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Pip Drysdale

Book review: The Close-Up by Pip Drysdale

Book review: The Close-Up by Pip Drysdale

The Close-Up by Pip Drysdale is a twisty tale from the Australian author whose previous books I have enjoyed and who I recently met in person at BAD Sydney Crime Writers Festival. We’re offered a likeable but certainly flawed lead in Zoe whose narration is akin to second person, as if she’s talking to us. It works well as we’re drawn into her world very quickly. It’s purely by chance that she reconnects with Zach, who she knew briefly (but intimately) three years before. Given what happens next she rues that chance meeting, but Zoe herself admits it’s not just the allure of Zach that attracts her, but the fact that he (and his world) become her writing muse, so there’s more than her heart (and life) on the line.

four-half-stars

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Book review: The Next Girl by Pip Drysdale

Book review: The Next Girl by Pip Drysdale

The Next Girl by Pip Drysdale is a fascinating read, featuring a narrator who – initially anyway – has her secrets, sharing them with us slowly but surely. At times it’s written in second person, as if Billie is talking directly to us. Filling us on on her past and confiding in us now.

Ultimately, she’s honest – with us anyway – so it’s hard not to like her as we learn what motivates her and feeds her obsession/s.

four-stars

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Book review: The Paris Affair by Pip Drysdale

Book review: The Paris Affair by Pip Drysdale

I read Pip Drysdale’s The Sunday Girl when it was released in 2018 and her subsequent novel of suspense The Strangers We Know the following year. Both feature flawed but engaging narrators and relationships-gone-bad, with themes around trust and disappointment.

The Paris Affair initially had me comparing it to Netflix’s Emily in Paris, given there’s a slightly similar feel to the early pages with a confident and ambitious Harper heading off to Paris to work for an English-language French publication. When we meet her she’s keen to wow the world but struggling to find her feet professionally.

Here however, we’ve got the added bonus of a murder. So, Emily in Paris meets The Girl on the Train. Perhaps.

four-stars

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Book review: The Strangers We Know by Pip Drysdale

Book review: The Strangers We Know by Pip Drysdale

Interestingly I read Pip Drysdale’s The Sunday Girl, while travelling home from Italy last October. It’s typical of me, but I’ve included reference to my Emirates meal in the review, which in retrospect is kinda weird. Happily however, I enjoyed the book (far more than the meal) and it seems, though I thought I knew what was going to happen, it didn’t quite play out like that.

four-stars

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Book review: The Sunday Girl by Pip Drysdale

Book review: The Sunday Girl by Pip Drysdale

3 min read

I downloaded this book onto my e-Reader some time before my Italian holiday, along with a few other books, planning to do some reading while away. As it happened however, I didn’t even turn my iPad on until my flight home…. over 3wks after I’d left.

I didn’t remember seeing this book as a hard copy on offer for review but requested an electronic copy when it started to appear everywhere and thank god I did as it helped one of the two legs of my flights from Rome to Brisbane pass really quickly.

four-stars

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