The Family Friend by Claire Douglas - Review

This was the third book I bought in Waterstones in Peterborough and I read it near the end of July. I've read other books by Claire Douglas and I was intrigued by the premise of this book so I got it. My cousin's wife saw it when I'd bought it and expressed interest, so I passed it on to her when I was done. I hope she liked it more than I did. I didn't hate it, but I only gave it three out of five stars so there was obviously something that didn't gel with me. It's a while since I read it but I will try to cast my mind back...

The book is about Imogen, a woman in her thirties who has been working as a journalist but she's suspended at the moment due to something that happened with one of her investigations. She is I think married to Josh, who is a tiresome human being that I disliked from the off. Some of his actions were really abusive so I would give a trigger warning for that. Imogen gets the unexpected news that she has been left a massive house in Bath in the will of a woman called Dorothea. 

Dorothea is an artist and has had a successful career, but the house went up in flames and a lot of her artwork was destroyed. But Imogen finds a box addressed to her and realises Dorothea is trying to tell her something about her own past as well as what happened to Dorothea. Imogen hasn't seen Dorothea since she was sixteen, half her lifetime ago, when her mother left her dad and took Imogen with her. They stayed with Dorothea and she helped them, but Imogen's mother went back to Imogen's dad, and he is now serving time for her murder. Imogen has had a difficult life because of this, but is very close to her sister.

She starts trying to unravel what happened to Dorothea. There's a weird neighbour who is a bit too friendly, and there's a hunky next door neighbour who Imogen remembers from the summer she was sixteen. Dorothea's studio yields nothing but then there's a hidden bunker in the garden which does. There are three friends of Dorothea's who know a lot about what happened with Imogen's parents, but they are under threat too. 

I liked the sense of threat in the book a lot, but Imogen drove me mad by making stupid mistakes and decisions. Josh is a proper dickhead to her. I thought it was a bit slow in parts, too. I think maybe my time with Claire Douglas is up as I don't find her that interesting. 

Walk the Blue Fields by Claire Keegan - Review

I've read other books by Claire Keegan so when I spied this in Waterstones in Peterborough I picked it up. I had a voucher to spend so got this and something else on buy one get one half price. I then read it really soon after purchasing, which is good going for me. 

I love the sparseness of the prose in this book, which I've said about Claire Keegan before. I love these little novella books, of around 150 pages, as I think they're really accessible for readers. This one is short stories and I like how Claire said so much in so few words. They were even sparser than her usual stuff! All the stories are set in Ireland which I loved. There are only seven stories and I liked them all. 

I really liked the title story, about a priest performing a marriage involving a woman that he was in love with, and how he moves through the day. There's a story about an abused daughter which was hard to read but done so beautifully. I liked the story about Martha, a storyteller, who causes chaos in her family by exposing the truth about them to the neighbours. But they were all good! 

I think I've read everything that Claire Keegan has published now which is a shame, but I more recently read a book that was a lot like this one, which I'll review soon! In all I'm giving this four out of five and I thoroughly recommend it. 

Heartstopper Vol 6 by Alice Oseman - Review

It's the end of Heartstopper! Waahhhh! I had forgotten it was coming out in July and then I was in Waterstones in Peterborough on holiday and I saw it. I still had vouchers so I bought three books and this was one of them. I have read a bunch of the others as library books but decided now that the series is over that I wanted to own them all. I ended up buying the first five books as a set on Vinted and I may have to do a reread soon!

I also wanted to read this book before I watched the Heartstopper film that was the finale to the TV show. It was on Netflix about the 17th of July or something. I had a procedure on the 21st of July and laid on the sofa for the whole entire day, so I planned to watch the film so knew I needed to read this first. So I did. And now it's ended. Wahhh! I thought the book ended in such a lovely way, I liked it a lot. 

We're back with Nick and Charlie as they work through being separated for the first time as Nick is heading off to uni. Nick struggles with not being 'perfect', something which goes back to his dad leaving the family. It was nice to see them supporting Nick through something rather than him being the strong silent type while Charlie's mental health suffered. Charlie's confidence grows and grows in this book which was amazing to see. I loved seeing Nick at uni - it was so reminiscent of my own time at uni. 

We also saw the endings for all the people we've got really fond of over the years - Tara and Darcy and of course Elle and Tao. Elle is my favourite character - well except Mr Farouk because I am an old jaded queer as well. And I loved HIS ending too, but no spoilers! But Elle and Tao had a really realistic ending and it showed how grown up they could be. 

I liked the film as well, it stuck really close to the book which was good. I am sad to see it end, though. As I've said a million times, when I was younger we just didn't have this type of queer representation on the television so I'm happy it exists now and look forward to seeing more. I will read more of Alice's stuff soon and probably do some rereads too. In all I'm giving this four out of five. It's adorable. 

The Secret of Skeleton Island and The Mystery of The Moaning Cave - Review

 

When I was little I read a bunch of these books, and last year I reread The Mystery of the Talking Skull and really liked it. I got a few of the books on Kindle and when I was away at the beginning of July (nearly two months ago, which is how far behind I am with my reviews...) I ended up reading two of them. The first night, I couldn't sleep. I wonder if I was given caffeinated coffee actually because I couldn't sleep for the life in me. I finally fell asleep at like 6am when I had read an entire book and watched the sun come up. Which was actually really pretty to see. But even so!

So these books have Alfred Hitchcock's name attached to them and he always makes an appearance when the Three Investigators have finished a mystery and they tell him about it, but he didn't write them or anything. I did think that most of them were written by Robert Arthur, but The Mystery of The Moaning Cave was written by someone called William Arden. I have read both before, I'm pretty sure, way back over thirty years ago when I used my little local library every week. 

The Three Investigators are Jupiter, Bob, and Pete. The books are set in California in the 1960s and although a little outdated they do stand up to modern reading. I would actually LOVE a modern rewrite of this series with new technology and stuff like that. Jupiter lives with his aunt and uncle although I don't remember why and it wasn't explained in either of these books. Bob and Pete live with their respective parents. 

In The Secret of Skeleton Island Pete's dad is working in Hollywood and filming a movie on the east coast or something, and the three boys are invited to go and watch and do some diving. I vividly remember this book because Bob and Pete get stuck while diving and that makes me feel sick, it's one of my worst phobias. I have never reread The Beach because of the bit when the Swedes get stuck in the diving tunnel through the island - it was just TOO realistic and I remember feeling the same about Bob and Pete! The boys are picked up when they arrive but are dropped off on the wrong island and have to rescue themselves. The waters around the island are full of fish, but surely the rumours about them being full of buried treasure aren't real?! 

I still loved this book as much as I did when I was a kid. I'm giving it four out of five. 

I don't know if I've read The Mystery of The Moaning Cave before. It didn't ring as many bells for me. The three boys are on holiday in Southern California on a huge ranch. There are rumours that an outlaw called El Diablo went missing on a cave on the ranch and now there are moaning noises coming from that cave. But surely the long dead outlaw cannot actually be there? There are a bunch of people in this book, all of whom have a different opinion about the moaning noises. The boys obviously go to investigate. 

I enjoyed this book as well, another four out of five. I will have to read some more of this series soon!

Dead Teenager Movie by Cethan Leahy - Review and Blog Tour

Hello and welcome to my blog for my stop on the blog tour for Dead Teenager Movie by Cethan Leahy. It is a pleasure you welcome you here. Please do have a click around and read some of my other reviews!

I was immediately intrigued by the premise of this book so wasted no time in signing up for the tour. I read the book in mid August and really enjoyed it. It's a fun YA novel, drawing on a lot of horror movie tropes. I would definitely read something else by Cethan Leahy and look forward to what he writes next!

The book is set near Cork in Ireland. I love Irish based Young Adult lit so I was really glad to read this, there really needs to be more of it. There are five teenagers. Four of them already know each other - Carl, his sister Scarlett, their friends Erika and John. Carl and Scarlett are wealthy, Carl has his own car, stuff like that. He has just started seeing April so they pick her up on their way to an isolated house for the weekend. Carl says it's his dad's second home or something. 

But strange things start happening and the group realise they are being stalked. A series of murders have happened in Cork including a janitor being murdered and someone heading to a party with no one there, so the teens start to wonder if this is the same person. They lose any way of leaving the house and are desperately trying to stay alive. 

Meanwhile, two teens are watching a livestream of what is happening to April and co and they are so intrigued - it's like a horror movie but it's really happening. They decide to try to get to the house where April and the others are, but soon things don't look too good for them either. 

There's a bunch of horror film tropes that happen while April, Carl, Scarlett, Erika and John are trying to stay alive. Things like - don't believe the bad guy is really dead. Don't trust anyone. Nowhere is safe. 

It's a really fun book and I enjoyed it. I am giving it four out of five and am hoping everyone else enjoyed it just as much! 

The Woman In Suite 11 by Ruth Ware - Review

I read The Woman in Cabin 10 in late 2018, absolutely years ago now! Then at Stockport Noir in January she was talking about this, a sequel to that book, so I ordered it. I didn't love it, and having read my review for the first book, I can see why! I think maybe Ruth Ware just isn't for me, and that's okay. She was absolutely lovely when I met her, which is the important thing!

So, Laura is living her best life in New York, married to her dishy husband Judah and bringing up their two children. She's still a journalist but not a travel writer. It is a decade on from what happened in the first book. But then she gets an invitation to the opening of a luxury hotel in Switzerland and wants to go to try and revive her career. The hotel is owned by the Leidmann Group, whose head is Marcus Leidmann. It is widely believed that he will give up the position to his son, Pieter. 

Lo arrives in Switzerland and is reunited with three people from the cruise ship ten years earlier, which seems weird but they're all still working so maybe it's not that weird? Then Lo gets an invitation to Suite 11. She goes, and finds Carrie, who was the woman in Cabin 10 all those years ago and who has been on the run ever since due to her involvement in that case.

She tells Lo that she is Marcus' mistress and that she is trapped. He is abusive towards her and knows that she isn't who she says she is and is blackmailing her to stay. She wants Lo's help - Laura has two passports and Carrie wants to borrow one to get them both to England. Lo is really unsure but eventually agrees to help, feeling guilty about what happened ten years ago. 

It's a risky plan but they do both make it through and end up deep in the Sussex countryside in a fancy hotel. They have plans to leave - Laura is going to see her mum - but these plans are derailed when Marcus and Pieter turn up at the hotel. Lo and Carrie think that they are tracking Lo to see if Carrie turns up, so they try to hide her. But it all goes a bit wrong when Marcus is found drowned in his bath. 

I thought the story was compelling but the book lost its way a bit and it was just too long. It needed some editing I think. I can only give it three out of five. 

The Silence In Between by Josie Ferguson - Review

This was the July choice for my book club and I read it on Kindle. I did mostly enjoy it but had a few caveats that took my star rating down a bit. 

The book has a dual narrative. In the first one, Lisette is around thirty years old and has two children. Ellie is fifteen and Axel is only a few weeks old. Axel is unwell and Lisette takes him to the hospital in West Berlin. She is urged to go home and sleep and come back in the morning with clothes for him and her. But in the morning, the people of East Berlin find that the Wall has gone up overnight and they are no longer permitted to travel there freely. Axel is stuck in the hospital and no one can do anything. But Ellie is determined to smuggle herself in to West Berlin to rescue her baby brother. 

In the second narrative, it is Berlin during World War Two. Lisette lives with her mother who I think was called Rita. Her father is off fighting and Rita waits for him to come home forever more, years after the war has ended. Lisette is in love with a neighbour, Julius, who has been drafted to fight and must leave. The women are friends with a neighbour, Frau Weber, who is a Nazi, althought from Lisette's point of view she and her mother definitely aren't. THEY definitely don't think Jewish people are subhuman or whatever like those NASTY Nazis do! I really didn't like this part of the book because I felt like it exonerated Lisette and her family too much. The book moves on to what happened after the Soviets moved in and how terrible they were to the Germans. The book is pretty harrowing in terms of sexual assault and rape. Others in my book club felt like Lisette was right in what she did, but I'm not sure I agree. 

It was interesting to read about what happened in Berlin during the war, especially from the point of view of women, who are often left behind in war. However, it was often hard to tell the difference between Lisette's and Ellie's points of view, so when the timeline shifted it was hard to tell who it was. Especially when Lisette was a young woman; then the book read more like Young Adult fiction and it just didn't quite ring true for me. I also didn't like how, I felt, no one took responsibility for Nazi actions. 

In all I am giving it three and a half out of five. My caveats mean it got rounded down from four stars.