Two Heads Are Better Than One

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.

This was a very enjoyable and addictive read.

Amber and Nick’s marriage has been in trouble for a while. Amber meets a new man, Richard, on the internet and eventually they meet and then decide they want to live together. This means Amber selling her and Nick’s house and moving miles away with her two young sons to be with him.

She is not getting any interest in her house so the estate agent suggests an open house. She is not keen at first but decides to give it a try.

On the day of the open house she watches the viewers go in through her doorbell cam. 13 potential buyers. She watches them come out again. 12 come out. Who is the 13th person and is he/she still in the house?

Barb, the mother in law, does not want her family to move from the house she once owned and lived in with her husband and sons, Nick and Tim.

What is the real reason Barb does not want the house to be sold? What secrets is the house keeping?

Without giving away spoilers that’s about the most I can say! There are many twists and turns throughout the book and a whole lot revelations at the end!

Thanks to NetGalley and Avon books for a review copy of this book. Due for release 10/12/20

Thank you to Avon and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book which was released on 15/10/20.

What a thriller!

Matt and Amy are due to be married in two weeks when Matt disappears. He is not answering his phone or any texts and Amy is distraught. After a day of worrying she reports him missing to the police.

To her horror, another woman reports her boyfriend missing at the same time. It is the same man.

When Amy is arrested for his murder, her daughter, who has always disliked and not trusted Matt, begins digging into his unknown past via Facebook to try to prove her mother is innocent.

Years old secrets are uncovered which Amy has tried hard to hide forever. What happened on the day her teenage sister died 23 years ago and what does it have to do with her fiancé going missing presumed murdered?

Great plot had me reading way past my bedtime to finish it!

Devoured in a matter of days. Cally Taylor’s first psychological thriller for the Young Adult market.
Also suitable for older adults!

Six teenagers have known each other since they were born, holidaying together with their parents over the years. This year is slightly different. One of the parents has paid to hire an try island off Thailand and a guide for a survival week for an 18th birthday present.

Their parents stay behind in an hotel, and the teenagers begin their survival week by travelling to the island in their guide’s boat .

All is going well until they try to leave the island to get help for one of the group who has fallen seriously ill. The rope to start the engine has been cut so they are stranded. But who has cut the rope? Is there someone else on the island with them? There is no way to escape so they will just have to wait until the alarm is raised when they don’t return.

They are having a drinking session around the fire on the first night and they all tell their phobias. Over the next few days, one by one their phobias become real. They just need to survive for a few more days until they are rescued. But with tempers fraying and fallings out within the group it becomes more difficult to stay together.

Most of them have had a traumatic experiences in their lives and their stories are told by going back to the events.

Great setting for a thriller which had me hooked from the title and the author, who never fails to come up with a top notch psychological thriller.

Thank you to NetGalley and HQ Harper Collins for an ARC.

This is the first of Robert Bryndza’s books I have read and am wondering why it has taken me until now to discover this author!

So this is book 2 in the Kate Marshall series, but we are provided with sufficient back story to fill in everything we need to know for this second book, although I’ll be going back to read the first book. This lady has been through a lot. An ex police officer who discovered her boyfriend who was also her boss was the Nine Elms serial killer she had been hunting. She left the police force, pregnant with his child, and spiralled into alcoholism. She could not cope with a baby so her parents took him in and now Jake is 16. Kate is a lecturer in criminology and has her life back together.

Kate and Jake have recently gained a diving certification and decide they will do a dive at the local reservoir where there is an underwater city. They find more than they bargained for when they come across the body of a young boy.

The police are quick to rule his death as suicide, but when his mother gets in touch with Kate to tell her the boy was a champion swimmer and she does not believe he could have drowned, she asks if Kate will investigate his death and Kate agrees without hesitation. What if it had been her son?

She joins forces with her fellow lecturer friend Tristan. Then a girl they know goes missing in the fog one afternoon as she is taking photographs and investigating myths and legends for her class.

The main two characters, Kate and Tristan, are written in a good amount of depth. We are given a lot of information on their characters and get to know them quite well.

Without giving any spoilers away there are plenty of heart stopping moments!

I raced through this book in 2 days. I will definitely be recommending it.

Thank you to the publishers Thomas & Mercer and to Netgalley for an ARC of this book to review. PUBLICATION DATE 3/11/20

A creepy atmospheric thriller perfect for fans of both Agatha Christie and locked room murder mysteries.

The setting is an old abandoned sanatorium high in the Swiss Alps which used to used to treat TB patients. The sanitarium has been converted to a luxury hotel although has retained the clinical look and feel of its original purpose.

Elin and her boyfriend Will are invited to the hotel to celebrate the engagement of her estranged brother Isaac and his girlfriend.

Elin is currently on leave from her work in the police force following an incident which has left her traumatised. She is hoping to take this opportunity to confront her brother and at last find out what happened the day her younger brother died. She was 12 when Sam died, and his death has affected her throughout her life, making her always on the search for answers. She has flashbacks to the day it happened and is convinced Isaac caused the ‘accident’.

The weather is going downhill rapidly and a decision is made to evacuate the hotel. Unfortunately the only road down the mountain becomes impassable and a few hotel guests and staff are left stranded at the hotel.

Isaac’s fiancée disappears and then
a woman’s body is found in the outdoor swimming pool, weighted down by sand bags. Elin offers to help the local police out as they are unable to reach the hotel to investigate the murder. They agree to her collecting evidence and asking basic questions but what she begins to uncover makes her dig further.

Are the murders connected to the hotel, as there was a lot of opposition to its building or is there another motive? Will Elin find out the truth of what happened the day Sam died?

And THAT ENDING!! There has to be another book!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will definitely be reading more from Sarah Pearse.

Thank you very much to NetGalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for an advance copy of the book to review.

Release date 18th Feb 2021

I had to finish this book last night before going to sleep. Problem was the ending was so fast paced it took me a quite a while to get to sleep after finishing it! You are warned.

Grant Fletcher is an ex Royal Marine. His wife died in a car accident and although he has a daughter he has taken to the life of a mercenary.

When FBI agent Quadrado’s best friend is brutally murdered, and she is tied up with a case, she contacts Fletcher for his help in finding the killer. She has very little faith in the local police. Fletcher has some history which is known to the FBI and they are keen to use him as an off the books asset. They just need a case for him to prove his abilities and this ticks the box.

With no backup and very little access to background information other than through Quadrado, when she has time to reply to him, and with the promise of his past being kept under wraps by the FBI should he solve the case, he sets out to the farm in Wisconsin to begin his investigation. The girl has #1 carved into her forehead by someone who obviously knows how to use a knife. Could this be the first killing of a serial killer? Have the recent attacks on local farms tied to the killing?

This is the second in the Grant Fletcher series and although I haven’t read the first (yet!) there was enough detail to read as a stand alone although I do think I would have preferred to know the background of the relationship between Fletcher and Quadrado before reading this. I will definitely be reading the first book.

Action packed. Fast paced. Great style of writing. Looking forward to the next outing for Grant Fletcher.

Thank you to Bookature and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in return for a review.