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Archive for July, 2021

‘The Mistake’ by K L Slater

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , , on July 6, 2021| Leave a Comment »

This was an audiobook narrated by Lucy Price-Lewis, who did an excellent job.

The story revolves around Rose Tinsley, whose 8 year old brother Billy was murder 16 years earlier and as a result, Rose has severe psychological problems. Rose, and her whole village were convinced of who murdered Billy and that the right person is in prison for the offence, but her belief is shaken to the core when she finds something shocking in her elderly next door neighbour’s house. Could it be that the person serving time for the murder is in fact innocent? To find out the truth, Rose must face her fears and examine the past.

The book has two timelines – 16 years earlier which is narrated in the third person, and the present day, which is narrated by Rose. In the earlier timeline, an 18 year old Rose meets Gareth, who is ten years older than her. At first he seems like the perfect charming boyfriend but as times goes on, it becomes clear that he is not all he appears.

This is the third book I have read by K L Slater, and unfortunately I have yet to find one that I really enjoy. As mentioned earlier, I did think the narration was done well by Lucy Price-Lewis, but the storyline itself seemed very repetitive. The main issue I have with this author is that in all her books (at least the ones I’ve read) the women are very weak, and quite frankly spineless and not able to see what is staring them in the face. Meanwhile the males are generally so awful that they are almost like a caricature and just serves to heighten the issue with the women not able to see through them.

The one positive thing I will say was that I liked the resolution to the mystery and I did enjoy Rose’s last scene in the book. Other than that, I found it fairly annoying with dialogue that seemed to go round in circles. There are LOADS of positive reviews for this book online, so it may be that this author is just not for me, but I think I’ll be giving her other books a miss.

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‘The Guest List’ by Lucy Foley

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , , , on July 6, 2021| Leave a Comment »

This was an audiobook, narrated by Olivia Dowd, Aiofe McMahon, Chloe Massey, Sarah Owens, Rich Keeble and Jot Davies.

Jules, editor of a popular online magazine, and Will, host and hero of a reality tv show called ‘Survive The Night’ are getting married after a whirlwind romance. The destination is a remote Irish island, which is subject to high winds and rough weather. The narration switches between characters, including Jules herself, her half-sister and bridesmaid Olivia, the ‘plus one’ Hannah, best man Jonno and the wedding planner Aiofe.

It becomes clear that all of the guests have a secret from their past and there is a lot of tension simmering beneath the glittering surface. The timeline switches between ‘now’ – the wedding day and evening, and the day before when guests were arriving.

I liked the premise of the book and I generally do enjoy multiple narrators as it can be interesting seeing the same events from different perspectives. But while this started off well, it slipped into ridiculousness with too many coincidences being revealed towards the end. Also, almost all of the characters were just horrible people. I did like Hannah, but pretty much everyone else was awful.

I had high hopes for this one, but came away feeling disappointed.

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‘The Woman Who Met Her Match’ by Fiona Gibson

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , , on July 6, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Lorrie is a single mother of two teenagers, single since the loss of her partner some years before. She is shocked to hear from her first love, Antoine, who broke her heart thirty years earlier when she was 16. Despite the misgivings of her best friend Stu, Lorrie decides to meet up with Antoine again…but can you ever really go back? And is Lorrie destined to be with someone else?

Throw in problems at work, due to the beauty company Lorrie works for being taken over by a large corporation, and the headache that is Lorrie’s mother’s wedding, and our heroine certainly has her hands full!

I really enjoyed this audiobook, excellently narrated by Emma Gregory. Lorrie was an adorable character and I also loved her children, Cam and Amy, there were lots of genuinely funny moments and a few very touching ones. I will say that Lorrie’s mother was awful – utterly selfish and thoughtless, but still a believable character.

This was first experience listening to/reading Fiona Gibson and while I do think the ending was quite predictable from early on, I would definitely listen to another of her books.

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‘Help Me!’ by Marianne Power

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , , on July 6, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Journalist Marianne Power decides to get her life in order with the use of self-help books. She plans to read one self-help book a month and follow their suggestions for the whole of that month to see what, if anything, actually works.

I expected a light-hearted tongue-in-cheek look at the huge self-help market, and although the book started off that way, it soon became apparent that this experiment was causing more problems than solutions for Marianne, and in fact there were some upsetting moments. It was a fascinating read, and definitely helped sort the wheat from the chaff – there are a LOT of people out there making a lot of money out of other people’s desire to improve or change their life, and some of them just made me really angry as they are so obviously taking advantage of their readers. Tony Robbins for example, who promises to change your life at one of his events – where the cheapest tickets are £500!! And ‘The Secret’ by Rhonda Byrne, which tells you that if you want something to happen, you just have to imagine that it has. Send yourself a fake cheque for a lot of money, and actual money will be bestowed! Yes, seriously.

Marianne Power is an engaging and likeable narrator, and this book certainly provided a lot of food for thought. I recommend it to all.

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‘The Shadow of the Lynx’ by Victoria Holt

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , on July 6, 2021| Leave a Comment »

This is the third book I have read by Victoria Holt and I gave the others 4/5 and 4.5/5. I quite enjoyed this one but not to the same extent. Nora Tamsin and her father live a simple happy life, until he leaves England for Australia where he hopes to find gold and make his fortune. When he dies there, Nora moves to Australia and into the care of her father’s friend Charles Herrick, known as the Lynx. She is captivated by his enigmatic charisma and power, but has loving feelings towards his son Stirling. By the time she realises that Lynx is hell-bent on revenge for old grievances, she is too caught up in the family to escape, and finds herself involved in his campaign, which takes her back to a mysterious old house in England.

This is a strange kind of romance with a love triangle of sorts, which only gets more complicated in the last third of the novel. I quite liked Nora, and i loved the character of Minta. However, neither Lynx nor Stirling were particularly likeable and I found it hard to have any sort of feeling for them one way or the other. Lynx was supposed to be this charismatic but cold man, but he just seemed like a power hungry bully.

However the ending was a genuine surprise and I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy the book, just that it did not live up to my expectations after the other books I have enjoyed by this author.

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‘The Perfect Couple’ by Jackie Kabler

Posted in Book Reviews, tagged , , , , , on July 6, 2021| Leave a Comment »

When Gemma O’Connor comes home after a work trip away, she is surprised to find her husband Danny isn’t there and when he hasn’t come back after a couple of days, she reports his disappearance to the police. She grows even more fearful when it turns out that two men who bear a striking resemblance to Danny and to each other, have been murdered and she is terrified that Danny may be a victim of the same killer.

As the police investigation moves forward, Gemma learns that Danny has been lying to her about all sorts of things and she starts to wonder how well she really knew her husband. And then she finds herself the chief suspect for the killings that have been taking place…

The premise of this book was great, although a book called The Perfect Couple could only be about a couple who are anything but! Unfortunately it became too silly for words, with a stupid protagonist doing stupid things, with a ridiculously incompetent police force investigating. The denouement when all was explained seemed to drag on and on and was almost like a farce. There was a also a lot of repetition in the early part of the story which bogged it down.

So overall, interesting idea but not a success for me.

This was an audiobook narrated by Elaine Claxton and Hattie Ladbury. One narrated Gemma’s story in the first person and the other described the police investigation from a third person point of view. Both narrators did a good job.

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