter out loud to hubby and discovered it was pretty darn good.  I needed to slow down and just enjoy it.  Pretty soon, I found myself picking it up over and over again...you know, just a chapter here, a few more pages there, maybe hit an even page number before calling it a night.  It was good and I now consider myself a fan.

We've been looking for another house, you know HOA fees are now three hundred dollars a month in some areas! I wonder if they have gold plated trash cans.