Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson

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

This book was like a flame to me. A thriller book about someone recreating 'perfect' murders from literary crime fiction? Fantastic! I was a little nervous it wouldn't live up to my expectations but thankfully my fears were for nothing. Eight Perfect Murders is the story of Malcolm, a crime bookshop owner who has been living a relatively unassuming life. One day an FBI agent shows up on his doorstep because they believe someone has been recreating a list of 'perfect' fictional murders he wrote about for a blog once. As he gets involved in investigating, he starts to wonder if someone is targeting him specifically.

I loved this book. It does spoil the plots of quite a few famous mystery books (the ones in the blurb on Goodreads plus The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie) so be warned but for any crime/murder mystery fan, this was a beautifully-done homage. One thing I really liked is it addressed the possibility for an unreliable narrator fairly early on, which was such a relief. I thought just from reading the blurb that Malcolm being behind the murders might be used as a last-minute twist but instead, it gets introduced as a possibility near the start and then is neither confirmed nor denied until the end. This might sound a bit odd but it is done in a brilliant way and it stopped me being impatient, allowing me to properly get invested into the story.

The characters are pretty good as well on the whole. Swanson does seem to struggle a bit with having characters act like real people, and one or two do suffer from that in this book. However, it is nowhere near as prominent as in some of his other works. The main character was interesting and keeping things from the reader was actually incorporated into his personality which I liked. The eventual ending and solution to everything is satisfying and done pretty well.

On the whole, this is a brilliant thriller and has quickly become one of my favourites. It takes a fantastic premise and manages to deliver on it with a gripping story full of fun tidbits for crime fans. I definitely recommend!

Overall Rating:

.5

Dead to Her by Sarah Pinborough

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

I've been very lucky with the thrillers I've read recently but even so, it has been a while since I've been truly surprised by one. As a result, I'm going to be very vague about this book because I thoroughly enjoyed Dead to Her and I don't want to give any hints as to why I liked it so much. This is a book about four very wealthy people living in an intense socialite circle. You have Marcie, one of our protagonists and the second wife of Jason. She convinced him to leave his wife for her some years ago and now, in her mid thirties, she is beginning to worry she is no longer a trophy in his eyes. Enter Keisha, the new young twenty-something wife of Jason's boss William. Marcie starts to worry that sparks are flying between Keisha and Jason and she doesn't want to lose her meal ticket, nor her husband.

Pinborough is a new author to me (although I've heard fantastic things about her other books) and I wasn't quite sure what to expect. The writing here is phenomenal. Honestly it's a little longer than I usually like my thrillers but I was so engrossed in the story that I didn't mind. The ending gets a little repetitive and ultimately it's not the best resolution but I still really loved the majority of the plot. The side characters are also well-written and very fleshed out compared to most thrillers, which I appreciated. The story is told from both Marcie and Keisha's POV and, in a nice touch, it doesn't swap every chapter but more when it feels right for the story. This seems simple but I've read a lot of books where arbitrarily swapping every chapter can interfere with the plot and it's refreshing to see someone prioritise flow over convention.

Overall, this book was such a fantastic way to start the year. I would fully recommend going in blind and, while it won't be everyone's cup of tea, hopefully you'll enjoy this book as much as I did. It admittedly wasn't perfect but I am very picky with the ratings I give thrillers and this is definitely one of my new favourites.

Overall Rating:

.5

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:

Full Throttle by Joe Hill

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

Despite Heart-Shaped Box being one of my all-time favourite horror books, I have yet to read another book by Joe Hill. I was so excited to receive an ARC of his short story collection and I am happy to say that it lived up to my expectations fantastically. Full Throttle is a brilliant collection of horror/fantasy stories and each one is incredibly unique. Hill's writing really is up there with his father's in terms of skill for writing short stories and this is definitely a collection I can see myself rereading again and again.

As per usual with my anthology reviews, I will give an overview of the collection as a whole before talking about each short story.

Number of stories: 13
Great stories: 6
Good stories: 3
Okay/not for me stories: 4

Throttle-A group of motorcyclists encounter trouble when a truck decides to mow them all down. This one took ages to get going and I wasn't particularly invested until the action happened. Once it did though, there were some good moments and I liked how it ended.

Dark Carousel-Four teenagers get more than they bargained for when they accuse a carousel owner of stealing from one of them. This one was pretty surreal with its horror but I really enjoyed that aspect, and Hill made it work well.

Wolverton-A man gets on a train and discovers he's suddenly in a lot of danger. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this one. It's got kind of a silly premise almost but it was executed so well and there was real tension in it. This has also stuck with me the most out of all the stories which is somewhat surprising.

By the Silver Waters of Lake Champlain-Two children find a dead dinosaur next to a lake. This one was really underwhelming for me sadly. The execution of the twist was a bit clumsy and I didn't quite get what was going on. It had potential but just missed the mark.

Faun-A group of hunters hear about the opportunity to pay a lot of money for a mysterious special hunt. Kudos to this story for not doing the obvious and going where I expected it to. I did lose interest a little bit towards the end but it was interesting enough and I couldn't predict what was going to happen.

Late Returns-A man takes over driving a library Bookmobile and discovers he has visitors from the past. I LOVED this story. It's light on the horror but it has such a nice concept and it was a much-needed break from the darkness of the other ones. It still has enough of an edge to fit with the rest of the anthology which is also important as it doesn't feel like it sticks out or is misplaced.

All I Care about is You-A girl living in the future (?) pays to have a robot companion for an hour to help her out. There was some clumsy worldbuilding in this one and I found it a little hard to get into because of that. However, as the story unfolded I started to really love it and by the end, it was one of my favourites. Very weird, unique and so interesting.

Thumbprint-A woman comes back from Iraq after committing some atrocities. I sadly couldn't get into this story and more skim-read it than anything. It might work for some people but it just wasn't for me.

The Devil on the Staircase-I tried to read this story but just couldn't get into it and I'm honestly not sure what it was about.

Twittering from the Circus of the Dead-A teenager takes up Tweeting to annoy her mum and records her experience visiting a very unique circus. This is told entirely through Tweets and I thought it would be annoying but I actually ended up really enjoying it. The format helps build a lot of tension and it strengthens the dramatic irony the plot relies on without being grating.

Mums-A boy's mother dies and he acquires some unusual seeds from a stranger. This one had such potential but it kept missing the mark for me. Mostly it was confusing and I found it hard to follow, which may have been intentional but wasn't enjoyable for me. There are some cool moments and some creepy ideas going on here but I wish it had been executed differently.

In the Tall Grass-Two twins stop to help a child and mother lost in some tall grass and get more than they bargained for. This was definitely one of my joint favourites (along with the next story and Late Returns). It's co-written with King and you can see his influence which only makes the story stronger. An easy to follow tale with some good old-fashioned weirdness.

You are Released-I have read and reviewed this story previously so here is my original review: A very powerful story about a plane that runs into trouble, framed by swapping the focus to a different passenger every few paragraphs or so. This wasn't really horror in my opinion but I am so so glad I read it. It has a lot of really thought-provoking moments and was just excellently done.

~

Overall, I am delighted to say this collection cements Joe Hill as one of my favourite authors. It has all the skill and originality of a King short story collection but rather than feeling derivative, Hill brings his own talent and his own ideas. It's definitely a must-try for fans of horror anthologies.

Overall Rating:

Growing Things & Other Stories by Paul Tremblay

I received a free copy of this book for review thanks to William Morrow and Edelweiss.

Oh boy. I really honestly thought I would love this short story collection. I read A Head Full of Ghosts by Tremblay earlier this year and really enjoyed it, so I was looking forward to experiencing a greater range of his work through an anthology. Sadly this book was not designed for the casual reader. Honestly I was surprised by the sheer amount of references to his other work present in this and, as someone who has only read one of his books, I did not find the stories easy to understand despite not getting those references. This was my major problem with the anthology and I found myself skimming and skipping stuff as a result. Maybe if you're a mega-fan then you would get a lot more out of this but I also feel that this should stand on its own as a collection rather than relying on knowledge of other works.

My other main problem is I just wasn't that interested in many of the stories. Normally I review every single story for an anthology but for this one I would be repeating myself a lot so I'm just going to mention a couple and do my overview stats.

Number of stories: 19
Number I liked: 2
Number which were okay: 3, maybe?

Something About Birds-A somewhat meta creepy story about birds where a journalist writes about meeting a horror author who wrote a creepy story about birds. Okay, so this one definitely felt like I was maybe missing something from the context but it was one of the few where it didn't matter and I still got absorbed into the story. It was probably my favourite of the collection and it had creepy moments whilst still making sense.

A Haunted House is a Wheel, Upon Which Some Are Broken-A choose-your-own adventure story about a woman visiting a haunted house. Despite the page numbers not being available for the ARC (meaning that I could not choose my own adventure but had to read it linearly) this was a very beautiful story and I loved every minute of it. A tied favourite with the previous story and this would probably be my favourite had I been able to read it in the way it was intended.

These two stories save it from being a one star read for me. Now for some of my least favourites:

Notes from the Dog Walkers-An incredibly meta story which is exactly what it says on the tin. This story just went on and on and on and I tried to read all of it but it was just getting worse and worse. I have actually read the work I needed to in order to get this reference and yet I still didn't get it which is a terrible sign. It was very surreal and read very narcissistic to me. Only for mega-fans I feel.

That's the only one I can talk about in detail as I have forgotten the rest. Sorry.

Overall, I am deeply disappointed I didn't enjoy this. It won't stop me from reading Tremblay's other books and being excited for them but I think I'll avoid his short stories from now on. I understand Tremblay is a huge author but it seems a strange decision to release a collection which is so alienating to people who don't know his work inside and out. I wish I could have given this a more positive review.

Overall Rating:

Never Have I Ever by Joshilyn Jackson

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley, Edelweiss and publisher Bloomsbury Publishing Plc in exchange for an honest review.

What a refreshing thriller this was! I requested this ARC mainly because I have a real thing for thrillers based around games and/or two people psychologically battling each other. This book mentions having both of those things in the blurb but the game aspect is very downplayed in reality. It's almost a shame because it's clearly used as a gimmick to draw people in (and it works) but there is enough going on in this story that the tenuous link to 'Never Have I Ever' is a bit of a baffling one. Calling the book and the game 'The Worst Thing I Ever Did' would be more accurate and is still intriguing enough in my opinion.

Thankfully as mentioned, this book has enough going on that I didn't even mind about the misnamed game. The plot is a new woman moves to a neighbourhood and tries to blackmail our protagonist over an event which happened years ago. You find out extremely quickly what said event was and indeed, the first half of the book is a very unusual reading experience. I was frankly a bit bored during it since there is almost no effort made to build tension. Anytime there is any sort of mystery, you are handed the answer almost immediately without any fanfare. There is also an annoying thing where our blackmailer (Roux) constantly compliments our protagonist (Amy) on how clever and unlike other housewives she is. I get what the author was going for but it wasn't done particularly well.

Having said all that, at almost exactly 50% of the way through there is a spanner thrown into the plot and I got my first big surprise of the book. I did not see this first twist coming and instantly my interest was reignited. Honestly I feel like this was the real start of the book and it's a shame it came so late because I was utterly hooked after that. It was genuinely brilliant to be surprised by this book not once but twice, and both surprises had the added bonus of not being completely ridiculous.

I mentioned right at the start that this thriller was refreshing and that is mostly down to the originality. Amy is a scuba diver and this is woven very well into the story to both add to her character and create some nice plot moments. She was utterly believable as a character to me and was much more dimensional than most thriller protagonists. I also fell in love with the relationship she had with her stepdaughter, which was far stronger than that to her husband in my opinion. The other characters were flatter but still reasonably fleshed-out and compelling to read about.

Overall, this was a really solid thriller after the halfway point. If I was just rating the second half, it would be a 4 star easily but I did knock some off for the somewhat dull opening. However, I was very impressed by the characterisation and it was brilliant to read a thriller that felt more unique.

Overall Rating:

.5