Regular readers will know I’m a bit hot and cold when it comes to the very prolific Nora Roberts. I adore the ‘In Death’ series she writes as JD Robb and it’s one of my ‘go-to’ comfort reads. And I mostly enjoy her romantic suspense novels… as long as they weigh slightly in favour of the suspenseful elements, rather than the romance.
I bought Inga Simpson’s second book, Nest, after hearing her speak at a local event. I loved learning more about her writing process and she was very honest and pragmatic about her road to publication. I also enjoyed learning more about one of her strengths – her ability to place readers into the book’s settings – and her commitment to doing so.
I’m a newcomer to the work of Tania Carver, having only read the previous book in the Brennan & Esposito series, Heartbreaker. So I was surprised when Martyn Waites responded to my tweet about the book, outing himself as Carver. Obviously it was / is no big secret and I’m just a little behind the times… but it’s nice to know, although I’m still unsure which pronoun to use when discussing the author! #firstworldproblem
I really enjoyed Linwood Barclay’s first Promise Falls novel, Broken Promise. I loved the protagonist David Harwood and the myriad of players Barclay introduced.
There were a lot of them, as I mentioned in that review, but that was okay as obviously Barclay was setting the scene for future books in the series. The inclusion of a crime which wasn’t ‘quite’ solved in the first series also made way for an overarching and continuing story arc.
Far From True, is the second instalment in the Promise Falls series.
I’ve heard some great things about Gilly Macmillan’s Burnt Paper Sky (aka, What She Knew) so was very keen to read her second novel, The Perfect Girl – a book about second chances.
I’m not a big fan of the need to ‘define’ a book’s genre. Indeed, if you asked me about What She Never Told Me by Kate McQuaile, I’d struggle to classify it at all. I’d easily be able to offer up a short synopsis; but it’s intriguing without being a suspense or thriller; and I’d be loath to mention the sprawling and complicated family featured in case you mistook it for something by Maeve Binchy or similar.
It’s none of those things. But it is good.
Regular readers may recall I struggled a little with 2015’s Motive by Jonathan Kellerman. It felt, I said at the time, a bit like he was going through the motions. Alex and Milo both felt a little stale and I welcomed Kellerman’s The Murderer’s Daughter (released in mid 2015) and felt it offered something fresh and new.
Breakdown, Kellerman’s latest, appeared with little fanfare (which makes me wonder if others agree with my thoughts). Indeed I hadn’t realised it was out until my review copy arrived and I noted it’d already been released. Kellerman offers up a slightly different Alex Delaware in this outing; and the plot – thankfully – kept me guessing.
British author and poet Sophie Hannah is hugely popular. Indeed her work’s won a myriad of awards and been adapted for television. And she’s prolific, writing crime fiction, psychological suspense, children’s literature and poetry.
I’m a relative newcomer to her work, having (only) read her standalone thriller, A Game for all the Family and the predecessor to her latest release, The Narrow Bed. And I have to admit… I’m still a little undecided about the extent of my own thrall….
