Category: Book reviews

The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena A easy, fast-paced read that focuses entirely on plot, although little on character development. Great for a quick read that entertains. I’d recommend as a good summertime, beach read. View all my reviews

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi My rating: 5 of 5 stars Luminous and life-affirming, When Breath Becomes Air is an emotional and heart-breakingly beautiful story about what it means to live in the face of dying. Chronicling Paul Kalanithi’s diagnosis with inoperable cancer as a neurosurgical resident to becoming a patient himself, the…

When I Was You by Amber Garza My rating: 5 of 5 stars I opened When I Was You expecting to just have a quick sneak peak…and couldn’t put it down all weekend. Exhilarating, page-turning, shocking, this is one of those rare psychological thrillers that really is the whole package. An electric, raw, emotional story…

Behind the Red Door: A Novel by Megan Collins My rating: 5 of 5 stars Spellbinding, poignant and atmospheric, Behind The Red Door is one of those rare stories you can get utterly lost in. With writing so richly evocative I could vividly imagine every detail, this is a mesmerizing tale in which family bonds…

Good Girls Lie by J.T. Ellison My rating: 5 of 5 stars “There are truths, and there are lies, and then there is everything that really happened, which is where you and I will meet.” Tightly plotted and brilliantly executed, this story of secrets, hazing, suicides and murder is told in the most evocative way.…

Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris My rating: 3 of 5 stars Well researched and authentic, with the potential to be emotional, thought provoking and poignant. However, it fell a little flat for me and I felt like I really struggled to get through it. While I loved The Tattooist of Auschwitz, I felt like this…

Little White Lies by Philippa East My rating: 5 of 5 stars Emotionally taut, poignant and raw, Little White Lies is a beautiful thriller about the bitter cost of lies and the enduring quality of a mother’s love. The story begins with what usually is the ending for most thrillers: a kidnapped child is returned.…

For Better and Worse by Margot Hunt My rating: 5 of 5 stars Brilliantly, breathlessly entertaining, For Better and Worse poses the question, do some people really just need killing? When Natalie and Will first met, they talking about how to get away with murder. But they never thought they’d do it in real life.…

What You Did by Claire McGowan Covering a range of very sensitive issues, from rape to domestic abuse, this is not a lighthearted. McGowan writes a story that weaves a past murder with a current sexual attack, leaving the reader increasingly determined to find out what really happened. While the protagonist is clearly blind to…

Follow Me by Kathleen Barber My rating: 5 of 5 stars Barber ratchets up the tension in this spine-tingling thriller about the dangers of over-sharing in the age of social media. Addictive, disturbing, and frighteningly real, Follow Me is about self-obsessed Audrey, an Instagram influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers. But one of her…

He Started It by Samantha Downing My rating: 5 of 5 stars A wicked-fun read with razor-sharp wit and a killer twist, He Started It is compelling, captivating, and deliciously dark. Samantha Downing writes with a wry, sparse elegance that steadily entangles you until you’re utterly addicted. In He Started It, we get three unapologetically…

The Liar’s Sister by Sarah A. Denzil My rating: 5 of 5 stars Another twisty, addictive thriller from Denzil! With secrets and lies, grief and trauma, the story unravels delicately and intricately at first, ramping up tension as we race to the shocking conclusion in order to find out what really happened to Samuel, and…