Review: Hemlock House by Katie Cotugno

Author: Katie Cotugno
Publisher: Delacourte Press
Publication Date: August 2024

They did some bad things.

More than a year after childhood friends Michael Linden and Holiday Poirot solved a headline-making murder on Martha’s Vineyard, Linden is ready to start over as a freshman at Harvard—and, he hopes, to reunite with his old girlfriend, Greer. But just as things start to heat up between them, a friend is found dead in Greer’s dorm, Hemlock House.

The police believe the death is the result of an overdose, but Linden suspects there’s more to the story. The victim was wearing Greer’s clothes and sleeping in Greer’s bed when she died . . . and Greer has a long list of enemies. Was this a case of mistaken identity? Was someone trying to kill Greer? Is she in danger? Is he?

Nearly everyone on campus has something to hide—and some mysteries are better left buried. 

 I was iffy on the first book involving these characters, so I probably should have skipped Hemlock House. This one takes place a year after the events of Liar's Beach.  Linden is at Harvard on a sports scholarship.  He runs into his ex-girlfriend, Greer, and gets pulled into another murder mystery when  her  roommate dies.

As with the first book. every character in this book annoyed me.  Linden's obsession with his ex was tiring.  She was extremely unlikable and he really needed to move on.  Holiday was probably the least annoying one here.  The solution just kind of happened.  They didn't really do any sleuthing that gets them any where .  Holiday just kinds of solves it and presents it to Linden.  It was very anticlimactic.  I  was just really bored throughout the entire book.  I'm pretty much done with this series should there be a third book. I think I'll skip it 

99 Days by Katie Cotugno

by:  Katie Cotugno
published by:  Balzer + Bray
publish date:  April 21, 2015

Day 1: Julia Donnelly eggs my house my first night back in Star Lake, and that’s how I know everyone still remembers everything—how I destroyed my relationship with Patrick the night everything happened with his brother, Gabe. How I wrecked their whole family. Now I’m serving out my summer like a jail sentence: Just ninety-nine days till I can leave for college, and be done.

This is the second book by Katie Cotugno that I've read.  I've liked both.  It took me awhile to get through 99 Days though.  I started it and got bored with it and put it away.  It was almost a DNF, but I got the audiobook and got all the way through and ended up enjoying it.

Molly and Patrick have been dating forever.  When she gets an offer to run track for a private school, Patrick gets possessive and jealous, and they break up.  During that short break up, she sleeps with his brother Gabe, but she and Patrick get back together and she never tells him what happens when they were broken up.  However, she did tell her mother, who is a famous author and uses the story in her next novel.  Now, everybody knows and Molly is the town slut.  She just needs to last through the 99 days of summer until she can leave town.

This book was very good about exploring the double standards for boys and girls.  It took until the end that Molly started understanding that, but she did eventually get there that the sister Julia shouldn't have been mad at just Molly but both of her brothers shared the blame as well too.  It had a good message about girls sticking by each other as well, one that more girls should hear.  For those two reasons, I would recommend this book to the YA readers.

How to Love by Katie Contugno

by:  Katie Contugno
published by:  Balzer + Bray
publish date:  October 1, 2013

Reena Montero has loved Sawyer LeGrande for as long as she can remember: as natural as breathing, as endless as time. But he's never seemed to notice that Reena even exists until one day, impossibly, he does. Reena and Sawyer fall in messy, complicated love. But then Sawyer disappears from their humid Florida town without a word, leaving a devastated—and pregnant—Reena behind. 

Have I been on a contemporary YA kick or what??  Another YA book I kept putting off and I don't know why.  I thought I wasn't going to care for it, but then once I got into it, I got really caught up in the story.

So Reena has know Sawyer forever.  Her parents and his parents own a restaurant together.  She's been in love with him forever, but he's never given her a second glace.  Then, at the most inopportune and most complicated time in their lives, they get together and tragedy strikes.  Instead of dealing with it, Sawyer runs away and leaves Reena behind, distraught and pregnant.  She picks up the pieces and moves on with her life.  She's thriving as a single mother when Sawyer suddenly shows up.  Can she trust him in her life again?

I thought this was a lovely YA book.  It told a great story and it was well written.  It dealt with some mature themes so it might be better for the older crowd.