Tag: Four star reads

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The Rearranged Life of Oona Lockhart by Margarita Montimore ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Published: March 5th, 2020
Publisher: Gollancz
Format: Hardcover, Kindle
Genre: Domestic Fiction, Coming-of-Age Fiction, Magical Realism

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for this enjoyable debut. Thank you to Tracy at Compulsive Readers for the invitation to take part and to Gollancz and Netgalley for the eBook ARC in exchange for an honest review.

SYNOPSIS:

If you knew your future, would you change your past?

Brooklyn, 1982. Oona Lockhart is about to celebrate her 19th birthday and ring in the New Year. But at the stroke of midnight, she is torn from her friends and boyfriend, finding herself in her fifty-one-year-old body, thirty-two years into the future.

Greeted by a friendly stranger, Oona learns that on every birthday she will enter a different year of her adult life at random. Still a young woman on the inside, but ever changing on the outside, who will she be next year? Wealthy philanthropist? Nineties Club Kid? World traveller? Wife to a man she’s never met?

While Oona gets glimpses of the future and thinks she knows what’s to come, living a normal life is challenging. As she struggles between fighting her fate and accepting it, Oona must learn to navigate a life that’s out of order – but is it broken?

Margarita Montimore’s whip-smart debut is an uplifting joyride through an ever-changing world that shows us the endurance of love, the timelessness of family and what it means to truly live in the moment.

MY REVIEW:

It’s New Years Eve and when the clock strikes midnight it will be 1983 and Oona Lockhart will turn nineteen. Surrounded by friends and the love of her life, Dale, she’s having an amazing night and feeling excited about the year ahead. Only when the clock strikes twelve she finds herself awakening in a strange house, with a strange man next to her who claims they are ‘besties’ and in a body that is much older and bigger than the one she was just in. It’s 2015 and Oona is nineteen on the inside, but she’s fifty-one on the outside. She’s just had her first ‘jump’ and learns that from now on at midnight every new year she’ll jump to an undetermined and unpredictable year of her life. She will never live chronologically and her internal and external ages will always be different. She only retains the memories her internal self has lives so it is like waking up with amnesia each year. 

Frightened and full of disbelief, most of Oona’s first year is spent hoping she’ll wake up as her nineteen-year-old self again. Slowly she learns more about what to expect from her mother and Kenzie, her assistant, who are the only two people who know about her strange condition. As the years pass, Oona learns to navigate her unique situation and make the best of her rearranged life.

This was a charming, quick and entertaining read. The synopsis definitely piqued my interest. Afterall, who hasn’t thought it would be fun to jump back into a time we’re nostalgic for or know what will happen in the future? How would you feel if that actually happened? And can we really change our destiny or are some things just meant to be?

As we travel through Oona’s jumbled life we experience the highs and lows along with her on an emotional rollercoaster. Each year felt like it was almost a different person as she tries to get to grips with how best to live this crazy life. She grieves for the years and the people missing from her life in each jump, faces the temptation to know too much about her future and to change what she wishes were different and faces the heartbreaking realisation that any lasting relationships, be it romantic or friendships, will be virtually impossible. She doesn’t alway handle things well or do the right thing, like any of us in our chronological lives, but overall she does a great job of handling a situation for which there is no rule book. 

The author skillfully weaves together the myriad of threads of this complex and intricate plot, peppering the story with surprising twists and revelations along the way. Though the ending was perfect for the story, I was left wishing I could have read more of her jumbled years. The characters are richly drawn and I quickly took to Oona, finding her relatable despite the bizarre situation she finds herself in. At the core she was the same as anybody else and that truth is what made her someone you care about. 

Compelling, thought-provoking and quirky, The Rearranged Life of Oona Lockhart is a great debut. A perfect read for anyone looking for something a bit different.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

After receiving a BFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College, Margarita Montimore worked for over a decade in publishing and social media before deciding to focus on the writing dream full-time. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and dog.

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Tales of Mystery Unexplained by Steph Young ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Published: December 2nd, 2019
Format: Paperback, Kindle
Genre: True Crime

Thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for the invitation to take part in this blog tour.

SYNOPSIS:

Tales of Mystery Unexplained….What happened to Elisa Lam, found dead in a water tower atop a hotel roof? Who were the two men who came to see her & what was in the mystery box they gave her? Why did the location of her gravestone match the zip code of a Bookstore, miles away?

Why was a man found in the same spot he disappeared, but 4 years later, with a hole in his head that no surgeons could explain? And what did this have to do with a séance, doppelgangers & the assassination of Abraham Lincoln? Why did a man write the Fibonacci sequence as a clue & tell a stranger he was “Looking for the Beast,” before he disappeared in the barren plains of a desert? Plus many more Tales of Mystery Unexplained.

Steph Young has appeared on national radio shows & podcasts including the UK’s The Unexplained, and Coast to Coast Am, talking about many of these mysteries.

You can also hear some of these Unexplained Mysteries on her podcast on iTunes ‘Tales of Mystery Unexplained.’

MY REVIEW:

“Who doesn’t love an unexplained, cryptic and beguiling mystery?“

Aren’t we all fascinated by the things that can’t be explained? Think of some of the most infamous and intriguing murder cases and they’ll probably never have been solved – Jon Benet Ramsey, the Zodiac killings, the Black Dahlia.

In this compelling read author Steph Young has compiled twelve mysterious and strange true stories that all have one thing in common – they’ve never been solved. Each chapter follows a different case, some are well known while others are more obscure.

The stories range from curious to terrifying, and involve things such as rumours of the supernatural, aliens and secret government experiments. The ones that stood out to me were the stories of Elisa Lam, Netta Fornario and the Swedish twin sisters. Though I’d not heard of most of the cases, the author leaves you wanting more and I’ll definitely be listening to her podcast and delving deeper into the cases in this book.

I devoured this quick read in just a few hours but it would also be great to pop in and out of as you wish. If you love true stories and things that are cryptic, eerie and mystifying, then this is the book for you.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Steph Young is an author addicted to researching all Supernatural, Paranormal, Esoteric and Enigmatic mysteries of the unexplained. Each book she writes seems to lead her to further questions & searches for answers, as the mysteries inevitably deepen into ever more complex riddles in the spectrum of the Unknown. 

She covers True Stories of the strange, mysterious, and frightening, and the monstrous creatures who feature in them. Our darkest history mythology and Lore. True life stories which expose our darkest, deepest fears… and tragic ends. 

Steph has been a guest on National Radio shows including ‘Coast to Coast AM,’ as well as being a regular guest on podcasts. 

CONNECT WITH THE AUTHOR:

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BUY THE BOOK:

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The Snakes by Sadie Jones ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Published: February 20th, 2020
Publisher: Vintage
Format: Paperback
Genre: Thrillers, Suspense, Literary Fiction

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for The Snakes. Thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for the invitation to take part and to Vintage for the gifted copy of the book.

SYNOPSIS:

Family secrets can be deadly…

Newly-weds Dan and Bea decide to escape London. Driving through France in their beaten-up car they anticipate a long lazy summer, worlds away from their ordinary lives.

But their idyll cannot last. Stopping off to see Bea’s brother at his crumbling hotel, the trio are joined unexpectedly by Bea’s ultra-wealthy parents. Dan has never understood Bea’s deep discomfort around them but living together in such close proximity he begins to sense something is very wrong.

Just as tensions reach breaking point, brutal tragedy strikes, exposing decades of secrets and silence that threaten to destroy them all.

‘A twisty delight of a novel, a cracking page-turner that has much to say about modern life and our attempts to find a way to navigate it, no matter where we come from’ Cathy Rentzenbrink

MY REVIEW:

“You’d swear you could see it, in the cracks in the pavements and the bricks in the walls; violence and grief.”

Bea and her husband Dan have decided to take a three month break from their lives in London to go travelling. Beginning in France, they stop at the hotel owned by Bea’s older brother, Alex. When they arrive they find the hotel is rundown and unfit for business, but Bea insists they stay. When Bea’s parents join them unexpectedly a few days later, the visit isn’t welcome. Bea has an animosity towards them that Dan doesn’t understand, insisting she doesn’t want them in their lives, but saying she can’t leave Alex alone to deal with them. Over the coming days, the couple’s dream of an idyllic break away from everything crumbles as old secrets and resentments resurface and tragedy strikes.

Narrated by newlyweds Bea and Dan, she has never told him the full story about her parents. He doesn’t know why she wants nothing  to do with them or that they aren’t just well off and are part of the elite 1%. Bea is a paragon of morality and virtue – she works with vulnerable people, volunteers with charities, wants to save the planet and is a big believer in justice. She sees things in black or white and refuses to compromise on her morals – something Dan admires but her father mocks her for. Being around her family again means Bea must face that she harbours a deep rage and wrath towards them for their transgressions, things she can’t forgive but also refuses to share with Dan, leaving him confused and driving a wedge between them as he sees two very different people to those his wife sees, not understanding her deep resentments and inability to forgive.  

The Snakes is a story about temptation, power, morality and forgiveness. It is a story about a toxic family and dark secrets that explores moral dilemmas and the consequences of the characters’ actions on those around them. It was dark, intriguing and unexpected, keeping me guessing right until the final page. While it didn’t have the heart-pounding tension you find in some thrillers, it was full of a subdued suspicion that was compulsive. The tragedy that strikes the family and search for truth and justice that unfolds is secondary to the story about the family itself. 

I hadn’t seen a lot of reviews for this book before reading but I had heard that it was a marmite book, with some people not taking to the format and others loving it. Well, I’m one of the strange ones who has mixed feelings about marmite, and that’s kind of how I felt about this book, which was a very different novel from the one I was expecting. The Snakes is a compelling, well-written and readable novel with a shocking and abrupt conclusion that lingers.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Sadie Jones is a screenwriter and a #1 Sunday Times bestselling author. Her first novel, The Outcast won the Costa First Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. It was also a Richard and Judy Summer Reads number one bestseller and adapted for BBC Television. Sadie also wrote: Small Wars (2009), The Uninvited Guests (2012) and Fallout (2014). Her fifth novel, The Snakes, was listed as ‘March book of the month’ in The Bookseller.

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The Aosawa Murders by Riku Onda ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Published: January 16th, 2020
Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press
Format: Paperback, Kindle
Genre: Mystery, Psychological Thriller

Today is my stop on the blog tour for this fresh and enticing novel. Thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for the invitation to take part and to Bitter Lemon Press for the gifted copy of this book.

SYNOPSIS:

On a stormy summer day the Aosawas, owners of a prominent local hospital, host a large birthday party. The occasion turns into tragedy when 17 people die from cyanide in their drinks. The only surviving links to what might have happened are a cryptic verse that could be the killer’s, and the physician’s bewitching blind daughter, Hisako, the only person spared injury. But the youth who emerges as the prime suspect commits suicide that October, effectively sealing his guilt while consigning his motives to mystery.

The police are convinced that Hisako had a role in the crime, as are many in the town, including the author of a bestselling book about the murders written a decade after the incident, who was herself a childhood friend of Hisako and witness to the discovery of the murders. The truth is revealed through a skillful juggling of testimony by different voices: family members, witnesses and neighbours, police investigators and of course the mesmerising Hisako herself.

The Aosawa Murders takes the classic elements of the mystery genre but steers away from putting them together in the usual way, instead providing a multi-voiced insight into the psychology of contemporary Japan, with its rituals, pervasive envy and ever so polite hypocrisy. But it’s also about the nature of evil and the resonance and unreliability of memory.

Part Kurasawa’s Rashomon, part Capote’s In Cold Blood.

MY REVIEW:

On a stormy summer’s day in 1973 the house of the prominent Aosawa family is buzzing with auspicious birthday celebrations of three generations. Friends and family fill the rooms and local residents are coming and going throughout the day. But before the day is over the house becomes a grotesque crime scene – bodies contorted into strange positions and the stench of vomit and excrement permeating the air after seventeen people are poisoned by suicide. But the police have no real clues and the two survivors aren’t of much help: the housekeeper is unconscious and Hisako, the only surviving member of the Aosawa family, is blind. 

The Aosawa Murders is an exploration of the seemingly motiveless crime, the impact it had on those who survived and the local community. It also delves into the impact of a bestselling book that was written by one of the witnesses a decade later, and tries to finally get to the truth of what happened that dreadful day. 

The complex story is told over three decades using various styles and literary devices, each chapter told by a different witness in a very different and distinctive voice. The interviews in particular add to the mysterious atmosphere as we only ever read the responses. This singular novel is written like a work of non-fiction and reads so authentically that I had to keep reminding myself that I was reading fiction rather than a true crime novel.  

Though there are an array of characters in the book the primary focus is on two female characters: Hisako Aosawa, the twelve year old who was the only surviving family member, and Makiko Saiga, her friend and later the author of the book about the murders. Rumours have always swirled around Hisako as she was the only person in the house that didn’t take a sip of poison, even after a mentally ill young man committed suicide and left behind a confession and evidence that he committed the crime. Both women are enigmatic characters that stay away from the limelight and have left lasting impressions as a result of the crime that are examined throughout the book. 

The Aosawa Murders is a unique, fascinating and riveting novel. The author’s hypnotic imagery and prose made it impossible to put down, even managing to add an element of beauty in the grim, heart-rending torture of the victim’s final moments. Nothing is black and white, but full of shades of grey, the author keeping things ambiguous and cryptic so the reader is always questioning the truth and unsure what to think. Part of the brilliance of this book was that I never managed to quite make up my mind about what had really happened and am still questioning the truth about that fateful day. 

I would highly recommend this book, especially if you enjoy true crime novels such as In Cold Blood. It is the author’s first book to be translated into English and I’m hoping her others are translated soon so I can see if they’re as addictive as this one. 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Riku Onda, born in 1964, is the professional name of Nanae Kumagai. She has been writing fiction since 1991 and has won the Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for New Writers, the Japan Booksellers’ Award, the Mystery Writers of Japan Award for Best Novel for The Aosawa Murders, the Yamamoto Shūgorō Prize, and the Naoki Prize. Her work has been adapted for film and television. This is her first crime novel and the first time she is translated into English.

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Saturdays at Noon by Rachel Marks ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Published: February 6th, 2020
Publisher: Penguin UK
Format: Paperback, Kindle
Genre: Romance, Contemporary Romance, Domestic Fiction

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for this lovely debut. Thank you to Michael Joseph Books for the invitation to take part and the gifted copy of the book.

SYNOPSIS:

Emily just wants to keep the world away.

After getting into trouble yet again, she’s agreed to attend anger management classes. But she refuses to share her deepest secrets with a room full of strangers.

Jake just wants to keep his family together.

He’ll do anything to save his marriage and bond with his six-year-old son, Alfie. But when he’s paired with spiky Emily, he wonders whether opening up will do more harm than good.

The two of them couldn’t be more different. Yet when Alfie, who never likes strangers, meets Emily, something extraordinary happens.

Could one small boy change everything?

MY REVIEW:

In this wonderful debut, the author draws on personal experiences with her own son to shine a light on one of the lesser-known conditions on the autistic spectrum. It is a story about love in its many forms, about self-discovery, and how sometimes it takes an outsider to make you see what’s right in front of you. 

Emily and Jake clash from the moment they meet at anger management. Jake is a stay-at-home dad who’s overwhelmed by his son’s behavioural problems and is attending the course to try and save his rocky marriage. Emily is a spiky young girl who says only that she doesn’t belong there. Unlike his father, Emily finds herself drawn to six-year-old Alfie; there’s something about him that cries out to her. And to Jake’s dismay, Alfie feels the same way. When his wife leaves Jake gives in to Alfie’s demands that Emily be his nanny, the pair forming a reluctant acquaintance to keep him happy and find that they start to see the world, and each other, differently; slowly peeling away the layers to reveal their true selves and accepting parts of themselves they’ve been ashamed of for so long.

This warm, tender and nuanced story started slowly but soon took up residence in my heart, just as Alfie does with Emily. I was fully immersed and invested in their world thanks to the author’s deft, witty and truthful prose. And while the story did follow a somewhat prescribed and predictable track in places, it also felt organic and real, coming second to the more gritty storylines that dominate the book and make it stand out from your stereotypical love story. 

While Emily and Jake are great characters that are richly developed, Alfie is undeniably the star of the show. He’s not an easy kid to take care of, and my heart went out to Jake as he battled with his son every single day over the smallest thing. As outsiders it can be so easy to judge, but living in a situation is very different and wears a person down, no matter how much you love your child. The author ensures that the reader never doubts Jake’s fierce love for his son, even in the darkest moments, and expertly portrays the anguish and pain that they both feel. No parent is perfect but it can be hard to see the wood for the trees and accept what they think is right isn’t always best for their child (goodness knows I’m terrible at this), but it takes Emily’s fresh observations and ideas for Jake to really see his son for the first time. It’s like she breaks away the clouds that were hiding him from view. Alfie’s chapters were heartbreaking to read but they finally give him the voice he feels unable to use. Reading the torment and confusion he’s going through made me want to wrap my arms around him and tell him it will all be ok. For me these were the most poignant parts of the book.

I’m a sucker for a happy ending so I really wanted Jake, Emily and Alfie to overcome their obstacles and live happily ever after. Did they? I’m not telling. You’ll have to read the book to find out. And I highly recommend that you do. Saturdays at Noon is a beautiful and thought-provoking story, and you’ll find Alfie and the lessons we learn from him stay with you even after you close the book. 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Rachel Marks studied English at Exeter University before becoming a primary school teacher. After having her first son, she decided to focus mainly on being a mum, teaching one day a week and nurturing her creative side by starting a small photography business.

Despite always loving to write, it wasn’t until she gained a place on the 2016 Curtis Brown Creative online novel writing course that she started to believe it could be anything more than just a much-loved hobby. Her inspiration for her first novel came from the challenges she faced with her eldest son, testing and fascinating in equal measure. When she discovered Pathological Demand Avoidance, a poorly understood Autism Spectrum Disorder, she could finally make sense of her son’s behavior, and the idea for the first novel fell into place.

When not writing, she loves dragging her husband and two boys around Europe to off-the-beaten track and sometimes sub zero destinations, snowboarding and sightseeing, the kind of trips that would undeniably be easier without children but only half the adventure…

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Real Life by Adeline Dieudonné ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Publisher: World Editions
Published: February 13th, 2020
Format: Paperback, Kindle
Genre: Coming-of-Age Fiction
Trigger Warning: Domestic Abuse.

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for this fantastic debut novel. Thank you to Anne at Random Things tours for the invitation to take part, and World Editions for the gifted copy of the book.

SYNOPSIS:

Translated from the French by Roland Glasser.

At home there are four bedrooms: one for her, one for her little brother Sam, one for her parents, and one for the carcasses. Her father is a big-game hunter, a powerful predator, and her mother is submissive to her violent husband’s demands. The young narrator spends her day s with Sam playing in the shells of cars dumped for scrap and listening out for the melody of the ice-cream truck, until a brutal accident shatters their world.

The uncompromising pen of Adeline Dieudonné wields flashes of brilliance as she brings her characters to life in a world that is both dark and sensual. This breathtaking debut is a sharp and funny coming-of-age tale in which fantasy and reality collide.

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MY REVIEW:

“There are things you can’t accept. Otherwise you die.”

A powerful and affecting coming-of-age journey with elements of fantasy, Real Life explores the dark truths of growing up within a home laden with violence and fear, and the results of a life lived without love or guidance from those who should protect you. 

Our unnamed protagonist is a jaded young girl who lives at home with her parents and younger brother Sam, who she adores.  Their home is a malignant place, filled with the constant threat of her father’s wrath and their attempts to avoid it. She is indifferent towards her mother, who she refers to as an amoeba, seeing her as weak for living this life and not protecting or comforting her children. It is just her and Sam against the world. So when a tragic accident rips them apart and her brother becomes unreachable, a mute ‘robot’ who then slowly morphs into a sadistic young boy who seems to feel nothing unless he’s terrorising others, she feels like she’s lost everything and becomes obsessed with finding a way to go back in time and save her brother from this dark fate.

“Nothing made sense anymore. My reality had dissolved until a vertiginous void from which I saw no way out. A void so palpable I could feel its walls, its floor, and its ceiling tightening around me.”

The story takes place over five years, beginning the summer of the accident. During this time the protagonist goes from a girl of ten to a young woman of fifteen who has seen more than anyone her age should ever have to see. She’s scarred by the toxic life she’s been forced to live and the horror she witnessed that first summer, and is fighting to find a way back to when she felt happy and she and Sam were everything to each other. Along the way she discovered a talent and passion for science and is trying to both understand and hide the changes brought to her body through puberty. She slowly sees a shift in her father as he notices these changes and begins to see her as a target for his rage just like her mother, while the changes in Sam bring the pair closer together and our protagonist learns to fear her brother too. From the start of the book there are distressing scenes of domestic abuse. The fear and terror jumps from the page as they talk about having to tip-toe around him and feeling like they can only breathe when he’s not there.

There is a mythical element to the story that is provided by how the protagonist sees the change in Sam; she believes that an evil being has taken up residence inside him and that his sadistic behaviour is at its bidding. This adds a mythical element to the story as well as highlighting how young she is at the time the story starts. She truly believes she will one day succeed in travelling back in time to save her brother and it becomes her only focus. Despite my rational mind knowing this isn’t possible, I was willing her to succeed and have some much- deserved joy and happiness in her life. 

Real Life is a superb and wonderfully written debut. The punchy, offbeat prose is compelling, insightful and raw. It makes it impossible to pull yourself away. I needed to know where this was heading, if she would save Sam and what would become of her. Unflinching and uncompromising, Harrowing and heart-rending, but with an indomitable hope running through its veins, this is a story that will stay with me.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Adeline Dieudonné was born in 1982 and lives in Brussels. A playwright and short-story writer, her first novella, Amarula, was awarded the Grand Prix of the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles. Two further booklets were published by Editions Lamiory in 2017: Saule dans le noir and Bonobo Moussaka. Real Life was recently awarded the prestigious Prix du Roman FNAC, the Prix Rossel, the Prix Renaudot des Lycéens, and the Prix Filigrane, a French prize for a work of high literary quality with wide appeal. Dieudonné also performs as a stand-up comedian.

Ronald Glasser is an award-winning translator of French literature, based in London.

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Beast (Six Stories #4) by Matt Wesolowski ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Publisher: Orenda
Published: February 6th, 2020
Format: Paperback, Kindle
Genre: Mystery, Psychological Thriller, Horror, Crime Fiction, Coming-of-Age Fiction.

Welcome to my spot on the blog tour for this dark and thrilling book. Thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for the invitation to take part and to Karen at Orenda for the eBook ARC.

SYNOPSIS:

Elusive online journalist Scott King examines the chilling case of a young vlogger found frozen to death in the legendary local ‘vampire tower’, in another explosive episode of Six Stories…

In the wake of the ‘Beast from the East’ cold snap that ravaged the UK in 2018, a grisly discovery was made in a ruin on the Northumbrian coast. Twenty-four-year-old vlogger, Elizabeth Barton, had been barricaded inside what locals refer to as ‘The Vampire Tower’, where she was later found frozen to death.

Three young men, part of an alleged ‘cult’, were convicted of this terrible crime, which they described as a ‘prank gone wrong’. However, in the small town of Ergarth, questions have been raised about the nature of Elizabeth Barton’s death and whether the convicted youths were even responsible.

Elusive online journalist Scott King speaks to six witnesses – people who knew both the victim and the three killers – to peer beneath the surface of the case. He uncovers whispers of a shocking online craze that held the young of Ergarth in its thrall and drove them to escalate a series of pranks in the name of internet fame. He hears of an abattoir on the edge of town, which held more than simple slaughter behind its walls, the tragic and chilling legend of the ‘Ergarth Vampire’….

Both a compulsive, taut and terrifying thriller, and a bleak and distressing look at modern society’s desperation for attention, Beast will unveil darkness from which you may never return…

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MY REVIEW:

Beast is a chilling, captivating and suspenseful story told by an original voice in a fresh and creative way. It is a story of the search for the truth of a young girl’s brutal murder that lies hidden behind the differing perspectives of those who knew her. It is an exploration of internet culture, the obsession with becoming internet famous and what motivates three young men to murder a popular young woman without apparent reason.

Elizabeth Barton was a YouTube star on the rise and the darling of Ergarth, a bleak, rundown town on the Northumrian coast. Her brutal murder left the town stunned. But could there be more to Elizabeth and her death that has been reported? In his podcast, Six Stories, online journalist Scott King attempts to find the answer to this and other questions surrounding the crime by talking to those who knew those involved best of all.

I loved the podcast format of this book. It’s the first time I’ve read anything like it and as a true crime buff it is exactly the kind of thing I listen to. I loved how realistic it felt, like I was actually listening to the interviews and commentary. The different perspectives provided a unique and fascinating look at the crime and the effects on those left behind, as well as helping to slowly reveal the pieces of the puzzle King was trying to solve. Wesolowski’s writing was absorbing, atmospheric and descriptive; demanding your attention and pulling you in. The eerie legend of the Vampire Tower and the Ergarth Vampire permeate the pages and provide an air of spine-tingling unease. 

We only get a first person glimpse of Elizabeth in the YouTube videos she posted leading up to her death. It’s clear she’s  on in these videos; being the person she wants the world to see. But is it the real her? Everyone in town loved Elizabeth. She was popular, kind and known for her philanthropy. Girl wanted to be her, and boys wanted to be with her. But as he digs deeper King learns there is another story, things she made sure was hidden from the world that didn’t fit the image she was trying to maintain. But we aren’t sure which is real and the more we learn the more the mystery deepens. I liked that Scott was so elusive in this book. Though he’s there throughout we don’t know a lot about him and I found that helped me focus on the story he was trying to tell. The book does hint at things about him being revealed in a previous book, but it’s a passing comment here or there and didn’t affect my enjoyment or understanding of the story. It just made me even more eager to read the other books in the series.

The Six Stories series is one I’ve been meaning to read for a while after seeing a lot of praise for it online and I’m glad I’ve finally read a book by this marvelous author. Spectacularly written, chilling, cryptic, ominous and unpredictable, this is a book that will stay with you for all the right reasons. 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Matt Wesolowski is an author from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in the UK. He is an English tutor for young people in care. Matt started his writing career in horror, and his short horror fiction has been published in numerous UK and US based anthologies such as Midnight Movie Creature, Selfies from the End of the World, Cold Iron and many more. His novella, The Black Land, a horror set on the Northumberland coast, was published in 2013. Matt was a winner of the Pitch Perfect competition at Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival in 2015. His debut thriller, Six Stories, was an Amazon bestseller in the USA, Canada, the UK and Australia, and a WHSmith Fresh Talent pick, and film rights were sold to a major Hollywood studio. A prequel, Hydra, was published in 2018 and became an international bestseller. Changeling, book three in the series, was published in 2019 and was longlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year and shortlisted for Capital Crime’s Amazon Publishing Reader Awards in two categories: Best Thriller and Best Independent Voice.

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Little White Lies by Philippa East ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 

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Publisher: HQ
Published: February 6th, 2020
Format: Paperback, Kindle
Genre: Psychological Thriller, Mystery, Suspense, Coming-of-Age Fiction
Trigger Warnings: Abuse, Trauma 

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for this debut thriller. Thank you to HQ for the invitation to take part and the gifted copy of the novel.

SYNOPSIS:

She only looked away for a second…

Annie White only looked away for a second, but that’s all it took to lose sight of her young daughter.

But seven years later, Abigail is found.

And as Anne struggles to connect with her teenage daughter, she begins to question how much Abigail remembers about the day she disappeared….

Addictive, edge-of-your-seat, dark women’s fiction perfect for fans of Heidi Perks, Sophie Hannah and Lisa Jewell.

 

MY REVIEW:

“It was when it was over that all the rest began, all that led up to that night on the bridge. When I had to account for everything I had done. And, ultimately, everything I had not.”

Seven years after Abigail White went missing at a London tube station she walks into a police station gripping the hand of a young girl. When her mother receives the call to say her fifteen-year-old daughter has been found, her joy is tinged with dread. Anne has been keeping a dreadful secret since that day, one that she has lived in fear of being revealed while also desperately doing all she can to find her child. Will her daughter remember what she did that day? Or will she return home without the truth shattering her family even more?

This one had me intrigued from the start. It started slowly, beginning on the day that Abigail is returning home, and gradually pulled me in, picking up pace until I was gripped by the heart-pounding tension and sizzling fear as more of the story was revealed. At the heart of this book is  a story about family. The two sisters and their families have always been incredibly clo and her sister Lillian had their daughters Abigail and Jess just two weeks apart and they were more like twins than cousins. The two families have remained close since Abigail’s abduction, a relationship that is an integral part of the story. 

In this book the author has The author has used her expertise as a psychologist and therapist to illuminate the complexities of the ‘joyful’ homecoming of a kidnapped child after many years: the fear alongside the relief and happiness, the disconnect between the child and their parents, the adjustments that are needed and the effects of trauma not only on the child, but their extended family. She also highlights how hard it might be for a child to trust their parents after they failed to protect them and their inner battle regarding their affection and fear for their captor and not knowing if all they’ve believed for so many years is actually true. My heart broke for this fractured family as I watched them try to piece themselves back together. The disconnect between Anne and Abigail was particularly palpable and tragic; she’s waited so long to her her child back and now doesn’t know how to be with her. This is compounded by her fear of what Abigail remembers and the guilt she’s carrying for whatever she did that day, but I wanted to reach through the pages and tell her to just hold her daughter. The author also highlighted the stunted personal growth Abigail would have gone through and used small details to show this. 

Though there are male characters in the book it did feel like a story dominated by female characters and it was they who were the most richly drawn. All of them were well-intentioned but flawed. I liked that Abigail wasn’t the stereotypical child that’s just thrilled to be home and happy now she’s free.. She’s quiet, distant, surly, evasive, and scared. She’s endured unspeakable horrors and is reluctant to share what she’s been told by her captor. She slowly reveals little morsels, usually to Jess, and a picture gradually emerges of just how much he messed with her mind and hurt her emotionally. Obviously there’s a lot of sympathy for her, but the menacing undercurrent to her character and ambiguity of whether or not she’s causing harm made her all the more interesting to read. 

Little White Lies is an emotional, twist-filled story. The author had a skill for making you think you can relax after a revelation only to leave you stunned with yet another heart-pounding twist that has you reading so fast the words almost blur. As the story progressed the author threw in a number of curveballs to throw us off the scent regarding Anne’s secret. I had a few theories about it, and about the man who’d taken Abigail, but I was so wrong. When the truth was finally revealed my jaw was on the floor. 

A sizzling debut that you don’t want to miss. A perfect read for anyone who loves a good, twisty thriller.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Philippa East works as a Clinical Psychologist and therapist. She lives in Lincolnshire with her husband and cat. Philippa’s prize-winning short stories have been published in various literary journals and Little White Lies is her debut novel.

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The Leaving Party by Lesley Sanderson⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Publisher: Bookouture
Published: January 31st, 2020
Format: Kindle
Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Crime Fiction, Coming-of-Age Fiction

Today is my stop on the blog tour for this new thriller. Thank you to Bookouture for the invitation to take part and the eBook ARC in exchange for an honest review.

SYNOPSIS:

Every year on the same day, on the anniversary, I receive a black rose. Thirteen years of dark petals, jagged thorns, dredging up memories I’ve tried to forget…

I’ve packed up my life. All my belongings are carefully sealed in labelled boxes, my suitcase ready for my big move. I’m just days away from a new life with my boyfriend Ben.

No one knows the real reason I’m desperate to leave.

My best friend Lena is throwing me a leaving party. A celebration, to say goodbye. Champagne to toast my farewell. Speeches, full of fond memories.

No one knows what I’m running from.

Then another black rose appears, dragging up thirteen years of buried memories. My passport goes missing. The very people I am trying to escape from turn up at our house.

Someone knows what I did.

This party was meant to be the first night of the rest of my life – but now I don’t know if I’ll see tomorrow.

Someone knows my secret. They’re in my home, they’re at my party, and they’re making me pay for it.

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MY REVIEW:

The Leaving Party is a story about how one night can change your life. About what can happen when long-held secrets and toxic obsession collide. And makes us question how well we really know those we consider closest to us. 

Ava is on the cusp of a new life. in two days she’s joining her boyfriend Ben in New York and she can finally leave behind the awful thing she did that’s been haunting her for thirteen years. She’s tried to move on but so far it’s followed wherever she goes with the appearance of a single black rose on the same day every year. she’s never told anyone, not even her best friend Lena who saved her life terrible, fateful night. But today one appears out of sequence, terrifying Ava and convincing her that her tormenter will be at the party and might just be planning their revenge. 

The backstory is slowly told in flashbacks of another party thirteen years ago. What happened that night cast a dark shadow over their lives and bound the pair together for the rest of their lives. Ava feels beholden to Lena for her actions that night and it’s clear that Lena plays on this, using it to keep Ava close and guilt her into accepting how she clings to her and wants her all to herself. The dynamic is unhealthy but Ava feels so indebted to Lena that she can’t see it clearly.  

I didn’t find Ava or Lena particularly likeable. Ava was a character I felt a bit indifferent about and I never particularly took to her or feel the connection you need with a character to really care about what happens to them. Though she talks about having done something awful and secretive, I never felt that tension or got the feeling she had done anything wrong, but sensed she felt a huge amount of guilt for causing an accident that ended in tragedy. Lena was different. I didn’t like or trust her from early on, and though she unnerved me I was able to feel her pain more keenly. As more of her character was revealed it was clear she had an unhealthy attachment to Ava and might benefit from some psychiatric help. She was a great character to read as though she’s clearly unhinged we’re never sure if she’s the good or bad guy. 

I loved the premise of this book. It was full of mystery and started with tension in the air as Ava receives the rose that morning. Though it never reached a level where I was on the edge of my seat,  tension was added to the story with the mystery of what had happened to Ben, the influx of sinister, unwanted party gifts and Ava trying to figure out who she could trust and which guest was behind it all. I had suspicions about the suspect early on that ultimately proved true, but the author kept me on my toes with a number of viable suspects that each seemed to have equal merit and made it had to be sure who was the perpetrator.

The Leaving Party was a quick, easy and engaging read. It is perfect for those who enjoy mysteries that don’t have the gruesome element you often find in this genre.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Lesley spends her days writing in coffee shops in Kings Cross where she lives and also works as a librarian in a multicultural school. She has lived and worked in Paris and speaks four languages. She attended the Curtis Brown Creative novel writing course in 2015/6, and in 2017 was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish fiction prize. Lesley discovered Patricia Highsmith as a teenager and has since been hooked on psychological thrillers. She is particularly interested in the pschology of female relationships.

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The Nowhere Girl by Nicole Trope ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Publisher: Bookouture
Published: January 28th, 2020
Format: Kindle, Paperback
Genre: Literary Fiction, Women’s Fiction
Trigger Warnings: Childhood and sexual abuse, neglect, addiction, miscarriage.

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for The Nowhere Girl. Thank you to Bookouture for the invitation to take part and my gifted copy of the book.

SYNOPSIS:

‘Please,’ she whispers, too quietly for anyone to hear. ‘Please help.’ But there is no one. Where is everyone? Help should be racing up the road, screeching to a stop. Help should be here but it’s not. It’s as far away as it’s ever been.

If you passed Alice on the street, you couldn’t help but smile. At how she holds hand with her husband, Jack, who she has been with since university. At the way she admires her three beloved boys, the centre of her universe.

But if you looked very closely, you’d see how tightly she holds Jack’s hand, afraid to let go. You’d see how carefully she watches her boys, scared to look away. You’d see her smile fading in a matter of seconds, and the secret she hides behind her chestnut-brown eyes.

She has told Jack that she ran away from home when she was younger – but she didn’t tell him the whole story. Her husband doesn’t know about the guilt she bears about the little sister she failed to save, the secret that torments her.

Now, after a lifetime of fresh starts, Alice receives a message spelling out her past. Everything she cherishes, the world she has lovingly built, threatens to collapse in on her. Without her family, she is nothing – and Alice will stop at nothing to save them.

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MY REVIEW:

This wasn’t an easy book to read. With themes of abuse, addiction and neglect it is a heartbreaking story that told of the evil that lurks inside some people and the lasting repercussions their terrible actions have on their victims. But it was also a story about courage, survival and strength. The story moves seamlessly between the dual timelines to tell the stories of three women and how tragic events that occurred thirty years ago changed their lives forever. 

The three narrators were complex, fractured and tragically real. I liked Alice and admired her strength, how she’d managed to build a happy family instead of repeating her mother’s mistakes. Reading what she went through as a child was devastating and I admired her for still visiting her ailing mother despite the agony it caused her and felt a deep sense of injustice for the fact she would never get the acknowledgement or apology she deserved. Molly was a likeable character and the one I related to most of all, having suffered a similar pain in trying to have children myself. It seemed immediately obvious who Molly was, and my heart hurt for what was to come when she ultimately learned the truth of her birth and dreadful past. I found myself on edge when reading her chapters because I was anticipating it happening and scared she would face another tragedy with this pregnancy. Margaret was certainly not a likeable character but I liked the author’s decision to give her a voice. It meant that instead of simply being an evil villain we see the nuance to her character, see the broken and weak woman inside and learn why she ended up the way she did. Her story is tragic and I definitely had mixed feelings about her. While there was some empathy for what she’d gone through as a child and the devastating loss of her husband, I couldn’t shake my anger at what she allowed to happen to her own children: her nonchalance at their existence and focus on her own pain being eased. I wanted to scream at her to stop being so bloody weak and protect her children. Her story highlighted how addiction ravages more than just the person addicted. I think she was let down by the system as well as her children, as if the authorities had noticed what was happening to the kids, they would have seen what was happening to her too. With help all of them could have had a very different life. 

This was the first time I have read a book by this author and I will definitely be reading more. She wrote about a multitude of tragic and difficult subjects and every one was written with skillful sensitivity. She portrayed the character’s pain vividly and made them all so real it was easy to forget I was reading a work of fiction rather than a harrowing true story. The story started slowly, steadily picking up pace until it was so tense and compelling that I couldn’t tear myself away. 

The Nowhere Girl is a deftly told, stark and poignant novel. Despite its bleak themes it is also a hopeful story of forgiveness and the healing power of love. It is a powerful and emotional story that I would recommend. 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Nicole Trope went to university to study Law but realised the error of her ways when she did very badly on her first law essay because-as her professor pointed out- ‘It’s not meant to be a story.’ She studied teaching instead and used her holidays to work on her writing career and complete a Masters’ degree in Children’s Literature. After the birth of her first child she stayed home full time to write and raise children, renovate houses and build a business with her husband.

The idea for her first published novel, The Boy under the Table, was so scary that it took a year for her to find the courage to write the emotional story. Her second novel, Three Hours Late, was voted one of Fifty Books you can’t put down in 2013 and her third novel, The Secrets in Silence, was The Australian Woman’s Weekly Book of the month for June 2014.

She lives in Sydney with her husband and three children.

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