Top Marks for Murder by Robin Stevens - Review

I'm back at Deepdean! I pre-ordered this book and it arrived alongside four more one hot Thursday in August, whoops. I have the knack of ordering books and then forgetting about them until they arrive. Sometimes they sit for ages on my pile of books that I want to get to 'soon', but I can never resist a Wells & Wong novel so I picked it up immediately.

It's Deepdean's 50th anniversary as a school, so there's a celebration at the end of the school year. All the parents are invited for a whole weekend of celebrations including a dinner on the Saturday night. Hazel's parents are too far away to attend, of course, and since the scandal at Daisy's family seat, her parents have been keeping a low profile, so they're not coming either. So Hazel and Daisy are both feeling quite emotional about that. Their dormmates' parents are all coming, though, so the weekend promises to be okay.

On the Friday morning, Beanie is standing by the window in their dorm room when she sees something odd in Deepdean woods. She is pretty sure she sees a man strangling a woman. Has she really seen a murder? The members of the Detective Society decide to keep an eye out to see if any man appears that evening without his wife in tow. They also go out to the woods to see if they can find any evidence. They do, so Hazel hurriedly calls Inspector Priestley to say they think they have another murder on their hands.

The Inspector turns up the next day and takes Daisy and Hazel out for lunch. The girls carry on detecting the crime, and end up smuggling themselves into the hall that evening for the celebration dinner. While there, they see Mrs Rivers, sister of their headmistress, collapse and ultimately die. It looks like arsenic poisoning - but who on her table had the chance to poison her?

The plot has quite a lot of twists and turns and although the girls make several leaps of logic at points, I did also like how sometimes they made really quite sophisticated deductions. I liked the parents being there, and I think in forthcoming books we'll see all five girls face grown up situations that they haven't dealt with before. I couldn't quite remember all of the scandal that had happened around Daisy's family, so I'll have to reread Arsenic for Tea before long and refresh my memory. I do wonder what will happen to the girls - they're about to move up a school year and school is obviously a finite amount of time. Robin probably can't write these books forever! I do love them, though.

My only major criticism is that we didn't see very much of the school life itself, which is what I really like. I'd love more of that - and another ten books at least.

The Upper Hand by A L Fraine - Blog Tour

I'm really pleased to join in the blog tour for The Upper Hand by A L Fraine. When I heard about the book, it sounded right up my alley. As you know, I like crime fiction and I really like when there's ritualistic elements of a novel. My undergraduate degree was in Theology & Religious Studies and all kinds of religions really interest me.

Here's the blurb for the book:

A murder with all the trappings of an occult sacrifice. It’s DC Kate O’Connell’s first case.

Will it also be her last?

Keen to prove herself to her superiors Kate fights to break through the lies that surround the victim’s life. But the ritualistic nature of the crime dredges up disturbing memories of a past tragedy.

While wrestling with the demons of her past, Kate learns that her partner has a few skeletons in his own closet. His reputation threatens to taint the investigation and ruin her career before it starts.

Kate must break the silence surrounding the victim to get to the truth before it’s too late, and the death toll rises.

Join Kate as she descends into a murky world of murder and conspiracy in the English Home Counties, in a Thriller that bestseller J D Kirk describes as: “An exciting new voice in British Crime fiction.”

Readers of J D Kirk, L J Ross, David Blake, and Daniel Cole, and fans of True Detective and Seven should enjoy The Upper Hand.

I liked the book, I thought Kate was a likeable detective trying to find her place in a world dominated by men. The beginning was interesting - she's partnered with Nathan, an older detective, and he's a bit of a laughing stock as he has a kind of speciality in X-Files type mysteries. I liked this! I thought the story was interesting. I would read something else by the same author and fortunately you can too. There's a bit more info about that here:

A L Fraine lives in Surrey in the UK, just outside of London, with his wife, kids, cat and dog.

Having enjoyed reading thrillers and watching gripping drama for years, it was the influence of a couple of more recent shows that spurred him on to put pen to paper and write his first thriller, The Upper hand.

The Upper Hand was inspired by True Detective, and Se7en, and the creepy vibe that they had.

The prequel to the Upper Hand, “First Hand”, is available for free for those who sign up to his mailing list, here; https://dl.bookfunnel.com/dbeuremmfr

The Sequel to The Upper Hand, titled “Idle Hands”, is available for Pre-Order now.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07VJBCF2W/

If you would like to know more about A L Fraine and his books, you can find him at www.alfraineauthor.co.uk

Or on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/ALFraineAuthor/

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book and join in the book tour!

You can check out the other stops on the blog tour here:

The Rumour by Lesley Kara - Review

I was away on holiday in July with a friend and some of her friends; we've been camping previously but my friend has a small baby so we went to stay in some cottages instead. At one point I sat down on the sofa and had to move this book out of the way as I did so, so I picked it up to read the blurb. I was intrigued, so I ordered it for myself when I got home. It arrived on the 6th of August along with four other books. Whoops. Sometimes just all your pre orders come in at once! 

This isn't the oddest way I've ever garnered a book recommendation, by the way. I was once on the Tube and I saw someone reading The Future Homemakers of America, and I ended up buying it (and it, of course, turned out to be one of my favourite books). 

Anyway, this book is about Joanna. She's recently moved to a small seaside town, Flinstead, where she spent some of her childhood with her mum. She's been living in London with her small son, Alfie, but she's decided to move back so her mum can help her with childcare and for a better pace of life, I guess. Alfie's dad, Michael, is still in the picture - he and Jo sleep together sometimes when he's around, but they're not a couple. He is a journalist.

Jo is at the school gates when she hears a rumour from one of the "popular" mums. The rumour is that Sally MacGowan, a notorious child killer, is living in Flinstead under a new identity. Sally was ten years old when she murdered a little boy, Robbie Harris. She served quite a few years in prison before being released, but of course no one knows where she is now. Jo doesn't know if the rumour is true or not, but then she repeats it at her book club, and everything takes off from there. The rumour takes on a life of its own, and it seems like every older woman in town is under suspicion. 

There's a new age shop called Stones and Crones, the owner of which is called Sonia Martin. People start to suspect her, including Joanna. The front window of the shop gets smashed in. 

Joanna makes friends with some of the mums and rumours begin to fly all over. She spends some time with someone in her book group, Kay, whose daughter and grandchildren have moved to Australia, while someone else in the book group, Liz, starts to avoid Jo. Who exactly is Sally MacGowan? Michael starts to look into the woman, wishing to write a story about her, but Jo and Alfie come under threat. 

I did like this book - it's very compelling and made me want to keep turning the page. I liked Jo, even though she acted a bit of a dolt at times. It was sometimes a bit hard to keep the characters straight - some had really similar names and they weren't all that distinctive. There's plenty of twists and turns along the way and although I guessed some of them I still wanted to know if I was right and how things came out. I didn't like the very end of the book, so while I would have given it a four out of five, I downgraded it to a three out of five. Still, I liked this Girl-on-the-Train esque book and would recommend it if you're a fan of those kinds of books. It's nice to read a book like that set in a sleepy British seaside town! 

Transcription by Kate Atkinson - Review

I bought this book last week on a rare trip to Waterstones. I happened to be in Wakefield so I popped in. Their Young Adult section is lovely! It's really well stocked and set out in a really appealing way, and has loads of recommendations from staff. So even though it's not very big it makes the most of its space. I was about to buy the new Robin Stevens book when I remembered I had it on pre-order, just in time! I did end up picking up something else in the YA section, but I might get to it soon so I'll wait.

Anyway, I bought this. It was on one of the tables in the fiction section and I picked it up to read the blurb. I read Behind The Scenes At The Museum in about 2006 or 2007 and I really didn't like it. I couldn't get on with the story or the unreliable narrator. Because of that, I've never picked up another of Atkinson's books, even though several of my friends really rate her as an author. However, I liked the sound of this book so I thought I'd give it a chance. My books were on buy one get one half price so I decided it was worth the risk!

Transcription is about a woman called Juliet Armstrong. At the beginning of the book, in 1981, she is dying. She is thinking about her wartime escapades. The narrative moves to 1950, when Juliet, by then working for the BBC, bumps into Godfrey Toby, a man who she knew through the war. He makes out like he doesn't recognise her, and Juliet is baffled.

The narrative turns to 1940. Juliet is eighteen and has just lost her mother. She gets a job working for MI5, after a baffling interview, and is soon moved to a job doing transcription for a covert operation in Pimlico. Godfrey is posing as a Nazi sympathiser and is spying on a number of sympathisers. Safely hidden in the flat next door, Juliet's job is to transcribe everything that the neighbours say. It's a somewhat dull job - these aren't really active fascists, they're just sympathisers.

However, Juliet is recruited variously by men in positions of power above her. One of them wants her to spy on Godfrey and report back on what he's doing. Then she's asked by another to pose as a woman called Iris and get close to the wife of one of Mosley's supporters. She does so.

Back in 1950 Juliet becomes convinced she's being followed. She's convinced it's due to Godfrey's reappearance, so she goes to his house in Finchley to see if the neighbours have any idea what happened to him. She speaks to a few people - but are they all just a bit too rehearsed?

Things happened in 1940 which Juliet helped to cover up and which Juliet even perpetrated herself. She's trying to forget her actions - and sometimes, her inactions - but in 1950 the threat of being followed and perhaps exposed is too much.

I wasn't sure where the action was going to go at any point. The book has plenty of twists and turns but none of them are completely out of nowhere. I loved the back and forth between 1940 and 1950. I liked the wartime setting and how life carried on even though the war is raging in the background. I loved Juliet as a character, I thought she was interesting and complex and also very principled. I also thought that most of the spying was, like, accidentally hilarious? Accidentally farcical, they seemed to be terrible spies. I liked that. It seemed really realistic.

I'm giving this five out of five, I thought it was a brilliant book and I will definitely give Atkinson a chance again!

Roam by Erik Therme Blog Tour and Review

I'm pleased to be joining in this blog tour for Erik Thermé's book Roam. I read another book by him a few months ago - Keep Her Close - so I was happy to read something else by the author. I read this while I was away camping which is one of my favourite times to settle down and read for an extended time!

Roam is being touted as a Young Adult novel but I don't agree at all - it skews much older than that. I think it's an adult novel, kind of a thriller. The main characters are between 18 and 21, which takes it out of the realm of YA really.

At the beginning of the book we meet Sarah and Matt, a couple who are out celebrating Sarah's 21st birthday. They've been for dinner, but then they get stranded at the side of the road. Matt starts to turn nasty and Sarah is obviously a little scared of him. She starts to walk for help, and then is picked up by two young men on their way home.

One of them ends up going home, but the other, Kevin, gives Sarah a lift home. When she argues with her mum, he agrees to take her to find her friend Scott. Scott hasn't seen her in years but they grew up together. He's having problems with a roommate so he's been staying with his brother and sister-in-law. Scott is a weird character - deeply unsettling and quite creepy. He's seeing a girl, Mandy, who works front desk at a motel. Everyone in the book ends up there and some weird things end up happening.

I did find this quite a chilling book but didn't altogether gel with the characters. Kevin was my favourite. I wanted to know what happened and found myself rushing towards the end.

You can win a digital copy of this book by entering the Rafflecopter here:

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I Completed My Goodreads Challenge!

I realised that when I finished I Am I Am I Am, I also finished my Goodreads challenge for 2019! I'm really happy about this because it's only the middle of August so I'm well ahead of schedule. I'd like to think that I could hit one hundred books by the 31st of December, but we'll have to see!

Last year I read 81 books. In 2017 I read 78, in 2016 82, in 2015 69. I usually set myself quite a low challenge because the year I didn't, 2017, I felt bad that I didn't manage to beat the challenge. My post from last year shows that I smashed my challenge in October so I'm really happy to beat that this year. I do have lists on paper of what I read prior to 2015, but I wasn't using Goodreads until then. I am a prolific list keeper - I keep lists of books read and films watched in the back of my bullet journal. I love bullet journalling, although I also use mine as a general journal and memento book, it's got a bit of everything in it. It works for me though which is the main thing.

I feel like I have made more time for reading this year. I try to read every lunchtime when I'm at home, and I sometimes read while tea is cooking in the evening. I always read before bed, it's very rare that I don't. I've read some short books this year, too, but generally I read full length novels, so I'm really proud of my progress so far!

You can add me on Goodreads here.

I Am I Am I Am by Maggie O'Farrell - Review

I recently plucked this book off the shelves in our back bedroom. My friend Laura bought it for me either this Christmas or last; she had read it and really enjoyed it. I thought it was time to get to it.

I've read The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie, I read it a long time ago and really enjoyed it, I would recommend it. This book is autobiographical, and it chronicles seventeen near brushes with death that Maggie has had. From a near miss on a trail to jumping into the sea to impress some friends, to her childhood encephalitis, the Caesarean she had with her first child, and finally to her daughter's severe allergies.

I read it quickly, because each chapter is just like a little essay and really easy to read. Maggie has a gorgeously lyrical way of writing which comes through even in life writing like this, putting the reader in exactly the place that she was at the time. I could imagine the exotic locales really easily, I could see the hospital rooms perfectly. I liked how sometimes she switched from first person to second person; perhaps from a writing point of view it is purely to distance herself from having to relive the pain of whatever incident she's referring to (and it does seem to happen more in the more traumatic stories), but it also works to engage the reader to imagine themselves as the one in danger. There were bits I found really funny and bits I related to, but it was all really good to read and I'm glad I picked the book up.

I did some life writing myself in my MA and I really like it. I could almost write a book like this myself, and reading it has made me think a bit more about memory and about how we write about our own lives.

I'm giving this a well-deserved ten out of ten. I know I have other novels by Maggie, and now I really want to go and seek them out!