Books, books books! This year is flying by - I feel like I say that all the time but a new month means a quick refresh on what I've been reading over the last month. I only managed four books this month as I've been suffering badly from vertigo due to my pregnancy which made reading difficult but I'm feeling much better and have found my groove again.
My TBR pile is never-ending and I'm a nightmare for continually adding to it so I've placed a ban on myself until I've worked through what I have at home - not including 99p Kindle offers, oops!
I have four mini-reviews for you today and if you want to keep up with what I'm reading then you can follow me on Goodreads too - Alice Spake // Goodreads.
The Lies You Told by Harriet Tyce
The Lies You Told had been sat on my Kindle for a while but I kept putting it off because I loved Blood Orange by the same author so much I was worried I was going to be disappointed by this one - so silly but the mind works in strange ways! Thankfully... I LOVED The Lies You Told and it was just as gripping as Blood Orange. It focuses on scorned school gate mums and is full of drama and shocking twists making it a perfectly dark and addictive read. Tyce has a way with her writing that just completely sucks you and makes you not want to stop reading.
There is quite a cast of totally twisted and unforgettable characters who you definitely wouldn't ever want to meet again, given their awful behaviour. They all have quite complex and disturbed personalities, with emotional baggage to spare that just makes you stop for a moment and go huh!? It's a brilliant read - I was totally immersed and couldn't get enough.
Finlay Donovan is Killing It by Elle Cosimano
This was a recommendation by Helen at The Hels Project and one I thoroughly enjoyed. Her warning was to put my disbelief to one side as it's quite unbelievable in parts verging on a little silly but oh my I adored it so much. Finlay Donovan is a struggling author who is recently seperated from her terrible ex-husband when she gets mistaken for a contract killer and offered $50K to a kill a target - wild right?
The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood
I read The Thursday Murder Club last month and this one kept coming up in comparison so I downloaded it on Kindle and dived in. I thought one might be better than the other but I kinda loved them both equally, as much as there are similarites, they're also very differnt and both deserve the rave reviews they've received.
The Marlow Murder Club follows Judith Potts, a seventy-seven year old who lives on her own in a faded mansion just outside Marlow, there's no man in her life to tell her what to do or how much whisky to drink, and to keep herself busy she sets crosswords for The Times newspaper. Bliss right? That is until witnesses a brutal murder and gets to work to solve the case with her unlikely sidekicks.
It's totally charming, enjoyable and some of their antics had me laughing out loud. I thoroughly enjoyed the book even with the predictable plot line and would absolutely recommend the book for those looking for a fun, cozy mystery to curl up with.
Beach Read by Emily Henry
Beach Read is about a romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut so they engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters. This one lured me in by masquerading as feel-good chick-lit but it ended up being anything but - I was mega disappointed and felt that the story felt lacking and monotonous.
The characters were unlikeable, desperately needed therapy and the story did nothing to guide or help that - it felt like a very unfortunate car crash waiting to happen. The story itself felt dragged out, a lot of focus was put on creating the current novels and it was just a bit blah, I felt kinda empty by the last page. It has rave reviews so maybe I just didn't get it? I don't know - I feel like I need to be like reader - it was not a beach read!
Three out of four books isn't bad, right? Maybe I need to be a bit braver and start putting books down that I'm not enjoying anymore.
What have you been reading lately?
