Fun fact: I’m rethinking the way I review books and decided I’d switch to instagram predominantly. The Summer Party by Rebecca Heath was to be my first attempt. So I jotted down some thoughts. I did pretty well initially with this…
Quick take: fascinating characters – some more twisted than others, long-kept secrets, dual timelines that intersect perfectly, well-paced with a series of twists that would not make Ben Shapiro* happy because author Rebecca Heath has kept secrets from us! Egad!
Although I’m really REALLY tired of books about mothers and children: those going missing, squabbling between couples, parenting issues and the like, this book is very much in my wheelhouse. I hadn’t planned to read the entire thing when I got into the bath with my copy but – for the first time in a long time – I deferred cooking dinner to keep reading.
I read Jackson’s previous book Never Have I Ever and it was similarly themed around motherhood, relationships, secrets and revenge. For most of this novel I was riveted and and it was really only the direction this book takes that left me disappointed, which (I guess) means Jackson sucked me in big-time.
Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner comes recommended by many of my favourite thriller writers. In fact quotes take up the entire back cover so I didn’t read the blurb before diving in. I’m assuming I did so before requesting it, but that was probably a few months ago.
I was worried then when the book opened with a fertility-challenged woman (Helen) who’s seven months pregnant. At her first antenatal class she meets a snarky young woman (Rachel) who quickly insinuates herself into Helen’s world. I imagined several tropes that have been done-to-death: the single-white-female thing with Rachel coveting Helen’s life; Rachel faking a pregnancy for nefarious reasons; or Rachel seeking revenge for a long past deed.
However, though this novel touches on a couple of those scenarios, Faulkner takes us in an unexpected direction. So, although it seems obvious where our suspicion and mistrust should lie, there are some twists which kept me turning page after page, keen to see where we’d be taken.
Not only has Alice Clark-Platts authored police procedurals, but in her former day job she was a human rights lawyer who worked at the UN International Crime Tribunal.
I only discovered that fact after reading this book though I can better understand the reflection in this book on the concept of retribution as well as some debate over punishment fitting the crime – and if it’s even possible.
I’ve actually never played Never Have I Ever, but this book by Joshilyn Jackson leverages off an adult version of the game… unexpectedly played by a group of inebriated women – who (I felt) interestingly see themselves as wives and mothers, rather than independent beings. And yes, that’s a bit judge-y but all definitions of the ‘book club’ early on suggest it’s the club of mothers with young children. There’s a SEPARATE group for the mothers of teens. (Of course that is completely irrelevant, but just kinda weird for this middle-aged singleton.)
We apparently met Taylor Bridges in the first book of this series (The Crossing), but The Falls by B Michael Radburn very much stands alone and newcomers (like moi) can catch up very quickly with minimal backstory.
Indeed, I was pleased to find another Australian author offering readers a tense and twisty novel of suspense.
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