Hunting Annabelle

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Harlequin-Mira in exchange for an honest review.

It is so hard for me to pin down how I felt about this book. On the one hand, I felt it was fairly well-written and I was definitely engaged throughout most of it. On the other hand, I absolutely hated the ending and felt like it got very rambly and repetitive about 50% of the way through.

One thing I would like to make clear is that this should definitely be considered a YA thriller. Hunting Annabelle is about a teenager named Sean with severe mental health difficulties (labelled schizophrenia but as a psychologist, I'm not entirely convinced). Sean meets a girl called Annabelle, goes on a date with her and then sees her get kidnapped in front of his eyes. He goes straight to the police but due to his mental health difficulties and some dark things from his past, they don't believe him. He then decides to take matters into his own hands and investigates her disappearance.

For the first half or so of this book, I was very engaged and intrigued by the story. I don't really enjoy reading thrillers with unreliable narrators anymore because I tend to just switch off and wait until the author reveals what really happened at the end, but Sean's potential hallucinations are sort of kept to a minimum and aren't too intrusive. The mental health rep in this is pretty shocking but then, I don't expect a lot from thrillers. There is a fair amount of accuracy in terms of treatment and that side of things but the actual details about the condition are few and far between. Maybe this was meant to add to the ambiguity aspect but it felt lacking to me. I can definitely see it angering some people.

The problems start to kick in around 50% of the way through. Firstly, the story becomes incredibly repetitive. Sean goes to meet someone from Annabelle's past, he finds out a little more about her and then he gets the name of the next person to go see. Rinse and repeat for like 100 pages. Secondly, Sean discovers something very incriminating about a person in Annabelle's life which seems like it would be important to the investigation. An intense fight happens and Sean escapes with evidence of this incriminating thing and then...nothing happens? It isn't mentioned properly until the very end and it's incredibly distracting to have this plot device just hanging there like the elephant in the corner. I initially expected this encounter to be a hallucination of Sean which would explain why it was just forgotten about but this turns out not to be the case and it's just a really baffling writing decision.

This review is spoiler free but the final and biggest problem with this book is the ending. I found it very unbelievable and frankly a bit of a cop-out, and it soured the tone of the whole book for me. Overall, I can see some people really liking this book but I'm just not convinced it brings anything new to the thriller genre. I think the writing has real potential and there are a lot of nice elements at the start of the book. I would want to read more by the author but I can't really recommend this to people, and the problems far outweigh the good points. Sadly this was not a winner.

Overall Rating:

.5

Truth and Lies by Caroline Mitchell

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and Amazon Publishing UK in exchange for an honest review.

It has been a while since I've read a police procedural thriller as engaging as this. It isn't uncommon for them to have the basic plotline of 'serial killer takes a special interest in the main detective character and plays games with them' but this is the first one I've heard of that has the added layer of the main character being related to the serial killer. I was uncertain how well this would work in execution but I am pleased to say that it did not disappoint. Truth and Lies not only delivers on its premise, it is a fantastically written and engaging thriller on the whole.

Truth and Lies is about our main character, Amy Winter, who receives a letter from an infamous female serial killer confessing that she is Amy's real mother. Once more, the serial killer is willing to reveal the locations of her last three victims if Amy plays along with her requests. What follows is a tense cat-and-mouse game where Amy is trying to keep their connection secret from her coworkers whilst also wrestling with the serial killer's demands. The stakes get raised when a young girl is kidnapped in the present day and Amy is uncertain whether it is connected to her birth mother or not.

As a main character, Amy was immensely likable and very understandable in her actions and motives. There are plenty of side characters in this and they were all well-developed and interesting to read about. Ultimately this is what drives the story, along with the trail-of-breadcrumbs reveal of what happened in Amy's past and what the serial killer is demanding in the present. The pacing is pretty much spot on, although I wasn't as invested in the modern-day kidnapping story as perhaps I should have been. The ending as well is satisfactory but not really more than that. This didn't bother me as there was plenty of other things to be invested in and I wasn't really reading for a shock ending, but I can see some people potentially being unsatisfied by the resolution of part of the plot.

Overall, Truth and Lies is an excellent example of the police procedural thriller genre done right. The writing is very skilled and there is plenty of meat in the plot to keep you interested in what's going on. I'm intrigued to see if another thriller with the same detective character could be as engaging without the 'related to a serial killer' aspect (assuming this isn't involved in the plot of a sequel) but I would definitely be interested in checking out more from the author and she has managed to capture my interest in a thriller genre that is not my favourite.

Overall Rating:

Hark! the Herald Angels Scream: A Short Story Anthology

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group in exchange for an honest review.

Ooh boy, this was right up my street! I am one of those people who love to read seasonal books in December and so many seasonal books end up being contemporary romances. Finally I have found a book to satisfy my horror needs in the colder months. This is a wonderful collection of short winter/holiday-themed horror stories and most of them are pretty decent reads. As per usual with an anthology, I had some favourites and some least favourites so I'll go through a couple of those now:

Christmas in Barcelona-The second story and the one that let me know I was in for a good time. A man is on holiday with his wife and child when he encounters a woman selling something magical. A well-paced slow build that ends explosively. 4/5.

Snake's Tail-The only story I truly hated. This is kind of rambly horror and I couldn't work out what it was actually about. My personal least favourite of the collection. 1/5.

Doctor Velocity-This again had a really weird premise and the character names were too distracting for me. 2/5.

Yankee Swap-A woman gets kidnapped by a crazy guy who has special presents planned for his hostages. Very straightforward horror but with a seasonal twist and written excellently. 5/5.

Hiking Through-A wintery ghost story about a hiker who has recently been dumped that again, is written excellently and weaves a great atmosphere. Kind of easy to predict but that doesn't take away from its impact. 5/5.

The Hangman's Bride-My absolute favourite without a doubt. An immersive tale about a chimney sweep child who finds more than he bargained for when he goes up the chimney of the local hangman. I was utterly gripped every second of this and the collection would be worth getting for this story alone, never mind the other excellent ones, 5/5.

All of the others ranged from 2.5-3.5 ratings. My overall rating for the anthology mathematically was 3.75, which I rounded up to 4 stars for argument's sake.

Overall, I was very impressed with this anthology. It has such a great range of themes horror-wise, and I like that the stories vary from very Chrismassy to just vaguely wintery. It is definitely worth checking out 

and fills a perfect niche in the market for non-romance holiday books.

Overall Rating: