First a quick explanation!
Due to some severe health issues over the last few years, and a lingering chronic condition, my planned review schedule went right out of the window and I have been scrabbling ever since to get it back on track.
In an attempt to try to regain some lost ground, I have been scrunching some of my (overdue) NetGalley reviews together into one or two posts each week: shorter reviews, but still covering all of the points I intended to.
That’s the plan anyway, so let’s spring into my latest selection!
Title: The Mystery Writer
Author: Sulari Gentill
Publisher: Ultimo Press
Blurb: She needs to write the ending before she meets hers.
Theo has one dream – to become a bestselling author. Determined to make her mark in the literary world, she heads to the US on a whim to stay with her brother Gus and focus on her writing. But her plans take an unexpected turn when she befriends a famous author, Dan Murdoch, at a local bar – and then he turns up dead. Suddenly, Theo finds herself as the prime suspect.
As Theo grapples with the shocking turn of events, she realizes that Dan may not have been the person he seemed to be, and there is something sinister going on in the world of publishing. Desperate to clear her name and uncover the truth, Theo sets out on a quest to find out who killed Dan and why.
As she digs deeper, Theo uncovers a web of deceit, conspiracy, and hidden motives, with clues leading her to a shadowy online platform called The Shield. With her own life in danger, Theo must unravel the mystery before she becomes the next victim.
Review: Very far-fetched but great fun, this mystery thriller has a really clever hook, all centred round the writing (and writers) of mysteries and thrillers.
I spotted some comparisons to The Firm quite early on in the story, but was nevertheless hooked right in and found myself desperately hoping that Theo, Mac and Gus not only survival the conspiracy they become embroiled in, but manage to untangle and resolve their personal lives too.
Mac and Gus are especially entertaining characters and really carried a lot of the action and investigation side of things, while Theo’s role was mainly to stumble into as many bad situations as she can find and then panic and make them worse, but she brought the writerly insider info that I dearly love finding in any book and so I was willing to let her off for being a bit of a blinkered damsel in distress!
Again, the main storyline was pretty ridiculous by the reveal, but the execution of it was very entertaining and made this book a definite page-turner and a stay-up-all-night-to-finisher too! If you’re willing to suspend your disbelief and just go with the flow, then this is a well-written, entertaining and immersive read.
Purchase Link: The Mystery Writer on Amazon
Title: The Montford Maniac
Author: M R C Kasasian
Publisher: Canelo
Blurb: A crazed killer. A town in terror. A mystery ten years in the making…
Lady Violet Thorn’s awful Aunt Igitha arrives uninvited to stay, wreaking havoc in the household. When Violet plucks up courage to ask her to leave, Igitha’s chilling threats are soon realised with deadly effect.
In a devastating series of events, a woman is impaled, another is hanged outside Violet’s window, and a wild beast is delivered to her house.
Violet is soon struck by the similarities between these events, and the unsolved murders committed ten years earlier by the sadistic serial killer known as the Montford Maniac.
Could he have returned? Is Igitha behind the crimes? Or could there be someone even more terrifying on the prowl? The horrors have only just begun.
A rollicking, unputdownable Victorian mystery perfect for fans of Janice Hallett and Anthony Horowitz.
Review: I really enjoyed the first book, The Horror of Haglin House, and I loved this second one even more, even though the main character Violet seems to be getting more and more eccentric (and possibly suffering from absinthe-induced hallucinations or increasing schizophrenic symptoms). You will definitely want to read that first book first, as this story continues and concludes the very personal backstory that was teased behind that previous adventure.
Violet and her fictional friends Ruby Gibson and Inspector Hefty return here, plus my personal favourites Agnust, Gerrund, Friendless and Old Queeny as comic relief, and Albert, Anthony and Romulus to provide a touch of procedure, romance and sense respectively. And yet again, they all bicker, bluster and snark their way through another unique investigation, this time involving numerous impalements (both minor and major), threatening letters, and a rampaging serial killer with a flair for the overdramatic.
While the plot is well-constructed and bizarre, I mainly just adore Violet and all of her companions – real and imaginary – and their dialogues and inner monologues here made me smile and smile, and read (out-of-context) snippets aloud to my long-suffering and bewildered husband.
On finishing this book, I immediately added it, plus its predecessor and the upcoming sequel, to my keep-copy buy list, as I already know I will want to re-read this series again and again. It may not be your typical mystery story, but its all the better for its many eccentricities, in my opinion.
Purchase Link: The Montford Maniac on Amazon
Title: Funny Story
Author: Emily Henry
Publisher: Penguin General UK – Fig Tree, Hamish Hamilton, Viking
Blurb: Daphne always loved the way Peter told their story.
That is until it became the prologue to his actual love story with his childhood bestie, Petra.
Which is how Daphne ends up rooming with her total opposite and the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles.
As expected, it’s not a match made in heaven – that is until one night, while tossing back tequilas, they form a plan.
And if it involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their adventures together, well, who could blame them?
But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex . . . right?
A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author Emily Henry
Review: This romcom hit all the right spots for me: the humour was genuinely funny; the struggles felt real rather than contrived, convenient misunderstandings; and the chemistry between Daphne and Miles was sizzling hot. And I loved the side characters too. Well, Julia and Ashleigh, NOT Peter and Petra, obviously!
I’ve never particularly enjoyed the fake-dating trope before, but the likability of Daphne and Miles and their unusual circumstances (each dating childhood BFFs who fell in love, making this feel like the flipside of a typical friends-to-lovers romance) made the plot and tropes feel natural and work well without having to try too hard.
I had no problem actually believing in these characters and their relationship, and was rooting for them all the way while reading. And I couldn’t stop reading! The funny banter made me smile, and the moments of heartbreak and betrayal brought me to tears, and I closed the book on the final page with a big, happy sigh of contentment.
Book Lovers by Emily Henry was my top romance read for 2023 and this is already a very strong contender for my top romance read of 2025.
Purchase Link: Funny Story on Amazon
Title: The Call Is Coming from Inside the House
Author: Allyson McOuat
Publisher: ECW Press
Blurb: From Allyson McOuat, author of the popular 2020 New York Times Modern Love essay “The Ghost Was the Least of Our Problems,” comes her debut essay collection
In a series of intimate and humorous dispatches, McOuat examines her identity as a queer woman, and as a mother, through the lens of the pop culture moments in the ’80s and ’90s that molded her identity. McOuat stirs the ingredients required to conjure an unsettled spirit: the horrors of pregnancy and motherhood, love and loss, the supernatural, kaleidoscopic sexuality, near-miss experiences, and the unexplained moments in life that leave you haunted.
Through her own life experiences, various tall tales, urban legends, analysis of horror and thriller films, and spine-chilling true crime incidents, McOuat uncovers how cultural gatekeeping has forced her, as a mother and queer femme woman, to persistently question her own reality. Through this charming and humorous exploration of what moments have made her who she is, McOuat demonstrates for readers a way through by forgiving herself and exorcising her stubborn attachment to a phantom, heteronormative, nuclear family structure.
Review: The Call Is Coming from Inside the House is a collection of essays centred on horror tropes and how the author – and possibly other readers/viewers – is able to relate them to her own experiences and fears, in childhood, motherhood, queerness, house-ownership and other life stages and identities.
The essays cover all sorts of classic horror-thrillers from film, TV and book, looking at familiar tropes like the ‘Final Girl’, haunted houses, pregnancy and parenting (plenty of horror to mine there, from my own experiences!).
All of the essays are well-constructed and argued, while remaining easy to read and referencing plenty of pop culture alongside more academic sources. While I don’t think that some of the analogies the author draws are quite as universal as her conclusions may imply, there is plenty of food for thought here and those looking for a cerebral, identity-centred perspective on familiar horrors will find this an interesting read.
Purchase Link: The Call Is Coming from Inside the House on Amazon
Title: The Notorious Virtues
Author: Alwyn Hamilton
Publisher: Faber and Faber Ltd
Blurb: The bestselling Rebel of the Sands author is back with a glittering fantasy thriller, featuring a family obsessed with money, power, fame – and magic.
At sixteen, Honora ‘Nora’ Holtzfall is the daughter of the most powerful heiress in Gammamix; her family controls all the money – and all the magic – in the entire country. But when her mother is found murdered in an alley, the family throne and fortune are up for grabs, which means Nora will be pitted against her cousins in the deadly Veritaz trials to determine the rightful inheritor.
But there’s a surprise rival in the form of Ottoline, aka Lotte, the illegitimate daughter of Nora’s aunt, who left her with nuns as a baby. Thrown into the Veritaz, she is suddenly surrounded by a hostile family she never knew she had.
But as the Holtzfalls wage their battles of privilege, something bigger and more sinister bubbles beneath the surface, and revolution is in the air. Could the balance of power be about to be overturned?
Review: I got so drawn in to this book, I just couldn’t stop thinking about it!
The story centres around Nora, Lotte, Theo and August: the expected heiress; the lost heiress; the knight sworn to protect them and the journalist writing scathing critiques of them (and helping to investigate who may be trying to harm them on the side).
The plot is packed with romance, intrigue, rebellion, murder, trials of character, bonds of family and friendship, wolves and monsters… there is so much going on and it all twists and turns, connected in unexpected ways. And then there are the underlying themes of change vs. tradition, dictatorship vs. communism, the good of the few vs. the good of the many. Plenty to think about beneath all the surface action.
Alwyn Hamilton has taken classic fairytale fodder, tropes and characters and brought into them a more modern sensibility, to craft something new and exciting and very compelling. I just couldn’t stop reading and HOWLED when the book ended the way it did, with my favourites gone and the bigger issues still unresolved.
I need the next part of the story ASAP – I need to know whether they can make it out of the woods and find some form of Happy Ever After. I will be watching this series with eager anticipation, as you can probably tell!
Purchase Link: The Notorious Virtues on Amazon
Mystery, murder, romance, horror analysis and fairytale fantasy – this batch has a bit of everything.
I hope you find something to brighten your spring and keep your mind of all that chocolate you may or may not be eating!
Keep shining and happy reading! 🙂
