Did you know the president of the USA and his family aren’t ever allowed to open the windows in the White House residence to get a breath of fresh air, for security reasons? Michelle Obama’s autobiography is worth a read for so many reasons – that’s just one. Usually when I’m writing a review I […]
Latest Reviews
Ruin Beach by Kate Rhodes
Ruin Beach is an absorbing thriller set on the warm sandy beaches and beautiful dive sites of….England. Yes, England. I’d never heard of the palm tree lined beaches of the English Isles of Scilly but this novel places the fascinating islands front and centre, much like the Shetland Islands in Ann Cleeves’ novels, but with significantly more attractive weather. […]
Lying in Wait by Liz Nugent
Liz Nugent creates an impressively chilling monster in this sharply written thriller; a sociopath who specialises in tea and scones. She’s the kind of monster who can be entirely comfortable cooking in her kitchen while staring out the window at a flowery mound that hides the body of a young woman she murdered with her husband. […]
The Au Pair by Emma Rous
A decent little mystery if you’re willing to engage in quite a thorough suspension of disbelief at the end and have a tolerance for posh English people who refer to their houses by pretentious names (“Summerbourne” and ”Winterbourne”). Seraphine (pretentious names for the kids too) and her twin brother comes across a photo of their […]
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Reese Witherspoon’s book club choices are a bit hit and miss; this one’s a miss. It’s billed as a murder mystery but the mystery remains unresolved, to the extent that we’re never even sure if there was a murder. The author gives the main character a happy ending and then just kind of forgets about […]
The Children’s House by Alice Nelson
This beautifully written novel by Australian author Alice Nelson shows what good can come when damaged people take care of one another. Constance, a Rwandan refugee, disappears one Christmas, abandoning her two year old son with Marina, knowing she feels more love for him than Constance ever can. Marina lives in a large brownstone in Harlem, […]
November Road by Lou Berney
The casual manner of the frequent and brutal killings in this novel is slightly disturbing, but then a number of the characters are mob hitmen. It is New Orleans in 1963, and Frank Guidry knows too much the role of the mob in the assasination of President Kennedy. He’s loyal to his mob bosses, but […]
The Mystery of Three Quarters by Sophie Hannah
What’s not to love about a man who sleeps with a little net over his moustache to keep it tidy? Sophie Hannah conveys Hercule Poirot’s idiosychrosies and prejudices so beautifully that the murder mystery at the heart of the novel is a bonus. The Mystery of Three Quarters is the third novel Hannah has written with […]