Macmillan Archives

Book review: Room for Rent by Noelle W Ihli

April 28, 20262 min read

Room for Rent by Noelle W Ihli features a really likeable lead character. I warmed to Nya immediately. We quickly learn she’s defied her religious family and upbringing to leave home and study nursing at college. She’d been living with her bestie who graduated earlier so Nya has to find affordable accommodation to get through her last semester before starting her real life – and be reunited with her bestie again. When she finally finds a share-house within her budget she assumes her room-mate / landlord Sidney is female, but when she arrives she discovers it’s a really creepy guy.

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Book review: And The Corpse Wore Tartan by Stuart MacBride

February 1, 20262 min read

And The Corpse Wore Tartan by Stuart MacBride is apparently officially the second in the ‘Steel and Tufty’ series, though MacBride points out it’s the first to solely feature DS (demoted from DCI) Roberta Steel who’s a regular in the Logan McRae books penned by the Scottish author. MacBride tells us he started this as a novella just before the first Covid lockdown so it’s simmered for a while before becoming a short novel. I’ve only read one of two of the Logan McRae series and didn’t remember Roberta (Robbie to her wife Susan, who features prominently here). And it has to be said, Robbie is certainly an acquired taste. If she were male she’d certainly be considered lecherous and/or lascivious and I was kinda horrified on Susan’s behalf how outwardly pervy Robbie is toward other women in her presence.

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Book review: Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth

January 4, 20262 min read

Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth is another I missed getting during the year for review, so I only read it belatedly during my brief Christmas sojourn. 81-year-old Elsie is a bit like a character out of a Fredrick Backman book. Sassy and grouchy to all except her long-time friend Daphne and Pete, a neighbour. We learn she’s lived on Kenny Lane for 60 years and it’s a societal microcosm of sorts and also includes a single mother and her rowdy 7-year-old daughter, and the litigious Joan who’s constantly slipping notes under Elsie’s door complaining about one thing or another. When this book opens the latest note references Elsie’s past which she thought she’d left far behind her.

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Book review: Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney

January 14, 20253 min read

Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney is the first book I’ve read by the popular British novelist for some time and I’m a bit torn about it. It’s full of turmoil with a sinister undertone so for much of it there’s a sense of suspense (and impending doom) which I loved, but as it nears its end there are some twists… and the premise becomes – perhaps – a little too far-fetched to be completely satisfying (taking this back from a 4 star to 3.5 star read for me).

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Book review: To Die For by David Baldacci

October 29, 20243 min read

To Die For by David Baldacci is the latest in the series featuring former Army Ranger, now Homeland Security ‘fixer’, Travis Devine. It opens with Devine facing an attempt on his life. I must confess I had no memory of ‘the girl on the train’ or reasons for the bounty on his head and was initially a little disappointed that Baldacci didn’t give us the backstory, as he’s usually great at recapping for newcomers or those with memories like a goldfish like yours truly. Later however we learn that even Devine really wasn’t sure ‘why’ he was being targeted and all is eventually revealed.

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Book review: A Calamity of Souls by David Baldacci

March 24, 20243 min read

It’s a terrible thing to admit but I’ve little interest in history (or real life in general – hence my hatred of non-fiction), so avoid books set… anytime before the 1960s basically. A Calamity of Souls by David Baldacci is however set in the late 1960s. Around the time I was born in fact. Thankfully I enjoyed the ‘mystery’ on offer (not to mention the unfolding plot) because as a non-American I know very little of the time and events referenced here. It didn’t impinge of my enjoyment of the book, but I’m fairly sure I skimmed bits about politics and legislation that would be known by, or of interest to, Americans.*

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Book review: The Edge by David Baldacci

November 23, 20231 min read

The Edge by David Baldacci is the second in the series featuring Travis Devine, who we met in The 6.20 Man, released just last year. Travis is an ex Army Ranger and working in the financial sector when we first met him but now lured back to government.

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Book review: Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll

October 4, 20234 min read

I hadn’t read the blurb for Bright Young Women by Jessica Knoll until after I finished reading it so didn’t know it was inspired by a true story (and even then I just assumed it was someone with whom I wasn’t familiar, not realising it was based on Ted Bundy’s last murders). It explains why Knoll tells us almost nothing about the killer. Including his name. She calls him The Defendant. And I very much appreciated that this book is about his victims and those left behind rather than the killer.

I read Knoll’s Luckiest Girl Alive when it came out in 2015 and more recently watched the Netflix movie based on the book. I also read and reviewed her second book, The Favourite Sister. She writes unlikeable characters well. Almost too well perhaps. Though here her disdain lies with some of the male characters introduced rather than her female leads.

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