In the place of my usual WWW Wednesday post, I have my end of my end of month wrap up and a look at what is coming up in my bookish world in April.
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March Wrap-Up
It’s been a good reading month – I’ve read some great books, including a few outside my comfort zone! This month, I’ve read 13 books. I’ve struggled a bit with digital reading, so these have been mainly physical books – unusual for me and a lovely change.
My NetGalley is at 76% – this will be a focus for me in April as I really want to get back to that elusive 80%!
As soon as I saw the subtitle for this book – ‘In search of ourselves in life and literature’ – I knew I had to read it. Thanks to Sarah at Harwood PR for sending me a gifted copy in exchange for an honest review – opinions, as always, are entirely my own.
I love books about books and loved the sound of this one! Josh Cohen is a psychoanalyst and Professor of Literary Theory – there is genuinely no-one better suited to take the reader through the trials of human life while also offering up literary examples of characters who have suffered the same timeless conundrums.
WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Taking on a World of Words. Anyone can take part and it is a great way of sharing what you have just finished reading, what you are currently reading and what is next on the TBR.
Links are provided for books mentioned – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases (at no extra cost to you!)
What have you recently finished reading?
With the Tsundoku Squad, I was ‘The Islanders’ by S V Leonard but the lure of the last section was too much and I finished it slightly ahead of schedule – I was finding that I was losing the sense of pace and was keen to race to the denouement. Review to follow but this was an engaging, fun read.
The Write Reads book group chose a graphic novel this month, ‘Bloodlust and Bonnets’ by Emily McGovern. I hadn’t read a graphic novel in ages but I raced through this charming, witty and lively book. I loved the heroine, Lucy, who is sassy and strong (and also a redhead, like me – loved that!) yet also clueless in many ways. The addition of Byron and vampires was a bonus! Review to follow.
What are you reading now?
I have more books on the go than I can keep up with!
I’ve stepped away from too much digital reading for a while because it was not helping my headaches, so most of these books are physical copies – this is a bit of a novelty for me!
I’m still – yes, still – reading the new Katie Fforde book, ‘A Wedding in the Country’ on NetGalley. I’m making slow progress because I put it down for some blog tour books but I am enjoying it.
I’m also still reading ‘How to Live. What to Do’ by Josh Cohen, a psychoanalyst who looks at life through the lens of literature. I really like the literary examples that Cohen is using and analysing – I’ve just read a really interesting exploration of ‘ambition’ using Jay Gatsby and Esther Greenwood from ‘The Bell Jar’ – books I know well and so can easily follow Cohen’s argument. This is a gifted copy from the publisher – a review will follow.
I’ve just started ‘Art in the Blood’ by Bonnie MacBird, the first in her Sherlock Holmes series. I read the 4th book, ‘The Three Locks’, for a forthcoming blog tour and absolutely loved it so I just had to start with the first book. So far, so good!
I’ve also just started ‘Insatiable’ by Daisy Buchanan. I was intrigued about this one after reading some blogger reviews via Twitter but – wow – it is an eye opener and has made me both laugh and blush quite a few times. One I really don’t need my kids picking up!
On a more sober note, I also started reading ‘Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again’ by Katherine Angel. I picked up this book on the recommendation of the lovely Ellie H on Twitter and it is a fascinating look at women, desire and consent. It is really engaging and striking and – sadly, given the seeming relentlessness of events in the news – incredibly timely.
What do you think you will read next?
I have a blog tour for ‘The Shadow in the Glass’ by JJA Harwood. I love the look of this gothic, Victorian story!
I do have quite a NetGalley backlog since I have been struggling to read digitally with post-Covid headaches. In particular, I have my eye on ‘The Road Trip’ by Beth O’Leary and ‘Dangerous Women’ by Hope Adams.
Many thanks to NetGalley, blog tour hosts, publishers and authors for books in exchange for an honest review.
WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Taking on a World of Words. Anyone can take part and it is a great way of sharing what you have just finished reading, what you are currently reading and what is next on the TBR.
Links are provided for books mentioned – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases (at no extra cost to you!)
What have you recently finished reading?
It’s been two weeks since my last WWW Wednesday post, but you can read my February Wrap-Up here.
This looks like loads, but it is 2 weeks and a lot of finishing the last section of books!
I finished ‘Paris by Starlight’ by Robert Dinsdale with my Tsundoku Squad lovelies. This is a beautifully-imagines tale of refugees bringing their old country magic to Paris (where they aren’t exactly welcomed). The writing is lovely, but I found the pace a little slow for my tastes.
My other buddy read for February (with The Write Reads group) was ‘Cemetery Boys’ by Aiden Thomas, a Latinx tale centred around a trans boy in Los Angeles who wants to join his family in being able to release the dead into the afterlife. I found the setting of this one really engaging – I didn’t know much about beliefs around Day of the Dead before this and it is a clever setting for the story. I liked the main characters and did enjoy reading along and discussing the novel. Once the action picked up, I did really like this book – although the first part was a little meandering and it wasn’t clear where it was headed.
Since my last update, I also read ‘Nick’ by Michael Farris Smith for a blog tour – you can read my review here. This one was a hit for me based on the excellent settings – the trenches of World War I, wartime Paris and post-war New Orleans. I found myself carried along by the story created for Nick Carraway, who (after the events of ‘Nick’) finds himself in West Egg at the end of the novel and about to embark on the events in F Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’. I’d recommend reading this if you like engaging historical fiction – the literary connection to Gatsby is a bonus.
I also read ‘Behind Closed Doors’by Catherine Alliott for a blog tour – you can read my review here. This was a departure from what I expect from Alliott’s novels – it was a much darker story about a marriage that seems perfect on the surface and what happens when it ends. The mix of genres surprised me – there are elements of romance, as you might expect, but also something much grittier and with higher stakes – but I did enjoy it.
Another blog tour read was ‘The Three Locks’ by Bonnie MacBird. This is the fourth in a series of new Sherlock Holmes novels and I absolutely loved it. I haven’t read the previous books in the series, although I’ve since bought them. This is a twisty tale of a locked box, a missing girl, the world of Cambridge academia, warring magicians and a whole lot more. I raced through this in two sittings and can recommend it – my review will follow later in the month.
Then I read a short book – ‘Sex and the City of Ladies: Rewriting History with Cleopatra, Lucrezia Borgia and Catherine the Great’ by Lisa Hilton. I’d previously only read Hilton’s thrillers, but knew that she also wrote academic books and was intrigued by this short volume printed by the TLS. At about 80 pages, it discusses the way that the three named women are portrayed throughout history and the notoriety that surrounds them – often for doing the same things as their male counterparts who haven’t caused such a stir! It was an interesting read.
Finally, I finished the audiobook of ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ by Douglas Adams (read by Stephen Fry). The book is one that I love and it has been great to share it with my son. It has dated a bit, I suppose – the actual Hitchhiker’s Guide, which seemed so magical when I read it as a teen, could now be outdone by anyone with a smartphone and Wikipedia – but it was nice to hear it all again. Fry’s narration is good too.
My last read was ‘Last Place You Look’ by Louisa Scarr, a crime procedural about a mysterious death and some pretty unconventional policing. My review will follow as part of the blog tour later in the month. This is to be the first in a new series featuring DS Robin Butler and DC Freya West – and they are an engaging pair of characters.
What are you reading now?
Still too many books!
I have two new buddy reads for March and have started making in-roads into both.
With the Tsundoku Squad, I’m reading ‘The Islanders’ by S V Leonard and it is a lot of fun so far. It’s a kind of clever mix of ‘Love Island’ and Agatha Christie’s ‘And Then There Were None’ – with echoes of Ben Elton’s ‘Dead Famous’ as people are picked off under the watchful eye of reality TV cameras. So far, so good.
The Write Reads group have chosen a graphic novel this month, ‘Bloodlust and Bonnets’ by Emily McGovern. I’ve not done much more than have a quick glance through this so far, but it looks great – a 19th century setting, plus vampires, a feisty heroine and Lord Byron have me sold!
I’m still reading the new Katie Fforde book, ‘A Wedding in the Country’. I’ve read a bit more of this since last update and am enjoying it, but unfortunately had to put it down for some blog tour books. It’s a cosy, cheery read – as you’d expect from Fforde – although I was surprised by the 1960s setting. It works though!
I’m also reading ‘How to Live. What to Do’ by Josh Cohen, a psychoanalyst who looks at life through the lens of literature. Each ‘phase’ of life is examined, with various examples from literature being clinically examined – for example, childhood is looked at by exploring ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and the experiences of the main protagonist. I’m not familiar with some of the examples Cohen is using, but it is an interesting idea and an engaging read.
What do you think you will read next?
I have a blog tour for ‘The Shadow in the Glass’ by JJA Harwood. I love the look of this gothic, Victorian story!
I am also desperate to read some more of Bonnie MacBird’s Sherlock Holmes books after reading ‘The Three Locks’ so I think they are in my near future!
Many thanks to NetGalley, blog tour hosts, publishers and authors for books in exchange for an honest review.
My 10 year old daughter has had a few of these subscription boxes now and has enjoyed them, but this month’s is just so lovely that I wanted to put it on here now!
These boxes are offered by the people at Books that Matter (who do the adult feminist book subscription boxes too) for £17 plus £3 postage in the UK. They still had March boxes available when I last looked here.
WARNING: Spoilers ahead…
The March Box
This box was heavier than usual and I hadn’t seen the theme ahead of when it arrived. My daughter loves getting these boxes and they are always beautifully packed.
The March theme is a collaboration with Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls.
The contents of the box are as follows:
‘I am a Rebel Girl’ hardback journal
Two hardback books – ‘Madam C J Walker Builds a Business’ and ‘Dr Wangari Maathai Plants a Forest’
A sheet of stickers
A copy of the ‘Rebel Times’
Two large postcards
An activity booklet
The Verdict
This is a fabulous box and my daughter really likes it – even though it doesn’t contain the sweets or snacks that have been included previously!
From my perspective, I’d say this was excellent value for money – the books and journal are beautiful with colour illustrations throughout. The journal has loads of space to draw and write, plus prompts to help the creativity flow!
Even better is the message; this is a box absolutely packed with revolutionary and inspirational women, plus positive messages for girls. It also looks a lot of fun.
I’d whole-heartedly recommend this box for girls aged about 8-12. Each month has had some great books and treats – normally one book and a selection of other items.
If you want to see a previous box, here are my reviews for November and January.
Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for ‘Nick’ by Michael Farris Smith, a book that imagines the life of the character of Nick Carraway before he ends up as narrator of ‘The Great Gatsby’.
This blog tour is organised by Oldcastle Books/No Exit Press and I am thrilled to have been asked to join the tour!
From the Publisher:
This rich and imaginative novel from critically acclaimed author Michael Farris Smith breathes new life into a character that many know only from the periphery. Before Nick Carraway moved to West Egg and into Gatsby’s world, he was at the centre of a very different story – one taking place along the trenches and deep within the tunnels of World War I. Floundering in the wake of the destruction he witnessed first-hand, Nick embarks on a redemptive journey that takes him from a whirlwind Paris romance – doomed from the very beginning – to the dizzying frenzy of New Orleans, rife with its own flavour of debauchery and violence.
‘NICK is so pitch-perfect, so rich in character and action, so remarkable a combination of elegance and passion, so striking in felt originality that I am almost tempted to say – book gods forgive me – that The Great Gatsby will forever feel like NICK’s splendid but somewhat paler sequel. Almost tempted to say. But I have no intention of taking back the sincere passing thought of it. Michael Farris Smith’s book is that good’
Robert Olen Butler
2021 WILL MARK 125TH ANNIVERSARY OF F. SCOTT FITZGERALD’S BIRTH
‘Anybody who believes that the war is over when the enemy surrenders and the troops come home needs to read Michael Farris Smith’s masterful new novel NICK. Its stark, unvarnished truth will haunt you’
Richard Russo
‘Stylish, evocative, haunting and wholly original, Michael Farris Smith has paid tribute to a classic and made it his own. A remarkable achievement that should sit at the very top of everyone’s must-read list’
Chris Whitaker
My Review:
I’m a huge fan of ‘The Great Gatsby’, so I absolutely jumped at the opportunity to read this book, a kind of ‘prequel’ to the 1925 novel. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for granting me an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
This book focused on the story of Nick Carraway, the narrator of F Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’. In the original novel, a few things are revealed about the character – the fact he is a Midwesterner, the fact he served in World War I and the fact he finds himself in West Egg (where ‘Gatsby’ is set) aged 29. This gives Michael Farris Smith considerable scope to imagine Nick’s life up to that point and it is a challenge he seems to embrace wholeheartedly.
The story opens in Paris where Nick is on leave from fighting in the trenches of World War I. He meets a young woman and the initial part of the book is their (short) relationship before Nick is called back to combat. A period in the trenches follows – brutal, grim and shocking – before Nick goes to New Orleans and starts to search for his life back in America.
The varied settings of the novel are fascinating as Nick explores a corner of wartime Paris, the trenches and tunnels of the front line in France, the seedy quarter of New Orleans where the speakeasies and brothels are, before finally moving on to West Egg and his future. These places – a theatre attic, a bar, an apartment – are vividly evoked and make Nick’s story jump from the page.
I don’t want to give any spoilers, but it is clear that Nick is suffering from PTSD and a lot of his subsequent experiences are tinged with tragedy. This is a novel that doesn’t shy away from some big themes, from war to grief, revenge to violence, love to loss. Some of the novel, especially the scenes in the trenches and the post-war life of war veteran Judah, is hard to read but extremely powerful.
The writing is vivid and Michael Farris Smith presents a range of characters who engage the reader in their lives and hopes and dreams. Personally, I was most interested in the lives of the women of the novel – the survival instincts of both Colette and Ella in their different ways was interesting. I’d have loved to read more of Ella’s story as she was a mysterious figure in the novel in a lot of ways.
There were a couple of things I found a little jarring that took me out of the richly-imagined world of ‘Nick’ but I think these may be personal things. I found reported speech to be written oddly – totally a stylistic choice by the writer, but one I found tricky to follow sometimes. I also was thrown by a reference to possums – I won’t elaborate but it felt unusual in the context.
So, the big question. Has Michael Farris Smith successfully recreated a Nick Carraway that fits with the character written by F Scott Fitzgerald? My honest answer is that I don’t know. I suspect I would read ‘The Great Gatsby’ with a different view of Nick now, but I’d say the main ingredients are there in Smith’s portrayal. His Nick is honest, introspective and often an observer even in his own life – all features of Fitzgerald’s narrator too. The decision to narrate ‘Nick’ in the third person (as opposed to first person in ‘Gatsby’) escapes the need to recreate Nick’s exact voice, but I’d say these two Nicks could credibly be the same person.
Overall, I would say that I was caught up in Nick’s story and enjoyed the narrative decisions made by Smith to explain how Nick comes to be in West Egg at the start of ‘Gatsby’, plus his emotional baggage. It isn’t always a comfortable read, but I did find it immersive and interesting. If you love ‘The Great Gatsby’, this is definitely worth reading and may give you a different understanding of Nick. If you haven’t read ‘The Great Gatsby’, this is absolutely worth picking up on its own merits. Either way, I’d recommend it.
About the Author:
No Exit Press also publish Michael Farris Smith’s novels Desperation Road, The Fighter and most recently Blackwood. Farris Smith has been a finalist for the Gold Dagger Award in the UK, and the Grand Prix des Lectrices in France, and his essays have appeared in publications including The New York Times. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with his wife and daughters.
It has been another weird month of remote teaching and a fair amount of reading – 10 books in total. I’ve read some brilliant books this month and have some fabulous blog tours coming up, so watch this space!
Here’s what I’ve been reading this month…
Affiliate links are provided – thank you for supporting my blog with any purchases.
February Wrap-Up
I started this month with a big, glamorous thriller – ‘Ruthless Women’ by Melanie Blake. Taking place on the set of a soap opera off the coast of Jersey, this is packed with ambitious women, affairs, jealousy, gossip and backstabbing. I raced through it and it is definitely a lot of fun. You can read my review here.
Next up was the latest in the crime series featuring DI Gina Harte – ‘The Broken Ones’ by Carla Kovach. I have read and loved so many of these books and this one is brilliant! Tense, action-packed and downright scary in places! Although it is Book 8 of the series, it would also work as a standalone, I think. This book is published tomorrow and my review will be on the blog then.
Then I finally finished the absolutely brilliant ‘Maiden Voyages’ by Sian Evans. It took a while because blog tour books kept getting in the way, but I absolutely loved this non-fiction book about women whose lives were somehow linked to the transatlantic shipping crossings between (approximately) World War I to the start of the jet age at the end of the 1950s. There was glitz and glamour, but also amazing accounts of bravery and some fascinating life stories. My review is here but this is my BOOK OF THE MONTH!
Heading back onto my usual turf, I then read serial killer thriller ‘Dog Rose Dirt’ by Jen Williams. This will be heading your way in July so a review will follow nearer that time, but it is definitely one to keep an eye out for!
At this point in the month, I then panicked that I had a lot of blog tours at the end of February and start of March that I hadn’t read the books for yet!
My first blog tour read was ‘Old Bones’ by Helen Kitson, a gorgeously-written story about three older women living in a small village who in many ways feel that life has passed them by. When human remains are found in a nearby quarry, well-hidden secrets begin to surface. I found this one really compelling – you can read my review here.
The next blog tour book was ‘Seven Days’ by Michelle Kidd, an absolute page-turner of a police procedural. I raced through this one, the second in the series to feature DI Jack MacIntosh (I read the first, ‘The Phoenix Project’, for a blog tour last year). My review is here.
Then I read ‘The Shadowy Third: Love, Letters and Elizabeth Bowen’ by Julia Parry. This is a brilliant non-fiction book about Bowen’s affair with Humphry House (the author’s grandfather) and the third point in the love triangle, Madeline House (the author’s grandmother). The book is packed with insights into all three figures, plus thoughts on writing, legacy and storytelling. I didn’t know much about Bowen before this, but found it really interesting. My blog tour stop is next week so look out for this one.
My final blog tour book was ‘Nick’ by Michael Farris Smith, a prequel to F Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ which explains how Nick Carraway came to be in West Egg for the events of the classic novel. This was a compelling and vivid novel which took the reader through World War I Paris, the trenches and post-war New Orleans. My review will follow next week.
To end the month, I also finished two books that I’ve been reading with various blogger groups on Twitter. The Tsundoku Squad and I read ‘Paris by Starlight’ by Robert Dinsdale and I also read ‘Cemetery Boys’ by Aiden Thomas with The Write Reads book club that isn’t a book club!
Both of these were enjoyable in their own way – I liked the magical setting of Dinsdale’s book and the fascinating Latinx community and culture in Thomas’ novel. I probably wouldn’t have picked either of these books up independently, but am glad to have read them, even if I found the Paris book quite slow sometimes.
A busy month for reading and quite an eclectic set of books!
March TBR
As usual, I have a lot of books that I’d love to read this month. I never predict accurately, but here goes…
In March, I have blog tours for the following:
‘Behind Closed Doors’ by Catherine Alliott – I usually love Alliott’s books and am looking forward to this story of a woman sorting her life out after the end of her difficult marriage.
‘The Three Locks’ by Bonnie MacBird – I love a Sherlock Holmes story and this one looks fabulous!
‘The Shadow in the Glass’ by JJA Harwood – anything labelled as a Gothic fairytale has me on board, especially one with a Victorian setting!
‘Last Place You Look’ by Louisa Scarr – this is the first book in a new crime series to feature DS Robin Butler and DC Freya West. I love a police procedural so cannot wait to dive in to this one.
My ‘book club’ books for this month are ‘The Islanders’ by SV Leonard (Tsundoku Squad choice and looks to be a cracking crime novel) and ‘Bloodlust and Bonnets’ by Emily McGovern (The Write Reads choice – I haven’t read a graphic novel in years so am looking forward to this!)
There are also many, many NetGalley books waiting for me – so we shall have to see what I actually manage to read!
With thanks, as always, to blog tour hosts, publishers and NetGalley for granting me access to advance copies of books in exchange for honest reviews.
WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted at Taking on a World of Words. Anyone can take part and it is a great way of sharing what you have just finished reading, what you are currently reading and what is next on the TBR.
Links are provided for books mentioned – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases (at no extra cost to you!)
What have you recently finished reading?
It’s been two weeks since my last WWW Wednesday so it looks like I’ve been extra-productive on the reading front!
I finished reading ‘Ruthless Women’ by Melanie Blake (from NetGalley) – this is due to be published in April but is well worth looking out for! It’s a Jackie-Collins-style novel packed with glamorous and strong women, high-powered jobs and tonnes of secrets and lies! It’s based around a soap opera set off the coast of Jersey and is a whole lot of fun. My review will follow nearer the publication date.
I finally finished ‘Maiden Voyages: Women and the Golden Age of Transatlantic Travel’ by Sian Evans. It has taken me ages because it kept getting bumped by blog tour books, but it is absolutely fabulous! The golden age of transatlantic travel sure was glamorous for some, hard work for others and extraordinarily dangerous for those sailing during war time (or with Violet Jessop – the ‘unsinkable stewardess – who had an appalling track record of being on doomed ships!) My glowing review is here.
I also read (for a blog tour with Random Things Tours) ‘Botanical Curses and Poisons: The Shadow Lives of Plants’ by Fez Inkwright. This book is a beautifully-illustrated and fascinating guide to plants of the more lethal variety! Thanks to the publisher, Liminal 11, for the review copy in exchange for my honest opinions. My review is here.
I also managed to squeeze in two gripping and – quite frankly – terrifying crime novels. I raced through both of these with my heart pounding – watch out for them!
First up was ‘The Broken Ones’ by Carla Kovach, the latest in the series featuring DI Gina Harte. In this excellent instalment, young women are being taken off the streets and it is clear that a very disturbed character is responsible – someone who must be stopped before he kills again. My review will be on the blog nearer the publication date in March 2021.
I also read ‘Dog Rose Dirt’ by Jen Williams which also proved very scary! This is about a young woman who finds out that her mother was writing to a serial killer in jail throughout her life. After her mother’s suicide, a series of copycat killings begin and she is forced to confront her mother’s past in order to help the current investigation. This one isn’t published until July 2021 and my review will follow.
Both of these were NetGalley reads – thanks to NetGalley for my free copies in exchange for honest reviews.
What are you reading now?
I’ve got two buddy reads on the go at the moment – luckily they are so different that there’s no way I’ll get them confused!
I’m reading ‘Paris by Starlight’ by Robert Dinsdale with my Tsundoku Squad lovelies. This is a slightly whimsical tale of a group of displaced people who end up in Paris but bring the magical ways of their old country with them. The people live by night by the light of their beautiful illuminated flowers and according to their book, ‘The Nocturne’. I’m halfway through and the descriptions are glorious – but I cannot see at all where it is going!
I’m also reading (with the fabulous Write Reads gang) ‘Cemetery Boys’ by Aiden Thomas, a Latinx tale centred around a trans boy in Los Angeles who wants to join his family in being able to release the dead into the afterlife. I’m halfway through this as well and am still not quite sure what I think – the setting is fabulous, the Day of the Dead a very promising element still to come, the representation is great, characters good…but I am finding the plot a bit uneven at the moment.
My next blog tour is ‘Seven Days’ by Michelle Kidd so I’ve also started reading this fast-paced and tense sequel to ‘The Phoenix Project’ (which I read last year). It is early days, but I’m enjoying my reunion with DI Jack MacIntosh so far! Review to follow on the blog next week.
What do you think you will read next?
I’m supposed to be doing a Poirot readalong but have failed to fit in ‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’ by Agatha Christie – I need to catch up before we move on to ‘Murder on the Links’.
I have rather over-enthusiastically embraced blog tours in March and so have a good few books to read. I’ll shortly be reading ‘The Shadowy Third: Love, Letters and Elizabeth Bowen’ by Julia Parry, ‘Nick’ by Michael Farris Smith and ‘Behind Closed Doors’ by Catherine Alliott. All look absolutely brilliant and I cannot wait to dive in.
Thank to NetGalley for the books in exchange for an honest review.
I was delighted to win a proof copy of this serial killer crime novel from Nadine Matheson and the lovely people at HQ Stories.
The book is published on 18th February 2021 – just enough time to sneak in a pre-order!
This book opens with the gruesome discovery of body parts in various parts of South London and the return to front-line policing duties for DI Anjelica Henley who has been on office duties after a traumatic experience. Faced with the dismembered corpses, Anjelica and her newbie detective sidekick embark on an investigation that will have sinister echoes of a previous spate of serial killer murders. However, that killer, Peter Olivier, is in prison – so how can he be responsible?
DI Anjelica Henley herself is an interesting character. She has a complex home life and the case threatens to break the uneasy peace she has found for herself after her past experiences. It is normally a bit of a bugbear of mine when police officer’s private lives are tied up in a case (you’d think all crime was a personal vendetta against individual officers if you read too much crime fiction!); however, it was well managed here and Anjelica’s family context and relationships added to the sense of her as a realistic character.
As I’ve mentioned, this book is gruesome. You do need quite a strong stomach to deal with the dismemberment and descriptions of injuries. It is dark, although I didn’t find the violence gratuitous.
I did find the casual racism expressed towards DI Henley by other characters in the novel quite shocking – the idea that this highly competent and intelligent woman was being judged primarily on her skin colour was an eye-opener for me.
This is a debut novel, not that I think you would know that from the confident way that Matheson has plotted out her narrative and presented her characters. The book, although fairly long at over 400 pages, is well-paced and packed full of tense moments that keep the reader going. Personally, I finished this novel at 3am during a particularly sleepless night – and I had to get up to check all the doors were locked before I nodded off!
I did have a few niggles with the book – mainly the large cast which meant that some of the revelations didn’t always pack the necessary punch because I had to remember who was being referred to! I’m also not sure whether the ending was setting up a sequel (although please do be reassured that this mystery is tied up comfortably at the end). However, these are small quibbles and didn’t detract from my enjoyment.
Overall, this is an excellent debut novel and I do hope that Matheson is planning more cases involving DI Anjelica Henley.
An affiliate link for this book is below – thank you for supporting my blog with any purchases.
Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for this excellent police procedural, ‘An Eye for an Eye’ by Carol Wyer. This is the first book in the series to feature DI Kate Young.
This tour was organised by Damp Pebbles. The book was published on 1st February 2021.
Book Blurb:
A killer running rings around the police. A detective spiralling out of control.
DI Kate Young is on leave. She’s the force’s best detective, but her bosses know she’s under pressure, on medication and overcoming trauma. So after her bad judgement call leads to a narrowly averted public disaster, they’re sure all she needs is a rest.
But when Staffordshire Police summon her back to work on a murder case, it’s a harder, more suspicious Kate Young who returns. With a new ruthlessness, she sets about tracking down a clinical, calculating serial killer who is torturing victims and leaving clues to taunt the police. Spurred on by her reporter husband, Young begins to suspect that the murderer might be closer than she ever imagined.
As she works to uncover the truth, Young unravels a network of secrets and lies, with even those closest to her having something to hide. But with her own competence—and her grip on reality—called into question, can she unmask the killer before they strike again?
My Review:
I love detective fiction with a female lead so I was pleased to be invited on the Damp Pebbles blog tour for this book, the first book in a series to feature DI Kate Young. The fact that is it set in Staffordshire – pretty close to my own home ground – was an added bonus!
In this book, DI Kate Young is called back to work after a traumatic incident that has demonstrably clouded her judgement. She is put onto a murder case with a small team – just two colleagues, Emma and Morgan – although it is also clear that senior management within Staffordshire Police are scrutinising her every move.
She is investigating the rather gruesome killing of a local businessman, Alex Corby, who was tortured and killed in his large, remote house. However, as she begins to uncover the events of Alex’s last day, it becomes clear that there are a lot of suspects , secrets and lies to work through – and Kate’s personal life and issues keep threatening to surface too.
I’ll admit I was worried about the PTSD element of the story as this is becoming quite a staple of this type of detective fiction – and, if I’m honest, I prefer my detectives to be a bit more straightforward! However, I needn’t have been concerned – in Wyer’s hands, the cliché of the broken and troubled police officer becomes something more realistic and compelling as we watch Kate struggle with her mental health issues and her loyal team questioning her capability.
What I really enjoyed about the story was the clever plotting. I’ll admit I just about beat Kate to the final solution, but only just! Throughout, I was caught up in the twisty narrative and the ingenious way that the story strands intertwined – there were so many twists that I didn’t see coming and the final denouement was so far from where I thought we would end up when the story began. For that reason, Wyer should be commended for producing a genuinely surprising narrative.
I liked too that the investigations were methodical and logical, something seen as the right way to do things by Kate. There was a real sense of the investigation stopping and starting which felt realistic – the police team hit dead ends as often as they found important clues, although this didn’t slow the pace of the novel at all. In fact, rather a lot happens to keep the story moving…
Overall, I’d recommend this as a clever and engaging piece of crime fiction. For those who love police procedurals (like me!), this is an excellent example of the genre. I really hope that the next DI Kate Young book will be available soon!
About the Author:
USA Today bestselling author and winner of The People’s Book Prize Award, Carol Wyer writes feel-good comedies and gripping crime fiction.
A move from humour to the ‘dark side’ in 2017, saw the introduction of popular DI Robyn Carter in LITTLE GIRL LOST and demonstrated that stand-up comedian Carol had found her true niche.
To date, her crime novels have sold over 750,000 copies and been translated for various overseas markets.
Carol has been interviewed on numerous radio shows discussing ”Irritable Male Syndrome’ and ‘Ageing Disgracefully’ and on BBC Breakfast television. She has had articles published in national magazines ‘Woman’s Weekly’, featured in ‘Take A Break’, ‘Choice’, ‘Yours’ and ‘Woman’s Own’ magazines and the Huffington Post.
She currently lives on a windy hill in rural Staffordshire with her husband Mr Grumpy… who is very, very grumpy.
When she is not plotting devious murders, she can be found performing her comedy routine, Smile While You Still Have Teeth.