What A Way to Go by Bella Mackie - Review

I read Bella's first book How to Kill Your Family back in 2022 so was interested to read her second book. I found it quite similar to the first one in that all the characters are highly unlikeable but the narrative is compelling anyway. I read this a while ago so please forgive me as I remind myself of what happened in the book... 

Oh yes so the book is about the Wistern family. The patriarch, multi millionaire Anthony, is turning sixty and his wife Olivia is throwing him a lavish party. They have four children, all of whom are terrible, but it's hard not to have some sympathy for the youngest, Clara. The eldest, Jemima, is married to Will, who is a bit likeable but caught up in this terrible family. She is terrible, though, and her other sister is too. Anthony is a ruthless capitalistic person. Olivia loathes him and is basically very materialistic. There's any number of rich 'friends' of the family who have been invited. It's all a massive thing. And then Anthony's body is found in the pond. The family turn on each other, pointing the finger for murder, but what really might have happened? 

Meanwhile, Anthony is in a place that's like purgatory or something. He can watch his family as they go about their lives, and he has to work out how his death happened, and then he will get to go on to the next place. He has to present his findings to the management in this place, but he keeps getting it wrong. Was it his wife? His business partner? Who knows. 

There's also a local young person who is obsessed with true crime and spends a lot of time online talking about true crime, and so when this case lands on her doorstep, she becomes obsessed. She basically starts stalking the family, in their massive country house, and soon begins to irritate them. She keeps going viral with her posts, so she won't stop any time soon either. 

I liked t he premise of the book but just didn't feel like it was pulled off properly. I can't really explain it, but this didn't have me thrilled and it's quite forgettable a month later. I'm giving it three out of five. 

I am so sorry it's been so quiet on this blog recently. I've been reading lots as usual but just haven't been blogging as I've been busy unpacking the house. I've got tons of posts to catch up on so keep a look out!

Joffe Books Murder Mystery Short Stories Vol 1 by Various Authors - Review

A few months ago I signed up for the Joffe Books newsletter, which sends daily emails detailing books from them that are either free or low cost. A lot of them are right up my street - they are crime novels but there are so many subgenres within that. I would recommend it if you like crime fiction at all! 

I think I got this short story collection for free and I picked it up when I needed something quick and easy to read. My favourite of the stories was by Greta Mulrooney, because it was creepy and weird, but I enjoyed all of them. It is a few weeks since I read it though so I don't remember them all perfectly, but I am so behind on blogging and I really just want to get caught up. So in all I'm giving this four out of five. Sorry for the extremely short review! I will read some others of this collection though for sure. 

The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater - Review

So I'm really sorry that it's been quiet around here. It's because.... we moved house! It has been in the works since February but because the people we were buying off were buying a new house, which wasn't yet built, we had to wait. We had put a lot of things in storage in preparation to move, including most of my books. I had kept one basket full out in the old house, but I was so sad without my shelves of books. In the new house one of the spare rooms has enough space for a TON of bookshelves, so we've been building those and unpacking my books. It is glorious to see them all again! I will share some photos when everything is unpacked and looking great. 

Over the move itself I found it hard to read because I was stressed and wound up, so I tried to be gentle on myself. I started this book just before the move but couldn't concentrate on it, so I put it down for a bit. I finished it at the end of August and thought it did redeem itself in the last fifty pages or so, but I think it was overly long. I reckon you could have cut out about seventy five pages and still had the the same novel, with a bit less flannel. 

I love Maggie, as you know, so when I saw this book I was intrigued by it. I requested it at the library and picked it up in mid August. Although it seemed like my kind of thing, and although it's really typical Maggie, I did find it slow. Maybe that's one of the differences between Young Adult fiction and fiction for adults. Dunno. But it did annoy me somewhat.

So the book is about the Avallon hotel in West Virginia somewhere. It is set in about 1942, after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The hotel is owned by the Gilfoyle family but June Hudson - aka Hoss - is the general manager. She is from the area, from a poor family, but she was kind of adopted by the Gilfoyle family. The patriarch, Mr Francis, who has died not long before the start of the book, basically moulded June into the person she is now. She has kind of had a relationship with one of the sons, Ed, but the war is looming and she has refused to marry him. A different son, Sandy, has been injured and is now using a wheelchair and unable to move around by himself. His sister, Stella, is basically his carer. A different sister exists but doesn't feature. 

June is told that the hotel is being requisitioned by the FBI to house diplomats from Germany, Italy, and Japan. Apparently this was a thing that really happened in World War Two which was really interesting to learn. She has to get rid of all the guests - except for the mysterious long term guest who lives in Room 411 and who demands things daily. A number of her male staff have been drafted to fight and those that are left often have problems. She is well respected by her staff though. 

The FBI men are headed up by Tucker. He is a native to West Virginia - as June identifies by his coal tattoo - but doesn't really talk about that. The Axis diplomats arrive but they're almost slightly incidental to the story. There are quite a few Nazis, of course, and there is a girl who the story follows through. She is most likely autistic or something similar, but it's not diagnosed. The FBI men work to repatriate the diplomats and get some American diplomats back in exchange. This was all very interesting!

And then there is the water. The hotel has four bath houses and fonts on every floor. The water is sweetwater. June drinks glasses of it daily. It definitely has magical qualities. It is there, bubbling under the hotel, bubbling under everything that happens in the book. June knows how to subdue it, but eventually, she can't anymore. This is really typical Maggie, and I loved it. 

in all, this is a 3.75 out of five, so I'll round it up to a four. I loved the ending but as I say, I felt like there was quite a bit that just didn't need to be there. 

Evenings and Weekends by Oisin McKenna - Review

I really loved this book and really recommend it! I was made aware of it by Janet, who often shares books that she has liked that are cheap on Kindle on her Instagram. She and I have very similar taste in books, so when this was only 99p I had to get it. That's a couple of months ago now, but I'm really glad I picked it up because I liked it a lot. My friend Sarah, when she saw this photo on Instagram, messaged and said that she didn't like it at all and found all the characters unlikeable. After Janet said it was the best book she read last year I was really intrigued to see what I thought... Sorry Sarah, I loved it!

At its core the book is about three people: Maggie, Ed, and Phil. It is set in the heatwave summer of 2019, in London. Maggie and Ed are a couple, Maggie is pregnant, and they are barely scraping by in London so they are planning to move back to Basildon, where they grew up, to raise the baby. It's Maggie's last day at work before the move. A whale has come up the Thames and is beached, and all of London is talking about it and people keep going to see it. Ed is a courier, cycling all over London every day for little money. His dad died a few years ago, and his mum sits on the street back in Basildon every day, still grieving. Ed's best friend is Callum, who is about to get married to Holly. He is having a stag do with Ed and his dad Steve, but he goes AWOL for a bit so everyone is worried. 

His brother is Phil. Phil is gay and lives in a warehouse squat in London with eleven other people. One of them is Keith, who is in an open relationship with Louis, and who is also seeing Phil. Phil is sort of catching feelings though, but doesn't really know what to do about it. He doesn't like Louis, and he also thinks Keith is maybe using him. The squat is going to throw a party so everyone is getting ready for that.

Phil and Callum's mum, Rosaleen, has just discovered that she has cancer and her prognosis is terminal. She visits London on the Saturday with the intention of telling Phil, but finds she can't. A lot of the books is from her point of view too, about her childhood in Ireland and her friend Pauline, who died. Everyone in the book is very, very queer, except Maggie, who is just very in the scene. I loved how little bits were revealed and how so many people were intertwined with each other. I loved Rosaleen, I thought she was great, and I liked Phil a lot. I feel like I understand Phil. I didn't like Ed and Maggie as much for most of the book but I did really like their ending and thought it worked well. 

The book is about one weekend, that kind of hot city weekend when everyone is dying to get out of work and get to the parties, to the alcohol and the drugs and the dancing. I liked how this was portrayed a lot. I was right there, with these young people, who are connected by years and years of history (Phil and Ed have history too) and a vague sense of wanting more in life.

I'm giving this five out of five. It is an almost perfect book. 

The Otley Murders by J R Ellis - Review

You know I have read everything by J R Ellis and really rated his earlier books about DCI Oldroyd and his team, based in Harrogate. I know that part of the world and I've always really liked reading about places I recognise. My mum has read all this series too although I don't know yet what she thought of this one. It came out at the end of July and I picked it up because I can't resist! 

But I had a lot of problems with it. I'm not sure that the story was thought out properly, and it just kind of annoyed me. Then there were the kids named within - who were called Jonathan, Mary, Tom, Jane and Anne! Come on, find me a classroom in 2025 which includes those five children, I guarantee you cannot. Kids don't have names like that! Come on. It's not hard to name some kids. 

I also didn't think the ending really paid off. It felt a bit like Ellis had seen a topic that he wanted to address but hadn't really done enough research and didn't make sure enough justice happened. That annoyed me too. Really, I might be done with this series now, but then I feel bad because my mum will want to talk to me about them!

Anyway, the plot. A man called Adam Blake escapes from prison in a planned escape. He is a serial killer and when he was found guilty he threatened Oldroyd so now that he has escaped Oldroyd and his family all have to have protection so he can't get to them. Andy goes off to help look into the escape and where Adam is now, and has to investigate both prison warders and friends that Blake had on the inside. 

Meanwhile, Oldroyd and Steph are investigating a bizarre murder in Otley. In the new Arts Centre, which used to have some prison cells in it, a body is found. He wasn't killed there, so his body has been put there on purpose. It becomes obvious that some of the elders of the town know about historical things but they are still keeping it to themselves to stop any blame. It was this element that I just didn't feel worked properly. I enjoyed what Oldroyd and Steph did, for sure, but. But. 

In all I can only give this three out of five. 

The Burial Plot by Elizabeth MacNeal - Review

I read a review of this book somewhere and thought it sounded great, so I requested it at the library. However, I didn't really enjoy it at all. It took me absolutely forever to read because I just couldn't get into it. I did feel like it picked up at the end, but getting there just wasn't worth it for me. I won't rush to read anything else by the same author, that's for sure. 

The book is about Bonnie. It is set in 1839. She lives in London, sharing lodgings with her lover Crawford and his friend Rex, who hates her. They vie for Crawford's affection. Crawford thinks himself a cut above quite a lot of people. He takes bets on games in pubs. He gets Bonnie to entice men outside - them thinking they can buy her for the night or whatever - and then he and Rex attack and rob the men. 

One night Bonnie entices a gentleman outside, but things don't go as planned when Crawford and Rex don't show up, and the man starts to assault her. She hits him, and he whacks his head. Bonnie is certain she has killed him and thinks she will hang for the crime. Crawford however has a plan. He has seen an advert for a lady's maid wanted at a mansion in Richmond, which at that point was not part of London (I did like this historical part of the book!). Bonnie goes, applies for the job, gets it, and moves in, safe from the hangmen of London.

The family she moves in with is the Moncrieffs. The father is somewhat stilted, closed off. The daughter, Cissie, is sixteen and a strange little thing, but she and Bonnie grow close. Cissie's mother, Josephine, drowned in the pond earlier in the year, and the whole house is in mourning. There are only two members of staff, Annette, the housekeeper, and Manton, the butler. Mr Moncrieff has fallen on hard times and it seems likely that he will have to declare himself bankrupt. He spends a lot of time sketching mausoleums for Josephine and it is this which gives Bonnie an idea.

She has heard Crawford talking about the new cemeteries in London, like Highgate, and says that Mr Moncrieff could sell some of his grounds to make a cemetery, where he could also make a huge tomb for Josephine. He doesn't disagree, but nothing happens until Crawford turns up.

Posing as Bonnie's brother, he inveigles his way into the household and persuades Mr Moncrieff to start the cemetery. But he is cunning and he has so many plans and so much bitterness. Bonnie is quite stupid, though, and there are many times when she could do something but she just waits for things to happen. I liked her as a character but so much of the book just drags and there's no action. It's supposed to be really gothic and I thought the setting was good, but the slowness just stopped it from being really gothic for me.

In all I'm giving it two out of five, possibly a two and a half. But I won't rush to read anything else by her! 

The Rising Tide by Ann Cleeves - Review

After the last book I read, which I didn't much like, I wanted something easy to read. So I turned to Ann Cleeves, because I find the Vera Stanhope books easy to read. I hadn't heard of this one before but I saw it when we were on holiday and liked the premise, so I bought it on Kindle. 

A group of old friends is meeting on Holy Island. They are all sixty odd but they met fifty years ago in drama class and went on a residential course to the island, and they have had a reunion every five years since. At the first one, five years after the original trip, two of the people got into an argument and one of them drove off and was drowned on the road back to the mainland when the tide came in. This time, when everyone is getting on a bit, one of the men is found dead. It's been staged to look like a suicide, but Vera doesn't agree. And she's right - so there has to be a murder investigation. Vera and Joe and Holly have to spend a lot of time on the island to solve the crime. 

The group these days are: Louise and Ken, a couple. Ken is suffering from dementia. Lou is younger than the others and is the sister of Isabel, the girl who drowned forty five years ago. Philip is a vicar now, and seems to have found peace in his old age. Annie works in a local deli with her friend Jax. Rick is celebrity journalist but he has been 'cancelled' recently due to allegations of misconduct. He says that he is writing a book, thinly veiled as what happened to Isabel. He also says that fifty years ago he had sex with their teacher, Judy Marshall, who was newly out of college when she taught them. He is the one found dead and it turns out that quite a lot of people would have a motive to kill him. 

He has an ex wife, who also knows the group. Annie's ex husband is involved, too, and his new partner turns out to be Vera's boss, which complicates matters quite a bit. There is a whole cast of characters but it was easy to keep them straight which I appreciated. I liked the mystery behind the whole thing. I felt a lot of sympathy for a lot of the characters. 

In all I'm giving this four out of five, I appreciated the easy read.