The Appeal by Janice Hallett

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Serpent's Tail / Profile Books in exchange for an honest review.

I was really intrigued by all the buzz surrounding this book. The Appeal is a novel told in epistolary form, a thriller presented as a series of emails and other evidence that you must examine as a detective. The plot itself follows the story of a group of people who are putting on a play together when the daughter of one of the families falls ill with cancer. Wanting to try an expensive experimental treatment, the family aim to raise money from the community. Within this context, there are a lot of rivalries and other events which culminate in the murder of one of the characters.

For most of this book, I was utterly hooked. The email style works well (although the downside of an ARC was there were a lot of format issues, which makes it hard for me to talk about the full experience of it) though it does take some getting used to. I really liked that there was a character we never heard from directly and who we could only build a picture of based on what others said to and about her. There were several undercurrents of tension and things which could go wrong, which helped keep me invested and made me very keen to read on.

However, sadly I think this book fell apart at the ending. After about 75% of the way through, you have gotten almost all of the evidence and so the book switches to text messages between the detectives investigating the case. This worked fine at first but quickly became dull to me. I wish the book had made this section much shorter and just revealed the solution because it wasn't fun for me at all to read 5 separate theories, followed by more speculation, followed by more theorizing. It just dragged a lot and it sucked all the joy out of the eventual reveal for me because the tension and momentum had been lost. I also think there were just a few too many characters to keep track of. Three or four of them could have been cut without much being lost, and it would have made for a tighter story.

Having said that, I still immensely enjoyed this book and I think it's a great way to format a thriller. The plot itself is good and, my issues with presentation aside, the ending is satisfying and works well for the story. I love murder mysteries and trying to piece together clues, so I will always appreciate any book which actually attempts to give you decent clues and encourages you to work things out. If the ending format had been different, this could have easily been a 5 star read for me.

Overall Rating:

.5

The Charmed Wife by Ogla Grushin

 

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

The Charmed Wife poses an interesting question: what happens when the magic goes out of Cinderella's marriage? Feeling unloved and embittered by the false dream she has been sold, our main character seeks out a witch to cast a spell to kill her fairytale prince. Just as they are about to cast it however, the fairy godmother shows up and urges her to look back on her relationship and whether things are as bad as they seem.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of this book. It has a dreamy, fairytale style sprinkled with humor and thought-provoking imagery. It takes an interesting look at what life for Cinderella would actually be like, and I particularly enjoyed the asides about the saga of her two pet mice. That honestly was my favourite part of it and I wish it had continued throughout the entire book.

Halfway through however, this book changes gear and here it got a bit less enjoyable for me. A lot of different fairytales start appearing and this was great at first but quickly became crammed and a bit tiresome. I felt like the plot had gotten away from the author and I wanted to get back to it. The ending I cannot discuss without spoilers so highlight the text to see: I think the decision to have it all be a potential delusion could have worked a bit better but it was woven in so messily into the multiple fairytale stuff that was going on, it didn't quite hit the mark for me. And personally I would have preferred to stay in the fairytale world as I found that more insightful and that it worked better as a metaphor. The final scene with the prince revealing he never got what he wanted either is very powerful, and it doesn't need the real world muddying the waters.

Having said that, this book was incredibly creative and I found myself very absorbed and invested in the story. It is unlike anything I have read before in a really great way, and I was completely enchanted seeing where it would go. It's definitely a powerful book and one I know will stick with me for a while.

Overall Rating:

The Wives by Tarryn Fisher

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

What a curious book! I was instantly intrigued by the premise of this thriller. I personally haven't read many books about polyamory and I think it's actually the perfect topic to explore in a thriller-type setting. Thursday is one of three women married to the same man, named by the days he spends with them. One day she finds out the full name of one of his other wives and so she investigates her life, leading her to find some potentially disturbing things out about her own husband.

The first third or so of this book was brilliant. Thursday was a great narrator, the setup was a little unbelievable but gripping and best of all, I had no idea where the story would go. Unfortunately the book doesn't stick with this premise the entire way through which is really all I can say without massive spoilers. Instead it takes a rather confusing swerve in topic and plot and it never manages to quite recover from it in my opinion.

The writing itself (in terms of style) is probably the strongest aspect of this book, followed by the characters. Even after it took the turn I disliked, both of these elements remained strong and I was invested in the story because of the connection I had built to the characters. I still couldn't predict what was going to happen which was nice, although I found the ending a little confusing and I'm still not quite sure what actually happened with everything.

Overall, I still think this is a decent thriller but it does a lot of stuff in the last 60% which is going to put some people off. I wish it had stuck with the excellent story it began as but as it is, it's a pretty standard but well-written thriller.

Overall Rating:

The Stranger's Wife by Anna-Lou Weatherley

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

This book really did not gel with me. I did finish it but it was a definite slog and I skim-read about 40% of it. There was just nothing in the plot which I found particularly gripping and, while the characters were alright, I wasn't invested enough to make up for the lack of good story. The two female characters described in the blurb don't meet until about 60% of the way through the book and once they do, things become very pedestrian. I also feel the plot they hatched made no sense? I could see no advantage to what they did. So disappointing!

Overall Rating:

The Other Mrs. by Mary Kubica

I received a free copy of this book for review thanks to publisher Park Row and Edelweiss.

My experience with Mary Kubica has been an interesting one. I have loved almost all of the books I've read by her but I can usually see why a person might not like them as well. Sadly The Other Mrs. proved to be a thriller that just wasn't for me and that's because it commits the cardinal thriller sin-it is extremely predictable.

I will not spoil any 'twists' in this book but it uses one of the more overdone thriller tropes and what's more, it is completely obvious from the start that it is going in that direction. I kept reading hoping I would be wrong but by the time the climax rolls around, I fail to see how anyone would not have worked out what is happening. Though I'm not usually a fan of this trope anyway, I have loved books which have used it in a clever and surprising way. This book does neither of these things.

Putting the lack of a twist to one side, the writing style is competent but also weaker than other Kubica books I've read. There are just some really odd choices, particularly in the first few chapters. A face is described as 'eyepleasing', an adjective is used twice in the same sentence, the structure is just a little off. These are all minor things but they were very frequent and it took me out of the story. I did not find the main character Sadie likeable at all. She was far too quick to suspect her own children of awful things and she didn't have a lot of empathy for anyone. None of the characters were particularly great.

I'm really disappointed I couldn't give this book a more positive review. It might appeal to complete thriller novices but for anyone who likes the genre, this offers nothing new.

Overall Rating:

Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky

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

I honestly had no idea what to expect from this book. I was not a fan of Perks of Being a Wallflower but I could not resist reading a book with such a promising and amazingly creepy premise. Imaginary Friend is the story of a boy named Christopher who has just moved to a new town with his mother, Kate. Shortly after the move, Christopher goes missing in the woods for 6 days and reemerges a changed boy. Before he was a normal seven year old, dyslexic and struggling with school. After he is incredibly intelligent...and he can hear a voice in his head.

The first 15% or so of this book is one of the best openings I have ever read. Had the rest of the book maintained this tone, it would have easily been a 5 star read. There is just something so likeable about all of the characters and though it's weird to say in a horror novel, it's actually really comforting to read about their lives. There is still the undercurrent of things about to go wrong but it's so refreshing to read a horror book where no one is an asshole. It's a common horror trope and I didn't realise how sick of it I was until now.

It's a cliche to compare good horror to Stephen King but this honestly has a very similar feel and plot to a King novel, albeit with characters who aren't terrible people. The King quirks aren't present which helps create a unique voice, and I intend this comparison as a compliment rather than a criticism. It doesn't feel derivative, it feels exceptionally well-written.

Sadly I can't say much about what made it drop in rating except for that the plot ultimately just wasn't for me. The book becomes very focused on themes of religion and the horror elements become muddled and hard to follow. By the end I had little idea of what was going on and it made me disconnect from the work. This is mostly down to personal tastes so if you like more abstract horror or books with heavy themes, you may enjoy it more than me.

The only other thing I want to mention is there is a character called 'Special Ed'. This is initially introduced as a cruel nickname some bullies use but then the narrative continues to use it for no real reason. I just wanted to mention it as an odd choice.

Overall, Imaginary Friends is a solid book. I was surprised how engaging I found it given its length, and this was down to both the great writing style and characters. It is mostly the plot that lets it down in the end but I am glad I read it and I can see some readers really connecting with it.

Overall Rating:

.5

Till Death Do Us Part by Stephen Edger

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Killer Reads in exchange for an honest review

Oh dear, another thriller I absolutely love until the ending. I am so disappointed to not be able to rate this book more highly because it started off so well. This is a thriller about a woman whose husband gets arrested for murder on their wedding day and this is such a fantastic premise for a thriller in my eyes. The main character was very well-written and I really felt for her as she had to navigate the horror of having her wedding spoiled by something so out of the ordinary. The other characters varied from alright to somewhat flat but in general, the writing was compelling and I was invested in the story. Not a ton happens during the middle section admittedly but my interest in the protagonist and the situation kept me reading.

Sadly I did not find the solution a satisfying one. Without giving too much away. there are two components to the conclusion of this mystery. The first one was decent enough and I actually would have preferred it if that character was responsible for the whole thing. The second one involved a character I forgot existed which is a massive problem. I can't really be shocked by something if I have no idea who the person it involves is. I really wish the ending of this had been different as it had huge potential and I enjoyed the other 75% of the book enormously.

Overall, this isn't a bad book by any means and I would definitely be interested in checking out more from the author. He crafts an interesting situation and populates it with decent characters. It's just a shame that the payoff wasn't as good as the set-up.

Overall Rating:

Odd One Out by Nic Stone

This book!!!

This book has reduced me to a rambling wreck. The first thing I have to say is that I absolutely love it and I want you to go read it right now. This was soooo close to being a perfect read for me. It was 5 stars literally until the last few pages and I was so disappointed by how it ended that I had to knock half a star off just for that. Having said that, this is one of the most important and well-crafted books I have ever read and I literally think every teenager should at least try to read it, if not every person.

Let me backtrack a little. This is the story of two best friends, Coop and Jupiter. At the start of the book, Coop is crushing hard on Jupiter who is quite vocally and insistently a lesbian. They have a very intense and intimate friendship which confuses a lot of people. Then through Rae into the mix. She initially identifies as a straight girl but as she is welcomed into this intense friendship group, finds herself crushing on Coop and Jupiter. And they're both crushing on her.

The way this book handles the queer elements is beyond my highest expectations. At the start, I was worried Coop would be unlikable and problematic. Not the case at all thanks to fantastic writing and characterisation. Similarly, Jupiter does some pretty shocking things at various points but she remains so understandable and three-dimensional that I couldn't help but like her. This is honestly one of the best portrayals of queer teenage characters that I have found anywhere. I stress 'teenage' because they do act like teenagers and so their actions must be viewed through this lens. I can see some people detesting Jupiter and that might be fair enough, but for me she rang so true of the way a lot of queer teenagers might worry and think about things. Rae was just super likable and also raises some good points about how someone can be questioning and the guilt and complexities surrounding that. Her section rang particularly true to me as I have recently identified myself as demisexual and am experiencing attraction to women for the first time. I have many queer friends and for the longest time, I was afraid to say anything in case they thought I wasn't 'queer enough' or just jumping on the bandwagon.

The ending...I won't spoil it but I had a perfect ending in mind and alas, it didn't end that way. Normally I wouldn't mark a book down for that alone but because it did such a good job handing some complex queer questions and issues, I really wanted it to tackle one particular thing. HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILERS The book seemed perfectly set up to have all three protagonists enter a polyamorous relationship with each other. Instead, Rae gets shafted and pushed to one side in my eyes. Things end positively but I don't understand why polyamory wasn't considered given that all three are attracted to each other and have such a strong bond. Polyamory isn't for everyone but it really was an ideal solution in this case and it's a missed opportunity in my eyes.

Despite this, I still very much love this book. Nic Stone is swiftly becoming one of my favourite authors and I love how she is able to cover something like this so intelligently and with so much life woven into the characters. I cannot recommend it more and I hope you will give it a try.

Overall Rating:

.5

The Pupil by Dawn Goodwin

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

The best word for this book is...messy? Honestly I was confused from page one when I opened it and found out that Viola wasn't the main character. The blurb heavily implies that you are going to be reading a story about Viola trying to work out if she's met Katherine before, and if she has then what to do about it. Instead almost the entire book is told from Katherine's point of view with her being the protagonist. This is confusing at first and makes for a very different plot/atmosphere than the blurb implies.

The Pupil is actually about Katherine Baxter, a woman who takes a writing class with an author she admires and then gets selected to be mentored by him with the goal of getting her published. The author's wife is also his agent and she seems welcoming but suspicious (again, the blurb kind of gives away why she is acting this way). Katherine's husband is a controlling and miserable man who doesn't really want her to write. Neither does anyone else Katherine knows.

As far as thrillers go, there really isn't a lot going on here. It's well-written but the plot is very linear and there aren't really any twists. The ending is easy to work out by the time you've reached it and so it feels more like a forgone conclusion than an explosive finale. The characterisation is fairly good on the whole (excluding the children who are just named props), as is the pacing and general atmosphere. Honestly there isn't much to critique about this thriller, there just isn't a lot that particularly makes it stand out either. The literary aspect is interesting and there could have been more done with it, but again it isn't the story promised by the premise.

Goodwin is a decent writer and I would be interested in reading more from her in this genre. It's just a shame that this book is a little low on the thrills and has such a misleading blurb attached to it. Ultimately I think this book should have either focused on Viola or made it clearer from the blurb that this wasn't a thriller about whether or not someone was being tormented by someone from their past but rather, a woman not sure if she can trust the people offering her new career choices.

Overall Rating:

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

9 Days and 9 Nights by Katie Cotugno

SPOILERS FOR 99 DAYS AND 9 DAYS & 9 NIGHTS BELOW.

This is really impressive. So my main problem with 99 Days is that I could not understand at all why Molly would be messing around with Patrick when her relationship with Gabe was so great. And in this sequel, I have no idea why Molly would mess around with Gabe when she has a great new partner in Ian.

This book was soooo disappointing. I'm not an idiot, I knew from the start that Molly and Gabe would end up back together. I just wasn't expecting it to be something I really didn't want to happen. The Molly at the start of this book is in her first year of college, she has a new boyfriend and has grown up a lot. And at the end of the book, this is all just thrown away.

Again, all of Molly and Ian's relationship flaws are so non-existent. She gets angry that he isn't seeing the real her when apparently her new college persona is fake and she's just pretending to be someone else. Nevermind that she is no longer upsetting people and has gotten her life together. Apparently that isn't being true to herself and so she should revert back to her teenage self and continuing dating a guy that she has already cheated on once WITH HIS BROTHER.

Once again, I still enjoyed this book for what it was due to the writing style and various other elements. However, I have never been so utterly baffled by a romance series before. Clearly Cotugno and I have vastly different opinions on what constitutes a good relationship if she can make me do a complete 180 on who I ship Molly with between books. I felt sorry for Ian and disagreed completely with how Molly's character arc was handled. If you read the first one though and liked it, this one isn't really much worse. In all likelihood, you'll enjoy this one too.

Overall Rating:

99 Days by Katie Cotugno

It's been a fairly long time since I read a fluffy YA romantic contemporary. It's not my favourite genre but every once in a while (usually when I'm on holiday) I get the craving for some good old-fashioned fluff. This book however turned out to be a lot more interesting than your typical sweet romance.

The premise of 99 Days is that our main character Molly used to date a guy named Patrick until she cheated on him with his brother, Gabe. Now I don't like cheating stories which made Molly a little difficult to sympathise with, something which didn't get easier the more stupid her decisions became. Having been away from her hometown for a year, Molly must return for 99 days before she goes away to college and face the music. You see, Molly's affair was revealed when her mother wrote a best-selling book about it and as a result, everyone in the town hates her. The only person who is still nice to her is Gabe.

This is one of those books that is only fueled by poor decisions and characters behaving stupidly. Molly is the worst offender and she gets stuck in a love triangle between two brothers. I found Patrick deeply unlikable and could not understand Molly's attraction to him at all, especially when Gabe was so sweet and his 'offences' in their relationship so minor. I thought I was going to hate this book but the strong writing style pulled through and I actually quite enjoyed it.

If you can switch off your brain enough to not be bothered by the insanely poor decisions of the characters, then this is a surprisingly complex and interesting examination of the aftermath of cheating. I liked how it didn't shy away from showing what happens when teenagers make poor decisions and the exploration of Molly's relationship with her mother was also fairly interesting, albeit something which could have had more of a focus. Overall I really enjoyed it and I am interested in reading the sequel.

Overall Rating:

.5

The Date by Louise Jensen

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

Despite owning every single book Louise Jensen has ever released, I have yet to actually read any of them so far. Thankfully this pattern has been broken by The Date. Jensen has exactly the kind of writing style I look for in a thriller-straightforward, engaging and dynamic enough to keep you turning the pages. From the very first page I knew I hadn't made a mistake in picking this. Sadly it is the 'thriller twist' aspect which is a let down.

In addition to the great writing style, the characters in this book were also extremely well-written. Our protagonist is likeable and has a fair bit of depth to her, and indeed all the side characters are similarly fleshed-out. Her friends maybe suffer a little bit in terms of depth and Alison does make some frustratingly-bad decisions but these are somewhat justified by her backstory and the plot. Overall, none of them felt like flimsy stand-ins or excuses to have more suspects which is very good.

As mentioned, my one major flaw with this book is I found it very easy to predict. I must admit that reading about a protagonist with prosopagnosia (face-blindness) was a nice gimmick for a thriller. I've read hundreds that have a main character with amnesia but this added a new layer to the whole 'can't recognise your attacker' aspect. As a psychology student, it was also portrayed fairly accurately as well. But even with this plot device, I still guessed the ending and I wasn't really surprised about anything along the way. There was maybe one twist I didn't guess but only because I had forgotten the character involved was in the story.

Overall, I would still recommend The Date as a nice, enjoyable thriller. It offers enough new things to be worth the read and I will definitely be seeking out more from the author. Hopefully next time I will be surprised.

Overall Rating:

.5