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Strangers by C.L. Taylor | Review
How to describe a stranger? Someone you’ve yet to meet. Do they wish you ill harm or are they a person who lives along the same confines and laws as you? Strangers is three stories that interweaved with each other’s. A calming hand in a storm of pain? What do these three stories have in common – compassion, understanding an humility. Our three main protagonists Ursula, Gareth and Alice are lost souls swimming in a sea of pain and desperation. They are jaded with life – they’ve all been handed a shitty hand of cards. Divorce and cheating, death of a loved one and caring responsibilities has these characters looking…
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The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell | Review
The House We Grew Up In. A perfect starting bullet for discussion. Do you remember yours? Was it a happy home, full of laughter and fond memories? Lisa Jewell introduces us to the concept that looks can be deceiving. Everything can appear to be magnificent and charming on the outside but behind closed doors secrets can harbour and fester. Even our memories can appear hazy, are they to be trusted? An atmosphere seeped in darkness, tragedy that alters the course for everyone and a compulsion that could kill. Jewell makes us understand frustrations, how hoarding is as much an addiction as alcoholism and just how it spirals out of control. …
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Keeper by Jessica Moor | Review
Keeper was one of those books that had the premise of being outstanding, but it didn’t work for me for several different reasons. Firstly, the characterisation didn’t work in any aspect. I didn’t feel connected or invested in their back stories or their end game. This was a real shame because good characterisation is pretty much a deal breaker for me. Like other readers, I went through bouts of anger and not the type that invoked such emotion that I was intertwined with the plot, the anger was for reasons that I will discuss below. The main protagonists were so devoid of human kindness and emotion that I seriously wondered…
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The End Of Her by Shari Lapena|Blog Tour
A blog tour invitation for a Shari Lapena book is going to be an automatic yes, and The End Of Her was no different. I don’t think I even read the synopsis properly before emailing back. Some might think that was odd but knowing this author, I knew she would deliver and quite frankly I was in safe hands. A sleep deprived mother already feeling on edge. A face from the past. Accusations that could have very serious implications for Stephanie and Patrick. We have a knifes edge amount of tension and the plot has a rubix’s cube level of intricacy that made my brain hurt. A woman from Patricks…
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Neon by G.S. Locke | Blog Tour
Anyone that has stuck around this blog for any length of time knows that I’m an avid reader of psychological thriller but when a serious crime element is thrown in for good measure, you know I’m anyone’s. It wasn’t necessarily the twist that I was waiting for that made Neon so good but the devilishly dark narrative that the plot took on from the very first page. Not only is the death of a spouse a traumatic event, but for it to have been a targeted attack by the man you are actively investigating is a blow professionally and personally. I greedily accepted the blog tour invitation for Neon like…
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The Eyes Of Darkness by Dean Koontz|Review
The Eyes of Darkness. A title that gave me chills as I inhaled this spectacular, genre busting novel. A government whose role it is meant to be to protect the citizens of their country. They aren’t meant to cover up a catastrophic accident and keep a grieving mother from finding out the true cause of her sons’ demise. This novel is the best example at highlighting that the human condition is the real monsters lurking in the dark. Their penchant for control, devastation and blood thirsty violence is the main theme played throughout. Sounds intriguing, right? The Eyes of Darkness was magnetic. Every time I put the book down to…
