I seem to be reading more books than I’m reviewing again so I thought I’d share a selection of mini book reviews today of thrillers that would make great summer holiday reading!

The Blame Game by C. J. Cooke

C. J. Cooke is one of my favourite authors so I always look forward to a new book from her and I’m happy to say her latest book was fab! It follows a family who are on what seems to be a dream holiday but odd things start to happen. They feel they are being watched, and something just isn’t quite right. Then on their way home an accident happens and from there things begin to unravel. The novel is told in two timelines – the present day and then 22 years ago when Helen and Michael met and a tragedy befell their group. I was equally hooked on both timelines and was desperate to find out how these two events were connected. It’s a thrilling read, and a real page turner. I think what I loved most though was that at its heart it’s a novel about why we keep the secrets we do, and the power they can have over us when perhaps things might have been different if we’d not kept quiet at the time. I love books that are thrilling but also give me pause for thought and this book certainly did both! I recommend it!

 

The Guilty Party by Mel McGrath

I read and enjoyed Mel McGrath’s previous novel so I was thrilled to get approved to read this latest book on NetGalley. I’m so happy to say that it more than lived up to my expectations and I loved it! A group of friends get together in a remote holiday home in the present day and the book goes back and forth between here and a few months previously when they all went to a festival together and witnessed something that changed everything! I loved how this book went back and forth in time like this but also how the present day is told going forward, and the story of what happened at the festival goes backwards from the end of the night to the start. This made for a really gripping read as you piece together who did what and when, and how it all connects to the bigger picture. This is a group of friends who seem to be desperately trying to hang on to (or possibly re-create) their younger days and it feels like they don’t have a huge amount in common anymore. It fascinates me to read novels where people remain friends with a group of people from earlier in life as, for me, it doesn’t seem possible for a whole group to retain a closeness over the years. The characters in this novel aren’t particularly likeable either but I just couldn’t stop reading about them! I really did enjoy this book and highly recommend it!

 

Don’t Turn Around by Amanda Brooke

I was really pleased when I got an email to say I was pre-approved to read this from NetGalley as I’ve enjoyed previous books by the author. I have to say that I think this book is her best yet, I found it hard to put down. The story is about a family’s bid to prove what they believed really happened to their daughter Meg. Meg died by suicide ten years previously but her family always believed her boyfriend had more to do with her death than was ever found. Meg’s parents and her cousin Jen set up a charity helpline to try to help other people who felt like Meg, and one night get a call from a young woman who they think might be the new girlfriend of Meg’s boyfriend. This leads to a tangled web as Jen becomes increasingly involved in trying to solve the mystery. The first two thirds of this novel were so tense and it was a hard book to put down. I did feel the end fell a little flat to me because I’d worked out what had happened to Meg earlier on in the book and was really hoping to be proved wrong. That said I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this book because it had me gripped from start to finish!

Gone by Midnight by Candice Fox

I really enjoyed this crime thriller novel. The story features private investigator Ted and his sidekick Amanda as they investigate the disappearance of a child. I didn’t realise going into this book that it’s the third book in a series but I followed the story perfectly fine. I did love Ted and Amanda so much that I’m definitely going to go back and read the previous two books though, they are such brilliant characters and they really made this book for me. The case they are investigating is a missing child, who was left alone along with a group of other kids of a similar age, who has disappeared from a hotel. There is no evidence that the child left the hotel either alone or with someone so the crime becomes ever more mysterious. I didn’t work out where this book was going so the ending was a shock to me.  I recommend this one!