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REVIEW: The Marsh House by Zoë Somerville
The Marsh House seeps in atmospheric brilliance. It has the uncanny ability to remind you just how boring your life is. The novel tackles relationship breakdowns from multiple angles. A mother and daughter. A house in the country. Creepy diary entries. Personally, living in a cold, damp property in the middle of winter is a dead cert no for me but the protagonist had a story to unfold. It’s December 1963 and Malorie escapes to the country with her daughter, Franny. Her life is changing far quicker than she could have ever anticipated. Her relationship with Franny’s father, Tony has broken down. Partly due to his multiple infidelities and Malorie’s…
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REVIEW: The Search Party by Simon Lelic
The Search Party is a story that aims to entangle the reader into the web Simon Lelic has so expertly weaved. It incorporates the fear and danger of the forest – personally, there’s nothing more frightening than the open forest in the dead of the night. The branches reaching out and enveloping you in a death hug, the eerie noises that can empale you with terror, and the dark longs to crush you with its inky blackness. A group of friends is one member down, a disappearance, and the remainder of the group decides to lead a search party to locate her. However, what are their motives, and are they…
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REVIEW: What His Wife Knew by Jo Jakeman
What would you do if everything you knew, everything you lived for was suddenly snatched away at the drop of a hat? What His Wife Knew is a novel portraying a Wife’s denial and grief at being told her husband has died by Suicide. The remnants of her and her children’s lives are now a scattered ruin. She doesn’t know how to parent them in a way that they need, she can’t face doing the things that gave her pleasure…she is left in a wasteland of pain. With all, why does her husband committing suicide feel so wrong? The situation in What His Wife Knew is one of my worst…
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REVIEW: Remember my Name by Sam Blake
I have a soft spot for Irish psychological thrillers. The atmosphere, threat, and gothic feel of its landscape has me like a moth to the flame. Remember my Name is no different. It quickly becomes clear that the reader is dealing with a giant sticky spider web of emotions and deceit. Just how much do we know the person we willingly give our hearts and souls to? Sam Blake weaves a web so delicate, so precise that the plots and subplots expertly fall into place in the exact moment they should. Trust in her craft, the clock Is ticking, and you can feel the wrought anxiety in the character’s reactions.…
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REVIEW: Far from the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson
Far from the Light of Heaven reminded me a lot of a closed room murder mystery. Think Agatha Christie for the Science Fiction genre. The premise was exciting, but the execution left me feeling just meh. The characters weren’t particularly memorable and as the story progressed, I wasn’t bothered about how the mystery was solved. Wooden characters and a plot that felt a little convoluted, to me at least. The threads of the story should have been tied together in an understandable spectrum of events, but I was left confused and annoyed. The prologue got me very excited about the potential of the story. Far from the Light of Heaven…
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REVIEW: Hide by Nell Pattison
Hide was a difficult book for me to rate. It didn’t work all that well for me. The cover is extremely enticing, and the plot sounded like one of my favourite thriller tropes – whiteout conditions. A lot of people think that the snow is this beautiful phenomenon that reminds them of Christmas time and sitting around an open fire. I, however, have always found it just a bit too scary. Imagine being caught in whiteout conditions, you can’t see anything, and someone or something could easily sneak up on you without your knowledge. Scary stuff! However, the plot was a bit flat for me. Imagine spending Christmas with those…
