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Review: Rabbit Hole by Mark Billingham
Sometimes there is just a powerhouse name in the thriller genre but somehow their work has just evaded you for one reason or another. Rabbit Hole was my first taste of the talented Mark Billingham’s work. I’m neither surprised nor shocked that I fell down the Rabbit Hole. The mind of Billingham is devious and twisted, he will take a common misconception in mental health and twist and turn it until it no longer resembles what it once was. The author did the groundwork, and the reader took one step and we fell into the dark and depraved mind of Alice Armitage. She is an ex-police officer who has been…
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Review: The Doll by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir
The Doll is the fifth story in the Icelandic Freyja and Huldar series. The cover instantly had me at hello. I am a huge fan of the creepy and intriguing and that cover came from the horror gods. The Doll is discovered after being trawled by a fishing net in Faxafloi Bay by Rosa Thrastdottir. Five years later bones have been discovered in the same place as the Doll, is it a coincidence or is this more to this story than meets the eye? Also, serious sex abuse allegations have been made against Bergur Alvarsson. Three different stories and timelines but just how do they knit together? The premise of…
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One Good Lie by Jane Isaac | Blog Tour Review
When this book landed on my kindle I just had that deep instinctual knowledge that this was going to be my kind of book. The relationship between siblings is a deep and complicated one. We have this passed down expectation that we should be close with them but don’t look away too quickly because sibling rivalry will soon be skipping down the corridors of the mind. The blurb had me searching for clues, is there something hidden in plain sight? Is a shadow creeping at the very edge of your vision? This stand-alone thriller was everything I needed at precisely the right time. One Good Lie had a strong opening…
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The Fort (City of Victory #1) by Adrian Goldsworthy
Sometimes you just pick up a book and fall into another time. The Fort by Adrian Goldsworthy is one such book. The time, the characters, the narrative. Everything just seems to slot into place. The characterization skills are terrifically utilized and the plot was swift-moving and often balancing on a knife-edge. I am a huge fan of historical fiction and I genuinely believe that I would be hard placed to see a better example of it than, The Fort. Flavius Ferox is a character that instantly called to me. He’s vivid, he’s alive and passionate. His character arc and internal monologue cast me into a time where brutality is the…
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The Rising Tide by Sam Lloyd | Book Review
“The True end of tragedy is to purify the passions.” Aristotle. In a way I feel me taking The Rising Tide on was a bit masochistic. I have always had an indescribable fear of the sea. I think it has something to do with how little we know about it. It is a body of swelling emptiness, an ebbing flow of desolation and destruction. Water can give life but it can take it away just as easily. Lucy Locke and her family love the ocean, her children have grown up around it and in it, just what happens when a storm of a lifetime heralds the discovery of their family…
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Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie | Book Review
Well shit…. Put a fork in me, I’m done. Between my recent readings of John Gwynne and Joe Abercrombie, this has finished me off. I have a book hangover that would rival some of my wilder student days spent drinking tequila on only a few hours sleep. These days it takes the recovery time of minor surgery to get over both drinking and books that are this bloody sublime! “I have learned all kinds of things from my many mistakes. The one thing I never learn is to stop making them.” Last Argument of Kings is the third and final instalment in the First Law Series and what an absolute…
