Review: THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD MOTHERS by Jessamine Chan

 

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In this taut and explosive debut novel, one lapse in judgement lands a young mother in a government reform program where custody of her child hangs in the balance.

Frida Liu is struggling. She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. What’s worse is she can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with their angelic daughter Harriet does Frida finally feel she’s attained the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she’s just enough.

Until Frida has a horrible day.

The state has its eyes on mothers like Frida — ones who check their phones while their kids are on the playground; who let their children walk home alone; in other words, mothers who only have one lapse of judgement. Now, a host of government officials will determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion. Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that she can live up to the standards set for mothers — that she can learn to be good.

This propulsive, witty page-turner explores the perils of “perfect” upper-middle-class parenting, the violence enacted upon women by the state and each other, and the boundless love a mother has for her daughter.

--

This book is just... AMAZING. I have no other word for it.

It took me a while to read it all, because it's quite dense--yet I don't mean that in a negative way. A lot happens in this book--a lot of really shocking things--and it really makes you think. I found that I needed a lot of 'breathing space' around my reading sessions for this book to really digest it and fully comprehend the terrifying world that Jessamine Chan has come up with for this one--and it's especially terrifying given how close it feels to real life.

There's a lot of important discourse in this book surrounding motherhood, the role of women, and parental responsibility. While we can definitely argue the case that Frida is flawed and could be seen as a 'bad mother' after leaving her baby alone for an afternoon, we get to see the nuances of her character. Does one moment of 'bad mothering' make her a totally awful mother? Where exactly is the line? Because as the novel progresses, we are rooting for her, yet feeling like a happy ending isn't on the cards because of the truly horrific worldbuilding Chan cleverly incorporates into this story.

Characterisation for all the characters is strong and impressive. I just cannot stop thinking about this book.

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Review: DAISY DARKER by Alice Feeney

 

Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The New York Times bestselling Queen of Twists returns…with a family reunion that leads to murder.

After years of avoiding each other, Daisy Darker’s entire family is assembling for Nana’s 80th birthday party in Nana’s crumbling gothic house on a tiny tidal island. Finally back together one last time, when the tide comes in, they will be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours.

The family arrives, each of them harboring secrets. Then at the stroke of midnight, as a storm rages, Nana is found dead. And an hour later, the next family member follows…

Trapped on an island where someone is killing them one by one, the Darkers must reckon with their present mystery as well as their past secrets, before the tide comes in and all is revealed.

With a wicked wink to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Daisy Darker’s unforgettable twists will leave readers reeling.

--

I finished this book maybe six weeks ago, and I cannot stop thinking about it. It's not often that a book stays with me this much, to this extent, but Daisy Darker really is a gem.

I've started other books by Alice Feeney before but not finished them--I'm not really sure why--but I found this book to be very different and I was so compelled to read it, and I think it all comes down to the character. As a narrator, Daisy is compelling. And I'm going to try and write this review without spoilers, because that ending absolutely blew me away. And you know, up until that ending my one critiquing point really was that I felt like Daisy was a bit passive in the 'present' timeline, but that ending totally explains that and it just blew me away.

This is a phenomenal story.

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Review: THE PATIENT by Teri Terry

 

The Patient by Teri Terry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I feel the steady thump of my new heart beating inside me. The surgeon said everything went well. But I can’t stop thinking about my the girl who was killed. Her death saved my life. But now whoever took hers is coming for mine…
I can’t believe it when I learn my donor’s identity. The attack on Flora was all over the news. From my hospital bed I read every article, obsess over every word and soon I feel like I know the beautiful girl with flame-coloured hair, adored by everyone around her. Why would anyone hurt someone so perfect?
When Flora’s family reach out to me, I’m unsure. My hands are shaking as I arrive at their grand mansion with its golden stone and sprawling gardens, but they’re warm and welcoming, tears shining in her mother’s eyes as she smiles at me.
She even tells me to take anything I want from Flora’s things, as she can’t bear to go through them herself. I run my fingers over the racks of beautiful designer items, carefully choosing outfits in Flora’s signature yellow, the bright colour complementing the new flush in my cheeks. I think of the years I’ve wasted being ill, and the crushing loneliness I thought would never end. I deserve this.
But then there’s a violent attack on another patient who received one of Flora’s organs. My heart – Flora’s heart – races dangerously fast. Is it a coincidence?
Maybe I’ve made a mistake by stepping into Flora’s life. Has this second chance really saved me? Or has it cost me everything?

--

This was a heart-stopping read (excuse the pun!) about a woman who receives a heart transplant, only to find that her donor was murdered. And, what's more, soon all the other recipients of the donors' organs are being hunted down too...

I first became aware of this book when watching the author on a panel at CrimeFest last year, and I was very excited to read it. I knew nothing of the book's premise at that point (I'm a massive fan of her YA books) and then I learned what The Patient was about, I was gripped and just could not wait until release day was here. And what a read that was!

One thing I really loved was how fast-paced this narrative was, and how we have multiple narrators. Sometimes, this can be a bit hit-and-miss for me as I often find it hard to distinguish the different characters' narrations in my head, but I didn't have that problem here. The opening in particular really drew me in, enticing me to read as fast as I could from the very first page.

And let me just say this: Teri Terry is the queen of twists! Those twists at the end--I did not see them coming! Every time I thought I'd worked out who the villain was, another twist just blew me away.

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Review: LULLABY by Leïla Slimani

 

Lullaby by Leïla Slimani and translated by Sam Taylor
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When Myriam, a French-Moroccan lawyer, decides to return to work after having children, she and her husband look for the perfect caretaker for their two young children. They never dreamed they would find Louise: a quiet, polite and devoted woman who sings to their children, cleans the family's chic apartment in Paris's upscale tenth arrondissement, stays late without complaint and is able to host enviable birthday parties.

The couple and nanny become more dependent on each other. But as jealousy, resentment and suspicions increase, Myriam and Paul's idyllic tableau is shattered...

---

I really enjoyed this novel. It was recommended to me by thriller and crime-writer Sophie McKenzie as an example of a novel that begins with an omniscient narrator, and I just fell in love with the style.

We zoom in and out of characters' heads as we learn the story of an unreliable and murderous nanny. Ultimately, it's the plot of quite a lot of nanny thrillers--I can think of several others that follow this rough plot where the nanny is a danger to the kids--but the execution of this is phenomenal. The depth of characterisation is impressive.

And what really got me was how this novel is based on a specific real-life case too.

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Review: NEVER SAW ME COMING by Vera Kurian

 

Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Meet Chloe Sevre. She’s a freshman honor student, a leggings-wearing hot girl next door, who also happens to be a psychopath. Her hobbies include yogalates, frat parties, and plotting to kill Will Bachman, a childhood friend who grievously wronged her.

Chloe is one of seven students at her DC-based college who are part of an unusual clinical study for psychopaths—students like herself who lack empathy and can’t comprehend emotions like fear or guilt. The study, led by a renowned psychologist, requires them to wear smart watches that track their moods and movements.

When one of the students in the study is found murdered in the psychology building, a dangerous game of cat and mouse begins, and Chloe goes from hunter to prey. As she races to identify the killer and put her own plan into action, she’ll be forced to decide if she can trust any of her fellow psychopaths—and everybody knows you should never trust a psychopath.

Never Saw Me Coming is a compulsive, voice-driven thriller by an exciting new voice in fiction, that will keep you pinned to the page and rooting for a would-be killer.

---

Ah, how I wish I reviewed this book as soon as I finished it and not nearly a year later! Because I remember this book was good. Dark secrets, psychopaths (actual, clinically-diagnosed psychopaths, too), unreliable narrators and characters, violence, murder, sexual assault. There's a lot in this book.

Before reading this, I'll confess, I didn't know that much about the clinical diagnosis of psychopathy and what it means to have this diagnosis. I think often the figure of the psychopath is dramatized and over-villainised in popular culture and media, and this was a really interesting read, when two of our narrators were psychopaths involved in a clinical university study into their condition, and a third one was pretending to be a psychopath (I found it interesting how he'd fooled the scientists running the study, but at least one of the others in the study could see right through him).

A lot of the story focuses on Chloe wanting revenge on Will. Her reasons are justified and I found myself routing for her--her lack of guilt or empathy made it a lot easier to route for her, too. I think if this had been a character who wasn't diagnosed as a psychopath, then the lack of guilt may have changed how I viewed her slightly. But Will was an abusive and awful character, and I really felt like Chloe was justified.

Charles is probably the most memorable of the characters, though. He's more thoughtful and contemplative than Chloe, and a lot of the time he's trying to steer his life in a different direction and overcome the social stigma of his diagnosis.

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Review: NANNY NEEDED by Georgina Cross

 

Nanny Needed by Georgina Cross
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A young woman takes a job as a nanny for an impossibly wealthy family, thinking she's found her entre into a better life--only to discover instead she's walked into a world of deception and dark secrets.

Nanny needed. Discretion is of the utmost importance. Special conditions apply.

When Sarah Larsen finds the notice, posted on creamy card stock in her building's lobby, one glance at the exclusive address tells her she's found her ticket out of a dead-end job--and life.

At the interview, the job seems like a dream come true: a glamorous penthouse apartment on the Upper West Side of NYC; a salary that adds several zeroes to her current income; the beautiful, worldly mother of her charge, who feels more like a friend than a potential boss. She's overjoyed when they offer her the position and signs the NDA without a second thought.

In retrospect, the notice in her lobby was less an engraved invitation than a waving red flag. For there is something very strange about the Bird family. Why does the beautiful Mrs. Bird never leave the apartment alone? And what happened to the nanny before her? It soon becomes clear that the Birds' odd behaviors are more than the eccentricities of the wealthy.

But by then it's too late for Sarah to seek help. After all, discretion is of the utmost importance. 

--

I'd been aware of Georgina Cross as an amazing thriller/suspense writer for quite a while, and I'd grabbed a couple of her novels when I saw them in a Bookbub mailing, and I don't know why I hadn't picked up one before now. What prompted me to do so is that I'm currently working on my MFA novel, which is a domestic psychological thriller for adults, and my supervisor has been teaching me methodology for scene structure. His recommendation was to read a handful of novels in my genre and pay attention to pacing, delivery of story beats, and structures. So, I browsed my kindle app and began with Nanny Needed.

I am used to YA thrillers in particular being fast right from the start (as this is what I mainly read and write), and the first thing that struck me about the opening of Nanny Needed is how measured and almost 'careful' it was in its delivery of information. It wasn't until we got to about 20% in that we found out the 'truth' about the child that Sarah is to be nanny for. And this just gave me an aha-moment. It told me what I'd been doing wrong in my adult psych thriller, as I had my first story beat happening at about 5%.

Therefore, as I kept reading, I found that I was plotting out the structure as well, paying attention to the delivery and the pacing. This kind of makes my read seem analytical--but it was also SO MUCH FUN. I could not stop turning the pages. I simply had to know what was going to happen next, and it felt like the author was always one step ahead of me. Just when I thought I was working out what was happening, something else happened that threw me off track--yet, at the end, it all tied together perfectly. And that final twist--I was actually speechless. Never before has a book made me audibly gasp like that and stare around the room wide-eyed. I did NOT see that coming--and yet, I can see all the clues were there. In fact, I'd spotted some of the clues and I knew they were significant for the ending but at the time of encountering them, I just couldn't make sense of them.

The characterisation in this story is amazing. Collette in particular is fantastically written. In fact, every single character is. There's a really strong sense of place too, like I felt I could map out the events onto the specific locations all the time.

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Review: THE GIRLS ARE ALL SO NICE HERE by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

 

The Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A USA TODAY Best Book of 2021

Two former best friends return to their college reunion to find that they’re being circled by someone who wants revenge for what they did ten years before—and will stop at nothing to get it—in this “propulsive” (Megan Miranda, bestselling author of The Girl from Widow Hills) psychological thriller.

A lot has changed in years since Ambrosia Wellington graduated from college, and she’s worked hard to create a new life for herself. But then an invitation to her ten-year reunion arrives in the mail, along with an anonymous note that reads, “We need to talk about what we did that night.”

It seems that the secrets of Ambrosia’s past—and the people she thought she’d left there—aren’t as buried as she believed. Amb can’t stop fixating on what she did or who she did it with: larger-than-life Sloane “Sully” Sullivan, Amb’s former best friend, who could make anyone do anything.

At the reunion, Amb and Sully receive increasingly menacing messages, and it becomes clear that they’re being pursued by someone who wants more than just the truth of what happened that first semester. This person wants revenge for what they did and the damage they caused—the extent of which Amb is only now fully understanding. And it was all because of the game they played to get a boy who belonged to someone else and the girl who paid the price.

Alternating between the reunion and Amb’s freshman year, The Girls Are All So Nice Here is a “chilling and twisty thriller” (Book Riot) about the brutal lengths girls can go to get what they think they’re owed, and what happens when the games we play in college become matters of life and death. 

— 

Dark, toxic female friendships. A stunning debut adult thriller. I’ve loved L.E. Flynn’s YA thrillers, and her first adult novel did not disappoint. 

Ambrosia Wellington is one hell of a character. Complex, hurting, haunted, and trying to forget her past and her involvement in her roommate’s death.

The twists here were shocking, the voice compelling, and I couldn’t listen to this audiobook fast enough. The storyline deftly weaves between past and present, showing how the effects of toxic female friendship are never really over. This is exactly the type of adult thriller I love.

I wasn’t entirely sure about one of the narrators at first, but she turned out being the perfect choice.

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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: 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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Review: Chloe Cates is Missing by Mandy McHugh

 

Chloe Cates is Missing by Mandy McHugh
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

AThe disappearance of a young internet celebrity ignites a firestorm of speculation on social media, and to find her a detective will have to extinguish the blaze. 

Chloe Cates is missing. The 13-year-old star of the hit YouTube series, “CC and Me,” has disappeared, and nobody knows where she’s gone — least of all ruthless momager Jennifer Scarborough, who has spent much of her daughter’s young life crafting a child celebrity persona that is finally beginning to pay off. And in Chloe’s absence, the faux-fairytale world that supported that persona begins to fracture, revealing secrets capable of reducing the highly-dysfunctional Scarborough family to rubble. 

Anxious to find her daughter and preserve the life she’s worked so hard to build, Jennifer turns to social media for help, but the hearsay, false claims, and salacious suspicions only multiply. As the search becomes as sensational as Chloe’s series, Missing Persons detective Emilina Stone steps in, only to realize she has a connection to this case herself. Will she be able to stay objective and cut through the rumors to find the truth before it’s too late?

Told from multiple points of view including Jennifer, Emilina, and pages from Chloe’s lost diary, Chloe Cates Is Missing is a suspenseful novel of a child pushed to the brink, and of the troubled family that desperately needs her back.

—-

Chloe Cates is missing is a phenomenal debut. Seriously. It’s SO good.

I started it late evening yesterday and read until the early hours, and then picked it up again as soon as I could today. Within twenty-four hours of starting this book, I’d finished it. I simply couldn’t read it fast enough. Chloe Cates is Missing is a twisty, complicated story that spirals around Jennifer, the mother of Abigail who is more publicly known as Chloe. Jennifer began a ‘mommy blog’ when Abby was little, and ‘Chloe’ is its main character. While Jennifer’s son is allowed a normal life, Abby isn’t. She’s not allowed to go to school, have friends, or make any of her own choices. She has to constantly perform as Chloe, and we see the horrific things that this leads to. And the story begins when Jennifer finds that her precious daughter is missing…

Jennifer is such a fascinating character. She’s dark and twisty. She sees her daughter only in terms of what Chloe can provide her. She treats her like a doll, wanting to control every aspect of her life. And she’ll do anything to make sure she gets her own way. And she lies. She lies a lot, and I was never quite sure when she was telling the truth. This made the tension so, so high. I couldn’t stop reading. She’d engineered an entire fake life for her daughter for her followers to watch. Chloe’s ‘friends’ were photoshopped models. Any time Abby really did start making friends of her own, Jennifer put a stop to it. She wanted her daughter isolated and dependent, and Jackson, Jennifer’s husband and Chloe’s father just lets it happen.

Jennifer is also a murderer. Part of the narrative is from the perspective of Emilina, the former best friend of Jennifer and the now detective investigating Chloe’s disappearance. Emilina knows exactly what kind of person Jennifer is, as Jennifer forced her to cover up the murder when they were kids. 

And that’s not the only murder in the book. We’ve also got the murder of Missy, a girl the same age as Chloe and who looks pretty similar to her. And it soon becomes clear the murder of Missy and the disappearance of Chloe are intrinsically connected.

Chloe/Abby is a fascinating character. I really felt for her, could feel her desperation through her journal entries as she tried to fight her controlling mother. Indeed, the journal was quite horrifying to read when it became apparent just how far Jennifer would go to make sure her daughter was doing what she wanted. There was a fantastic twist about the boy whom Abby was secretly getting to know. And we really see the effect of all this emotional abuse on Abby and learn how her mother’s behaviour has shaped her. Nothing is as it seems!

There are so many twists in this book. The pacing is spot-on, and I simply had to read it as quickly as possible to find out who was the evil mastermind—because no matter how hard I tried to work it out, I just couldn’t. Every time I thought I had a handle on one of the suspects, a new curveball was thrown into the mix.

We’ve got a lot of first person narrators—Jennifer, Emilina, Abby, and Jackson (Jennifer’s husband)—but it didn’t feel like too many and I was able to separate the narratives quite easily.

All in all, this is a highly recommended read. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

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Review: SWEET LITTLE LIES by Caz Frear

 

Sweet Little Lies by Caz Frear
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In this gripping debut procedural, a young London policewoman must probe dark secrets buried deep in her own family's past to solve a murder and a long-ago disappearance.

Your father is a liar. But is he a killer?
Even liars tell the truth... sometimes.

Twenty-six-year-old Cat Kinsella overcame a troubled childhood to become a Detective Constable with the Metropolitan Police Force, but she's never been able to banish these ghosts. When she's called to the scene of a murder in Islington, not far from the pub her estranged father still runs, she discovers that Alice Lapaine, a young housewife who didn't get out much, has been found strangled.

Cat and her team immediately suspect Alice's husband, until she receives a mysterious phone call that links the victim to Maryanne Doyle, a teenage girl who went missing in Ireland eighteen years earlier. The call raises uneasy memories for Cat--her family met Maryanne while on holiday, right before she vanished. Though she was only a child, Cat knew that her charming but dissolute father wasn't telling the truth when he denied knowing anything about Maryanne or her disappearance. Did her father do something to the teenage girl all those years ago? Could he have harmed Alice now? And how can you trust a liar even if he might be telling the truth?

Determined to close the two cases, Cat rushes headlong into the investigation, crossing ethical lines and trampling professional codes. But in looking into the past, she might not like what she finds... 

--

I've had this book on my shelf for a while, and I don't know why I didn't pick it up for so long--because the moment I started it, I could not stop reading. Seriously, I've been in a bit of a reading slump lately and I finished off this book in just over two days. It's just amazing.

Right away, Frear introduces us to main character Cat and the dark secret she's hiding about her father. When she was a child, a girl went missing and she knows her father lied to the police. Now, an adult, Cat is a police detective. She's suffering with fragile mental health--PTSD following a gruelling murder case--and the new case she's on has links to the past, and her father.

This is just such a complex book. And it covers so much. Secrets and lies and betrayal. You've got complicated familial relationships, an examination of grief and one's desire to protect themselves.

The story is told across two timelines, and the inclusion of the flashbacks was particularly well done. Seriously, really good. They may have been short snippets but they not only fleshed out the past mystery but were placed wonderfully to spur on the present-day storyline too.

And the characterisation! So, this has to be my favourite thing about this book. Frear is masterful at creating believable characters. Every single one of them just leapt off the page. The dialogue for each was spot-on. I especially loved Steele, Cat's boss, but all of them were just so real and authentic.

And the twists! There's a huge twist around who the latest murder victim is, and that left me speechless. Well, I mean, there are many twists in the book, and I found myself really looking forward to the ends of chapters as nearly every one delivered some sort of twist or charged moment.

And the ending--so I hadn't been able to work out who the 'bad guy' was for so long. Every time I thought I knew, Frear was one step ahead. But learning the truth was so satisfying. It really worked. 

There's some dark content in this book: murder, child abuse, sex trafficking, grooming, baby factories, mental illness, and death. 

I'll definitely be looking out for the next book in this series.

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Review: STRANGERS by C.L. Taylor

Strangers by C.L. Taylor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ursula, Gareth and Alice have never met before.

Ursula thinks she killed the love of her life.
Gareth’s been receiving strange postcards.
And Alice is being stalked.

None of them are used to relying on others – but when the three strangers’ lives unexpectedly collide, there’s only one thing for it: they have to stick together. Otherwise, one of them will die.

Three strangers, two secrets, one terrifying evening.

The million-copy bestseller returns with a gripping new novel that will keep you guessing until the end.

--

I'm a massive fan of C.L. Taylor's psychological thrillers, and while this one was really good, I think I prefer some of her others. This is just a personal preference--and it's mainly because I'm not a huge fan of books written in third person present tense and I'm so used to Taylor writing first person narrative. Third person present is always something I find harder to get into. It just doesn't grab me as much.

Having said that, this is still a great book--and I can totally see why Taylor used third person present. It does work for the book.

STRANGERS centres around three strangers who've never met before, but live and work in the same area. It's a gripping story of secrets and stalking, of how you can never really know another person, and the things we all keep hidden.

This book was such a mind-trip! So many times, I had no idea who the villain was. Taylor is a master of this, setting us up to think one thing, then revealing it's actually another. And until the ending, I honestly had no idea exactly what was happening, until we're given the climax. Then everything in the book came together wonderfully and made sense. From about the 66% mark, I couldn't read quickly enough! I was flying through the ebook.

As we've got three POV characters, each with their own storylines, we end up with A LOT of characters. At times, I found it hard to follow this, and I kept getting a little mixed up. The climax, however, involves all the characters from all three narrators' perspectives, and so there were a lot of characters in that tense scene. I found myself having to concentrate super hard as I read to check that I was understanding everything.

I loved the ending. It's really good.

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Review: THE DARKEST CORNERS by Kara Thomas

The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, this book surprised me.

It’s the second book I’ve read by Kara Thomas, the first being Little Monsters, which I absolutely adored. But this one? Well, I liked the start. It was intriguing, but from about 30% to 70%, I found it sooooo slow. I was getting disappointed and it took me months to actually finish it.

But then when I got past the 70% mark, it was AMAZING. The pace was fast, there was twist after twist, and I just couldn’t read fast enough. The ending is where all the strands of the book tie together and it is beautifully done. Though I must just say the last 5% has A LOT of telling as the missing gaps are fillers in.

But that final page? That was a great ending.

Tessa is a great narrator. She’s independent and has a dark streak, and she’s so believable when we know her upbringing. Everything she does make sense. I especially love how there’s no romance story for Tessa. Instead, the whole book is about solving a murder mystery, finding family, correcting past lies, and finally learning the truth.

I must admit I was confused when, about two-thirds in, the baby Macey storyline suddenly came in. It seemed a bit late for a new subplot—but the ending redeemed it when we realise that baby Macey has in fact been in the story the entire time.

This book has got cases of mistaken identity, kidnap, murder, lies, secrets, and looks at the pressure the media and police put on witnesses to get them to give an account that matches what they’re looking for.

I really liked the friendship between Tessa and Callie. It’s rare to have two female characters who remain friends and aren’t pitted against each other.

All in all, this is a 4-star read, precisely because of that amazing ending. I’ll definitely be reading more by this author.

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Review: SADIE by Courtney Summers

Sadie by Courtney Summers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A missing girl on a journey of revenge and a Serial - like podcast following the clues she's left behind. Sadie hasn't had an easy life. Growing up on her own, she's been raising her sister Mattie in an isolated small town, trying her best to provide a normal life and keep their heads above water. But when Mattie is found dead, Sadie's entire world crumbles. After a somewhat botched police investigation, Sadie is determined to bring her sister's killer to justice and hits the road following a few meager clues to find him. When West McCray - a radio personality working on a segment about small, forgotten towns in America - overhears Sadie's story at a local gas station, he becomes obsessed with finding the missing girl. He starts his own podcast as he tracks Sadie's journey, trying to figure out what happened, hoping to find her before it's too late. Courtney Summers has written the breakout book of her career. Sadie is propulsive and harrowing and will keep you riveted until the last page.

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I was a little nervous to start reading SADIE as I’d heard so many positive things about this book and it had been recommended to me countless times. It’s one of those books that felt huge, and seeing recently that it had won a prestigious award finally motivated me to open it on my kindle. And immediately, I was hooked.

I love books that use unusual writing devices as part of their narrative style, and just over half of this story is told via a podcast. I’ll confess, I’ve never listened to a podcast, so this format was new to me—and I was reading it rather than listening. The podcast revolves around a journalist called West who’s been employed by May Beth to look for her missing granddaughter (or rather surrogate granddaughter) and the episodes follow West as he travels around meeting people who Sadie, the missing girl, has talked to in her hunt for the man who killed her younger sister.

The other half of the story is told by Sadie in a first person narrative and the alternating order of the writing and podcast episodes means that we witness something with Sadie and are left on a cliffhanger, only to discover what then happened a chapter or so later via West’s investigation as he interviews the shady people Sadie’s come into contact with.

Sadie is a great character. She’s real, flawed, overwhelmed with grief over her sister’s murder and how she feels like she let her down. Sadie is thin and small, but as she tells the reader at several points, she is dangerous. She’s ruthless in her hunt for the murderer, and she saves a lot of other young girls on the way.

Claire, Sadie’s mother, is also an interesting character. We see an almost transformation from rubbish mother to caring mother as the book progresses as West interviews her for the podcast, looking for any leads as to where Sadie is now. Claire’s characterisation is strong and well written.

And the ending! Small spoilers here. It’s an ambiguous ending and we’re left only knowing the “ending” via the final episode of the podcast—which isn’t really an ending to Sadie’s story as the trail has gone cold. We don’t know what happened to her as her narrative is cut short during her meeting with her sister’s murderer. I was turning the pages eagerly as I read the podcast, hoping to be brought back to Sadie’s narration. But we’re not. This leaves an intentional and well crafted sense of unease in readers as we finish the book and it’s almost haunting. I can’t stop thinking about it.

The writing is also equally beautiful and well-crafted and in Sadie’s narrative, there are many powerful and poignant statements and messages. I found myself really thinking about her thoughts, and her voice is so strong.

Warning: This book does go to some very dark places: child abuse, rape, pedophilia, and murder are all bound up within the plot.

Overall, this is a powerful read. Highly recommended.

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Review: BIRD BOX by Josh Malerman

Bird Box by Josh Malerman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Malorie raises the children the only way she can: indoors, with the doors locked, the curtains closed, and mattresses nailed over the windows.

The children sleep in the bedroom across the hall, but soon she will have to wake them and blindfold them.

Today they will risk everything. Today they will leave the house.

Josh Malerman’s New York Times bestselling Bird Box is a terrifying psychological thriller that will haunt you long after reading.

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Bird Box is an intense, gripping, and fast-paced apocalyptic thriller by Josh Malerman. I only became aware of the existence of this book after watching the film starring Sandra Bullock. I absolutely loved that film—it had heart, action, and horror packed in—and so when I saw the ebook was on sale for £0.99 o just had to give it a try.

Because I’d loved the film so much, I was a little sceptical—but the book is even better. Malorie, our main character, is strongly written and the narrative really delves deeper into her psyche, allowing us to see new layers that the film didn’t have. We see her weaknesses and her faults as she battles to keep her two young children alive in a world where opening your eyes can get you killed.

The other main characters are well written and believable, and we see how stress brings out the worst and best things about humanity.

Remarkably, the plot of the film is strikingly close to the book. Of course, there are some differences (such as some events happen much closer together in the film and it also has a main character doe much later than in the book), but all the other essential elements are there—the book just develops many more, such as the survivors’ use of animals in keeping them safe from the creatures that will drive them mad if they see them.

I was delighted to see the book kept the back-and-forth non-linear narrative that the film had. I just loved that structure.

There is a lot of darkness in this book and a few scenes that made me feel queasy. Warning for suicide, murder, and graphic violent content.

This is a must-read for apocalypse and dystopian fans.

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Review: YOU by Caroline Kepnes (with references to the Netflix show)

You by Caroline Kepnes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When aspiring writer Guinevere Beck strides into the bookstore where Joe works, he is instantly smitten.

But there's more to Joe than Beck realises and much more to Beck than her perfect facade. And the obsessive relationship quickly spirals into a whirlwind of deadly consequences...

A chilling account of unrelenting, terrifying deceit, Caroline Kepnes' You is a thriller more perversely clever and dangerously twisted than any YOU have ever read.
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(This review contains spoilers for both the book and the Netflix show)

So, I only discovered this book because of the Netflix show. Usually I like to read the book first, but I’d just finished the show when I saw the ebook was on sale, so I snagged a copy. Having watched the tv adaptation meant that I was constantly reading YOU through the lens of the show. I was constantly comparing, noting the similarities and differences, examining how the different mediums added—and detracted—from the story. Therefore, this review is going to contain a lot of comparisons between the story in both mediums, as I can’t really review the book without comparing it to the show, given the complex narrative style that is present in both. I also believe my reading of the book was informed greatly by prior knowledge of the show, so as I was reading it with the show in my mind, I feel my review should reflect this.

From watching the show, I hadn’t expected the narrative voice of the book to be as strong—you’ve got a voice over in the majority of the scenes in the show—and I was curious as to how the book would portray Joe’s commentary. I’d even doubted whether it could portray it to such a powerful extent, but I was wrong. How’s commentary was stronger in the book than a show. I recognised many of the same lines which was a delight, but whereas Joe’s voiceovers in the show were added to scenes and we still saw the action, in the book, it pretty much feels like absolutely everything is given to use through Joe’s direct address commentary where he talks in his head to Beck, and recounts her dialogue and their conversations amid this internal monologuing. It’s almost exhausting to read.

Joe is a truly fascinating character. He’s cold, ruthless, a murderer, stalker, and a psychopath, yet he justifies all his actions to us in his narration. He’s strangely likeable and there was something disturbingly alluring in reading his narrative. His voice just grabs you and keeps you reading as you wonder just how far he’ll go to pursue Beck.

Unlike the show, the book tells us early on that Joe has murdered before he meets Beck. (Spoiler ahead—skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to read it.) Whereas the show reveals Candice is alive, the book tells us early on that Joe murdered her when she broke up with him. Knowing how dangerous Joe is, right from the start, really heightens the tension and makes us concerned for Beck.

Beck, the female MC, is just as interesting in the book as she is in the show. She’s a writer, she’s lost, she sleeps around, she’s insecure and looking for validation, she has huge ambitions. Yet, with the book however, I found her slightly harder to picture, in that she didn’t feel as “true and real”. By that I mean, her characterisation is still strong and well written, but we see her only through Joe’s eyes in the book, rather than the more omniscient point of view in the show. This meant for me that I found it slightly harder to root for Beck as a character when reading her; I didn’t feel like I really knew her, and this was only added to by the use of direct address—Joe constantly refers to her as “you”. This book is his love letter to Beck, and he writes it as an explanation of why he (spoiler alert!) murdered her. This narrative voice means there’s distance between the reader and Beck, and I firmly believe that’s the author’s intention as where our connection to Beck lacks, our bond with Joe strengthens.

The show had many added characters—such as the boy who lives next door to Joe—and the book had equally many characters who didn’t appear in the show. Or who appear in a different way. Whereas Ethan is a permanent fixture in the bookshop in the show, he’s only in the book from about the 50% mark onward. But I was glad to see the book still has his romance with Blythe. She was definitely one of the most interesting characters in the show, and her personality and voice is portrayed beautifully in the text too, despite seeing it all through Joe (who predominantly only hears of her from Beck). It’s definitely a framed narrative/Chinese Box kind of story with Blythe, and I loved how this raised questions of reliability. In the book, do we ever know the true Blythe as nearly everything we learn of her is told to us via Joe who has his own agenda and biases?

Both the book and the show deliver a harrowing warning about social media, a story of stalking and murder (which I found myself also comparing to the narrative in A LONG FATAL LOVE CHASE by Louisa May Alcott, which begins and ends in the same way), and warns readers beautifully that you can never know the true thoughts of someone around you. This is a story of lies and deceit, of passion and insanity, of love and murder. There’s also *a lot* of sex in the book. A lot more than the show.

YOU is a complex story, beautifully written, and I’ve never read anything like it before. But I believe that I only enjoyed it as much as I did because I had the context of the show as background. I already had a framework to map this story onto as I read. And given how unique it’s narrative style is, this helped immensely. I’m sure if I’d come to the book first, I’d have felt lost and not quite sure what was happening at several points.

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Review: UNDER THE ICE by Rachel Blok

Under the Ice by Rachael Blok
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It is the week before Christmas and the cathedral city of St Albans is blanketed by snow. But beneath the festive lights, darkness is stirring. The frozen body of a young girl is discovered by the ice-covered lake.

The police scramble for clues. A local woman, Jenny, has had visions of what happened the night of the murder. But Jenny is an exhausted new mother, whose midnight wanderings pull her ever closer to the lake. Can Jenny be trusted? What does she really know?

Then another girl goes missing, and the community unravels. Neighbour turns against neighbour, and Jenny has no idea who to believe. As Christmas Eve approaches, Jenny discovers a secret about her past – and why she could be key to everything...

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Under the Ice is Rachel Blok’s debut, a crime novel with a strong psychological thriller vibe set in the week before Christmas. As it happened, I read this book in the lead-up to Christmas which added a nice feel to it.

This book opens with the discovery of a young girl’s body in a frozen lake, and swiftly moves on to introduce us to Jenny, one of the protagonists. She’s a first-time mother who’s struggling with motherhood—and she sees ghosts.

Okay, her ghostly “visions” and experiences somewhat annoyed me. I found those sections slow and not that engaging. While the way they were written symbolised Jenny’s confused mindset at the time, where she was only half awake, I found these passages a challenge to read. I had to really concentrate as I read to work out what was going on, and it felt like hard work. I don’t mind reading engaging books where you have to really think to know what’s happening, but I don’t think the writing style quite worked here as it threw me out of the story and reminded me that it was writing that I was reading, which in turn slowed down the pace a lot for me during these sections. But the ghostly visions also certainly added a mysterious element to Jenny’s character, and played nicely into her unintentional unreliable qualities as a narrator.

One thing I really loved about this book was how it alternated between psychological thriller (with the narrator being Jenny) and police procedural (with the narrator being detective Maarten). I love police procedural and it was so interesting seeing the hunt for the murderer from two different perspectives—and more than once it made me convinced that Jenny was going to be revealed as the killer.

Adding in a second crime to this murder mystery—the disappearance of a second girl who has no connections to the first—was nice as it upped the stakes and really increased the tension. With the second girl also being the best friend of Maarten’s daughter, it added a nice personal element to Maarten’s motivation to find the killer. We saw the pressure on him both from a family perspective and a professional one. It really developed his character nicely.

The actual identity of the killer was not something I saw coming. I was shocked, both in a good and bad way—partly because the real killer had never been on my suspect list at all (or the police’s or Jenny’s suspect list). It did seem to come out of the blue, but it it didn’t seem totally unbelievable.

Overall, this is a solid crime thriller.

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Review: THE DATE by Louise Jensen

Today's the release date of Louise Jensen's latest psychological thriller, and let me tell you, this is a page-turner! I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of this novel, and I loved it so much.


The Date by Louise Jensen

Something bad has happened to Alison Taylor. 

Her Saturday night started normally. Recently separated from her husband, Ali has been persuaded by her friends to go on a date with a new man. She is ready, she is nervous, she is excited. She is about to take a step into her new future. 

By Sunday morning, Ali’s life is unrecognisable. She wakes, and she knows that something is wrong. She is home, she is alone, she is hurt and she has no memory of what happened to her. 

Worse still, when she looks in the mirror, Ali doesn’t recognise the face staring back at her. She can’t recognise her friends and family. And she can’t recognise the person who is trying to destroy her… 


My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was the first book by Louise Jensen I’ve read, and I was impressed. The Date is a tightly-woven thriller that cleverly entwines the actions of one woman’s past with her current life when she wakes after a vicious attack with no memory of the event. In many ways, it reminded me of SJ Watson’s Before I Go To Sleep (which I absolutely loved), but Louise Jensen’s latest book definitely holds its own and is a stunning read.

As a main character, Ali was likeable—but complex. Each chapter carefully revealed new layers to her that made her not only believable but relatable too. I struggled a little to relate to a couple of the secondary characters (particularly Jules and James), but this didn’t really affect my reading experience much.

I love books that include medical disorders and illnesses, and this one—where the main character suffers from prosopagnosia or “face blindness”—did not disappoint. While this condition is shown to only be one part of Ali it does provide a powerful premise and keep the tension up as Ali (and the reader) can’t recognise her attacker.

At times, I found the flashbacks to be a little long, but I can see what an important part of the story they were—in many ways this is almost a duel narrative of sorts between Ali and her younger self as we see how the events of her past shape her future.

I loved the ending. I’m a huge sucker for twists (and I knew one would be coming) but I did not foresee this exact twist.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC. I’ll definitely be picking up Louise Jensen’s other books.