Erik Therme

I came across this author in a review group. I love his style.

Roam

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My review - 

Sarah and her boyfriend Matt have a fight on her birthday when her car breaks down. She finds him threatening and frightening and decides to walk off to find help. She’s offered a lift by two younger boys, which she isn’t keen to accept. One of them, Kevin, the car owner, offers to take her home but she wants to go to see her childhood friend. The night seems to stagger from one disaster to another.

There’s a theme here, it seem to me, about our evaluation of people. Are they who they want us to think they are, or who we remember them as? Do we ever really know? With a small cast of well-drawn characters, this plot reeled me in and I cared about what would happened to Sarah, Matt and Kevin. A very good, engaging and enjoyable story.

Shalini Boland

This is an author whose work I've thoroughly enjoyed each time.

The Millionaire's Wife

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My review - 

Anna, an ordinary girl, met and married Will, a rich man, though she didn’t know that at the time. She’d been involved with Fin, a boy she met at school and they eventually moved in together. Eventually, things fell apart, as they do, and her best friend Sian saw her through the worst of it. Now she has the relationship she’s always wanted – and the money doesn’t hurt! A single text message throws it all up in the air.

This is just the sort of book I love. Characters I can believe in, a plot which pulls me in and makes me care about those characters. Suspense and intrigue all the way through, and the last quarter was so exciting, I could feel my heart rate climbing. Since I read my first Shalini Boland novel I’ve enjoyed her style of writing. It’s comfortable to read and never trips me up. She’s excelled herself here. Highly recommended.

I received an advance copy of this book.

B Fleetwood

New to me but this is the first in a trilogy which I know I'll follow up.

Imogen's Secret (Chroma Book 1)

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My review -

We all think we’re different from others when we’re young. In this book, Imogen is totally correct, but she doesn’t yet know how different. She is able to read people’s ‘chroma’, the colours of their aura, so she can see if they’re telling the truth, afraid, angry or in love. She’s also able to mute her own so that anyone else (very few) who can read the chroma can’t tell what she’s thinking.

There’s much more to this book but without spoiling the story I can only encourage you to read it. It’s marketed as for young adults but as with all good stories in this genre it has plenty to offer the older adults too. By the end we know Imogen’s secret but what she intends to do about it will carry us over into another book. I’ll be delighted to read it! The story was fast and in parts, quite exciting, and, like Imogen, I wasn’t sure who could be trusted. I still have my doubts about some and look forward to seeing if I’m right in the next book of this proposed trilogy. A great read in the fantasy genre.

Kelly Clayton

Book 2 of the Jack Le Claire crime/mysteries. Can't wait for Book 3!

Blood Ties

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My review - 

This is the second of the Jack Le Claire novels and I read it almost straight after the first. In this book, a wealthy man is found dead in a swimming pool after a party. He’s found by his cousin who works for Jack’s family. Blood ties are explored here with estranged families, family businesses, and a bit of their recent personal history all thrown into the mix. Add to that drugs, prostitution and blackmail and you have a potent brew.

Once again, Kelly Clayton has combined several plot strands with a selection of truly believable characters. They are no two dimensional cut-outs, each having enough background detail, light and shade, to make you feel you know them. The author writes cleanly and elegantly and I look forward to more. I long to find out more about Le Claire’s enigmatic side-kick, Emily Dewar. I hope there’s more about her personal journey in Book Three, which I eagerly await!

Kelly Clayton

I've only just got around to reading this book, though I've had it on my radar for ages. Should have read it sooner!

Blood in the Sand

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My review - 

A rich widow apparently overdoses on her insulin and falls to her death from her balcony. Things are just too perfect, though. Can it really have been an accident? This is just the beginning of an increasing body-count for DCI Jack Le Claire. The holiday island of Jersey suddenly has a surfeit of ‘blood on the sand’

This author and her books have been on my radar for some time but I’ve not had a break in my reading schedule until now. I bought this and read it – devoured it – in two days. The story is complex, interesting, plausible and exciting. It’s peopled with three-dimensional characters who are so real, so human, that you can’t immediately say who is the perpetrator. Everyone has some financial need or some family feud and it’s only right at the end that the tangle is sorted out. I enjoyed it immensely and I’m going to do what I very rarely do and immediately buy Book 2 in this series.

Highly recommended.

Susan Hill

A novella which really sets the atmosphere.

The Small Hand

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My review - 

Adam Snow, antiquarian book dealer, is lost and comes upon an abandoned and isolated house. As he stands looking at it, he feels a small hand take his. From this, the story is born.

Susan Hill masterfully evokes an unsettling and creepy atmosphere, not only in the isolated countryside but in Oxford and in a remote monastery. The owner of the small hand haunts him. The link is not what I expected and this short and intense story hit the spot for me.

Lorraine Cannell

A new author - I like to go outside my comfort zone and it's well worth doing.

The Hollow

Amazon.com link

My review - 

Fifteen year-old Liv knows she was in an accident three years ago and has no memories of her early years. Like her Aunt Marie, she has the gift of seeing the spirit world. She’s been seeing young women of her own age, but with their faces replaced by a rippling effect so she can’t tell who they are. They want her to find them. Then her own friend, Katie, goes missing. Her parents are over-protective and her relationship with them is strained and damaged. This gift of hers is all tied up with her inability to see her own past; to look into ‘the Hollow’.

This is a very spooky and exciting story which I read in a couple of days. It’s hard to put down. We know Liv can see spirits who need help but she herself finds it hard to get help from her own family. The feeling that, even though supposedly for her own good, things are being kept from her is well portrayed and the reader shares her frustration. This book combines the classic murder mystery with an exciting supernatural element which I really enjoyed.