If you have been following this blog long enough, y’all know how much I hate reading books out of order if they are in a series. So when I realized that The Stories You Tell was the 3rd book in the Roxane Weary series, I did a facepalm. I prepared myself for being lost while reading this book. Well, I lucked out. The Stories You Tell can be read as a standalone book.

I enjoyed The Stories You Tell storyline. I thought that the storyline was well written. There was a little lag in the middle of the book. That happened right around when Andrew got arrested. But the book got back on track shortly afterward.

I liked Roxane. She committed to finding Addison after Andrew called her that night. She was also committed to finding out the truth when Andrew got arrested. I was iffy about her relationship with Catherine. I don’t know what went down in the first two books, but there was a disconnect between them the beginning. I was also confused about what was going on with Tom. The end of the book didn’t help with my confusion.

The mystery angle of the book was well written. The author did a fantastic job keeping where Addison was and what happened that night at the club under wraps. There were several other storylines (the dead ex-cop, the missing club staff, and the dating app) that were spun off from the main plotline. The author also did a fantastic job of combining all the secondary plotlines into the first one. When she started doing it, it didn’t make sense. But, after the scene with Brock, it began to make sense.

The end of The Stories You Tell was intense. It went lightning fast from the moment Roxane started putting things together. For a brief minute, I did think Jordy was in on what Elise was doing. But my mind was changed shortly after that.

The Stories You Tell is a fast-paced mystery with lots going on. If it weren't for Roxane sharing her theories as to what is going on, I may have been a little lost. Actually, her character and personality are what kept me the most intrigued and interested. I love her dry sense of humor and slap in the face, tell it like it is demeanor. I did not the read the first two books in the series, but figured I would try to read this one first since I won the ARC of it, and read that it could be read as a standalone. That being said, I would likely read the others knowing that I would get to hang out with Roxane again...

This series is a straight forward PI series. This time the story involves a missing person. Roxane gets a weird call from her brother late at night. A gal he had a two night stand with showed up late at night at his apartment . Disheveled, frantic. She makes a phone call and then leaves. When Roxane tries to relieve his mind the next day by checking up on her, it appears the woman has gone missing. And her place of employment, a night club across the street from her brother’s apartment has closed unexpectedly.

I liked Roxane. Unlike so many PI characters, she’s fairly solid other than a tendency to sometimes drink too much, a tendency she inherited from her dead policeman father.

The plot gets twisted as we go along. There are lots of characters here, but it’s never difficult to keep track of them or of the multiplying plot lines. The book has a great dark, gritty atmosphere. This kept my interest throughout and I had no clue how it would end.

My thanks to netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advance copy of this book.

I enjoyed this book, the main character felt like someone real, like someone i might know, which i don't usually feel. LIghter story than I usually read but still with some depth

I was in the mood for a great mystery/suspense novel and Kristen Lepionka came through big time with The Stories You Tell!!! This is the third book in the Roxane Weary series, but I had absolutely no problem jumping in here. Each novel centers around Roxane Weary, a private investigator, who has street smarts, amazingly sharp instincts, and a tough as nails demeanor!

I loved the storyline and found myself finishing this novel in one day because I was completely captivated! The mystery really had me stumped which for me is a sign of fantastic writing! I really enjoyed Roxane Weary as a main character, I found her very realistic with real world issues. Roxane is 100% a bad-@ss women, but I loved that she still had a big heart underneath it all! The Stories You Tell is a 4.5 star novel that I thoroughly enjoyed! I am definitely going to be reading the first two novels in this great series in the very near future!

Isn't it interesting how you can think you know exactly what your likes and dislikes are, and yet sometimes you're still able to find something that sweeps you out of your feet and surprises you? I enjoy a couple of police procedural mysteries here and there, but I've been over the noir-ish, troubled, alcoholic detective trope for ages. When I began the Roxane Weary series, I was super skeptical when meeting the leading lady - recently deceased father, alcoholic, down on her luck, generally messing things up. I thought, here we go again.

The fact that we're three books in and I have yet to give any of them less than a five shows you that I have, indeed, been swept of my feet.

In "The Stories You Tell" we continue following Roxane through yet another mystery that seems to fall into her lap. She's hired to figure out who's putting out cheap knockoffs of a new brand of high-end leggings, but is roped into finding one of her brother Andrew's former beaus after she shows up suddenly at his place and gets him into a little mix-up, so to speak.

There's not only an interesting mystery to keep you interested here, but once again I'm fascinated and invested in Roxane and the side characters, and their intricate relationships. The author manages to avoid falling into a tricky stereotype with Roxane - who, yes, is a functioning alcoholic and kind of a mess, but also smart as fuck, not above to requesting help (!!!! I LOVE THAT) and also bisexual. The dynamics of who Roxane is come into play as her relationships affect her state of mind. There's been a sort of love triangle in this series up to this point, and although it seems to be pretty resolved now, I have a feeling it's not the last we'll see of it. But it's one of those rare instances where a love triangle MAKES SENSE, and is not just cliched drama.

While in some mystery series you could jump into the story at any point, this will not be possible here. It's not impossible, mind you, but you'll be missing out on a lot of the details that make this story truly a standout from its genre. But investing your time on getting up to date with all of the books that are out so far will definitely be worth it.

I was already a hardcore fan of this series, but my woman crush on Roxane Weary just grew to immense proportions. Some of the best crime fiction stories are the ones featuring a quiet power; I'll gladly sacrifice flashy twists and over-the-top drama for a grounded, consistent procedural, as I'm always more drawn to the character driven plots that feature clever cases. All three books in this series are fabulous, and if you haven't read them I urge you to start from the beginning immediately and catch up, but this particular installment was remarkable.

"A mystery with a deadline-what could go wrong?"

First, let's start with the basics. Lepionka has done a spectacular job of taking the police procedural format and giving it a feel that's easily relatable to, well, people who aren't on the police force. Placing an "amateur" P.I. in the lead gives a unique flair without so much been there, done that, while still getting plenty of involvement from the police side of things. The Stories You Tell actually carries over some loose ends from the previous novel, What You Want To See, and we juggle many interlocking plot threads in this installment, but I promise it's not difficult to follow or keep track of. In fact, it's really beautifully done where, as one thing is solved, it triggers a thought process for Roxane to solve the next thread, and so on. I. Loved. This! What a unique way to tell a story, and this kept me guessing until the very end, without throwing some unbelievable twist in to do it. Follow the clues, friends, and you may guess the ending before I did.

Now, on to the portions that made this a 5 star read. Part of the reason I'm able to get swept up in this series is due to the atmospheric quality of writing that the author provides; I've never stepped foot inside Ohio state lines, but I definitely feel like I've paid Columbus a visit on three separate occasions. I've grown rather fond of, and quite attached to, the entire cast of this series, and that love just deepened upon finishing this particular installment. Roxane is hit with conflict from all sides-she, along with her brother and mother, are finally starting to grieve the loss of her father, and are finding along the way that they may not have known him as well as they thought they had. Weary is also struggling with her romantic relationship, because we all know that wherever Catherine goes, trouble follows. Up until being asked to look into the disappearance of her brother's ex-girlfriend, her cases have been slim and frustrating. We finally get to see everything come to a head, which also illuminates personal demons that other characters have been dealing with as well. *cough* TOM *cough*

If you're a part of the growing cult following of The Weary Series, do yourself a favor and start this immediately. Dust off that arc, or crack it open on pub day. I'm truly left with a book hangover, and TBH I would probably sell one of my kidneys for the fourth book that is, quite likely, not even written yet. I can't recommend this series highly enough!

Dark, Complex, and Gripping

The Stories You Tell is a complicated mystery that centers on an even more complicated Private Investigator.

Private Investigator, Roxane Weary, gets pulled into a tangled web involving a missing person, a murder, and a mobster--the main suspect happens to be her brother, Andrew. What seems like a straightforward missing persons’ investigation is much more complicated than it first seems.

The Stories You Tell is the third book in the Roxane Weary series. This can be read as a standalone, but I recommend starting with book one.

Roxane continuously describes wintertime in Ohio as gray--that is how I would describe the tone and atmosphere of The Stories You Tell. It is not as dark as previous installments, but there is still a lot of darkness surrounding Roxane and her family. Roxane's character has grown. She is still a mess when it comes to her love life, but she seems to have matured a bit and toned down her self-destructive behavior, for now.

This is one of my favorite series. With that being said, I didn’t love the mystery as much as I did in the earlier books in the series. The parts involving Andrew were most interesting, but when he was taken out of the equation I was a little bored. However, this is a character-driven series and my time with Roxane’s character pushed any qualms I had with the mystery to the side.

Roxane’s character is the reason to read this series. She is rough around the edges, but extremely intelligent and quick-witted. I find her voice mesmerizing. I want to know everything about her and everything about her family. There are many layers to her character and the little bits revealed about family are so intriguing.

Even though I didn't love the mystery, Roxane's voice kept me turning the pages!

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books in exchange for an honest review.

When P.I. Roxanne Weary receives a late night phone call from her brother Andrew about a panicked young woman who banged on his door and used his cell phone, she knows he’s in more trouble than he realizes. The woman was a DJ at a local under ground club that has abruptly shut down and now the police are asking questions Andrew can’t answer. Throw in a local mobster, a missing detective and a kinky dating app called “Bus Pass” and you have one heck of a mystery.

This is the third book in the series probably best read in order. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy of this book.

Cheers to Kristen Lepionka for a great thriller! I read this as a standalone and had no problem - actually, I am positive I will go back to read the first book of this series. Roxanne is a great character, and extremely well-developed. In this book, Addison Stowe has gone missing yet there are hints that she is still alive and loosely tied to Rox's brother, Andrew. I did forget to take notes, however, Tom, a member of the police force in Columbus, Ohio was a long-time friend of Frank, Roxanne's dad, and a wealth of help to Roxanne. It was suggested that he loves Roxanne, but I will let the reader decide.

We also meet "sometimes" on the police force, Mickey Dillman, briefly. His wife, Sunny, figures into the story later on...

We need to find out what is gong on (or not) at the nightclub - Nightshade, why a number of workers there disappeared and what the app - BusPass - is all about!

The answers to these and many more questions come rapidly and are unexpected! A book sure to be a great summer read!!!

Many Thanks to St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books and NetGalley for a great read!

Welcome back, Roxane Weary! It's always a great time returning to a beloved character and Roxane is certainly one of my favorite flawed heroines! We return to our favorite PI once again finding herself enmeshed in a case due to personal factors - this time concerning her brother Andrew and a missing girl. As Roxane tries to navigate her relationship with her girlfriend, Catherine and also her feelings for Tom, her late father's partner, she remains utterly unapologetic about the person she is - one of my favorite things about her!

In The Stories You Tell, both Roxane's life and the mystery kept me completely captivated until the very end. I'm now ready for the fourth installment in this series!

Thank you to St. Martins Press for an advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

Roxane Weary seems to getting her life in some order when her brother Andrew ends up in jail. Suddenly she's thrust into a search for a missing woman while her sometimes-lover Catherine takes off for a conference in Rhode Island and the second anniversary of her father's death approaches. The first book in this series moved at a breakneck pace and reflected Roxane's inner turmoil. In the next two books, the pace has slowed down as Roxane changes her outlook and becomes more settled. The Stories You Tell provides an unexpected twist as Roxane manages to figure out things at the end. Looking forward to more in this series.

This series is fantastic! I really liked the first book, but honestly, they just keep getting better and better. Roxane is such a great character and I love the balance Lepionka has found between the mystery element and the development of her recurring characters. The secondary characters change up a bit from book to book, but I love Roxane's relationship with her family and her growing friendships with Tom and Shelby. No comment on Catherine.

Lepionka is a really great writer. I've said this in other reviews, but I know she's great at connecting her readers with her characters because of the level of frustration you feel for them. The characters are extremely compelling and her plots of so relevant to today's society. They are always, predominantly, mystery novels, but she weaves a lot of relevant social commentary into her stories that makes them so much more meaningful and relatable to her readers. She didn't have to do anything special with these books and I think they still could have been successful, but I love that she takes the effort to make her stories diverse.

I love that Roxane is bi-sexual and I love how she incorporated some thoughtful commentary on racial justice and equality in this book. Her previous books have focused on the inequity that women face in the justice system and I like how she spent a little bit of time in this book looking at how black people are disenfranchised in the system and drawing attention to the ways in which white people don't realize what kind of privilege they actually have.

I'm not going to get into the plot too much. At this point, the plot of the mystery doesn't really matter to me, I'm here for Roxane. I would definitely recommend reading the series in order though because otherwise you'll miss out on all the great character development! The only thing that wasn't great about the book was that the transitions between scenes were very abrupt, with no break in structure to let us know the scene had changed. I think this is just a quirk of the ebook arc I had though and I'm expecting this will be changed in the finished copy.

So in conclusion, I highly recommend this series. I totally flew through this installment and read the whole thing in a single day!

I really enjoy this series. Roxane Weary is a private investigator who carries on the tradition of being jaded, prone to drinking a bit much, familiar with mean streets, and a champion of the down-and-out. In this case, her brother calls her when an ex-girlfriend makes a sudden appearance at his apartment, in a state and scared out of her wits before taking off. Can Roxane track her down and make sure she's all right?

She reluctantly agrees. But then the police begin to think he did something to her, and things get complicated.

It took me a while to get into the swing of this story. It's practically traditional that the PI will be reluctant to take on a case, but in this situation it seemed a bit implausible that she would do so much simply because her brother was concerned about a girl who didn't even mean much to him. But after a while, I got caught up in the story, and by the end it was quite a page-turner.

I was bowled over by Kristen Lepionka's debut. I'm already looking forward to her next case.

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing this ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Whew. Roxane Weary. Love this character and loved her even more in this next installment of her life. The author illustrates a well-rounded character: intelligent, caring, damaged, ready to give, hurting, but not about to let someone trample on her. Which leads us to the other people in Roxane's life, who are brought out more in this book.

Can we talk about Catherine just a hot moment? OhMyHell. The perfection of her manipulation, and Roxane's parry to her thrusts ... genius! Some of my favorite moments.

But the crime is at the heart of the book, so here we go. I loved following along as Roxane jumped into the case and niggled down every little rabbit hole to gather up the clues. The pieces of the puzzle were complicated and varied. I marveled at a brain that could think up all these pieces and people and dynamics and fit them so intricately together.

Then we finally came to the end, which is where things fell apart for me and downgraded an excellent 5-star book to 4 stars.

[(spoiler) We never learn whether Addison went willingly with Elise because she (Addy) was afraid of being blamed for Mickey's death and needed a place to hole up and hide for a few days. Or did Elise kidnap her? Wouldn't Addison have gone with her willingly since they were "best friends?" This could have been explained easily enough at the end by Addison in the hospital. But all we get is the letter from Elise to Brock, which discusses her jealousy of Addison and Brock's feelings for her, and nothing about her taking or harming Addison. And when would Addison have realized that Elise meant her harm, or was holding her against her will? This was a major thread of the story and just not tied up tight enough for me.

I was also confused regarding the BusPass accounts. I know Elise acted like she was Addy to con all those guys out of big $$$, and she also had a fake account as the guy "Corbin." But if Addy had an account to talk with "Corbin," wouldn't she see her own name on another account? The waters were certainly muddied throughout that section when it came to light and everything was "explained." Which means it was confusing as hell for me.

For the above, a 1-star downgrade. (hide spoiler)]

Despite my bit of frustration, I can't wait for the next Roxane Weary installment to see where story threads pick up and how they develop. I mean, how about that hot sauce!

This series gets better with each installment.

The plots are always layered, with lots of characters and little pieces that I find impossible to tell how they connect. But when everything comes together in the end, the solve never feels convoluted or ridiculous. They feel smart and leave me excited to try and figure out the next one.

I really like Roxane Weary. She’s a flawed character but she’s self aware enough to acknowledge and embrace her flaws. I had a really hard time getting into this one and stopped a few times to read other, more engaging book, but once I really got to the core of the book, I was hooked. I read the last 2/3 in a day. There is a lot of timeliness to this book and the mystery was a layered one. Really enjoyed this newest chapter in Roxane’s story.

This is my first Roxane Weary story and I didn’t have trouble reading it without reading the previous books. There are twists and turns until the end that keep you on your toes. I found this enjoyable and plan to go back and read the previous books.

I love Roxane Weary. Lepionka's detective is smart, snarky, and flawed, but also capable of change and growth. Roxane doesn't have it all together, but she also no longer keeps a flask in her glove compartment - progress! I also think that these mysteries keep getting better and better. In this one, Roxane's brother Andrew is visited by an ex, who mysteriously shows up to use his phone and then disappears. Roxane tries to track her down, but gets caught up in a mystery that includes old faces and new. Roxane is also trying to make things work with her ex, Catherine, and working a delightful (and paying) case featuring athleisure. You probably don't have to read these in order, but I'd recommend it to get the full richness and context of Roxane's world. These books are so, so good -- I cannot wait for the next one.

Loved the first two in this series. This one was good, but not as pulse-pounding. Still a decently quick read, and I look forward to the next entry in the series!