Genre: Thriller

Book Tour: From The Ashes

Posted August 2, 2022 by louisesr in Review / 1 Comment

From the Ashes by Deborah Masson
Series: Eve Hunter #3
Published by Random House on July 21, 2022
Genres: Thriller
Pages: 368
Format: ARC
Source: Random Things Tours
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As the house burns, the hunt for a killer begins...

In the dead of night someone starts a fire in a home for underprivileged children in Aberdeen. The flames spread quickly, and one person doesn't make it out alive.

But the victim wasn't found in their bedroom; they were discovered locked inside a secret basement underground. As DI Eve Hunter and her team search the blackened ruins, the case takes them into even darker territory.

Soon Eve unearths a horrific discovery at the heart of the property - one that turns the whole investigation on its head. Everyone in this home has something to hide, but who has a secret worth killing for?

I received this book for free from Random Things Tours in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Today it’s my stop on the Random Things Tour for From The Ashes by Deborah Masson.

I was discussing with some of the ladies in my book group last week and we were all in agreement that we’ve been introduced to some fantastic new (to us) authors through doing book tours and this is one of them! In fact, after reading this I’ve nominated the first book in the series as the September read for our book club so that we can introduce Deborah Masson to a whole new group of people.

As you can probably guess from the fact I want us to read the rest of the series, I really enjoyed this book.

I seem to have a lot of “tartan noir” on my reading list at the minute and Aberdeen is a brilliant, dark and gritty backdrop to this novel. I don’t know what it is about Scotland, it’s such a picturesque nation but at the same time the cities are always portrayed as grey and brooding. Maybe this is just a reflection of the books that I read.

This story is told from multiple perspectives; Eve who investigating the fire and the body that has been found, DC Scott Ferguson who is hiding a secret and neglecting the investigation while he concentrates on a child who has been run over; and that of the perpetrator

I spent much of the novel not understanding how all of the strands would pull together and be related to each other but they do, they all come together brilliantly, through a series of twists and turns that I didn’t see coming.

About Deborah Masson

Deborah Masson was born and bred in Aberdeen, Scotland. Always restless and fighting against being a responsible adult, she worked in several jobs including secretarial, marketing, reporting for the city’s freebie newspaper and a stint as a postie – to name but a few.
Through it all, she always read crime fiction and, when motherhood finally settled her into being an adult (maybe even a responsible one) she turned her hand to writing what she loved. Deborah started with short stories and flash fiction whilst her daughter napped and, when she later welcomed her son into the world, she decided to challenge her writing further through online courses with Professional Writing Academy and Faber Academy, where she wrote her
award-winning debut novel Hold Your Tongue, the first in the DI Eve Hunter series. Since then she has published two more books in the series, Out For Blood and From the Ashes.

Blog Tour – The Choice by Penny Hancock

Posted July 29, 2022 by louisesr in Review / 1 Comment

The Choice by Penny Hancock
Published by Pan Macmillan on July 21, 2022
Genres: Thriller
Pages: 336
Format: ARC
Source: Random Things Tours
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An estranged daughter. A missing grandson. A mother faced with an impossible choice.

Renee Gulliver appears to have it all: a beautiful house overlooking a scenic estuary on England’s East Coast, a successful career as a relationship therapist, three grown-up children, and a beloved grandson, Xavier. But then Xavier vanishes after Renee fails to pick him up from school, and the repercussions are manifold.

Renee is wracked with remorse; the local community question her priorities, clients abandon her; and, as long-held grievances surface, her daughter Mia offers her a heartbreaking ultimatum. Amid recriminations, misunderstandings and lies, can Renee find a way to reunite her family?

Wow, there’s no hanging around with this one. That opening chapter. Wow.

Renee seems to have it all, a fantastic career as a therapist, a loving family and a beautiful house. But she’s part of that generation that are trying to do it all, balancing a successful career, caring for her mother and her husband, looking after her grandson. It’s a balancing act and when Renee forgets to pick up Xavier from school one day, everything comes tumbling down.

‘Xavier isn’t here.’
‘What do you mean he isn’t there? Where is he? You were picking him up from school today.’
‘But it’s Monday.’
It is Monday, not one of my usual Xavier days. But Mia’s away, Mia’s in Amsterdam, on a course. I took Xav to school this morning and was supposed to pick him up this afternoon. The kitchen turns vivid, as if until this moment, I’ve been viewing it through soft focus.

Things aren’t always what they seem.

The truth will always come out.

I know it sounds cliched but these two sentences really are at the heart of this book. This is a beautifully written, character driven story of how secrets and misunderstandings can tear a family apart.

Alongside the story of what has happened to Xavier we also look back at what has happened in the past which has led the family to be where they are now.

Brilliantly constructed, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

About Penny Hancock

Penny Hancock is the author of internationally bestselling novels including Tideline a Richard & Judy book club pick, The Darkening Hour and A Trick of the Mind and I Thought I Knew You. She writes articles and short stories on family psychology for the national press. Penny divides her time between a village outside Cambridge and her children and grandchildren in London. The Choice is her fifth novel.

Goodreads | Amazon

Book Tour: All I Said Was True

Posted July 28, 2022 by louisesr in Review / 1 Comment

All I Said Was True by Imran Mahmood
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing on July 1, 2022
Genres: Thriller
Pages: 320
Format: ARC
Source: Random Things Tours
Buy on Amazon

I didn't kill her. Trust me...
When Amy Blahn died on a London rooftop, Layla Mahoney was there. Layla was holding her. But all she can say when she's arrested is that 'It was Michael. Find Michael and you'll find out everything you need to know.'

The problem is, the police can't find him – they aren't even sure he exists.

Layla knows she only has forty-eight hours to convince the police that bringing in the man she knows only as 'Michael' will clear her name and reveal a dangerous game affecting not just Amy and Layla, but her husband Russell and countless others.

But as the detectives begin to uncover the whole truth about what happened to Amy, Layla will soon have to decide: how much of that truth can she really risk being exposed?

Why did no-one tell me about Imran Mahmood before? Seriously, how have I never heard of him! Not only does he write outstanding books (I’m assuming from how great this book is that his others are belters) but one of his books is a tv show that I have also somehow missed (I’ve just added it – You Don’t Know Me – to my Netflix list).

OK, if you like thrillers, unreliable narrators and dual timelines then YOU HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK!!!!!

I didn’t know which way to turn, what to believe from Layla and I had no clue what actually happened.

Amy has died, Layla is found with the body. Layla is holding something back. She’s telling the truth – or at least some of it. Why is she holding things back? Why doesn’t she just tell them what happened? Who is Michael? Does Michael actually exist or is Layla making him up?

SO MANY QUESTIONS!!

This is an ideal book to read with a friend then you can throw about theories and ask each others opinion. Be prepared for your head to be spinning, maybe grab a notepad and pen 😂

You do have to suspend belief at some points, but it’s a work of fiction – you have to suspend belief on a regular basis watching the soaps!

Tour: Listen to Me by Tess Gerritsen

Posted July 22, 2022 by louisesr in Review / 2 Comments

Listen To Me by Tess Gerritsen
Series: Rizzoli and Isles #13
Published by Random House on July 7, 2022
Genres: Thriller
Pages: 320
Format: ARC
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This time she should have trusted her mother's intuition...

The murder of Sofia Suarez is both gruesome and seemingly senseless. Why would anyone target a respected nurse who was well-liked by her friends and her neighbours? As Detective Jane Rizzoli and Forensic Pathologist Maura Isles investigate the baffling case, they discover that Sofia was guarding a dangerous secret -- a secret that may have led the killer straight to her door.

Meanwhile, Jane's watchful mother Angela Rizzoli is conducting an investigation of her own. She may be a grandmother, not a police detective, but she's savvy enough to know there's something very strange, perhaps even dangerous, about the new neighbours across the street. The problem is, no one believes her, not even her own daughter.

Immersed in the hunt for Sofia's killer, Jane and Maura are too busy to pay attention to Angela's fears. With no one listening to her, and danger mounting in her neighbourhood, Angela just may be forced to take action on her own...

I have a confession to make…

I’ve not read anything by Tess Gerritsen before and I got confused when I chose this as I thought I’d seen the tv series – but I hadn’t (I was thinking of Scott and Bailey 🤣). I was very confused – it happens far more than it should. Anyway, now we’ve established that I’m an idiot who doesn’t know one detective series from another let’s get to the review!

As you’ve probably seen from my previous reviews I’m a big fan of gritty police fiction. I love Karin Slaughter, Chris Carter and Karen Rose. Therefore this seemed like a logical series for me to try.

Obviously having not read the others I can’t compare this to them but to me it didn’t seem like it was Rizolli and Isles, there wasn’t an awful lot of medical examiner Maura Isles in this, the plot focused more on Rizolli and her mum, Angela. Angela was such a mum; comedy gold and interfering, blowing up Jane’s phone with her thoughts, you could imagine her as head of the Neighborhood Watch! I did really enjoy having her in the novel – even if it was at Maura’s expense.

You all should know by now that I love multi-POV and dual timelines, this has them both with chapters being told from the POV of Jane, Maura, Angela or Amy (a girl who was involved in a hit and run a few months previous). I loved getting to see how all of the various threads came together.

This book was enjoyable enough that I’ll be working through the backlist – and hoping for a bit more from Maura in them as I do like a medical examiner’s prespective.

I’ll hopefully get my buddy reader to start this series from the beginning with me (with my memory once we’ve made it to this one I’ll have zero recollections of what happened).

Blog Tour – Deep Water by Emma Bamford

Posted July 19, 2022 by louisesr in Tour / 1 Comment

Deep Water by Emma Bamford
Published by Simon and Schuster on July 7, 2022
Genres: Thriller
Pages: 400
Format: ARC
Source: Random Things Tours
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This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.

Goodreads

Lies can be buried... Secrets always come to the surface

Amarante is paradise...
An uninhabited, unspoilt island somewhere in the Indian Ocean.
Only those who know it exists can find it.

But paradise comes with a price...
Virginie and Jake sail to Amarante for their honeymoon, but they are not alone.
They have to adjust to life on the island with five strangers.

And not everyone will live to tell the tale…
Dark secrets surface and their dream abruptly turns into a nightmare.
Removed from society, they find out what they’re truly capable of.

I received this book for free from Random Things Tours in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

A slow burn atmospheric mystery, this wasn’t the action packed thriller that I had expected but it had me hooked from first page to last wanting to uncover what had happened.

This is one of those books that begins at the end, a navy vessel in the middle of the Indian Ocean receives a distress call from Virginie’s private yacht as her husband needs urgent medical attention. Virginie then announces that she has “killed them all” and proceeds to tell their story.

Virginie and her husband Jake have escaped the rat race, purchased a luxury yacht and headed off to an isolated island Malaysian paradise that they’ve heard of. Except they get their and it’s already inhabited by a crew of expat soldiers.

About Emma Bamford

Emma Bamford, a freelance journalist, is working on an MA in prose fiction at University of East Anglia, UK. She is the author of Deep Water and the memoirs Casting Off and Untie the Lines.

Website

The Daughter Book Review

Posted July 12, 2022 by louisesr in Review / 2 Comments

Daughter by Jane Shemilt
Published by HarperCollins UK on 3 March 2015
Genres: Thriller
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
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This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.

Goodreads

A mother driven to the brink by uncertainty . . .
A family that was never quite as perfect as it seemed.

Jenny is a successful family doctor, the mother of three great teenagers, married to her loving husband, Ted, a celebrated neurosurgeon.

But when her youngest child, fifteen-year-old Naomi, doesn’t come home after her school play, the seemingly ideal life Jenny has built begins to crumble. The authorities launch a nationwide investigation with no success. Naomi has vanished, and her family is broken.

As the months pass, the worst-case scenarios—kidnapping, murder—seem less plausible. The trail has gone cold and the police have more pressing cases to investigate. Yet for a desperate Jenny, the search has barely begun. More than a year after her daughter’s disappearance, she’s still digging for answers—and what she finds disturbs her. Everyone she’s trusted, everyone she thought she knew, has been keeping secrets, especially Naomi. Piecing together the traces her daughter left behind, Jenny discovers a very different Naomi from girl she thought she’d raised.

Jenny knows she’ll never be able to find Naomi unless she uncovers the whole truth about her daughter—a twisting, painful journey into the past that will lead to an almost unthinkable revelation .

I’ve got to say I rather liked this book but it didn’t thrill me the way that I expected it to. It’s one of those books that keeps going at a steady pace giving you plenty of detail about the everyday comings and goings in life without there being anything that was terrifically shocking.

“When you are young you have no idea what you will need as time passes or how strong you might have to be.”

There are two main themes in The Daughter; the deceptiveness of teenagers and the blame game on working mothers. Both are things which people bury their heads in the sand about and pretend don’t exist. Both are things that are happening every day in a variety of families throughout the UK (and the rest of the world). I’ve seen a lot of reviewers mark this book down because they don’t believe that teenagers would lie to their parents like that. They’re wrong. I see a lot of parents who think that their children aren’t keeping things from them when the children are having intimate relations and taking drugs. I’ve also seen a lot of people complain about the way that Jenny is treated in this book because she feels guilty for the hours she works as a GP and is also made to feel guilty by her husband and son while they accept the fact that her husband had to work long hours as a surgeon. I wish we lived in a world where this didn’t happen. I wish we lived in a world where women weren’t made to feel guilty for going to work when they have young children. I wish we lived in a world where a man would be asked how he juggles a demanding career and family life. But we don’t.

“The trick was simply to balance it all. Family. Marriage. Career. Painting. If the balance tipped in one direction and work took up more time, no one complained. It sometimes felt as if I was rehearsing for real life, so if it went wrong it didn’t matter. One day I would have it all organized. I would be the perfect mother, wife, doctor, artist. It was just a question of practice. If I made mistakes, I could simply try again.”

Shemilt has done a very good job or portraying family life, the backdrop to this is the disappearance of a family member. She’s done a no hold barred accurate reflection of what happens in a hell of a lot of homes. I’m not saying it should. But it does. For me though, the book falls short in not being pacey enough. It focuses too much on how a mothers grief can weigh her down and because of that a lot of the story feels like swimming through treacle. I still very much enjoyed it but it could have had a far bigger impact.

About Jane Shemilt

While working as a GP, Jane Shemilt completed a postgraduate diploma in Creative Writing at Bristol University and went on to study for the MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa, gaining both with distinction. Her first novel, Daughter, was selected for the Richard & Judy Book Club, shortlisted for the Edgar Award and the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, and went on to become the bestselling debut novel of 2014. Since then Jane has published three more bestselling thrillers: Little Friends, The Drowning Lesson, and How Far We Fall. The Patient is her first novel with HarperCollins, and will be out in April 2022.

She and her husband, a professor of neurosurgery, have five children and live in Bristol.

Tour: The Dark Remains by Ian Rankin, William McIlvanney

Posted July 7, 2022 by louisesr in Review / 1 Comment

The Dark Remains by Ian Rankin, William McIlvanney
Published by Canongate Books on September 2, 2021
Genres: Thriller
Pages: 320
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
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In this scorching crime hook-up, number one bestseller Ian Rankin and Scottish crime-writing legend William McIlvanney join forces for the first ever case of DI Laidlaw, Glasgow’s original gritty detective 'Fantastic' Lee Child 'Absolutely brilliant' Mick Herron If the truth's in the shadows, get out of the light . . . Lawyer Bobby Carter did a lot of work for the wrong type of people. Now he’s dead and it was no accident. He’s left behind his share of enemies, but who dealt the fatal blow? DC Jack Laidlaw’s reputation precedes him. He’s not a team player, but he’s got a sixth sense for what’s happening on the streets. As two Glasgow gangs go to war, Laidlaw needs to find out who got Carter before the whole city explodes.

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Sometimes you read a book by an author and it makes you feel like a bad book blogger that you’ve never read anything of theirs before. This was me with this book. Unbelievably, I’ve never before read either of these authors. William Mcelveney is the Godfather of Scottish Noir, his Laidlaw trilogy paved the way for the police procedural that we read today. When he dies in 2015 an unfinished manuscript was discovered which was a prequel to the trilogy. Ian Rankin, the author of the Rebus novels, was the obvious choice to pick this up and finish it off.

Rankin has not attempted to modernise this novel but has kept it set in 1972, complete with misogyny, sectarianism, gangs and violence.

Laidlaw is an unconventional police detective who also has the stereotypical traits we’ve come to expect. He drinks too much, smokes too much, neglects his family and travels by bus! I never warned to Laidlaw the way I have to Rebus which makes me wonder whether this is due to the character or whether it’s because I’m a huge fan of Ken Stott who plays him in the tv series.

Blog Tour: The House Sitter Book Review

Posted June 15, 2022 by louisesr in Review, Tour / 2 Comments

The House Sitter Published by Bookouture on 14 June 2022
Narrator: Kristin James
Length: 9hrs 9 mins
Genres: Thriller
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
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This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.

Goodreads

‘You’re just the girl I’ve been looking for,’ Iris told me, her blue eyes sparkling, when she offered me the job as her live-in helper. Little did she know, I thought the exact same about her. And she was wrong to trust me...

As I clean Iris’s large, old house in Pacific Heights, my boyfriend Seth works outside, tending to the lawn and fixing the broken gate. I can’t help but notice Iris’s steely eyes watching our every move. Does she know why we’re really here?

Most days we live in perfect harmony, but today Iris is confused. She thinks we moved in uninvited. I pass her a tablet from the medicine cabinet, knowing she’ll soon calm down and remember how lucky she is to have found us.

Later that night, the police arrive to find Iris’s perfect house turned upside down, the telephone lying on the floor, its cord severed. They walk through each room, calling out, but the house remains totally silent.

You will think you know what happened that night, but when the police discover something unexpected hidden amongst the wreckage in Iris’s bedroom, you’ll find you don’t know a thing.

Today I’m on the blog tour for The House Sitter by Ellery Kane, thank you so much to Bookouture for inviting me to take part in this.

This is actually quite difficult to review without giving anything away. There’s a lot going on, with twists upon twists but so much of it would have the potential to spoil the story for you. I was actually writing notes as I was reading with my thoughts and suspicions, and I can’t share them with you, which is really frustrating!

The book opens with a 911 call, the caller is reporting an intruder, there’s screaming, a gun shot, silence. The rest of the book is told in dual timeline, before and after. Before starts with Iris meeting Seth and Lydia, inviting them to come and work for her. After, Iris is missing, assumed dead and Seth and Lydia are living in her house. In the before we follow Iris’s developing relationship with both Seth and Lydia before her disappearance. In the after we learn more about what has happened to Iris, Lydia and Seth before they met each other. We also get to follow the police investigation as Maureen takes on her first case under the watchful (and disapproving) eye of Walt.

There’s a definite male/female split in this book, I loved all of the female characters and all of the male characters were *choose your preferred derogatory term*.

I really wished that I was reading this with a buddy. I had so many thoughts and suspicions as I was reading. I would highly recommend reading this with someone else, take nothing at face value and pay close attention to the language used, it’s very clever.

I listened to the audio of this, at the start I got very frustrated by some of the voices used by the actress but by the end I had completely changed my mind on it. They were perfect.

Tour: The Lost Ones

Posted June 12, 2022 by louisesr in Review / 0 Comments

The Lost Ones by Marnie Riches
Series: Detective Jackie Cooke #1
Published by Bookouture on 7th June 2022
Genres: Thriller
Pages: 338
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
Buy on Amazon

This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.

Goodreads

The girl is sitting upright, her dark brown hair arranged over her shoulders and her blue, blue eyes staring into the distance. She looks almost peaceful. But her gaze is vacant, and her skin is cold…

When Detective Jackie Cooke is called to the murder scene, she is shocked by what she sees. Missing teenager Chloe Smedley has finally been found – her body left in a cold back yard, carefully posed with her bright blue eyes still open. Jackie lays a protective hand on the baby in her belly, and vows to find the brutal monster who stole Chloe’s future.

When Jackie breaks the news to Chloe’s heartbroken mother, she understands the woman’s cries only too well. Her own brother went missing as a child, the case never solved. Determined to get justice for Chloe and her family, Jackie sets to work, finding footage of the girl waving at someone the day she disappeared. Did Chloe know her killer?

But then a second body is found on the side of a busy motorway, lit up by passing cars. The only link with Chloe is the disturbing way the victim has been posed, and Jackie is convinced she is searching for a dangerous predator. Someone has been hunting missing and vulnerable people for decades, and only Jackie seems to see that they were never lost. They were taken.

Jackie’s boss refuses to believe a serial killer is on the loose and threatens to take her off the case. But then Jackie returns home to find a brightly coloured bracelet on her kitchen counter and her blood turns cold. It’s the same one her brother was wearing when he vanished. Could his disappearance be connected to the murders? Jackie will stop at nothing to catch her killer… unless he finds her first…

Today is my turn on the tour for The Lost Ones by Marnie Riches, thank you so much to the team at Bookouture for inviting me on to this.

This is the first in a new series by Marnie Riches and I am already looking forward to the next one.

Detective Jackie Cooke is an excellent character, she is what I expect from a Detective in North West England, over worked, under paid and under appreciated by her family. She has a lot going on both in her work life, trying to catch a serial killer while being held back by her boss and in her personal life, trying to cope with her mother and her errant husband as well as twin boys and a pregnancy. How she’s holding it all together is beyond me!

When Jackie is called to investigate the brutal murder of a teenager with Downs Syndrome, it brings back memories of her brothers disappearance when they were children. She’s barely got started on that murder when more body parts start to appear, not belonging to Chloe.

I loved that this included humour and that Jackie wasn’t a stick thin, can do it all detective. She was more real (more my size) and a lot more “normal” than some characters tend to be.

About Marnie Riches

Marnie Riches grew up on a rough estate in north Manchester. Exchanging the spires of nearby Strangeways prison for those of Cambridge University, she gained a Masters in German & Dutch. She has been a punk, a trainee rock star, a pretend artist and professional fundraiser.

Her best-selling, award-winning George McKenzie crime thrillers were inspired by her own time spent in The Netherlands. Dubbed the Martina Cole of the North, she has also authored a series about Manchester’s notorious gangland as well as two books in a mini-series featuring quirky northern PI Bev Saunders.

Detective Jackson Cooke is Marnie’s latest heroine to root for, as she hunts down one of the most brutal killers the north west has ever seen at devastating personal cost.

When she isn’t writing gritty, twisty crime thrillers, Marnie also regularly appears on BBC Radio Manchester, commenting on social media trends and discussing the world of crime fiction. She is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Salford University’s Doctoral School and a tutor for the Faber Novel Writing Course.

Website | Twitter | Facebook | Amazon | Instagram

The Shadow Man Book Review

Posted June 11, 2022 by louisesr in Review / 1 Comment

The Shadow Man by Helen Fields
Published by Avon on 4th February 2021
Genres: Thriller
Pages: 400
Format: ARC
Source: NetGalley
Buy on Amazon, Buy on Bookshop
Goodreads

He collects his victims. But he doesn’t keep them safe.

Elspeth, Meggy and Xavier are locked in a flat. They don’t know where they are, and they don’t know why they’re there. They only know that the shadow man has taken them, and he won’t let them go.

Desperate to escape, the three of them must find a way out of their living hell, even if it means uncovering a very dark truth.

Because the shadow man isn’t a nightmare. He’s all too real.

And he’s watching.

This is possibly one of the darkest thrillers that I’ve read for some time. Helen Fields wastes no time with setting the scene and getting to know characters, instead she is straight into the action establishing the tone for the entire novel from the start.

Being inside the twisted head of The Shadow Man, knowing what is going through his mind when he is carrying out his actions gives you a great insight to how delusional this character is and means that you know there is nothing that he won’t do to get what he needs. Coupled with this we have chapters told from the POV of Elsbeth, Meggy and Xavier. You know that there are interactions that have happened between them and The Shadow Man that you haven’t seen, but seeing their reaction to him and their desperation leaves your imagination to what else has happened working overtime. There’s not actually a lot of scene’s where they’re all together, what scenes there are will chill you. But the scene’s where Elsbeth, Meggy and Xavier are on their own are haunting

Interspersed with these scenes are the chapters featuring forensic psychologist Connie Woodwine and Detecive Brodie Baarda who are leading the hunt for The Shadow Man. I enjoyed watching the relationship develop between these two total opposites, even though it was on occasion a little bit clunky. Connie’s tell it like it is attitude is fantastic, and Baarda’s Etonian English approach to people are completely at odds with each other but they work.

The synopsis of this novel calls it heart pounding. There’s plenty of novels out there that have descriptions similar to this, very few of them live up to it. The Shadow Man does. When I get nervous or worked up my foot starts to tap, it doesn’t happen often, I’m pretty level headed. On a couple of occasions reading this I found my foot slamming itself repeatedly into the floor, or me reading sentences peering through my fingers. You honestly have absolutely no idea where this book is going to go next, who is going to survive and what they’re going to have to go through in order to survive. There was more than one occasion where I felt my stomach churning as I was reading. This is more than a thriller

The Castaways Book Review

Posted June 10, 2022 by louisesr in Review / 1 Comment

The Castaways by Lucy Clarke
Published by HarperCollins on March 1, 2021
Genres: Thriller
Pages: 400
Format: eBook
Source: Library
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Goodreads

You wake on a beautiful, remote island.

Sparkling blue seas, golden sunsets, barely a footprint in the sand.

Yet this is no ordinary escape.

Next to the wreck of a plane, a stranger paces. Another sharpens a knife, scoring a list of the dead onto a palm tree. Others watch from the shadows of a campfire – all with untold stories, and closely-guarded secrets...

This is no ordinary holiday.
This is no ordinary island.
This is no ordinary beach read.

Wow! What a book! This was my first book by Lucy Clarke and what an amazing book it was!

Erin and Lori are meant to be having the holiday of a lifetime together, instead the night before they have a row and Erin misses her flight. The plane never makes it to it’s destination.

“For so long I believed that I should only feel pleasure when I no longer feel all the other things: the sadness, the loss, the fear. But emotions don’t come parcelled neatly. They’re shaken together and messy. Happiness laced with sadness. Hope tangled with fear. Love shadowed by loss. It isn’t about waiting until I’m in a better place. Striving for a happy life. It’s about feeling life.”

This is a dual timeline, dual perspective novel. Told from the POV of Erin, 2 years after the plane which was carrying her sister disappered and from the POV of Lori, in the time on the island after the plane has crashed (there is a small amount of the novel covering before the disappearance but all the action takes place afterwards).

Two years after the plane disappears Erin is still looking for her sister, she is sure that she’s still alive, surely she’d feel it if she were dead? She’s also sure that someone is hiding something. Now, I’m not saying that Erin is obsessive but she’s dedicated her spare room walls to the discovery of her sister. I think as well as having been close to her sister and missing her, wanting to know what happened, there is also some survivors guilt in there. Erin should have been on that plane. If Lori is dead, they should have died together, if she’s still alive then maybe whatever predicament she’s in could have been lessened if Erin were with her.

I love how the reader always knows slightly more than the characters, but at the same time, we don’t know everything. I found that I was completely immersed into their world and desperate to know what had happened. Had Lori survived, if so, why hadn’t she made contact with her sister?

“You know that feeling when you read a good book, and you’re totally transported to the world within those pages? Your imagination has travelled there – and yet your body is not fooled: it knows you haven’t left the sofa.”

As a reader we know that Lori survived, the plane crashed and she was on an uninhabited island with the other survivors from the plane. She narrates the first month after the crash. But we’re at 2 years later. What has happened in the mean time? Has her name been carved into the tree showing those on the plane who didn’t survive?

22 Seconds by James Patterson

Posted June 9, 2022 by louisesr in Review, Uncategorized / 1 Comment

22 Seconds by James Patterson
Series: Womens Murder Club #22
Published by Penguin on 2 May 2022
Genres: Thriller
Pages: 400
Format: ARC
Source: NetGalley
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This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.

Goodreads

22 seconds... until Lindsay Boxer loses her badge—or her life.

SFPD Sergeant Lindsay Boxer has guns on her mind.

There’s buzz of a last-ditch shipment of drugs and weapons crossing the Mexican border ahead of new restrictive gun laws. Before Lindsay can act, her top informant tips her to a case that hits disturbingly close to home.

Former cops. Professional hits. All with the same warning scrawled on their bodies:

You talk, you die.

Now it’s Lindsay’s turn to choose.

You always know what you’re going to get with a James Patterson novel. Short, punchy chapters. Characters you’ve got to know over time and lots of murders. This one also involved drug cartels and illegal gun shipments.

This is the 22nd book in the Women’s Murder Club series which was created by Patterson on the premise that women tend to collaborate far more than men, hence by working together they get the job done. In all honesty, I didn’t find this one to be much of a Murder Club, it was more the Lindsay Boxer show, with her working closely with Joe on the case. Hopefully we’ll get to see a bit more of the other ladies in the future books.

Alongside the frustration with the other characters not being prevalent in this novel, was the chapters. The majority of the chapters are focused on Lindsay, which is fine. But then you’ll get a chapter which is from the POV of one of the other characters. There is nothing to tell you that the perspective is changing. It’s only when you get a couple of paragraphs in and are getting confused as to why it’s jumping around that you realise we are looking at a different character. Just a name under the chapter number would have made it a much pleasanter reading experience.

What I particularly liked was the attention to Julie and how Lindsay and Joe had to consider the risk to their lives and the impact on Julie, ensuring that only one of them was in a high risk situation at any one time. All to often in novels the main characters have a child but if they’re not involved in that particular scene then they seem to get forgotten about. I was really impressed that Julie was present on every page, even when she wasn’t part of the scene.

With A Mind To Kill (007) Book Review

Posted May 31, 2022 by louisesr in Review / 0 Comments

With a Mind to Kill by Anthony Horowitz
Series: James Bond #2
Published by Penguin Random House on May 26, 2022
Narrator: Rory Kinnear
Length: 7hrs 24mins
Genres: Thriller
Pages: 288
Format: Audiobook
Source: Publisher
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This post contains affiliate links you can use to purchase the book. If you buy the book using that link, I will receive a small commission from the sale.

Goodreads

It is M's funeral. One man is missing from the graveside: the traitor who pulled the trigger and who is now in custody, accused of M's murder - James Bond.

Behind the Iron Curtain, a group of former Smersh agents want to use the British spy in an operation that will change the balance of world power. Bond is smuggled into the lion's den - but whose orders is he following, and will he obey them when the moment of truth arrives?

In a mission where treachery is all around and one false move means death, Bond must grapple with the darkest questions about himself. But not even he knows what has happened to the man he used to be.

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

It’s a long, long time since I read a James Bond novel. Many years ago I read one of the original Bond’s written by Ian Fleming but it’s so long now that I couldn’t even tell you which it was. I have however, watched all of the films many times.

It says a lot for the writing skills of Anthony Horowitz that he has been entrusted to continue on the James Bond novels, as well as the Sherlock Holmes novels, although I believe that he has said this will be his last

At the start of this novel there is a brief update on what happened in the previous novels

In You Only Live Twice, James Bond was sent to Japan, where he tracked down Ernst Stavro Blofeld on the island of Kyushu. Following a pitched battle in Blofeld’s ‘Garden of Death’ Bond received a traumatic head injury which resulted in amnesia. He spent the next year in a Japanese fishing village. He was reported as missing in action. His obituary was published in The Times.
In The Man With The Golden Gun, the twelth and final James Bond novel written by Ian Fleming, Bond returned to London after having fallen into the hands of the KGB. He had been brainwashed and ordered to assassinate M with a cyanide pistol. The attempt failed. Bond was deprogrammed and sent to Jamaica to kill the freelance assassin ‘Pistols’ Scaramanga.
With A Mind To Kill begins 2 weeks after that mission ends.

Both You Only Live Twice and The Man With The Golden Gun are referenced throughout Horowitz’s writing and Fleming’s work has obviously heavily influenced this storyline (I believe there were notes that he had for future stories which were made available to Horowitz’s previous 2 books, but not for this one).

What immediately struck me was how this novel is following on from where Fleming left off. This hasn’t moved to a modern day setting but is still set in the 1960’s when the original books were. Horowitz is (I think) the fifth author to take on the Bond novels and I found it interesting that he has chosen to pick them up in this way, staying true to what Fleming would have (presumably) done, rather than modernising them as other authors have done.

Bond still has an eye for the ladies with Russian Katya Leonova playing his ‘love interest’, as ever with Bond you are asking the question as to whether she is simply a conquest or the real deal, and whether he is capable of the feelings everyone else actually succumb to.

I found him to be less arrogant in this novel than I expected, he’s more subdued than the Bond that I am used to seeing on my screen, more level headed. He will do anything to protect his country and his colleagues, the danger to his life seems to be secondary in his thoughts.

I listened to the audiobook of With A Mind to Kill which was narrated by Rory Kinnear who has played Tanner in 4 of Daniel Craig’s Bond films and has also voiced other audiobooks of Harowitz’s work. I really think he was the perfect choice, he captures Bond expertly and was easily distinguishable between all of the characters. Reviews of Harowitz’s previous novel, A Line To Kill, have commented that Kinnear had a tendency to overact, while I’ve not yet listened to that book myself (it is sat in my Audible downloads) I can confirm that this definitely wasn’t the case here.

About Anthony Horowitz

Anthony Horowitz, OBE is ranked alongside Enid Blyton and Mark A. Cooper as “The most original and best spy-kids authors of the century.” (New York Times). Anthony has been writing since the age of eight, and professionally since the age of twenty. In addition to the highly successful Alex Rider books, he is also the writer and creator of award winning detective series Foyle’s War, and more recently event drama Collision, among his other television works he has written episodes for Poirot, Murder in Mind, Midsomer Murders and Murder Most Horrid. Anthony became patron to East Anglia Children’s Hospices in 2009.

On 19 January 2011, the estate of Arthur Conan Doyle announced that Horowitz was to be the writer of a new Sherlock Holmes novel, the first such effort to receive an official endorsement from them and to be entitled the House of Silk.

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Bookouture Tour: The Daughters

Posted May 30, 2022 by louisesr in Tour / 0 Comments

The Daughters by Julia Crouch
Published by Bookouture on 26 May 2022
Genres: Thriller
Pages: 312
Format: ARC
Source: NetGalley
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Goodreads

My husband says his first wife’s dead.
His daughters say he killed her…

Ever since Carys married Bill, she has tried to look after his daughters. Particularly sweet, troubled Lucy, who was only six when her mother died.

Over the years, Carys has done everything she can think of to help Lucy. Now, she has found a therapist who specialises in cases like hers. His methods are unusual, but Carys is desperate.

Sitting in the sunlit waiting room, staring at the framed diplomas on the wall, Carys allows herself to hope. Then Lucy comes running out of the room, wailing, her eyes wild.

Lucy says she saw her father kill someone.

Carys is certain that the memory isn’t real. Bill wouldn’t hurt anyone.

But then a body is found buried in overgrown woods near their home. And Lucy says if they keep looking they’ll find her mother next…

I had so many mixed feelings about this book. I’ve read quite a few by Julia Crouch and I know that she is an expert at crafting a good story which will keep you guessing. But I also know that her stories are a slow burn. This started as a slow burn, more of a slow simmer really and I honestly wasn’t sure I was going to like it.

The first chapter is meeting a lot of characters, I had to read it more than once to get my head around everything. Now, I will caveat this with the fact my daughter changed bedroom this week and keeps getting lost in the middle of the night. I’m beyond tired from having to guide her round the house when she’s trying to find the loo at 1am. So, I struggled with the first chapter, but it might not be the fault of the chapter, it might just be that my head wasn’t working right.

When Lucy starts seeing a hypnotherapist she suddenly starts to remember details from her childhood, including what really happened to her mother. Are these repressed memories? Are these planted memories? Or are they just a teenagers overactive imagination?

Throughout this book I was questioning who to trust. Lucy is damaged but can you trust what she’s now saying? Is Ajay (the hypnotherapist) the real deal or is he planting things into Lucy’s head? Carys is too good to be true. Can she be trusted or is it all a facade to throw you off?

This then begs the question – Was Alice killed? Did she commit suicide? Or is she still alive?

Little One Book Review

Posted May 27, 2022 by louisesr in Review / 2 Comments

Little One by Sarah Denzil
Published by Independently published on 11 January 2021
Genres: Thriller
Pages: 344
Format: ARC
Source: NetGalley
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Goodreads

"Take my hand, little one."

Fran finds her standing by the swings. A little girl, Esther, no older than seven years old, by herself in the dead of night, her pretty but old-fashioned yellow dress covered in grass stains and her hair dishevelled. She says she's waiting for Father, and that strikes Fran as particularly odd.

After Esther is reunited with her family, Fran can't stop thinking about this pious child whose imaginary friend is God. Fran's instincts tell her something is very wrong. Why does Esther keep running away from home, and how did she get that bruise on her leg?

Fran's husband warns her not to get too close, but one morning, Esther and her family disappear. Where did they go? Why did they leave their furniture behind?

Fran knows in her gut that something terrible is going to happen to that child, and she can't stand by while it happens. No matter the cost.

After all, she found her. But can she save her?

Wow. That was a rollercoaster ride. I’ve got to say that from the synopsis you think this might be a missing child type thriller. It’s not. The synopsis gives nothing away as to what this book is about. And if it gave any more details then it would spoil it, I’m also not going to spoil the book for you by trying to summarise it (plus, who wants a review that regurgitates the synopsis?). With this in mind it is quite difficult to write a review without spoiling anything for those who have not yet read it.

“Being a mother is one of the hardest jobs in the world. No, it’s the hardest job in the world, and probably the loneliest. Be kind to yourself. You’re doing the best you can.”

The first half of the book was enjoyable but kind of plodded along, you really got to know Fran and build a relationship with her.

By the midway point I had an idea of where the story might be going and what some potential plot points could be but I was still unsure. My ideas of where the story might be going – completely wrong! Those potential plot points – nope!

You hit the midway point and this novel takes a turn and becomes an unputdownable, non-stop thrill ride. I absolutely loved the second half and cursed anybody who interrupted my reading time. It was all bam, bam, bam action and twisty, twist with plot twists. There is no way anyone hitting the half way mark would have predicted what was to come.

The final twist – SO GOOD!!! and so well written, completely believable and not just thrown in for shock value.

I will be looking up Sarah Denzil’s other books and will definitely be buying more of her work in future.

About Sarah Denzil

Sarah A. Denzil is a Wall Street Journal bestselling suspense writer. She is also known as young adult author Sarah Dalton.

Sarah lives in Yorkshire with her partner, enjoying the scenic countryside and rather unpredictable weather.

She is the author of international bestselling psychological thriller SILENT CHILD, which topped the bestseller lists on Amazon in the US, UK and Australia.