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: Every Time I Go On Vacation, Someone Dies
Author: Catherine Mack
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Blurb: Ten days. Eight suspects. Six cities. Five authors. Three bodies. One trip to die for.
Eleanor Dash, bestselling author of the Vacation Mysteries series, is on a book tour along the gorgeous Amalfi Coast when life starts imitating art as her ex-boyfriend (and book protagonist) Connor Smith is targeted by a killer.
Eleanor’s sleuthing skills are about to be put to the ultimate test as – among literary rivals, rabid fans, a crazed stalker and another ex-flame on tour with her – suspicions are flying faster than paperbacks off a bestseller shelf. But who is really trying to get away with murder?
Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies is The White Lotus meets Only Murders in the Building and the first in an irresistible and whip-smart mystery series.
Review: This first-in-series mystery book is a light and entertaining read, written in a first-person narrative that occasionally breaks the fourth wall to address the reader directly.
The book is littered with footnotes (which I found a little distracting to keep referring to, perhaps due to reading an ebook rather than a paper copy), humorous interjections and plenty of pop culture references, making for a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek tone. Eleanor’s narrative voice often strays between the book she is writing in-universe and the story we are reading, which occasionally confused me but also added some funny moments to the story.
Eleanor was my main issue with the book, however. She comes across as rather shallow, childish and self-obsessed (which, to be fair, is played for comic relief) and keeps telling us how very bad she is, which got a little annoying after a while… I’d rather make my own mind up, thanks! Plus I struggled to see any chemistry between her and any of her past or potential love interests.
While a bit slow to get going, the plot soon picked up with plenty of suspects to choose from and a wide range of incidents to investigate. I was able to smugly pat myself on the back for spotting what was going on before the big reveal (always enjoyable!) and for once I sussed the right motive too.
This was a fun read in many ways and there was plenty to like about it, but with the footnote fandango and unlikable main character, this one just didn’t connect with me as well as I had hoped.
Purchase Link: Every Time I Go On Vacation, Someone Dies on Amazon
Title: Behind a Closed Door
Author: J.D. Barker
Publisher: Hampton Creek Press
Blurb: 50 SHADES meets David Fincher’s THE GAME.
Would you kill a total stranger to save someone you love?
Sugar & Spice is the latest app craze taking the world by storm, but for Abby and Brendan Hollander, downloading it leads to a dangerous game of life and death. When the app assigns them a series of increasingly taboo tasks, they soon find themselves caught up in a twisted web of seduction and violence in this sexually charged dark thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of The Fourth Monkey—master of suspense, J.D. Barker.
Review: I can definitely see why this has been compared to the film The Game, but with more kinks and sex involved. I kept expecting there to be some sort of big twist reveal, but this is a fairly straightforward dark thriller, with the spicy shenanigans masking the underlying (less titillating) activity.
The plot explores the terrifying idea that an app could take over your phone, all other electronic devices, and from there your whole life. And it was scary how quickly the app spread and how quickly people could be manipulated into antisocial or immoral behaviour. Main characters Abby and Brendan attempt to save their struggling marriage and I guess the app does kind of help them with that, as they are able to trauma-bond over the actions they are led to perform.
You can expect lots of sex and violence (and on occasion, both together) and, despite feeling somewhat OTT and me feeling initially lukewarm towards the characters, I found myself hooked to read on, with that edge-of-my-seat feeling. Almost as if I thought things would end badly if I put the book down for a breather!
Thriller readers will find this a darkly exciting read and everyone else will find it makes them reconsider their technological security and casual online habits – I was jumping every time someone’s phone pinged for quite a while after reading!
Purchase Link: Behind a Closed Door on Amazon
Title: The Girl Who Couldn’t Lie
Author: Radhika Sanghani
Publisher: Usborne Publishing
Blurb: A fresh, funny story about white lies, brutal honesty and a bangle with special powers, from award-winning journalist and author Radhika Sanghani.
Priya Shah lies. A lot. She pretends everything in her life is perfect, so she doesn’t disappoint anyone.
But when she puts on a bangle left to her by her Ba – the one person she was always honest with – she finds herself unable to tell a lie.
Priya is mortified. She tells her dad she hates his cooking, she tells Dan Zhang about her huge crush on him, she shares her best friends’ secrets at school. She can’t get the bangle off, and she can’t stop the truths pouring out of her.
As more things go wrong, and Priya’s truth-telling spirals out of control, can Priya learn to be honest without hurting the people she loves?
Review: Even though this is a middle-grade book and I am an adult, I still found I couldn’t put this story down once I started it!
I found it really easy to identify with Priya’s struggles to appear perfect and non-problematic to everyone, sometimes to impress them, sometimes so as not to worry them, but always at a subtle cost to her own comfort and happiness. So when a magic bangle takes away her ability to tell even the whitest of fibs, I felt her pain! Add to that her parent’s secret marital issues, her younger sister’s ADHD, the pressure of intensive gymnastics training, keeping high grades at school, hiding her crush on Dan Zhang, and dealing with bullying (from a teacher as well as other students) and poor Priya has A LOT she doesn’t want to talk openly about.
I love that we see that her forced truth-telling can have both pluses and minuses, as some people appreciate her sudden honesty and feel closer to her, while others are hurt and offended, and the whole experience feels like a wild rollercoaster ride through the plot until she finally finds a balance in speaking her OWN truth.
Imagine something like the Jim Carrey film Liar Liar, but aimed at a younger audience and with more inclusive representation in terms of race, gender and sexuality. There are some really good lessons about the dangers of sacrificing your own wellbeing to keep others happy, but carried lightly in a plot more focused on whether Priya can survive each day with her family, friendships and reputation intact.
The only bit of the story I wasn’t so keen on was the big reveal scene, as it felt a bit like Priya making her friend’s special day all about herself – I’m sure she could have reached the same revelations but more privately. Still, this was a gripping and touching read for me and I would definitely recommend it to my Minishine and other tween readers.
Purchase Link: The Girl Who Couldn’t Lie on Amazon
Title: The Silence Factory
Author: Bridget Collins
Publisher: HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction | The Borough Press
Blurb: The whole world disappears when you enter
THE SILENCE FACTORY
Henry dreams of silence.
A world without the clattering of carriages through cobbled streets, the distant cries of drunken brawls, the relentless ticking of the clock.
Then he meets a fascinating, mysterious gentleman who sells just that. Precious silk that can drown out the clamour of the world – and everything Henry is so desperate to escape.
Summoned to Sir Edward’s secluded factory to try to cure his young daughter’s deafness, Henry is soon drawn deeper and deeper into the origins of this otherworldly gift: a gift that has travelled from ancient Mediterranean glades to English libraries.
Ignoring repeated warnings from the girl’s secretive governess, he allows himself to fall under the spell of Sir Edward and his silk… but when he learns its true cost, will it be too late to turn back?
From the #1 bestselling author of THE BINDING, this is an enthralling story about complicity, desire and corruption – a novel to lose yourself in.
Review: Featuring dual timeline plots in an alternate reality of magical realism where a rare and special spider can produce silk that smothers sound from one side and creates auditory hallucinations and madness from the other, this Gothic historical mystery immediately sparked my interest.
Excerpts from Sophia’s diary from a Greek island in 1820 – threaded with exotic otherness and heady Sapphic romance but overshadowed by the dual darknesses of marital control and miscarriage – alternate with the narrative of Henry Latimer decades later in the English factory village of Telverton. Henry’s story is woven from similar obsessive and unstable threads, as he skirts around the misery at the heart of the exploitative silk factory, distracted by his own desires and the grief and madness forming a web around him.
I would have preferred more of Sophia’s story than the brief interludes we got, as I was heavily invested in her personal struggles and the background of the island and the mysterious spiders. Unfortunately we spend more time with Henry and I found his story more difficult to engage with, as I found myself cringing from his obvious, wrong-headed missteps and his humiliating and clearly undeserved hero worship tendencies.
While an enjoyable read, I didn’t feel the book fully fulfilled the promise of magic dangled in the blurb and beginning, and although I enjoyed the weird and unsettling atmosphere evoked, it didn’t quite reach the full horrific impact that the contents should have inspired.
Purchase Link: The Silence Factory on Amazon
Title: Direct Descendant
Author: Tanya Huff
Publisher: DAW
Blurb: This cozy horror novel set in modern-day Toronto includes phenomenal characters, fantastic writing, and a queer romance—the perfect balance of dark and delightful
This stand-alone novel from the bestselling author of the Peacekeeper novels mixes the creepy with the charming for plenty of snarky, queer fun—for fans of T. Kingfisher, Grady Hendrix, Sangu Mandanna and Erin Sterling
Generations ago, the founders of the idyllic town of Lake Argen made a deal with a dark force. In exchange for their service, the town will stay prosperous and successful, and keep outsiders out. And for generations, it’s worked out great. Until a visitor goes missing, and his wealthy family sends a private investigator to find him, and everything abruptly goes sideways.
Now, Cassidy Prewitt, town baker and part-time servant of the dark force (it’s a family business) has to contend with a rising army of darkness, a very frustrated town, and a very cute PI who she might just be falling for…and who might just be falling for her. And if they can survive their own home-grown apocalypse, they might even just find happiness together.
Queer, cozy, and with a touch of eldritch horror mixed in just for fun, this is a charming love story about a small-town baker, a quick-witted PI, and, yes, an ancient evil.
Review: Classed as a ‘cosy horror’, this book feels more like a romcom set in the town of Night Vale, but without quite capturing the vibes of either.
Main characters Cassie and Melanie have an insta-love but no real chemistry between them and most of the characters had the same narrative ‘voice’, which made their banter feel too samey and also made it hard to keep track of who’s who with the multitudes of bit-players involved.
There is mild humour in the low-stakes, everyday horror of routine sacrifices and possessions, and children hunting shadows like Scouts chasing badges, but there is no real mystery in the plot and only a smidge of action at the very end.
I felt like I was picking up the story midway through a lengthy series, where all the characters and setting are already fully established – it constantly felt like I was missing something that would make the whole thing ‘click’.
With all of that, this wasn’t a bad read, it just clearly wasn’t one for me, which is a shame because the concept and ideas really are right up my street, so I really wanted to love it.
Purchase Link: Direct Descendant on Amazon
Another completely random mixture of style and genre here, and although not all of them were quite my cup of tea this time, I am a firm believer in ‘a book for every reader and for every book a reader’.
I hope you all find a book for you here and that each of these books finds its perfect audience among you.
Keep shining and happy reading! 🙂
