Ink Ribbon Red by Alex Pavesi

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House in exchange for an honest review.

At the time I read Pavesi's first book (Eight Detectives) I really enjoyed it. I recently reread in anticipation of this book and I found it much more lacking than I remembered. Still, I went into Ink Ribbon Red with excited optimism. Unfortunately, the whole thing fell a bit flat.

This is a very hard book to get into. The premise is that a bunch of old university friends are at a house for a weekend together. During this trip, they play a game where they write stories about murdering each other. This is alluded to by the blurb but isn't made clear in the book until a good 30-40% of the way through. Meanwhile, you have a narrative which is jumping around wildly because it turns out that some of what you're reading is the stories written by the characters. This is a great idea in theory but without being set-up properly in the book itself, it creates a horrible mess for a first-time reader. It also means you have to pay really close attention to the times/dates at the start of each section which I find tiresome. I find I can ignore these in most books without any confusion so it's a pity the writing was not clear enough here.

In terms of the content of the book, I found the characters diverse and interesting enough. I wasn't particularly invested in the story, partially because of the issues mentioned above and partially because there wasn't much to work out aside from the content of the stories. Ultimately I think this book had a great idea but it wasn't executed to its full potential. I like the creativity behind it but it definitely needed to be refined a bit more in order to create a better reading experience

Overall Rating:

A Lesson in Cruelty by Harriet Tyce

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and Headline Audio | Wildfires in exchange for an honest review.

The plot of A Lesson in Cruelty is a little hard to summarise without spoilers but I shall do my best. This is really a book of three separate plots which then come together. The first part is about Anna, a woman who is being let out of prison only to find her cellmate dead on the day of her supposed release. The second is about Marie, a woman imprisoned on a remote Scottish island (that's about it really). Finally we have Lucy, a law student who desperately wants to sleep with her professor and gets the chance to when they go away to a conference together.

If these plots sound a bit disjointed then good, I have accurately represented the listening experience. Never has a book had so much going on and yet so little of it which actually matters in the end. The swaps in character did not feel particularly natural and I actually found it intrusive to the flow of the story. The three characters are distinct but when the plot starts coming together and the different threads start to collide, you start to realise how much faff there was. It is at this point that some events are chalked up to 'random coincidence', something I'd be more forgiving of if this wasn't already a bit of a mess in terms of how its crafted.

I also just need to talk about Edgar for a minute because he is in some ways the most outlandish character. He is a law professor and honestly cartoonish in the way he neglects his family and how he conducts 'research'. I'd like to point out here that I am actually a lecturer and even allowing for the liberties fiction can take, what he gets away with is absurd. It pokes a huge hole in an already-punctured plot.

The 'twist' at the end is painfully obvious as several reviewers have pointed out, but it's made even more obvious by the way the audiobook is narrated. The narrator does an ASMR voice for some passages where we're not supposed to know who exactly is narrating them, but then the same voice (admittedly dialled back) is used for that character so it becomes clear who it's going to turn out to be. Additionally, some lines near the end are a different volume to the surrounding ones. This was very distracting and just made the production seem a bit cheap, like they'd been dubbed in afterwards.

Overall, I sadly wasn't very impressed by this thriller. The plot is oversaturated and requires suspension of disbelief to buy that certain aspects would be allowed to happen. The characters are decent but there are so many of them and too many coincidences play out in terms of their relationships. Perhaps if the audiobook had been better then I would have enjoyed this more, but it wasn't my cup of tea

Overall Rating:

The House Share by Kate Helm

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

The House Share tells the story of Immi and Dex, two young twenty-somethings who move into a strange but financially-enticing houseshare in London. A little like a cult and a little like university, the houseshare promotes communal living and a vested interest in helping each other as a community. And as with both a cult and university living, there is a bit of a darker side with things taking a turn for the dangerous.

The House Share is a book of two halves. For the first 60-70%, I really enjoyed it but then something odd happened. Characters started acting stupidly, one of the narrators vanishes off the page and stops being important, mental health gets emphasised in a weird way. It was so disappointing because while the writing itself was still pretty good, the plot had taken a sharp downturn. In particular, the epilogue is a real slog and suffers from having the perpetrator dramatically reflect on their crimes like a Bond villain. I also can't believe we don't get to hear again from Dex's point of view after he finds out he's innocent. That felt like such an oversight to not get his reaction at all.

The final twist of it being a psychological experiment also didn't ring true to me. Why pick those particular people if that was the case? Why is the psychology behind everything so shaky? I am not a clinical psychologist but I do have a doctorate in mental health research and the representation, while not awful, was not super accurate either.

Overall, there is still a lot to like about this book and in terms of the thriller market, this is one of the better ones. It's a shame the quality wasn't consistent throughout but I do think this author has huge potential and I would be interested if they released another thriller

Overall Rating:

.5

My Darling by Amanda Robson

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

My Darling is a confusing, messy story about two women and (sort of) two men. Jade is married to Tomas and she is delusional, rude and unpleasant. Emma has just begun dating Alastair, a man who starts to show controlling tendencies. Emma herself is pragmatic and honestly, she doesn't have a second personality trait. Jade becomes convinced Tomas is cheating on her with Emma and decides to take matters into her own hands, resulting in a multi-layered murder plot where everyone is framing everyone else.

This book was so painful to read. I initially started with the audiobook but that was far too confusing, so I swapped to the e-arc which was a bit easier to follow. The characters are quite bland. I expected there to be more going on with Jade but no, she is just delusional and horrible to everyone. I expected there to be more going on with everyone to be honest. We learn more about Emma but it doesn't really translate to anything meaningful in terms of how we view her. Alastair has an ex-wife who shows up a few times and is described in a huge amount of unpleasant detail, but why? What does it add?

The plot itself is very melodramatic and a bit tedious. I wasn't surprised by anything that happened. I am not someone who needs a huge twist in my thrillers, but it almost felt like it was written to contain twists but there just weren't any? I won't give the details of the ending but it is framed like a standard ominous thriller ending where we are meant to feel dread at what the protagonist might do next, except I feel like everything she did was reasonable given the world and people she was dealing with. This is a side effect of the melodrama. Everything becomes a potentially reasonable response because the actions themselves are so extreme, and the people so one-dimensionally unforgiveable.

I was so disappointed by this book. The one saving grace is that this is quite an easy read, so I did finish it rather than abandon it halfway. Unfortunately I can't recommend it though

Overall Rating:

Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera

 

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

Every so often a thriller comes along that gets a ton of hype. Listen for the Lie is one of those books and I actually think that this hype is in detriment to it.

Listen for the Lie is the story of Lucy, a woman who was accused of killing her best friend 10 years ago and could never be proven innocent or guilty. She returns to her hometown at the request of her grandmother, only to discover that a podcaster is making a series about the murder. Everyone in the town thinks Lucy did it and she has very few friends as a result. She is also prone to wild fantasies of constantly murdering those around her.

In a vacuum, this book is great. It has fantastic pacing and a nice steady plot which makes it very easy to read. The characters, the mystery, the general events are all excellent. But I have some issues and almost all of them stem from things I have read about this book. Do I wish I could ignore them? Absolutely. Does the modern marketing world make this impossible? Yes.

Firstly, I've seen this book advertised as having 'an epic twist' multiple times. This is just not true. It's not that kind of thriller and doesn't need to be. It has great pacing as I mentioned and a number of interesting surprises that crop up throughout the plot, but none of them are a gut punch 'this changes everything' twist. Expecting a twist disrupted the reading experience for me and almost put me on edge, and I worry this marketing will leave a lot of people disappointed.

Secondly, this book is allegedly a dark comedy. Humour in books is so hard to pin down. There are almost no books which make me laugh out loud and I am one of those weird people who will cry-laugh at TV shows when I'm entirely alone. I honestly didn't even know this book was supposed to be funny which I think is a bad sign. Does the humour come from the fantasy murder sequences? If so, these needed to be actually elaborate escapades and not one or two lines of repetitive dialogue.

I feel like I've ragged on this book quite a bit and I want to stress, I did really enjoy it. It's a great example of how to write a thriller without a huge twist, and books of this kind honestly deserve more credit. I loved the messaging around family, and the relationships between Lucy, her parents and her grandmother. There was some thought-provoking stuff around how you can let down those around you by thinking them capable of terrible things, and that was explored from several different angles.

Overall, this book is definitely worth picking up if you enjoy thrillers. Just try to go in without the expectations pushed on by the marketing or other readers, and there's a lot to enjoy here. Tintera is a great writer and I look forward to more thrillers from her

Overall Rating:

An Improbable Season by Rosalyn Eves

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Macmillan Children's Books in exchange for an honest review.

I, like most of the world right now, am obsessed with Bridgerton, so when the opportunity to read a romance book set in a similar period came up, I was more than a little curious. An Improbable Season is the tale of three young women coming out to society in Regency London, some more eager to meet their husbands than other. We have Kalli, a starry-eyed romantic who is immediately forced to make a match when she is caught in scandal, her sister Thalia who dreams of being a poet (and has zero common sense) and finally Charis, my personal favourite being autistic-coded and obsessed with science. Each of the three girls has their own romance plotline which gets explored throughout the book.

As with any book with multiple plots/characters, people are bound to have favourites. In my case, I thought the Charis romance was by far the most interesting. Kalli's was fine but predictable, and Thalia's outright annoyed me. Minor spoilers here but Thalia gets immediately taken in by an obvious hot guy rake, and every decision she makes with regards to this is frustrating and predictable. There was little tension, just annoyance at how stupid she was being. Kalli fairs a little better, being predictable but enjoyable still. There is a little doubt as to which suitor she will end up with, which is also nice.

Charis's romance is good. There isn't much representation of someone like her in this kind of romance (at least, not to my admittedly-limited knowledge) and it was really refreshing. I loved that she bonded with her romantic partner through science, that her attitudes and behaviours weren't a problem for him and that she had a small breakdown anytime she thought she might have romantic feelings for someone. I adored her story and if the whole book was focused on her, it would be an easy 4-5 stars.

Overall, this book is definitely worth checking out if you're enjoying Bridgerton and want more of the same with a YA twist. The historical elements aren't too heavy so that might irritate readers of the genre, but it's still a lot of fun for the most part. Just be aware there are a few obvious tropes/cliches alongside the good stuff

Overall Rating:

.5

His & Hers by Alice Feeney

 

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

His & Hers is the story of two exes and their respective involvement in a murder investigation as a reporter and a police officer. When Anna's ex-friend and Jack's current lover Rachel is found murdered in a car, it becomes the start of a murder spree focused around people from their past. As they both try to figure out what's going on, trust begins to wane on both sides and neither knows exactly who to trust.

This was an enjoyable thriller, albeit one which suffers a little from its own simplicity in plot. Due to the author and general blurb, I was expecting a twist going in and so I spent a lot of the time trying to work out what it was instead of focusing on the story being told. The story itself is a decent one but if you're used to other works by the author, you might be disappointed by the relative 'straight-forwardness' of the thriller element. It is engaging and surprising, but doesn't have a huge trick like some of the other works.

As an audiobook, this mostly worked well but there was some confusion in the voices. There are two narrators for Anna and Jack, and then additional sections narrated by the killer. Presumably to prevent it being obvious who is the killer, they are alternatively narrated by Anna and Jack's voice actors using a distortion technique, but this only serves as a distraction. I do wish they'd just gotten in a third voice actor rather than swapping between them, as again it just primes you for a twist at best and is distracting at worst. I found myself just ignoring these sections mostly as they weren't particularly insightful or interesting.

Overall, this was an enjoyable enough listen. The narrators did a great job with the material and the story is interesting enough to keep your attention. If you go in expecting a typical (well-written) thriller, then you're in for a good time

Overall Rating:

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher HarperCollins UK Children's in exchange for an honest review.

I really wanted to love this book.

Plain Bad Heroines is two stories in one, one set in the past and one set in the present. In the past, we learn about the tragic and spooky histories of two lesbian women as they navigate life and supernatural wasps. In the present, we follow three teenagers involved in making a movie about a tragedy which happened at the school the women in the past ran. I feel like both these stories had potential but neither one ended up being particularly interesting.

The main issue I had with this book was the pacing. It is long and more importantly, it is longer than it feels like it should be. If this was shorter and snappier then a lot of my other issues would be sorted. It is difficult to keep track of what is happening in the past because you get long segments about it and then nothing for ages, so by the time you revisit it you're no longer sure what was going on. Meanwhile, nothing is going on in the present at all and yet we still spend hundreds of pages dwelling on that nothing. It fits thematically and the three girls are interesting enough, but because we spend so much time with them, I just found myself tuning out until the book returned to the past segments.

There were parts of this book I really enjoyed. There's a spooky scene with the wasps and a bathtub and lots of good stuff, but that's one of the only spooky scenes in the whole book. I like the idea in theory of what is happening in the present (haunted set, horror movie legend of a mother, queer stuff) but it doesn't feel like it is happening. And I did like the style of narration, again with the caveat that I would have liked it a lot more if it was more concise and didn't have time to get on my nerves.

I also got an ARC of the audiobook so I listened to that, which didn't help with the pacing but did improve my enjoyment of the narrative style and helped me keep track of the characters a little better. I do recommend the audiobook, although again the length is off-putting as most people listen slower than they read.

Overall, I sadly can't recommend this book. It had such potential but it quickly became a drag, and the moments I liked weren't enough to make the whole experience worth it. A perfect case of 'needed a good edit' and it might have been perfect.

Overall Rating:

Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha Allen

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

A queer horror book centred around a reality dating show? There are few combinations of words which could get me more excited. Patricia Wants to Cuddle is the story of what happens when the cast of a fake Bachelor wind up on the wrong island.

This book had all the right components. It starts off just following the cast members of the show, who are all interesting and well-written. It didn't feel like I was waiting for the horror to begin, I was enjoying getting to know the characters and excited to see what would happen to them. Then the horror does kick in and it is an enjoyable ride.

One strength of this book is it feels absolutely unique. It was not what I expected going in and I have read very few things like it. Unfortunately this is also the book's biggest weakness. For such a unique story, it ends quite abruptly and feels very anti-climatic. Thematically it works but that's just about the only level it does work on for me.

Overall, I still have a strong soft spot for this book. I would love to read more things by it and I am very excited to see what the author does next. With a more satisfactory ending, this easily could have been a 5 star read for me

Overall Rating:

.5

Guilty Women by Melanie Blake

 

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

In 2021, I reviewed the first book of this series Ruthless Women and marked it down for transphobia. Well, I am pleased to report that the author does some major course correction in this one. Is it entirely perfect? No, but I have respect for someone who listens to feedback and does their best.

Guilty Women is a continuation of the previous book and is best described as a soap opera come to life which also happens to take place on the set of a soap opera. I enjoyed the fun ridiculousness of the first book and I mostly enjoyed the fun ridiculousness of this one. The melodrama is toned down considerably and this is both a blessing and a curse. The characters definitely feel more real and there is an emotionality to them that didn't fully exist in the first book. On the other hand, it's a little less fun and in fact contains some quite graphic depictions of sexual assault which was a bit jarring tone-wise.

My main issue with this book however is that there is simply too much going on. I feel that many of the storylines/plot threads were not utilised or connected fully. The best example for me was the Katherine/Lee storyline. Katherine's past lover both onscreen and off comes suddenly back, and they rekindle their romance in a very passionate and intense way. This plot takes an interesting turn but then you don't revisit it again until the very end of the book, and even then it's barely explored properly. There is a lot of interesting stuff happening throughout, it's just all a bit messily put together.

The audiobook was a particularly nice way to experience the story, so long as you don't mind listening to graphic sex scenes. It really brought the story to life and amplified that 'soap opera' feeling in a good way.

Overall, I would recommend this book if you enjoyed the first one and you want to see where the story goes. It definitely improves upon the first one in many ways, and I did enjoy seeing where the characters went and the interpersonal dramas going on. I don't know if a third book is intended but if it is, I would hope it manages to strike the balance between the fun of the first one and the heart of the second one

Overall Rating:

.5

If I Can't Have You by Charlotte Levin

 

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

If I Can't Have You is the twisted story of a woman obsessed with a man. From the day Constance meets Samuel at her workplace, she is convinced he is the one for her. Unaware of her obsession, he begins sleeping with her and so starts an unhealthy and dysfunctional dynamic which fuels the whole plot.

The plot of this book is very simple but it's all in the execution for me. This is a very well-told story, with a decent pace and enough going on that it keeps you invested. I really liked the addition of Edward, an elderly friend Constance makes early on. I think this could have easily focused entirely on the romance/stalking aspect and, while it is still mostly about that, it adds depth and realism that Constance has an existence outside of that, even if she doesn't realise it.

My biggest contention of the book lies with Constance's friend/roommate, Dale. Initially I thought he was her husband and this was a little confusing (I did listen to the audiobook so it's possible I missed something) but more importantly, I can't decide whether I like what he symbolises in the story. Dale is hopelessly in love with Constance and this is meant to be a mirror to her feelings towards Samuel, but it doesn't quite hit true. For starters, Constance initially does little to encourage Dale whilst Samuel definitely flirts with Constance and takes advantage of her. Secondly, the direction the Dale plotline takes means I am not quite sure what the author was going for. Is this meant to be Constance's punishment for acting how she does? Intentional or not, it's hard not to read into it that way. But again, I do like the depth and interesting parallels it adds at times.

Overall, this book is an intriguing exploration of an obsessive relationship. It doesn't do anything ground-breaking plot wise, and if you want a high-octane thriller then there are better examples out there. But it is an interesting blend of thriller and standard fiction, and it has enough depth and interesting things to say to be worth your time

Overall Rating:

.5

Wild Game by Adrienne Brodeur

 

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

I am not normally a memoir reader but something about this book caught my eye, and I am so glad I took the chance and requested it. Wild Game is a fascinating examination of a mother-daughter relationship in all its complexities. It is a heartbreaking read and one that is quite difficult at times, but I was utterly sucked in.

It feels weird to review the things that happen in someone's life, so I will focus on things other than the content. The writing is brilliant, distant enough to make for a well-told story but close enough that the emotions are still there. There is just as much in what is not said in this book as there is on the page, and that creates a really powerful tone throughout. The mother-daughter dynamic is intriguing and intense, and that's really what powers the story moreso than the mother's affair.

Overall, if you like the sound of this book you should give it a try. It is thoughtfully written, deeply engaging and poignant, which is everything a good memoir should be.

Overall Rating: