I love a good thriller, but lately I have kind of been getting a bit bored with them. Thrillers are great because of the lead up and the twist that gives you that jaw drop moment, but I felt that getting a bit repetitive. That is until I read All the Dangerous Things by Stacy Willingham. This story is following a mother, Isabelle Drake, on her desperate search to find her son. On a night just like any other, Isabelle put her son, Mason, to bed in his crib and went to sleep next to her husband, Ben. The next morning she wakes up and starts her daily routine, except Mason hasn’t woken up yet so she leaves him to sleep while she does this. When it gets a little later, she goes to check to him and doesn’t find him in his crib or anywhere else in the house. After almost a year there are no leads or suspects that Isabelle is aware of. She has no job, no more husband, and gets almost no sleep. Isabelle is desperate to find her son and nothing can pull her focus from that. After speaking at a convention about her horrible tale she meets a man, Waylon, that wants to have her tell her story on his podcast. When she finally decides to do it, she finds answers that she hadn’t even asked the questions to. Isabelle starts to find answers to questions she never wanted to find. She isn’t the easiest to like right away, but she grows on you. The more you get to know her the more you start to understand the way she is. Looking into her past and living her present show you how much the people in your life shape it.
Favorite Quotes – “Maybe you need to stop retracing your footsteps. Maybe you need to try a new path.”
“I had come to think of him as a library book, entering my life on rented time. Something that I could enjoy for a few hours, curled up and comfortable, devouring as much of him as possible before our time was up. And because he wasn’t mine, I couldn’t scribble in the margins or write my name on the spine; I couldn’t leave my mark on him in any discernable way.”
Books Upon my Nightstand 