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Book review: Sophie, Standing There by Meg Mason

September 6, 20263 min read

I didn’t read the much-lauded and loved Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason but now that I’ve read her second book, Sophie, Standing There, I know I need to rectify that. While it may have been the plot (a writers festival sound technician fan-girling a well-known but potentially prickly author) that led me to purchase her latest release, Mason’s writing is stunning. There’s a depth or weightiness to her prose making them profound and poignant… all at once.

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Book review: It’s Not Her by Mary Kubica

August 23, 20262 min read

I had a strange sense of deja-vu as I read It’s Not Her by Mary Kubica. The electronic version I received for review is published in late August, but I noted other versions were published earlier this year so I wondered if perhaps I’d read it then. Of course Goodreads is my go-to source of info, as my own mind is akin to a sieve, and it’s not listed in my ‘read’ books. Perhaps I read a similar book, featuring brutally murdered parents of three children (aged 17, 14 and 10), with the oldest girl (17yr old Reese) missing. Feared abducted… though also unfortunately with motivation to be the killer herself.

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Book review: The One Who Walked Away by Karen Rose

August 17, 20262 min read

The One Who Walked Away by Karen Rose reminded me why I used to be such a fan of romantic suspense. I read a stack of her books back in the early 2000s, along with Nora Roberts, Sandra Brown, Elizabeth Lowell, Jayne Ann Krentz and Suzanne Brockmann. Although I’m not a fan of straight romance (ie. solely romance, not non-gay romance!) romantic suspense kinda ticks a few boxes for me, those books becoming a comfort-read of sorts. This is marked as Mendocino #1 so presumably the start of a new linked series… our main characters here being a family lawyer turned bounty hunter and a small town detective.

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Book reviews: Irish intrigue with Andrea Mara

August 14, 20263 min read

I recently received a little gift box, including two books… promising some Irish intrigue from Andrea Mara. Mara is new to me as an author and I’m always happy to find a new author with a good backlist. I’m interested to know more about them though as both books here are similarly themed around children going missing… as is All Her Fault, a miniseries I recently watched, based on Mara’s book of the same name. I think the whole not having kids myself and not relating to parenting stuff means I’m less into books about that as it’s not a fear I’ve had to deal with IRL…

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Book review: Neighbourhood Watch by Lauren Williams

August 6, 20262 min read

Neighbourhood Watch by Lauren Williams is an enjoyable debut from the Aussie author. We’re offered three likeable main narrators with additional input from some of the local ‘colour’. Emma and Margot are estranged sisters, uniting only for family events. We soon learn however that Emma’s husband, an esteemed judge, uses violence and coercion against her and when this opens she thinks she’s finally ready to run… well, maybe. We also spend time with Priyanka Pal, a homicide detective who once worked as a psychologist but joined the force, hoping to make more of a difference to women suffering domestic violence than merely treating the aftermath.

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Book review: She Lied First by Dinuka McKenzie

August 1, 20262 min read

Wow… She Lied First by Dinuka McKenzie is a great read! It’s obvious McKenzie (well, her characters) are keeping secrets and perhaps fooling themselves (and potentially us), making them consciously or unconsciously remain in denial, but at the same time this book goes in an unexpected direction and flips everything we think we know…or that we’ve assumed.

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Book review: Bad Neighbours by Joanna Jenkins

July 28, 20263 min read

Bad Neighbours by Joanna Jenkins is lawyer Ruth Dawson’s third rodeo. I didn’t realise that when I started reading and it wasn’t until there’s reference to her ‘reputation’ and later, the presence of a police officer known to Ruth, that I thought to look through my site and Goodreads to check. Sure enough I first met Ruth in The Bluff*.

It’s interesting this isn’t billed as part of a series like Ruth Dawson #3 or anything, although I guess it means it won’t put off those who haven’t read The Bluff and / or How To Kill A Client. And this book is easily read as a standalone. The events here are a little too close to home for Ruth as a homeless man is found dead in the grounds of an apartment building she’s just moved into.

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Book review: Everything She Didn’t Say by Jane Casey

July 23, 20262 min read

Everything She Didn’t Say by Jane Casey opens with a woman’s death. Well, her murder to be more specific. Of course Casey keeps us guessing as to the who and why and throwing several twists into the whodunnit and whydunnit mix. On the case are mismatched (Irish) Gardas, Ben Butler and Liam Farrell initially trying to work out what happened to a young woman found covered in blood, and more importantly the source of the blood, which would indicate murder.

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Book review: The Shadow Step by Mark Billington

July 19, 20262 min read

The Shadow Step by Mark Billington is the third in the series featuring detective Declan (Dec) Miller and (for me) this was a return to the amazing banter and snarky droll repartee which I loved about the first in the series, The Last Dance.

Here Dec and DS Sara Xiu are called when a body is found in a pond in a park. Happily for them, someone comes forward to explain he’d argued with the man, who’d then tripped over his dog and fell into the pond. Down-on-his-luck ex soldier Barry Cheshire tells them he had no idea the man didn’t pull himself out and went to the police as soon as he heard about the body. In worse news for Cheshire however, the dead man was a drug dealer, working for the Cutlers… well-known to Dec, who (wrongly) believe their territory is under attack and decide to take revenge.

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