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‘The Haunting of Aveline Jones’ – Phil Hickes

There’s a chill in the air, the leaves are starting to come down and we’re almost into October…so this was a perfect time to curl up on the sofa and read this ghost story.
Aveline Jones is a serious young girl, used to spending time alone and she loves nothing more than to read ghost stories under the covers. As her half-term approaches, Aveline is upset to be forced to spend the holiday with her aunt in the Cornish seaside town of Malmouth.
From the moment she arrives Aveline senses something odd about the place – from the remote setting to the strange child-shaped mannequins that decorate many of the houses. Her aunt’s home makes strange noises and for a child used to living in the city this is a place where her imagination can run riot.
Aveline finds herself pushed into visiting the local bookstore. There she finds a friend in its chatty owner and his nephew, but she also discovers a mysterious book telling some of the local stories.
The setting is perfect for this quite charming story. Everything is quickly put in place, and though we have an idea that something scary is going to happen (which is, naturally, linked to the book Aveline has bought) there’s a reassuring adult presence to stop it being too scary for its intended audience. Aveline is a determined and resourceful character, whose imagination is to be lauded but there’s a resilience to her that I couldn’t help but admire.
A must-read for those who like to be scared without being terrified, and the illustrations were perfect for setting the mood of each chapter.
Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to review this before its release…and I can’t be the only one excited to see there’s a second book to come.

‘Influence’ – Sara Shepard and Lilia Buckingham

If you thought Pretty Little Liars was set in a far-fetched world, then you’ll love Influence. It’s a world so far removed from reality for many that it really is hard to comprehend people living like this. However, Shepard’s co-author in this is a real-life influencer, so I trust much of this is based on her reality.

The story focuses on four influencers – Delilah (relatively new to the scene), Scarlet (the original mean girl), Jasmine (a child star desperate to reveal who she really is) and Fiona (the funny girl hiding her own secret). We follow them as they live their picture-perfect lives and quickly realise that the reality of their existence is quite different from the image they present.

Much of the interest for me came from the insight into a way of life that is so alien to my experience. It struck me as crazy, a mental nightmare waiting to happen and yet something that holds a dangerous allure. When one of the group is found dead, there is a determination to uncover some of the secrets people have been hiding as they work out what’s happened.

Strangely, the actual murder and subsequent investigation really didn’t register much. There was an attempt to make it dramatic, but the truth was – if I’m honest – rather out of place and seemed more of a manipulation of events to prove a point about the potential pitfalls of this type of world.

I’m grateful to NetGalley for letting me read this prior to publication (expected January 2021), and though it wasn’t really my thing I can see this being a big hit with the target audience.

 

‘Hollowpox: the Hunt for Morrigan Crow’ – Jessica Townsend

What an October treat this will be for many readers, and I’m thrilled to have been given the opportunity via the publishers and NetGalley to read it before publication (and desperate for my pre-order to arrive so I can read it again).

For a book targeting younger readers, our third instalment takes a dangerous turn that brings darkness to Nevermoor. The threat comes in the form of a virus (I did wonder if Townsend had the ability to see into the future!) called the Hollowpox that infects wunimals and forces them to act in self-destructive and dangerous ways. The infection rate is small, initially, but quickly takes hold and rises to the level that means it cannot be ignored. Restrictions are imposed and fear of what is to come spreads.

Alongside this very real threat hovers the fear Morrigan has of Squall, the link they seem to share and what it will mean for her to be a Wundersmith. Now in her next year of studies Morrigan is granted the opportunity to study more of the craft that few seem to understand, many fear and yet which offers real potential. Through some inventive teaching methods she gets to learn more about Wunder and how she can manipulate it. It also means she gets to see more of Squall, and comes to see him as human.

Throughout the book the focus is on the Hollowpox and its impact. However, Townsend seamlessly blends this bigger picture with the emotional journey of Morrigan and some cracking scenes that really had me racing through the pages. The writing, throughout, is vibrant and there are several moments (you’ll know them when you get there) that really had me guessing in which direction this was going to go.

I can safely this was a read that I’d highly recommend.

 

‘Anxious People’ – Fredrik Backman

Anxious People is a book that sneaks up on you somewhat…but it is one that I would urge people to read.

The narrative focuses on a hostage situation, taking place just before New Year, when a group of prospective buyers in an apartment are taken hostage by a bank robber needing to escape quickly after their planned raid goes wrong. Though the scenario around which this story revolves sounds dramatic, the story itself is gentle and far more emotional than I was expecting.

Backman shows us – through this scenario – the threads that bind us, though we may not realise them initially, and encourages us to explore our own interactions with others.

Piece by piece, we are shown what led to this most unusual situation. We gradually learn little details about the hostages within the apartment, see the thought process of the police responding to this crime and come to understand some of the decisions that lead our characters to the point in time at which we meet them.

I never thought I would find myself feeling sympathy for so many characters. From the bank robber doing the wrong thing for what could be argued are good reasons to all of the hostages, Backman reveals details about their lives that I could not help but react emotionally to. The hostage-taking scenario aside, there are no grand gestures here but this was a gentle – at times, very funny – look at loneliness and how we can, sometimes, lose control of things around us.

As always, Backman’s style draws you in. There’s a genuine warmth for the minutiae of people’s lives and the little details that can affect our choices. Interspersing the story with the transcriptions of the police interviews allowed us to learn little details to help our understanding, but which also allowed us to understand how we arrived at the final destination.

 

‘Cemetery Boys’ – Aiden Thomas

This is a review I had to return to as when I finished the book I had tears in my eyes and couldn’t think straight. Emotional with some great comic moments, and characters that jump off the page with their vibrancy. A tale of love, acceptance and a healthy dose of sass with some magic thrown in…will be recommending this to so many!

Update

Yadriel is part of a family who can see the dead. Their talents have been nurtured over many years, and Yadriel is desperate to be part of the Brujx community. What we quickly learn is that Yadriel’s family are reluctant to accept him into the rituals because he is trans, and it goes against their traditions. A conflict that, for me, came to represent the challenge that seems to be common to many…that need to be accepted for who you are, and perhaps validated by those you love (even if they don’t seem wholly supportive of you).

Yadriel and his best friend, Maritza, definitely forge their own way. Determined to find a way to prove their skills, Yadriel carries out his own ritual when his cousin Miguel goes missing. There’s no sign of a body – but when Yadriel brings back another dead boy, Julian, he gets more than he bargained for!

From their first meeting Julian and Yadriel are great together. They have an instinctive need to support one another and they can’t always articulate what they’re feeling, but it’a a bond to treasure. It’s hardly surprising that Yadriel is not wholly pleased at the prospect of having to send Julian’s body to the afterlife.

The book follows Yadriel and Maritza in their journey to learn what has happened to Miguel and Julien. Eventually they get answers, though they’re not what they would have wanted. This culminated in a dramatic moment that had me crying, but the aftermath mopped things up nicely and left me with good feelings (albeit with tears in my eyes).

I can’t wait to recommend this to people and discuss it.

‘Sweet Harmony’ – Claire North

In Sweet Harmony North has created a monster, a monster I initially felt some empathy for but who – ultimately – learns nothing from her situation.

A succinct yet damning indictment of our obsession with youth, physical health and the ‘quick fix’ solution. Sweet Harmony tells the story of one very normal woman living in a world where everything can be fixed…at a price.

Harmony has upgrade after upgrade to keep her body looking its best. Nothing needs to be worked at in the traditional sense and all is good, if you can pay for it. Our only clue that something is not right is that Harmony has a spot…and before we know it we see the full truth of her situation exposed.

Faced with spiralling debt we see Harmony slowly shutting down. Around her, difficult choices have to be made. The reaction to her plight when she shares it shows the casual callousness that we seem to take for granted in so many circumstances.

Until the closing stages part of me felt Harmony was a victim, and I felt sympathy of sorts for her predicament. However, the decision she makes at the end made me feel that she was rather more complicit in her demise than I’d been prepared to accept. I closed the story feeling somewhat tainted, angry that such a situation could come about but also miserable to recognise so much of the mindset prevalent in the book as being all around us now.

Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this prior to publication.

‘Heart Bones’ – Colleen Hoover

Hearts don’t have bones so they can’t hurt…proving people who think this wrong is, I think, the reason for writers like Hoover, who seem determined to show us the many ways in which loving someone can both heal and hurt in equal measure.

Our main character in this is Beyah Grim. When we first met her she’s living in a trailer park with her mother, a meth addict, and is faced with the pretty unpleasant scene of her mother having overdosed in their living space. Seeing how badly Beyah’s home life has impacted on her is made startlingly clear when she says that dying was probably the one good thing her mother did for her. Only hours after this shocking discovery, Beyah is told she is being evicted from the only home she’s known because her mother didn’t pay rent for the last few months. Her only choice is to phone the father she doesn’t really know.

So Beyah finds herself on a plane headed for Texas, where she is going to stay until she can take up her place in college. As soon as she meets her father at the airport it’s clear that her mother’s addiction has robbed her of the chance to have a relationship with her father, and though he has to take some blame for not pushing for a relationship it’s hard not to feel sorry for people like this who fall through the cracks.

Spending the summer surrounded by money and opportunities is a tough thing for Beyah to accept. She is the proverbial fish out of water, and resists her stepsister Sara’s attempts to fix her up with a friend. What we quickly come to realise is that Beyah has already made quite an impression on this friend…and so starts a summer fling that we predict will end in tears – but I definitely didn’t predict just how emotionally I’d react to it.

This is probably a book that’s good to go into without knowing too much. I feared it would be bleak and yet found myself laughing and enjoying this far more than I predicted. Of course it has moments that will upset you, but at its heart it’s a story about having the courage to stick with those you trust.

‘The Search Party’ – Simon Lelic

I love it when a book surprises you with something that you just don’t see coming…

In The Search Party we have, essentially, a mystery to solve. But, as one of the detectives in the book says, there’s more than one thing going on and Simon Lelic definitely keeps us guessing on more than one occasion.

What we know at the start is that a young girl, Sadie, has gone missing. Many people in the town assume her boyfriend killed her while others think she’s run away. The police have found her bag near the local river but no sign of a body. The pressure is on. Bizarrely, Sadie’s friends decided to head out into the local woodland to search for Sadie and it would seem another of their group has been killed. It seems someone has something to hide, and Detective Fleet – who has his own history with the town – is under pressure to work out what happened.

Cutting between the stories from the teenagers involved as they’re talking to the police and the view of Detective Fleet, this is really cleverly constructed. We slowly piece together some of the mysteries surrounding the missing girl and subsequent events. We have a character in Fleet that we can’t help but empathise with, and a resolution that nobody would have desired but which shows certain characters in a very different light to the one we’ve seen them in.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, Penguin, for brightening up my day with this read.

‘Some Laneys Died’ – Brooke Skipstone

Thank you to NetGalley and publishers, Skipstone, for granting me access to a most puzzling read that had me scratching my head in equal confusion and wonder.

Having finished, I’m still not entirely sure I’ve grasped some of the finer points of the concept. I found myself reading, then having to pause to actually digest what I’d read and try to work it out/link to what I already knew. I would liken reading this to me trying to solve a Rubik’s cube…I know there’s a knack to it whereby everything flows seamlessly, but I work in fits and starts without really getting anywhere, then by a freak occurrence something will slot into place and it’s done.

When I started reading I wondered what was true and what was in our character Laney’s imagination. She writes stories about alternate universes where different characters sharing her name experience different things. She interacts with people who reference events she thought were dreams which seem to have really taken place. Piece by piece she starts to realise some of these events are merging. This idea of alternate universes and time frames may make more sense to students of maths or physics.

The story as such is not a pleasant one. Laney reads a story about two skeletons found in the woods, dated to a time that she recalls finding her father having sex with an old girlfriend. She is fascinated by what she recalls of that incident and is convinced that the skeletons are the bodies of her and her twin sister (a twin who doesn’t exist in the story we start) who were killed by a sadistic pair of brothers – one of whom is friends with her now. The Laney we follow is switching experiences/times in order to hunt the person who in another time/place killed her and tortured then killed her sister.

For every choice there’s a range of possibilities. Watching Laney try to manipulate her experiences was intriguing. I confess to not always following Laney’s thought process, and the book seemed to give some conflicting messages about addiction and sexuality, but as a whole it was a read I’d recommend.

‘Innocent’ – Erin Kinsley

A book with so many shades of grey it really was hard to know where this was going to end.

Our story begins at a lavish summer wedding celebration. Our focus is on the guests, one of whom is a well-known celebrity. Tris Hart is the presenter of some familiar shows, and something of a local hero in Sterndale, the quiet town he lives in with his second wife, Izzy, and their young daughter. We see Tris playing his role well during the evening celebrations, and there is a little concern when he is accosted by someone he knows who wants to discuss their past. Next thing we know Tris is found injured near the hotel pool and is rushed to hospital where he’s taken to intensive care.

From the outset we know we’re dealing with a story that is about finding out who tried to kill Tris. During the course of the investigation we learn some of the secrets that the people of Sterndale have been hiding. It seems there are many with something they would rather people didn’t find out, and as the police dig deeper we start to build our own picture.

We do get our answers, but there’s a lot of misdirection and extra detail to burrow through in order to learn our truth. The sheer size of the cast, and the number of strands involved, did lessen the impact slightly for me but I enjoyed the fact that we built up a fuller picture of our flawed main character and came to understand them better as details were revealed.

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this prior to publication in exchange for my honest opinion.