As someone who loved A Flicker in the Dark, I was so excited to give this a listen with the hopes that it would live up to it, but I think I can honestly say this was even better! There were several times that I was certain I had it all figured out and then nope, there was another twist thrown in that I didn’t see coming they just added a whole other layer to the story. A true psychological thriller. Well done!
Isabella has become an insomniac since the loss of her son Mason one year ago. He has been missing from his own crib and they police haven’t been able to figure out what happened. Isabella stumbles through her days on the most minimal amount of sleep she can get by on with her time spent trying to figure out what happened to her son, hoping to find the missing link that will bring her son back. She also gives speeches around local towns in the hopes that someone will have seen something they don’t even realize is important and it will help her find Mason. On her way home from one of these events, she meets a podcaster named Waylon who offers to dig into the case with her as he has been through loss of his own. No one believes her innocence, especially her ex husband. And once you start to hear some of Isabella’s past, you will question her innocence as well.
Told entirely through Isabella’s POV from the past and the present, it sheds light on who she is now and what she’s been through, including her marriage to Mason’s father and how his reaction to Mason’s disappearance very much differed from hers.
This was such a slow burn, captivating and totally suspenseful story filled with such intricate plotting that I couldn’t get enough of it.
I listened to the audiobook and it enhanced my enjoyment of the story.
Thanks to Minotaur Books and NetGalley for this audiobook arc in exchange for my review.

I absolutely loved A Flicker in the Dark so I was thrilled to get an advanced copy of the audio for this one. The narrator did an excellent job throughout the whole story and it was kind of different going through a book with only one point of view. The characters, storyline and twists were all so good. I definitely had moments that I was creeped out while listening to this on the treadmill. ;) This is exactly how a thriller should be written! I binged this book and cannot wait for this authors next book!

Definitely recommending adding this one to your TBR when it releases in January!


Thank you to the publisher and author for an advanced copy of All the Dangerous Things in exchange for an honest review.

I devoured this book. I was hooked in right from the start. I thought I knew where the book was going, but I had no idea. there were the perfect amount of twists. The the pace of the book was great. It wasn’t slow or too fast, and I didn’t want to stop listening. while the storyline wasn’t completely unique. I was still engaged and wanted to see how the story was going to unfold and I love the ending! I would definitely recommend this book. While I was a fan of the narrators voice and I think they did a great job with the narration, I feel like the sound quality quality wasn’t the best it sounded a little techno-y from my end.

Thank you Netgalley for sending this my way! I was gifted the audiobook! I'm not sure if it was the book or the Netgalley app but 80% + the app stopped after every chapter lol

Anyway back to this thriller! While it was a slow paced book and honestly I hated all the characters, I wanted to see how this played out or what happened. So many stories tangled into one another. Isabella is honestly a horrible human, who makes out with a married man at his wife's memorial? I mean he is no better of a person to be honest, he was completely trash in my book. I'm not sure which character wins being the biggest scum of the earth because Valarie is right there with stealing someone's baby when not knowing anything going on and believing a crazy person's lies.

It may be me but I'm over the podcast being brought into a book. Thankfully this was just a cover up, I was about to roll my eyes at that being mentioned. 🤷‍♀️

I do however feel horrible for Isabella's mother. That poor woman was struggling and tried to ask for help and was brushed off that everything is fine. Idk why men constantly ignore when women who just had a baby or lost a child say something is terribly wrong..... clearly she wasn't ok!!!! 🤬

Anyway, I highly recommend it if you enjoy a twisted thriller.

This is a very surprising thriller with an impeccable plot. In retrospect, I should have figured it out, because all the clues were there, but I was blindsided by the resolution. Isabelle has a history of sleepwalking when she was a child, but now she has the opposite problem: she hasn’t had a solid night’s sleep in one year. The problem started when her son went missing one night, while she and her husband slept. Her life has unraveled and she is now just trying to use the true crime community to find him. Some chapters are devoted to her childhood somnambulism. She may have done something unforgivable in that state so she may have done it again. Is she to blame or is there something more? The plot reveals each clue slowly, but every one makes you see Isabelle’s plight in a completely different light. She’s such an unreliable narrator that it’s easy to overlook hugely significant details. I really enjoyed it and Karissa Vacker does a marvelous job of portraying each character. Isabelle’s voice when she’s a child sounds younger, but the same as the older version. The rest of the cast gets a distinctive tone. This is only the second book written by the author, and I liked it even more than her first. As unhinged as Isabelle is, I sympathized and rooted for her. I loved the ending.
I chose to listen to this audiobook and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, #NetGalley/#Macmillan Audio!

AYO! I finished this in ONE DAY!
I have an early bedtime, mostly because sleep is life, but I stayed up late into the night to finish this one like I seriously couldn't put it down! I had seen mixed reviews about this one going into it, but I always try to go in blind and with an open mind and that perspective didn't fail me.

Isabelle Drake has hardly had a wink of sleep in 365 days because it's been a year since her small son has been kidnapped and the police have been unable to locate a lead worth following. Isabelle has been attending true crime conventions in an attempt to keep the story lively and aware in people's minds, and as she's flying home, she meets journalist/podcaster, Waylon who offers up his card and efforts in recording her story as a restless mother who's grasping for anything at this point that will help reunite her with her son.

Throughout the course of the book, we get flashbacks to her life before meeting her husband and having Mason and also get to learn more about how they came to get married, and it wasn't as traditional as most couples meet, for Ben was a married man when Isabelle met him. He was married until his wife met her unfortunate demise which was ruled an accidental overdose, or was it?

Taking things back even further, we get to understand and glimpse into Isabelle's childhood life in the humid marshes of South Carolina, alongside her sister Margaret. Isabelle suffers from sleepwalking and can't often remember what she does before and after those periods, and one morning Isabelle wakes to learn that her sister has drowned in the night and a scripted story from her parents, leading her to believe that she had something to do with the event.

All of these years later, when her toddler has gone missing, she begins to wonder if she had something to do with it, but due to her sleep-deprived state, she has no memory... You'll just have to read to find out!

✨ BOOK REVIEW ✨

All the Dangerous Things by @stacyvwillingham

Omgsh this book! I loved it even more than I loved Flicker!! It was so well done and I’m just so thankful for @stacyvwillingham & @minotaur_books for allowing me to be an early reader!! And the AUDIO was amazing!! Loved the narration and incredible storytelling!

First I should note the subject matter of this one was worrisome to me as a mom of three young kids and I knew that going into it thanks to some lovely reviews!

ATDT follows Isabelle, mom of toddler, Mason, who is kidnapped from his crib, and Isabelle will stop at nothing to figure out what happened. It flashes back & forth from her life as a child and her own traumatic upbringing and also present day to the one year anniversary of Mason disappearing. This is a classic, twisty, thriller where you truly do not know who to trust and it was UNPUTDOWNABLE.

You may think midway through that you know how this one will end but the author delivers on a twist you won’t see coming!

After loving “A Flicker in the Dark” and now this one, Stacy has def become an auto-buy author for me! I think her books are extremely well-written, easy to devour in one or two sittings, all while being fresh & unique. Can’t wait to see what she comes up with next!

Also, as a mom, I really appreciated the author’s note. You could tell a lot of time and consideration went into telling the story exactly how she wanted it to come across.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ an easy 5 stars from me!

Short synopsis: It’s been one year since 18 month old Mason Drake was taken from his crib, and his mother Isabella is desperate for answers.

My thoughts: As a mother of four, I cannot imagine waking up to find my baby gone out of his bed! That is like my worst nightmare ever!

I was hooked from the very beginning, trusting no one and pointing my finger at everyone. This was one wild twisty ride that left me guessing until the very last pages.

I loved getting the flashbacks to Izzy’s childhood and seeing her relationship with her sister Margaret. It was almost two stories in one as we watched her past slowly unfolding.

I usually struggle with the unreliable narrator troupe but the insomnia and sleep deprivation aspect was laid out so well that I couldn’t help but be sucked in.

Read if you love:
* Mental Health discussion
* Mothers
* True Crime Podcasts
* Kidnapping stories
* Childhood Flashbacks
* Insomnia/sleep deprivation stories

The audio on this was amazing! Karissa Vacker is one of my favorite narrators soo I knew when I saw she’d voiced this it would be amazing!

This was SO good! The writing was excellent and it was a fabulous follow-up to Willingham’s debut book Flicker in the Dark(2022).

It’s so easy to blame the mother. We meet Izzy as she’s approaching the one year anniversary of her baby son Mason’s disappearance. She is but a zombie walking through life, sleepless and alone. They say losing a child often breaks a couple, and in the case of Izzy and Ben, it was true. He didn’t even stick around for 6 months. They’re civil but he wants her to move on with her life because he certainly has.

Izzy is busy making the rounds on the true crime circuit. She finds their motives and ethics questionable, but they’re the only ones who haven’t given up on finding Mason. She ends up meeting a podcaster named Waylon who lost a sister and she finds that she can relate to him, as he isn’t one of the true crime junkies in it for the morbid fascination and proximity to tragedy without the consequences.

She agrees to tell her story on his show because it’s easier than continuing to jet across the country telling it over and over to crowds. At the same time, Izzy is remembering things from her childhood. She’s always had an iffy relationship with sleep, which can alter your perception. She can’t always trust herself because she used to sleepwalk. Did Mason need protecting from someone else.. or his own mother?

This was absolutely shocking and mind-blowing! This is going to be a new favorite author of mine because she keeps putting out hits and they’re just my style. Well-meaning but occasionally unreliable female leads. Creepy settings. The marsh gave this a slight atmospheric edge.

I have nothing negative to say or critique. Karissa Vacker narrated the audiobook and she kills it every single time! Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for the chance to read, listen, and review. This is sure to be an early hit of 2023!

Isabelle has not slept a single full night since her infant son, Mason, was taken from their home a year ago. She is unwilling to give up the search for her son and out of desperation she agrees to be interviewed on a popular podcast in hopes that a discovery might come of it. As the host of the podcast digs deeper into her life, it appears everything may not be what it seems and she doesn't know who she can trust, herself included.

After reading and loving A Flicker in the Dark I knew I had to read this one - and I am happy to report that I LOVED it! It was phenomenal on audio and one of the best thrillers I've read in a long time. There were a lot of twists in this one and I was second guessing every single person involved, Isabelle included. I liked how much this book kept me guessing with the likeable yet unreliable narrator. Definitely recommend this one!

4.5 rounded up to 5!

Thank you to Stacy Willingham, Netgalley and McMillian Audio for the ALC!

I really enjoyed Willingham’s first book, A Flicker In The Dark, but I think I liked this one even more. It was a great thriller. I like how it was told in two different timelines, the narrator was unreliable so you were always guessing, and the twists and turns were well written so I wasn’t able to guess. I thought I had it figured out, but was totally wrong!

As a mom myself, this book was sometimes hard to read, but Willingham did a good job of writing Isabelle’s pain and emotions.

I did not give this 5 stars because I did find the ending a little rushed. Everything seemed to happen all within the last 25%, and even though this made it hard to put down, it was a bit fast, and tied up a little too neatly. Overall though, I thought this was a great thriller and would recommend to anyone looking for a fast paced thriller!

This book comes out January 2023, so make sure you add this to your list of books to read in 2023!

This was outstanding!!! This is exactly the twisty psychological thriller I've been craving! 🙌🏼 Jaw-dropping, mind-blowing, suspenseful, unputdownable! Stellar from start to finish!

Following the disappearance of her baby boy, Isabelle Drake travels the country presenting her story to True Crime junkies. Some think she does it for the notoriety, others think she does it for the money. But Isabelle has her own reasons as to why she puts herself through this over and over again...

Isabelle can't rest until her little Mason is found, So with the help of a Podcast host, she begins looking at the case in a new way, including digging into some details of her own past.... even though she's deathly afraid of what she might find. 😳

I listened along as I read the ebook, and the audiobook was fantastic! Karissa Vacker knocked it WAY out of the park with this performance!! 👏 Her different voices for the characters, her young/old Isabelle voices... Such talent! I loved this in audiobook format.

This is one of my top thrillers of 2022!!! 🙌🏼 Very highly recommend in both formats

Thank you Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for my gifted ALC in exchange for my honest review!!! This was so freaking good and I'm so glad I had a chance to read it early!! ☺️

All The Dangerous Things by Stacy Willingham

Mrs. Willingham returns with another good thriller after writing A Flicker In The Dark which was a debut for her. In this domestic thriller we look at the life of Isabelle Drake who's son Mason goes missing in the middle of the night. Isabelle is sleep deprived and a year has past since her son disappeared. She is doing everything she can to find out what happen to her son. Isabelle also has her own past to reconcile with the death of her sister and Isabelle in her sleep deprived mind begins to think she had something to do with that and just maybe she did something to her son.

This book was well written and loved how the story unfolds with the cast of characters. Her husband Ben through this tragedy has had enough and leaves his wife Isabelle. Ben has his own patterns of behavior in the women he dates his new girlfriend looks similar to Isabelle. Ben is not a likable character at all his behavior is questionable in choices he makes.

Isabelle goes to a true crime event to keep the story of her son alive. The book slowly pulls you in with the details of Isabelle current and past life as well as her ex husband Ben. I like how Mrs. Willingham details the plot to pull you in it slowly builds up to give you a twisted ending. If this is your type of domestic thriller then All the dangerous things should be on your read list.

This is one of my new favorite authors I enjoyed A Flicker in the Dark and she back up her writing in All The Dangerous Things. This is a five star read for me. I cannot wait to see what will be next from this author. I will be ready and willing to read whatever she puts out in the future. Narrated by Karissa Vacker who did a great job giving each character their own voice. I enjoyed listening to the audio version of this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for a free audio copy of All The Dangerous Things for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions in this review are my own.

This book has a very intriguing premise. Isabelle Drake's son Mason was literally stolen from his bedroom right from under her nose exactly one year before the story begins. She is on the true crime circuit getting her story out there so she can find out what happened to her son. Understandably, this event affected her greatly and she has been unable to sleep. To top it off, her marriage to Ben was not able to handle the stress. They are separated and he is already seeing someone else.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by one of my favorites, Karissa Vacker. As always, she is excellent. Unfortunately, the writing style, drawn out and overly descriptive prose, and rushed, kind of out of nowhere conclusion made this only a three star read for me. We don't really spend a lot of time on the events of Mason being taken or any efforts to find him. At the beginning, we are focused on Isabelle's insomnia but then that is not mentioned anymore. Isabelle is the protagonist and we hear from her in the past and the present. I would argue that the flashbacks to the past aren't even necessary and actually don't add to the story except to confuse/throw off the reader about what potentially happened to Mason in the present.

The storyline doesn't lead to the conclusion--it wasn't something that I was able to figure out and it really just seemed last minute. The epilogue tried to tie things together and explain everything but it just seemed like the ending to a different book.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a copy of the audiobook. All opinions are my own.

This was so good!! Seriously one of the best thrillers I have read this year. It kept me guessing and interested the whole time. I read it in one day, and was obsessed!!

This was SO GOOD! After listening to A Flicker in the Dark I couldn't wait for Stacy's next book and it did not disappoint. It gave me all the same feelings as her debut novel. I couldn't stop listening (the audio is fantastic) and was constantly trying to figure out what was going on. I was suspicious of everyone!!!!

The twists were good!! This was fantastic and the type of thrillers I can't get enough of. The setting in the South esp in Savannah was so awesome too!!! It made it even more atmospheric.

Highly recommend adding to to your TBR if your looking for an addictive thriller. Already looking forward to her next book!!

4 stars!

Wow! I couldn’t stop listening to this audio! I started it last evening and finished this morning. My thoughts were all over the place and as soon as I thought I picked the culprit out, someone else took their place. I love these types of books, I want to be guessing until the very end.

Overall the writing was really good, the narrator did a wonderful job and I loved the story. I would highly recommend!

Another winner from Stacy Willingham! An incredibly, well thought out psychological thriller that I found difficult to put down. The descriptive, almost lyrical writing style lured me into Isabelle’s insomniac nightmare. I had a love/hate with Isabelle and some of her choices, but then no one is perfect and I like flawed characters, they add flavor to stories. I sat back and let the story play out, Willingham taunted me with potential antagonists and delivered a surprise ending that was ultimately satisfying.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio &. NetGalley for allowing me to listen to this advanced audiobook

This is an edge of your seat thriller. The twists and turns will keep you guessing. When you think you have it figured out, you don't. This book will make you question yourself. Reminding you that you only see yourself through your own lens . Get ready for a shocking surprise ending that will leave you speechless.

Isabelle’s life revolves around the disappearance of her toddler son Mason one year ago. There have been few leads, so she takes every opportunity she can to speak about the case publicly, to try to keep her story alive. When she meets a true-crime podcaster, she hopes he’ll be able to help her solve the case. But things from her childhood keep haunting her, and she starts to worry that there might be parallels to Mason’s disappearance.

Wow. I just downloaded this audiobook today, and I couldn’t help but finish it. When I thought I had something figured out, the twist would take things in a different direction. And I’m ending feeing completely satisfied with the resolution and knowing what happened. I hate when there are still questions or things that irk me, and this wrapped up every loose end I could think of.

I really enjoyed Stacy Willingham’s first book A Flicker in the Dark, but this one is even better!

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for the advanced copy of this audiobook!