I read Lisa Ireland’s The Shape of Us last year and adored it. Sure the plot itself was great, but the characters captured my heart and I could really relate to them. Her latest, The Art of Friendship is no different as I was taken on a (fairly tumultuous – but not all bad) journey with our two leads, Libby and Kit.
And I could SO relate. To the characters, their friendships and the ups and downs of life in general.
I’m behind with my reviews and not allowed to do any more reading until I catch up… so yesterday I attempted a video review.
Brad Parks’ Closer Than You Know is well paced and kept me guessing for much of the book. The legal procedural possibly rushes the closing a bit more than I’d like but it hooked me enough to read in a sitting.
Lisa Scottoline, along with Alafair Burke is one of my go-to authors for legal thrillers. They’re a genre that once felt like they were everywhere (though that was perhaps in the days of John Grisham and Scott Turow – and the movies based on their novels). They seem to be less prevalent now, which makes me appreciate them more than I perhaps once did. (Although the book I read after this – Closer Than You Know by Brad Parks – was also a legal procedural!)
After Anna, Scottoline’s latest is less about the legal process in many ways, though part of the plot does unfold in a courtroom. It’s more a novel of suspense with the majority of the story being told through the memories of a man on trial for murdering his step-daughter.
This delightful book was not on my radar until a friend mentioned she’d read several positive reviews about it. I’d received a copy so opened it tentatively… normally eschewing ‘historical’ fiction in favour of psychopathic serial killers. And similar.
However, (un)surprisingly, AJ Pearce’s debut novel – through its characters and charm and beguiling prose – won me over and I lapped it up in a sitting.
There’s a note to readers in the front of this novel which provides a bit of context for what comes next. Or a warning perhaps…. if you’re like me. I’m not a fan of fantasy or the supernatural, so I worried a little about Sharon Bolton’s mention of her fascination with the (long-past) ‘branding’ of witches (and anyone who didn’t quite fit in) in her native Pendle Forrest in Lancashire, and the role it played in inspiring this novel.
US author Laura Lippman has published a myriad of crime fiction and I’ve read a great many, including most of the Tess Monaghan series. Like Sandra Brown, Karen Rose and Nora Roberts she usually offers us a good balance in her romantic suspense novels and her latest, Sunburn, is no different.
I know many (MANY) people will envy the fact that I haven’t had to buy a book for a few years. I receive more review books than I can read – including many I don’t request. And though there are often books I miss, because they’re not offered for review or I don’t get them, I haven’t had the time to go back and read them myself.
Ten-fifteen years ago, if you’d asked about my favourite book series I probably would have said it was those by Martha Grimes and featuring Scotland Yard detective Richard Jury alongside the aristocratic but diffident Melrose Plant.
All named after a pub featured the in book (kicking off with The Man With A Load of Mischief in 1981), they were my comfort reads. I LOVED our main players – Jury himself and Melrose Plant of course. I’d even worked out who should play each in a TV series at one point. (And was later disappointed to see those cast in a German series based on the books – a bit like my response to the UK TV version of the Elizabeth George’s Inspector Thomas Lynley series.)
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