Hush

by Nancy Bush

A group of friends are stalked by evil in a thriller from the New York Times bestselling author who “always delivers edge-of-your-seat suspense!” (Lisa Jackson)

Cross your heart

In the summer before their senior year, Coby Rendell and her friends take a beach trip together. Around a campfire on a foggy June night, Coby, Rhiannon, Yvette and the others share their darkest secrets, before a tragic accident shatters the bond between them . . .

And hope

Twelve years later Coby attends a birthday party reunion that ends in horror when Yvette's sister's lifeless body is discovered in a hot tub. Soon others in the original group of tale-tellers begin meeting similar fates—unfortunate “accidents” shrinking their numbers one by one . . .

To die

Conflicted by her growing feelings for Danner Lockwood, the investigating detective, Coby races to unravel a mystery buried in the past. But someone is watching her every move—someone prepared to kill again and again to protect a shocking truth . . .

Praise for Nancy Bush's Blind Spot

“Engrossing . . . twists you won't see coming!” —Karen Rose, New York Times bestselling author

“Atmospheric . . . sure to cause shivers.” — Book Page

“Bush keeps the story moving quickly and ends with an unexpected twist.” — Publishers Weekly

Genres: Mystery, Romantic Suspense, Suspense, Fiction, Thriller, Romance, Mystery Thriller

432 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Nancy Bush is a New York Times bestselling author of over forty novels, including the River Glen Series, Nowhere Series, and numerous stand alone novels. She also is the co-author of Last Breath, Last Girl Standing, and the Wicked Series, written with her sister and bestselling author Lisa Jackson, as well as the collaborative novels Sinister and Ominous, written with Lisa Jackson and Rosalind Noonan.

Nancy has called Oregon her home all of her life. She grew up in a small logging community and after graduating from high school, attended Oregon State University where she met her husband, Ken and graduated with a degree in nutrition. They married a few years after graduation and together they have one daughter. After working in banking and the travel business, with her daughter still in diapers, Nancy read an article in Time Magazine about young mothers who, once the last diaper was changed and the final bottle was washed, pulled out their typewriters and wrote romance novels for the then expanding market. Nancy convinced her sister, Lisa Jackson, that they should try their hand at writing.

After writing several successful romance novels such as Lady Sundown, Miracle Jones, Jesse’s Renegade and Scandal’s Darling and a stint writing for one of ABC’s top-rated daytime shows: All My Children, she turned her attention to writing thrillers for Kensington Publishing. Today, her books appear on The New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly national bestseller lists.

In her free time Nancy enjoys walking, working on jigsaw and crossword puzzles and hanging out with family and friends. When she and Ken aren’t visiting their daughter and grandchildren in Southern California, Nancy is busy working on her next book!

Visit https://www.NancyBush.net where you can find a Media Kit with photos and more information.

Reviews

[Alex is The Romance Fox · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hush by Nancy Bush was a bit of a let-down. A slow start but I kept hoping it would rev up a bit...but it just didn't.

The characters......geez, there were so many that after a while I lost track of who was who. Not that I found any of them engaging or even interesting.

Most of the characters are introduced in the beginning when they were still in high school.......I thought they were very immature and idiotic but hey, they're going to grow up someday and maybe, just maybe they will become more interesting characters...but no, they didn't!!

And then those secrets that the girls tell each other on the beach one night....those are suppose to be the reason for all the killing and mayhem........really!!! Hell, I thought those secrets were so trifling!!!

This is supposed to be a romance suspense story...but the romance is so uninspiring and boring that I just couldn't care what happened to these characters.

Very disappointing.

[Miss Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a random grab, that turned out ok. I was intrigued by the mystery and it had me turning pages quickly. However, there were SO may characters that I couldn't keep them strait. I couldn't become attached to any of them. In the end, I had one mystery pegged, but there were some twists. I wouldn't highly recommend this one, but it wasn't bad for a quickie summer read.

[Marianne Stehr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Posted 07/30/11: This book was filled with suspense, but with a typical and overdone storyline. the first 3/4 of the book was good, but the last 1/4 fell flat and wrapped up in an anticlimactic way. I was disappointed by the ending but the story to get to the ending appeared well developed and interesting. The subplot did not appear to have anything to do with the main plot which I found odd. The old secrets from school mates has been done several times that I had read and this offered nothing new.

[Karen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was disappointed with this book. I found the writing very amateurish but I kept reading it hoping it would get better....it didn't. There were way too many characters to keep track of also the story line was weak....why would those secrets upset everyone for the rest of their lives and most of the secrets were trivial. I found one blatant mistake, where Coby went home after work and changed into sweats then Danner came over later and "she was still in her work clothes" I don't see how there could be such an obvious mistake.....very disappointing.....

[Nikki · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was trash ( that’s where it’s going now that Iv finished it ) I only read it because I paid for it. So slow and boring. No hints or clues about the killer till the very end when they are revealed and then it felt like the author got bored of the book herself and just picked a character to end it.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the summer before their senior year, Coby Rendell and her classmates take a beach trip together. While this group were technically friends, they didn't necessarily consider themselves the best of friends; the teenagers' fathers had all been friends since high school, and were always hopeful that their children would have equally strong friendships with each other. So it was that around a campfire one foggy June night, Coby, Rhiannon, Yvette and the others find themselves sharing their darkest secrets; just before a tragic accident shatters the bond between them...

Twelve years later Coby attends a birthday party reunion that ends in horror when Yvette's sister's lifeless body is found in the hot tub. Soon other tale-tellers from that original group meet with similar fates - unfortunate 'accidents' that are shrinking their number one by one. Someone seems to be taking the saying: "Cross your heart and hope to die," dead seriously...

Increasingly conflicted by her growing feelings for the investigating detective, Danner Lockwood, Coby races to unravel a mystery buried deep in the past. But someone is watching her every move - someone who is prepared to kill again and again to protect a shocking truth...

This was the first book by Nancy Bush that I've ever read. Actually, I'm not quite sure how to grade this book, overall. It was certainly very well-written, I just found that there were so many characters that I had trouble keeping all the names straight.

I thought that the mystery was incredibly convoluted and I had some difficulty getting into the flow of the story. The book was enjoyable in parts, but I had certain niggling issues about the plot that never completely resolved themselves in my mind. I may read another book by this author in the future, but I give Hush by Nancy Bush a B+! I'd be curious to see how others who have read this book found it - did you enjoy the story, or did it not quite live up to your expectations?

[kingshearte · Rating 2 out of 5]

OK, for starters, this was one of those instances where the blurb writer does not seem to have actually read the book.
1. The original group wasn't really friends; there was no bond to shatter.
2. After Annette's death, they don't start dying one by one. Might have been a little more interesting if they had.
3. Danner is not the investigating detective. He's a detective, from a different jurisdiction, who just decides to investigate the situation, and the cops who actually have jurisdiction inexplicably decide to just let him.

Aside from that, I had some quibbles with the story itself.

1. So slow to get going. It seemed to take forever before Yvette turned up dead, and even then, the action didn't really pick up much.

2. The investigation in general was ridiculous. For starters, as mentioned above, Danner doesn't even have jurisdiction over this particular crime, so there's no reason for him to be involved in any way in the investigation. All the more so because he has personal connections with the victim and her friends and family, and hell, given that he was at the party where she died, could have been considered a suspect himself. So there's no way he should have been investigating.

3. Even if we can allow him, there is no way a real detective would condone, let alone actively encourage, his non-cop girlfriend doing some investigating on her own. Not a bloody chance.

4. The murderer and their motive really didn't make that much sense. There wasn't really anything that pointed to the person, and I really couldn't even tell you what the actual motive was. It just seemed entirely out of the blue and random.

5. It is super creepy and weird to refer to one character as "Daddy Dave" all the time. I mean, yes, he is the father of two of the characters, and he did marry one of their friends, which is inherently a little creepy. But calling him Daddy Dave all the time did not help matters.

[Brenda Whaley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good story, lackluster ending

[Lisa Jo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Secrets, lies and murder struggle to boost Nancy Bush's HUSH into a climatic suspense novel. Too many characters, a lack-luster romance and a mild suspense streak unfortunately drag this novel down.

One night during a beach trip the summer before her senior year, Coby Rendell and her friends begin to reveal horrible secrets to each other. Not only are they surprised at what they've learned, but are completely shocked when another classmate accidentally falls to his death from a cliff that same night. Twelve years later, Coby must travel back to the beach that has haunted her for years to attend a birthday party for her stepmother. Already dreading the evening, she is shocked when her ex-boyfriend and investigative detective, Danner Lockwood, shows up as her sister's guest. Thinking the night couldn't get any worse, her stepmother is tragically murdered during the party.

Now Coby and Danner are on the search for the killer. Everyone is a suspect and people from Coby's past start to relive the horrors of that horrible night years ago and begin to wonder if the two deaths aren't connected. As more secrets are discovered, Coby and Danner must reveal the identity of the murderer before it's too late and this killer strikes again.

My biggest problem with the novel was the overwhelming, and I stress overwhelming, cast of characters. Ms Bush was still referring to certain characters by their first and last names after the first 100 pages and that's when I was certain it was too much. You are introduced to these characters when they were in high school, so you're trying to remember who they were dating and who they were related to. Then you quickly flash to twelve years later...now some are married and have different last names, some have children. This is roughly twenty-five to thirty people you are trying to keep track of. While the numbers may have added some intrigue to the ‘who done it?' mystery, it was simply too much to absorb.

There were also some problems with the romantic and suspense elements of this novel. Usually with any romantic suspense novel there are two ways it can go. There are those with more suspense than romance and those with more romance than suspense. HUSH didn't seem to fit in either category as both the suspenseful and the romance were pretty tame. Coby and Danner, our two romantic leads, don't really even work together on this case. Coby does one thing, Danner does another and every once in a while they meet up to talk about the case together. It was certainly not what I expected in terms of romance. You can read about Danner's inner dialogue of why he wants to give their relationship another shot, but they hardly discuss it. What they always talk about is the ongoing investigation or that night twelve years ago. Which would be perfectly understandable if this were strictly a suspense novel.

The suspense was touch and go. One chapter it would be interesting, the next it would feel repetitive. The story is set up to convince everyone that one character is the obvious choice for the murderer, but of course as a reader, you would expect it would not be the obvious choice. Ms Bush forces this character into the number one suspect position and it becomes irritating. There is no establishment built to suspect other characters. You would think that an overabundance of secondary characters would keep you intrigued trying to discover who the real killer was, but that wasn't the case. It became a little boring and uneventful since there were so many potential villains....most of whom I could not keep track of or remember their relationship to the victim.

Unfortunately, there just came a point where I began to not care about the conclusion. I stuck with this book for the longest time, because most times I did enjoy reading about the two leads. Yet eventually, the intrigue and suspense just became frustrating...as did the romance. The premise had potential, but ultimately the execution was not successful. A part of me enjoyed this novel, but another part just couldn't feel satisfied once it concluded. HUSH just misses the mark.

[Rhonda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was very disappointed by the ending since it didn't really tie everything together. So why was Juliet killing people? Why didn't Juliet think Coby belonged? What happened with Genevieve & Jarrod? What happened with Faith & Hugh? What happened with Faith & Coby's parents? Did Coby & Danner get married? Who wound up with Benedict since both his parents were killed? What happened to Juliet? etc...............................................................

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

HUSH by Nancy Bush is an intriguing romantic suspense. This is the story of a tragic accident that will leave the bonds between those involved shattered. It is a "Cross your heart and hope to die" story that will have you turning pages. It has secrets,revenge,mystery,suspense,"accidents",
murder,buried past,some romance,and shocking twist. It is fast paced that will have shivers running up your spine and a shocking ending you want see coming. A thriller from beginning to the last page.Hush is a great read,but don't read it in the dark or around a campfire. This book was received for the purpose of review from the publisher.Details can be found at Zebra Books,published by Kensington Publishing Corp. and My Book Addiction Reviews

[Sallyann Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's a group of girls that have a night party on the beach and they play a game of "pass the candle". It's a game where you have to tell your deepest secret, the game is overheard by a group of boys, at the end of the night one of them is dead, it's pronounced an accident but is it?
Years later both groups are together again and yes there's another death, only this one is a murder, who's the killer and does that mean the death in the past was a murder too?.
You have to concentrate reading this book as there are a lot of characters and a lot of personalities, it's a lot to keep straight, but it does have you guessing and changing your mind, then changing it back again, only to be wrong in the end. Well worth reading.

[Thắng · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bad descrytions. Too much of the scandals, mostly involve sex. Not so much of the murders.
Motive? Craziness. Not good.
Unnecessarily long. A little bit got up to good at the nearly end, but then went back to a bad explaination.
When I started to read it, I thought it might be like a "Final destination" book, due to the fact that there are many characters involved and the "shrinking their number one by one" descryption. But it was a let down case, since there're not many people die after all, and even worse because it's been diluted by another case which is absolutely nothing to do with the main one.

[Dana · Rating 4 out of 5]

well, I have to say, this book was great, wonderful twists and murders all over the place, it was a bit wordy (yes, I know that's not a word) for me, overly descriptive in some places,like when describing the hoses or hotels or the surrounding areas, but the suspense was great, the characters were well rounded and the author fleshed them out nicely. I would read this author again. but for now, too much suspense and not enough romance...on to a paranormal romance I think, or just straight romance...

[Misty · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the cover blurb, I had some high expectations for this book. However it failed to live up to what I look for in a great suspense novel. The over all story was good, the main characters were believable making it for an enjoyable read. That being said the book was also confusing, too many character plots with side stories of their own. This to me created a mass wave of confusion which caused the book to fall flat. Over all I liked it but there were a lot of elements to it that I did not like.

[Jessica Brill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hush is a about a group of people who werent realy friends in school but drawn together by a set of circumstances. After a camp out where secrets are told a memeber of the groups dies; years later as adults it is all drawn back to the surface. More people are killed and targeted from the group. The story definatley had a lot of suspense. We were given just snippets of information to suggests ideas of what was happening and who was doing it. The only negative I found was that the way the narrative and story from each charracter was laid out made it a bit repetative.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did enjoy this book and it kept me guessing as to who did what, but at the end there were too many victims and too many different people doing things to really have a cohesive ending.

The romance was ok - nothing too exciting. You kept waiting for them to get together, but for some reason they kept stepping away from each other.

It is a good read, and it keeps you entertained. I will be starting another one of her books shortly.

[Maggie61 · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was only okay to me.
There was so much going on that it was somewhat disconnected at times. The whole scenario with the secondary murder wasn't necessary and had nothing to do with the main story. It did absolutely nothing to the main murder plot There were so many characters many of whom were either killers or twisted that parts of it were really unrealistic.

[Cherie Reeves · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay book. Way too many characters though. I couldn't keep them all straight. Especially the ette girls... All sisters all names ending in ette. Because there were so many characters, I don't think they were fully developed. I found it hard to identify with them. And the killer, I couldn't really like or hate.

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a definite page turner. Good thriller with lots of twists that had me guessing as to who the killer was right to the last part of the book.

[Nae · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars...Honestly would have been better if it was more like the blurb.

Giving it 3.5 stars for the story, purely because it was engaging enough and there was a somewhat interesting premise. It's not obvious all along who the culprit is. Where it falls down is not tying up all the loose ends (/explaining the whys) at the end of the novel...not sure it all totally made sense, but I'll let it pass for a light read.

1 star romance - I'd say the romance was an afterthought, which is starting to feel like a theme with Nancy Bush books. Maybe it's to try to market it to more audiences, with the popularity of the suspense romance category, Idk. But I honestly think she should just stick to suspense/thriller. Issues with the "romance" here: 1) lackluster; 2) he randomly started realizing what he gave up years before & now decides he wants to try again - why?; 3) the timing of him deciding he wants to meet up with her again at this party as her sister's date and then it just happens to be a murder scene, where he gets involved as a cop - would have made more sense for him to come back into her life accidentally in his role as a cop instead of that strangely coincidental timing, with him randomly thinking about her; 4) they weirdly just fall back together and are like *yeah we should never have broken up* and that works? no build or relationship development.

[Water Moon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nothing to salvage it. Reads like it was written in the 80s…Cheesy. Cliché. Outdated. The blurb got me to buy it but this did not deliver. The writing was not good. Seems like the author just picked words that didn’t fit at all, just to hit some kind of vocabulary mark. The author’s heart wasn’t in it. Then there’s the repeated negative inferences about teenagers on a lot of pertinent topics. It trivializes eating disorders as a way to get attention. Constant slut-shaming…I could go on. And the good review plastered on the book’s front cover is from the author’s sister (Lisa Jackson). It’s a no from me.

[Amber Dawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This really could've benefitted from a better editor. There were lots of small mistakes that pulled me from the narrative (on one page, Gen is drinking cola and salty about it, but on the next, she's drinking white wine; on one page, it's spelled Juliet, on the next Juliette; etc.)

There were too many characters to keep track of, and a lot of them didn't do anything of importance. There were also too many plot lines between who killed Annette et al, who killed the people in the armed robbery, and who was stealing equipment from the clubs.

I normally like Nancy Bush, but this was a slog.

Read for the 2020 PopSugar Reading Challenge: A book with an onomatopoeia in the title.

[Natalia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Felt like I wasted a lot of time reading this one. The plot is interesting, so I wanted to finish it just to solve the mystery. I ended up being pretty blah about the ending. But there are SO many characters, it’s so hard to keep track of anyone of them! A group of high school girls, some of their sisters, each of their dads, a group of high school boys, and a group of detectives. It was just too much to keep track of. Also the book is so long, which is fine, but I felt like 70% of the random information and detail could have been removed and made no impact on the story itself. Wouldn’t recommend this one.

[Veronica Rivera · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first Nancy Bush book, and it was good. Filled with alot of characters and even more secrets. The entire book kept me entertained and the wnding was not what I expected which is good. The story of a group of high school girlfriends that end up telling their deepest secrets and ends with thw death of the most popular boy in the school. Fast forward to when the group is now in their late 20's about to hit the big 30 and they begin to die in mysterious deaths as well. Who did it? Who is killing them off and why? The story kept me hooked and it was an ending that made me say WOW.

[Shari · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very disappointed with this book. I had read the Wicked series that she wrote with her sister, Lisa Jackson, and loved them, so was looking forward to trying something written just by Nancy Bush. This certainly didn’t live up to expectations. There were just too many characters to keep track of, and the romance was almost nonexistent.

I did like the storyline enough to keep reading because I wanted to see how it ended, but I doubt I will read this book again. And before I read another book by this author, I will certainly check the reviews first.

[Angi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’d give this a 2.5, but based on the crappy editing a 2. The storyline is one that’s been redone and redone but thought this might have new twist, but nope. Had to stop and think of which sister was which with all of their names so similar. Was totally creeped out that one of the character’s best friends married her father, who everyone calls “Daddy Dave.” Creepy. The author seemed to use the thesaurus to look up random words to use in place of common words… did not read smooth. The ending was anticlimactic so I was disappointed.

[Katie Sloan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to love this and couldn't. There were way too many characters to keep straight and many of them had nothing to do with the plot. It dragged along with nothing happening for 3/4 of the book and when something did happen, it was just glanced over. Went back to thoughts and musings.

The ending was way disappointing because it was so anticlimactic. Wrapped up in about a page and didn't truly answer the question of "Why?". I usually like her books and this one just didn't hit the mark for me.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had a great story line, but the book was so full of repetitive convo of info that you sort of lost track of who was who. About 200 pages of convo could have been eliminated and the story would have been perfect. The constant repeat of info was brutal

[Fiona BookDragon4Life · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good story line and I really enjoyed the cast of characters. The book goes from the last (through memories) to the present. New deaths possibly linked to old? Apart from the fact that a civilian would never be allowed to interview people for a murder, the rest of the book was believable.