Category: Book reviews

This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor by Adam Kay My rating: 5 of 5 stars A darkly hilarious and heartwarming look at what it’s like to be a junior doctor, with snippets of stories so horrifying, surprising and amusing I had to read almost all of them out loud to…

Forget You Know Me by Jessica Strawser My rating: 5 of 5 stars What an intriguing premise! Childhood best friends Liza and Molly decide to catch up over a Skype call and some wine. But when Molly goes upstairs to check on her daughter, Liza sees a masked intruder enter her house. This one incident…

A Spark of Light by Jodi Picoult My rating: 5 of 5 stars Intricate, gorgeous and incredibly intelligent, I loved every second of this book. No matter what your views on this very sensitive social issue, A Spark of Light is a wonderful read. Rather than being preachy about either side, I think the success…

Him by Clare Empson This is a thoughtful character-drawn book, a tragic tale of love, obsession and guilt. My only problem with it was it’s one of those books that’s packaged as a psychological thriller and it just isn’t. But once you push that expectation aside, the writing is good, fluid and intelligent, with a…

I, Witness by Niki Mackay My rating: 5 of 5 stars If you like brisk, pacy thrillers with well developed characters, this is the book for you! I thought it was going to be a legal thriller (the title, the cover), but instead it’s an excellently spun crime thriller, so don’t let the packaging turn…

The Killer You Know by S.R. Masters This debut novel has a contemporary feel with an interesting mix of nostalgia and thriller. It follows a group of friends who are torn apart at age sixteen by a number of strange events. Told with a dual time frame, the book has one of the most intriguing…

Three Days Missing by Kimberly Belle My rating: 5 of 5 stars Wowohwow! This was a stay-up-late-into-the-night read with pages you will burn through to get to the final resolution. I literally couldn’t put it down! The story follows Kat and Stef, Kat whose son has been kidnapped and Stef the mayor’s wife, whose son…

The Other Woman by Sandie Jones If there was such a thing as chick-lit thriller or dark chick-lit, this would fit solidly into that. I thought it was a thriller, so was a bit baffled by the chick-lit style writing, although the twist at the end moved it solidly in the thriller genre. This was…

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson Ok, so it’s a science book, but as far as science books go, this is a pretty good one. I really enjoyed DeGrasse Tyson’s tone of voice, his easy, casual style, the way he broke down the complex into easy-to-understand bits of information. I kept…

What Was Mine by Helen Klein Ross My rating: 5 of 5 stars Wow! Just wow! What Was Mine was more addictive than Pringles with extra MSG! I couldn’t put it down and devoured it over the course of just a few sittings. Everything about it is beautiful: the story, the structure, the characters, the…

Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter Pieces of Her is a character-driven thriller focusing on themes of self-discovery, the tension of mother/daughter relationships, and a search for the truth. I love domestic suspense, so this was a great one for me. But fans should know up front that the book is very different from Slaughter’s…

See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt A deeply unsettling story based on the true ax murder of Andrew and Abby Borden. Lizzie, the protagonist and Andrew’s daughter (Abby’s stepdaughter), calls out to her maid and alerts the town of the grisly murder. While the police search for clues, Emma, the elder sister, comforts…