Review: Maggie Sparks and the Monster Baby by Steve Smallman

 

Maggie Sparks and the Monster Baby by Steve Smallman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is such a fun read. I’d say it’s for children around 5-8 years old. It features a mixed-race family of witches, and we see what happens when Maggie is jealous of her new baby brother and decides to cast a spell on herself to make her cuter too. The spell backfires in both a hilarious and poignant way, but we see how much the parents still love Maggie.
It’s a short read, and the illustrations are great.I particularly liked Bat the Chameleon, Maggie’s pet.
Thank you to NetGalley for the arc.

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Review: Never Tell A Lie by Gail Schimmel

 

Never Tell A Lie by Gail Schimmel
My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

This is my first book by Gail Schimmel and I will definitely be reading more. Never Tell a Lie is a rather tame domestic suspense novel, but it’s engaging and I couldn’t read it fast enough. I love stories about complex friendships and complex female characters. A school reunion has main character Mary becoming best friends with old schoolmate April—even if Mary can’t actually remember April from them.

There are so many secrets wrapped up inside this novel. April has a dark past linking to an event at school; April and Leo’s marriage is abusive but the big question for a long time is who is the abuser; and Mary discovers her long dead mother isn’t actually dead.

But the big plot centres around April—Mary believes her husband is abusing her, as all the signs are there, but Leo spins a convincing tale as he tries to persuade Mary that he’s the one being abused. Given we know April has done bad things in the past, this is plausible too, and the plot evolves into this twisty narrative where we and Mary are trying to work out who is telling the truth.

Spoilers ahead: So, April’s character was so well written and developed for a long time. Leo’s character had less page-time, and so when he managed to persuade Mary to help get April sectioned in a psychiatric unit, I was surprised by how quickly that happened. And then we end up with time-jumps
Suddenly weeks have passed and Mary is on her third date with Leo—where she discovers the truth, that April was telling the truth all along. And while I like that this is a great #MeToo story showing how men can hide their abusive actions and appear charming to others, I really felt like this ending was just too rushed. It felt like it all happened too quickly, like the pacing was off. This is my only complaint about the book, and so it’s a 4.5 star read for me.

All the characters were all so well written, especially Mary’s son Django and her new boyfriend Joshua and her old friend Stacey. Even Mary’s parents felt real.

The writing is well done and sophisticated.

While I usually gravitate toward suspense novels with more action, this one still had me gripped. 

Thank you to NetGalley for the arc. 

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Review: NANNY DEAREST by Flora Collins

 

Nanny Dearest by Flora Collins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Firstly, thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my review copy. Nanny Dearest is a complex examination of character—both of an unhinged woman and a woman who is looking for a connection.

When Sue meets the woman who was her nanny twenty years ago, she wants to reconnect with her as a way of becoming close to her family, as her parents are both dead. But the nanny, Annaliese, is a bit…odd. I mean, at the start, it’s just minor things. Things that can be explained away. But then we see her isolating Sue from her friends, becoming possessive and gaslighting her. Sue keeps coming across things that don’t make sense, yet Annaliese always comes up with a reason for these things. Alarm bells were ringing. It is an example of one adult grooming another. 

The relationship between the two women made me uncomfortable. It’s a really intense friendship, where Annaliese is making Sue dependent on her. Any time Sue tries to see other people, Annaliese puts a stop to it. Really uncomfortable to read. 

This book is told in two POVs, Sue’s in the present day and Annaliese in the past. And it’s these trips down memory lane that show Annaliese’s past behaviours around and toward Sue and her warped way of thinking that really ramp up the tension. Readers realise Annaliese isn’t telling the truth about what happened, yet adult Sue is now ensnared in her web of lies and desperate to trust her.

This felt like more of a slow-burning suspense novel than a psychological thriller. Indeed, at times, I found the pacing too slow and the middle section had me a little bored. But I was fascinated enough by Annaliese’s character to keep reading. There’s something addictive about this story.

It becomes clear that Annaliese is mentally unwell, and I have to say this representation is amazing. We learn the reasons behind her behaviour and how she justifies her actions. It’s an insight into a very warped mind.

Would recommend.

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Review: HOW WE FALL APART by Katie Zhao

 

How We Fall Apart by Katie Zhao
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5 stars

I liked this book, but I really wanted to love it, but unfortunately I found parts were just a bit…flat. I think if I’d read this before One of us is Lying I’d have enjoyed it a lot more. As it was, I just kept thinking of that book. But with How We Fall Apart, I kept thinking it felt a little formulaic. One by one, the Proctor revealed the secrets of the main characters, but each time we knew a mew secret was coming as we’d been warned and the book gets into this repetitive pattern with the reveal of secrets, so none of them really felt like a big twist for me—until the ending. The ending is good and made me like the novel more.

But each time when one of the secrets was revealed, it didn’t really seem to have any lasting impact on the characters. The consequences shown seemed a bit flat, and then a couple chapters later, it felt like those had been forgotten completely.

What I did really like about this book though was that it has all Asian leads, and it looks at the impact of class divisions and the dark academia that appears married to wealth. Jamie was a complex character. She’s rich but unhappy. She’s entitled and expects to win everything and will do whatever it takes to get rid of her competition. Jamie is also sharp-tongued and mean, and I have to confess I was sad she was the one killed off because I found her more interesting than Nancy, the POV character.

While Nancy did a great job of looking at the social-economic relationships and classes and what it meant to be the only poor kid on a scholarship at a school full of dark, twisted, rich kids, I didn’t really connect to her in the way I’d hoped. Instead, I found myself connecting much more to Jamie and Krystal.

I even remember thinking at one point that I wished we got Krystal’s POV. Her secret when it was revealed was powerful and made me take note, and I wanted more on it. I wanted to see more the psychological impact this had on her. 

Thinking about this book more, I think there’s a lot of places where we could’ve gone deeper, not just I’m showing subplots and impacts of reveals lasting longer, but even with the portrayal of grief. It almost feels like no one is genuinely grieving for Jamie, and I know Nancy and nearly every character fell out with her before she was murdered, but Nancy and Jamie were best friends for years beforehand. I felt there should’ve been some more genuine grief, perhaps ensnared under feelings of hatred, especially as we have alternate timelines showing they were friends—even if the relationship wasn’t equal due to wealth and class differences. 

There is also a student/teacher relationship type thing in this book too. That was handled really well. 

All in all, it’s a good read and it covers some important topics. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC copy.

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Review: THE MAID by Nita Prose

 

The Maid by Nita Prose
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a phenomenal book.

The writing is so, so strong, and Molly’s voice is fantastic. Molly Gray is twenty-five, a maid, and she sees the world differently to most people. She struggles with social interactions, taking everything at face value and interpreting things literally. She’s not a good judge of character as she’s way too trusting. And that becomes her downfall when others use this against her to set her up for the murder of a pm important client at the hotel she works for.

Molly discovers wealthy client Mr Black is dead when she goes to clean his room, and because she doesn’t act as others expect her to, she quickly becomes a suspect in the police investigation. The real murderers realise this and use it to their advantage, framing her more and more.

I couldn’t get over how amazingly well written Molly is. It’s first-person narrative and we’re in her head, seeing her thought processes and how she reacts differently. Yet it also very much clear to readers who the bad characters are from the start, despite us only ever seeing them through Molly!s eyes where she believes they are good and trustworthy. This is simply a masterful piece of craft.

All the characters are so well written, and every time I felt like I knew Molly, there was a surprise or a twist in store. This book is tense, and I read the whole thing in a couple of days. Really, really recommend it to everyone who likes stories of neurodivergence, thrillers, suspense, and strong characters. 

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.   

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