You Were Made For This by Michelle Sacks

Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Year Of Publication: 28th June 2018
Publisher: HQ
Pages: 400 (Paperback)
My rating: 4/5

Her face was twisted, the hurt spreading like a rash, red and raging. Woman in flames. Burn, I thought, burn.

Told in multiple POVs, “You Were Made for This” tells the story of Sam, Merry and their infant son Connor who move from their hectic lives in New York to the picturesque Swedish countryside where they intend to lead a comfortable,family-centered lifestyle.

Little do they know that their entire world is about to tip off of its axis…

Bring Me Back by B.A. Paris

Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Year Of Publication: 19th June 2018
Publisher: HQ
Pages: 384 (Paperback)
My rating: 3.5/5

One of my greatest pleasures was seeing your shoes in the hall, your little size fives next to my enormous thirteens. I loved it when you slipped your shoes inside mine, because they easily fitted. To me it was physical proof that I was carrying you through tough times.
Except that when life had got tough, I hadn’t carried you at all.

Layla and Finn are on their way back to Britain from a skiing trip in France when Layla disappears into thin air after a heated altercation she has with Finn in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere.
Twelve years later, there’s still no sign of Layla but Finn seems to have moved on and has gotten engaged to her sister, Ellen.
Their life seems idyllic and picture perfect but soon things start to change when Russian nesting dolls (a.k.a. Matryoshka) start mysteriously appearing around them.
Only Finn and Ellen know the significance these dolls hold in connection to Layla.

Is it Layla, back from the dead?

Or is this a cruel joke being played by someone who knows what happened the night Layla disappeared…..

Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor

Genre: Mystery,Contemporary
Year Of Publication: 6th April 2017
Publisher: 4th Estate
Pages: 384 (Paperback)
My rating: 4.5/5

“The missing girl’s name was Rebecca, or Becky, or Bex. In the photo her face was half turned away from the camera as though she didn’t want to be seen, as though she wanted to be somewhere else. She would be twenty years old by now but she was always spoken of as a girl. It had been seven years, and there was talk that now she would legally have to be declared dead. This turned out to have no basis in law, according to a statement released by the police. Any such declaration would always depend on the circumstances. The girl’s parents had never stopped looking and the police statement confirmed that the case remained open. In the village people looked up to the hills and felt that they’d long known. She could have walked high over the moor and stumbled into a flooded clough and sunk cold and deep in the wet peat before the dogs and thermal cameras came anywhere near, her skin tanned leather-brown and soft and her hair coiled neatly around her. She could have fallen anywhere and be lying there still.”

Reservoir 13 has a very clever beginning but no convenient end.

With beautiful and abundant descriptions and varying perspectives, Jon McGregor gives us insight into the lives of strangers of an unnamed village in the Peak District of England, when 13 year old Rebecca Shaw goes missing while on a holiday with her family.

A search for her takes place.
But no trace can be found.
It’s as if she disappeared into thin air.

The reader is then thrust amidst the multiple character’s lives and how the tragedy affects (or doesn’t affect) their daily ongoings.
For some characters, it is the pinnacle of realisation on the direction their lives will take, while for others it is a nondescript backdrop for the chaos that currently ensues in their lives.

Kate Morton – The Queen of Historical Fiction

Today I found out that Kate Morton is publishing her sixth book in September (!!!) and, so I thought it was about time I did an appreciation post about all of the reasons why I absolutely love her books and why everyone should read them.

*yes.
I am staring at you from the other side of the screen.
yes.
I am silently urging you to read these books and judging you because you haven’t yet….*

White Bodies by Jane Robins

Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Year Of Publication: 28th December 2017
Publisher: HQ
Pages: 384 (Hardback)
My rating: 5/5

“Oh, everyone wants someone murdered”, she says.

White Bodies by Jane Robins is a psychological tale of an obsessive relationship between twin sisters – Callie and Tilda Farrow.

Callie is enamored by her famous sister Tilda- a successful actress,and idolizes her to the extent that all else around her becomes irrelevant. Callie’s obsession later manifests in disturbing ways that no one could have predicted but is crucial in understanding how she rationalizes with herself and how she justifies the steps taken later on in the story.

“I look at the pages and feel deeply satisfied, as though by writing about Tilda I’m less dominated by her.”

Tilda on the other hand feeds on the attention she gets and manipulates people in ways they never see coming. A true psychopath, she dons a personality to suit the role she plays in life and around the people she exploits.

“I see death as terrifying and mesmerising- I imagine the ecstasy of that total, ultimate release.”

With both sisters equally vindictive and insane the reader is caught in a whirlwind of deception and mystery when Felix – Tilda’s boyfriend,is mysteriously found dead in his hotel room. With no witnesses and no trace of drugs the police refuse to investigate the case.

Could it merely be a heart attack, or is there a far more sinister reason behind his death?

“I’m the most interesting”, Felix says.”I’m in the middle, and can go either way. Who knows what I’ll do?”.

The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo

 

Genre: Romance, Contemporary
Year Of Publication: 18th May 2017
Publisher: HQ
Pages: 321 (Hardback)
My rating: 4/5

“There’s something about death that makes people want to live. We wanted to live that day, and I don’t blame us for it. Not anymore.”

Lucy meets Gabe as their world is falling apart.

Literally.

No one could have predicted that in the aftermath of 9/11 two seniors at Columbia University would find love in the most unconventional and unpredictable of circumstances.
But they do, and soon they’re falling for each other in ways they never knew possible…

The Unpredictability of Being Human by Linni Ingemundsen

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary.
Year Of Publication: 28th December 2017
Publisher: Usborne Publishing
Pages: 272 (Paperback)
My rating: 2.5/5

“Because sometimes okay is enough.”

Malin is fifteen years old and she isn’t your average teenager.
She sees the world differently, but soon she’ll uncover things about herself and her family that’ll leave her speechless.
How will she cope with the harsh realities of life and death?
Will her innocent outlook on life be forever shattered or will it  help shield her from the dark realities that surround her…

Rosehead by Ksenia Anske

Genre: Young Adult, Horror, Fantasy.
Year Of Publication: 20th March 2014
Publisher: Ksenia Anske
Pages: 318 (Paperback)
My rating: 5/5

“Upon hearing a scary noise, most children typically scream and flee. Not Lilith. Excited by the prospect of solving a mystery, she ran after Panther, deeper and deeper into the sea of roses.”  (pg.24)

Lilith Bloom finds herself being dragged to her grandfather’s mansion in Berlin for a family reunion.
Little does she know about the things that await her in the gardens…… 

2017 : Yearly Recap

2017 was an Year of Achievements!

I reached my first 1K followers on Bookstagram, started a BookTube channel (work in progress), my Blog turned 1(!!!) and got featured in a local magazine, I had the pleasure of interviewing two wonderful authors and like always I bought a ton of books and tried reading as many of them as I could 🙂

My goal for The Goodreads Reading Challenge 2017 was 25 books and like always I exceeded my set goal by reading 34 books (there was one book that I had to DNF otherwise it would’ve been 35 books, but more on that below…). 

This year was particularly unique because I purely read actual physical copies – so that meant I didn’t read ebooks, or listen to audiobooks. While I did miss the convenience of the digital copies I realized that I quite liked the experience – you won’t believe the amount of random conversations I had and the new friends I made just because they were intrigued by the book they saw me reading!

So to bring 2017 officially to an end (even though it’s already the 13th of Jan.’18 as I write this…) I thought I’d do a brief recap of the books that made me CRINGE and the ones that were the ABSOLUTE BEST in 2017.

A place called Perfect by Helena Duggan

Genre: Young Adult.
Year Of Publication: 1st August 2017
Publisher: Usborne Publishing Ltd.
Pages: 368 (Paperback)
My rating: 5/5

When Mr. Brown gets a job as an optician in the picturesque town of Perfect the Browns decide it’s too great an opportunity to miss out on and so they move their entire family to the little town.
Their ten year old daughter Violet isn’t happy with the move. She never wanted to leave her old life behind and doesn’t like the way everyone and everything in Perfect is … umm….well….perfect.
Soon her suspicions about the seedy town are confirmed when her family’s eyesight begins to weaken and soon they go blind. Luckily the Mr. Archers come to their rescue and  give them all a pair of rose-tinted glasses.
With their eyesight restored everything is back to normal.

Or is it?