I’ve always been a bit sniffy about picking up a Fiona Collins book. The covers all look so twee and pink and girly – the worst kind of chick lit! – that I’ve never actually read one until now. When I read the synopsis of this book the cover hadn’t been finalised and I was…
Book Review: The Last Widow – Karin Slaughter ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
After a few standalone stories from Slaughter it is great to get back to the world of the GBI and the ninth Will Trent book. It many ways this feels much more like early Will as he is left foundering without a safety net and suddenly finds himself without Sara. The book begins with the…
Book Review: The Family – P R Black ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
When I was invited to close out the Blog tour for The Family I had to admit that it had been so long since I had read the synopsis for the book that I had forgotten what had attracted me to it in the first place! As I delved into its pages I was half…
Book Review: The Reckoning – Yrsa Sigurdardottir ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Book two in the Children’s House series sees Icelandic author Yrsa Sigurardottir at her chilling best. Not for the faint hearted, this is Scandi Noir at its finest. When a time capsule is dug up at a local school after ten years it contains a very creepy note written by a 13 year old predicting…
Book Review: I Know Who You Are – Alice Feeney ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Alice Feeney is on a bit of a roll. Her first book Sometimes I Lie was a huge hit worldwide and is being made into a Warner Bros TV Series starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. It must have made it quite the challenge to come up with a story that could compete on that level but…
Book Review: The Mister – E L James ⭐️⭐️⭐️
When I was young we used to go and visit my grandmother. If it coincided with a visit from my cousins it used to be great fun. On dark wet winter days not so much. My grandmother was an avid reader though and one wall of her bedroom had books stacked from floor to ceiling….
Book Review: The Island – Ragnar Jónasson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Icelandic culture has a great history of storytelling and there is a reverence for books and reading that seems to be lacking in other modern European countries. I think this is why there have been so many fantastic Icelandic authors coming to the fore in recent years. The Island is the second book in Ragnar…
Book Review: Beautiful Bad – Annie Ward ⭐️⭐️
I finished Beautiful Bad a couple of weeks ago but it has taken me until now to decide what I really thought about it. That is often an admirable quality in a book but in this case I have been fighting too very diverse opinions. In many ways that is very typical of the book…
Book Review: Have You Seen Her – Lisa Hall ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
It is early November. A school Bonfire Night fireworks display in an affluent Surrey town. Anna watched Laurel run after her mother Fran across the school grounds, distracted momentarily by the fireworks she looks away. That was all it took, a split second. Laurel was gone and no-one can find her. As the days and…
Book Review: The Editor – Steven Rowley ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Modern American literature isn’t always a favourite of mine. There is such a difference in tone between a European author writing on a subject and that of their American counterpart. I’m very pleased to say that Rowley has crafted a modern American novel of significance with a pathos and circumspection that is so often missing…
Book Review: Darker – E L James ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Given the connections between E L James and the Twilight Saga (The Fifty Shades series was originally published as Twilight fan fiction online featuring Edward and Bella) it was probably inevitable that the books would be republished from Christian Grey’s point of view. Unlike Stephenie Meyer’s abandoned Midnight Sun project this is the second of…
Book Review: The Lost Girls – Sarah Painter ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Edinburgh student, Rose MacLeod, has been losing time for as long as she can remember. Days and weeks just disappear, leaving her with terrifying gaps in her memory. Now she is seeing disturbing visions; waking nightmares of violence and death. Around the world young women like her are being killed and Rose appears to have…
