Tag: Michael Joseph

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The Drift by C. J. Tudor – Review.

About The Book

Survival can be murder . . .

Hannah awakens to carnage, all mangled metal and shattered glass. Evacuated from a secluded boarding school during a snowstorm, her coach careered off the road, trapping her with a handful of survivors.

Meg awakens to a gentle rocking. She’s in a cable car stranded high above snowy mountains, with five strangers and no memory of how they got on board.

Carter is gazing out of the window of an isolated ski chalet that he and his companions call home. As their generator begins to waver in the storm, the threat of something lurking in the chalet’s depths looms larger.

Outside, the storm rages. Inside each group, a killer lurks.

But who?

And will anyone make it out alive? . . .

My Review

C J Tudor is a favourite author of mine so I was looking forward to reading this new book. A dystopian thriller about a killer virus that had changed the world, and it showed an eerie and often unsettling view of how life could change when faced with threats from illness, severe weather and mistrust.

Three different narrators in three dangerous situations who were all linked by their connection to The Retreat but there was another link that I couldn’t initially work out. This was slowly revealed the more I read. All three were strong characters who were all hiding something and they all desperate to escape their situation. All were struggling with their current situation but they also had problems that they were trying to run from in their personal lives and the one I had more liking and sympathy for was Meg.

Everyone will be aware of how, at times, terrifying the real virus was. The one that features in this book makes that pale into insignificance. The treatment used, especially, was the one that I found difficult to handle and had me thinking about what options I would consider if I was in a similar predicament.

Strangely it wasn’t the storyline about the virus that chilled me. There was the weather, obviously, you couldn’t not be chilled reading about the icy conditions. But more than anything it was the characters, not knowing who, if any, could be trusted and what each of them were prepared to do.

There is a lot more I could say about this book but the less you know before you read the more you will be gripped.

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The Mist by Ragnar Jónasson – Blog Tour Review.

About The Book

1987. An isolated farm house in the east of Iceland.

The snowstorm should have shut everybody out. But it didn’t.

The couple should never have let him in. But they did.

An unexpected guest, a liar, a killer. Not all will survive the night. And Detective Hulda will be haunted forever …

My Review

With thanks to the publisher for the copy received. Anybody who is familiar with this series will know that it is slightly different to most others. Instead of moving forward in time it moves backwards, so this final book in the trilogy is the furthest back in time. It shows in some detail the tragedy that tore apart Hulda’s life. 

The reader gets to know her fairly well. The way she does her job, quietly but efficiently and the way her home life is causing her concern. Her daughter’s depression is difficult for her to understand, even though the reader can guess at what the problem is. 

But there is another part of this novel and that concerns Erla and Einar. They live in an isolated farmhouse that becomes more so when the weather turns bad. And when a stranger turns up asking to come in they are unprepared for what follows. And it is the isolation, the threat from the stranger and what he wants that is by far the strongest part of this novel. You forget that there was once a life without mobile phones. Where if your landline wasn’t working and there was no electricity that you couldn’t use a mobile to ask for help of even use as a torch. The intimidation caused by the conditions and the stranger seemed to intensify every time I turned the page. 

I have now read two series by this author, both different and both captivating. I can’t wait to see what will come next. 


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He Started It by Samantha Downing – Review.

About The Book

No-one knows you better than your family.

They know the little things that make you smile. Your proudest achievements. Your darkest secrets. 

Sure, you haven’t always been best friends. 

But if it seemed as though someone was after you, that you might be in danger, then you’d be on each other’s side.

Right?

So gripping you won’t stop reading.

So twisty that you won’t know who to trust.

And so dark that you’ll realise something truly chilling:

No-one is more dangerous than the ones who know you best.

My Review

I hadn’t read Samantha Downing’s first book so was unprepared for the enjoyment I would get by reading this novel. I love dual time frame novels and this was one of the better ones. Same characters, set in modern day and when they were young children doing the same road trip. And the more I read the increasingly unlikeable they became. Nothing would get me in car with any of them. I have probably never misjudged so many characters in one book.

Three siblings, Beth, Portia and Eddie. Beth’s husband Felix and Eddie’s wife Krista. This isn’t a close family, they barely tolerate each other. All of them  prefer to communicate by text, mainly to complain about another in the group. None are honest with each other, especially Beth who has never revealed the truth about what happened concerning her parents to Felix and he has no idea that there was an older sister. The reasons why become clearer the more you read. 

The location fascinated me, I had initially thought that the tourist attractions were invented but after researching a couple I found I was mistaken. I’m not sure I would visit a barbed wire museum but would have enjoyed everything to do with Bonnie and Clyde and seeing the Codger Pole.

It’s full it twists, none of which I saw coming and I enjoyed every one of them. I had it all worked out which way things would go and I was wrong on just about everything. 

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One White Lie by Leah Konen – Blog Tour Review.

About The Book

IT’S ONLY ONE SMALL LIE . . . UNTIL SOMEONE TURNS UP DEAD

2020’S MOST GRIPPING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER with twists you’ll never see coming, perfect for fans of Samantha Downing, Rachel Caine and Shari Lapena’s The Couple Next Door

Imagine you’ve finally escaped the worst relationship of your life.

Imagine your new next-door neighbours are the friends you so desperately needed.

Imagine they’re in trouble. That someone is threatening their livelihoods – and even their lives.

Imagine your ex is coming for you.

If you just needed to tell one small lie to make all these problems disappear, you’d do it . . . wouldn’t you?

It’s only one small lie, until someone turns up dead . . .

My Review

With thanks to the publisher for the copy received. I had a feeling from reading the synopsis that the friendship between Lucy, Vera and John would be an unhealthy one. But I wasn’t prepared for how unhealthy or how unlikeable the characters were. I did really try to like Lucy, but found that the only part of her I did like was her care of her dog, Dusty.

Woodstock was one of those areas that you find everywhere. The type of community where newcomers will never fit in. At first I thought this was why Lucy was warned to keep away from Vera and John but these thoughts diminished when I got to know more about them. Lucy does  build tentative friendships with Maggie, Al and Rachel but it is her increasingly obsessional relationship with Vera and John which made me cringe. I was practically screaming at her to keep her distance but she was hooked on their way of life and their charm. You just knew that it would all go wrong.

 I don’t think I have ever read a book where so many characters are so obsessed with the others. And I couldn’t work out what the appeal was. It was the type of novel where you are so fascinated by the relationship dynamic you are unprepared for how wrong their plan goes. I really did not see it coming, and I had no idea who was responsible.

It’s clever and slightly creepy. Especially when you read about Lucy’s relationship with Davis, his character sent the hairs up on the back of my neck. And the way his treatment had her check everything around her.

I always admire an author who can create unlikeable characters but who fascinates at the same time. I would definitely read more by her. 

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The Truth Must Dazzle Gradually by Helen Cullen – Blog Tour Review.

About The Book

On an island off the west coast of Ireland, the Moone family are shattered by tragedy.

Murtagh Moone is a potter and devoted husband to Maeve, an actor struggling with her most challenging role yet – being a mother to their four children. Now Murtagh must hold his family close as we bear witness to their story before that tragic night.

We return to the day Maeve and Murtagh meet, outside Trinity College in Dublin, and watch how one love story gives rise to another. And as the Moone children learn who their parents truly are, we journey onwards with them to a future that none of the Moones could predict . . .

Except perhaps Maeve herself.

My Review

With thanks to the publisher for the copy received. The Truth Must Dazzle Gradually is a lovely, passionate and sad novel that is all about the Moone family. It takes place in Ireland over a period of roughly 40 years, from when Murtagh and Maeve met in Dublin, their marriage and the tragedy that tore the family apart.

The first part of the novel concerned Maeve and Murtagh, you saw how both of them got to know each other, fall in love and also her illness. I know nothing at all about her condition but I really appreciated how the author showed the affect it had on her and her family. As you read more, after the events on Christmas Eve 2004, the focus switched to the Moone children, how they dealt with their loss and felt  about being in their childhood home.

One of the reasons I liked this novel so much, was that there was no wrong way. In today’s society it is easy to judge and criticise. But with the four children, now adult, and Murtagh, they all coped with their grief in different ways. Not always right for each other, but right for the individual. I liked all of them but the two I felt more for were Murtagh and Mossy. It is difficult to say why, apart from I felt that both of them seemed much warmer characters. Especially Mossy the only one who had a family of his own.

The book has inspired me to read The Lost Letters of William Woolf as quickly as possible.