This well written piece of historical fiction meanders along quite nicely, with the murdered bodies piling up to the general indifference of those around them in the midst of the US revolutionary war. I must admit the ending left me quietly confused, with enough loose strings to make a decent sized pom pom. It’s an […]
Say Nothing by Brad Parks
The six year old twins of a US Federal court judge are kidnapped and he is told he will have his children’s body parts returned to him one by one if he contacts the police or the FBI. Pretty horrifying stuff. His only chance to get his children back is to deliver the verdict dictated […]
Behind her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough
A wacky but worthwhile thriller. Something is dreadfully wrong in the marriage between David, a harddrinking psychiatrist, and Adele, a beauty who is not half as fragile as she seems. The protagonist Louise slips into their marriage by way of an incredibly ill advised affair with David, who is also her boss. Louise is never […]
The Dark Rose by Erin Kelly
Erin Kelly’s getting into her groove in The Dark Rose; she creates engaging characters then drops them in dire situations and watches them squirm. She’s a writer after my own heart. This one concerns a girl’s first love with a messed up musician that ends in tragedy and a boy’s dangerous friendship with a ne’er do well […]
The Poison Tree by Erin Kelly
Difficult to love a novel when you find the characters in it so selfish and pathetic you want to wring their necks. Such is the case with The Poison Tree, Erin Kelly’s first novel, in which the solidly middle class protagonist Karen becomes inexplicably enthralled with the needy, hopeless, manipulative and unfortunately named Biba and, […]
The Boy on the Bridge by M.R. Carey
Never thought you could love a zombie novel?? This one, and its predecessor The Girl With All The Gifts, are game changers. Both are set in a post-apocalyptic world where a virus has turned the vast majority of humans into flesh-eating “hungries”. The Boy on the Bridge sees some of the remaining decent and not-so-decent humans […]
The Lucky One by Caroline Overington
I really want to like the novels of Caroline Overington but don’t, somehow. Her latest The Lucky One is set somewhat inexplicably in California, an odd choice for an Australian journalist which adds nothing to the storyline but can possibly be put down to an attempt to woo American audiences. And who can blame her […]
The Breakdown by BA Paris
A competently written thriller with a few nice twists and turns. The protagonist, Cass, fails to assist a woman whose car has stopped on a remote road in the middle of a storm. Later Cass learns the woman in the car was brutally murdered shortly after she saw her. She feels bad but doesn’t go […]