Two Heads Are Better Than One

Another addictive thriller from the extremely talented Fiona Cummins. Having read Rattle and The Bone Collector I knew I was in for a brilliant read and I was not disappointed.

This story is told over a dual timeline with the current timeline first, then we are taken back to what happened when the children were 10 and 12 years old and one of them murdered their parents. We find out what the girls had to endure and what events led up to that night. The girls had an extremely strong bond.

We have two narrators one is the girl next door and the other is one of the sisters who is now living under a new identity with her husband and daughter who know nothing of her old life. Until her sister films an interview and the press track her down.

Fiona delves in to various difficult topics, the main one being child abuse of two young sisters by their ‘disciplinarian’ parents who are respected members of the community. The father is a doctor and the mother is a stay at home mum who knits blankets for babies. No one knows what goes on behind closed doors. The parents are brutally murdered one night and the two daughters are taken into care. One of the girls is covered in blood and appears to be the murderer.

Their friend who lives next door has a mother who is dying from cancer and a father who is having an affair. She knows what happened that night but is keeping a huge secret.

I raced through this book in a couple of days. Highly recommended.

thanks to Pan Macmillan and NetGalley for an advance copy to review. Due for publication 15 April 2021.

The book is inspired by a real life event in December 1900, where three lighthouse keepers vanished from their remote lighthouse in the Outer Hebrides. This book and it’s characters is, however, a work of fiction. The book has been very well researched and there are some real life accounts in there drawn from the author’s thorough research of life living in a lighthouse. I did love the authors nod to the original story by mentioning a tern which lives in the Outer Hebrides and I enjoyed getting to know what it is like to live on a lighthouse. Not for me at all.

This story is set on the Maiden lighthouse, 15 miles off Land’s End.

I loved the premise of the story which is almost a locked room mystery. When a relieving keeper is taken to the lighthouse, the crew find the steel door to the lighthouse locked from the inside. When they enter the tower, they find nothing is disturbed. The clocks have stopped at 8.45. The table is laid for only two people. Everything is spic and span, the way lighthouse keepers live.

The story is written along a dual timeline by multiple narrators. The 1972 story is written in chapters by the three men living and working on the lighthouse. We get to know the men, about their home lives, their secrets and their psychological state of mind, which goes downhill the longer they are on the lighthouse.

We also have a time line set 20 years later when an author decides he will write a book about the incident in his search for the truth. By interviewing the wives left behind he is opening up old wounds. Not all of those left behind are prepared to talk to the author This timeline has alternating chapters told by the wives.

As the book progresses we delve further into the lives of the keepers and the ones they left behind.

The descriptive writing, especially of the sea, is amazing.

I did find the story hard going as I felt I had to concentrate with all the different characters and their chapters and the intertwining of their stories, same stories from different viewpoints. The characters were not particularly likeable and I didn’t feel I got to know any of them particularly well. I’m also one of those readers where I find reading about animal cruelty horrific and there are a couple of scenes toward the end of the book I don’t feel were necessary.

I wasn’t sure whether the story had supernatural elements or if it was just all in the minds of the keepers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Picador for a review copy of this interesting debut.

Phew what a journey that was! A dark and compelling snapshot of gang culture and the American criminal justice system, which can be both good and corrupt, following a gang shooting.

The book is written in a very interesting way of multiple first party narratives so we really get to know what the characters are thinking and feeling. From the gang members to the parole officers, police officers, lawyers … there must be around 15 characters we hear from to tell the story.

It begins with a crime ordered by a gang from within a prison for a dealer, Scrappy, to be shot.

‘Dreamer’ is in the process of being dumped by his girlfriend but he doesn’t realise this will actually benefit him immensely in the long run.

Augie who has just gained his latest fix from his dealer witnesses her shooting. His quick action in putting a tourniquet on her leg saves her life. He pockets the gun to sell later. And also take all the drugs she has hidden on her before the police arrive.

Unfortunately for him his new parole officer,Petrillo, visits his home and finding him high and therefore in contravention of his parole terms, searches his home. He finds the gun. Augie knows this will mean a long prison sentence so in a bid to avoid prison he tells Petrillo what he saw. The corrupt Petrillo uses this info for his own end, persuading Augie to lie about what he saw. Petrillo wants Dreamer’s girlfriend for himself and this seems like the perfect way to remove him from her life.

Gangs look after their own so how will this play out?

Gatiss writes some excellent scenes as we are carried along with the accused, the witnesses, the law enforcement officers, the lawyers and those gang members left on the outside to work out what actually happened that night.

I admit I struggled a bit to get into the book as it did not grip me immediately but the background info is essential to understand the story.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publishers Picador for an advance copy of this book to read and review.

What a great book!

I was expecting very good things from the author, as he is the creator of one of my favourite TV series, Death In Paradise. I was not disappointed! For me, the book had the same cosy feeling of watching one of the episodes, murder and humour.

Meet Judith Potts (great name!). 77 years old. She lives next to the Thames where she enjoys to swim. Naked! She also enjoys compiling cryptic crosswords for a newspaper. Her life is going tickety-boo until she hears a gunshot during one of her swims.

She contacts the police to report the fact she thinks her neighbour over the river has been shot but they don’t take her seriously, sending an officer to have a brief look around the house. She knows this as she watches from her window. So she decides she will investigate herself.

Two further murders follow and she enlists the help of two local ladies with connections to the other two victims to help her find the murderer.

What follows, along with the crazy antics of the three of them, is a close friendship and a trust which grows by the day.

I loved Judith so much and I hope this is the first of many books following her amateur sleuthing!

I love to read books set in old spooky buildings and this ticked that box perfectly! What a page turner!

After his first book reaches the New York Times bestseller list, Daniel and his wife Nicole decide they want to move to a big old house with character. After only 36 hours of searching online, Nicole finds the Nightingale House. This looks like the perfect house for them to move to with their young daughter, Caitlyn.

They went to view it immediately and decided there and then they would buy it.

Sadly Nicole was never to move in to the Nightingale House as she died in a car crash, with her husband driving the car.

Daniel and Caitlyn move in to the house, unaware the house has many hidden secrets. When Daniel hears his daughter whispering in her bedroom he thinks she has an imaginary friend.

Then he begins to see shadows and hear noises which have no explanation.

We are also given excerpts from a diary which was written over 100 years earlier about previous owners of the house.

This is not a book to be read before bedtime!

I loved it!

Thank you to HQ Digital and NetGalley for a free e copy of this fantastic book in return for an honest review.

A cozy feel good Christmas read set on an island off the coast of Norway.

Holly is suspended from her job as a doctor in a London hospital. Whilst waiting to hear whether she can continue working she decides to visit her brother in his home on an island off Norway. 

When she arrives on the island she finds she has become lost in the dark and a young, bearded, socially awkward but funny man and his cat come to her assistance.

The man, Tor, invites her to stay on his sofa until morning when he points her in the direction of her brothers house. Tor is spending some time in a holiday let, working as an architect and fishing, staying alone in the house having escaped his own trauma. The islanders have named him The Hermit as he is rarely seen.

What follows is a bit of a predictable romance but there is some gorgeous writing about the island, it’s welcoming people, Christmas traditions and the descriptions of the food had my mouth watering! 

A lovely story I would recommend to anyone wanting a pick-me-up of a read. 

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers  One More Chapter for a review copy of the book. Published 30 Nov 2020

What a cleverly plotted book. Lots of stories running side by side until they come together in a nail biting conclusion!

Ursula is a delivery driver with a habit of stealing, sometimes without even realising she is doing it. Her partner died and she misses him terribly. She is living with friends until they realise she has stolen from them then they kick her out. Homeless and almost penniless she finds a cheap room advertised and moves in with Ed.

Ed is a strange little man with lots of rules, a locked bedroom and basement Ursula is not allowed to see. What is that smell coming from the basement?

Alice is manager of a clothes shop in the local shopping centre and after a disastrous date with Michael she starts seeing Simon but Simon has secrets.

Gareth is a security guard at the shopping centre, living with his mum who has dementia and secretly having feelings for his next door neighbour, Kate.

And amongst all their stories there are men going missing at the harbour, and the talk is that there is a murderer on the loose.

This was a totally addictive read I devoured in 2 days. I just couldn’t put it down!

Highly recommended!

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon Books for a free review copy of this book.

When Piper meets the gorgeous and successful Leo at one of her mindfulness sessions she decides he is the man for her even though he is wearing a wedding ring.

After a short while Leo does fall head over heels for her and moves Joanna out of his home. His children miss their mother but Piper is determined she will win them over and have her perfect family.

Joanna moves back in with her mother who has just broken her leg and needs looking after, much to her dismay. She is convinced that Piper intends to harm the children and begins a quest to dig into Piper’s past and find out exactly who Piper is and what skeletons are hidden in her closet preferably before she marries Leo.

This was a very easy to read book. I felt sorry for Joanna and disliked Piper who was a ruthless husband snatcher but that last 5% of the book. What a twist I did not see coming at all. It did explain a lot of questions I had throughout the book!

Very cleverly written. Enough said without giving away spoilers!

Thank you very much to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK Harper Fiction for a review copy of this book.

Oh my gosh I devoured this book with all of its Viking history!

I have recently started enjoying time slip novels and was looking for more when I found this by an author I had not read before. I will be reading more of Christina’s books.

Linnea is on an archaeological dig in Sweden with her uncle when her metal detector start going crazy. She is not supposed to dig up artefacts when she is alone but curiosity gets the better of her and she digs up an old brooch. She gives it a wipe and reads the inscription on it out loud ….. and faints.

She wakes up with a group of men dressed as Vikings shouting at her in a strange language and believes they are a re-enactment group. She realises they are speaking Old Norse and luckily Linnea has been studying Old Norse as a PhD student at university and can speak their language.

They accuse her of stealing the brooch from their leader and take her prisoner. She goes along with the actors but as time goes on and the police do not arrive she comes to the realisation that she has time travelled.

She is taken on a journey by long boat with her new ‘owner’ to Istanbul as he intends to sell her along with the other girls, fur pelts, amber and jewellery.

Will Linnea retrieve the brooch and use it to travel back to her own time before she is sold?

We are taken on a journey in Viking times, their lives so very well researched and described by the author. I have learned so much about the vikings, how they lived, what they ate, how they travelled by longboat (and carried it overground when needed!) how they traded and what was seen as valuable to them.
I would have liked the main characters to have considered why this brooch had the powers it has as they just accept it. However it did not take anything away from the pure escapism of the story. Sometimes it’s best just to enjoy the story without thinking too much about the details.

Thank you to NetGalley and Headline for an e-ARC of this book.

Publication date 10/12/20

Just brilliant.