Latest Posts

‘Someone Else’s House’ – Jessica Vallance

Sometimes you don’t see how you’re being manipulated, and sometimes the most abusive relationships are those that start so positively.

Our main character in this, Lauren, is introduced to us when she makes the momentous decision to dump her long-standing boyfriend because of his moodiness and emotionally abusive behaviour. She’s, naturally, not immediately at ease with the situation so jumps at the chance to go on holiday with her best friend.

Rather oddly a new friend tags along. They seem to get along okay, but there are little signs that things might not be quite what we expect. Odd things start to happen, and we can’t quite work out how things are going to go.

Without giving too much away, Lauren’s past is important.

Once we start to learn a little more of her past then we can see that certain events have a more sinister feel. The question is not just who is messing with her, but why.

Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this in exchange for my thoughts.

 

‘Ninth House’ – Leigh Bardugo

Having seen so many comments about trigger warnings for this book, and people upset at the leap into adult fiction, I was nervous about reading this. I also have to admit that it took a while to get into the rhythm of things. Both these factors make it difficult to give a 5 star rating, though I enjoyed the book a lot and can’t wait to see what comes up in part two.

Our main character is Galaxy ‘Alex’ Stern, a young woman who has not lived the easiest of lives. She’s always been able to see what are known as Grays, the spirits of the deceased. At times these have caused real upset to Alex, and nobody can see them so she’s always been regarded as a little odd. Having then got into drugs Alex is used to finding her own way/being regarded as a problem.

It takes a while for her back story to come out, and this made it difficult to really empathise with her initially. Our focus to start is on her current status as a student at New Haven, assigned to investigate and maintain order over the eight different societies that operate within Yale. Full of high profile students, potentially powerful people, Alex is shocked to learn of their dabbling in the occult and quickly begins to feel out of her depth.

Alongside the mystery of her missing mentor, there’s the issue of a number of unsolved murders and some very dubious goings-on amongst certain groups.
While I was intrigued by the details of the House activity, and was curious to see to what extent we’d see magic at play, I did find it difficult to work out exactly what was going on and really identify with Alex.

There was a point at which things clicked and then I was gripped. A very intriguing ending which bodes well for book two, but I do wish this step-up a gear had come a little sooner.

 

‘The Beautiful’ – Renée Ahdieh

 

 

Thank you to NetGalley for granting me access to this prior to its publication in October 2019.

When we first meet Celine she is on her way to America having fled France. We learn she killed a man who tried to rape her, and she is desperate for a fresh start. Her journey is quite uneventful, but she befriends a couple of girls that go with her to live in a convent.

Upon their arrival in New Orleans Celine cannot help but feel she has come home. She loves the vibrancy of her new home, but there is a definite sense of threat – made worse by the murder of a young girl soon after their arrival.

There’s no doubt that Celine is not your stereotypical young lady. She’s happy to defy conventions, but this does lead her into rather difficult circumstances.

The majority of the story focuses on the mysterious Sebastian who has a group of very close friends that don’t seem quite human. Celine is in turn entranced and infuriated by Bastian – so it’s inevitable there’s a spin-out hint of a romance.

There’s some interesting ideas here, but there’s a lot that seems to work against the story. We’re never given enough information about the two groups to explain the dynamics between them. We know they’re vampires, yet there’s little detail about quite how this group works. Someone close commits a pretty awful act of betrayal, yet we don’t really get to know why. There’s also a hint of someone thought dead actually being part of this, but we know so little about them it would have been easy to ignore the significance.

This is not a book that I found hard to read or unexciting, but there were a lot of unanswered questions which I found infuriating.

‘Woman in the Water’ – Katerina Diamond

Detectives Adrian Miles and Imogen Grey are now in a relationship, though that’s not common knowledge at work. However, on this case things come too close to home and it has serious repercussions for both.

On his way into work Miles stops as some women think their children saw a body in the water. Upon investigation, it is a woman…and she’s alive. Someone wanted her dead, but there’s no signs of robbery or sexual assault. It becomes a matter of some urgency to work out what on earth happened when the beaten body of a young man is also found nearby.

Before we know it we’ve been pulled into a very dark place. This isn’t a ‘whodunnit’, but a trying to pull it together to prove they did it kind of story.
We focus on Angela Corrigan, the much younger wife of local businessman Reece. Nobody will speak out against him, and though we’ve strong reason to believe he’s been up to all sorts of things nobody will talk, and there’s no evidence.

It’s testimony to the bullishness of these two Detectives that we get anywhere. However, it comes at awful personal expense.

Adrian Miles suffers in the course of this investigation in a way that you cannot begin to imagine. It’s brutal, totally demeaning and the disgust I felt as we learn the extent of the wrongdoings against not just him but so many others was upsetting.

While it was a dark story that was not, in any way, enjoyable to read, I am intrigued at the potential for where this might go next.

Thanks to Diamond and NetGalley for allowing me to read this in exchange for my honest thoughts, prior to its publication in November 2019.

 

‘Out of the Easy’ – Ruta Sepetys

Immersed in 1950s New Orleans, this was a great read.

Seventeen year old Josie Moraine is the daughter of a prostitute. For years she’s looked after herself, and is desperate to make something of her life.

Helped by Willie, the local brothel madam her mother works for, and a number of other characters Josie tries to break out of the chaos brought to her life by her mother.

There was a warmth to this that really shone through. Josie was a determined character who was dealt a pretty tough time, yet she tried her best to rise above it. Her mother was not a caricature villain, but her behaviour was appalling.
The main thrust of the story is Josie trying to do the right thing by the people she interacts with, while learning about herself. She dreams of a better life, and yet at every opportunity this seems to elude her.

While the ending might not be quite the one she planned for herself, it brought things full circle and really showed the relationships she invested in to be positive and beneficial.

Sepetys is fast becoming a go-to author for me.

 

‘Call It What You Want’ – Brigid Kemmerer

A tough lesson to learn here for so many characters.

Maegan was caught cheating on her SATs last year, and now spends her school day being ignored by people. Rob was the star lacrosse player, but is now ostracised because his father stole money from many people in the town.

Both teens are struggling to deal with their circumstances. They have to accept what others dole out to them. Rob can’t tell anyone about how his life has changed after his father tried to kill himself. Maegan has to keep the secret that her sister has left college as she’s pregnant with her tutor’s child.

When they’re paired for a calculus project, Rob and Maegan start a tentative friendship. Slowly, and falteringly, they break down some of their self-imposed barriers.

This was a thought-provoking and emotional read. Highly recommended.

 

‘The Third Twin’ – C.J. Omololu

This took a little while to get going then went haywire.

Lexi has always thought of herself as serious, focused and rather dull. She’s set on studying business at Stanford. So, when we learn that she and her twin sister, Ava, have an alter-ego they use when they want to cut loose it comes as a bit of a surprise. Alicia is someone who likes to party, and who does crazy things just for fun.

Though Lexi dislikes the way this often ends up, she recognises that playing at being someone else can free her to be a little more adventurous than normal. However, when a boy she meets up with one night is then killed things start to seem less fun.

Somehow, without really quite knowing how we got to this point, two more boys end up dead. The only link being their dates with Alicia. Lexi doesn’t want to believe it, but could her sister really be a killer?

From the moment of the third murder we are plunged into crazy territory. The sisters are on the run from the police, wanted for murder and nobody trusts the other. Then we get a true humdinger of a revelation that makes little sense, but definitely ties up a few loose ends.

A bit like Pretty Little Liars it’s implausible, highly exaggerated and yet quite good fun.

 

‘The Understudy’ – Sophie Hannah, Claire Mackintosh, B.A. Paris and Holly Brown

On paper this sounds like an idea that might work…four very different writers (all very good at what they do) each take a section of story and work it into a whole novel.

Our story focuses on a group of girls at the Orla Flynn Academy, a stage school where there are some definite divas…and not just among the students. A fairly tight-knit group of four friends. We’re given some backstory about one of them bullying another last year, but things are better. At least, until odd things start to happen to the girl who should have been expelled for bullying. Coinciding with this is the Head’s attempt to smooth things over, the arrival of a new student who might act as the gel the group needs to bond them.

From the outset we’re never quite sure of the truth. We get shifting views from the mothers, and as the weird events get progressively more dangerous we can see there’s something we’re not being told.

Though the style of telling worked well (with each chapter adding something else to the mix) the book just fell a little flat for me at times. The characters were all fairly unlikeable, and I didn’t feel we had enough invested in any of them to really care one way or another what happened.

 

‘The Truth Commission’ – Susan Juby

Quirky is definitely the best word I can use about this.

Normandy Pale is our narrator, and she is the younger sister of a celebrated graphic novelist. Her whole life has been laid bare in print, and Normandy doesn’t challenge this.

We meet Normandy as she’s starting a creative project – a piece of non-fiction exploring the outcomes of something she and her best friends set up. Finding out truths starts small, but very quickly Normandy is having to deal with truths that were previously hidden.

The style (with its endless footnotes) could have been irritating, but I found Normandy’s attempts to make sense of the things she learns quite entertaining. I liked her friendship group and the way they interacted.

Ultimately, I was quite appalled by her family. Her sister was, to put it bluntly, unscrupulous and her parents were bordering on negligent in their handling of this scenario. Part of me wants to say I was surprised by this, but I’m also wondering how much was set-up for an artistic attempt to manipulate the truth.

 

‘Believe Me’ – J.P. Delaney

The title of this immediately brought to mind the Simon Armitage poem ‘I am very bothered’ since we’re never 100% certain of the narrator’s honest thoughts.
Our story focuses on a young English actress, Claire Wright, who’s trying to earn her living in America by trying to entrap men whose wives think they’re being unfaithful. She cannot ever proposition them, and she doesn’t have sex with them but she promises it and films the men so that their wives have evidence of infidelity. She has a great success rate, until she’s asked to proposition Patrick Fogler.

Later that evening we learn that Patrick’s wife, Stella, has been found murdered. There’s a definite suspicion that a serial killer is on the loose, but Claire is also under suspicion. And so begins a very strange sequence of events.

Claire is asked to work with the police to try and gather evidence to ascertain the likelihood of Fogler being their killer. She enters a dark and potentially dangerous place as she throws herself into her latest role.

While I enjoyed this thoroughly, the artifice surrounding Claire made it hard for me to really engage with her situation. I wasn’t sure how reliable her interactions were, so I felt quite removed from things as I looked for loopholes or things that cropped up unexpectedly.

I’m grateful to NetGalley for granting me access to this prior to publication in exchange for my thoughts.