psychological – Bibliophile Book Club

Blog Tour~After The Eclipse by Fran Dorricott

Hi guys,

Today I’m delighted to be taking part in the blog tour for After The Eclipse by Fran Dorricott, and I’ll be sharing my review with you a little further down.

About the author:

Fran Dorricott is a bookseller and author. She studied creative writing at the University of East Anglia, and she received a distinction for her MA in Creative Writing from City University London. Her day job in a bookshop is secretly just a way for her to fuel her ridiculous book-buying addiction. The opportunity to draw inspiration from the many wonderful and wacky customer requests is also a plus.

About the book:

A little girl is abducted during the darkness of a solar eclipse. Her older sister was supposed to be watching her. She is never seen again.

Sixteen years later and in desperate need of a fresh start, journalist Cassie Warren moves back to the small town of Bishop’s Green to live with her ailing grandmother. When a local girl goes missing just before the next big eclipse, Cassie suspects the disappearance is connected to her sister – that whoever took Olive is still out there. But she needs to find a way to prove it, and time is running out.

Click the link below to order your copy:

After The Eclipse by Fran Dorricott

My thoughts:

It’s been a while since I have read a psychological thriller so I was looking forward to reading After The Eclipse as it sounded like an interesting premise. Two girls go missing sixteen years apart, coinciding perfectly with a solar eclipse.

It follows Cassie, sister of the first missing girl, as she returns home to take care of her grandmother. When the second girl goes missing just before the eclipse, it leads Cassie to thinking it’s connected with her sisters disappearance all these years ago.

What follows is a dark and layered story that lovers of books like this will enjoy. It’s got plenty in the way of suspense and tension as the reader goes on the journey with Cassie to find out what happened to her sister, and what happened to the local girl who has disappeared this time.

I read After The Eclipse in a handful of sittings over the course of 24 hours. I was eager to see where the author would take the reader, and to see what was going to happen. The plot moves along nicely, the characters are intriguing and it’s another good addition to the psych thriller genre. I look forward to seeing where Fran Dorricott will go with her next book!

Many thanks to Titan Books for my copy in exchange for a blog tour review.

Check out the blog tour:

A Woman Scorned by Jack Jordan

About the book:

Are you afraid?
You should be.

The husband: in over his head with no way of knowing the truth.
The mistress: blinded by love, betrayed by her family…
The neighbour: will stop at nothing to protect the life he has fought to create.
The wife: a woman bent on revenge, but how far is she willing to go…?

Click the link below to find out…

A Woman Scorned by Jack Jordan

About the author:

Jack Jordan is the global number one bestselling author of Anything for Her (2015), My Girl (2016), A Woman Scorned (2018), and Before Her Eyes (2018).

To find out more about Jack, enter numerous annual giveaways to win signed copies of his books, and be one of the first to hear of new book releases and news, follow him here:

Facebook: JackJordanOfficial

Twitter: @JackJordanBooks

Instagram: @JackJordan_Author

Goodreads: JackJordanOfficial

My thoughts:

I really enjoyed Jack’s previous books, so I was super excited to be able to read an early copy of A Woman Scorned! And I stand by my hashtag, #JackIsBack, and with a bang!

A Woman Scorned is a short read, at less than 125 pages, so it was very easy to pick this one up, and not put it down until I finished it. It helps that it was a fun story to read too. Not fun in the usual sense obviously, but fun in the sense that it was a juicy little read.

I enjoy a domestic noir-ish thriller, but this one has a little more spice to it. The characters are multi-faceted, and we get a glimpse into each of them, which made it all the more interesting to see why they were the way they were, if that makes sense?!

Honestly, I would have read the hell out of this if it was a full book! I wanted more! But that being said, this is a little gem of a story. It packs a punch for such a short story, but it feels satisfying when you’re done. I really enjoyed it!

#JackIsBack 🙂

Previous reviews:

Anything For Her by Jack Jordan

My Girl by Jack Jordan

My Mother’s Secret by Sanjida Kay

About the book:

You can only hide for so long…

Lizzie Bradshaw. A student from the Lake District, forced to work away from home, who witnesses a terrible crime. But who will ultimately pay the price?

Emma Taylor. A mother, a wife, and a woman with a dangerous secret. Can she keep her beloved family safely together?

Stella Taylor. A disaffected teenager, determined to discover what her mother is hiding. But how far will she go to uncover the truth?

And one man, powerful, manipulative and cunning, who controls all their destinies.

Published by Corvus tomorrow, you can order your copy by clicking the link below:

My Mother’s Secret by Sanjida Kay

About the author:

Sanjida Kay is the author of three psychological thrillers, Bone by Bone (longlisted for a CWA Steel Dagger Award, nominated as one of the best crime and thriller books of the year by the Guardian and the Sunday Express and named as an Amazon Rising Star), and The Stolen Child.

My Mother’s Secret will be out 3 May.

All three are published by Corvus Books, and are available as audiobooks via Audible.

She lives in Bristol, with her husband and daughter.

My thoughts:

My Mother’s Secret is the kind of book that you pick up to read a little, and by the time you look up again you’re halfway through! Sanjida Kay has a lovely writing style, in that it flows really well and you don’t notice the time going by as you read.

I really enjoyed My Mother’s Secret. The characters were all interesting in their own way, and they are all going through some stuff. And who doesn’t like to read a bit of drama every now and again?!

Sanjida Kay has a real knack for writing relationships. Most especially the dynamics between mothers and their children, for better or worse. She just “gets” it. The moods, the communication (or lack thereof), the huffing at each other, it’s all there. I find that this gives a very real, tangible feeling to her writing, because it makes it that bit more relatable.

There is quite a lot going on in My Mother’s Secret, not so much that you can’t keep track, but enough to make the reader think. I loved how the stories intermingled, and then went in different directions, and were then brought back around. A really clever look at relationships and how the impact of decisions can affect everything.

Recommended for sure!

Previous reviews:

Bone By Bone by Sanjida Kay

The Stolen Child by Sanjida Kay

Skin Deep by Liz Nugent

*Many thanks to Liz Nugent and Penguin for my review copy!

About the author:

Before becoming a full-time writer, Liz Nugent worked in Irish film, theatre and television. In 2014 her first novel, Unravelling Oliver, was a Number One bestseller and won the Crime Fiction Prize in the 2014 Irish Book Awards. Her second novel, Lying in Wait, went straight to Number One in the Irish bestseller charts, remained there for nearly two months and won her a second IBA. She lives in Dublin with her husband.

About the book:

‘I could probably have been an actress.
It is not difficult to pretend to be somebody else.
Isn’t that what I’ve been doing for most of my life?’

Cordelia Russell has been living on the French Riviera for twenty-five years, passing herself off as an English socialite. But her luck, and the kindness of strangers, have run out.

The arrival of a visitor from her distant past shocks Cordelia. She reacts violently to the intrusion and flees her flat to spend a drunken night at a glittering party. As dawn breaks she stumbles home through the back streets. Even before she opens her door she can hear the flies buzzing. She did not expect the corpse inside to start decomposing quite so quickly . . .

Skin Deep by Liz Nugent

My thoughts:

I love a bookish baddie. You know the kind. Self-centered, narcissistic, just hateful in general. Well, yet again, Liz Nugent has created a truly terrible fictional human being in Cordelia Russell. Right from the beginning of Skin Deep I found myself disliking her as a character.

But. And there is definitely a but. When we are taken through Cordelia’s early life, the reader learns why she is the way she is. No excuse, I know, but it is a very insightful and eye-opening character development that left me wondering how many more layers Liz Nugent could possibly add to her character.

Skin Deep is a masterful exploration of character and circumstance. It is graphic, raw and unashamedly honest in its portrayal of the lengths to which someone will go to get what they need from others. Selfishness and greed are front and centre in this book, and as we learn more about Cordelia, it is difficult to not have some very real and often angry feelings towards her.

I had been eagerly awaiting this book, and it was most definitely worth the wait. A savage look at the depravity of the human condition, the lengths to which people will go for their own gain, it is a triumph.

Highly recommended!

Blog Tour: A Breath After Drowning by Alice Blanchard

Hi everyone,

Today I’m thrilled to be taking part in the blog tour for Alice Blanchard’s A Breath After Drowning and I’ll be sharing my review with you all further down the post!

About the author:

Alice Blanchard won the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction for her book of short stories, “The Stuntman’s Daughter.” Her first novel, “Darkness Peering,” was a New York Times’ Notable Book and a Barnes & Noble Best Mystery. Her thriller, “The Breathtaker,” was an official selection of the NBC Today Book Club. Alice has received a PEN Award, a New Letters Literary Award, and a Centrum Artists-in-Residence Fellowship. Her books have been published in 16 countries. Her new psychological thriller, “A Breath After Drowning,” will be published by Titan Books in April 2018.

About the book:

Sixteen years ago, Kate Wolfe’s young sister Savannah was brutally murdered. Forced to live with the guilt of how her own selfishness put Savannah in harm’s way, Kate was at least comforted by the knowledge that the man responsible was behind bars. But when she meets a retired detective who is certain that Kate’s sister was only one of many victims of a serial killer, Kate must face the possibility that Savannah’s murderer walks free.
Unearthing disturbing family secrets in her search for the truth, Kate becomes sure that she has discovered the depraved mind responsible for so much death. But as she hunts for a killer, a killer is hunting her…

Out now, you can get your copy by clicking HERE!

My thoughts:

A Breath After Drowning is one of those books that gets its hooks into you quite early on, but you don’t realize it until you try to put it down. I found myself thinking about the story and the characters when I wasn’t reading it, which is always a sign of a good book for me.

Character-driven for the first while, the author does a great job of getting the reader invested in Kate’s life and her work. We learn her routine, her issues arising from her sister’s death and how she deals with her job as a psychologist on a daily basis. This all builds a foundation for how dark the book gets.

This is a really gripping book, I loved how the author wove past and present events, and how it all played out between the pages. I won’t lie, I had some suspicions along the way, but this in no way detracted from my enjoyment of the book. Guessing something isn’t the same as seeing how creatively the author will bring you towards the ultimate denouement, and Alice Blanchard does this beautifully.

Engaging, clever and more than a little dark in places, A Breath After Drowning is a most excellent psychological thriller.

Highly recommended!

Check out the tour:

The Perfect Stranger by Megan Miranda

About the book:

What happens when your best friend becomes your worst nightmare…

Having reached a dead end in Boston, failed journalist Leah Stevens needs a change. When she runs into an old friend, Emmy Grey, who is moving to rural Pennsylvania, Leah decides to join her. But their fresh start is quickly threatened when a woman with an eerie resemblance to Leah is assaulted by the lake, and Emmy disappears days later.

Determined to find Emmy, Leah helps Detective Kyle Donovan to investigate her friend’s life for clues. But with no friends, family or digital footprint, the police begin to suspect that there is no Emmy Grey. Forced to question her version of reality and to save herself, Leah must uncover the truth – no matter how dark or terrible it may be…

The Perfect Stranger by Megan Miranda

My thoughts:

Having read and enjoyed All The Missing Girls, I was looking forward to reading The Perfect Stranger, especially as Ellen had reviewed it (HERE) for the blog tour and raved about it. I figured I would give it a go too.

Firstly, we have one of my favourite themes here; small town claustrophobia. I am a big fan of this kind of story because it cranks up the tension as you move your way through the story.

In The Perfect Stranger, we meet Leah and Emmy, who have both moved to Pennsylvania, both escaping something and in need of a fresh start. When the body of a woman resembling Leah is found dead, and then Emmy disappears, Leah is thrown into the investigation that becomes twisted very quickly.

While I flew through this one, I found it a little flatter than what I was expecting. I had suspicions though, so needless to say, that kept me reading to see whether or not they were well-founded! I wasn’t too far wrong!

I did enjoy The Perfect Stranger. It was a nice, easy read that ensured I kept turning those pages. Not anything new to the genre, but an intriguing little mystery all the same.

Recommended!

2018 Watchlist: If I Die Before I Wake by Emily Koch

About the book:

HOW DO YOU SOLVE YOUR OWN MURDER? Everyone believes Alex is in a coma, unlikely to ever wake up. As his family debate withdrawing life support, and his friends talk about how his girlfriend Bea needs to move on, he can only listen. But Alex soon begins to suspect that the accident that put him here wasn’t really an accident. Even worse, the perpetrator is still out there and Alex is not the only one in danger. As he goes over a series of clues from his past, Alex must use his remaining senses to solve the mystery of who tried to kill him, and try to protect those he loves, before they decide to let him go.

My thoughts:

I know I said I’m taking a break, and I am. But I couldn’t wait to get my thoughts out on If I Die Before I Wake.

IIDBIW is billed as a psychological mystery, and it is, but it is so much more too.

When we meet Alex, he’s lying in a hospital bed, with all those around him believing he’s in a coma. Yet he can still hear, and feel, and think for himself. He just can’t move. He is trapped in his own body.

We see everything from Alex’s perspective, and along with him, we learn that his climbing accident may have been something more sinister. As his visitors come and go, we all learn a little bit more about them all and how they fit into Alex’s life before the fall.

If I Die Before I Wake is a very clever novel. I loved the fact that the main character was male, as it’s not the usual thing in the psychological thriller genre lately. The narrative is brilliantly told, and with each new piece of information gleaned, the tension rises.

I found myself unable to put the book down. So much so that I read almost all of it in one day. Today, in fact. The characterisation is excellent. We learn a little about everyone. Family members, friends, their various experiences. All of this lends itself really well to how I felt about Alex. I was rooting for him from the very beginning. Willing him to move, to talk, to do anything.

I loved how the author built tension throughout the book. More than once I had to remind myself to relax. I was getting so caught up in the story that my body was rigid! It also makes the reader feel a range of emotions for all of those involved too.

Compulsive, engaging and thoroughly gripping, If I Die Before I Wake is most certainly a book to watch out for in 2018. I can’t wait to see where this author goes next!

Highly recommended!