Finders, Keepers by Sabine Durrant

I loved this book, it’s my new favourite Sabine Durrant novel! It follows Verity who lives alone in the only house she’s ever lived in. One day she has new neighbours move in next door and she goes out of her way to befriend the couple and their children, particularly their son Max. When the novel opens Ailsa is living with Verity so straight away I was keen to find out why and what had happened. The novel then slowly unfolds and we go discover how Verity became so close to her neighbours, and a little about how they viewed her. We also see her bond with Max, as she begins to tutor him. This is a slow-burn novel but it’s so gripping that I read it all in one sitting! I loved the slow reveals and the way the plot and the characters developed. There is more to Verity than you know at first and the gradual peeling back of layers in her character is fascinating. I highly recommend this one!

Mine by Clare Empson

This novel is stunning! I loved the author’s debut novel and this one absolutely lives up to it. It follows two characters – Luke and Alice. Luke’s storyline is set in 2000 where he’s married and has a young baby. Luke was adopted as a baby and he’s finally meeting his birth mum Alice. The alternate chapters are told from her perspective in 1972 when aged almost nineteen she meets a singer and falls head over heels in love. I was enthralled equally by both timelines and I wanted to know what was going to happen. There are such devastating moments in this novel that broke my heart and actually made me cry. It made me feel such sympathy for both characters, and I never lost that sympathy for them even when things begin to go wrong. There is so much depth to this novel, and so much is explored about adoption and the affect it can have. I loved this novel and already wish I could go back and read it all over again.

Our Little Cruelties by Liz Nugent

The premise of this book is so intriguing – three brothers who have a complex relationship and now one of them is dead, but which one? The novel is told in three parts – each told from a different brother’s point of view and I loved this. It was fascinating to go back and forth in time in each perspective and see all the little cruelties (sometimes real and sometimes perceived) done, and then to see another brother’s different take on what happened. It really built up such a vivid picture of sibling relationships and the pressures put on each of them. This is a slow-burn book but it’s gripping and it keeps you turning the pages. I love that it was impossible to work out who was dead and which brother had killed him, and I don’t even know how Liz Nugent managed to do that. I’m in awe though! This was such a good read and I definitely recommend it!

Innocent or Guilty? by A. M. Taylor

This book has been on my NetGalley shelf for ages and I finally read it last week and I’m so glad I picked it up, it was a good read. It follows Olivia Hall who is asked to take part in a true crime podcast investigating her twin brother Ethan. Ethan is in prison for killing Tyler Washington a decade earlier when they were all 18. I really enjoyed following Olivia and the podcast team as they went back to the town where the murder happened. I also enjoyed the sections where we got transcripts of the podcast. I did work out whodunnit really early on but that didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the book as I wanted to know why and how, and what was going to happen as the book progressed. I enjoyed this one and would look out for more books by this author.