Review: Dangerous Lies by Becca Fitzpatrick

Publication Date: November 10^th 2015
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK Children’s Books
Length: 385 pages

Thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster UK Children’s Books for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review

Stella Gordon is not her real name. Thunder Basin, Nebraska, is not her real home. This is not her real life.
After witnessing a lethal crime, Stella Gordon is sent to the middle of nowhere for her own safety before she testifies against the man she saw kill her mother’s drug dealer.
But Stella was about to start her senior year with the boyfriend she loves. How can she be pulled away from the only life she knows and expected to start a new one in Nebraska? Stella chafes at her protection and is rude to everyone she meets. She’s not planning on staying long, so why be friendly? Then she meets Chet Falconer and it becomes harder to keep her guard up, even as her guilt about having to lie to him grows.
As Stella starts to feel safer, the real threat to her life increases—because her enemies are actually closer than she thinks… 

‘Dangerous Lies’ ended up being a bit of a mixed bag for me. On the one hand I was caught up by the story and found myself picking it up at odd moments, desperate to read just a few more pages whenever I had time. On the other hand, problems galore.

Let’s start with the biggie, Stella herself who is one of the most unlikeable heroines I’ve read this year. She’s whiney, she’s self-centred, she says some of the most awful things imaginable (I frequently did double takes, particularly when she’s thinking/talking about Innie’s pregnancy, because dear god girl put some kind of mouth filter thought process in place.) and she’s an all round not nice person. That makes it hard to root for her and to want to see her story through. Sure she does have some character development throughout the story but it’s not really enough and left me wanting to shake her at various points.

Side note: what on earth were they thinking when they put her into witness protection and changed her name from Estella to Stella?!... And Stella’s response to that name. Surely with a name like Estella, her name is going to have been shortened to Stella at some point in her life? Everything around the name change/her real name made my head hurt.

Some of it was really well done, other parts just seemed overblown and clichéd. I loved the slow ambling plot, just seeing Stella get used to Thunder Basin and its residents and watching her try to fit in. The day to day existence was great to see and I really enjoyed those parts of it. But then there was everything else, and those were the points that didn’t work quite so well.

We’ve got Stella’s boyfriend Reed who gets sent elsewhere for protection. The only way we really got to know Reed was through his letters that Stella had managed to smuggle out to Thunder Basin with her. Lovely idea, poorly executed. Reed comes across as an absolute arse, really truly unlikeable, Stella why are you bothering with this guy? It made her devotion to him seem completely unexplainable; add in that as soon as he’s declared missing she goes from pining and trying to get in touch with him to ‘oh well, make out time!’ and it’s even more bizarre. That his story is left so unfinished with no real ending or resolution is the icing on the grumpy cake. (Side note: Thanks so much Becca Fitzpatrick for doing a disservice to Fibromyalgia sufferers everywhere by including a little talked about illness and painting it atrociously. That really made me furious.)

The other characters are mixed, I enjoyed seeing Chet and Carmine and their interactions, but anything involving Trigger or Stella’s Mum seemed contrived and one dimensional. The rest of the characters are a hodge podge that make the town feel bigger but don’t really manage to be memorable.

Then there’s the plot. I’ve already said how much I loved the slow, hazy summer days – that was really well done. However a lot of the elements to do with the Witness Protection and the case were poorly handled. A lot of backstory was smushed in in one big info dump and the big climax happened in the last twenty pages or so with no real build up or pay off. It felt completely random. As a result I found it really hard to rate this one, but have ultimately gone for the lower rating simply because after a few days thinking about it the frustrations and gripes are winning out over the good points.

If you enjoy slow day to day existences and a gradual unfurling relationship then you’ll love the romance in this one. However if you’re picking it up purely for the crime/thriller aspects then it really doesn’t live up to expectations.

Review: Every Move by Ellie Marney

Be warned for very mild/vague spoilers for the book. Nothing specific and nothing that will ruin the book. 

Publication Date: March 1^st 2015
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Length: 340 pages

The sequel to Every Breath and Every Word. After the dramatic events of London, a road trip back to her old home in Five Mile sounds good (in theory) to Rachel Watts, with her brother Mike in the driving seat. But when Mike picks up his old buddy – the wildly unreliable Harris Derwent – things start to go south. Back in Melbourne, Rachel’s ‘partner in crime’, James Mycroft, clashes with Harris, and then a series of murders suggest that the mysterious Mr Wild – Mycroft’s own personal Moriarty – is hot on their tail. When tragedy strikes, Rachel and Mycroft realise they’ll have to recruit Harris and take matters into their own hands…

I adored the first book in this series so much that it made me nervous to read the second one, just in case it didn’t live up to my expectations. However when I read the second one a couple of weeks ago it more than lived up to the high standards set and left me with none of the reservations I’d had about launching straight into the third and final book of the trilogy. Sadly, I really wish it had.

There is an awful lot to love in the conclusion to this thrilling series, but unfortunately there were quite a few elements that really didn’t work for me. One of the things I loved so much about the first two books is that Mycroft and Rache never exceed the limitations around them being teenagers and having limited resources/power. Adults got involved in the situations where necessary and I loved that extra element of realism that is so often missing from YA crime fiction. Not so in this book. Suddenly our heroes find themselves in utterly ridiculous situations and insane stand offs that jarred me and felt thoroughly unrealistic and left me thoroughly frustrated.

I could probably forgive that were it not for the two other big issues that marred the enjoyment. Firstly a love triangle is introduced. For no reason. With no real build up or explanation and Rachel suddenly starts acting completely out of character and flirting back with this new guy. I get that she’s having problems with Mycroft following the events of the second book, and I get that she’s suffering from PTSD, but this seemed so thoroughly out of the blue, out of character and completely ridiculous. I frequently found myself frustrated with Rachel’s sudden obsession with the new boy and it didn’t make any real sense.

Then the third frustration, and this was enough to make me put the book down and walk away for a few days. I wasn’t sure if I was actually going to pick it up again and finish it.
Mycroft and Rachel work out who the big bad is, but then instead of being logical or even remotely like their usual coherent selves, Rachel fires off an angry email telling the person that they know who they, everything they’ve done and she and Mycroft have all the evidence they need.

I’m sorry, what?!

Not even a remotely good idea, and it sets off the truly awful chain of events that topples down in the second half of the book. Now yes ok, I get that Rachel is angry and hurt and stressed and upset and has had enough of being terrified because of other people. But come on SOME COMMON SENSE PLEASE. It is a completely out of character move that puts everyone in danger and for NO REASON AT ALL.

It was just so frustrating and ridiculous and not like Rachel at all. Add to that the problems with the love triangle and some highly suss behaviour on Rachel’s part and my love for her was basically in shreds by the end of the book.

A lot of the elements I loved about the first two books were still there – good writing, fast paced plot that kept me on the edge of my seat. I also loved seeing Rachel’s PTSD tackled, although it felt a little like a couple of hugs and it went away which was also frustrating.

However all the love I felt for those things was horribly over shadowed by the problems I’ve outlined above. I adored this series, I fell in love with these characters, I swooned over them, I cried over them, I stayed up all night reading their nail biting stories, and this final instalment felt like a complete let down after that.

By all means go and see the brilliance of the first two books, but be warned going into this one that it has quite a few problems by comparison and might leave you wishing that you’d stopped after book two.

Review: Every Word by Ellie Marney

Publication Date: June 1^st 2014
Publisher: Allen & Unwin/Tundra Books
Length: 340 pages

James Mycroft has just left for London to investigate a car accident similar to the one that killed his parents seven years ago...without saying goodbye to Rachel Watts, his 'partner in crime'.
Rachel is furious and worried about his strange behaviour - not that Mycroft's ever exactly normal, but London is the scene of so many of his nightmares. So Rachel jumps on a plane to follow him...and lands straight in a whole storm of trouble.
The theft of a copy of Shakespeare's First Folio, the possible murder of a rare books conservator, and the deaths of Mycroft's parents...Can Watts help Mycroft make sense of the three events - or will she lose him forever?
Sparks fly when Watts and Mycroft reunite in this second sophisticated thriller about the teen sleuthing duo.

Earlier this year I read the first book in this trilogy ‘Every Breath’ and was blown away by the sheer brilliance. You would think then that having loved the book so much I would have leaped straight into the second – that would have been logical I hear you cry. Instead I decided to flail and stress that the brilliance of the first book wouldn’t be caught quite so spectacularly in the second thus destroying my hopes and dreams and leaving me a sobbing mess for the brilliance that might have been. So I waited, and I procrastinated, and I read other books.

And then the two wonderful people who got me onto this series in the first place read the second book and both of them were effusive in their praise of how good it was, so I finally told the panicked voices in my head to shut up, and FINALLY I read it.

And you know what? IT WAS SO GOOD.

Never did I think I would be so smitten with a teenage take on the Holmes and Watson set up, but Ellie not only writes believable and fascinatingly complex characters, she puts them into fantastic, well-paced plots and then she hurts my babies. But it is so good and so well done that I don’t care about the terror and the weeping and the general pain and angst that occurred for me whilst reading it. Basically Ellie can rip my heart out with brilliant writing and I will simply beg her for more.

Everything that I loved about the first book was back in abundance – fast paced and engrossing plot, steamy sexual tension between the two leads, and clever workings of details from the various other incarnations of Holmes we’ve seen. Ellie is astoundingly talented at weaving in little details (some more obvious than others) and leaving the reader to notice them. It’s cleverly done and a huge source of satisfaction whilst reading to pick up on them.

This book felt much darker than the first, Ellie isn’t afraid to really hurt Mycroft and Rache, and some of the darkest scenes were horrifyingly realistic and believable. I stormed through the book, feverishly ripping through the pages because I simply had to know what happened next. I couldn’t put it down.

The writing is fantastic, and it was wonderful to have a change of setting and have the majority of this book set in London. Ellie really captures the feel of the city, and so many little pieces of England and British culture that help you to feel like you’re really there. It was also great to see Mycroft in his home element, to see him slide from boy next door into an English boy – as Rachel notes, suddenly you don’t just know that he’s English you see it. See how he fits in in these surroundings much more smoothly than he does in Australia, and it’s subtle and incredibly well done. We uncover a lot more of Mycroft’s backstory, and I loved having each new piece of information trickle out, seeing it through the filter of Rachel’s eyes and thoughts as she tries to deal not only with the murder case, but Mycroft’s rapid tailspin as events unfold. Rache is such a fantastic protagonist and she really holds her own against Mycroft, no easy feat when he is such a vibrant and fascinating character who is ever present, infusing every page, even when he’s halfway across the world.

I also love, as I did with the first book, that you never forget that these are two teenagers. There are no moments where you want to tear at your hair in frustration because adults are incompetent and Mycroft and Rache are doing things that no teen would realistically do. Yes they are put into extreme circumstances and as a result they’re forced to adapt and do things they otherwise wouldn’t, but it never felt ridiculous or overblown – something that a lot of YA novels never quite manage to achieve.

All in all this is a fantastic second instalment in the trilogy. It more than lives up to the high expectations set by the first book and has left me desperate to get straight into the third book. I love this series, I love Ellie’s writing, but most of all I adore Mycroft and Rache. If you’ve read the first book and are hesitant about getting into the second, don’t be. And if you haven’t yet discovered this series, do so now. Sherlock as the boy next door? Be still my beating heart.

Review: Lock & Mori by Heather W. Petty

Publication Date: September 15^th 2015
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Length: 256 pages

In modern-day London, two brilliant high school students, one Sherlock Holmes and a Miss James "Mori" Moriarty, meet. A murder will bring them together. The truth very well might drive them apart.
Before they were mortal enemies, they were much more.
FACT: Someone has been murdered in London's Regent's Park. The police have no leads.
FACT: Miss James "Mori"Moriarty and Sherlock "Lock" Holmes should be hitting the books on a school night. Instead, they are out crashing a crime scene.
FACT: Lock has challenged Mori to solve the case before he does. Challenge accepted.
FACT: Despite agreeing to Lock's one rule--they must share every clue with each other--Mori is keeping secrets.
OBSERVATION: Sometimes you can't trust the people closest to you with matters of the heart. And after this case, Mori may never trust Lock again.

This book nearly sent me into a rage spiral that would have sent my kindle flying across the room, except a) there were one or two redeeming features (although sadly not as many as I would have liked) and b) my kindle is new.

I’ve always been a little wary of Sherlock Holmes retellings – I love the books, I love the movies I love the shows, but as soon as you start sticking my beloved characters into strange and slightly side eye worthy situations I get nervous. Then earlier this year I read ‘Every Breath’ by Ellie Marney and it was so GLORIOUSLY GOOD that I thought maybe I had been too hasty to judge. After all here was a modern day re-telling that involved teenage James Mycroft and Rachel Watts and it was so good I shrieked loudly and often at everyone over the days following reading it. So after that brilliance I found I had renewed interest in the forthcoming ‘Lock and Mori’ which featured a teenage Sherlock and Moriarty with a modern setting and a gender twisted Moriarty – colour me intrigued.

Sadly though, it really didn’t live up to those expectations. As with several books I’ve read recently the only thing that stopped this being a one star read was that the writing was not bad, in fact in places it was quite good – it’s just a shame about everything else.

Sherlock does not actually feel like the Sherlock we have come to know through the original stories, in fact the only things he shares are a name, a brother called Mycroft and a slight tendency towards the genius. Which we see in precisely one scene at the start of the book and then it’s dropped in favour of INSTALOVE.

I could possibly forgive the Sherlock character destruction (I’m lying, I totally couldn’t) if Mori had been an interesting and compelling character. Sadly I was disappointed yet again. She’s not a particularly nice person, very selfish to the detriment of others, and for me she really didn’t work at all. Sure she’s intelligent, but she’s aloof, cold, not particularly likeable even to the reader and her reasoning behind a lot of the decisions she makes in the book seemed bizarre at best. Sherlock’s fascination with her I could understand – after all she’s definitely intelligent, but instalove? Really? The big reason at the end for why Mori will never trust Sherlock again left me feeling decidedly non-plussed. 

Any sort of logic or reasoning she may have been in possession of disappears at around the half way mark where solving murders is tossed away in favour of make out sessions, and justice and safety for not just herself but her three younger brothers is tossed aside for decidedly tenuous reasons. Add in the fact that she's an English girl referring to her Mum as 'Mom' and I was about ready to give up.

Then there’s the pacing. We discover who the murderer is at the half way point and I reached that reveal, checked to see how much more of the book was left and genuinely didn’t know how the second half could possibly be filled. Short answer? Badly. It plays on all the tired clichés – look how stupid the adults are, we teenagers will solve everything and save the day! being the most frustrating to witness. Chuck in the instalove and I was ready to weep at the assassination of these characters. I’m all for playing with well-loved characters, twisting the scenarios to see how they work with different players and variables, but sadly in this case it really didn’t work.

If you’re after a good modern day Sherlock story then I cannot recommend ‘The Every trilogy’ by Ellie Marney enough. If you’re a fan of Sherlock, of the original stories, of interesting believable characters and well built up romance then sadly ‘Lock and Mori’ won’t be the book for you. It’s a great concept that could have been brilliant, but sadly is left to founder in bad pacing, terrible characters and an unbelievable plot.

Review: A Curious Beginning by Deanna Raybourn

Publication Date: September 1^st 2015
Publisher: Penguin Group
Length: 352 pages

Huge thanks to Edelweiss and Penguin Group for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review

London, 1887. As the city prepares to celebrate Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee, Veronica Speedwell is marking a milestone of her own. After burying her spinster aunt, the orphaned Veronica is free to resume her world travels in pursuit of scientific inquiry—and the occasional romantic dalliance. As familiar with hunting butterflies as she is fending off admirers, Veronica wields her butterfly net and a sharpened hatpin with equal aplomb, and with her last connection to England now gone, she intends to embark upon the journey of a lifetime.
But fate has other plans, as Veronica discovers when she thwarts her own abduction with the help of an enigmatic German baron with ties to her mysterious past. Promising to reveal in time what he knows of the plot against her, the baron offers her temporary sanctuary in the care of his friend Stoker—a reclusive natural historian as intriguing as he is bad-tempered. But before the baron can deliver on his tantalizing vow to reveal the secrets he has concealed for decades, he is found murdered. Suddenly Veronica and Stoker are forced to go on the run from an elusive assailant, wary partners in search of the villainous truth.

I think it’s safe to say that Deanna just gets better with every book she writes (and considering how much I love her earlier novels this is saying something.) and the first Veronica Speedwell adventure is truly fantastic.
Whilst I loved the three book foray into the 1920s, ‘A Curious Beginning’ takes us back firmly to familiar Victorian territory.

Comparisons will obviously be made between this and Deanna’s previous books set in Victorian England, but the truth is they couldn’t be more different. ‘A Curious Beginning’ takes all the best bits of Lady Julia and adds to them to create a very different beast of a novel.

Veronica herself is much less of a quiet late bloomer. Strong, feisty, determined, this is a woman who has not been coddled and instead has grown up knowing exactly what she wants and how to get it. She’s independent and spirited and travels around the world catching butterflies (and gentlemen) – in short Veronica doesn’t need anyone to look after and protect her thank you very much. Plus she has the art of travelling light down, I want tips.
But she still ends up stuck with Stoker, a dark, brooding and decidedly grumpy gentleman with quite the past. Although she finds his attempts at kidnapping endearing rather than terrifying, an unlikely friendship is born.

UK Cover

Whilst there is a whodunit element to the story, there is so much more going on between the covers. There’s the mystery of Veronica herself and why people keep trying to kill her, the mystery of Stoker and his troubled and dark past, the whodunit of the murder, plus a stay in a travelling circus all thrown into the mix to make a truly enthralling story. It’s a mixture of so many things blended together seamlessly to create a truly satisfying whole.

Deanna’s writing is at its best, full of the evocative prose that really draws you into the story. Her characters are truly fascinating, with just enough intrigue and questions that herald a truly intriguing series to come.

This is a fantastic start to what is sure to be a glorious new series. Julia has competition in my heart for most awesome Victorian lady sleuther… Suffice to say I loved it. Once I started reading I could not stop. I loved this thrilling new world of Veronica and Stokers – an unlikely and truly fabulous pair, and I cannot wait to see what adventures the two of them get up to next.

Review: Every Breath by Ellie Marney

Publication Date: October 14^th 2014
Publisher: Tundra Books
Length: 352 pages

When James Mycroft drags Rachel Watts off on a night mission to the Melbourne Zoo, the last thing she expects to find is the mutilated body of Homeless Dave, one of Mycroft's numerous eccentric friends. But Mycroft's passion for forensics leads him to realize that something about the scene isn't right--and he wants Watts to help him investigate the murder. 
While Watts battles her attraction to bad-boy Mycroft, he's busy getting himself expelled and clashing with the police, becoming murder suspect number one. When Watts and Mycroft unknowingly reveal too much to the cold-blooded killer, they find themselves in the lion's den--literally. A trip to the zoo will never have quite the same meaning to Rachel Watts again...

This book fell onto my radar thanks to Angie’s (Angieville) and Cait’s (Paper Fury) reviews and both of them were so complimentary and effusive in their praise that I simply had to get hold of a copy for myself, so this one is totally on you two. And thankfully this book more than lived up to all those high expectations I went in it with.

I am a big fan of the BBC Sherlock – I love the way the stories translate to a modern day setting, so the idea of another modern day exploration of Sherlock was an excellent starting point. Add in that ‘Watson’ is a girl called Rachel Watts, ‘Holmes’ is a teenage genius who lives two doors down called James Mycroft, the fact that their chemistry and friendship is off the charts and it’s both brilliant and set in Australia and quite frankly: be still my beating heart.

(Tiny side note of glee for fans of the original books, I giggled like a little crazed thing whenever anyone called Watts Rache, because Study in Scarlet. Detail.)

This book is genius, basically. Watts and Mycroft are one of my favourite pairings in fiction ever. Which is a truly incredible feat. Their friendship is such a strong foundation and they work so brilliantly together that I would have been happy were they only ever friends. However the chemistry between them is truly electric, and I absolutely adored the slow build of tension between them throughout the story. They just work so well together. Watts is neither stupid nor bumbling. She may not put the pieces together at the same speed as Mycroft (really, who could?) but she’s methodical and sharp and attentive and is an equal half of the partnership rather than a documenter of Mycroft’s genius.

Whilst there is plenty of attention paid to Mycroft and his delectable brilliance (yes I have a fiction crush, how did you guess?) the real heart and soul of the story is Watts. She is such an incredible protagonist. Told from her point of view the story is very firmly grounded with her at the centre, and she holds firm against the overwhelming tidal wave that is Mycroft. Some characters would get lost against his brightness, but she is grounded and sure of herself and she provides the heart, soul and humour that turns this from a good book into a brilliant book.

I also loved that this isn’t a Sherlock and John story, they are never playing at being them, there are plenty of references to the Conan Doyle stories. It’s played as simply an amusing coincidence rather than anything else and it works brilliantly. It allows the story and characters the space to breathe and become their own, whilst still giving a sly wink and nod at Conan Doyle’s characters – the perfect blend.

The murder mystery is also brilliantly handled, so that whilst they are two teenagers sleuthing around trying to fit the pieces together and catch the murderer, it never felt ridiculous or unrealistic. The motives and thought process behind it all made sense. I never once questioned it or felt that it was ridiculous what they were trying to do. And I loved the varied reactions of the adults around them when confronted with their super sleuthing, plus their general awesome pairing.

Admittedly I did know who the murderer was as soon as they were introduced – I think I may have read one too many murder mysteries that I can now spot them a mile away. But for once I wasn’t frustrated by the knowledge, the story was so good that I just got swept up in it, and the thrill of the chase and desperate climax were superb.

It’s a brilliant debut – wonderfully paced, with two incredibly real and vivid characters who tugged me into their world and brought me racing breathlessly after the murderer with them. I fell for Watts and Mycroft completely and I cannot wait to see where they go next in the sequel “Every Word”.

Review: Hold Me Like a Breath by Tiffany Schmidt

Publication Date: May 19^th 2015
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Length: 400 pages

Thanks to Netgalley and Bloomsbury for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review

Penelope Landlow has grown up with the knowledge that almost anything can be bought or sold—including body parts. She’s the daughter of one of the three crime families that control the black market for organ transplants.
Penelope’s surrounded by all the suffocating privilege and protection her family can provide, but they can't protect her from the autoimmune disorder that causes her to bruise so easily.
And in her family's line of work no one can be safe forever.
All Penelope has ever wanted is freedom and independence. But when she’s caught in the crossfire as rival families scramble for prominence, she learns that her wishes come with casualties, that betrayal hurts worse than bruises, that love is a risk worth taking . . . and maybe she’s not as fragile as everyone thinks.

This blurb had me incredibly excited and envisaging something close to The Curse Workers trilogy by Holly Black but with less magic and more body parts, but alas, it was not to be.

The problems with this one all came down to pacing and character. In that there wasn’t really any and it was all over the place. It felt almost as though it were two different stories. The first one, Penelope Landlow, crushing on a guy, never allowed to be touched, daughter to the boss of the family. The second one, Penelope Landlow, girl living in New York, never allowed to be touched but doesn’t care about it, who is finding her own way in the world and falls in love. Sadly the two different plots don’t really mesh and what you’re left with is this incredibly bizarre mix of ideas and frustrations.

Penelope is an incredibly weak character. She comes across as much younger than she actually is, whines about how no-one tells her anything and ends up being one of the most dense characters I’ve come across in fiction. She doesn’t put anything together until it’s pretty much too late and you’re left feeling incredibly frustrated and wanting to shake her. In part because the plot twists are no real twists at all and are in fact incredibly obvious right from the start.

The characters are all under developed, motives are squiffy at best, and nothing really makes a whole heap of sense. None of the characters felt real or particularly likeable, the dialogue was awkward – particularly anything involving Carter, Penelope and Garret, and decision making felt like it was being made by pulling random nonsensical ideas out of a hat at points. Penelope’s decision making skills were that bad.

Then of course there’s the crime family element, which had me so hooked from the blurb. Only we don’t really get anything to do with the family. There are some odd moments of boredom and statistics, and a few menacing guys with guns, but it didn’t feel real. It didn’t really make any impact on the story, it felt more as though it was a plot twist thrown in to make the story cool. It felt at times that Penelope’s illness was used as a get out clause so that everything could remain underdeveloped and just be a background idea. Penelope is kept away from the business and never really makes any effort to change that. It feels like life just happens to her and she expects the men around her to protect her – an ideal that changes a little as she experiences some character growth towards the end of the book, but not enough to redeem her.

The romance was not really a romance at all. It starts as a straightforward boy and girl, but then of course half way through there has to be a second boy introduced to make things more complicated. Oh for the love of all that’s good will someone give me a young adult novel without a love triangle being thrown in?
Romance with the first boy is awkward and cringey at best, with words like marriage being thrown about when they haven’t even kissed. Then second boy comes along and literally stalks her. Repeatedly. Twenty four hours with him though and she’s in love. It was so unbelievably frustrating and aggravating to have such awkward and instalove romances being thrown about.

This could have been a really fantastic story. Penelope had all the makings of a great character and combine that with the crime family, being the boss’s daughter, plus her auto immune disorder and this could have been something amazing. Instead we’re given a whiney heroine who is perfectly ok to let the men around her rule her life and wait for them to come and save her, despite the odd temper tantrum that she isn’t allowed to do anything. She never actually tries to seize control or act, or in some cases even think and put the pieces together. She is someone who seems to just let life happen to her. We’re then also given a brilliant idea of this crime family who deal in organ transplants and it’s all shoved aside in favour of the awkward romances. I wanted to love this, I was so excited for it, but instead it ended up being a frustrating story that didn’t even come close to the potential set up in that blurb.

Review: As Red As Blood by Salla Simukka

Publication Date: 1st August 2014
Publisher: Skyscape
Length: 274 pages

In the midst of the freezing Arctic winter, seventeen-year-old Lumikki Andersson walks into her school’s dark room and finds a stash of wet, crimson-colored money. Thousands of Euros left to dry—splattered with someone’s blood.
Lumikki lives alone in a studio apartment far from her parents and the past she left behind. She transferred into a prestigious art school, and she’s singularly focused on studying and graduating. Lumikki ignores the cliques, the gossip, and the parties held by the school’s most popular and beautiful boys and girls.
But finding the blood-stained money changes everything. Suddenly, Lumikki is swept into a whirlpool of events as she finds herself helping to trace the origins of the money. Events turn even more deadly when evidence points to dirty cops and a notorious drug kingpin best known for the brutality with which he runs his business.
As Lumikki loses control of her carefully constructed world, she discovers that she’s been blind to the forces swirling around her—and she’s running out of time to set them right. When she sees the stark red of blood on snow, it may be too late to save her friends or herself.

This book was not what I expected. I don’t really know what I’d expected exactly, but after hearing good things about it I launched straight in without even reading the blurb. It’s dark, it’s gritty, and it had me racing through the pages to put it all together. It’s a very strange book, possibly in part due to it being a translation as it wasn’t written in English. That can lead in some places to some very odd sentences and moments that didn’t quite flow right, but are easily forgiven.

To start with I was highly confused. There is a lot of confusion with so many different character perspectives and not all of them are named and then there are flashbacks and really you have no idea where you might be and which character you might be with at any given point. It’s a jarring way of writing and reading to get used to and at first I really wasn’t sure if this book was going to be my cup of tea as I really wasn’t getting into it. However, a few chapters in when things begin to start unravelling and you have a better grasp of who is who, something clicks. And from that point I could not put the book down. I raced through it in a matter of hours, I just had to know how it would all come together. And the tension! It’s a short book but the tension is sky high. I didn’t even realise how stressed and invested in it I was until I finished and had to spend five minutes deliberately relaxing all my muscles from the clenched how on earth can this end well position I’d been in from around the halfway point.

It’s criminal that this book doesn’t have many high ratings on goodreads as I feel that it is seriously overlooked and under valued. Lumikki is a fantastic heroine with a troubled past who has worked hard to learn how to protect herself and keep herself safe. Some of the other characters were not as believable or engaging, but Lumikki really drove the story. I am very much looking forward to getting into the second book and seeing how Lumikki grows and evolves from the events of this book.

It’s so wonderful to read a YA book translated from another language and set somewhere other than the UK or US. It’s a quick read, barely over 250 pages and you will tear through it as the stakes get higher and the intrigue thickens. I can’t recommend this book enough and I hope that more people discover it because at the moment it is being criminally overlooked.

Review: The Anatomist's Wife by Anna Lee Huber

Scotland, 1830. Following the death of her husband, Lady Darby has taken refuge at her sister's estate, finding solace in her passion for painting. But when her hosts throw a house party for the cream of London society, Kiera is unable to hide from the ire of those who believe her to be as unnatural as her husband, an anatomist who used her artistic talents to suit his own macabre purposes.
Kiera wants to put her past aside, but when one of the house guests is murdered, her brother-in-law asks her to utilize her knowledge of human anatomy to aid the insufferable Sebastian Gage--a fellow guest with some experience as an inquiry agent. While Gage is clearly more competent than she first assumed, Kiera isn't about to let her guard down as accusations and rumors swirl.
When Kiera and Gage's search leads them to even more gruesome discoveries, a series of disturbing notes urges Lady Darby to give up the inquiry. But Kiera is determined to both protect her family and prove her innocence, even as she risks becoming the next victim...

So after my truly terrible experience with ‘Jackaby’, I was back to square one in my search for books like the ‘Lady Julia’ series by Deanna Raybourn. Until that is, I came across Angie’s review of ‘The Anatomist’sWife’ and without further ado I ordered it for the next day.

It is a very rare and utterly wonderful feeling to sink into a book and adore everything about it. To actually want to slow down your reading and savour the words. And then to discover that the book is the first in a series and there are several already published so you can continue to enjoy them at your leisure instead of the torturous wait of a year that new releases leave us with. ‘The Anatomist’s Wife’ gave me that feeling in spades. I haven’t felt so absorbed, captivated and enthralled by a book and savoured every page since I discovered ‘Silent in the Grave’ – and my love of that is well documented.

Everything about this book was perfection. I loved Kiera from the start. I loved her backstory that slowly came out – piece by terrible piece. I loved the setting, her family, the atmosphere of fear and terror that seeped into everything, and most of all I loved her tempestuous relationship with Gage. There are so many similarities with the ‘Lady Julia’ series, but not in a bad way, merely the time period, the subject matter and the intriguing and wonderful relationship between the heroine and the investigator involved.

The writing is sublime, the pacing wonderful and the slow climb of tension to the terrifying peak when all is revealed deftly handled. It is a quiet book, one that builds beautifully and is engaging and effecting. I loved that we were introduced to Kiera after the trauma and spectacle of her husbands death and the spectacle that followed. We find her at a point of exhaustion – everything is too much and beyond the capabilities of her recovering mind and spirit. And it was so wonderful to watch her come alive, to confront her past and her demons, to come to terms with it and be able to begin to heal, but also to be able to embrace what her past has taught her, and to begin to seize life again. And of course part of that was her relationship with Gage. I loved that she wasn’t afraid to stand up to him, she never succumbed to thinking he knew best – in fact to start with she is convinced that he has no real idea what he’s doing which was both amusing and brilliant to read. They are such a perfect pair and their friendship is tackled so wonderfully – another brilliant example of the slow burn and how effectively it can be utilised.

I cannot wait to read the rest of the series, one which is now a firm favourite based merely on this first book. I want to find out more about Kiera and see where her new found confidence and gumption takes her next, and of course, see her next meeting with the wonderful Mr Gage. This is a beautiful book, quiet, horrifying and at points genuinely terrifying. I savoured every page of it and cannot recommend it enough.

Review: Flashes by Tim O'Rourke

Huge thanks to Chicken House for sending me a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Flashes is the first in a new series of YA paranormal crime novels in which a 17-year-old girl cannot help seeing glimpses of dead people who seem to want her aid - much to the consternation of her boyfriend, who has just started work for the local CID.
This review is for the full paperback version rather than the three separate releases.

I think I am in the minority when I say that I really didn’t enjoy ‘Flashes’. It’s an exciting premise, and Charley had the potential to be a truly fascinating character, but unfortunately what was a brilliant idea never really took off for me.

The biggest problem was the obviousness of the plot, within the first twenty odd pages I had already worked out who the killer was, and whenever a large plot point like that is obvious it ruins my enjoyment of the rest of the book.

The second problem was the flatness of the characters. I wanted to like them, I wanted to feel involved, and Charley had the potential to be a fantastic heroine. Unfortunately the characters never felt fully realized, whether due to the length of the book or the concentration on the mystery elements I am not entirely sure.

It just didn’t sit quite right with me. The dialogue was awkward, particularly between any female characters where it felt contrived and stereotyped. The characters never really came alive from the page, and where it could have been saved by the plot it fell again by, in my opinion, making the villain of the story far too obvious from the start.

The idea was fantastic, and the tension at points was brilliantly done, which makes me wonder whether if I had read this story in the original three parts instead of all at once, whether I would have enjoyed it more.

If you’re after a quick, paranormal crime to read then I do definitely recommend giving this a go, because it has had a good reception from most. However I personally didn’t find it to be as good as I had expected from the blurb and felt let down by the characterization and plot.

Release Day: Crusher by Niall Leonard

Today marks the release of the highly anticipated young adult crime/thriller novel 'Crusher' from Niall Leonard.
This book has been on my radar since earlier this summer and has caused quite a stir of excitement in the blogging world. Husband of E. L. James (of 50 Shades of Grey fame) Leonard's debut novel looks set to be a fantastic and fast paced book that will keep you on your toes right until the end!

Don't believe me? Just check out the trailer below! And then go and pick up your copy today! Review to come soon.

To catch a killer,Finn Maguire may have to become one....

Everything changed the day Finn found his father in a pool of blood, bludgeoned to death. His dull, dreary life is turned upside down as he become's the prime suspect. How can he clear his name and find out who hated his dad enough to kill him?

Facing danger at every turn, uncovering dark family secrets and braving the seedy London underworld,Finn is about to discover that only the people you trust can really hurt you...