-
REVIEW – The Weekend Escape by Rakie Bennett
The Weekend Escape is the story of rekindling waning friendships. We all know that as the years of youth and irresponsibility dwindle and life can get in the way of meeting up with friends. We grow up, we get jobs, get involved in new relationships, some get married and have children, it can be difficult to keep in contact with friends we had in school and college. When Lyndsey gets an invitation from her old friend Juliet to go on a weekend break with her and their old friends, Sonia, Bobbie, Amanda, and Val, she is initially hesitant. Money is tight, she has changed a lot and is dealing with…
-
Review: Whisper Cottage by Anne Wyn Clark
Whisper Cottage is a domestic thriller about Stina and Jack, a young couple who are desperate to leave the rat race that is Birmingham. They are both sick and tired of worrying if they leave their front door unlocked even for ten seconds they are running the risk of aggravated burglary. They find their dream home in the Warwickshire village of Avoncote and they just know they are going to be genuinely happy here. Newlywed and expecting their first baby together and with the addition of the two-year-old border collie, Jobie life couldn’t be better. The only thing that niggles at Stina is the village gossip about their elderly neighbour,…
-
The Dark Remains by William McIlvanney & Ian Rankin
The Dark Remains is undeniably authentic and a true testament to everything Glasgow was in the ’70s and ’80s. I haven’t had the pleasure of reading the Laidlaw series by the late and great William McIlvanney but I will be rectifying that as soon as possible. Gangland Glasgow and its brutal violence and its territorial wars, the tone was set and it was addictive as it was horrifying. Ian Rankin had massive shoes to fill but he laced them up, took pen to paper, and paid homage to Scotland’s father of Tartan Noir. The Dark Remains is just that, dark. It doesn’t pull any punches, it doesn’t pretty anything up,…
-
Review: The Shape of Night by Tess Gerritsen
The Shape of Night is a story about guilt and loss. It tells the story of Ava Collette, a woman that is running from her past. She distances herself from her family, her work, and predominately her memories. I don’t think you can outrun your past, you can just maybe stall it for a while. A food writer that has become hooked on alcohol to deal with her emotions. It all gets too much and she decides to rent a house, Brodie’s Watch, a large stately home overlooking the sea in a remote coastal peninsula of Maine. Will it provide Ava with the distance to get her head straight and…
-
Review: We Were Never Here by Andrea Bartz
Andrea Bartz is back with an all-new psychological thriller. Living out the rest of your twenties abroad sounds like the best way to live, but if you had an overbearing, manipulative, and gaslighting best friend would it be worth the bother? Backpacking in Cambodia and Chile should give them memories galore but what if the type of memory you are left with consumes you with guilt and tears apart your psyche? This is the situation that Emily finds herself in. Destructive and compulsive is the yarn spun in We Were Never There. One death looks like an accident but what if two adds up to more than a coincidence. The…
-
Review: Devil’s Fjord by David Hewson
Dark and hypnotising. Devil’s Fjord is a Nordic based mystery that tantalises with its mystery and its intrigue. Devil’s Fjord really excels at displaying its tragic atmosphere. In its beauty is a life that is behind the times and traditional to the Faroe Islands. Its inhabitants are ruled by the waters and fishing is all they know. The young have vanished to find a life that will enrich them beyond anything they could find in Djevulsfjord on the isle of Vagar. Those that are left, find themselves in astronomical amounts of debt to the Thomsens. What they give with one hand they take with the other. Landowners and with owning…
