Difference between revisions of "Newest Thrillers Reviews"

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
(21 intermediate revisions by 2 users not shown)
Line 2: Line 2:
 
[[Category:New Reviews|Thrillers]]__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
 
[[Category:New Reviews|Thrillers]]__NOTOC__<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=C A Sacha
+
|author=Teresa Driscoll
|title=Legacy: A Political Thriller
+
|title=Her Perfect Family
|rating=4
+
|rating=5
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary= Corporate boss Gene Finnegan has a plan to increase his already startling wealth and ensure his legacy: to bring the world's first emission-free car to market and dominate production. The secret development project to enable this, Bucephalus, is already underway and Finnegan bankrolls US president Joseph Montgomery into a second term to help him carry it out. Montgomery is also looking for a legacy and one that does not involve his controlling mother and her foundation, so grabs onto Finnegan's Feed Africa programme with both hands...
+
|summary=The novel begins by introducing you to Gemma, who at first instance appears to be your average student, faced with the familiar horrifying realisation, at the eleventh hour, that her graduation outfit is all wrong. Suddenly, Gemma receives an eerie message stating ''He is not who he says he is…'', paving the way for the sinister tone that remains throughout the novel. In a twist of events, and after a change of outfit, Gemma is shot in the midst of her graduation ceremony. With Gemma then in a coma, what follows is a complex whodunit with a list of suspects that continues to grow the further you read.
|isbn=1800461976
+
|isbn=1542028752
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008336830
+
|isbn=0008370982
|title=Two Wrongs
+
|title=Rock Paper Scissors
|author=Mel McGrath
+
|author=Alice Feeney
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Sondra was on her way home after work when she saw a young woman looking as though she was going to jump from the Clifton suspension bridgeShe talks to her, and Sondra finally persuades Satnam to call her best friend and flatmate, Nevis SmithNevis is unworldly and rather reserved - and she can't understand why Satnam hasn't shared her problems with her.  She thought they shared everything.  Satnam is taken to hospital and Nevis calls her mother, HonorThey've not been on good terms since a discovery Nevis made the previous summer but right now, Nevis needs her mother.
+
|summary=Amelia Wright is forty-two and it was the staff raffle at Battersea Dogs Home that gave her a weekend away in a converted chapel in ScotlandHer husband, Adam, isn't so keen on the ideaLike Amelia, he knows that their marriage has been under strain: he's a screenwriter and he's never shy of making it clear to Amelia that he'd prefer to spend time with the novels he's hoping to adapt than with her.  Amelia's annoyed that he never enquires about how her day has been - and working with the dogs, many of whom have been abused, is never easyStill - she's won the weekend away, even if it does mean driving for eight hours in her 1978 Morris Minor Traveller with Adam beside her in the passenger seat - and then doing the same thing to come back a couple of days later.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Catherine Steadman
+
|isbn=0008421714
|title=The Disappearing Act
+
|title=Mrs March
 +
|author=Virginia Feito
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Literary Fiction
 +
|summary=The problem began just after the publication of George March's most successful novel to date.  Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the last page) seemed to either be reading it or had already done so.  Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as she was wrapping the bread, ''but isn't this the first time he's based a character on you?''  She mentioned that Johanna, the principal character had 'her mannerisms''.  Perhaps this would not have mattered, except for the fact that Johanna is the whore of Nantes - ''a weak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretch.''
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=0241989094
 +
|title=The Perfect Life
 +
|author=Nuala Ellwood
 +
|rating=4
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary= British actress Mia Eliot is on the cusp of success. Great success. If the rumours are true, award season is going to treat her well, acknowledging her for her latest, critically acclaimed production. She's going places but so, unfortunately, is her partner. And the places he's going take him towards lies, deceit and a pretty young thing in the form of his new co-star. It's a good time for Mia to escape, and pilot season in LA provides just the excuse.
+
|summary=In August 2018 we meet a young woman called Imogen and she's viewing a house in Goring-on-Thames and telling the estate agent about her three children, Lavender, Freddie and Barclay. The boys are a bit of a handful which is why she's making this trip on her own.  The house would be perfect for them.
|isbn=1471189783
+
 
 +
It's the same month but now we're in Wimbledon and we encounter the same young woman, only this time she's job hunting and living in her sister, Georgie's, spare room, where she's been since she broke up with her boyfriend, Connor.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1838773428
+
|isbn=1787634493
|title=The Art of Death
+
|title=All Her Fault
|author=David Fennell
+
|author=Andrea Mara
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime
+
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=It was an art installation of the type which does appear in Trafalgar Square: a depiction of three homeless men in glass cabinets surrounded by liquidOnly this time it's not a depiction: these are the bodies of Billy Perrin, Stan Buxton and 34-year-old Noel Tipping.  The installation is the work of @nonymous, underground artist and extreme version of Banksy. He's made a macabre promise: more will followIn fact, we've already met the artist although not by name: he's been in the Lumberyard Cafe with his Moleskine notebook, Maki-e fountain pen, MacBook Air and iPhoneElaine Kelly is there with her son, Jordan, and she's explaining to her best friend, Jackie Morris about the state of her marriage.  Actually, it doesn't take a lot of explaining: Frank's attentions are obvious on her face despite the foundation she's appliedChau Ho is behind the counterThere's someone online, CassandraH, that the artist has his eye on, too.
+
|summary=It had seemed like one of those serendipitous events which sometimes happenMarissa Irvine had been hoping that the opportunity would arise for her son, Milo, to go on a play dateShe was concerned that he didn't have any friends at his new school.  Milo would go home from Kerryglen National School in an affluent Dublin suburb with his classmate Jacob - and Marissa would pick him up from 14 Tudor Grove a little laterWhat could be better?  Only, when Marissa arrived at the house, expecting to meet Jacob's mother, Jenny, the door was answered by Esther, who didn't know Jenny or Jacob.  The phone number she'd been given for Jenny was not recognisedMilo had disappearedAnd so had Jenny's nanny.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Sarah Sultoon
+
|author=Claire McGowan
|title=The Source
+
|title=I Know You
|rating=2.5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=1996. Essex. Thirteen-year-old schoolgirl Carly lives in a disenfranchised town dominated by a military base, struggling to care for her baby sister while her mum sleeps off another binge. When her squaddie brother brings food and treats, and offers an exclusive invitation to army parties, things start to look a little less bleak...
+
|summary=''Then:'' Casey returns from a walk with the baby, Carson, and comes across three bodies, almost a whole family taken down.
|isbn=1913193594
+
 
 +
''Now:'' Rachel is out for a walk with her dog, Brandy, when she comes across a body in the woods.
 +
 
 +
|isbn=1542019974
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529378648
+
|author=Peter Papathanasiou
|title=Slough House (Jackson Lamb 7)
+
|title=The Stoning
|author=Mick Herron
+
|rating=3.5
|rating=4.5
 
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Someone is killing secret service agents, past and present, from the Slough House team.  Jackson Lamb can't understand it. Well, what he actually can't understand is why, having seen them, anyone would bother.  But the deaths are mounting up and something needs to be done. After all ''when things went awry on Spook Street, they generally went the full Chris Grayling.''  Over at Regent's Park, Diana Taverner is quietly jubilant about an operation which saw the perpetrator of a Novichok poisoning in the UK (three people seriously injured and one dead) dispatched. It isn't just the message that was sent: she's also delighted that she managed to fund the operation off the books. Some private money was brought in. She won't always be so jubilant about this.
+
|summary=In a town sleazy enough to make sh*tholes elsewhere look glamorous in comparison, a teacher has been transported across town at night in a shopping trolley, and she's been taped to a tree and she's had rocks bowled at her as if she were the world's tallest cricket stumps. When she's discovered by the town gossip everyone, including the local cops, are quite confident the culprit has come from the immigrant detention centre the place is reluctantly home to. An arson attack on that shows the feeling – and it's only fair, is the general opinion, for the occupants are often setting their own fires in protest at their conditions. Cue the arrival of George Manolis, a higher rank from the city, to sort everything out. Because such an aggrieved, insular community is really going to welcome a Greek-heritaged city boy laying down the law...
 +
|isbn=1529416973
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008379300
+
|isbn=1787631869
|title=The Shadow Man
+
|title=The Rising Tide
|author=Helen Fields
+
|author=Sam Lloyd
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Fergus Ariss is in his late thirties and he knows that he's dying.  His body is giving up on him, his internal organs beginning to putrify but before he dies he wants a wife, a child and a brotherHe's been on the lookout for the perfect people and he's made certain preparations.  The flat where the family will live is prepared and even windows with curtains, and pictures in frames have been painted onto the wallsAngela Fernycroft was to be his wife.  Her husband, Cal, had taken the children - a boy of seven and a girl of five, away for the weekend.  Unfortunately, it doesn't go according to plan and Angela dies.
+
|summary=Lucy Locke's early life hadn't been easy but she'd built a good and decent life in the aftermathShe's now married to Daniel, who co-owns Locke-Povey Marine on Penleith Beach, and they live at Wild Ridge on Mortis Point with Billie, Lucy's daughter and Fin, the child she had with DanielThey have financial difficulties, some caused by Nick Povey, Daniel's partner and so-called best friend.  Nick and Daniel have a history together from the time they both spent in a children's home but it's difficult to think that Nick has Daniel's best interests at heart, particularly where Lucy, or money, is concerned.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Dean Koontz
+
|isbn=1786332388
|title=The Other Emily
+
|title=The First Day of Spring
 +
|author=Nancy Tucker
 +
|rating=4.5
 +
|genre=Thrillers
 +
|summary=Sometimes I wonder if I take my pleasures too sadly - and ''The First Day of Spring'' was one such occasion.  The writing is superb and completely compelling.  The characterisation is excellent and the plot grips you and won't let go.  So, what's the problem?  Well, the problem is Chrissie, the main character.  When we first meet her she's just eight years old, small for her age and she readily tells us that she's just killed someone - a two-year-old boy.  She's completely cold about what she's done with her main memory being that whilst she was killing - suffocating - her hands seized up.  There's a clue that Chrissie isn't completely responsible for her actions a little later in the book: when will Steven come back, she wonders?  Hasn't he been dead for long enough?
 +
}}
 +
{{Frontpage
 +
|isbn=B088YWF5BC
 +
|title=The Lies We Tell
 +
|author=Jane Corry
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Our hero David Thorne is an author, who shares his life between the two US coasts.  It's the western coast we're concerned with, a place he has to return to, and a place he has to be able to leaveDavid lost contact with his partner there ten years ago, when she vanished from a remote road late at night.  He's paying for contact with the man he thinks the only suspect, a lifer now, who went a bit Hannibal Lecter, and has a dozen and more unfound Jane Does on his recordDavid is trying to pry the connection between the murderer and his girl from the man's mind, but to no avail.  He's also having a recharge ready for his next hit novel when into the restaurant walks the sheer spitting image, the very embodiment, the virtual resurrection, of his love. What is a man to do?
+
|summary=Sarah Wallace said that she grew up on a council estate in Kent and that she had two brothers and two sisters.  It seemed to have been a loving, stable familyWhen we first meet her, she can't sleep because her son, Freddie, who's nearly sixteen, hasn't come home by the time he sort of half-promised he'd be in byHer husband, Tom, is fast asleep: they're moving house in the morning but he's still going to be going to work and he needs his sleep.  He wakes, though, when Freddie does come in and overhears him tell his mother that he's killed someone.
|isbn=1542019958
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1529124417
+
|author=Louise Candlish
|title=Before She Disappeared
+
|title=The Heights
|author=Lisa Gardner
 
 
|rating=4.5
 
|rating=4.5
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Frankie Elkin found Lani Whitehorse's body in her car at the bottom of the lake. She knew that the twenty-two-year-old waitress wouldn't have left her three-year-old daughter and run away.  Lani was the fourteenth missing person to be located by Frankie and now she's moving on again, this time to Boston where there's a strong Haitian community which was home to Angelique Lovelie Badeau until her disappearance eleven months ago. Frankie, middle-aged and white, gets a job and accommodation at Stoney's bar and sets out to investigate the community which is just about exclusively black.
+
|summary=Ellen doesn't expect to see Kieran that day. She's on site, visiting a client for a lighting consultation when she spies him in a building across the way. There are lots of things, lots of people, you might see when you look out across London, but this isn't one Ellen expected that day or in fact any other day. Why? Because Kieran has been dead for over two years, and Ellen knows this for a fact, because she had a hand in his murder.
 +
|isbn=1471183483
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B08CR3WNFT
+
|isbn=1838853804
|title=The Therapist
+
|title=The Cursed Girls
|author=B A Paris
+
|author=Caro Ramsay
|rating=5
+
|rating=4
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=When Leo Curtis found the house in The Circle, a gated community, Alice Dawson was in VeniceLeo wanted to move quickly on the property as it was on the market at such a reasonable price that Alice wouldn't have to sell her cottage in Harlestone for them to be able to afford it. Alice agreed - she was tired of their long-distance relationship. Now they would be able to spend most of the week together instead of just the weekendsLeo had some work done on the house: he made two bedrooms into one and although Alice knew that the house was stunning she just didn't feel comfortable there.
+
|summary=Megan Melvick's earliest memory is of her fourth birthday: she followed her grandfather down to the pond, only to find that he'd hanged himselfTwenty years later she's back home again and this time the occasion is no less sad.  She's there to say her final farewells to her sister, Melissa, who is dying of anorexia.  As she dies, Melissa whispers 'sorry' to Megan but what did she mean?  There were lots of things, minor and major cruelties, for which Melissa might have been sorry - or was it even a question? Was she asking if Megan was sorry for sleeping with Melissa's husband, Jago, on their wedding day? The Melvicks might seem to have everything - Ivan Melvick was Lord Lieutenant of the County and money was never in short supply - but there did seem to be a curseIn addition to Melissa's health problems, Megan was deaf and their mother, Beth, had left suddenly three years before.  Would she come back for her elder daughter's funeral?
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author=Saima Mir
+
|isbn=1409181669
|title=The Khan
+
|title=The Maidens
 +
|author=Alex Michaelides
 
|rating=5
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Crime
 
|genre=Crime
|summary=Jia Khan has alway lived by the motto be twice as good as men and four times as good as white men. This has served her well in her rise through the criminal justice system and by the time she is called home for her sister's wedding after fifteen years in self-imposed exile, she is at the top of her game. Returning to the city of her birth, to old scars and fresh wounds, Jia must confront her past and reconcile her visions for the future with her sense of honour and duty.
+
|summary=Mariana was convinced that Professor Edward Fosca had committed two murders and looked likely to get away with them both.  She needed to think carefully about what she knew and decide how she should proceed.
|isbn=1786079097
+
 +
Everything - or so she thought - had begun with the death of Tara Hampton on the Paradise nature reserve in Cambridge.  She'd been brutally stabbed and Mariana's niece, Zoe, had telephoned her in distress.  Tara had been her best friend and she was struggling to cope.  Mariana wasn't ''entirely'' happy about having to go to Cambridge, but she caught the first fast train from King's Cross. Mariana and Zoe were close and had been made all the more so by the death of Mariana's husband, Sebastian, in a swimming accident on Naxos some fourteen months earlier.  Zoe had been their surrogate daughter after the death of Zoe's mother and Mariana's sister, Eliza.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008214468
+
|author=Sarah Langan
|title=A Time to Lie
+
|title=Good Neighbours
|author=Simon Berthon
+
|rating=4.5
|rating=5
 
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=A workman has a nasty surprise when he pulls a package out of an excavation on a building site. It's wrapped in part of an old shower curtain and is a hand, severed above the wrist.  It's been there for about twenty-five to thirty-five years.
+
|summary= If you're of a certain vintage, it's hard to read the words ''Good Neighbours'' without adding a sing-song ''that's when Good Neighbours…become…good friends''. Maple Street is no Ramsay Street, though, Arlo and Gertie live a world apart from the Melbourne suburbs. They're one of 18 households on the crescent, quite new arrivals having moved in a year earlier. They're not quite like all the other families (he's an ex rocker, she's a former beauty queen) but they've made some friends and their kids have settled in, and it's all going ok. Until it isn't. One hot, clammy, sticky, sweaty summer, a sinkhole opens up in the park across the way. It's a revolting mess of dirt and chaos, but for the residents of Maple Street, the worst is yet to come.
 
+
|isbn=1789098211
Robin Sandford - generally known as Robbie - is Prime Minister.  He's married to heiress Carol van Koon and they have two daughters, Becca and Bella.  Sandford's determined to be a better type of politician: he wants ''a government that is not just practically good, but morally good.''  One of the ways he's planning on going about this is to ban arms sales to dubious regimes.  Henry Morland-Cross, the Deputy Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, wishes that he'd been warned about this: it's easy to see that he wouldn't have been in agreement.
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author= Gunnar Staalesen
+
|isbn=0008395594
|title= Fallen Angels
+
|title=Both of You
|rating= 2
+
|author=Adele Parks
 +
|rating=4
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Varg Veum, lone wolf detective, is back. After attending a former friend's funeral, Veum catches up with old friends but soon historic grievances and wounds are opened and the sins of the past are exposed to the light of the present. A horrific murder threatens these tenuous bonds and Veum is thrust into an investigation to root out the clues hidden in his own history and to catch a killer.
+
|summary=You could be forgiven for thinking that Leigh Fletcher has it all: great husband and two gorgeous stepsons whom she adores.  Then, one Monday, she went to work and never came home. Mark, Oli and Seb are shattered.  Well, Mark and Seb are but Oli's sixteen and at the stage where he thinks boredom is his best look. He's been a bit off with Leigh for a while but she put it down to him growing up and starting to become independent. Seb's only twelve and Leigh's absence hits him hard.  Then Daan Janssen, a wealthy Dutch businessman, reports his wife, Kai missing. She too has vanished without trace.
|isbn=1913193063
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
|author= Deborah O'Connor
 
|title= The Captive
 
|rating= 4
 
|genre= Thrillers
 
|summary=Hannah knows the cage, intimately. It lurks in the corner of her eye. Soon, it will be occupied. Then what? What if he speaks to her? What if he escapes? What if he hurts her? What if she hurts him?
 
|isbn=1838772650
 
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B087JXQ3JQ
+
|isbn=1848458428
|title=The Long Dark Road
+
|title=Local Woman Missing
|author=P R Black
+
|author=Mary Kubica
 
|rating=4
 
|rating=4
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|genre=Thrillers
|summary=Two years ago Dr Georgia's Healey's nineteen-year-old university-student daughter went missing as she walked along the lonely A928 at Ferngate BridgeThere was a furious storm going on and she'd already refused the offer of help from one man in a big vehicle.  We'll see - but no one else will know - that another car stops and Stephanie is bundled into the car and driven offThere has been no sign of her - or her body - in the two years since.  Georgia is back is Ferngate, determined to find out what happened and she's not going to be stopped.
+
|summary=Eleven years ago, a man regularly came home to his wife with lipstick marks on his collar and lame excuses as to why he was late - again.  His wife was in the habit of going out for a run late at night.  It was the only time she had for herself when she didn't have to look after her baby - but when she was out she would meet up with a man, grateful for the unquestioning affection he gave her.  The locality was stunned when Shelby Tebow disappeared, seemingly without a trace, leaving her husband to look after her disabled baby.  Ten days later, a local woman and her six-year-old daughter disappearedMeredith Dickey was a birth doula and she'd seemed to be under some strain for the last couple of weeks or so.  Her body was eventually found in a seedy motel - it appeared that she'd committed suicideShe left a note saying that her daughter, Delilah, was safe and there was no point in looking for her.
 
}}
 
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
{{Frontpage
|author= Susi Holliday
+
|author=Terry Miles
|title= The Last Resort
+
|title=Rabbits
|rating= 3.5  
+
|rating=4.5
|genre= Thrillers
+
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=A group of strangers gather on a private island. They have been invited to an all-expenses paid retreat to test a brand-new product from the mysterious Timeo Technology company. The group includes a games designer, social media influencer, gossip columnist and hedge fund manager. Everyone seems to have an area of expertise that makes their attendance necessary. All except Amelia whose presence is a mystery. We follow the group as they explore the island, and each other's histories and it becomes clear that they all have a dark secret they would rather keep hidden. As the clock ticks down, these well-kept secrets are revealed, and it soon becomes clear that this luxury retreat is really a gilded cage. In a race against time, Amelia must struggle to uncover the reason for her attendance and protect the rest of the guests from the increasingly sinister accidents that befall them. 
+
|summary=Welcome to the world of The Game. Or should that be the game, for while it ought to be capitalised to high heaven, it never leaves lower case throughout this book. It's also called Rabbits, although only as a slangy term for it – as far as anyone knows, it has no official title, no official source, no hard and fast structure, and to the average person no obvious entry point. A bit like the game of life then. Yes, this is the game of life for a certain tribe of people – the fan of the conspiracy, the computer game, the hack from the darkest of webs. People like our hero, K, named like that in the least Kafkaesque manner possible. K and his bezzies are trying to be historians of the game, and have studied amongst many things the most unique of high score boards, for the lists of who has successfully won the game are in the most peculiar places, and are still very short. However this time it's different. This time the game seems the most dangerous, nay lethal, the most broken it's ever been – morally and otherwise. Unfortunately for K, in trying to sort out what the game is doing, if it's even being played, and how his loved ones might be kept safe, he is only to find out that the line between observing and learning about the game, and playing it, is a very thin one indeed...
|isbn=1542020018
+
|isbn=1529016932
}}
 
{{Frontpage
 
|isbn=0008330131
 
|title=The Stolen Sisters
 
|author=Louise Jensen
 
|rating=3.5
 
|genre=Thrillers
 
|summary=When we start ''The Stolen Sisters'' we know that twenty-years on from a dreadful event they are all healthy adults.  Well, they're healthy in the physical sense, but Carly has trust issues, Leah has OCD and Marie drinks. They're the Sinclair sisters and one day they were all stolen. Carly was thirteen-years-old and she was in charge of her sisters, the eight-year-old twins.  Much as she loved them Carly was desperate to get a text from Dean Malden and her mobile phone held her attention.  Leah and Marie were nattering about a lost ball and a fleece which had been left outside. The gate wasn't shut properly and Bruno, their boxer dog, escaped. As the three girls went to chase after him they were snatched by two men.
 
 
}}
 
}}
  
 
Move on to [[Newest Travel Reviews]]
 
Move on to [[Newest Travel Reviews]]

Revision as of 07:52, 16 September 2021

1542028752.jpg

Review of

Her Perfect Family by Teresa Driscoll

5star.jpg Thrillers

The novel begins by introducing you to Gemma, who at first instance appears to be your average student, faced with the familiar horrifying realisation, at the eleventh hour, that her graduation outfit is all wrong. Suddenly, Gemma receives an eerie message stating He is not who he says he is…, paving the way for the sinister tone that remains throughout the novel. In a twist of events, and after a change of outfit, Gemma is shot in the midst of her graduation ceremony. With Gemma then in a coma, what follows is a complex whodunit with a list of suspects that continues to grow the further you read. Full Review

0008370982.jpg

Review of

Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

Amelia Wright is forty-two and it was the staff raffle at Battersea Dogs Home that gave her a weekend away in a converted chapel in Scotland. Her husband, Adam, isn't so keen on the idea. Like Amelia, he knows that their marriage has been under strain: he's a screenwriter and he's never shy of making it clear to Amelia that he'd prefer to spend time with the novels he's hoping to adapt than with her. Amelia's annoyed that he never enquires about how her day has been - and working with the dogs, many of whom have been abused, is never easy. Still - she's won the weekend away, even if it does mean driving for eight hours in her 1978 Morris Minor Traveller with Adam beside her in the passenger seat - and then doing the same thing to come back a couple of days later. Full Review

0008421714.jpg

Review of

Mrs March by Virginia Feito

4.5star.jpg Literary Fiction

The problem began just after the publication of George March's most successful novel to date. Everyone but Mrs March (we know her first name only on the last page) seemed to either be reading it or had already done so. Every day Mrs March went to the local patisserie to buy olive bread but on that particular morning, Patricia asked, as she was wrapping the bread, but isn't this the first time he's based a character on you? She mentioned that Johanna, the principal character had 'her mannerisms. Perhaps this would not have mattered, except for the fact that Johanna is the whore of Nantes - a weak, plain, detestable, pathetic, unloved, unloveable wretch. Full Review

0241989094.jpg

Review of

The Perfect Life by Nuala Ellwood

4star.jpg Thrillers

In August 2018 we meet a young woman called Imogen and she's viewing a house in Goring-on-Thames and telling the estate agent about her three children, Lavender, Freddie and Barclay. The boys are a bit of a handful which is why she's making this trip on her own. The house would be perfect for them.

It's the same month but now we're in Wimbledon and we encounter the same young woman, only this time she's job hunting and living in her sister, Georgie's, spare room, where she's been since she broke up with her boyfriend, Connor. Full Review

1787634493.jpg

Review of

All Her Fault by Andrea Mara

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

It had seemed like one of those serendipitous events which sometimes happen. Marissa Irvine had been hoping that the opportunity would arise for her son, Milo, to go on a play date. She was concerned that he didn't have any friends at his new school. Milo would go home from Kerryglen National School in an affluent Dublin suburb with his classmate Jacob - and Marissa would pick him up from 14 Tudor Grove a little later. What could be better? Only, when Marissa arrived at the house, expecting to meet Jacob's mother, Jenny, the door was answered by Esther, who didn't know Jenny or Jacob. The phone number she'd been given for Jenny was not recognised. Milo had disappeared. And so had Jenny's nanny. Full Review

1542019974.jpg

Review of

I Know You by Claire McGowan

4star.jpg Thrillers

Then: Casey returns from a walk with the baby, Carson, and comes across three bodies, almost a whole family taken down.

Now: Rachel is out for a walk with her dog, Brandy, when she comes across a body in the woods. Full Review

1529416973.jpg

Review of

The Stoning by Peter Papathanasiou

3.5star.jpg Thrillers

In a town sleazy enough to make sh*tholes elsewhere look glamorous in comparison, a teacher has been transported across town at night in a shopping trolley, and she's been taped to a tree and she's had rocks bowled at her as if she were the world's tallest cricket stumps. When she's discovered by the town gossip everyone, including the local cops, are quite confident the culprit has come from the immigrant detention centre the place is reluctantly home to. An arson attack on that shows the feeling – and it's only fair, is the general opinion, for the occupants are often setting their own fires in protest at their conditions. Cue the arrival of George Manolis, a higher rank from the city, to sort everything out. Because such an aggrieved, insular community is really going to welcome a Greek-heritaged city boy laying down the law... Full Review

1787631869.jpg

Review of

The Rising Tide by Sam Lloyd

4star.jpg Thrillers

Lucy Locke's early life hadn't been easy but she'd built a good and decent life in the aftermath. She's now married to Daniel, who co-owns Locke-Povey Marine on Penleith Beach, and they live at Wild Ridge on Mortis Point with Billie, Lucy's daughter and Fin, the child she had with Daniel. They have financial difficulties, some caused by Nick Povey, Daniel's partner and so-called best friend. Nick and Daniel have a history together from the time they both spent in a children's home but it's difficult to think that Nick has Daniel's best interests at heart, particularly where Lucy, or money, is concerned. Full Review

1786332388.jpg

Review of

The First Day of Spring by Nancy Tucker

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

Sometimes I wonder if I take my pleasures too sadly - and The First Day of Spring was one such occasion. The writing is superb and completely compelling. The characterisation is excellent and the plot grips you and won't let go. So, what's the problem? Well, the problem is Chrissie, the main character. When we first meet her she's just eight years old, small for her age and she readily tells us that she's just killed someone - a two-year-old boy. She's completely cold about what she's done with her main memory being that whilst she was killing - suffocating - her hands seized up. There's a clue that Chrissie isn't completely responsible for her actions a little later in the book: when will Steven come back, she wonders? Hasn't he been dead for long enough? Full Review

B088YWF5BC.jpg

Review of

The Lies We Tell by Jane Corry

4star.jpg Thrillers

Sarah Wallace said that she grew up on a council estate in Kent and that she had two brothers and two sisters. It seemed to have been a loving, stable family. When we first meet her, she can't sleep because her son, Freddie, who's nearly sixteen, hasn't come home by the time he sort of half-promised he'd be in by. Her husband, Tom, is fast asleep: they're moving house in the morning but he's still going to be going to work and he needs his sleep. He wakes, though, when Freddie does come in and overhears him tell his mother that he's killed someone. Full Review

1471183483.jpg

Review of

The Heights by Louise Candlish

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

Ellen doesn't expect to see Kieran that day. She's on site, visiting a client for a lighting consultation when she spies him in a building across the way. There are lots of things, lots of people, you might see when you look out across London, but this isn't one Ellen expected that day or in fact any other day. Why? Because Kieran has been dead for over two years, and Ellen knows this for a fact, because she had a hand in his murder. Full Review

1838853804.jpg

Review of

The Cursed Girls by Caro Ramsay

4star.jpg Thrillers

Megan Melvick's earliest memory is of her fourth birthday: she followed her grandfather down to the pond, only to find that he'd hanged himself. Twenty years later she's back home again and this time the occasion is no less sad. She's there to say her final farewells to her sister, Melissa, who is dying of anorexia. As she dies, Melissa whispers 'sorry' to Megan but what did she mean? There were lots of things, minor and major cruelties, for which Melissa might have been sorry - or was it even a question? Was she asking if Megan was sorry for sleeping with Melissa's husband, Jago, on their wedding day? The Melvicks might seem to have everything - Ivan Melvick was Lord Lieutenant of the County and money was never in short supply - but there did seem to be a curse. In addition to Melissa's health problems, Megan was deaf and their mother, Beth, had left suddenly three years before. Would she come back for her elder daughter's funeral? Full Review

1409181669.jpg

Review of

The Maidens by Alex Michaelides

5star.jpg Crime

Mariana was convinced that Professor Edward Fosca had committed two murders and looked likely to get away with them both. She needed to think carefully about what she knew and decide how she should proceed.

Everything - or so she thought - had begun with the death of Tara Hampton on the Paradise nature reserve in Cambridge. She'd been brutally stabbed and Mariana's niece, Zoe, had telephoned her in distress. Tara had been her best friend and she was struggling to cope. Mariana wasn't entirely happy about having to go to Cambridge, but she caught the first fast train from King's Cross. Mariana and Zoe were close and had been made all the more so by the death of Mariana's husband, Sebastian, in a swimming accident on Naxos some fourteen months earlier. Zoe had been their surrogate daughter after the death of Zoe's mother and Mariana's sister, Eliza. Full Review

1789098211.jpg

Review of

Good Neighbours by Sarah Langan

4.5star.jpg Thrillers

If you're of a certain vintage, it's hard to read the words Good Neighbours without adding a sing-song that's when Good Neighbours…become…good friends. Maple Street is no Ramsay Street, though, Arlo and Gertie live a world apart from the Melbourne suburbs. They're one of 18 households on the crescent, quite new arrivals having moved in a year earlier. They're not quite like all the other families (he's an ex rocker, she's a former beauty queen) but they've made some friends and their kids have settled in, and it's all going ok. Until it isn't. One hot, clammy, sticky, sweaty summer, a sinkhole opens up in the park across the way. It's a revolting mess of dirt and chaos, but for the residents of Maple Street, the worst is yet to come. Full Review

0008395594.jpg

Review of

Both of You by Adele Parks

4star.jpg Thrillers

You could be forgiven for thinking that Leigh Fletcher has it all: great husband and two gorgeous stepsons whom she adores. Then, one Monday, she went to work and never came home. Mark, Oli and Seb are shattered. Well, Mark and Seb are but Oli's sixteen and at the stage where he thinks boredom is his best look. He's been a bit off with Leigh for a while but she put it down to him growing up and starting to become independent. Seb's only twelve and Leigh's absence hits him hard. Then Daan Janssen, a wealthy Dutch businessman, reports his wife, Kai missing. She too has vanished without trace. Full Review

1848458428.jpg

Review of

Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica

4star.jpg Thrillers

Eleven years ago, a man regularly came home to his wife with lipstick marks on his collar and lame excuses as to why he was late - again. His wife was in the habit of going out for a run late at night. It was the only time she had for herself when she didn't have to look after her baby - but when she was out she would meet up with a man, grateful for the unquestioning affection he gave her. The locality was stunned when Shelby Tebow disappeared, seemingly without a trace, leaving her husband to look after her disabled baby. Ten days later, a local woman and her six-year-old daughter disappeared. Meredith Dickey was a birth doula and she'd seemed to be under some strain for the last couple of weeks or so. Her body was eventually found in a seedy motel - it appeared that she'd committed suicide. She left a note saying that her daughter, Delilah, was safe and there was no point in looking for her. Full Review

1529016932.jpg

Review of

Rabbits by Terry Miles

4.5star.jpg Science Fiction

Welcome to the world of The Game. Or should that be the game, for while it ought to be capitalised to high heaven, it never leaves lower case throughout this book. It's also called Rabbits, although only as a slangy term for it – as far as anyone knows, it has no official title, no official source, no hard and fast structure, and to the average person no obvious entry point. A bit like the game of life then. Yes, this is the game of life for a certain tribe of people – the fan of the conspiracy, the computer game, the hack from the darkest of webs. People like our hero, K, named like that in the least Kafkaesque manner possible. K and his bezzies are trying to be historians of the game, and have studied amongst many things the most unique of high score boards, for the lists of who has successfully won the game are in the most peculiar places, and are still very short. However this time it's different. This time the game seems the most dangerous, nay lethal, the most broken it's ever been – morally and otherwise. Unfortunately for K, in trying to sort out what the game is doing, if it's even being played, and how his loved ones might be kept safe, he is only to find out that the line between observing and learning about the game, and playing it, is a very thin one indeed... Full Review

Move on to Newest Travel Reviews