Category: Book 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…

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…

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…

The Cliff House by Amanda Jennings My rating: 5 of 5 stars Haunting and evocative, The Cliff House is beautifully and elegantly told with gorgeous, lyrical prose and an eerie, almost nostalgic storyline. It’s one of those books that you just want to savour, rather than race through, because every page feels like you’re actually…

Beneath the Surface by Fiona Neill A slow burning family drama about a dysfunctional family with various secrets and how things don’t always appear as they seem. After a fairly messed up childhood, Grace is determined to make sure her daughters have a better life than her. But while she’s trying to fix Lilly’s problems,…

Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell My rating: 5 of 5 stars Wonderfully tense and absolutely riveting, Lisa Jewell knows how to tell a story like no one else! Putting an entirely new spin on a missing child mystery, Then She Was Gone follows Laurel, who was devastated 10 years before when her golden…

Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson My rating: 5 of 5 stars One of the rare books that goes in my ‘face-meltingly-good’ folder. I loved this book so much! The unreliable narrator is written perfectly, the story compelling and suspenseful, the writing crisp and clear. I was constantly guessing, constantly unseated and wondering…