Having read ‘The Cousins’, I was very pleased to get my hands on the latest YA thriller by Karen McManus, ‘You’ll Be The Death of Me’. Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin for my copy of the book in exchange for an honest review, and ‘The Write Reads’ for inviting me on the blog tour.
Continue reading Blog Tour: ‘You’ll Be The Death Of Me’ by Karen McManusTag: YA
Ultimate Blog Tour: ‘What Beauty There Is’ by Cory Anderson
Thanks to The Write Reads for inviting me onto this Ultimate Blog Tour for the YA thriller ‘What Beauty There Is’.
From the Publisher:
- Published: 08/04/2021
- ISBN: 9780241441718
- Length: 368 Pages
- Dimensions: 222mm x 34mm x 144mm
- Weight: 483g
- RRP: £12.99
- Imprint: Penguin
When everything you love is in danger, how long can you keep running to survive?
Life can be brutal
Winter in Idaho. The sky is dark. It is cold enough to crack bones.
Jack knew it
Jack Dahl has nothing left. Except his younger brother, Matty, who he’d die for. Their mother is gone, and their funds are quickly dwindling, Jack needs to make a choice: lose his brother to foster care, or find the drug money that sent his father to prison.
So did I
Ava lives in isolation, a life of silence. For seventeen years her father, a merciless man, has controlled her fate. He has taught her to love no one.
Did I feel the flutter of wings when Jack and I met? Did I sense the coming tornado?
But now Ava wants to break the rules – to let Jack in and open her heart. Then she discovers that Jack and her father are stalking the same money, and suddenly Ava is faced with a terrible choice: remain silent or speak out and help the brothers survive.
Looking back, I think I did . . .
Perfect for fans of Patrick Ness, Meg Rosoff and Daniel Woodrell, What Beauty There Is an unforgettable debut novel that is as compulsive as it is beautiful, and unflinchingly explores the power of determination, survival and love.
Ruta Sepetys, bestselling author of Between Shades of Grey
‘Beautifully written and superbly constructed, Anderson pulls you onto a chilling footpath of love and loss and keeps you there until you’ve read every last word’
My Review:
I was drawn to this book by the interesting setting – with the action unfolding under the dark, brooding skies of Idaho in winter. What I wasn’t prepared for was a book that was also so dark in content!
The story follows Jack Dahl, a teenager who is left caring for his younger brother after the suicide of their mother. His father is in prison, leading Jack to embark on a scramble to find his hidden drug money. However, Jack isn’t the only one on the trail…
I’ll admit that this was not an easy read – the story is bleak and there are points that are really heartbreaking, for example Jack’s fleeting hope of having a job which is then snatched away from him because of his family name. And any scene with Matty in – the child unquestioningly trusting his big brother to protect him while Jack makes increasingly desperate decisions.
However, there are also some excellent reasons to read this book:
- The setting – I love books set in interesting places that are unlike where I live. As I live in the grey dullness of northern-ish England, it felt exciting to escape to the bleak, snowy landscapes of Idaho in the depths of winter. It is the perfect setting for this story, adding another layer of hardship and challenge to the survival story of the Dahl brothers.
- The style – Anderson’s writing is beautiful. Despite the often heart-wrenching things being described, the writing is vibrant, vivid and always engaging. I found that the concision of the descriptions always struck a chord and allowed me to picture exactly what was meant – ‘A disembodied sound. Like ash drifting’, a ‘granite sky’, ‘the shift of dark trees’. Anderson’s use of imagery is often surprising and really allows readers to imagine her dark and bleak world.
- The characters – Jack isn’t perfect and makes some bad decisions as any teenager in his situation would. Bardem is utterly terrifying and brings real menace to the novel beyond what the Dahl brothers’ situation would suggest. Ava is – although not in the novel as much as I expected – a realistic figure caught in an impossible situation. And Matty is the innocent caught up in a life that he doesn’t deserve. This is a world that is vividly populated, although not always with the nicest people!
- The pace – From Jack’s tragic discovery of his mother’s body at the start of the novel, the action barely slows. The reader is carried along at often breakneck speed and it is a breathless ride. There is genuine terror and tension in this book and it is compelling.
- The narration – Although Jack’s story is told by an omniscient narrator, the italicised sections at the start of chapters give us an intriguing first person narrative from Ava. Often poetic and opaque in meaning, these sections add a sense of mystery and poignancy to the story.
This book is not for the faint-hearted. It is gritty, brutal and unflinchingly violent in places – definitely one to check the trigger warnings on before you read. However, if your preferred reading is on the shadowy end of the spectrum, this could well be a great book for you.
About the Author:
Cory Anderson is a winner of the League of Utah Writers Young Adult Novel Award and Grand Prize in the Storymakers Conference First Chapter Contest. She lives in Utah with her family. What Beauty There Is is her debut novel.
Twitter: @coryanderwrites
Website: https://coryanderson.us/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coryanderwrites/
Amazon UK Link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Beauty-There-Cory-Anderson/dp/0241441714/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=what+beauty+there+is&qid=1616251655&sr=8-1
Blog Tour: ‘Bad Habits’ by Flynn Meaney
Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for ‘Bad Habits’ by Flynn Meaney, a very funny YA novel with a school setting and a feminist heart!
Everybody needs to read a funny book from time to time, and this one proved the right book at the right time for me. I’m perhaps not the target audience, being several decades older than the main characters, but it certainly made me laugh. Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher (Penguin) and The Write Reads for my copy in exchange for an honest review.
The story is set in St Mary’s Catholic School, a strict boarding school in America, where the main character, Alex, is determined to have an impact. In fact, what she’d really like is to be expelled. Her purple hair and incessant rule-breaking isn’t proving enough, so she decides that she will stage the school’s first production of ‘The Vagina Monologues’ with her (mostly less-than-keen) feminist club.
This book is the story of the battle to bring the play to the stage – a battle that Alex takes on to both shock and prove her feminist credentials. What she finds is that the challenges aren’t the ones she expects.
Alex as a main character is spiky, sassy and cool – everything I wasn’t at school, so I found her pretty interesting! I’m not sure she is really intended to be likeable at the start of the book – her instinct is to push back on everything and everyone in order to prove her rebel status. However, as the book progresses, I did warm to her and felt that she started to see the bigger picture.
However, more immediately likeable is Alex’s roommate, Mary Kate. She is more relatable for me and a whole lot less prickly – although she does have determination and is a strong character in her own right. The other supporting characters are also appealing, particularly the very tolerant Pat and the rather diverse bunch in the feminist club.
I’ve always been a sucker for a school story, even from my youngest years reading Enid Blyton’s Mallory Towers books, and I enjoyed this one. I like the boarding school setting with the range of teachers (the usual suspects – scary, eccentric, kindly) and the rivalries of the cliques. The fact it is a co-ed American boarding school, whose team sport is ice hockey, seems to me to have a glamour and interest not found in the school stories of tuck boxes, lights-out and cross-country races that I grew up with!
This is more than a school story though – it is a funny school story! There were several points that made me laugh out loud and I loved the absurdity of some of the situations – I don’t want to give any spoilers so I’ll just say the recruitment drive the sleeping nun and the protest all made me smile. Alex’s voice is a humorous one and she calls on a range of unusual references, from Harry Potter to metaphysical poet Andrew Marvell, which I loved – it made her narration engaging, often surprising and clever.
There are serious messages in the book, particularly around feminism and gender. I won’t give anything away, but I will say that I thought the ethos of the book was positive and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to teenagers – although there are a lot of sex references and some swearing (which I – not a regular reader of YA fiction – was quite surprised by).
Overall, I’d recommend this book to anyone who likes funny books, school stories or just likes fiction with a solid feminist message. Personally, I love all three of those things, so it is a big thumbs-up from me!
If you’d like your own copy of this book, my affiliate link is below – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases.
January Wrap-Up and February TBR
It has been – quite simply – the longest month ever. I’ve found it hard to concentrate on reading at times and have fallen back on the genre that I know keeps me engaged – crime fiction!
I’ve read 10 books this month, of which 7 were crime novels.
Links below are affiliate ones – thank you for supporting my blog with any purchases.
January Wrap-Up
I started the month with the rather interesting ‘How Not To Be Wrong: The Art of Changing Your Mind’ by James O’Brien. I loved his previous book (‘How to be Right’), but was particularly fascinated by O’Brien’s exploration of his own prejudices and entrenched beliefs. It certainly gave me food for thought and I would recommend it.
Next up were a slew of brilliant crime novels that I would recommend whole-heartedly.
I read ‘Dark Memories’ by Liz Mistry, the latest in the DS Nikki Parekh series set in the seedy underworld of Bradford. This is a shocking tale of crime and abuse, but the fabulous Parekh/Malik investigative team at the heart of the novel makes it compelling. My review (for a blog tour for Rachel’s Random Resources) is here.
Another blog tour read was ‘Silent Graves’ by Sally Rigby and this proved another excellent police procedural. Although is the 9th book in the Cavendish and Walker series (a female duo of investigators), I think it works well as a standalone. In this book, West Mercia Police are grappling with a historical case as two skeletons turn up on a building site. You can read my blog tour review (for Damp Pebbles) here.
This was followed by ‘The Appeal’ by Janice Hallett which I read as a buddy read organised by Viper Books. Along with the lovely LockyLovesBooks, I tried to guess the murderer in this innovative and engaging crime novel – a novel presented through the emails, voicemails and texts of its main protagonists. I proved a terrible detective but had a lot of fun – you can read my review here.
Next up was ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’ by Agatha Christie. I read this with my blogger friends at The Write Reads and we had a lot of fun discussing it – although, once again, I got nowhere near the solution! A classic crime novel with such clever plotting – Christie really was a master of her craft!
After this, I had a brief break from crime to read Margaret Atwood’s new poetry collection, ‘Dearly’. This is a beautiful and insightful book about loss, grief, ageing, female bodies and the environment – and I loved it. I was lucky enough to have both the hardback (purchased) and audiobook (from NetGalley) – you can read my review about both formats here.
Following this, I went back to crime for the tense and pacey ‘The Jigsaw Man’ by Nadine Matheson – I won a copy of this from the publisher and was so excited to read it ahead of publication. This serial killer crime novel is gruesome and terrifying – and I raced through it. My review will follow nearer publication later on in February.
Another blog tour read followed, ‘Bad Habits’ by Flynn Meaney. This is a very funny and lively YA comedy which sees its heroine, Alex, try to stage a version of ‘The Vagina Monologues’ at her strict Catholic boarding school. Thanks to the publisher (Penguin) and NetGalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review. My review, for The Write Reads, will be on the blog tomorrow.
My last books of the month took me back to crime fiction (of course!).
I read ‘An Eye for an Eye’ by Carol Wyer for a Damp Pebbles blog tour – this is another brilliant police procedural with a female lead, in this case the damaged but insightful DI Kate Young. The plotting of this one, based around a serial killer in Staffordshire, is so clever and it is an absolute page turner. My review is due up on 7th February.
I finished this month with ‘Dark Truths’ by AJ Cross, another cleverly-plotted police procedural featuring DI Bernard Watts and his rookie sidekick, PC Chloe Judd investigating the brutal murder of a jogger on a rural trail. They are being helped in their investigations by forensic psychologist Will Traynor, but he seems to have his own agenda… This is the first in a series featuring Traynor and I look forward to reading more. The paperback is published on 4th February and my review will follow on the blog.
As always, thanks to blog tour organisers, publishers, authors and NetGalley for granting me access to books in exchange for an honest review.
February TBR
As always, I have more books to read than I can possibly get through! Any TBR I write is always a small proportion of books I have to read for blog tours, books I should read for NetGalley and a wish list of many other fabulous-looking reads. I am never accurate in predicting what I will actually read!
So, here is my best guess of books that have caught my eye for February. Affiliate links are at the end of the list for anyone who likes the look of any of these…
- I have a blog tour for ‘Botanical Curses and Poisons’ by Fez Inkwright in February and am looking forward to diving into this beautiful book about the darker side of plants.
- I also have a blog tour for ‘Old Bones’ by Helen Kitson (published by the excellent Louise Walters Books) in February too – this looks to be a gorgeous and gentle story of a group of older women.
- My final blog tour for the month will be ‘Seven Days’ by Michelle Kidd. I thoroughly enjoyed the first book in this series, ‘The Phoenix Project’, and look forward to another lively thriller.
- I also want to read ‘Ruthless Women’ by Melanie Blake, sold to me by NetGalley as a thriller about ambition on the set of a soap opera. I’m looking forward to glamour, glitz and some…ruthless women!
- NetGalley have also granted me the fabulous-looking ‘Circus of Wonders’ by Elizabeth Macneal. I loved her first book, ‘The Doll Factory’, and cannot wait to read this new slice of quality historical fiction.
- I’m also going to be reading ‘Paris by Starlight’ by Robert Dinsdale with my lovely blogger friends in the Tsundoku Squad. This is a new writer to me but I look forward to chats and lots of fun with them.
- Agatha Christie’s ‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’ is also on my February list as I join a Poirot readalong with The Write Reads crew. I need to catch up this book – Poirot Book 1 – before I can join the chat there!
- Finally, I really want to clear some of my NetGalley shelf – it has more fabulous books in it than I can list and I am determined to make some headway this month. If only I can keep away from the ‘Request’ button…
That’s the plan anyway. See you here in a month’s time when I reveal that I actually read 10 more police procedurals because I am OBSESSED…
Header photo with thanks to Tim Wildsmith on Unsplash.
Have a fab Feb – K x
WWW Wednesday – 13th January, 2020
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 already published – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases (at no extra cost to you!)
What have you recently finished reading?
Since my last update, I finished ‘Dark Memories’ by Liz Mistry, the third book in the series featuring DS Nikki Parekh and her partner DC Saj Malik. This is a nail-bitingly tense instalment in which the Bradford-based detectives rush to uncover the links between a sequence of brutal murders – and is seems the connection is closer to Nikki than she would like. This is – as the title suggests – incredibly dark, but the lead detectives are a fabulous pair and this is a pacey and lively read.
A full review will follow on my blog later in the month as this is a blog tour book. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.
Also for a January blog tour, I read ‘Silent Graves’ by Sally Rigby, a crime fiction novel in the Cavendish and Walker series. Although this is the ninth book in the series (but my first), I had no problems with immersing myself in the world of Lanchester Police and their investigation into a double murder that took place in 1980 but only uncovered 40 years later.
The lead characters, DCI Whitney Walker and Dr Georgina Cavendish, are a formidable pair – both prickly and tough – and this is a solid police procedural.
My review will follow later in January – with thanks to Damp Pebbles Blog Tours and the author for my gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.
Rounding off my week of obsessively reading crime fiction, I also finished ‘The Appeal’ by Janice Hallett. This is a hugely inventive murder mystery where the reader is put into the position of investigator! Alongside two legal trainees reviewing the case notes, the reader works their way through emails, voicemails, texts and notes from all the key characters. It’s immersive and mind-boggling and I loved it!
I read this as a buddy read with Locky Loves Books and my review will be on the blog on the book’s publication date (tomorrow!). With thanks to the kind people at Viper Books for my gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.
What are you reading now?
As crime fiction seems to be the thing that is cutting through my brain fog, I’m reading ‘The Jigsaw Man’ by Nadine Matheson. I was lucky to win a proof copy of this book which is due out in February 2021. So far, it’s thrown me in the deep end with a whole load of gruesome discoveries – and I can’t wait to read on!
I’m still reading ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’ by Agatha Christie as a readalong with my blogger friends at The Write Reads. I had to stop halfway through so we could discuss it and that was so hard to do – I need to read the rest!
I’m also still reading ‘Maiden Voyages: Women and the Golden Age of Transatlantic Travel’ by Sian Evans. I absolutely love this book – it is a fascinating insight into the history of women at sea, from those working as stewardesses on the huge ocean liners to those enjoying the luxuries afforded to the first class passengers. The accompanying pictures in my hardback edition are also interesting. This book has already sent me off on several Google trips to find out even more about these amazing women.
What do you think you will read next?
I really need to clear some of the NetGalley shelf, but I’m finding it harder to read electronically at the moment. I’ve got my eye on ‘Dark Truths’ by AJ Cross (a forensic mystery) and ‘Bad Habits’ by Flynn Meaney (YA humour) as books that I think will keep me going!
So that’s me for this week! As always, thanks for reading and please do follow my blog for more updates.
Header photo with thanks to waad samah on Unsplash.
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.