Our families are often the people who hurt us the most. This is certainly true for Nell Churcher, who, despite being attacked by an obsessive ‘Golden Bones’ fan when she was was in her early teens – a fan who believed they needed to carve out Nell’s pelvic bone to resurrect a fictional character called […]
We all know that images can be crafted. Public personas can be exactly that – a carefully crafted creation, shaped for and by an adoring public. Celebrity Lara King knows all about fame: how to get it, how to keep it and how to manipulate it. Then her daughter vanishes…and the persona begins to unravel. […]
‘It was almost like she seriously didn’t care about the exhaust system.’ This is why I enjoy Lianne Moriarty’s books. The third person narration offers a frequently amusing and consistently insightful look into people’s inner thoughts and closest relationships, usually supported by a gradually tightening suspense story. Having previously read and enjoyed several of Moriarty’s […]
When is a patient not a patient? When they have no desire to get better, and every intention of causing you harm… Jenny Blackhurst’s debut novel, ‘How I Lost You’, caught my eye a few months ago at Crimefest16. It looked fascinating but somehow slipped out of my immediate TBR pile and disappeared. Having found […]
Who would you become if you could be a different you? For one heady summer, sensible school teacher Natalie takes the plunge to find out. But could the reappearance of Nasty Nat spell disaster for her real life when the sunshine fades? Louise Candlish presents Natalie’s growing desire for a more glamorous life in suspenseful […]
I was fascinated by the premise of this book. Why? Well, where to start? The title is intriguing enough in itself, (departure, not disappearance, a choice which highlights that they made a remarkably abrupt decision to leave, rather than being (say) spirited away by kidnappers, and ‘The Frasers’, creating a sense of unity (against who?) […]
Sometimes a book simply grips you. Despite the ample distractions provided by an 11 month old baby, a two year old toddler and a demanding annual project, I read this book from start to finish in under 48 hours. (The house may have descended into more chaos and mess than is usual, (yes, worryingly, it […]
How would you react if you were arrested for murder? Would you be angry? Frightened? Horrified? Or would you reflect on the prevalence of earthquakes in your adopted city? If the latter sounds like you then you might get along very well with Lucy Fly, English-born, Tokyo-based and newly minted murder suspect. What’s it about? […]
Don’t judge this book by its seriously creepy cover. (Seriously. Creepy.) If you did, you might miss out on a treat. What’s it about? 13 year old Harriet is trying hard to grow up. Her reluctant entrance into adolescence is made worse by her parents’ reactions to her long-dead brother: her father has moved away, […]