The Weekend Away by Sarah Alderson

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Avon Books UK in exchange for an honest review.

It's that time of the year where I want thrillers to deliver on sun as well as murder, and I'm pleased to say The Weekend Away does not disappoint. Orla has gone away with her best friend Kate for a weekend in Lisbon, an old tradition that they've neglected for a few years. Unfortunately Kate seems to want a wilder weekend than Orla had planned for and things go even more awry when Kate vanishes on the Friday evening. With only a local taxi driver to help her, Orla is left to try and work out what happened to her friend.

I really enjoyed this book. It is extremely well-paced with events happening at exactly the right moment. I loved following Orla around and there is plenty going on to keep you invested. It isn't strongly holiday-focused but there are some nice scenes (especially at the start) which would make this a great thriller to take away with you somewhere. The characters are also great and Orla felt very real to me as a person. She still makes some questionable decisions but you can get a better sense of why she is making them than some other thrillers so it didn't end up bothering me.

If this book has one weakness, it's that it didn't really surprise me at any points. There was one or two plot elements I didn't necessarily expect but I didn't feel that huge shock factor either. I think that many characters came across as suspicious or creepy so, when they were revealed to have done something, it lost some of the impact. That's what really stopped this being a great thriller for me, although I still enjoyed it hugely.

Overall, this is far better than most of the summer-themed thrillers I have read and I recommend considering it if you're looking for a good summer or holiday book. I would definitely check out more from this author on the thrillery-side.

Overall Rating:

.5

Pink Villa by Olivia O'Neill

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Nowness Books in exchange for an honest review.

Okay, so firstly I missed that this was erotica. I do not read erotica so that was my bad. However, this review will be taking that fact into consideration. I also do think this book's blurb is misleading, as it implies there is some sort of dark/thrillery secret and it compares this book to several thrillers. This is not a fair comparison.

So Pink Villa is the story of a sex-addicted woman called Eliza who is hired as a nanny for a rich family. She then bangs a lot of people. That is the entire plot, by which I mean this book is just sex scene after sex scene. Okay, erotica is like this. But there are story elements hinted at early on which never come to fruition and, more importantly, these cast some really unfortunate implications over everything.

Eliza is the horniest character there has ever been. She doesn't care who she sleeps with and she is never satisfied. It is also strongly hinted at that Eliza was, if not outright assaulted, then creeped on by her stepdad. These squicky implications are compounded by the obvious daddy issues explored with one of her lover. I know some people are into that but this part of the book is not played up enough for it to be appealing on its own, nor is it downplayed enough for you to comfortably ignore it. I HATE the idea that she is horny because she was creeped on and, while I feel that's unintentional, it lurked in the background throughout the story.

Some of the writing is decidely not sexy as well. Twice the main character is told to 'come over here and bring your breasts' as if she could possibly leave them behind. The sex scenes are so relentless that they just blur into one. Also this is told in second person, which I'm not sure if that's common for erotica but might put some people off.

Ultimately, this book fell flat on so many levels. I think the sex scenes have potential to be great and they are great at points, but the characters are so flat and it all gets very repetitive after a while. This is definitely not a book for me and if you're hoping for a darker erotica, it's not the book for you either. There is one attempt at a 'twist' of sorts but it falls so flat that if this book wasn't compared to thrillers, I wouldn't have even realised that's what it was.

Overall Rating:

The Folcroft Ghosts by Darcy Coates

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Poisoned Pen Press in exchange for an honest review.

I love Darcy Coates' writing and The Folcroft Ghosts is no exception. This is the story of Tara and Kyle, two teenagers who are forced to move in with their grandparents after their mother has a car accident. They have been estranged from their grandparents and when they arrive, there are weird goings on both ghostly and not. Who or what do the kids really need to be afraid of?

The best way I can describe this book is like a slightly older version of Goosebumps, and I 100% mean that as a compliment. It has a lot of the features of a Goosebumps premise (sudden move, two siblings, weird behaviour from relatives) with the more advanced writing you would expect. I would class this as a YA horror book as it lacked some of the depth I would expect from adult horror, but that made it no less enjoyable to me. I'm always excited when I can't predict where a haunted house book will go because the premise is used so often, and I devoured this book to find out what happened next. The characters were interesting, there were some creepy moments and it definitely has a unique voice.

I had actually forgotten that three short stories follow the main story so I will talk about those briefly. I had read two of them before in other Coates' collections (the sub-basement one and the crypt one) and I like both of them a lot. I feel the basement one has much more of an atmosphere, as well as being less predictable. Both are brilliantly written though and I really do love Coates' writing style when it comes to horror. The third one, 'Clockwork', was new to me and I was totally sucked into it. Again, it was unpredictable and had such a creepy atmosphere sewn throughout. These stories were a nice surprise and a bonus to an already great book!

Overall, this is a great ghost story for a teenage audience or for people who enjoy reading YA horror. It has a lot of the elements from nostalgic horror reads but manages to have a plot that goes beyond the basic haunted house premise. I will continue to seek out more of Coates' horror stories as she always manages to deliver a good time.

Overall Rating:

The Curious History of the Riddle by Marcel Danesi

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Quarto Publishing Group – Wellfleet Press in exchange for an honest review.

What a fantastic walkthrough of riddling history! I have been a lifelong fan of riddles. The Riddler from Batman is one of my favourite fictional characters of all time, and when I was a child I had a book about dragons which had a whole section dedicated to riddles. I couldn't have been more excited when I saw this book available to request, although I was a little skeptical it had anything to offer a devout riddle fan. I couldn't have been more wrong!

This book is split up into sections, loosely arranged in chronological order and walking the reader through the oldest riddles all the way to modern day more jokey ones. I found all of the sections well-written and very informative. There are riddles within each section and then a set of riddles to solve yourself after each section, with the answers at the back. In general, these were fun but they did vary in difficulty greatly. I appreciate it's hard to control for that sort of thing but the riddles from the first two chapters were near impossible, whilst later ones verged on too easy. Sometimes the hints were too direct as well which is why I can't give this book a full 5 stars. However, the informative sections were great. I particularly enjoyed the literary riddles chapter, and the section dedicated to the Riddler (which was a fantastic surprise).

Overall, this book was insightful and easy to read. I loved learning more about riddles and their place in history, and I had fun trying to solve the riddles throughout. This book would make a fantastic present and it's the perfect kind of read to dip in and out of. I highly recommend it to all fans of riddles.

Overall Rating:

.5

My Whole Truth by Mischa Thrace

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher North Star Editions in exchange for an honest review.

I have such mixed feelings about this book. My Whole Truth is the story of Seelie, a girl who murders a boy called Shaun after being brutally attacked by him. Seelie is then drawn into a court battle, with half the town thinking she's a cold-blooded killer and the other half turning a blind eye. With perhaps one of the worst mothers I have ever read about barring actual physical abuse, Seelie has only her close friends for support.

So much of this book I really liked. I loved the message of found families being as important (if not more so) than real families. It was really engaging and well-written throughout, I think the pacing was spot on and I couldn't predict exactly where the story was going which kept me hooked. There were however sadly a few issues.

Firstly, there is a female-female romance in this which would be awesome if it didn't come out of nowhere. It genuinely wasn't until a line about halfway through where the character goes 'we could be something more' that I realised this was meant to be a romance and not a friendship. Given I'll ship characters in queer relationships at the drop of a hat, this was a little odd.

Secondly, the main character makes a HUGE dumb decision. I can't talk about it in detail but it is baffling when it happens, continues to be baffling for the rest of the book and is even more baffling at the end. I don't understand the main character's actions at all and so it just comes across to me as a bad decision at every point. And not a bad decision that the narrative acknowledges either. This is the reason this book got a much lower rating than I would have otherwise given it. I could not get over this thing which seemed to happen purely because of plot contrivance.

Overall, My Whole Truth is an excellent attempt to deal with very different subject matter. It doesn't shy away from the topic it has chosen and, for the most part, I was invested in the characters and plot. I just think if the main character's motivations could be described a bit better, that would turn a good book into a great one.

Overall Rating:

.5

If We Were Us by K.L. Walther

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Sourcebooks Fire in exchange for an honest review.

If We Were Us is the story of two teenagers, Sage and Charlie. They have been best friends for years and everyone assumes they will eventually date. This plan is complicated by the fact that Sage actually likes Charlie's brother Nick, whilst Charlie has started to fall for the new boy at school, Luke.

This book was fine but there really wasn't enough to keep me compelled, and I ended up skim-reading half of it. I don't know if it was because I wasn't super invested or whether it was the writing style, but it felt like there was a weird sense of the story skipping over details and scenes kind of blending together. Charlie is not a nice character and his dating patterns were just weird. The whole school thinks he is a ladies man because he only dates girls for two weeks and then dumps them, but this in itself is handled weirdly with none of the girls he dates referring to it. I get that it's meant to be a cover up for him being gay but it seems more suspicious for him to dump his girlfriend when he is falling for Luke, rather than keep dating her. And dating someone new every two weeks without sleeping with them does not seem like it would gain him that kind of reputation.

Overall, this book wasn't really for me. It had potential but I couldn't get invested and it felt like it needed a little more polish. I can see some people getting more out of this but I couldn't get into it.

Overall Rating:

Fangs by Sarah Andersen

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Andrews McMeel Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

I am in love! This graphic novel is perhaps the cutest love story ever told. It features a bunch of one shot comics (each page being one incident) throughout the relationship of a vampire and a werewolf. It is incredibly cute, very funny and just a fantastic feel-good read. Vamp and Jimmy are both extremely likeable characters and I instantly fell in love with both of them. I loved watching their relationship unfold and it just brightened my whole day. I 100% recommend this if you like funny, cutesy graphic novels with a lot of humour and heart.

Overall Rating:

What I Know (Good Girl) by Miranda Smith

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Bookouture in exchange for an honest review.

So this book appears to have changed title after me requesting it, although it is still 'Good Girl' on Goodreads so I don't know which title to refer to it as. Either way, I was HYPED for this book and I am ecstatic to say it didn't disappoint! What I Know is the tale of Della, a woman who uncovered her brother as a psychopath when she was a teen. Now a teacher, she gains a new student called Zoey who she gets ominous feelings about. When another student is attacked, Della becomes convinced Zoey is responsible and sets out to prove it. This book is told with past and present day chapters, gradually uncovering what happened with her brother and what is happening with Zoey now.

I LOVED this book. Firstly, this is a perfect example of how a solid thriller can have no twists and not suffer at all. You keep reading not because you want to be surprised, but because it is inevitable that something bad happened with her brother and you want to find out what. And with the present day plotline, there is the constant uncertainty as to how guilty Zoey is. Speaking of which, a thriller book where the main character isn't instantly dismissed by her loved ones for her suspicions? YES PLEASE. No one truly doubts Della until about halfway through the book where things start to get murkier, and even then it is handled so well. I am sick of reading thrillers where the main character's husband/best friend/sister etc will just instantly think they're crazy. It was so refreshing to see characters express doubt and concern like actual humans would, with their focus being on helping Della rather than calling her insane or refusing to listen.

Della herself was a great main character. You doubt her a little as a reader but not in a way which makes you think she is unreliable and therefore you can't trust her. She is so fleshed out and her backstory is very compelling. I was so glad she had two friends who, in a thriller first, had actual personalities! (I kid) Marge and Pam were welcome additions to the story and served their plot functions well whilst actually being interesting.

The main thing I want to commend this author on is taking this kind of subject matter and handling it so well. This thriller essentially pits a trauma survivor against a damaged teenage girl and it could be so easy to make the protagonist unlikeable considering how she treats Zoey. Likewise, it could be easy to have some really unfortunate implications about believing victims. But Smith dodges these pitfalls expertly and I never felt like we were supposed to agree with everything Della was doing, nor were we supposed to think Zoey was a complete monster. It poses some really interesting philosophical questions and makes them part of the story but never in a way which detracts.

I cannot praise this book highly enough and I am very excited to read Miranda Smith's other work now. If you like the sound of the premise, then I urge you to give this a try. There are triggers warnings for sexual content/assault and also I suspect if you have been gaslighted in the past, this book might be hard for you to read. But if you want to be utterly sucked into a good thriller plot for a few hours, you can't go wrong with this.

Overall Rating:

.5

Just the Two of Us by Jo Wilde

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Little, Brown Book Group UK in exchange for an honest review.

I must admit, I was curious when I saw a quarantine-themed romance book. It's not my usual genre but quite a few have been popping up and I'm always intrigued by books that get written and published so quickly. Just the Two of Us sounded like more than a quick cash grab and this proved to be the case. It tells the story of Julie, a woman about to divorce her husband Michael when lockdown means they are stuck inside together. Can they rediscover why they fell in love or are they doomed to drift apart?

As far as chick lit goes, this was very enjoyable. Julie and Michael are both interesting characters and I liked reading about their relationship. Despite the subject matter, this is a very fluffy book and there aren't a lot of taxing things that happen to the main characters. Actually in one case, Julie thinks she might be ill and then this is never brought up again. That was a little odd.

My main criticism of this book is I found the timeline very hard to follow. It jumps back to previous points in their relationship, but also sometimes there are flashbacks within flashbacks and flashbacks not in these sections. It was difficult to tell when certain scenes were set due to this and it made me stop engaging with the story.

Overall though, this is a nice easy read with decent characters and a lovely romance plot. I'm confident people who typically read this genre will love it far more than I did, and it was enjoyable to read a book set during quarantine which didn't focus on the stressful elements as I personally can't deal with those now. I would definitely recommend checking it out if you like romance.

Overall Rating:

The Birds, The Bees, and You and Me by Olivia Hinebaugh

This book. This book makes me feel conflicted in a way I haven't for a while. The Birds, The Bees, and You and Me is the story of Lacey, a teenage girl who has been raised to be very informed about sexual health. When her school starts running terrible sex ed lessons, she takes matters into her own hands and begins teaching her classmates about sexual matters. However, this is only a small part of the book. Lacey is best friends with Theo and Evita, who used to date but broke up due to Evita's asexuality. Theo has a new girlfriend who neither Lacey nor Evita really like. Lacey has started to develop feelings for Theo, and she is also conflicted about whether to spend her future studying to be a nurse (like her mum) or following her music passion (like her friends want her to).

I'm gonna start with the positives of this book because there are a few. Firstly, the sexual health stuff is all great. It's handled a little obviously but that doesn't bother me in a book like this and there are a few self-aware moments of characters being preachy. I really liked the pregnant teen plotline and all of the nurse stuff, while possibly unrealistic, was very unique and enjoyable to read about. Evita is asexual and honestly such a fantastic character. Aside from being a little mean to Theo, she is a great friend to Lacey throughout and is unrealistically understanding about absolutely everything. At the beginning, I also really liked Lacey and Theo. My fondness for Lacey mostly remained throughout but Theo...

Oh Theo.

This romance was BAD. There was nothing inherently wrong with it on the surface but there were a lot of unfortunate choices made. Firstly, Theo and Lacey had such a good friendship at the start. The second romance came into it, I stopped being interesting in their relationship. Theo set off all kinds of warning bells I don't think he was meant to. He was secretive, he put a wedge between Lacey and her friends, he was instantly controlling and negative about her potentially not going to the same college as him. I kept waiting for the narrative to reveal their relationship was a bad idea and for Lacey to dump him but that never happened. The only part I liked were their sex scenes and that's only because they were written so well. They demonstrated how to have discussions about consent and boundaries without it ruining the mood, and how good sexual communication should work.

I really really wish this hadn't been a romance. It could have worked so much better without that plot and I hated seeing Lacey and Evita's friendship being disturbed by some guy. Even with Evita magically being the most understanding person ever, Lacey never really addressed how rubbish she was to her friend and it felt like Theo was happy for things to stay that way. So many elements of this book are good so it seems a shame to rate it so low, but I just couldn't enjoy it the way it was written.

Overall Rating:

.5

When No One is Watching by Linathi Makanda

I received a copy of this book thanks to publisher Odyssey Books in exchange for an honest review.

Oh wow. When I was kindly offered this poetry collection to review, I had no idea I would fall in love. Linathi Makanda is insanely talented and this collection broke my heart and stitched it back together. I'm always suspicious of comparisons to other works but this is so similarly tonally and quality-wise to Rupi Kaur that I really have no choice. This poetry collection explores themes of feminism, ownership of bodies, relationships, self-esteem and a whole host of other things all covered in beautiful detail. It is split into four sections: Love Rising, Love Lost, Internal Uprising and Hope Rising. My favourites were the middle two (I'm a sucker for cathartic/melancholy poetry) but all four were excellent.

One thing I really loved was that how Makanda manages to put so much meaning and emotion into so few words. Some of the poems are only a line or two, but these were often the ones that would make me pause and think. These words demand attention, to be reread again and again so you can carry them with you. My favourite poetry is the kind that captures those intense feelings and this collection carried so much emotion.

Any fans of Milk and Honey, please check out this book. Makanda deserves to go far and I cannot wait to see what else she writes. I promise you will not regret it.

Overall Rating:

A Cosmology of Monsters by Shaun Hamill

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Titan Books in exchange for an honest review.

This is such a hard book to describe. A Cosmology of Monsters is the tale of Noah and his family, a group of people all battling various monsters, both metaphorical and real. This is definitely lighter on the horror elements so don't go into this expecting a particularly scary tale. Instead this is more of focused look at one family with a rather bizarre (not in a bad way) supernatural angle. This is a horror only in so much as there are monsters and various horror elements (a ghost house, HP Lovecraft) are mentioned frequently.

This book has very compelling writing and was easy to follow most of the time. It is split up into parts and in between the parts are short chapters which I found a little odd. These short chapters were the only parts I found hard to follow. My main issue with this book is it felt like it frequently changed plot and then never returned to those elements. We start with Noah's parents and the story of how they met, which is fair enough I suppose. But then we are focused on his older sisters and his parents never receive much attention again. Then it moves onto Noah and, while his sisters remain present, their various plot elements aren't really resolved in a satisfactory way. The writing saved this from being a total disaster but I did feel confused about which parts of the plot were meant to matter, be it thematically or in terms of the actual story being told.

There were also unexpected romance elements in this which were...interesting. I don't want to spoil anything but it caught me off guard and it meant this was a slightly different story than I expected. Again, this was written so well in terms of tone that it didn't matter as much but I still feel it's worth mentioning. This does not have the tone of a horror book and I feel that's important to know going in. It offers an interesting look at how tragedy affects a family, mental health, coming of age and other engaging themes.

Overall, I am unsure what to make of this book. There are parts I really like, parts I can appreciate for what they did and parts that leave me a little disappointed. I think this is definitely a book that will stick with me a long time and one that is certainly worth trying if you're intrigued by the premise. Horror lovers might be left a little wanting by this book but for those who enjoy quiet tales with a focus on theme and character, this is definitely worth a shot.

Overall Rating: