Corvus Archives

Book review: 56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard

January 27, 20223 min read

56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard is the first book I’ve read to centre around the Coronavirus. I mean, it’s not specifically about the virus but its plot turns upon the arrival of the virus in Ireland in 2020 and its resulting upheaval.

Of course many other novels have started to reference Covid in some way or another. Generally it’s a reflection on recent concerns or extra cautions required, but 56 Days is very much about the early days of the virus and I was surprised at how evocative this was. I quite enjoyed being reminded of our thoughts and feelings back then. When we knew so little.

Having said that this is also a murder mystery so… Covid really only provides the opportunity.

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Book review: The Girl from Widow Hills by Megan Miranda

August 30, 20202 min read

The Girl from Widow Hills is the third book I’ve read by Megan Miranda and each has been very different though all nice and twisty.

In some ways it’s a familiar premise… a young woman running from her past gets caught up in a murder that means her secrets are uncovered. I fully expected it to be slightly cliched with our lead Olivia, becoming the police’s key suspect. Interestingly however, it’s really only Olivia who second-guesses herself.

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Book review: How to Play Dead by Jacqueline Ward

December 19, 20192 min read

I read and enjoyed Jacqueline Ward’s The Perfect Ten last year. It was Ward’s debut novel and I notice, in my review, I talk about my enthusiasm to read whatever she would next publish.

Thankfully I’ve now had the opportunity to do that and both books are similarly themed – domestic noir. Men behaving badly, though (at the same time) not bastardising all men; and a reminder of the strength women can find when needed.

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Book review: Perfect Ten by Jacqueline Ward

November 17, 20183 min read

This book was a surprise. I’d had it for a while but it’d come while I was overseas and so only got around to reading it over a month after it was actually published. There was something familiar about the blurb and I felt like I’d read something on a similar theme last year though only The Wife Between Us comes to mind. I must admit, from the blurb, I expected this to be a tad predictable – but it certainly wasn’t. In fact, for the most part it was highly addictive.

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Book review: Jar of Hearts by Jennifer Hillier

July 25, 20182 min read

On seeing the title of this book I immediately thought of the Christina Perri song (which I mainly knew from So You Think You Can Dance), and interestingly…. it’s referenced in this book (the song, not SYTYCD) in a pre-chapter quote.

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Book review: The Liar’s Girl by Catherine Ryan Howard

May 20, 20183 min read

I just commented in my last review that I was reading an inordinate number of books about old crimes and incarcerated peeps accused claiming they’re innocent. And… voila, here’s another.

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Book review: Shadow Man by Alan Drew

January 26, 20183 min read

I’ve commented before on the number of books set in the not-too-distant past. Obviously for some – like Bloody January which I read recently, Adrian McKinty’s Sean Duffy series and Lynda LaPlante’s young Jane Tennison books – the time is almost another character in itself – the setting pivotal to the plot; but others just remind us of when things were different. A couple of my favourite series, the Robert B Parker Spenser series; and (the late) Sue Grafton’s alphabet series area (were, in the case of the latter) set just ~~a couple~~ ~~few~~ several decades ago. (Seems like yesterday but time flies, I mean… weren’t we worried about the Y2K bug just a couple of years ago?!)

Anyhoo, it’s a time before technology (as we now know it) was rife, before we had facts and information at our fingertips and, in some ways (given what we’re often exposed to), the opportunity for innocence was lost.

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Book review: Don’t Close Your Eyes by Holly Seddon

September 16, 20172 min read

I read and reviewed Holly Seddon’s debut novel, Try Not To Breathe last year and rated it 4-stars (a very good rating from me). On discovering this book I chuckled to myself over her fetish for titles featuring warnings though and wondered what the next book might be called…

Seddon offered up a flawed lead (or two, kinda) in her first book and does the same this time around, with (non-identical) twins Sarah and Robin whose lives we follow in the present and the past.

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