When a debut novel wins a prize pre-publication, it sets my expectations high. Happily, Amy Lloyd’s The Innocent Wife doesn’t disappoint and justifies all the attention. Here’s what it’s about: Twenty years ago, Dennis Danson was arrested and imprisoned for the brutal murder of a young girl in Florida’s Red River County. Now he’s the subject of a true-crime documentary that’s whipping…
If you’re looking for a book that’ll take you on an absolute trip and mess with your head, then this is it. Believe Me is the latest psychological thriller from the bestselling author of The Girl Before which I reviewed here. Here’s what Believe Me is about: Claire Wright likes to play other people. A British drama student, in New York…
Tyler Keevil was first published by the Welsh publisher, Parthian, which is how I discovered him. Having enjoyed all his previous books, including The Drive published by Myriad rather than Parthian, I was keen to read his latest novel. No Good Brother is the picaresque tale of two brothers partly set in and around Vancouver, another reason for wanting to read this one….
Anna Mazzola captivated me with her tense and atmospheric, early Victorian London crime debut The Unseeing and I was keen to see where she went next. The period is once again Victorian for her second novel but, crucially, The Story Keeper* is set twenty years later for reasons which become apparent towards the end of the book. And for this book we escape London…
I was intrigued by the title of this but didn’t know anything else about it, despite the fact that it’s sold 2 million copies. And for the purposes of this review, I’m going to shorten its title to Your Second Life Begins but first here’s a little more about it: At thirty-eight and a quarter years old, Camille has everything…
Bone Deep seeps right into you, imbuing the reader with an inescapable sense of growing unease as local legend is told, more recent secrets are revealed and women unravel. What happens when you fall in love with the wrong person? The consequences threaten to be far-reaching and potentially deadly. Bone Deep is a contemporary novel of sibling rivalry, love, betrayal and murder….
I’m late posting this review because our book group decided to gift the book to one of our members who’s getting married this month. And she reads this blog, so I didn’t want to post my review in case she went out and bought it before we’d had a chance to give her the signed copy we’d organised. That’s now…
Sometimes all I need to nudge me into reading a book I’ve been meaning to get to… is to discover that there’s a sequel coming out! Which is how I finally came to read Fiona Cummins’ Rattle and its sequel The Collector in such quick succession. Jakey escaped with his life and moved to a new town. His rescue was a miracle but…
The title of Emily Koch’s debut novel, If I Die Before I Wake, snagged my interest and its tagline ‘How do you solve your own murder?’, only intrigued me further, so I read the blurb (below). Not only did I want to hear Alex’s story but I also needed to see how Emily Koch was going to make the telling…
Devastating and deliciously dark, The Cliff House is less wish-fulfilment and more of a clever and disturbing reminder that things are rarely (if ever) how they appear on the surface. Some friendships are made to be broken Cornwall, summer of 1986. The Davenports, with their fast cars and glamorous clothes, living the dream in a breathtaking house overlooking the sea….