2016 – Page 3 – Bibliophile Book Club

Weekly Wrap Up January 31st

Well, this week has been another decent week of reading! I’ve read 11 books and short stories this week, which brings my tally up to 31 books read this month!

31 books in 31 days!!!!!!

*this will not happen again this year* 😂

I’m going to list the novels I’ve read first as it’s less than the short stories!

No Longer Safe by A. J. Waines

You can read my 4⭐️ review HERE.

The 3rd Woman by Jonathan Freedland

My review will be put up on February 11th to coincide with the new paperback release. I gave this book 3⭐️ over on Goodreads.

Next up was a cracker of a proof copy from Fahrenheit Press. I read the whole book in one evening, I was that hooked! However, it’s not released yet so I can’t share my review! All will be revealed soon… 😉

Short Stories:

***I’m not going to review these individually, you can have a look on my Goodreads though:

My Goodreads Profile.

Dead Time by Tony Parsons

The Debt by Simon Kernick

A Textbook Case by Jeffery Deaver

Falling by Chris Mooney

Rhymes With Prey by Jeffery Deaver

The Hunter by Chris Carter

Thorn in my Side by Karin Slaughter

The Rain Killer by Luke Delaney

So there you have it, 11 books read this month! 😊

I’m doing up my February reads post tomorrow too hopefully!

What have you all been reading this week? 😊📖

The Invisible Guardian by Dolores Redondo

My thanks to Hayley at Harper Collins for my copy of The Invisible Guardian to read and review.

I’m honoured to be the last stop on the blog tour for this book, the first in the Baztán trilogy.

About the book:

The naked body of a teenage girl is found on the banks of the River Baztán. Less than 24 hours after this discovery, a link is made to the murder of another girl the month before. Is this the work of a ritualistic killer or of the Invisible Guardian, the Basajaun, a creature of Basque mythology?
30-year-old Inspector Amaia Salazar heads an investigation which will take her back to Elizondo, the village in the heart of Basque country where she was born, and to which she had hoped never to return. A place of mists, rain and forests. A place of unresolved conflicts, of a dark secret that scarred her childhood and which will come back to torment her.

Torn between the rational, procedural part of her job and local myths and superstitions, Amaia Salazar has to fight off the demons of her past in order to confront the reality of a
serial killer at loose in a region steeped in the history of the Spanish Inquisition.

My thoughts:

I had seen The Invisible Guardian pop up on social media a couple of times, so when I was contacted by Hayley to see if I was interested, naturally it was a yes. I was intrigued to read this Spanish bestseller to see what it was like!

Initially, I found it hard to get into. It took a while for the story to progress and there were many asides to do with Spanish mythology and with character backgrounds. However, these descriptions all (whether I realised it or not) had some impact on the developing story and it was all explained much later on.

I liked Inspector Salazar as a character. Well written and quite a strong woman, she didn’t take any prisoners (pardon the pun) and did her job well. Salazar, like many main characters, has her own hidden weaknesses and some of these threaten to undo her during the course of the book.

The murder investigation takes many different twists and turns, and I honestly couldn’t see where it was going for quite some time! Every time I thought I had the perpetrator, the author cleverly pointed the finger in another direction. I quite like that in books, as it makes you think back over what made you choose one person over another and what changed for the characters.

Redondo has skilfully written in Basque heritage and mythology into her novel. The pictures painted are wonderfully vivid, misty mornings that roll on, dense forestry and a flowing river all add to the darkness of the ritualistic subject matter in The Invisible Guardian.

I really enjoyed this book, and I would happily read the following two books in the Baztán trilogy.

You can purchase a copy HERE
Happy reading 😊📖

No Longer Safe by A.J. Waines

Many thanks to Alison Waines for my copy of No Longer Safe in exchange for an honest review!

About the book:

She was your best friend. Now she’s your deadliest enemy – and there’s nowhere to run…

When Alice receives an invitation from Karen, her charismatic University friend, to stay in a remote cottage in Scotland, she can’t wait to rekindle their lost friendship. But two more former students arrive – never friends of Alice’s – and as the atmosphere chills, Karen isn’t the warm-hearted soulmate Alice remembers. Barely is the reunion underway before someone is dead and the fragile gathering is pushed to breaking point.

As the snow cuts them off from civilisation and accusations fly, Alice finds herself a pawn, sinking deeper into a deadly game she can’t escape.

NO LONGER SAFE is a chilling Psychological Thriller that delivers a delicious sting in the tail.

About the author:

AJ Waines has sold over 100,000 books worldwide and topped the UK and Australian Kindle Charts in 2015 with her number one bestseller, Girl on a Train. Following fifteen years as a psychotherapist, she is now a full-time novelist with publishing deals in France, Germany (Penguin Random House) and USA (audiobooks).

In 2015, she was featured in The Wall Street Journal and The Times and was ranked in the Top 20 UK authors on Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing). She lives in Southampton, UK, with her husband. Visit her website and blog, or follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

My thoughts:

I have just finished reading No Longer Safe and it’s safe to say I’m completely lost!! In a good way though! I literally have no idea what happened at the end of the book 🙈

I haven’t read any of Alison’s other books, but it’s safe to say I will be adding them to my TBR pile in the future.

Waines has a great writing style, very detailed but at the same time it’s easy to follow. I had no clue what to expect when I started reading No Longer Safe, but I really enjoyed the book.

No Longer Safe is a novel about rekindled friendship, betrayal and so much more. The book starts of slow, with Waines revealing fragments of the characters lives as we meet them. Alice and Karen are the two main characters, and both women evoked different reactions in me the further into the book I got. I went from sympathy to anger on more than one occasion during the course of the story.

As usual, no big plot details and definitely no spoilers. The synopsis perfectly sums up the book!

I really enjoyed reading No Longer Safe! It was cleverly plotted, and it flowed easily. The characters are well drawn, and the twist, well twist is an understatement!

I gave No Longer Safe 4⭐️ over on Goodreads! I would highly recommend this psychological thriller. It is still messing with my mind!

No Longer Safe is available on February 4th and You can preorder your copy here:
No Longer Safe
Happy reading 😊📖

After You Die by Eva Dolan

Huge thanks to Eva Dolan and Harvill Secker for my ARC of After You Die. I’ve has this on my TBR for a good few weeks now, I just hadn’t gotten around to reading it. I’m so cross at myself for leaving it so long as this book was just brilliant!!!

About the book:

Dawn Prentice was already known to the Peterborough Hate Crimes Unit.

The previous summer she had logged a number of calls detailing the harassment she and her severely disabled teenage daughter were undergoing. Now she is dead – stabbed to death whilst Holly Prentice has been left to starve upstairs. DS Ferreira, only recently back serving on the force after being severely injured in the line of duty, had met with Dawn that summer. Was she negligent in not taking Dawn’s accusations more seriously? Did the murderer even know that Holly was helpless upstairs while her mother bled to death?
Whilst Ferreira battles her demons, determined to prove she’s up to the frontline, DI Zigic is drawn into conflict with an official seemingly resolved to hide the truth about one of his main suspects. Can either officer unpick the truth about mother and daughter, and bring their killer to justice?

My thoughts:

Having never read any of Eva Dolan’s previous books, I didn’t know what to expect when I started After You Die. I certainly wasn’t expecting to be hooked immediately and not wanting to leave the book down to sleep, but with 2 kids, I need sleep 😂

Happily, when I picked it back up, I was just as engrossed. I started the book on Tuesday night and had it finished last night. It was utterly addictive reading!
While the themes in the book are tough subject matter, they were handled skilfully, both by the author and the characters she has created. Zigic and Ferreira are one of the best, and most cohesive pairs of detectives I’ve read in a while. I often find that one or the other gets more time, or demands more attention, but both were equally present throughout the narrative.

The plot in After You Die was very tight. Every story was perfectly constructed, and together they intermingled brilliantly. You felt something for almost every character, whether it be sympathy, sadness, happiness or anger, and that is something I look for in the books I read. If I can’t connect, I find it harder to concentrate on the story. No fear of that here!!!

I’m not going go into details of the plot, the synopsis above should be enough to whet your appetite. I, for one, am glad I went in without reading more that the synopsis as it was such a layered book that I wasn’t expecting half of what happened! Also, as usual lately, I guessed the perpetrator and was wrong, again! 😂

Dolan has a fabulous writing style, descriptive yet easy to follow, which I loved. After You Die just flowed off the pages, a compelling and pacy read that just reels you in and doesn’t let you go until you turn the last page.
I gave After You Die an easy 5⭐️ on Goodreads and I’d highly recommend it! I’m off to buy the first two books in the Zigic and Ferreira series! 😉

You can get your copy of After You Die HERE

Happy reading 😊📖

Broken Grace by E C Diskin

I received a copy of Broken Grace from Netgalley, however I didn’t get around to reading it until this week!

I didn’t know what to expect when I began reading, I hadn’t read many reviews so went into it with a fairly open mind.

About the book (via Goodreads):

On an icy winter’s day in southwest Michigan, Grace Abbot wakes up as the survivor of a car crash. But she’s left with a traumatic brain injury and a terrifying reality: she can’t remember anything.

Left in the care of her sister, Grace returns to the family’s secluded old farmhouse to recover—but within an hour of her return, the police arrive. Grace’s boyfriend has been murdered. Without any memory, Grace has no alibi.

With suspicion weighing heavily on her and flashes of memory returning, Grace searches for clues to her past. But with every glimpse, her anxiety grows. There is something about the house, her family, her childhood…perhaps the accident isn’t the only reason she can’t remember. Are the dark recesses of her mind hiding something even more sinister and terrifying than she could ever imagine?
And someone is watching. Someone willing to kill again to protect a secret.

My thoughts:

Broken Grace starts off with a killer chapter, you know, the kind that hooks you and makes you want to keep reading!

However, after this the book becomes a bit clichèd for a while. The memory loss reminds me a bit of Before I Go To Sleep (which I didn’t love) so I was unsure whether I was going to enjoy reading.

Grace leaves hospital for recovery in her old home, in the care of her sister, and with no recollection of her life before her car accident, and then the police turn up. Grace’s boyfriend has been found dead, in or around the same time as her accident, ergo she has no alibi,ergo she is essentially a suspect!

The story unfolds almost as a race against time, Grace’s memories returning versus the murder investigation. These memories become terrifying visions of which she is unsure of. Are they real? Are they not?

Broken Grace has a decent plot, even though it takes a little while to take off, it’s not a bad read. Once events start unfolding, it becomes quite a quick read with each chapter revealing another nugget of information. I gave Broken Grace 3.5⭐️ which I rounded up to 4⭐️ on Goodreads.

Happy reading 😊📖

You can purchase a copy here:

Broken Grace

Book Haul!

New year, new books… Right?! Just me?? 😂

I have been reading (I’m on book 14 of the year!) but not reviewing this week, so I decided I’d do a post on the books I’ve bought so far this year!

I’ve been (relatively) restrained in my book purchasing in the last couple of months, but I’ve managed to buy quite a few in the past two weeks!

So without further ado…

The Book Depository.

The first, The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, I have wanted for ages purely based on its cover. I love all things galaxy related so this beautiful cover caught my eye early on.

The second book I bought from them was Motive by Jonathan Kellerman. I’m amassing a collection of his Alex Delaware novels, and this one I didn’t have!

Www.thebookshop.ie

This site is fast becoming a favourite of mine! It’s an Irish based online second hand bookshop. Best of all, the books are all €2 each! Yes, TWO EURO!!! This is the second time I’ve bought books from them, and they are excellent! The books are in perfect condition, and delivery is also very quick. Here’s a pic of my haul from them!

I got two Agatha Christie novels (I’ve never read anything by her!), more Kellerman books (both Jonathan and Faye), some more true crime from Ann Rule, a John Sandford (I’m slowly collecting his Prey series too), Simon Kernick, Chelsea Cain and PJ Tracy, and I had to buy Confessions of a Shopaholic as I loved the movie! 😊

Easons

I had vouchers that I got for Christmas, and I had looked once or twice since then to see if I could find anything but nothing caught my eye. I went in this morning and came upon these four beauties. Thanks to the voucher and loyalty points, they only cost me €3! A steal for 4 newly published books! 😉

Last but not least, here is what I’ve bought myself to read on my KINDLE:

I’ve been missing Jack Reacher lately (I’m saving Make Me) so I got all the short stories and read them all this week! (I also read the James Carol ones)

I also purchased-

The Cold Cold Ground by Adrian McKinty

The Missing and The Dead by Stuart Macbride

The Lost Boy by Camilla Lackberg

The Chemistry of Death by Simon Beckett

The Blind Goddess by Anne Holt

The Samaritan by Mason Cross

The Cross: An Eddie Flynn Novella by Steve Cavanagh.

Add them together and I think I’ve bought 30 BOOKS since January 1st 2016 but shhhhh….

I have nothing to read! 😂😂😂

And to punctuate that sentence, here’s my current physical TBR bookshelves…

OUT OF CONTROL!!!!! 😊📚📚📚❤️

What have you bought lately?! Any of the above?! Do leave me a comment below! 😉📚

Weekly Wrap Up!

So, I asked followers over on Twitter during the week what they would like to see more of on my blog and Weekly Wrap Up won out. 😊

I’m thinking posting every Sunday makes the most sense as it’s the end of the week. This week consists of reads from January 1st 2016 up until today (10th) and I’ll link to my reviews for each book too! 😊

Book 1:

The Darkest Secret by Alex Marwood

You can read my 4⭐️ review HERE.

Book 2:

Dead Lucky by Matt Brolly

My first 5 ⭐️ read of the year, you can see my review HERE.
Book 3:

Try Not To Breathe by Holly Seddon

Another cracker, my 4⭐️ review is HERE.
Book 4:

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

A book of my own choosing, maybe not the best, you can read my 2⭐️ review HERE.
Book 5:

The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom

Another personal choice, again not the best book, but still a solid 3⭐️ and you can read the review HERE.

Last, but by no means least…

Book 6:

Web Of Deceit by Mel Comley and Tara Lyons

My last read of the week was this DI Sally Parker novella, and you can read my 4⭐️ review by clicking HERE.
So there you have it, ten days into the new year, and I have read 6 books! Goodreads is already telling me that I’m ahead of schedule so let’s hope it stays that way! 😊
Happy reading 😊 📖