father Archives - The Quick and the Read

Book Review: ‘The Haven’ by Fiona Neill

I’ll admit the blurb pulled me into this one – a sixteen year-old girl waking up in the forest with no memory of what happened. She has a head injury and there doesn’t seem to be anyone around…except a police team who visit occasionally and seem terrible at solving things! What happened?!

Blog Tour: ‘Strong Female Character’ by Fern Brady

I’m delighted to take part in the blog tour for the paperback of Fern Brady’s brilliant memoir, ‘Strong Female Character’.

Thanks to Random Things Tours and Octopus Books for inviting me on to the tour and for my copy of the book for review. As always, opinions are entirely my own.

From the Publisher:

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

‘I tore through this hilarious, smart, sad, revealing book’ – Bob Odenkirk
‘Funny, sharp and has incredible clarity’ – Jon Ronson
‘An absolute riot. I’m literally going to read it again once I’ve finished, and I’m a miserable bastard…it’s a belter’ – FRANKIE BOYLE
‘A set text for all of us in 2023’ – DEBORAH FRANCES-WHITE

A summary of my book:

I’m diagnosed with autism 20 years after telling a doctor I had it.
My terrible Catholic childhood: I hate my parents etc.
My friendship with an elderly man who runs the corner shop and is definitely not trying to groom me. I get groomed.
Homelessness.
Stripping.
More stripping but with more nervous breakdowns.
I hate everyone at uni and live with a psycho etc.
REDACTED as too spicy.
After everyone tells me I don’t look autistic, I try to cure my autism and get addicted to Xanax.
REDACTED as too embarrassing.

‘Fern’s book, like everything she does, is awesome. Incredibly funny, and so
unapologetically frank that I feel genuinely sorry for her lawyers.’ – PHIL WANG

‘Of course it’s funny – it’s Fern Brady – but this book is also deeply moving and
eye-opening’ – ADAM KAY

‘It made me laugh out loud and broke my heart and made me weep…I hope
absolutely everyone reads this, and it makes them kinder and more curious
about the way we all live’ – DAISY BUCHANAN

‘Glorious. Frank but nuanced, a memoir that doesn’t sacrifice voice or selfawareness. And it has brilliant things to say about being autistic and being
funny’ – ELLE MCNICOLL

‘Strong Female Character is a testament to the importance of self-knowledge.’ – Rachael Healy, The Guardian

‘Fern is a brilliant, beautiful writer with a unique voice and even more unique
story. Astute, honest and very, very funny.’ – LOU SANDERS

‘So funny and brilliant’ – HOLLY SMALE

‘Witty, dry, and gimlet-eyed, Strong Female Character is a necessary
corrective. Brady offers a compelling, messy, highly resonant portrait of what
masked Autism feels like.’ – Devon Price, author of Unmasking Autism

My Review:

I was so glad I was invited onto the blog tour for this book – I’d picked it up a few times in bookshops and weighed up whether it would be too sad, too challenging, too harrowing for me. I know Fern Brady is a comedian, but still…

Book Review: ‘No Life for a Lady’ by Hannah Dolby

I wasn’t sure what to expect of this book, but I’d heard about it on social media and figured it was time for a break from my usual diet of gruesome murder mysteries!

The story focuses on Violet Hamilton, a 28-year old woman living with her father in Hastings in 1896. Her father has ideas about marrying her off, but Violet is much more interested in what happened to her mother who vanished from Hastings Pier ten years before. An advert in the local paper leads her to engage the rather odd Frank Knight as private detective. However, it isn’t long before Violet becomes unhappy with Mr Knight’s methods and takes matters into her own hands – with the sometimes unwilling help of Benjamin, son of a detective but who would rather have a quiet life selling furniture.

Violet was an absolute star! I loved that she heartily resists marriage and follows her own path – I was really rooting for her to discover the truth about her mother. I liked that revelations about her mother started to open Violet’s mind to the ways of the world – she moves from naive to more knowing without losing any of her charm along the way.

What made this book a joy to read was the humour – Violet’s naivete was good source of comedy, but Dolby also has a sharp eye for situational comedy. Violet’s attempt to swap a footstall for some help from Benjamin was just lovely, as was the way that she engaged in a battle of wits with Mrs Monk. Her revelations about the mushrooms also made me laugh so much…best read it to see!

I’d recommend this to anyone who enjoys historical mysteries – it’s quite a gentle investigation with some larger-than-life characters on the way. I wasn’t totally sold on all the elements of the ending, but I was certainly glad that we seem poised to get another instalment of Violet’s adventures.

Thanks to NetGalley for my copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

If you’d like to buy a copy of this book, please use my affiliate link below. Thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases.

Header photo by Joël Vogt on Unsplash

Book Review: ‘The Night Man’ by Jorn Lier Horst

Thanks to the lovely people at Penguin Michael Joseph for my copy of ‘The Night Man’ by Jorn Lier Horst. I was delighted to win this in a giveaway but – as always – opinions are entirely my own.

I love Scandinavian crime fiction and was intrigued by this – especially when I saw that it has been made into a major TV series which will be my next port of call! I came to this expecting a dark, tense thriller and wasn’t at all disappointed.

The story opens with the gruesome discovery of a severed head on a stake in the centre of a small town called Larvik in Norway. Police Inspector William Wisting is called in to investigate, but the media are also circling as they seek out a sensational story – and the media pack are led by Wisting’s own daughter, Line. When a second body is recovered from a lake, Wisting is forced to confront the fact that Larvik has been infiltrated by a dangerous and ruthless criminal network…

Blog Tour: ‘The Birdcage’ by Eve Chase

Thanks to Kallie at Penguin Michael Joseph for inviting me on the blog tour for ‘The Birdcage’ by Eve Chase. Thanks too for my review copy of the book – as always, opinions are entirely my own.

This book was published by Penguin Michael Joseph on 28th April, 2022 in hardback, ebook and audio formats.

Book Review: ‘Miss Aldridge Regrets’ by Louise Hare

Well, this was an absolute delight! Thanks to NetGalley for my chance to read this book ahead of its publication in April 2022.

I’m so glad that I saw this on ‘Between the Covers’ on BBC2 as I wouldn’t have otherwise picked it up – the cover didn’t immediately call out to me that it was a period murder mystery, but it is. And a good one.

Book Review: ‘A Flicker in the Dark’ by Stacy Willingham

This book is just so tense! Thanks to NetGalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

The story focuses on Chloe Davis, the daughter of a man convicted for the abduction and killing of teenage girls in their small town in Louisiana. Twenty years have passed since the murders and Chloe has built a life as a psychologist dealing in trauma in Baton Rouge. Armed with her first-hand experience of traumatic events (and a slight prescription-drug dependency), she is trying to move on with her life and plan her wedding. When teenage girls start to go missing, it seems that Chloe’s past may be catching up with her…

Blog Tour: ‘The Cousins’ by Karen McManus

Hi and welcome to my stop on the blog tour for The Write Reads. This YA thriller is to be published on 3rd December, 2020 by Penguin.

My Review

I’d not read any books by Karen McManus before this one, but I know they are hugely popular (even with my own son) so I thought I would give this one a try. Huge thanks to Dave at The Write Reads, Penguin Books and Karen McManus for giving me the opportunity to join this blog tour and a free copy of the book for review.

This is the story of three eighteen-year-old cousins who don’t know each other when the book begins – they come from different branches of an estranged family, the Storys. However, they all get an invitation to go to spend the summer working at their grandmother’s holiday resort on a beautiful East Coast island. This in itself is mysterious, as their grandmother disinherited all her children (the cousins’ parents) by letter years before. The letter simply said ‘You know what you did’, something none of the siblings claim to understand.

Arriving on the island, the it soon becomes apparent that the three cousins are not especially welcome and that there are family secrets to uncover…

The story is told from the perspective of the three cousins in turn – Milly, Aubrey and Jonah – with some flashbacks when we also hear the voices of the parents during their time at Gull Cove Island in the 1990s (when they are a similar age to their children in the present day). This is a clever way of revealing information gradually as the different perspectives gradually come together to reveal the full picture.

I definitely found it easier to connect to some of the characters more than others. In particular, I liked the character of Aubrey who seemed the most relatable of the three main voices – she had several of her own problems to work through as well as dealing with the family issues surrounding her grandmother. She seemed a much more developed character than either Milly or Jonah, both of whom were interesting but not quite as engaging for me.

The plot is cleverly woven so that the reader is kept guessing throughout – there were several twists along the way that I could never have predicted! The plot moved at a good pace and kept me reading as I wanted to find out the secrets behind the Story family and it is fair to say I was not disappointed.

One of the things I liked most about the book was the portrait of a small American community – there was a real sense of the history of the resort with various generations of families and their entwined lives and hidden secrets. This was evident not only in the Storys themselves but also with Kayla’s family and the Baxters. I really felt that the narrative was rooted in a complex and interesting tangle of multi-generational characters.

I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys a thriller with plenty of twists and turns. It would probably be best for older teens and adults as there is some swearing and mature themes. This is one that lulls you in with a false sense of security before winding an intricate and engaging plot – you won’t want to put it down.