NetGalley Archives - Page 3 of 34

Book review: Dead Heat by Sabine Durrant

February 11, 20262 min read

Dead Heat by Sabine Durrant is the first book I’ve read by the English author since 2018. I absolutely loved her very twisty Under Your Skin, which I read over a decade ago. Here 51-year old journalist Matt is staying in a guest cottage in Greece after losing his job and girlfriend when he becomes embroiled in a love triangle (or is that rectangle?) involving long-term friends, Adam and Celia, and a mega-rich newcomer to their usually peaceful seaside haven.

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Book review: Papercut by Rachel Taff

January 27, 20263 min read

Papercut by Rachel Taff features a woman who found infamy as a teenager, committing murder to escape a cult. It’s a heavily textured read, set twenty years later as Lucy continues to ‘live off’ the proceeds of her memoir and appearances at ‘true crime’ events. She’s keeping secrets however, telling us she’s worried they’ll come out and Taff sets this up so readers are in suspense wondering what [those secrets] are or – in my case – how bad they may be, and being joined by Lucy (years later) discovering some she wasn’t aware of and twists we didn’t see coming.

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Book review: Robert B Parker’s Showdown by Mike Lupica

January 25, 20262 min read

I stumbled across Robert B Parker’s Spenser in the early 2000s and devoured the series. Thankfully it’d kicked off in 1973 so I had a long backlist to read. I loved everything about the series (well, other than Spenser’s long-time girlfriend Dr Susan Silverman) who seemed like a rather vain and arrogant princess. Spenser was a fabulous character as was his sidekick Hawk, equally delightful was the witty writing and the repartee that characterised the books… Indeed, I’ve written about my love of Spenser and the Lost Art of the Gumshoe before (Part 1 & Part 2).

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ARC review: The Shadow Friends by Tess Gerritsen

January 19, 20262 min read

I must confess I let The Shadow Friends by Tess Gerritsen leapfrog over all of the books in my reading list on its arrival, despite it not being published until August 2026 because I love this Martini Club series so much. I think in my first review I talked about it being akin to the ‘Thursday Murder Club on speed’. Thanks to the fact that all five members of this ‘club’ are ex-CIA, all with their own set of skills, which have only dulled a little in the decades since their retirement. I loved the first two books in this series. I probably didn’t enjoy this quite as much, although the bar is possibly set unfairly high. This is similar to the first book in the series, when the past of one of the members comes back to haunt them and pull the group back into the life they left.

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Book review: Darling Mine by Romy Hausmann

December 23, 20252 min read

Darling Mine by Romy Hausmann is the third book I’ve read by the German author (all translated by Jamie Bulloch). They’re very twisty reads centred around crimes in the (recent) past and kidnapping or abduction. This is similarly themed, around the disappearance of 16 year old Julie from her home in 2003. She’s the oldest daughter of Theo Novak a prominent doctor heading up a clinic for heart, thoracic and vascular surgery. We don’t spend much time with Theo, wife Vera and younger daughter Sophia in the past but meet him in the present as a 74 year old with dementia. Vera’s long illness before her death burnt through their savings so now he’s living in a small simple flat and Sophia’s writing reminder notes to help him get through his days. When he’s contacted by podcasters wanting to revisit Julie’s disappearance he jumps at the chance, despite his failing mind, believing she may still be alive.

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Book review: Like Mother Like Daughter by Kimberly McCreight

December 3, 20252 min read

College student Cleo and her mother (Kat) are semi-estranged when Like Mother Like Daughter by Kimberly McCreight opens, but Cleo’s agreed to dinner because her mother needs to tell her something. Cleo arrives to an empty house and a bloody crime scene… her mother missing. We then travel back and forth in time… Kat in the past, leading up to her disappearance and Cleo in the present, realising how little she knows about her mother and wanting to do everything she can to find her.

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ARC review: Finders Keepers by Natalie Barelli

November 25, 20253 min read

Finders Keepers by Natalie Barelli kicks off as an interesting but occasionally frustrating read. Rose is finishing work for the day and walks past a bookshop and sees a book with a title that’s familiar. We learn that Rose kept an online journal when at school. It reflected a 13yr old’s thinking most specifically a crush (though she thought it was real love) on one of her teachers. We learn she lost the laptop on which it was written but the journal concludes with her confessing to planning something horrific. And now her story is out there and receiving accolades. Obviously she’s wondering… who has her laptop, why have they written ‘her’ story and why did they change the ending? Rose stealthily stalks the writer, ingratiating herself to her and is soon invited to join her inner circle – her focus being to get the old laptop and destroy it, along with evidence of the murders (yes, more than one) she once committed.

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ARC review: We Were Never Friends by Kaira Rouda

October 25, 20252 min read

We Were Never Friends by Kaira Rouda unfolds from several points of view but it feels like Beth is the natural lead character. Perhaps because we meet her first. In the most bizarre of coincidences her daughter is engaged to the son of one of Beth’s sorority ‘sisters’ from her college days and for reasons not entirely sane, Roxy decides to invite Beth and another of their ‘sisters’ to her Palm Springs holiday home (a passion project of Roxy’s husband Ryan) in honour of their kids’ recent engagement. Adding some spice to the weekend, another of their sorority sisters gatecrashes the weekend reigniting the rivalry with Roxy festering from two decades earlier.

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