Two Heads Are Better Than One

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Books for an advance copy of the book in return for an honest review.

Sadie, a 16 year old, goes missing one night. Her friends and her twin brother decide the police are not doing enough and form their own search party. They pack their backpacks and head for the woods.

As they get deeper into the woods it gets dark and they decide to camp for the night. One of the girls thinks they are being watched and then they all become concerned with who may have followed them.

Will the friends find Sadie or will the police solve the case?

The story is told between one sided interviews with the children, which is a bit odd to read, and also from the point of view of the policeman who is leading up the investigation.

I enjoyed it enough to read to the end. The story was quite nicely wrapped up.

I’m sure lots of people will enjoy the book, it just wasn’t for me sadly.

Aww Emmie Blue! You had me giggling one minute then heartbroken the next, and then you kept doing it over and over. I needed tissues more than once!

Emmie is spending her 30th birthday with her best friend Lucas, whom she met when he found the balloon she had released at school in England, when she was 14, miles away on a beach in France. Lucas had recently moved to France with his parents and brother, Eliot and needed a friend, just as Emmie needed a friend all those miles away. It seemed like fate.
They strike up a very close friendship following his initial email to her, and they eventually meet. She becomes like one of the family, visiting Lucas and his family every year so they can spend their birthday together.

Her own life is quite difficult, not knowing who her father is and having a mother who is not interested in her and disappears off to festivals at a moments notice.

She is secretly in love with Lucas and is hoping he feels the same as he has told her he has something big to tell her on their birthday. The thing is not quite what she expected.

We follow Emmie through the highs and lows of the following months, get to know her hilarious friend Rosie, and Louise the elderly lady she rents a room from.

Emmie is such a well written character I felt I knew her and was sharing her ups and downs. And just hoping for a happy ever after for her.

I’m so glad I saw a tweet from the author about her book being available on NetGalley and took a chance on it.
Thanks to NetGalley, Trapeze Books and Orion books for an advance copy of this gorgeous book in return for an honest review.

What a magnificent story.

The author has written this book with a truly fascinating amount of depth to the settings, the characters and the historical facts. Every time I picked it up I was immediately transported into the worlds of Eleanor and Amber. My heart is still thumping at the race to finish it this morning! It is going to stay with me for a long time.

The story is written along two timelines, in the 1500’s with Henry XIII on the throne we enter the life of Eleanor who at 17 has lost her father, and then her male cousin moves in to take over her home with his family, marrying off Eleanor to an older man who’s wife has died in childbirth. She has to move to his home which is a very long journey on horseback. She takes with her some crocus bulbs and a huge amount of knowledge given to her by her friends at the monastery she visited frequently. Her intention is to grow the crocus bulbs and produce saffron. She is terrified of this new life which has been decided for her but is strong willed and intends to make it work.

The second storyline is set in 2019 where Amber has recently lost her baby and come to stay with her grandfather in Saffron Hall to catalogues his hundreds of books, many of which have been untouched in the hall for hundreds of years.

She finds what she thinks is a diary, sitting on a shelf in a room which is never used and wrapped in some very old fabric. It appears to have been untouched for years. She begins to read it and becomes obsessed with translating the Latin and uncovering the secrets it holds. As she translates the entries we are taken back to Eleanor and the circumstances surrounding the entry. Amber believes Eleanor is asking her to do something before she can finally be at rest, often feeling Eleanor’s presence.

This is a must read for fans of historical fiction based around known facts.

Thank you very much to NetGalley and Avon Books UK for an advance copy of the book in return for an honest review.

Just wow!

Having not heard of Sarah Alderson (and why haven’t I?!) I saw this book on NetGalley from Avon and as I usually really enjoy anything they publish thought I’d give it a go. And I was not disappointed!

Kate and Orla have been friends for many years and spent many a weekend away together. Their latest weekend is to Lisbon although Orla has reservations about leaving her baby. Kate is going through a divorce so she felt she owed it to her best friend to make the effort. They arrive at their Airbnb apartment and meet the owner who just happens to live in the apartment downstairs. He’s a bit creepy.

After a night out they both get very drunk and meet two handsome men in a bar. Kate invites them back to their apartment even though Orla argues it is not a good idea as she is not interested in cheating on her husband.

The next morning Orla wakes up to find her friend missing. As the hours pass, and she gets no reply from her many phone calls, she gets more and more concerned. She goes to the police who are not too interested and tell her to return after 24 hours. She gets in touch with the Uber driver who took them to the bar to see if he had taken her back, and he proves to be a huge help over the coming days as Orla tries to piece together what happened that night.

Loved the setting in Lisbon, loved the way the characters were written, was totally engrossed from the beginning to the last page and now I want to know what comes next in Orla’s life!

Very happy to have found this author and happier still she has already written many more books.

Thank you to Avon Books and NetGalley for an advance copy of the book, which will be published on 23rd July.

I just had to stay awake last night to finish this book.

It was quite a quick and easy read I whizzed through in a few sittings. There are only a handful of characters so it is easy to follow.

We begin with serial killer Brody evading capture from the police and finding a derelict boarded up house to hide in. He has a look around and finds a filthy mattress to sleep on whilst he decides what to do next. Bored, he sees the trap door to the attic and goes up for a look around. He is thrilled to see he can access the attics of 4 of the houses in the terrace.

Hungry and thirsty, he goes into each of the houses to find food, and to look for his next victims.

He becomes obsessed with a young couple who live in one on the houses. He can see them in their bedroom through a hole in the ceiling. He decides they will be next but he has to wait until the time is just right. He prides himself in being able to wait and build up the excitement. When they go to work he begins to toy with them by moving objects and making them start to have doubts about each other. He finds out secrets about them which he intends to make them tell each other just before he kills them.

How long can he wait?

The story is all told from Brodie’s point of view, plus there is a conversation going on with the voice in his head. We get to know about Brodie’s background and what turned him into a killer.

Once I got into this book I was hooked but it was not one which had me from the first chapter.

Thank you to NetGalley and Serpent’s Tail / Profile Books. I received a free review copy from the publisher in exchange for my honest unedited feedback.

Wow! I love a book that has me hooked right from the beginning and this one ticked that box! I read it in 2 days. What an extremely well written debut. I will be reading more from this author.

Paul returns from work to find his house in darkness and his front door open. He finds his wife, Alice, huddled on their bed, covered in blood, and a dead man in the bathroom holding a piece of wire. Alice has killed him.

Alice is in shock so Paul has to take the decision of what to do next. As a judge, he knows what would happen if the police got involved so he decides to dispose of the body and clean the house to get rid of any evidence. They have no idea who the man is or why he came to murder Alice.

Alice becomes more and more depressed and paranoid as time goes on, finding it increasingly difficult to live with what they have done. She begins to suspect her husband is having an affair.

The police come calling about what appears to be an unrelated case, the murders of three other solicitors who may have had a connection to Paul.

Can their marriage survive such a huge lie?

Many thanks to NetGalley and Orion for a free copy in return for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Books for a free copy of the book in return for an honest review. Published 28th May 2020.

Poppy Page has a fairly comfortable life. Her husband is a dentist and she has 2 daughters. She failed to be an actress so set up an agency providing extras for the tv and film industry. It is at an evening event for the industry she bumps into Matthew, the love of her life, who dumped her to marry her friend. Meeting Matthew again starts a chain of events which could end her marriage and ruin her life as he becomes obsessed with her.

Poppy’s mother in law, Betty, lives with Poppy and her family and helps with the housework and looking after the girls while Poppy and Stuart work. She is a very fit and outgoing 70 year old.

Poppy is the daughter Betty never had. Poppy thinks Betty had the perfect marriage, but that is far from the truth.

The story is told in alternating first person narrative both from Poppy and also very cleverly in letters to Poppy from Betty. Betty’s letters explain what a difficult life she had with her controlling and abusive husband, and of a dark secret.

And add another layer to the mix, the trial for Matthew’s murder. This runs throughout the book.

There are plenty of twists and turns to keep you glued from the first page right to the last.

This is not the first, and will not be the last Jane Corry book I read. This lady can tell a story! Highly recommend.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Trapeze Books Orion Publishing for a review copy of this book which is now available to purchase.

Felicity is based on a remote island near the Falklands, studying glaciers. We join her when she is very concerned about a cruise ship arriving, the last of the season before the islands are left to the scientists. She is desperate to check the passenger list to see if her husband, Freddie, has found her. She has taken this job in an attempt to get as far away from him as possible and in the hope he will not track her down following his release from prison for murder. Unfortunately she sees his name on the passenger list and makes her escape to a remote and unoccupied island which was once a whaling station, leaving false clues that she has gone to another island. Freddie sneaks into her bedroom and finds the clues but realises they are trying to lead him away from her actual destination and then sets out to find her.

Then we are taken back in time by 9 months to Felicity living in Cambridge. She is having issues with her mental health, losing hours at a time where she has no recollection of where she has been or what she has done. She finds items in her home she thinks have been moved and feels someone has been watching her.

She makes an appointment to see Joe, a very pleasant psychologist who has his own issues. He is recently back to work following a stressful incident in his life involving a murder of a homeless girl. Felicity needs a clean bill of health in order to take up a new job studying glaciers in a remote part of the world and needs to sort out her issues. Can Joe help her in the few weeks she has and issue that letter she desperately needs confirming her mental state is solid enough to endure this remote work?

Joe’s mum is a great character; she is a police officer with pink hair and a good appetite who is involved in the murder case. She is a good support for Joe and they work together on the case.

As we get to know the characters, more and more details emerge of what has brought them to this point in their lives.

A very well written book I was on the edge of my seat at the end. The author must have done some serious homework on glaciers as we are given a fantastic amount of detail on how they are made up, how they move and how very dangerous they are. A race up a glacier towards the end, without giving away any spoilers, is breathtaking.

I have more books by this author which I am looking forward to reading now. This is the first of hers I have read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Point Blank, OneWorld Publications for a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

Dark Pines is the third outing for Tuva Moodyson.

This time, her best friend Tammy has gone missing, apparently forcefully abducted from the food van she runs. Blood has been found in the van along with Tammy’s handbag.

Tuva rushes back to the scene of the abduction, to the small town of Gavrik where she used to live, deep in the Swedish forest. The police do not initially think it is a crime so Tuva begins investigating alone. Then another local girl goes missing.

Tuva visits some very strange characters in the course of her investigation, some she has met previously – the shoe shop owner who has an unhealthy obsession with feet and foot binding; the wood carving sisters who carve trolls and add pieces of human hair and nails to their sculptures; the ‘cousins’ who are uncannily close and run a business converting shipping containers into useable rooms; the snake breeder. That’s just to mention a few!

Will Dean’s excellent descriptive writing has you there, right in the middle of that forest!

Very enjoyable read.

What a storyline!

Kept me up until well after my bedtime so I could finish it last night (this morning!!)

Adam wakes up after a heavy drinking session in the house he is house sitting with his girlfriend Ruth to find she is missing. They met the owners of the house, who had gone on a retreat, on a cruise earlier in the year.

He searches the house, contacts her friends and work colleagues, but no one has seen or heard from her. The girl who was staying with them for a few days, Eden, who appeared on their doorstep one day in the pouring rain saying she came for a surprise visit to see the owners, has also vanished. As has the only photo of Eden which Adam had on his phone.

This is the worst hangover Adam has ever suffered.

The police don’t take Ruth’s going missing seriously but Adam knows she would not just up and leave her life and her acting career behind. Although he can’t remember what happened last night because of the alcohol.

So begins his search which leads him to believe Eden is the member of a cult.

What a page turner! I read this in just 2 days. Mark Edwards is up there with my favourite authors.