Review: Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller @Fig_Tree_Books @PenguinUKBooks @ClaireFuller2

Posted on 14/04/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

About the Book:

‘Gil Coleman looked down from the window and saw his dead wife standing on the pavement below.’

Gil’s wife, Ingrid has been missing, presumed drowned, for twelve years.

A possible sighting brings their children, Nan and Flora, home. Together they begin to confront the mystery of their mother. Is Ingrid dead? Or did she leave? And do the letters hidden within Gil’s books hold the answer to the truth behind his marriage, a truth hidden from everyone including his own children?

My Thoughts:

This is the first novel I’ve read by Claire Fuller and I very much enjoyed it. Swimming Lessons is a real character-driven novel told partly in letters from the past and partly in the present day. I loved the way that a picture was gradually built up of this family, the way all their brokenness, their quirks and emotions were shown in one light in the present day and then there was another layer when we read a letter from the past.

In the present Gil has had a fall and is in hospital so his daughters Nan and Flora rush back to their childhood home to look after their father. We see the house through their eyes – all the piles and piles of books crowding every inch of space and immediately I wanted to know more.

We then begin to read the letters from Ingrid – mother to the two girls, who disappeared one day years earlier and of whom no trace has ever been found. We see through her eyes the happy times, the heartbreaking times that she went through with Gil. We learn from the very first letter that she wrote to him many times and then hid the letters in a book she felt was appropriate in some way. We don’t know how many Gil ever found or read, and there’s an added melancholy feel that runs through the book caused by missed chances and lack of knowing. In the present day we see the daughters occasionally pick up a book, and we, the reader, know there is a letter from their mother to their father in there, but for whatever reason they don’t find it. This left me feeling almost bereft at times.

There is a sense that Ingrid must be dead, for there have never been any sightings of her since the day she disappeared. Yet, there is also a haunting sense that she’s just around the corner, that if you just turned around quicker she’d be there. This broke my heart at times when the two daughters could sense her. My mum died a few years ago and sometimes I can randomly smell her perfume in my house, and for a moment I go still and it feels like she’s right there. It’s comforting, even though I know it’s not real. I think this sums up so much of this novel – the idea of people feeling things or sensing things but not always knowing what it means or how to deal with it. Then sometimes it’s the opposite – Gil’s lack of awareness, or lack of care, of his wife led to the emotional loss of her from their marriage before she was fully lost from all of their lives.

The ending of this book is perfect in my opinion, I honestly can’t see how it could have ended differently. The whole story is like a family haunted by memories and secrets and things they don’t know, so to wrap it all up in a neat bow would have been too heavy-handed. The beautiful wistfulness of the writing combined with the heartbreaking storyline is just incredible and I fell in love with this novel – it’s one that will stay with me for a long time to come.

I have Claire Fuller’s debut novel on my TBR and will definitely be reading it soon, and I already can’t wait to see what she writes next.

Swimming Lessons is out now.

I received a copy of this book from Fig Tree / Penguin via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

About the Author:

Claire fuller

Claire Fuller trained as a sculptor before working in marketing for many years. In 2013 she completed an MA in Creative Writing, and wrote her first novel, Our Endless Numbered Days. It was published in the UK by Penguin, in the US by Tin House, in Canada by House of Anansi and bought for translation in 15 other countries. Our Endless Numbered Days won the 2015 Desmond Elliott prize.
Claire’s second novel, Swimming Lessons will be published in early 2017.

(Bio taken from author’s Goodreads profile: Goodreads: Claire Fuller)

#BookReview: SweetPea by C.J. Skuse #SweetPea @HQStories @CeeJaytheAuthor

Posted on 13/04/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

About the Book

The last person who called me ‘Sweetpea’ ended up dead…

I haven’t killed anyone for three years and I thought that when it happened again I’d feel bad. Like an alcholic taking a sip of whisky. But no. Nothing. I had a blissful night’s sleep. Didn’t wake up at all. And for once, no bad dream either. This morning I feel balanced. Almost sane, for once.

Rhiannon is your average girl next door, settled with her boyfriend and little dog…but she’s got a killer secret.
Although her childhood was haunted by a famous crime, Rhinannon’s life is normal now that her celebrity has dwindled. By day her job as an editorial assistant is demeaning and unsatisfying. By evening she dutifully listens to her friend’s plans for marriage and babies whilst secretly making a list.

A kill list.
From the man on the Lidl checkout who always mishandles her apples, to the driver who cuts her off on her way to work, to the people who have got it coming, Rhiannon’s ready to get her revenge.

Because the girl everyone overlooks might be able to get away with murder…

My Thoughts

I received SweetPea in the post as a total surprise and I was immediately drawn to the stunning cover design and wanted to know more about the book. I was then intrigued by the synopsis and the idea of a serial killer being described as a girl-next-door type.

Rhiannon is such a brilliant character; she’s so funny and sarcastic and her observations of the people around her are just so darkly amusing. There were so many times in the book that I was properly laughing at something she had said. I love the way she writes a kill list at the start of her diary entries about the people that have annoyed her on that particular day, it’s brilliant. It becomes so easy to understand her annoyances, and some of the things that annoy her are the exact things that annoy me, and that was unnerving when you then remember that this is a woman who deals with her issues with people by killing them. I actually stuck lots of sticky notes to highlight my favourite Rhiannon quotes but when I looked through the book to quote some here they’re mostly too crude or sweary to share! I did really identify with her hatred of all things to do with hen parties – that bit made me giggle. Also, I don’t want to quote it here in case it causes offence to anyone but personally as someone who suffers from a neurological condition I have to admit that I properly burst out laughing at her ‘movers and shakers’ idea for the newspaper she worked for.

A quote I will share is this one because it made me laugh so much and when I tried to read it out to my husband I couldn’t get my words out for laughing:

I didn’t cut off the penis this time. It’s not a trophy thing with me. That would be stupid, like the burglars who always leave the taps on in Home Alone. Besides, where would I put them all? We’ve only got a two-bed flat. It was hard enough deciding where to put the dehumidifier.

This is what makes the book so brilliant – Rhiannon has such an hilarious and sarcastic way of saying things that really appealed to me.

The way Rhiannon tortures her school bully is horrible to read, and the way she goes after men to kill them isn’t exactly pleasant either but because as the reader you’re in Rhiannon’s head and therefore are seeing her reasoning it’s almost as if you forget that she’s actually a psychopath. You get totally wrapped up in what Rhiannon is saying and then you pause and realise that she, aside from being a serial killer, actually comes across as a really normal woman, and someone that you could see yourself being friends with it is so deeply unsettling.

Rhiannon as a character does have depth to her too, it’s not all witty retorts and evil thoughts and deeds. She survived an horrific and brutal attack when she was a young child and whilst that is never given as a reason for her turning out the way she has, you can see a child-like side to her at times. She’s obsessed with her Sylvanian Family and spends a lot of time making her doll’s house perfect and no one is allowed to touch it. It seems odd for a grown woman to be so fixated but it felt to me like it was a lingering effect of the damage that had been done to her.

I read the final two thirds of this novel in one go because I just wanted to know what was going to happen and how it would all turn out for Rhiannon. Her behaviour escalates throughout the novel, and at the same time there is are snapshot of a slightly more normal side of her emerging too so it becomes impossible to put the book down as you just want to know which side of her will win out. It’s a weird thing when you don’t want someone to get caught and yet you know she’s unhinged and has murdered people – I couldn’t see how the book was going to end. I won’t give any spoilers but I thought the ending was perfect for the story.

This is a darkly funny novel that really gets under your skin; Rhiannon is like Bridget Jones mixed with Psycho – she’s such a unique character and someone I won’t forget for a very long time to come. SweetPea is a laugh-out-loud funny novel about a very sarcastic and witty psychopath… and if that doesn’t make you want to read it I don’t know what will! This is the first book that I’ve read by C.J. Skuse but it absolutely definitely won’t be the last.

Sweet Pea is due to by published on 20th April in the UK and I highly recommend you pre-order your copy now!

I received a copy of Sweet Pea from the publisher HQ in exchange for an honest review.

About the Author

C.J. SKUSE is the author of the Young Adult novels PRETTY BAD THINGS, ROCKOHOLIC and DEAD ROMANTIC (Chicken House), MONSTER and THE DEVIANTS (Mira Ink). She was born in 1980 in Weston-super-Mare, England. She has First Class degrees in Creative Writing and Writing for Children and, aside from writing novels lectures in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University. C.J. is currently working on adult novel SWEETPEA for HQ/HarperCollins (out April 2017).

C.J. loves Masterchef, Gummy Bears and murder sites. She hates carnivals, hard-boiled eggs and coughing. The movies Titanic, My Best Friend’s Wedding and Ruby Sparks were all probably based on her ideas; she just didn’t get to write them down in time. Before she dies, she would like to go to Japan, try clay-pigeon shooting and have Ryan Gosling present her with the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

You can find C.J. Skuse on Facebook or on Twitter CeejaytheAuthor

#BookReview: The Cows by Dawn O’Porter #DontFollowTheHerd @HotPatooties @fictionpubteam

Posted on 12/04/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

About the Book

COW n.
/ka?/

A piece of meat; born to breed; past its sell-by-date; one of the herd.

Women don’t have to fall into a stereotype.

THE COWS is a powerful novel about three women. In all the noise of modern life, each needs to find their own voice.

It’s about friendship and being female.
It’s bold and brilliant.
It’s searingly perceptive.
It’s about never following the herd.

And everyone is going to be talking about it.

My Thoughts

I have to start this review by saying that I completely and utterly adored The Cows! It’s a brilliant novel and it was exactly what I needed to be reading at the moment I read it.

This is a novel that really shows what it is to be a woman – the way we’re judged, the way we judge each other, the way we’re all trying to live up to an ideal that none of us can attain. The Cows is told through three narratives. Each of the three characters is so well-written that they feel like real people, and each voice is so distinct that you never lose track of who it is that you’re reading about.Tara is a single mother, who never told the father of her child that she was pregnant, and she feels she has to be a success at work and at home, to be everything to everybody. Cam is a very successful blogger who doesn’t want children but this ends up becoming the very thing that she is judged on and defined by even though it’s only one small part of who she is. Then there’s Stella who is alone in the world – her twin sister, and her mum are both dead; her relationship is on the rocks and she desperately wants a baby. She feels such anger at the cards life has dealt her and yet is powerless to change what has happened.

I felt such a mix of emotions whilst reading this book – I was giggling at one point and tearful at another. The contrast between the women, but also the small similarities, really gave this novel depth and warmth. I’m very happily married but don’t have children. I never felt a huge longing for a baby but now life has made sure that I will never have children and that’s a strange thing to contemplate sometimes. I can understand Stella’s hopes and fears but I found it very hard to sympathise with the desperate lengths she went to. Ultimately though, she deserved understanding and care because she was driven to the point of madness by her need for a child, and also by her loneliness. Perhaps she would have behaved differently if she’d had a supportive friend who she could talk to and confide in. Cam is a fiercely independent woman and I admired her attitude to life, she’s the kind of woman I would love to be friends with. She is who she is and she never apologises for that, yet she remains such a lovely person. Cam’s relationship with her dad made me tearful – the way she let him help her with things because she knew it made him feel better made her all the more fab. I think she became my favourite character. What Tara did was shocking but what happened to her as a result was horrifying, and it echoed many of the stories we hear about women who do something and are caught on camera and then are judged for it forevermore. I felt so sorry for her with all the horrible attention and judgment that were thrown at her. The humiliation she felt was palpable, and the way other people, but women in particular, judged her generally but then with the infamy on top was awful but sadly all too recognisable

The society we live in now with social media being what it is is scary. Anything that we do is captured and there forever and no one is ever allowed to make a mistake, and so often we sit in judgment of others. I love social media because for one thing I wouldn’t have met my husband without it (we met on twitter) but also because I’m now housebound through disability and twitter and Facebook make me feel less alone, but there is a dark side to social media and it’s horrible to see and must be terrifying to experience.

The Cows is one of those novels that really shows the way that social media affects us – how it can ruin your life, or rather the trolls on social media can. It shows that you can be really well liked on social media and have lots of followers who hang on your every word but one opinion that the general public disagree with and the tide can turn against you. But it also shows the way that social media can bring friends our way that prove more loyal and kind in a crisis than the people we thought were our friends. The Cows also shows the power of standing up to what people say about you, about holding your head high regardless,and about the way there are still good people out there who will have your back.

The great thing that I took away from that book was the way it made me see that I don’t have to apologise for who I am. It reinforced for me that I can be who I am and I don’t have to say sorry for not being who others want me to be. It left me with a real sense of empowerment at a time when I was feeling like society had thrown me on the scrapheap. I honestly can’t put into words just how much I loved this book, it’s such an incredible read and I fully expect it will make my top ten books of 2017.

Dawn O’Porter tackles issues facing women head on in this book, she doesn’t shy away from any topic and it’s so refreshing to read. The Cows will make you laugh, it will make you cry; it will make you nod your head in recognition and it may well make you cringe at times but it’s a book that you want to keep reading and don’t want to end. This is a novel of our times and it’s one that I will read again and again. I highly recommend that you go buy a copy right now!

I received a copy of The Cows from HarperCollins via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

About the Author

Photograph by David Loftus

Dawn O’Porter is a broadcaster and print journalist who lives in London with her husband Chris, cat Lilu and dog Potato. She has made thirteen documentaries about all sorts of things, including polygamy, childbirth, geishas, body image, breast cancer and even the movie DIRTY DANCING.

Dawn has written for various UK newspapers and magazines including GRAZIA and STYLIST. She is also a highly prolific Tweeter and blogger of The Dawn Report. Although Dawn lives in London she spends a lot of time in LA and travels a lot. You may have seen her dragging two huge pink suitcases with broken wheels and a Siamese cat (Lilu) in a box through international airports. At some point she plans to get new suitcases – the cat, however, has a few years left in her yet.

You can follow the rest of this tour at the lovely blogs below:

#BookReview: Good as Gone by Amy Gentry @unlandedgentry @HQStories #BlogTour

Posted on 08/04/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

About the Book

Eight years ago, thirteen-year-old Julie Whitaker was kidnapped from her bedroom in the middle of the night.

In the years since, her family have papered over the cracks of their grief – while hoping against hope that Julie is still alive.

And then, one night, the doorbell rings.

My Thoughts

I was thrilled when I was offered a copy of Good as Gone to review for the blog tour as it sounded like such a gripping read, and I have to say that I wasn’t disappointed. I read this in one sitting as I just got lost in the novel for an entire afternoon!

I’m always intrigued by novels where someone has gone missing and then seemingly returns years later. It’s one of those things that you can barely even imagine and yet it has happened in real life too. In this novel I was immediately curious as to where Julie had been, and if this even really was Julie that had come back. I would imagine that if your child had been missing for all those years and someone who looked just like her came to your door you wouldn’t immediately question if it really was her because you would so badly want it to be. In Good as Gone it felt believable to me that the family accepted Julie back so quickly and didn’t question the situation, but as a reader I was quickly wondering if this really was going to be a happy ending for the family and it really made the book a gripping, rollercoaster of a read that I was so unsure and unsettled by Julie.

As we begin to learn more about Julie and where she might have been in the intervening years and what might have happened to her I found I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the pages, I simply had to know how it was all going to turn out.

My favourite thing about this book was the chapters by all the different people and how each chapter gives a clue and gradually a picture is built up about what has happened. It was great how the reader has much more information than the family and we are there in each setting and trying to understand whether this person was Julie or if that person was, but we also see the family trying to come to terms with what has happened, and they start uncovering secrets that have been held in the intervening years and have to deal with the fallout from that. I found I was trying to put the pieces together from the start and some things I got wrong and others I got right, it was very cleverly written.

I definitely recommend this book – it’s a gripping, absorbing rollercoaster of a thriller that will keep you turning the pages long into the night. Go buy a copy now, you won’t regret it!

I received a copy of this book from HQ Stories in exchange for an honest review.

Exclusive content from Amy Gentry:

What was your inspiration for writing the book? How has working in women’s shelters influenced Julie’s story?

For about a year, I volunteered as an on-call emergency room advocate for victims of sexual assault. When assault victims turned up in the emergency room requesting a forensic exam (aka rape kit), I would dispatch to the hospital to provide in-room advocacy and resources from the shelter. Thus I spent lots of time, often in the middle of the night, with survivors of sexual trauma in the immediate aftermath of their assaults. I was asked by women to sit in the room with them during the forensic exam, even hold their hands. I sat in hospital rooms with students, strippers, mothers, grandmothers, homeless prostitutes, veterans, political campaigners, athletes, you name it. The stories of abused and assaulted women were very real and vivid to me as I wrote the parts of my story that dealt with those topics. I became especially alert to the ways in which victims of these crimes struggle to protect themselves in the wake of trauma, often making choices which might seem to an outsider to be the wrong ones because they may hurt others or lead to the victim herself being retraumatized. Yet I came to understand how important that sense of choice can be for helping victims preserve a sense of agency and personhood that has been violated during the assault. Demanding that victims look or act a certain way, either before or after their assault, is one way we discredit victims and perpetuate rape culture. I also talked to many police and other first responders, and came to understand how flawed and human these professionals are in their own, often biased, responses to sexual assault victims. There is no such thing as a perfect victim, because people behave erratically in the wake of severe trauma; but for some reason we seem to demand perfection of sexual assault victims. This is really the underlying theme I wanted to explore with Good as Gone.

About the Author

AVT_Amy-Gentry_4494

Amy Gentry lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and two cats. After graduating in 2011 with a PhD in English from the University of Chicago, she began a freelance writing career, writing book reviews, cultural criticism, and, for one strange and wonderful year, a fashion column. She frequently reviews fiction for the Chicago Tribune Printer’s Row Journal, and her writing has appeared in Salon.com, xoJane, The Rumpus, the Austin Chronicle, the Texas Observer, LA Review of Books, Gastronomica, and the Best Food Writing of 2014. GOOD AS GONE, her first thriller, is set in her hometown of Houston, Texas.

Bio taken from the author’s website: amygentryauthor.com

Follow the rest of the blog tour at these lovely blogs:

Good as Gone blog tour

March Wrap-Up post!

Posted on 03/04/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

Monthly Wrap Up post Copyrighted

March has been a tough month in my personal life due to my medication changes. It’s hard to get across just how difficult it is to have a condition that requires medication to manage symptoms, and how the medication then causes problems in itself. I’ve been on very strong pain medication since before I was diagnosed and now I know my condition will never improve, and may even worsen over time, I want to make the best of what I’m left with. So I took the decision to try and reduce my pain medication, in spite of the severe pain I live with. This has been a long term reduction programme and it’s been going ok. It was in March that I got to a low enough dose that I’m struggling. I do have other things that I do to help me manage my pain but it’s taken all my reserves of mental strength to cope. It’s only going to get worse over the coming weeks and I just have to prepare myself as best I can. Once I’m off this medication my pain levels will be assessed again and it may be that I end up on a different medication but I just want to see what I can cope with.

Here are the 22 books I read this month:

Scarlett Says by Scarlett Moffatt

Forever Yours by Daniel Glauttauer

The Escape by C. L. Taylor

Willow Walk by SJI Holliday

the little shop of happy ever after jenny colgan

the last act of hattie hoffman mindy mejia

The Little Shop of Happy-Ever-After by Jenny Colgan

Apple Tree Yard by Louise Doughty

The Last Act of Hattie Hoffman by Mindy Mejia

Days Without End by Sebastian Barry

Sometimes I lie by Alice Feeney

The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui

And the Sun Shine Now by Adrian Tempany

Little Deaths by Emma Flint

The Trophy Child by Paula Daly

Year of No Clutter by Eve O. Schaub

Not Dead Yet by Phil Collins

The Cutaway by Christina Kovac

Six Stories by Matt Wesolowski

The Sellout by Paul Beatty

Now We Are 40 by Tiffanie Darke

Goodbye Days by Jeff Zentner

A Portrait of Bowie by Brian Hiatt

Hillsborough Untold by Norman Bettison

March Blog Posts & Reviews

I wrote my regular Weekly Wrap-Ups, Stacking the Shelves, and WWW Wednesday posts. Then I also managed to review twelve books, which I’m pleased about. It was my aim from the start of March to post three reviews a week on average and I’ve managed that. Ideally, I’d post more reviews than this but three feels manageable along side the regular posts I do each week (health permitting of course)

Here are my reviews that I shared in March:

Everything But the Truth by Gillian McAllister

The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel

It’s All Absolutely Fine by Ruby Elliot

The Breakdown by B.A. Paris

The Escape by C. L. Taylor

The Last Act of Hattie Hoffman by Mindy Mejia

Sometimes I lie by Alice Feeney

The Best We Could Do by Thi But

Year of No Clutter by Eve O. Schaub

The Cutaway by Christina Kovac

Goodbye Days by Jeff Zentner

The Trophy Child by Paula Daly

I also shared a great guest post in March:

Mark Stewart, author of The Absence of Wings, wrote a post for my blog all about speaking up for the voiceless in his short story collection

the-state-of-my-2

The state of my TBR:

I’ve had a few people ask my about my TBR recently so I just want to clarify that my TBR consists purely of books that I already own. I don’t count wish list books as TBR. This goes for anywhere that you see my TBR so if you look at my Goodreads the books listed as ‘to read’ are all books that I own. Hence the need to reduce it – if these books were just wish list books I wouldn’t be bothered how big the list was.

The State of my TBR is not great at the moment. I’ve demonstrated a lack of willpower throughout March and my TBR is creeping up, and is now higher than it was at the start of January!

I started this year with 1885 books on my TBR, and was doing well for the first couple of months as in February my TBR was down to 1861. However, in March a combination of a couple of giveaway wins, review copies arriving, a kindle book sale and spending my birthday book vouchers my TBR has now increased to 1913! I was a bit shocked when I realised how much my TBR has grown in the course of a month.

I don’t want to stop buying books but I do think I need to get better at not buying so many books each week. I’d at least like to try and not acquire more than I can read in a month so that my TBR would then remain steady, so that’s what I’m going to try and do in March. Wish me luck (or maybe that should read wish my willpower!!)

I also want to get in the habit of regularly going through my TBR and making sure that I’m only keeping the books that I still want to read. I’m thinking this should be something I do every month, or at least every quarter.

Quarterly Stats!

I’ve been tracking my reading using a spreadsheet since the start of 2017, which is the first time I’ve ever done this and I’m really enjoying seeing how various aspects of my reading are going. So I’ve decided that at the end of every quarter (March, June, September and December) I’m going to add an extra section to those monthly wrap-ups to share some of the things I’ve noticed in my reading patterns.

screenshot3

I’ve read 71 books from January to March, and that amounts to 23,326 pages. I’m finding it really interesting to track pages read alongside books read as it shows that I’m not just reading short books to get my numbers up. The longest book I’ve read so far this year is The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, which has 849 pages. My average page count is 326, which is around the length of an average book so I’m pleased with that.

I’m pleased to discover that in the first three months of this year that 65% of the books I’ve read have been by women. The diversity of my reading in other areas could be improved – I would like to read more work in translation, and also more books written in own voices but I’m otherwise pleased with the breadth of what I’ve been reading.

screenshot5

I’ve read from a variety of genres and am happy that of 71 books read, 21 have been non-fiction/memoir so far. I wanted to try and make sure that around a third of what I read this year was non-fiction so I’m not far off being on track for that.

screenshot2

I’ve also kept track of how I acquire my books so thought it would be interesting to show that here as well. Over half of the books I’ve got this year were ones I bought myself, and quite a few have been given to me as gifts. The percentage of review books are the smaller number.

All in all I’m pleased with how my reading, reviewing and blogging has been in March. I’m aware that I’m not sure how I’m going to be feeling during April so I’m not planning too much in the way of reading or blogging goals. I’ll read when I can and review when I can and see how it goes. I am going to be taking part in a couple of blog tours so am already reading those books so I can get the posts written and scheduled in advance. I’ll be using any good spells of health to read and review and write blog posts so I’m hoping to have regular content on here even if I’m not around quite as much in reality.

How was your March? I hope you all had a good month and that you read good books. Did you read many books? What was your favourite book of the month? Please tell me in the comments, I’d love to know. Also, if you have a blog please feel free to leave a link to your month’s wrap-up post and I’ll be sure to read and comment back. 🙂

#BookReview: The Trophy Child by Paula Daly @GroveAtlantic

Posted on 31/03/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

About the book

Karen Bloom is not the coddling mother type. She believes in raising her children for success. Some in the neighborhood call her assertive, others say she’s driven, but in gossiping circles she’s known as: the tiger mother. Karen believes that tough discipline is the true art of parenting and that achievement leads to ultimate happiness. She expects her husband and her children to perform at 200 percent—no matter the cost. But in an unending quest for excellence, her seemingly flawless family start to rebel against her.

Her husband Noel is a handsome doctor with a proclivity for alcohol and women. Their prodigy daughter, Bronte, is excelling at school, music lessons, dance classes, and yet she longs to run away. Verity, Noel’s teenage daughter from his first marriage, is starting to display aggressive behavior. And Karen’s son from a previous relationship falls deeper into drug use. When tragedy strikes the Blooms, Karen’s carefully constructed facade begins to fall apart—and once the deadly cracks appear, they are impossible to stop.

My thoughts

I’m a big fan of Paula Daly’s writing so was eagerly anticipating The Trophy Child and I have to say that it didn’t disappoint.

Karen is a real tiger mum. She puts all her hope and ambition onto her daughter, trying to mould her into the perfect person. Karen won’t accept failure, won’t even accept good enough – Bronte has to be perfect. Bronte is obviously struggling at not being allowed to be a normal child with time to play with friends, and the situation is like a giant pressure cooker. Bronte’s step-sister Verity has already lashed out at Karen once, and there is still such a fury simmering under the surface in their relationship. Karen’s husband, and father of both girls, is quite ineffectual when it comes to to his family – he basically wants to keep the peace and if he can’t keep the peace he’ll do his best to stay out of the situation.

I think what I loved the most about this novel was all the layers. I thought it was going to be a novel about a child who goes missing and the way the family copes but it’s about so much more than that. There are so many different dynamics to the family at the centre of this novel that it makes for a fascinating look at why people are the way they are. We see how it feels to be the second wife, the step-child, the half-sister, the first wife, and the husband who seems to be caught between his wife and ex-wife, his children and step-child. It was the relationships between all the characters that fascinated me the most, especially when the police become involved. It’s the characters that make this novel so brilliant, even more so than the great plot. None of the characters are particularly likeable and that made this book so fascinating as I wasn’t sure how I felt when they were in turmoil. It made me consider my own emotions and I love when a novel draws me into it to this degree.

I have to admit that I did not see where this book was going. I was so confident for a fair bit of this novel that I knew how it was going to end and I was completely wrong. It’s not often that a book has me stumped but this one got me and I loved it for that!

This is definitely one of those ‘just one more chapter…’ books that you end up staying up ’til the early hours reading because you just can’t put it down. It’s a gripping read, and really does have you turning the pages at a frantic rate as you want to know what is going on.

The Trophy Child is a disturbing look at how tense and difficult trying to integrate children from one relationship, and a child from a second relationship into one family can be. This novel takes the situation to an extreme but the the day-to-day issues within this family will resonate with readers, and will likely send a cold shiver down some spines!

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The Trophy Child is out now and available to buy here.

About the author

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Paula Daly was born in Lancashire. Before beginning her first novel JUST WHAT KIND OF MOTHER ARE YOU? she was a self-employed physiotherapist. She lives in the Lake District with her husband, three children and whippet Skippy.

#BookReview: The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui @AbramsBooks

Posted on 28/03/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

About the Book

An intimate and poignant graphic novel portraying one family’s journey from war-torn Vietnam, from debut author Thi Bui.

This beautifully illustrated and emotional story is an evocative memoir about the search for a better future and a longing for the past. Exploring the anguish of immigration and the lasting effects that displacement has on a child and her family, Bui documents the story of her family’s daring escape after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s, and the difficulties they faced building new lives for themselves.

At the heart of Bui’s story is a universal struggle: While adjusting to life as a first-time mother, she ultimately discovers what it means to be a parent—the endless sacrifices, the unnoticed gestures, and the depths of unspoken love. Despite how impossible it seems to take on the simultaneous roles of both parent and child, Bui pushes through. With haunting, poetic writing and breathtaking art, she examines the strength of family, the importance of identity, and the meaning of home.

In what Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen calls “a book to break your heart and heal it,” The Best We Could Do brings to life Thi Bui’s journey of understanding, and provides inspiration to all of those who search for a better future while longing for a simpler past.

My Thoughts

I requested this graphic memoir as I read a few of them last year and wanted to make sure I read more this year. This sounded interesting so I was pleased when I was approved.

I was expecting a graphic about a family’s experience of fleeing Vietnam to America and, whilst this book is about that, it’s also about so much more. It’s about three generations of a family and how their lives have been, how one generation affects the next. It looks at how it feels to be other, to move to a different country and feel that their ways are slowly changing you to be more like them. The way Ma looks out and sees all the streets around their house are named after American Presidents and feels it’s turning her more American and on the next page talks about a school shooting – I could feel how small and scared she felt.

This book is also very much about loss – not just loss of where you’re from, your culture, but also the loss of babies and that really got to me. The way the novel opens with a baby being born and then the reader is taken back over all the babies that Thi’s parents had, including the baby that died. It’s heartbreaking.

The baby being born as the book begins is a new grandchild for Ma, and she can’t bear being in the room with her daughter as she gives birth and her reason is that it brings the pain back. At first it seemed strange that she had given birth so many times and now couldn’t help her daughter, but then it dawns on you that the pain she can’t face, and the memories coming back are the ones of loss, the heartache – not just of her babies but of her homeland, and all the things she’s lost or had to leave behind in her life.

The book still resonates with the world we live in now, the way the family moved to San Diego from Vietnam to make a life for themselves but aren’t welcomed by everyone in the port city as people are still raw from what happened during the Vietnam war. The woman feels other, outcast, different. The family struggle to fit in, to make a life in America. The children feel the frustration of their father but are too young to understand where it comes from. They can’t comprehend the disappointment of their dad’s life – the way he has come to America to make a better life and now all he worked for in Vietnam, his degree etc, are worthless and unrecognised and so he comes to feel worthless and invisible.

This graphic memoir looks at the way political changes have a direct affect on the people who love there; it really highlights how the political is made personal. It also really makes you think about the way we see a photo and are led to believe that it’s the whole story but for the people involved, the people who live in a war-torn country it doesn’t show context or the whole story.

An example of the art style in the book

‘I had no idea that the terror I felt was only the long shadow of his own…’

The book is about how the pain from one generation is revisited on the next. It’s about how we have to understand what came before, what happened to our parents and grandparents to grasp how they came to be how they are. It’s about finding tolerance and peace with the bad that has been done to us.

There is a lot of heartache in this memoir. It really brings home how everyone has their own story, and how an event that may have led to the best time of your life could have been the thing that took someone else away from what made them happy. It really gives you something to think about, the way that one decision can change everything and you can’t go back. When Ma and Bo met it was the best thing that happened to him, but for Ma, it took her away from her studies and she grew to resent that. Ma fell pregnant before marriage, so circumstance dictated that she marry Bo and she duly did, but then the baby died and Ma was already trapped in this marriage.

When Thi’s family finally, after so much planning and hardship, get to leave Vietnam it is on a crowded boat in the dead of night, they had no way of knowing what awaited them on the journey or whether they’d even make it. Ma was heavily pregnant at the time. It must have been terrifying – and it really made me think of the images we see on the news now of desperate people fleeing war-torn countries – knowing they risk their lives in cramped boats but also knowing that they can’t stay in their home land another day.

It was incredibly affecting when I read about what Thi refers to as the ‘refugee reflex’. The way that in a new country there is so much to learn but the biggest lesson she learnt as a child was to know where the folder of important documents was at all times, and to make sure you grab it in the event of leaving home in any kind of an emergency. To learn that when so young and to have that reflex stay with you, it’s heartbreaking to thing of living with that fear even when you have finally reached a place of safety.

The memoir gradually brings you back to the present day, where Thi has given birth in the hospital and it leads her to reflect on her relationship with her parents. She ponders on that moment when you realise that you’re not the centre of the universe, and that you can’t keep hanging on to resentment about your parents not being who you thought they were, or who you wanted them to be. People are who they are and Thi realises that you have to be okay with that. It becomes a little existential at the end as Thi wonders at the way we’re all joined to those who came before us, and I found this incredibly moving and humbling.

The images in this novel are so striking, they really fit the story being told and add to its impact. The colour palette is very muted with just black and white with an orange wash that is used in various ways throughout. It really is beautiful to look at.

I highly recommend reading this memoir. It’s one of those books that really stays with you for a long time after reading.

I received a copy of this book from the Abrams via NetGalley one exchange for an honest review.

#BookReview: The Goodbye Days by Jeff Zentner

Posted on 27/03/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

About the Book

What if you could spend one last day with someone you lost?

One day Carver Briggs had it all—three best friends, a supportive family, and a reputation as a talented writer at his high school, Nashville Academy for the Arts.

The next day he lost it all when he sent a simple text to his friend Mars, right before Mars, Eli, and Blake were killed in a car crash.

Now Carver can’t stop blaming himself for the accident, and he’s not the only one. Eli’s twin sister is trying to freeze him out of school with her death-ray stare. And Mars’s father, a powerful judge, is pressuring the district attorney to open a criminal investigation into Carver’s actions.

Luckily, Carver has some unexpected allies: Eli’s girlfriend, the only person to stand by him at school; Dr. Mendez, his new therapist; and Blake’s grandmother, who asks Carver to spend a Goodbye Day with her to share their memories and say a proper goodbye to his friend.

Soon the other families are asking for a Goodbye Day with Carver, but he’s unsure of their motives. Will they all be able to make peace with their losses, or will these Goodbye Days bring Carver one step closer to a complete breakdown or—even worse—prison?

My Thoughts

This is an incredibly moving novel about bereavement and finding your way through grief. Carver sent a text to his friend, and this led to the car accident that killed his three best friends and now he has to find a way to live with that.

I have to be honest and say that I found it a bit far-fetched that someone who sent a text could potentially be held legally responsible for the death of the person who read that text whilst they were driving and died in an accident as a result. This jarred with me and made it difficult to get into this book. However, once I put that to one side and focused on what the book was really about I found it such a heartbreaking read.

I lost my best friend when I was just a little older than Carver, and it’s so hard to process that someone so young can just be gone. I felt such empathy for Carver, and his thoughts through his grieving process were so real and raw to me. The descriptions of grief are so well written and absolutely believable.

Carver and the Nana of one of his friends decide to hold a goodbye day – where they spend a day together doing the things that each of them had enjoyed with Blake, and sharing their memories. I think this is such a wonderful idea, a dedicated time to share things – it must be a very emotional but ultimately cathartic experience.

Carver then holds a goodbye day with the parents of his other two friends who were killed. Each of the three days show the different ways that people grieve after losing a child – the devastation, the anger, the hurt. It’s palpable in places. I found the goodbye day Carver spends with Mars’ dad to be the most emotional and affecting.

Through the course of the novel Carver works through all of the feelings that come with grief, and the over-riding emotion is loneliness and this broke my heart. I remember that feeling so well, and it’s such a hard thing to come through. Once you lost someone you’re so close to you can never be the same person again, you just have to learn to be ok with the loss of them and the loss of the part of you that they took with them.

This book ultimately is a book about redemption, about how we atone for the things we’ve done wrong, or are perceived to have done wrong. It’s a book about the depths of grief, but our ability to recover and to find a way through the pain. I highly recommend it.

I received a copy of this book from Penguin Random House via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

About the Author

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Jeff Zentner lives in Nashville, Tennessee. He came to writing through music, starting his creative life as a guitarist and eventually becoming a songwriter. He’s released five albums and appeared on recordings with Iggy Pop, Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Thurston Moore, Debbie Harry, Mark Lanegan, and Lydia Lunch, among others.

Now he writes novels for young adults. He became interested in writing for young adults after volunteering at the Tennessee Teen Rock Camp and Southern Girls Rock Camp. As a kid, his parents would take him to the library and drop him off, where he would read until closing time. He worked at various bookstores through high school and college.

He speaks fluent Portuguese, having lived in the Amazon region of Brazil for two years.

#BookReview: The Breakdown by B. A. Paris

Posted on 24/03/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

About the Book:

If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust?

It all started that night in the woods.

Cass Anderson didn’t stop to help the woman in the car, and now she’s dead.

Ever since, silent calls have been plaguing Cass and she’s sure someone is watching her.

Consumed by guilt, she’s also starting to forget things. Whether she took her pills, what her house alarm code is – and if the knife in the kitchen really had blood on it.

Bestselling author B A Paris is back with a brand new psychological thriller full of twists and turns that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

My Thoughts:

The opening of this book properly gave me the creeps. The idea of driving down a dark lane on a rainy night, knowing you’re in the middle of nowhere, and then seeing a car parked up, or possibly broken down in a lay by, is really unnerving to me. Cass sees the car and is unsure what to do, she stops and tries to see if anyone is in the car. It felt like the opening to a horror movie and I was really on edge wondering what was going to happen next, whilst at the same time being nervous to read on. Cass makes the decision that I think a lot of people on their own on a night like that would make, and that is to drive on, but this decision has consequences that no one could forsee and it sets this novel up brilliantly!

The following day Cass’s husband tells her that a woman has been murdered in the lay-by and she can’t bring herself to admit to being there. Cass then becomes convinced that someone may have seen her that night and may now be watching her. She starts receiving strange phone calls and becomes increasingly anxious. The problem Cass has is like the old adage… just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. As a reader you’re aware that some of what Cass is anxious about is genuine because we’re in the know but other things we can’t be sure if she’s being paranoid.

The Breakdown is a book that’s fast-paced and easy to read but at the same time it does ramp up the tension, and it genuinely had me on edge at times. It was a book that I didn’t want to put down though because I really wanted to know what was going to happen and I read it in one sitting. This book does require suspension of disbelief at times, and I did work out the ending quite early on, but it’s such an engrossing read and it has many twists and turns that will have you second-guessing yourself all the way through. The ending is satisfying and does tie everything up nicely.

The Breakdown is out now and I highly recommend buying a copy!

I received a copy of the book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

#BookReview: The Cutaway by Christina Kovac @christina_kovac @HannahVRoss

Posted on 21/03/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

About the Book

“The Newsroom meets Gone Girl.” —Cosmopolitan

When brilliant TV news producer Virginia Knightly receives a disturbing “MISSING” notice on her desk related to the disappearance of a beautiful young attorney, she can’t seem to shake the image from her head. Despite skepticism from her colleagues, Knightly suspects this ambitious young lawyer may be at the heart of something far more sinister, especially since she was last seen leaving an upscale restaurant after a domestic dispute. Yet, as the only woman of power at her station, Knightly quickly finds herself investigating on her own.

Risking her career, her life, and perhaps even her own sanity, Knightly dives deep into the dark underbelly of Washington, DC business and politics in an investigation that will drag her mercilessly through the inextricable webs of corruption that bind the press, the police, and politics in our nation’s capital.

My Thoughts

I loved this book – I knew as soon as I read the quote describing this as ‘The Newsroom meets Gone Girl’ that I had to read it, and it didn’t let me down.

It felt refreshing to me to set a story about a missing woman in a newsroom with the police investigation as the side story. I was intrigued about what had happened to the missing woman but more so about the news producer Virginia Knightly’s fascination with her. This novel felt entirely believable in the way a crime is reported on the news – the push for new news, to be first on the air, to get the most sensational story at all costs.

Virginia is a great character, and I really enjoyed learning more about her as the novel went on. She’s such a determined, focused woman and she never relies on a man to help her, and I loved that. Virginia does have her issues, and they have made her who she is now but they never affect her ability to do her job. She does tend to be much more focused on certain cases as a result of her past but it reads as an interesting dynamic rather than a character flaw.

It’s not often that I read a crime/thriller novel without trying to work out whodunnit but with The Cutaway I was enjoying the story so much that I just got swept away in what was happening. I was suspicious of a couple of characters but I wasn’t actively trying to figure out how it might end, and it was brilliant to just read and see it all unfold. I was right to be suspicious about one of the characters but I was completely wrong about the other.

I loved the setting of Washington DC – it’s a place I’ve never been to and yet the writing in this novel made me feel like I had. The place just comes alive in this book, and it feels so real, almost like the setting is a character in its own right.

I also loved the setting of the newsroom, and the characters in this novel so much that I feel like, whilst this is a standalone and does have a resolution of sorts at the end, I want more. I would love if this became the first book in the series.

This isn’t a fast-paced thriller but it is gripping and once you’re hooked you simply won’t be able to put the book down until you’ve finished reading. I pretty much read this in one sitting and found it utterly engrossing.

The Cutaway is due to be published on 6th April in the UK, in both ebook and hardcover formats, and can be pre-ordered here.

I received a copy of The Cutaway via the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

About the Author

Christina Kovac managed newsrooms and produced crime and political stories in the District. Her career as a television journalist began with Fox 5’s Ten O’Clock News, followed by the ABC affiliate in Washington, D.C. For the last nine years, she worked at the Washington Bureau of NBC News. She lives with her family outside of Washington D.C.

#BookReview: Year of No Clutter by Eve O. Schaub

Posted on 20/03/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

About the Book:

From Hoarders to The Life- Changing Magic of Tidying Up, the question of what to do with all of our stuff seems to be on everyone’s mind. Eve Schaub’s new memoir is the tale of how one woman organized an entire room in her house that had been overtaken by pointless items. It’s also a deeply inspiring and frequently hilarious examination of why we keep stuff in the first place—and how to let it all go.

Eve O. Schaub graduated from Cornell and Rochester Institute of Technology. She has written for Vermont Life and Vermont Magazine, among others. During her family’s year of no sugar, Schaub blogged regularly and was often a guest on WAMC, New York’s NPR affiliate, as well as a regular visitor to Vermont Public Radio. She lives in Vermont with her family.

My Thoughts:

I requested this book from NetGalley because I can’t resist books about clutter, which is kind of ironic given that my natural tendency is to hoard stuff!

I have to be honest and say that the first couple of chapters of this book didn’t pull me in, reading about someone’s room full of clutter that they know has a dead mouse in, and also that a cat has peed all over made me feel a bit squeamish. This isn’t the kind of clutter situation that I can identify with. I do tend to want to keep things but I’m also quite obsessive about cleaning.

I’m so glad that I decided to give the book another go through because from the point when Eve starts to explore what makes a hoarder, and what makes her the way she is I was fascinated and I could really identify with some of the things she discovered about herself.

There is a point where she writes that as a child she believed she had to keep everything so that she’d have enough stuff to fill her own home when she was grown up, and that is just how I was too. I kept all my childhood ornaments for years because I believed that shelves had to be filled with stuff. The idea that some people had empty surfaces in their home was alien to me. Eve’s father had a problem with clutter so she sees that her issues partly came from seeing what his house was like. My mum was very sentimental and could never get rid of things that people had given her, so I can see how Eve, and I, ended up being clutter bugs.

The part that really got to me was when Eve talks about her belief that if she lets go of things that she is sentimental about then she risks losing the memory of that particular point in time: that by holding on to the object, she has a trigger to bring back the memories instantly. I struggle with this too. It’s really hard when you get to an age where you’ve lost people who meant the world to you, how do you let go of the things they gave you? I felt Eve’s pain as she tried to work out which things to keep, and which to let go of.

Eve has an issue with making decisions, she really fears making a wrong choice and believes this feeds into her obsession with keeping things. This was eye-opening for me. I’ve always been indecisive but have never connected that to the way I keep things, but it makes total sense that if you really dread making a bad decision that you would find it hard to be confident in the things you get rid of. Eve gradually learns that it’s not the end of the world if you get rid of something and later wish you hadn’t, and that’s something I’ve learnt during my regular de-cluttering sessions. To be honest, I’ve agonised over some of the things I’ve being considering getting rid of but once they’re out of my house I’ve never regretted any of it. Objects might hold memories but they can’t bring a person back, it’s how you feel in your heart that matters.

One of the things Eve struggled with most was dealing with her paperwork. She couldn’t get rid of any of it without reading it first and then had to deal with whatever memory was attached before she could move on to the next lot of papers. It really struck a chord with me when Eve said: ‘… I keep souvenirs even of negative occurrences in my life, for fear that without them I would forget that event and even any lesson learnt from that event’. It sounds utterly ridiculous to keep paperwork from the worst moments of your life, but I used to be exactly the same. My mum kept some papers that were so painful to her but she felt she couldn’t ever shred them. When she died I took the papers for safe-keeping, and added some of my own from the year my mum was dying. I kept all of her hospital letters because I didn’t want to forget, and yet I was trying to hard not to drown in all the trauma that happened in that year. I moved in with my then new boyfriend (now my husband) the year my mum died and I took all the paperwork with me because I just couldn’t leave it behind – it felt like it was haunting me. Then one day I decided enough was enough. I burnt the lot and it was so therapeutic to let it go for both me, and my mum’s memory. I try to always remember now that the things we keep will one day be someone else’s problem to deal with and it helps me get rid of stuff that’s not really important in the grand scheme of things. Eve learns the same lesson in a different way. We can’t keep everything, we don’t have the room. So if you can only keep a fraction of the stuff, pick the good stuff, the happy stuff.

This isn’t a how-to book, it’s not about helping you clear your clutter. It is one woman’s open and honest journey through her own battle with clutter but in the process of reading you will probably recognise yourself in Eve, as I did, and it will spur you on to deal with your own clutter.

I highly recommend this book. Year of No Clutter is out now and available here.

I received a copy of this book from Sourcebooks via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

About the Author:

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Serial memoirist Eve O. Schaub lives with her family in Vermont and enjoys performing experiments on them so she can write about it.

During 2011 Eve wrote a blog about her family’s attempt to live and eat for a year without any added sugar in their food, which became the book Year of No Sugar (Sourcebooks, 2014). She has been a guest on theDr. Oz Show, and FOX and Friends, and has appeared in numerous print and online outlets. She considers not hyperventilating on national television one of her greatest accomplishments.

Her upcoming book, Year of No Clutter, (March, 2017) reveals her deepest, darkest secret: clutter. In it, she details her struggle to transform herself from a self-described “clutter-gatherer” into a neat, organized person who can actually walk through every room of her house and does not feel the need to keep everything from childhood raincoats to cat fur. And yes, the family gets roped in on this one too.

Eve holds a BA and BFA from Cornell University, and a MFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology. At various times she has been a newspaper reporter, magazine columnist, and copy writer. She likes to say that she has written for everything but the classifieds section, but in truth she did that too.

(Author bio taken from her website: EveSchaub.com)

#BookReview: Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney @HQstories @alicewriterland

Posted on 17/03/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

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About the Book

My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me:

1. I’m in a coma.
2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore.
3. Sometimes I lie.

My Thoughts

This book was impossible to put down! I started reading it late in the evening and I got so engrossed that I was unaware of anything until four hours later when I finished the final chapter!

I love an unreliable narrator and you certainly get one of those in this novel! Amber Reynolds is in a coma so straight away you can’t be sure if she’s remembering things correctly, or if she’s remembering but not being honest and this is what hooked me in. The way we’re told three things about her and one of them is that she sometimes lies is genius!

This is a hard book to review because I really don’t want to give anything away. I will say that I was never sure who to trust in this novel at any point. Amber’s husband Paul behaves oddly, Amber’s relationship with her sister is strange but I could never quite put my finger on what was going on. The title Sometimes I Lie seems apt for quite a few characters, not just Amber – they’re all quite unreliable.

The way this novel is written hooks you in very quickly and it will keep you hooked all the way through. It’s very fast-paced and gripping, and easy to read. There are twists and turns as the book goes on and they will make your head spin! I can usually guess what’s going on in thrillers these days as I read so many of them but this book got me, I had no idea. The final third of this book left me feeling like I didn’t know which way was up and I loved it!

Sometimes I Lie is an original take on the thriller genre and won’t want to miss out on reading this brilliant, twisty, intense novel! It’s due to be published on 23 March and I highly recommend that you pre-order your copy now! Sometimes I lie is available from here.

About the Author

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Alice Feeney is a writer and journalist. She spent 16 years at the BBC, where she worked as a Reporter, News Editor, Arts and Entertainment Producer and One O’clock News Producer.

Alice is a Faber Academy graduate from the class of 2016. She has lived in London and Sydney and has now settled in the Surrey countryside, where she lives with her husband and dog.

Sometimes I Lie is her debut thriller and is being published around the world in 2017.

(Author information taken from: CurtisBrown.co.uk

#BookReview: The Last Act of Hattie Hoffman by Mindy Mejia #BlogTour @MejiaWrites @MeadOlivia

Posted on 16/03/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

About the Book

Eighteen-year-old Hattie Hoffman is a talented actress, loved by everyone in her Minnesotan hometown. When she’s found stabbed to death on the opening night of her school play, the tragedy rips through the fabric of the community.

Sheriff Del Goodman, a close friend of Hattie’s dad, vows to find her killer, but the investigation yields more secrets than answers: it turns out Hattie played as many parts offstage as on. Told from three perspectives, Del’s, Hattie’s high school English teacher and Hattie herself, The Last Act of Hattie Hoffman tells the story of the Hattie behind the masks, and what happened in that final year of her life. . .

My Thoughts

This novel opens with Hattie in an airport trying to get a flight out of her hometown. She fails in her endeavour and ends up alone in her car upset and trying to work out what on earth she will do next. From then on the novel has three narrators – Hattie, the local Sheriff Del, and Hattie’s teacher Peter. The book flits back and forth in time as we see what Hattie was up to in the months leading up to her death, and also in the days following her murder as the Sheriff, and others in her life, try to figure out who killed her and why.

A picture is gradually built up of Hattie and it’s very apparent that in many ways she was a typical teenage girl but also that she is much more ambitious for life than her peers. Hattie wants to move to New York and become an actress, and it’s this ambition that ultimately leads her astray. She joins online forums, and in her naivety about the way other people can hide themselves online, gets chatting to a man. This sets in motion a series of events that Hattie feels she is orchestrating but she doesn’t fully grasp that it’s not only her life that she is playing with.

The town Sheriff, Del, has known Hattie her whole life as he is very good friends with her father. This leads to us seeing Hattie through his eyes as a detective but also as a father-figure. It shows Hattie’s innocent side, and the depth of feeling that people had for her.

Peter’s narration is enlightening. He gets pulled into Hattie’s game but you never stop forgetting that he is her teacher and should take more care of her. He notices what she is doing with other people but doesn’t allow himself to truly see it, or perhaps doesn’t want to really to see it.

The title of this book is so perfect. Hattie’s last acting role is in Hamlet, where her character wears a white dress and ends up covered in blood, which is chillingly prescient, and behind the scenes she is pulling the strings to make things go her way. It feels like Hattie was a doomed character from the start- there is a real sense of fate in this novel, that she stepped on a path and it led her to her death. She wants to be an actress and spends her whole life playing the part that other people want her to be. She is one person with her friends, and another with her boyfriend. She doesn’t seem to know who she really is, while at the same time appearing all-knowing. This made me feel so sad for her, and even though you know from the beginning of this book that Hattie will be murdered, I couldn’t stop myself wishing that someone would notice something, would pull her off the path she was on, would save her. She really got under my skin and I feel like Hattie will stay with me for a long time to come.

I also loved the way that this novel bought the location of the book to life and the way that all the characters, even the more peripheral ones, felt real to me. By the end of the book I felt like I’d been to this town, that I knew these people in real life. The writing is beautiful and I already can’t wait to read what ever Mindy Mejia writes next.

This isn’t a fast-paced thriller but it is completely and utterly gripping and compelling. I read this in two sittings (and I really begrudged needing sleep otherwise I would have read it in one go!) and I still feel haunted by Hattie now, over a week after I finished reading.

I highly recommend The Last Act of Hattie Hoffman! The novel is out now and available from here.

I received a copy of this book from Quercus in exchange for an honest review.

About the Author

Mindy Mejia

Mindy received a BA from the University of Minnesota and an MFA from Hamline University. Apart from brief stops in Iowa City and Galway, she’s lived in the Twin Cities her entire life and held a succession of jobs from an apple orchard laborer to a global credit manager.

She’s currently working on a project set in Duluth and the Boundary Waters that may or may not be a trilogy.

(Taken from author’s website: MindyMejia.com

You can follow the rest of the Hattie Hoffman blog tour at the following dates and blogs:

Blog tour poster

#BookReview: It’s All Absolutely Fine by Ruby Elliot

Posted on 13/03/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

About the Book:

IT’S ALL ABSOLUTELY FINE is a darkly comic, honest and unapologetic illustrated account of the daily struggles with mental health. Ruby Elliot, aka Rubyetc, is the talent behind the hit tumblr account, ‘Rubyetc’, which has over 210k followers and growing. Taking readers on a journey through the ups and downs of life, the book will encompass everything from anxiety, bipolar disorder and body image to depression and identity, shining a light on very real problems – all framed with Ruby’s trademark humour and originality.

Ruby balances mental health with humour, making serious issues accessible – and very funny. With the superb talent to capture the essence of human emotion (and to make you laugh out loud), this book is as important and necessary as it is entertaining. IT’S ALL ABSOLUTELY FINE will include mostly never-before-seen material, both written and illustrated, and will be an empowering book that will make you laugh, make you think, and make things ok.

My Thoughts:

This book is so good. It’s an incredibly candid book about mental health – it looks at depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, OCD and eating disorders – and not only is it amusing and easy to read, it gives a genuine and honest insight into what it’s like to live with a mental illness.

I suffered with clinical depression as a teenager, and have had a battle with PTSD in more recent years. I’m now recovered from both, although I do have to be mindful of my triggers, but books about anxiety and mental health still appeal to me. I like to see what’s out there and to read it from a point of view of remembering how I felt at the time and whether a book would have been of use to me, and also from my current perspective. It’s good to consider whether a book is one I would recommend to someone going through this illness now, or if it would help someone who had no idea about mental health understand what it’s like. Some books hit one mark and not another because a target market has to be aimed at, and I do get that. This book, however, ticks all of the boxes for me. It’s absolutely brilliant.

This is a book predominantly told through illustrations and it packs such a punch with simple drawings. Some images made me hold my breath because I remember those moments of not being able to function, some images made me wryly smile because I remember being aware of how silly I felt at not being able to do something and yet still being unable to make myself do it. Ruby Elliot has written her own story in this book and as a result it is so easy to identify with; it’s told with great compassion and empathy for others whilst being so honest about her own emotions. You feel like you’re reading your own story.

I took a screen grab of a couple of pages from It’s All Absolutely Fine because they really resonated with me – partly, through remembering feeling like that in the depths of my anxiety, and partly because I have occasional days like this whilst dealing with my physical health. I’m including these two images in my review because they really do give such a great example of the humour and the complete empathy and understanding in this book.

This is such a candid book, Ruby Elliot doesn’t shy away from tackling what it’s really like to live with mental illness. This book is absolutely essential reading for anyone going through depression and/or anxiety, and for anyone who wants to understand what it’s like to live with these conditions. It’s a book that will help sufferers feel less alone but without feeling the pressure to sit and read a whole book during the times when everything feels too hard.

I read this in ebook format but I’m definitely going to be buying a print copy, and I will absolutely be recommending this book to so many people.

It’s All Absolutely Fine by Ruby Elliot is out now and available here.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

#BookReview: The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel @EmilyKitchin @HodderBooks

Posted on 10/03/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

About the Book:

Roanoke girls never last long around here. In the end, we either run or we die.

After her mother’s suicide, fifteen year-old Lane Roanoke came to live with her grandparents and fireball cousin, Allegra, on their vast estate in rural Kansas. Lane knew little of her mother’s mysterious family, but she quickly embraced life as one of the rich and beautiful Roanoke girls. But when she discovered the dark truth at the heart of the family, she ran fast and far away.

Eleven years later, Lane is adrift in Los Angeles when her grandfather calls to tell her Allegra has gone missing. Did she run too? Or something worse? Unable to resist his pleas, Lane returns to help search, and to ease her guilt at having left Allegra behind. Her homecoming may mean a second chance with the boyfriend whose heart she broke that long ago summer. But it also means facing the devastating secret that made her flee, one she may not be strong enough to run from again.

As it weaves between Lane s first Roanoke summer and her return, The Roanoke Girls shocks and tantalizes, twisting its way through revelation after mesmerizing revelation, exploring the secrets families keep and the fierce and terrible love that both binds them together and rips them apart.

My Thoughts:

I have to admit that I didn’t really know what this book was about when I received a surprise copy in the post. I’d seen photos of the book cover, which is gorgeous, on social media but I hadn’t really taken in what it was about. I’m actually quite glad that I didn’t know what it was about as the secret running through this story is a topic that may have led me to thinking this book wasn’t for me and that would have meant I’d have missed out on this brilliant novel.

The Roanoke Girls is a really intense, dark and claustrophobic read. The dry heat that stifles Lane when she moves to Kansas emanates from this book so that even though I was reading it on a cold winter day I could feel the heat on me. I felt like I was trapped in this small town with Lane, that I was almost in her head and could almost see what had happened to Allegra but couldn’t quite shake it free from the recesses of my mind.

This isn’t a fast-paced thriller; it’s more of a slow-burn noir that builds and builds until you feel like you can’t breathe (in a good way!). I was suspicious of everyone; there are lots of secrets in this book that are waiting to be discovered.

The cover of this novel is so perfect. It seems like a fairly innocuous, albeit very pretty and retro wallpaper that seemingly belies what the novel is actually about BUT that tear across the cover is so brilliant – the sneak peak of what lies beneath is just utter genius. The idea that something perfect and pretty can be damaged and ripped apart really does encapsulate what this novel is about.

The Roanoke girls seem to have a power over everyone they meet, they just captivate people, and they will get to you just the same. This book (and these girls) will weave a spell over you, it will pull you in and it won’t let you go until long after you’ve finished reading.

This book is disturbing and dark and twisted yet utterly brilliant! I highly recommend The Roanoke Girls and I already can’t wait to read whatever Amy Engel writes next.

I received a copy of this book from Hodder and Stoughton in exchange for an honest review.

About the Author

engel-hp-portrait

Amy Engel is the author of the young adult series The Book of Ivy. A former criminal defense attorney, she lives in Missouri with her family. The Roanoke Girls is her first novel for adults.

January Wrap-Up!

Posted on 02/02/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

Monthly Wrap Up post Copyrighted

January is always a tough month for me due to very sad memories but this year I focused on escaping into books as much as I could and as a result I’ve had a great reading month. Here are the 23 books I read in January….

Spiders from Mars by Woody Woodmansey (my review is here)

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

The Girl: A Life in the Shadow of Roman Polinski by Samantha Geimer

Everything You Told Me by Lucy Dawson (my review is here)

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher

Relativity by Antonia Hayes (my review is here)

Landline by Rainbow Rowell

How Much the Heart Can Hold by Carys Bray et al

Lies by TM Logan (my review is here)

Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller

Her Every Fear by Peter Swanson (my review is here)

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Loving the Life Less Lived by Gail Marie Mitchell (my review is here)

The One Memory of Flora Banks by Emily Barr

Hold Your Own by Kate Tempest

Howards End is on the Landing: My Year of Reading from Home by Susan Hill

Rattle by Fiona Cummins (my review is here)

The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber

The Girl Before by JP Delaney (my review is here)

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan

The Life of Rylan by Rylan Clark-Neal

Blood Wedding by Pierre Lemaitre

I managed to review eight of the above books, along with two the two titles below which I’d read at the end of 2016 but didn’t get a chance to review them at the time. Click the titles to read the reviews if you’d like to:

Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough

While You Were Sleeping by Kathryn Croft

I’m planning reviews for at least a few more of the above books so hopefully they’ll be up on my blog soon.

I also wrote blog posts about my Top Ten Fiction and Top Ten Non-Fiction reads of 2016. I shared my Reading Bingo 2016 results, which was a lot of fun. I hadn’t planned my reading to fit the bingo challenge so I was thrilled to find that I got a full house! I also wrote a post about my Christmas Book Haul.

the-state-of-my

I then confessed to the State of my TBR and my plans to reduce it this year. I started the year with 1885 books (that I already own) on my TBR and as of the end of January my TBR stands at 1901 (not including the 6 books I’m currently reading). In fairness, I have read quite a few books off my TBR in January but I also had my birthday and my lovely husband bought me 21 books! I feel like I’m doing well with my TBR considering how many books I added to it with gifts and review books. I really hope to get my TBR back to around 1885 this month and then I’ll be (sort of) back on track to try and reduce it.

One of my other aims this year was to read some of the longer books that have been languishing on my shelves for a long time and I’m sticking to that so far. In January I read two books that were over 500 pages each – The Poisonwood Bible and The Book of Strange New Things so I’m pleased with that. I’m also currently reading The Luminaries, which is almost 900 pages long. It’s important to me to read books that I’ve owned for a long time and still not read so I need to focus on that a bit more this month.

I’ve used Goodreads to track my reading for quite a few years now and I’ll continue to do so but I recently found a spreadsheet online where I can track my reading in more detail. I’m finding it fascinating to see where my habits lie when it comes to the books I read. This is the lovely YouTuber who kindly shared her spreadsheet Portal in the Pages

How was your January? Did you read any good books? Please tell me what your favourite book from January was, and if you have a January wrap-up post on your blog please feel free to share the link below.

#BookReview: The Girl Before by JP Delaney

Posted on 27/01/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

About the Book

Please make a list of every possession you consider essential to your life.

The request seems odd, even intrusive—and for the two women who answer, the consequences are devastating.

Emma
Reeling from a traumatic break-in, Emma wants a new place to live. But none of the apartments she sees are affordable or feel safe. Until One Folgate Street. The house is an architectural masterpiece: a minimalist design of pale stone, plate glass, and soaring ceilings. But there are rules. The enigmatic architect who designed the house retains full control: no books, no throw pillows, no photos or clutter or personal effects of any kind. The space is intended to transform its occupant—and it does.

Jane
After a personal tragedy, Jane needs a fresh start. When she finds One Folgate Street she is instantly drawn to the space—and to its aloof but seductive creator. Moving in, Jane soon learns about the untimely death of the home’s previous tenant, a woman similar to Jane in age and appearance. As Jane tries to untangle truth from lies, she unwittingly follows the same patterns, makes the same choices, crosses paths with the same people, and experiences the same terror, as the girl before.

My Thoughts

I was really intrigued by the synopsis to this book and simply had to request it as soon as I spotted it on NetGalley. The initial sentence of the synopsis about making a list of all the possessions you consider essential to your life just made me want to read more!

This is such a fast-paced read, I flew through the first half of the book when I’d only intended to read a couple of chapters to decide whether this would be my next read. I love how the book is told in a dual timeline – the girl before Emma in the past and then Jane in the present day. It’s really well put together that we see Emma view the house and then we see Jane doing the same thing but each time we switch character the story advances a bit more and it really hooks you in. You want to know what happens to Emma and whether Jane will suffer the same fate.

The house in this book is a character in its own right, which was really interesting. I could picture the house so clearly and even though it sounded very cold and sterile the way Jane and Emma felt safe there made me intrigued. I’m not sure that I would have felt safe having every aspect of my home controlled by an app… having said that it did make me think about how much of my own home is wifi dependent.

A lot of the premise of this book is down to control. The house is controlled by the owner, and therefore whoever lives there is at his mercy. There was elements of control in some of the romantic relationships the women were involved in. That was all great and I love the way the story hinged on control. The downside for me was the sex scenes; it all just felt a bit unnecessary. It actually seemed like Edward was written the way he was in a deliberate attempt to gain comparisons to Fifty Shades of Grey and it felt a bit gimmicky.

On the whole though this was a really good read. It did keep me hooked; you can’t beat a twisty thriller with unreliable narrators! I worked out what was going on before the characters did but I still wanted to keep reading to see exactly how it all panned out. I’d recommend this book to anyone who loves a fast-paced thriller.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The Girl Before is out now and available here.

#BookReview: Rattle by Fiona Cummins

Posted on 24/01/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

About the Book

He has planned well. He leads two lives. In one he’s just like anyone else. But in the other he is the caretaker of his family’s macabre museum.

Now the time has come to add to his collection. He is ready to feed his obsession, and he is on the hunt.

Jakey Frith and Clara Foyle have something in common. They have what he needs.

What begins is a terrifying cat-and-mouse game between the sinister collector, Jakey’s father and Etta Fitzroy, a troubled detective investigating a spate of abductions.

Set in London’s Blackheath, Rattle by Fiona Cummins explores the seam of darkness that runs through us all; the struggle between light and shadow, redemption and revenge.

It is a glimpse into the mind of a sinister psychopath. And it’s also a story about not giving up hope when it seems that all hope is already lost.

My Thoughts

I was nervous of requesting this book as I’m such a wimp and don’t like being scared. I’d started to see reviews around of it though and it was really drawing me to want to read the book and find out more. I’m so glad I got a copy as it’s such a brilliant read.

The bone collector is such a creepy character. He’s a tall, thin man who can make himself almost invisible in the way he blends in. The idea of him being like a scary character within a storybook, and then somehow seemingly coming to life around Jakey with strange nightmare-like unexplained happenings, but also in that he’s a real person is enough to send shivers down anyone’s spine. He exists in reality and has a life outside of the horror he’s committing. I think he’s one of the most psychopathic characters I’ve read in a really long time.

I love how the book starts off with you not being sure who the creepy man is. There is the story of a little girl Clara going missing, and alongside that the story of Jakey. At the stage where you don’t know how, or even if, the children are connected it leaves you feeling very unsettled. The pain that a family must go through when a child is missing is palpable in this novel, and that added to the building sense of horror as we, the reader, know what is happening to the child really ramps up the tension.

This book reminded me a little of Mo Hayder’s novels in the way the horror slowly creeps up on you and then leaves you feeling very, very unsettled and unnerved but unable to stop reading.

Rattle is dark and twisted and very, very creepy but I loved it. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys unnerving novels that creep up on you.

Rattle is due to be published on 26 January and is available to pre-order here.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

#BookReview: Loving the Life Less Lived by @GailMitchell42 #blogtour @RedDoorBooks

Posted on 23/01/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

9781910453261

About the Book

An essential companion for anyone dealing with mental illness.
Like many people, Gail Marie Mitchell battled with anxiety and depression for many years, finding it exhausting, stressful and demoralising at times.

Realising that this approach to her condition was futile, Gail chose a different approach: acceptance.

Taking control in this way removed some of the pressure and enabled Gail to focus on developing coping strategies, creating the tips and tools that are included in this empathetic and practical book.

Gail focuses on the positive aspects of her condition, showing how a person living with mental illness is so much more than the label that society puts on them. She found acceptance empowering, enabling her to live her life to the full. Perhaps not the life she had planned, but one that is happy and fulfilling and that she loves. She is Loving the Life Less Lived.

By sharing her experiences and describing what she learnt from them as well as the resulting coping strategies, Gail has created an essential companion for anyone dealing with mental illness and their family and friends.

My Thoughts

When I was offered the chance to read and review this book for the blog tour I agreed for two reasons. The first being that I want to read more non-fiction this year and it was nice to be offered a non-fiction book for review. The second and main reason though was because I have suffered with PTSD in the fairly recent past, and I had clinical depression many years ago so always feel like I can offer an insight into books about this illness.

Loving the Life Less Lived has two elements to it weaved together throughout the book. The parts of the book that I enjoyed the most were the Toolbox ideas. Gail has compiled, in bitesize chunks, all the things that have helped her through her depression and anxiety over the years. Some are rooted in CBT and structured to help in recovering, others are hints and tips that will help sufferers who just need help to get through that day, or moment. I would recommend the toolbox sections to anyone who is suffering at the moment, and also to anyone who has a loved one who is going through depression and anxiety for ideas on how you can help support them.

The other part of the book is more of a memoir detailing Gail’s journey through her depression. This was harder to read, possibly because I’ve been through it and it reminded me of those dark days, but it does show the reality of what living with depression is like. Gail is incredibly honest throughout this book and I applaud that. She doesn’t sugarcoat how she felt in the situations life has thrown at her and I think it’s important to be open when writing a book like this.

Gail talks about the seemingly insurmountable goal her mum set her in giving her a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge. Her mum told her that she would one day get herself better and to see the bridge in person, and this was at a time when Gail could barely leave her own house, but whilst that goal was too big to even contemplate Gail was able to work on much smaller steps that were on the way to potentially reaching the big goal. She talks about the gradual recovery from depression and then the relapses that followed but ultimately Gail does regain a level of mental health. So whilst this book doesn’t shy away from the dark depths of depression it does give a sense of hope. It’s important that books of this nature do paint a realistic picture but also that there is some light at the end of the tunnel.

As I wrote earlier, I would recommend this book to anyone who is going through depression and/or anxiety, or to anyone living with someone who has depression and/or anxiety, in particular for all of the Toolbox ideas.

Thank you to Red Door Publishing for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Loving the Life Less Lived is due to be published on 26 January and can be pre-order here

About the Author

gail-marie-mitchell

I’m a writer and I live with mental illness. Those two facts are the main motivation behind this website but they are only a small part of who I am and what my life is about.

I say I live with mental illness, I don’t suffer from it, I don’t battle with it (although for many years I did until I learnt the futility of the fight). I was first diagnosed with depression twenty five years ago and have been variously diagnosed with social anxiety disorder, generalised anxiety disorder and depression ever since. At times I manage my condition well using a toolboxof resources that I have discovered and developed over my lifetime. At other times I crash and burn, I have left upwards of ten jobs due to my mental health issues and spent many months and years on and off of benefits, hiding in my house unable to face the world or complete even the most simple tasks.

I have always been a writer, maybe not published, maybe not successful, but since the earliest age I have written poems, stories and articles in an attempt to make sense of this confused and broken world we live in. This led me to write Loving the Life Less Lived.

That’s not all about me – I qualified as a Chartered Accountant, I have worked as a Secondary School Teacher, I am a member of Mensa I have travelled around Europe, the Middle East and North America. I have taught in the favelas of Brazil, I am married, I am a fairy Godmother I am so much more than a medical label given by psychiatrists and GPs. I am not cured – but I am at present relatively stable. I work as a bookkeeper/accountant, write in my spare time and enjoy life to the full. It isn’t the life I planned, it is The Life Less Lived and it is immeasurably more than I could ever have asked for or imagined.

(Bio taken from the author’s website: lovingthelifelesslived.com

You can follow the rest of the blog tour here:

ltlll-blog-tour-poster

#BookReview: Her Every Fear by Peter Swanson

Posted on 19/01/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

About the Book

Growing up, Kate Priddy was always a bit neurotic, experiencing momentary bouts of anxiety that exploded into full-blown panic attacks after an ex-boyfriend kidnapped her and nearly ended her life. When Corbin Dell, a distant cousin in Boston, suggests the two temporarily swap apartments, Kate, an art student in London, agrees, hoping that time away in a new place will help her overcome the recent wreckage of her life.

Soon after her arrival at Corbin’s grand apartment on Beacon Hill, Kate makes a shocking discovery: his next-door neighbor, a young woman named Audrey Marshall, has been murdered. When the police question her about Corbin, a shaken Kate has few answers, and many questions of her own—curiosity that intensifies when she meets Alan Cherney, a handsome, quiet tenant who lives across the courtyard, in the apartment facing Audrey’s. Alan saw Corbin surreptitiously come and go from Audrey’s place, yet he’s denied knowing her. Then, Kate runs into a tearful man claiming to be the dead woman’s old boyfriend, who insists Corbin did the deed the night that he left for London.

When she reaches out to her cousin, he proclaims his innocence and calms her nerves–until she comes across disturbing objects hidden in the apartment and accidentally learns that Corbin is not where he says he is. Could Corbin be a killer? What about Alan? Kate finds herself drawn to this appealing man who seems so sincere, yet she isn’t sure. Jet-lagged and emotionally unstable, her imagination full of dark images caused by the terror of her past, Kate can barely trust herself, so how could she take the chance on a stranger she’s just met?

My Thoughts

I read and loved Peter Swanson’s The Kind Worth Killing when it first came out so when I heard about this new book I knew I had to read it as soon as I could possibly get my hands on a copy.

I have to admit here that whilst I love a good psychological thriller, I don’t like being scared! I’m such a wimp and there are certain things that set my nerves totally on edge. This book pushed all of those buttons for me and had me completely creeped out and I absolutely loved it! I couldn’t put this book down. I read the last third of it in bed late at night and I was so freaked out that if I wasn’t reading on my Kindle Voyage I may well have had to put it in the freezer (a la Joey in Friends) but at no point could I stop myself reading.

This book is not really a whodunnit, or even a whydunnit, it’s very much a howdunnit and it’s brilliantly done. I was literally on the edge of my seat on more than one occasion whilst reading this.

I loved how this book started off all quite normally with a house swap between two second cousins who had never met but their parents knew each other. Kate has been through terrible trauma a few years previously and this is her starting to spread her wings again to prove to herself that she can live a full life despite what happened to her. I’m fascinated by books where a character has suffered trauma as I’ve been through it myself so can say from experience that the way she is is very true and believable.

Corbin, Kate’s cousin, seems a little off from very early on and the story gradually builds up to why he seems off. From then on we’re left feeling very unsure about what his connection is to the murdered woman, who lives in the apartment next to him in Boston.

The story is told from a few viewpoints and at times we get part of the story from one character and then the same period of time is then narrated from someone else’s perspective. This was how the book creeped me out so much. The idea that you’re going about your life and feeling ok and safe but you have no idea what someone else is doing or where they are, even when they may well be very close by. Just the very idea of someone watching you when you have no idea that they’re there is enough to put anyone’s nerves on edge.

I finished reading this book in one day and I’m still thinking about it days later. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who loves suspense thrillers, and to anyone who loves Hitchcock’s films (this book would make a great film!).

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Her Every Fear is out now and available from: Book Depository (Her Every Fear)

#BookReview: Relativity by Antonia Hayes #BlogTour

Posted on 17/01/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

About the Book

Ethan is a bright young boy obsessed with physics and astronomy who lives with his mother, Claire. Claire has been a wonderful parent to Ethan, but he’s becoming increasingly curious about his father’s absence in his life, wanting to fill in the gaps.

Claire’s life is centred on Ethan; she is fiercely protective of her talented, vulnerable son, and of her own feelings. When Ethan falls ill, tied to a tragic event from when he was a baby, Claire’s tightly held world is split open.

On the other side of the country, Mark is trying to forget about the events that tore his family apart. Then a sudden and unexpected call home forces him to confront his past, and the hole in his life that was once filled with his wife Claire and his son Ethan.

When Ethan secretly intercepts a letter from Mark to Claire, he unleashes long-suppressed forces that – like gravity – pull the three together again, testing the limits of love and forgiveness.

My Thoughts

Sometimes a book comes into your life at just the right time, and the very minute you start reading you find yourself completely and utterly swept away in it… Relativity is one of those books for me. It’s a beautiful and incredibly moving book about a young boy, Ethan, who is trying to understand the world around him and his family situation. His life is complicated – his dad left when he was four months old and he knows nothing about him. His mum is a wonderful mum but she won’t tell him about his dad, and Ethan is at that age where he wants to know more.

Running through the novel is a lot of astronomy and physics and it’s all so beautifully woven into the story. It’s like the universe is echoing what is happening to Ethan and his mum Claire throughout the novel, and it adds an extra dimension (no pun intended!) to the pain and struggle that they are going through.

Ethan had a brain injury as a young baby and he seems to have been unaffected by it as he’s got older but then one day he has a seizure out of nowhere and this is the catalyst to him finding out more about his past. It also leads to a belief within the medical profession that this injury may have made Ethan special and unique in the world. At the same time as this is going on, we get to know a bit more about Ethan’s father, Mark. Mark is back in the same city as Ethan and Claire as his father is dying, and this leads to Mark wanting to get back in contact with his son.

Relativity at its heart is a very moving novel about the way one split-second act can change the course of many people’s lives, it’s about the way we remember our pasts and about how we have to find to learn to live with the fall out when secrets and lies are revealed. This is a novel will break your heart but it will also mend it.

The characters in this book came to feel like real people to me and I was genuinely bereft to finish the book and leave them behind. I keep finding them swirling around in my mind and wondering how they are. I love when a novel has this power over me.

On a personal note, I’ve never hidden the fact that in the past I suffered from cPTSD and that whilst I consider myself recovered now, I do always have to be mindful of my specific triggers. This novel was one that I probably wouldn’t have read if I’d known that part of the story involved seizures, and when I got to the part of the book where Ethan collapsed I almost stopped reading to protect myself. However, I was already so involved in with these characters that I wanted to know what would happen in the end so I kept reading and I genuinely feel like this novel has mended another little bit of me that I thought would always be broken. There are some really difficult subjects dealt with in this novel and all of it is handled so well, so carefully, and yet never shies away from the realities.

I would recommend this novel to everyone. It has so much depth to it and is so engrossing, and is one of those books that stays with you long after you’ve finished reading. Please go read it!

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Relativity is published in paperback today!

About the Author

hayes-antonia-credit-angelo-sgambati

Antonia Hayes, who grew up in Sydney and spent her twenties in Paris, currently lives in London with her husband and son. Relativity is her first novel.

#BookReview: Lies by TM Logan

Posted on 16/01/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

About the Book

WHAT IF YOUR WHOLE LIFE WAS BASED ON LIES?

A gripping new psychological thriller of secrets and revenge.

When Joe Lynch sees his wife enter an underground car park in the middle of the day, he’s intrigued enough to follow her down.

And when he sees her in an angry altercation with family friend Ben, he naturally goes to her defence – and doesn’t for a minute believe the accusations Ben makes against her.

It’s pure misfortune that, just as the clash becomes violent and Ben is knocked unconscious, Joe’s son has an asthma attack, and Joe has to take him to safety.

My Thoughts

I was initially drawn to the cover of this book and then once I read the synopsis I knew it was one I had to read.

Lies is the story of an average man, who lives an average life and is perfectly happy with his lot. Then one day he sees his wife somewhere that she shouldn’t be and the story ramps up from there.

I did work out how this novel going to end part-way through, apart from one aspect of it, but it was actually really satisfying to be right and thinking back over the novel it did feel like all the clues were laid out for me to figure it all out. Sometimes thrillers have an ending that it’s impossible to work out and it can leave you feeling like it was just plucked from the ether but not this novel. It has a satisfying ending too, which I appreciated.

None of the characters in this book were particularly likeable but that really worked within the story because it meant that I really didn’t know who to trust throughout the novel.

I did find myself getting a bit annoyed at certain points in the novel where a character (no spoilers) seems quite tech-savvy in one moment and then in the next misses a really obvious thing that they could do, which would really help them. It took me out of the story a little when this happened but it’s possibly just me being picky and maybe the character just isn’t thinking logically due to the stress of the situation.

This is a novel that makes you think about the things you put out on social media, and whether you can ever really know a person just by what they write on their Facebook page. It also makes you think about the decisions you make and how things may have ended up completely different if you’d just not seen something, or reacted in a certain way. It highlights how those decisions we make in an instant can have such far-reaching consequences. I really enjoyed this aspect of the book.

This is a very fast-paced thriller. The story moves forward in every chapter and it never slows down for a second. It did have me hooked and wanting to know what was going to happen next. This isn’t a complex thriller but it is fun, quick read that I would recommend and I’m looking forward to reading whatever TM Logan publishes next.

I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Lies is due to be released in ebook format on 17 January, and in paperback on 4 May 2017.

Weekly Wrap-Up (15 Jan)

Posted on 15/01/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

I’ve had a really good reading and blogging week this week so I’m happy at that. My real life has been a bit up and down with another bad fall on Friday that has increased my pain levels. It could have been so much worse though as I had a glass in my hand at the time but thankfully didn’t cut myself. The increased pain has meant I’ve not managed to be around on social media, or to reply to comments on my blog as much as I would have liked to have been over the weekend. I will get around to replying as soon as I can but please know that I do always very much appreciate comments and shares.

This week I’ve finished reading five books:

Relativity by Antonia Hayes (review book)

Landline by Rainbow Rowell

How Much The Heart Can Hold by Carys Bray et al. (review book)

Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller (review book)

Lies by TM Logan (review book)

This week I’ve blogged seven times:

Sunday: Weekly Wrap-Up (8 Jan)

Monday: 2017 Reading Plans and the State of My TBR

Tuesday: Review of Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough

Wednesday: WWW Wednesday (11 Jan)

Thursday: Review of Everything You Told Me by Lucy Dawson

Friday: Review of Spider from Mars: My Life with Bowie by Woody Woodmansey

Saturday: Stacking the Shelves (14 Jan)

This is what I’m currently reading:

Loving the Life Less Lived by Gail Marie Mitchell (review book)

The Age of Bowie by Paul Morley

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Howards End is on the Landing: A Year of Reading from Home by Susan Hill

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Her Every Fear by Peter Swanson (review book)

Last week I wrote a post about the state of my TBR and how I wanted to try and focus on reading the books I already own this year. You can read that post here. To keep myself motivated I’m going to update my numbers as part of my weekly wrap-up post from now on.

Update on my TBR

TBR at the start of January 2017: 1885

Books added this week: 4

TBR now stands at: 1887 (due to my having now started reading two more books off my TBR since the four new books were added)

What have you been reading this week? Please feel free to link to your weekly wrap-up post, or if you don’t have a blog please share in the comments below! I love to hear what you’re all reading.

SundayBlogShare

I’m linking this post up to Kimberly at Caffeinated Book Reviewer’s Sunday Blog Share. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead.

#BookReview | Spider from Mars: My Life with David Bowie by Woody Woodmansey

Posted on 13/01/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

About the Book

In January 2016, the unexpected death of David Bowie rocked the globe. For millions of people, he was an icon celebrated for his music, his film and theatrical roles, and his trendsetting influence on fashion and gender norms. But no one from her inner circle has told the story of how David Jones—a young folksinger, dancer, and aspiring mime—became one of the most influential artists of our time.
Drummer Woody Woodmansey is the last surviving member of Bowie’s band The Spiders from Mars which helped launch his Ziggy Stardust persona and made David Bowie a sensation.
In this first memoir to follow Bowie’s passing, Spider from Mars reveals what it was like to be at the white-hot center of a star’s self-creation. With never-before-told stories and never-before-seen photographs, Woodmansey offers details of the album sessions for The Man Who Sold the World, Hunky Dory, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, and Aladdin Sane: the four albums that made Bowie a cult figure. And, as fame beckoned by eventually consumed Bowie, Woodmansey recalls the wild tours, eccentric characters, and rock ‘n’ roll excess that eventually drove the band apart.
A vivid and unique evocation of a transformative musical era and the enigmatic, visionary musician at the center of it, with a foreword by legendary music producer Tony Visconti and an afterword from Def Leppard’s Joe Elliot, Spider from Mars is for everyone who values David Bowie, by one of the people who knew him best.

My Thoughts

I couldn’t resist requesting this book when it was available on NetGalley. I’m a huge David Bowie fan and love every era of his including Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. Woody Woodmansey is from a place near where I’m originally from so I feel like I was aware of the Spiders from Mars from a really young age.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a real insight into Woody’s life and his time with the Spiders from Mars. It’s a candid look back over the years and it felt very open and honest. The way the Spiders came to be and how Woody end up a part of the band was really interesting. It’s obvious that there was a genuine camaraderie between the band and Bowie during their early days together, and I loved reading the stories. I enjoyed reading about David Bowie their recording process and how the songs came to be.

There are a lot of funny stories in this memoir too – the way the band felt when Bowie first suggested some of the more outrageous stage outfits is amusing. The ways they would wind each other up in the early days just shows how for a time they were just normal young men in a band trying to make it big. There is a real warmth in the way Woodmansey tells his story.

Bowie famously killed off Ziggy Stardust on stage at the Hammersmith Apollo on the last night of the tour, which came as a shock to the Spiders from Mars and Woodmansey gives his side of the story in this memoir. It obviously became quite tumultuous for everyone as David Bowie’s fame grew and the cracks began to show between him and the rest of the Spiders from Mars, which is plain to see was very painful for Woodmansey.

It’s incredibly moving to read about the deaths of members of the Spiders from Mars – Mick Ronson and later Trevor Bolder, and I hadn’t realised before that Woodmansey’s current band Holy Holy were on tour in America when the news broke that David Bowie had died. The chapter covering how he found out and his reflections on his friend were incredibly moving – it really did make me cry.

This memoir is about Woody Woodmansey looking back at his life and in particular his time in the Spiders from Mars, and David Bowie is a part of that but it’s very much Woodmansey’s life story. It’s another perspective on that incredible period of time in music. There are also some great photos in this book that I hadn’t seen before and I loved having the chance to see those.

After finishing the book I immediately had to listen to the albums from this period out of the Five Years vinyl boxset to really immerse myself, yet again, in the amazing music of David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars

I received a copy of the book from the publisher via NetGalley.

Spider from Mars: My Life with David Bowie is out now and available from all good book shops.

#BookReview: Everything You Told Me by Lucy Dawson

Posted on 12/01/2017 by Hayley at RatherTooFondofBooks

About the Book

You went to bed at home, just like every other night.
You woke up in the back of a taxi, over 250 miles away.
You have no idea how you got there and no memory of the last ten hours.
You have no phone, no money; just a suicide note in your coat pocket, in your own writing.
You know you weren’t planning to kill yourself.
Your family and friends think you are lying.

Someone knows exactly what happened to you.
But they’re not telling…

My Thoughts

A few weeks ago I received a taxi receipt in the post with a note asking if I’d dropped it. I’ll be honest, it initially made my heart race especially when this receipt had my address on it and was for £400! I then suspected (and hoped!) that it might be marketing for a book so I took to twitter to try and find out more. I eventually discovered that it was a brilliant marketing campaign for a forthcoming book, Everything You Told Me. So by this point I was eagerly anticipating the book arriving so I could find out more!

Everything I Told You is a domestic tale with a psychological thriller angle and I raced through it. I am always intrigued by novels that have an element of memory loss, and I love books with an unreliable narrator – this book had both and I love the way it kept me on my toes.

Sally has no idea how she ended up in Cornwall but she is sure that someone tried to harm her. She has no proof but she soon begins to work out what she think has happened. The problem is that because she has no evidence the people around her just think she is very unwell and so no one believes her. Her family rally round to look after her thinking she is just struggling through lack of sleep and the stress and worry that goes with having a young baby.

I did work out what was going on in this book quite early on but I still enjoyed how the plot unfolded as I raced to the end to see if I was right in my theory. There was still a surprise or two at the end of this book for me, which I didn’t see coming and I’m not sure if it was possible to work out that it was going there but I still enjoyed the last twist.

I always enjoy Lucy Dawson’s novels. I find them very fast-paced, easy reads that keep me hooked all the way through. I’d recommend this to anyone who enjoys domestic fiction with a thriller edge to it.

I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Everything I Told You is out now and available from all good book shops!

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This week I’ve finished reading five books:

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