Category: Book Reviews

Book Reviews

Book Review: The Examiner by Janice Hallett

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Happy Monday bookish people! I hope you are all having a good day today!

Today I am bringing you my book review for The Examiner by Janice Hallett. I don’t usually include spoilers in my reviews but there is one tiny twist from this book that I want to talk about, I don’t think it will ruin a big part of the book for you if you read this review then read the book but if you want to go in with no spoilers at all, maybe wait and read my review after.

Okay, on with the review!

Blurb/Synopsis:

Six Students. One Murder. Your Time Starts Now.

The students of Royal Hastings University’s new Multimedia Art course have been trouble from day one. Acclaimed artist Alyson wants the department to revolve around her. Ludya struggles to balance her family and the workload. Jonathan has management experience but zero talent for art. Lovely Patrick can barely operate his mobile phone, let alone professional design software. Meanwhile blustering Cameron tries to juggle the course with his job in the City and does neither very well. Then there’s Jem. A gifted young sculptor, she’s a promising student… but cross her at your peril.

The year-long course is blighted by accusations of theft, students setting fire to one another’s artwork, a rumoured extra-marital affair and a disastrous road trip. But finally they are given their last assignment: to build an interactive art installation for a local manufacturer. With six students who have nothing in common except their clashing personal agendas, what could possibly go wrong?

The answer is: murder. When the external examiner arrives to assess the students’ essays and coursework, he becomes convinced that a student was killed on the course and that the others covered it up. But is he right? And if so, who is dead, why were they killed, and who is the murderer? Only a close examination of the evidence will reveal the truth. Your time starts now.

My Review:

I have read all of Janice Hallet’s books so far, I absolutely love them. I love the unique way that she writes entirely in different forms of mixed media. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to do it that way, with its limitations on plot and form and it not really having an active voice as everything has already happened when it is talked about but I love the way she does it. I can’t day much about this book because it will be spoilers but I can say that I found I had strong feelings about each character individually and that is what drove me to keep reading, I wanted to know what happened to them and which one of them had supposedly been ‘murdered’ or not.

Now, as I warned at the beginning, there is one thing I want to talk about that can be considered a spoiler. So, stop reading here if you missed my earlier warning.

One of the characters in this story is revealed to be visually impaired. Personally, I had figured this out a long time before it was revealed but that is because I was reading the character and relating to how they described people by smells not aesthetics and the other things they were doing, it is the same way I recognise people being visually impaired myself, and that is why I wanted to talk about this. There are so few books that include blind characters and the ones that do, that I have read, don’t do it very well or they use the character as a gimmick, or worse than all of that – they put in a blind character and then the twist is that they were faking it the whole time. I just wanted to make a comment about how nice it is to have a visually impaired character written well.

Have you read The Examiner? What did you think of it?

Book Reviews

Book Review: Nine Lives by Peter Swanson

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Happy Monday bookish people! I hope you’re all having a good day today.

Today I am bringing you my book review for Nine Lives by Peter Swanson, I read this during September and honestly I had been putting off reading the book because of the things I had heard about it. So, I am glad that I have finally read it and if you want to hear my thoughts, read on! Just so you know there might be light spoilers in this post.

Blurb/Synopsis:

Nine strangers receive a list with their names on it in the mail. Nothing else, just a list of names on a single sheet of paper. None of the nine people know or have ever met the others on the list. They dismiss it as junk mail, a fluke – until very, very bad things begin happening to people on the list. First, a well-liked old man is drowned on a beach in the small town of Kennewick, Maine. Then, a father is shot in the back while running through his quiet neighborhood in suburban Massachusetts. A frightening pattern is emerging, but what do these nine people have in common? Their professions range from oncology nurse to aspiring actor.

FBI agent Jessica Winslow, who is on the list herself, is determined to find out. Could there be some dark secret that binds them all together? Or is this the work of a murderous madman? As the mysterious sender stalks these nine strangers, they find themselves constantly looking over their shoulders, wondering who will be crossed off next….

My Review:

I have read one of Peter Swanson’s books before and I found it to be quite enjoyable, it was easy to guess the ending but good none the less. So, when Nine Lives came out a few years ago it sounded interesting and I bought a copy but then I started seeing other people not enjoy the book and it put me off reading it but I was looking for a short, quick read and I decided to pick it up and.. it was exactly like everyone said it was.

Okay, in terms of the novel itself it was well written and overall plotted quite nicely. The problem is that it very clearly was inspired by Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, I think had I read Nine Lives without ever seeing, hearing about or reading And Then There Were None I would have enjoyed Nine Lives more as a quick easy read but as it was I found it a bit dragging because I sort of knew what was coming. I also couldn’t get a connection with any of the characters because they weren’t on the page for very long and I also didn’t understand the overall motivations of the killer, it didn’t make much sense to me.

Overall I gave this book a three star rating because as a book I would describe it as ‘fine’ but as a novel with the intentions it had it wasn’t to my taste.

Have you read this book? What did you think of it?

Book Reviews

Book Review: Covent Garden Ladies by Hallie Rubenhold

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Happy Monday bookish people! I hope you are all having a good day today.

Today I am sharing my book review for The Covent Garden Ladies by Halle Rubenhold, I got hold of a copy of this book while I was at the Capital Crime Festival in London earlier this year, I hadn’t heard of it before but I am glad that I gave this non-fiction book a chance.

Blurb/Synopsis:

The Covent Garden Ladies tells the story of Samuel Derrick, Jack Harris, and Charlotte Hayes, whose complicated and colorful lives were brought together by the publication of Harris’ List, an infamous guidebook of prostitutes which detailed addresses, physical characteristics and “specialties.” The true history of the book is a tragicomedy motivated by poverty, passionate love, aspiration, and shame. Its telling plunges the reader down the dark alleys of 18th-century London’s underworld, a realm populated by tavern owners, pimps, punters, card sharps, and of course, a colorful range of prostitutes and brothel-keepers.

My Review:

I would first like to say that nonfiction is not my usual genre, I don’t read a lot of it because I sometimes find the information a bit dense to read but this novel is descriptive in the way that a fiction book would be even though the stories it tells are the truth.

This book follows three key people in the world that inspired the TV show Harlots, I found it really interesting to read about people I had never heard of before and how each of them struggled through life, they each had different struggles they had to fight through but somehow all of their stories intersected with one another. I read this book very quickly, every time I put it down I was excited to get back to reading it. If you are interested in reading about people, often people who are misunderstood in society, and the actions that changed the directions of their lives.

Have any of you read this book? Let me know what you thought of it in the comments!

Book Reviews

Book Review: Helle and Death by Oskar Jenson

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Happy Friday bookish people! I hope you are all doing well today. The most recent book I have read is Helle and Death by Oskar Jenson and today I am bringing you my review for it. This review will probably include spoilers so if you haven’t read Helle and Death and still want to, I’d suggest reading my review after not before.

With all that said, on with the review!

Blurb/Synopsis:

A snowstorm. A country house. Old friends reunited. It’s going to be murder…

Torben Helle – art historian, Danish expat and owner of several excellent Scandinavian jumpers – has been dragged to a remote snowbound Northumbrian mansion for a ten-year reunion with old university friends. Things start to go sideways when their host, a reclusive and irritating tech entrepreneur, makes some shocking revelations at the dinner table. And when these are followed by an apparent suicide, the group faces a test of their wits… and their trust.

Snowed in and cut off, surrounded by enigmatic housekeepers and off-duty police inspectors, not to mention a peculiar last will and testament, suspicion and sarcasm quickly turn to panic. As the temperature drops and the tension mounts, Torben decides to draw upon all the tricks of Golden Age detectives past in order to solve the how much money would it take to turn one of his old friends into a murderer? But he’d better be quick, or someone else might end up dead…

This witty murder mystery puts a modern spin on the classic country house whodunnit. A must-read for fans of Agatha Christie, Richard Osman and Janice Hallett.

My Review:

Helle and Death is a book that, on paper, has all the ingredients to make a great murder mystery novel. However, in my opinion, I don’t think all of these things worked. A snowstorm keeping all the suspects locked inside, great. A group of old friends with buried secrets, amazing. An old manor house where a murder takes place, perfect. Execution – missed the mark.

In terms of the characters, I thought for the most part they were well-developed and intricate. Their secrets well hidden as well. However, the main character you spend time with is Torben Helle and I did not click with him at all. Whether this was because of the third person, distant way it was written in his perspective or not I mainly saw him as just another suspect and it irked me how the main role of his personality was to state that he was Danish over and over. By the end of the novel that was really the only thing I knew about him.

Now, even with that I would have found the book okay and probably have given it three stars if not for the ending. Again I say if you haven’t read the book this is going to be a huge spoiler. I HATE when a book is listed as a murder mystery but it turns out to not include murder at all. Honestly, there were so many twists that could have been used to give this book a good ending but instead the author chose that ending. It was a big disappointment.

Star Rating:

Rating: 2 out of 5.

If you have read this book, what did you think of it?

Book Reviews

Book Review: The Suspect by Rob Rinder

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Happy Monday bookish people! I hope you are all having a good day today.

Today I am bringing you my book review of The Suspect by Rob Rinder, the second book in his Adam Green series.

Blurb/Synopsis:

**THE GRIPPING SECOND NOVEL FROM ROB RINDER AND FOLLOW-UP TO NO. 1 BESTSELLER THE TRIAL**When Hannah Holby, darling of UK morning TV, dies live on screen in front of millions of viewers, the nation is devastated.More devastated still when it becomes clear that her death was not an accident.The evidence points to one celebrity chef Sebastian Brooks. But junior barrister Adam Green is about to discover that the case is not as open-and-shut as it first seemed.And although Hannah’s angelic persona would suggest otherwise, she was not short of enemies in the glittery TV world . . .Can Adam uncover the truth?

My Review:

I read the first book in this series, The Trial, a while ago and I liked it but I found Adam’s character a little unlikeable to begin with but after reading the second book I like him a lot more now. This book drew me in straightaway, it was a complicated web of secrets and lies. I enjoyed how Adam was being dragged into a case he wasn’t really interested in being part of. It was a fun ride because it is different to any other murder mystery I have read.

star rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.

If you have read this book, let me know in the comments what you thought of it!

Book Reviews

Book Review: The Mystery of the Jewelled Moth by Katherine Woodfine

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Happy Monday bookish people! I hope you’re all having a good day today.

Today I am bringing you my book review for The Mystery of the Jewelled Moth by Katherine Woodfine.

Blurb/Synopsis:

The honour of your company is requested at lord beaucastle’s fancy dress ball. Wonder at the puzzling disappearance of the Jewelled Moth! Marvel as our heroines, Sophie and Lil, don cunning disguises, mingle in high society and munch many cucumber sandwiches to solve this curious case! Applaud their bravery as they follow a trail of terrible secrets that leads straight to London’s most dangerous criminal mastermind, and could put their own lives at risk…It will be the most thrilling event of the season! This is a fast-paced and compelling mystery adventure with gorgeous Edwardian period detail, this is Mr Selfridge meets Nancy Drew!

My Review:

I read the first book in this series, The mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow, a while ago and I enjoyed it, I did but I haven’t really been thinking about it since then so I was almost at the point of unhauling this series because I didn’t think I was going to pick up the second one but then I did, and I loved it. This book I was hooked form the beginning, there are balls and disguises and a great group of protagonists and overall it was a fun time reading it.
This book is a middle grade but I didn’t think that the mystery felt young, it felt like it was well thought out and planned and it was just complicated enough to be fun and shocking.

Book Reviews

Book Review: Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

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Happy Monday bookish people! I hope you’re all having a good day today.

Today I am bringing you my book review for Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood.

Blurb/Synopsis:

Bee Königswasser lives by a simple code: What would Marie Curie do? If NASA offered her the lead on a neuroengineering project – a literal dream come true – Marie would accept without hesitation. Duh. But the mother of modern physics never had to co-lead with Levi Ward.

Sure, Levi is attractive in a tall, dark, and piercing-eyes kind of way. But Levi made his feelings toward Bee very clear in grad school – archenemies work best employed in their own galaxies far, far away.

But when her equipment starts to go missing and the staff ignore her, Bee could swear she sees Levi softening into an ally, backing her plays, seconding her ideas… devouring her with those eyes. The possibilities have all her neurons firing.

But when it comes time to actually make a move and put her heart on the line, there’s only one question that matters: What will Bee Königswasser do?

My Review:

Okay, where to begin? It ahs taken me a long time to get around to reading this book. It has been on my shelf since the week it first came out and it has taken a long time to read it. I like Ali Hazelwood’s writing, it is the kind of writing that I fly through quickly but honestly, this book lost me towards the end.
I enjoyed the romance, the will they won’t they was actually quite fun with this book although some points were a bit like miscommunication and I do hate that trope but for the first half of this book I was quite invested, the idea was interesting and I am not in STEM so it’s nice to read about it and learn a bit about it while reading.
The part I did not like was the second half. Throughout there always felt like there was an undercurrent of something weird running alongside the romance part and I did think while reading I hope that part gets sorted in a minute because it was taking away from everything else, and I won’t spoil it for anyone who hasn’t read it, but this thread comes to a head near the end of the book and it was like, what am I reading? I really disliked what happened with the end of the book, it came out of nowhere and made no sense. I didn’t like it so it took away from my enjoyment of this book.


Rating: 3 out of 5.

Book Reviews

Book Review: How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin

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Happy Monday bookish people! I hope you’re all having a good day today.

Today I am bringing you my book review of How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin. Have any of you read this book? What did you think of it?

Blurb/Synopsis:

For fans of Knives Out and The Thursday Murder Club , an enormously fun mystery about a woman who spends her entire life trying to prevent her foretold murder only to be proven right sixty years later, when she is found dead in her sprawling country estate… Now it’s up to her great-niece to catch the killer. 

It’s 1965 and teenage Frances Adams is at an English country fair with her two best friends. But Frances’s night takes a hairpin turn when a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling One day, Frances will be murdered. Frances spends a lifetime trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet, compiling dirt on every person who crosses her path in an effort to prevent her own demise. For decades, no one takes Frances seriously, until nearly sixty years later, when Frances is found murdered, like she always said she would be.

In the present day, Annie Adams has been summoned to a meeting at the sprawling country estate of her wealthy and reclusive great-aunt Frances. But by the time Annie arrives in the quaint English village of Castle Knoll, Frances is already dead. Annie is determined to catch the killer, but thanks to Frances’s lifelong habit of digging up secrets and lies, it seems every endearing and eccentric villager might just have a motive for her murder. Can Annie safely unravel the dark mystery at the heart of Castle Knoll, or will dredging up the past throw her into the path of a killer?

As Annie gets closer to the truth, and closer to the danger, she starts to fear she might inherit her aunt’s fate instead of her fortune.

My Review:

Well, what to say about this book. As I am writing this I have literally just finished reading it. For me it was one of those books that are okay, they are easy to read but I couldn’t fall into the book and become absorbed by the story. It was an average read.

In this book we follow Annie, who has been called to her Great Aunt Frances’ house, she has never met her but the meeting is to discuss changes to her will and then when they get there it turns out that Frances has been murdered, just as a fortune teller told her she would be when she was a teenager.

I loved the premise of this book, I thought it was very interesting how you could live your life afraid of the fortune you received as a teenager and there was a competition to do with the inheritance but the execution wasn’t what I was hoping it would be.

I thought Annie was a fun character to follow, she was thrown into the deep end head first and you could feel that in her POV and that was nice because it felt like you were learning along side her instead of her knowing things that you as the reader didn’t. Overall, there were parts I enjoyed to the book but I was starting to become bored with the story towards the end.

Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Book Reviews

Book Review: The Dog Sitter Detective Takes the Lead by Antony Johnson

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Happy Monday Bookish people! How are you all doing today? I hope you are doing well.

Blurb/Synopsis:

Gwinny Tuffel is preparing for her first acting role in a decade in the West End, but she is dog-sitting on the side to keep the wolf from the door. So, when ageing rock star Crash Double needs help with his Border Collie, she jumps at the chance. After all, looking after the charming Ace on Crash’s Little Venice houseboat shouldn’t be an onerous task. But that’s before the singer’s dead body surfaces during the annual Canal Carnival festivities.

While the police dismiss the death as an accident, Gwinny suspects murder most foul. With a medley of suspects and some far-fetched motives to make heads or tails of, it is up to Gwinny, with Ace’s on-the-ground knowledge, to make sure the killer faces the music.

My Review:

Okay, so first off, I didn’t realise that this book was the second in a series and I did not read the first one before reading this one. I have since bought it but I haven’t read it yet. I am looking forward to reading it.

In this book we follow Gwinny, she is an actress who has returned to performing but is passed over because of her age. In her spare time she looks after dogs for people and in this novel she ends up looking after the dog of a singer from a band while he goes on tour. Except, he didn’t go on tour because his body appears in the middle of a festival in Little Venice London, with all the canal boats.

I liked the unique set up of the canal boats and the rock star being murdered. I did think the dog kept being forgotten about, Gwinny goes about investigating but its not said where she leaves the dog while doing this. It was a nice, simple, cosy mystery and I enjoyed it. Gwinny is a good character, she takes no rubbish from anyone and I liked that. Her partner in crime though, I can’t remember his name off the top of my head, I didn’t warm to, I would have had a few choice words for him if I had met him. However, it was a good time and I am looking forward to reading the rest of the series, starting with book number one!

Rating:

Rating: 4 out of 5.
Book Reviews

Book Review: The Devil Makes Three by Tori Bovalino

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Happy Monday bookish people! How are you all feeling today? I hope you are all good. Today I am bringing you my book review for The Devil Makes Three by Tori Bovalino.

The Devil Makes Three

Blurb/Synopsis:

Tess Matheson only wants three things: time to practice her cello, for her sister to be happy, and for everyone else to leave her alone.

Instead, Tess finds herself working all summer at her boarding school library, shelving books and dealing with the intolerable patrons. The worst of them is Eliot Birch: snide, privileged, and constantly requesting forbidden grimoires. After a bargain with Eliot leads to the discovery of an ancient book in the library’s grimoire collection, the pair accidentally unleash a book-bound demon.

The demon will stop at nothing to stay free, manipulating ink to threaten those Tess loves and dismantling Eliot’s strange magic. Tess is plagued by terrible dreams of the devil and haunting memories of a boy who wears Eliot’s face. All she knows is to stay free, the demon needs her… and he’ll have her, dead or alive.

My Review:

In The Devil Makes Three we are following two main characters. The first is Tess Matheson, a music prodigy who has upended her own life to make sure her sister Nat gets the best chance she can. Tess works in the Library with a woman who I believe was her Aunt but I’m not 100% certain on that and while working in the Library she ends up meeting Elliott Birch, who is the second main character we follow.

Elliott and Tess start off on the wrong foot but they end up having to work together when they find a hidden passage under the library where a grimoire is hidden.

I can’t say a lot about this book without giving spoilers away but I can tell you that for the first half of the book I enjoyed getting to know the characters but I felt that Elliott was being used to further Tess’s character rather than defining him as a 3D character himself. This did get better in the second half of the book though and I liked that you could see the flaws in the characters.

The other main thought that I had on this book was that it was very creepy, much too creepy for me even though I read it through to the end, which is good because that is what the author intended so it is very well written but for me that creepiness was off-putting. I liked the characters and I liked the setting although it felt like a YA book to me and I am reading more adult books than YA now. I don’t think I will keep my copy of the book but I am glad I gave it a go.

Have you read this book? What did you think of it?

Rating:

Rating: 3 out of 5.