The Distance Between Me And The Cherry Tree by Paola Peretti

          Losing your sight is one of those things that terrify me - I would genuinely rather lose a limb than my vision.  This book details the emotion behind losing your sight to a relatively rare disease and fleetingly the practicalities of how it feels to be locked in to an encroaching darkness that nibbles away at your sight until it is gone.

Told from the perspective of Mafalda we learn how she works her way through what is happening to her with support from her family and the enigmatic school caretaker Estella who is fighting her own battles.  Mafalda only really has one friend, her grey and brown cat, Ottimo Turcaret, who she found as a kitten in the branches of the school Cherry Tree.  A tree that symbolises her hopes and her losses; indeed she measures her failing sight by how far away she can see the tree.

The only thing that jarred with me was the voice of the 9 and 10 year old Mafalda.  She is a little too naive, a little too innocent, yet she picks up on the nuances of adult conversation filing them away for further consideration.  This aside the book is beautifully translated from the original Italian and it never really feels like a translation (as so many do).  Despite the subject matter of loss it is a hopeful book, the hope that everything will be right in the end, even in the darkness.

I raced through the book in one sitting, which is not hard to accomplish as it is only a little over 250 pages.  Had it been twice the length I think it would still have been a one sitting book, not so much to find out what happens to Mafalda but more to find out how she copes with what has happened to her.  Paola Peretti is writing from experience and it shows how hopeful she is for her own future as well as detailing the agony of being shut out of that so important sense.  I hope she has found her Essential and that we can all find ours.

I RECEIVED A FREE COPY OF THIS BOOK FROM READERS FIRST IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW.
       

Outside The Limelight by Terez Mertes Rose

As a non-dancer I have a real love for dance and watch a lot of movies about dance and fall down the You Tube rabbit hole with startling regularity. However, I haven't really read much set in the dance world so when I came across this set in the rarefied world of Classical and Contemporary Ballet I had to give it a go. I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised by the book and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The Author has managed to strike the right balance between the day to day realities of being part of a large Ballet Company (the relentless rehearsing, the day to day pain and the jealousies) with the private lives of the dancers. In this case we are focused on the lives of two sisters - Dena and Rebecca Lindgren - both of whom dance for the same company but have very different experiences within it. It is so tempting to give a full breakdown of the plot here as it is rich and the arc is exceptionally good. I will refrain from doing so as that would spoil your enjoyment of the book.

The main characters in the book are very vivid and leap in to life on the page. Even the secondary and tertiary characters are well fleshed out and you get an inkling of their personalities despite not "seeing" them enough to really get to know them. Nobody in this book is all good or all bad and the emotional changes within that are often masked by the worldly face are particularly well drawn. The misunderstandings between characters are believable and this is clearly shown between the sisters themselves when past jealousies colour their interpretation of actions.

The only real let down for me was the Social Media side of things, which is surprising as the Author is a blogger herself. The repercussions of which are pretty realistic and I know the HR department at my office would go in to melt down if I posted what is posted about the Company and it's Artistic Director and we don't rely on public support to keep in business.

A thoroughly enjoyable novel that I raced through and genuinely could not wait to get to the next page of. This may have been to get to all those gloriously depicted dance sections, whether in rehearsal, in Company Class or during a performance they are just so evocative and enjoyable. The fact that the pain of a dancer's life is shown, blisters, bunions and throbbing joints and all, in a realistic way is the icing on a quite decadently enjoyable cake. So much so I have now bought the previous book in the series and can't wait to start it.

The Dark Lake by Sarah Bailey

          Although the main thrust of the book purports to be about the murder of a late 20-something schoolteacher just prior to Christmas, this is actually a book about our main protagonist Gemma Woodstock.  The murder forms the backbone of the book but everything spirals out from there and it can be quite an uncomfortable read.

I just could not connect with the main character at all.  She constantly harks back to a failed High School relationship with Jacob and very definitely wears rose-tinted spectacles when she does.  This is easy for her to do as he committed suicide at Sonny Lake before graduation and she blames herself.  This has clouded her judgement and vision for the next 10 years; when an old classmate, Rosalind Ryan, is found murdered at Sonny Lake it just brings everything to ahead.  It isn't her retrospection that annoys me, or even her infidelity with a colleague, there is just something deeply unlikeable about the character.  I think it is her innate selfishness that bothers me so much and her almost brutal refusal to meet anyone even halfway.

The procedural parts of the book are handled very well with large periods for the Smithson Police Force where they simply have nothing to go on and are reduced to rehashing old interviews hoping that something will suddenly leap off the page at them.  This rings very true to life, less so is the misogyny towards Gemma.  I am sure this did/does take place but the Feminist agenda is rather high in this sections of the book and it annoys me.  Gemma has been with this same Police Force for a large number of years now and proven herself to be good at her job so her gender would be largely forgotten by her colleagues.

I sort of enjoyed the book but I was beginning to get bored by the end if I'm being honest.  The strangest thing about it all, for me, was thinking of Christmas taking place in blazing heat and yet still having a Pine Tree in the home - I know this is reality for a goodly number of the people on our planet but as a Northern Hemisphere resident it just feels wrong.  Also, the bonbons confused the heck out of me until I realised that they are Christmas Crackers and not the sweet treats.

A generally solid book about the Human Condition with a bit of Thriller thrown in.  Passes the time adequately but didn't really get my imagination running or the pages turning.
       

The Pharmacist's Wife by Vanessa Tait

          First off the cover just begged me to read this book, I'm not sure why but there was just something about it that drew me in - so, the graphics team did their job well.  As nice as it is to have a great cover the inside is vastly more important and so many things can go wrong between those pages.  Fortunately, the writing matched up to the promise of the cover so this is a genuine winner all round.

Set in the late 19th Century, this is Victorian England at it's stuffiest where appearances matter far more than the reality.  Afraid of being an Old Maid of 28 and no word from her beau after he has gone to Egypt to further his father's business Rebecca Massey accepts the hurried proposal of pharmacist Alexander Palmer.  She still holds a flame in her heart for Gabriel but believes that he is lost to her and tries her best to settle in to being a good wife to her husband.

Unfortunately for Rebecca her husband is not all that he seems and she becomes convinced he is having an affair with the enigmatic Evangeline.  Her only friend is her maid, Jenny, until she decides to take Evangeline to task about the affair and discovers that she was so very wrong.

The true genius of this book is it's vivid descriptions of the descent in to addiction to Heroin (newly synthesised by Mr Palmer) and his experiments to show how wonderful it is for subjugating the weaker, hysterical sex.  Couple this with the strong characterisation of every person within the pages it is a well written book that is compulsive reading.

So, why not 5 Stars then?  Well, I have a couple of niggles with it:

At one point Rebecca rushes downstairs to answer the door to a street urchin who brings a letter with him from Eva stating that she can show Rebecca the mystery of the shoe that was found in Mr Palmer's study.  We are told that she rushes to the door barefoot.  The next we know she is throwing her cloak on without pause to meet up with Eva and is out the door.  It turns out she has slippers on (as revealed 10 or so pages later) but how they got there who knows.

The scenes in the Bawdy House with it's Tom and Toffers whilst well written reminded of nothing more than Tipping The Velvet as produced by the BBC.  The whole scene just feels cinematic and although it fits with the tone of the book in general it does jar against the earlier scene setting.

The plot itself is well paced and the dream sequences when Rebecca has taken her medicine are glorious flashbacks in her life.  The denouement does come as a little bit of a surprise but you do find yourself eagerly turning the pages and urging Rebecca on.

A wonderfully realised tale that you will get lost in.

I RECEIVED A FREE COPY OF THIS BOOK FROM READERS FIRST IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW.
       

Shadows In The Water by Kory M Shrum

I hadn't noticed the author of the book before I purchased this book, the blurb intrigued me so I downloaded it.  It was only when I came to read it that I realised that I have read Ms Shrum's work before and quite enjoyed the earlier books in the Jesse Sullivan series.  However, I didn't thoroughly enjoy them so I was a little trepidacious going in to the book.  I needn't have worried as her writing style has matured quite a lot since those early books and the story moves along in a far more streamlined manner.

That said she does seem to have a thing for people being able to transport themselves to any place or time (Jesse Sullivan does it to claim souls and Louie Thorne just does it).  In the context of both stories it works but I have to say the mechanics of it in Shadows In The Water is much better and even has a more fully realised feel to it whether Lou is using water to get to La Loon or Darkness to move wherever her inner compass tells her she needs to be.

The cast of supporting characters is very strong with characters becoming apparent quite quickly on the page and seemingly effortlessly.  Lou Thorne however, is a little bit lacking in the character department.  Although, we are given the reasons for her vigilantism the character of the woman herself is barely there.  She is as enigmatic to us, the reader, as she is to her Aunt Lucy, King and Konstantine and without this I felt I could not really connect to her.

The action is fast paced and rather gory, which I enjoyed as it is not surreal gore but rather realistic in the way the human body reacts to gunshots and stabbings.  There is something of the procedural crossed with gangster movies crossed with the supernatural baout this book and it is a blend that works exceptionally well in this instance.  I just hope that this can follow through in to the second book and that the seeming romance between Konstantine and Lou does not overpower the relationship between Lou, King and Lucy.

The fantasy world of La Loon is well realised despite it's limited appearences in the book and the narrowness of the vista we are given.  Would it be wrong to want Jabbers as your own pet? 

This book was something a little bit different that captured my imagination and I am looking forward to the second in the series.

Every Note Played by Lisa Genova

          Every Note Played is a very difficult book to read, dealing with the effects of ALS on the human body and so on to the relationships between the sufferer and their families and friends.  The descriptions of how the disease works on the muscles of the body are thorough (to the point where I would not recommend anyone with hypochondriac tendencies picks this book up) and graphic.  None of this I have an issue with.  I will note that I did become confused by the early references to Stephen Hawking so I had to go a-googling and discovered that ALS is a form of Motor Neurone Disease so that would explain why I could not make the connection (I am British and we generally use MND).

My issues came with the characters that the book is about.  Richard is that stereo-typical classical musician who cares for nothing and no-one outside his selected oeuvre.  Strangely he reminded me of Jilly Cooper's Rannaldini in his selfishness and high opinion of himself - very odd comparison to make I know.  Although he does achieve some sort of personal epiphany as the disease progresses through him and laying his body waste it felt, to me, rather forced and at odds with what little we know of his personality.  His ex-wife Karina is similarly unappealing and I just could not get on board with her actions in the book and her internal monologues did little to make me warm to her.

That said, this is a very sensitive subject and it is dealt with very well.  I appreciated the author's attention to the detail of how being a Carer is completely and utterly relentless and how you may harbour "bad" thoughts towards the patient.  The way the patient interacts with the variety of carers is also well-wrought with some being taken for granted and others appreciated - sadly (as is the case in this book) it is usually the main carer who is taken for granted and seen as no more than an extension to the machinery keeping the patient alive.

I feel a little mean only giving the book 3 stars but the lack of connection between myself, as the reader, and the characters meant that I could not mark it any higher.  The writing itself is adequate and does become a little hectoring about what a vile illness MND is in places which did serve me to back off a little bit - we know it is horrendous and not something we would wish on our worst enemy.  This book will garner a slew of praise and a lot of 5 Star reviews I am sure and, never forget, everyone is entitled to their opinion.

I RECEIVED A FREE COPY OF THIS BOOK FROM READERS FIRST IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW.
       

Love Over Scotland by Alexander McCall Smith

This is very definitely part of a series and it shows.  If you aren't already in the know about the cast of characters that (formerly) live(d) at 44 Scotland Street then there is not much here to hang your hat on in the way of characterisation.  Despite the short precis at the front of the book explaining where we are up to with the series I found it very difficult to connect with the cast initially.  To be perfectly honest I found it hard to connect with some of them at all.

Angus, Pat and Matthew were of particular concern to me.  They were such weak characters in their own individual ways and I was so tempted to skip their sections of the book because they annoyed me so much.  Domenica is a pretty important character to the book but I could not fathom her out at all.  Bertie and his appalling helicopter mother I loved, very precocious six year old he may be but his sections were the only ones to deliver any real humour.  I also enjoyed the brief glimpses of Cyril - yes, I know he was a dog but he was a stronger, more fully formed character than some of the people in here.

The plot is all a little bit Seinfeld - a great deal of nothing.  Whilst this worked for the 90s sitcom it does not work so well in a book.  I could see what the author was striving for, the over-arcing mundanity of live but it really doesn't work when your cast are rather rarefied and unbelievable.  The writing style did not help in the slightest and I found it to be rather patronising to the reader and, in places, downright pseudo-intellectual like he was trying to make everything seem far more interesting by use of archaic and rural terms interspersed with the text.  Fortunately the rural terms I was familiar with and no words were used that made me race for a dictionary but I did find it all a little contrived to impress the long-list writers for various awards.

So, why then 2 stars?  Well, I gave it 1 for Bertie and 1 for Cyril.  The rest of it I really could have done without.  Suffice to say I won't be reading any more of this Author's books as I read to entertain myself and there was little that entertained me here and it became a race to the finish so that I could start something that I may actually enjoy.  This was a real disappointment as a good friend recommended the books to me and she has never got it wrong before.

A Case Of Serendipity by K.J. Farnham

More of a 3.5 Stars really.

Somehow I found that I just could not connect with the characters in this book at all.  There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the writing or the characterisation, I think they were just too far away from the people that I know and so had no reference point for their motivations and behaviours.  Beyond Ruth's love of jigsaw puzzles and Henry's workaholism their lifestyles are polar opposites to mine, so much so that I did find myself a little bit (dare I say it, I dare, I dare) bored with the book from time to time.

The writing itself is well crafted and flows well.  However, the constant jerking back to legal(ish) emails and then chatty texts did break the flow and spoilt the read a little bit for me.  For some reason the constant full format email showing Henry's position and contact details at the law firm really irritated me and felt like page filler to bulk the page length out.  The text messages were far less intrusive and a good way of expressing dialogue in a way that is becoming more familiar to us than actual face to face conversation.

The insights in to each character's past and their relationships with their families was interesting and did flesh the characters out in a not too overt fashion.  You very definitely get the sense these are two grown-ups who have a handle on the whole adulting thing but are trying to still keep some of that childlike wonder at the world to milk the most out of every drop of life.  Although set in Milwaukee it did feel very much like it could have been Anywheresville, USA with the chain coffee shops, Keurigs and farmer's markets and there was little in the way of local colour to really differentiate this place from any other.  Mentioning the Keurig reminds that "things" seem to be a touch important with the odd little bit of brand-dropping here and there, not enough to really infuriate me but just enough to make me tut over the first 2 or 3 chapters but it soon settles down to barely there levels.  I suppose the brands do give you an idea of the stage of life the characters are at and their relative incomes, somehow it irks me - bit like reality TV shows irk me.  It certainly isn't a new device and it is highly prevalent in Victorian Literature (with servants and carriages replacing the brand names) but they were times much more delineated by class than our own.

The plot itself is quite a sweet and slow romance and although there are no sex scenes we know full and well that Henry and Ruth have "done the dirty deed" because both refer to it.  Fortunately the author has steered away from sex scenes - this is good for me as I find them ubiquitously cringy (as my husband said "if someone were to write a passage about swimming a few lengths of their local swimming pool it would be almost unbearable to read if you had experience of swimming; all that splashing and thrusting and pulling through the flat, chemical smelling surface.  It's just the same with sex").  The focus of the book is more about them each learning to trust another person with their heart and believing that they will be accepted even if you can't carry a tune in a bucket or have two left feet.  The unfolding relationship with Ruth and Henry is wonderfully tender and sweet without slipping over in to nausea inducing levels of saccharine, with their attraction to each other being more about personalities than looks (although they do find each other very attractive).

On the whole I did enjoy this book, I think I was just a little disappointed that it didn't grip me as much as "Don't Call Me Kit Kat" and may have been unnecessarily harsh in my reviewing of it.  If you do enjoy a good romance that doesn't rely on salacious passages to sell itself then this is a good book for you.  I have to be honest and say that if you are looking for a light read for by the pool this summer then you won't go far wrong with this one.

Friends & Traitors by John Lawton

          Although this is the 8th in the Inspector Troy series of books it can be read as a stand-alone novel, but only just.  There are some assumptions made that the cast of characters (and believe you me, there is an extensive list of those)  will be already familiar to you.  This means that when certain people from Troy's past crop up it takes a few pages of dialogue and action to get a handle on exactly who they are - Eddie is a particularly troublesome character and I am still not 100% sure who he is and what his relationship to Freddie is.  Fortunately there are quite a few who appear to be new to this book and as the action and intrigue is set around those it does not make the book impenetrable to someone joining the series at this juncture.

The world setting is exceptionally good with a mixture of real characters being re-imagined and fictional ones being thrown in to muddy the mix.  Spanning from the mid 1930's to the late 1950s there is a lot of ground to cover but fortunately the plot pushes along at a good pace and the years simply slip past.  The opening scenes in the 1930s when Troy first meets Guy Burgess at one of his father's eclectic dinner parties are evocative of the era; indeed throughout the book you feel as though you are actually back in the time and the places described.  This is not a Europe many "normal" people would recognise but it is certainly one that has a true ring of authenticity to it and if you were lucky enough to be part of the upper echelons of society I am sure it is wholly accurate.

Centering around the defection of the Cambridge Spies there is just enough history in there to make the fictionalised account seem eminently plausible.  This is really a book about two people Frederick Troy and his slightly skewed perspective on justice and Guy Burgess with his extravagant living and bumbling persona masking his true intentions.  I'm not sure that Troy is a particularly likeable character as he does seem rather prone to murdering people who get in his way and then utilising his position as the head of the Murder Squad for the Met. to help him conceal his misdemeanours.  Then again his whole Russian Emigre family is a little dubious in their actions so lets blame them for his proclivities.

The writing is very strong and sucks you in to this world.  I am certainly very tempted to take the plunge and read some of the earlier works in this series - the only reservation I have is that the world created within Friends & Traitors is so very strong that I could feel let down by the earlier books.

I RECEIVED A FREE COPY OF THIS BOOK FROM READERS FIRST IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW.

Corpus by Rory Clements

          This is quite a confusing book - not helped by the fact I was reading a second book at the same time that was set in a similar time period and dealt with similar themes so I sometimes got a tad confused with the cast of characters.  They certainly inhabited the same rarefied airspace so that isn't surprising.

However, the biggest problem I had was Corpus has such a large cast of disparate characters, in many countries and they are introduced at seeming random into the plot.  Just as soon as you think you have a handle on what is happening than a new chapter starts and suddenly we are in Munich, Berlin, Spain, Moscow, Rural England, Windsor and eventually back to the comfort of Cambridge.  Not that there is much comfort to be found by the Cam, certainly not for Tom Wilde or Lydia Morris.  The juxtaposition works well but it does mean you need to keep your wits about you throughout the book and this isn't always easy as it does have a tendency to become bogged down in minutiae from time to time.

I did like that you are never exactly sure what each character's agenda actually is.  Are they a Communist, a Fascist, a Patriotist or a bit of all three or playing all three against each other whilst behoving to belong to each.  Lots of complex intrigue and tricky little sub-plots here from Baldwin, Stalin and Hitler led factions with a little bit of White Russian Rebellion thrown in for good measure.  1936 certainly sounds like an exciting time but I am sure it was much more mundane, even in the higher echelons of power than it is fictionalised into being.

The main characters are well-developed but once you move away from Tom, Lydia and Philip Eaton everyone else is a little bit of a two dimensional attempt.  The nearest we get to fully formed is Comrade Kholtov and even he smacks a little of caricature.  Fortunately, I had read the second in the Wilde series first so I know how good the writing from this author can be and I know that I will be eagerly waiting for the third installment.

My recommendation would be read this book and persevere with the series - book two is much tauter but Book One does give some added insights into Mr Wilde, Ms Morris and Mr Eaton that did give me a lightbulb moment about their actions in Nucleus.
       

Her Mother's Daughter by Alice Fitzgerald

          Her Mother's Daughter is a very emotional book told from the perspective of two generations of one family - the mother damaged by her childhood and the daughter damaged by her mother's childhood.  The insight by the author in to the events themselves and their knock on effects in Josephine's adult life are well thought through and are revealed to us piecemeal by Josephine herself.  We also get to hear her daughter, Claire's, perspective on how her mother's sudden mood swings affect her daily life.

This book serves as a reminder that what we say and how we conduct ourselves is noticed and felt by our children in more ways than we can ever imagine.  The two voices are entirely distinct and clear throughout the book, my only real reservation was that Claire sometimes felt like a device to show just how far Josephine was sinking beneath the weight of her trauma rather than an individual in her own right.

The relationship between Claire and her brother Thomas is entirely believable, veering between the desire to protect him from the worst of her mother's anger and then being completely infuriated with him herself.  The natural jealousy between the siblings is well captured and even though we never get to hear Thomas's voice we do get a sense of the little boy through Claire's eyes.  Tellingly, we never really get more than a fleeting glimpse of the children from Josephine, she is too locked in her own past to really engage with the present in anything but the most superficial way.

It felt to me that most of the tale is told by Claire but this could be simply because I enjoyed her sections so much more than those written from Josephine's perspective.  Her innocent and yet somehow knowing voice reaches out to you and pulls you deep in to the story and refuses to let you go with her simple joy in sweets and her burgeoning self-image issues generated by her mother's barbed comments and her own pleasure in being told that she looks just like her mother who is acknowledged to be a beauty.

The enduring strength of the relationship between Michael and Josephine comes as a relief.  No matter how frustrated they get somehow they have managed to cleave together, even if sometimes it is just their upbringing keeping them together to "save face" they seem to power through it.  No quick throwing in of the towel when things get bumpy.  Not enough is made of Michael's strength in holding the family together as best he can with two young children who are old enough to see the cracks and question the flimsy paper over them whilst supporting a traumatised wife who cannot move past the horrible events in her formative years.

In some respects this is a very uncomfortable read but one that I raced through and was unwilling to put down.  It also made me very grateful for my secular upbringing and that there were no predators lieing in wait for me to wreak havoc with my mental wellbeing down the years.

I RECEIVED A FREE COPY OF THIS BOOK FROM READERS FIRST IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW.
       

White Lies & Wishes by Cathy Bramley

This was such a warm read and I felt that it managed to steer away from tried and tested stereotypes.  Jo, Sarah and Carrie read as though they are real people, they make the same snap judgements as the rest of us and they can be fun and larky and then miserable and argumentative the next and not just because they are women, but, because they are people.  They struggle with the same things we all do at various times in our lives and despite their disparate personalities their friendship does not feel forced on to the page but like it has evolved naturally with time.  I loved how they lied to themselves about what they really wanted from life, afraid to even admit to themselves what it was that would make them feel happy and fulfilled - I am sure that no matter whether you are male or female once you get to a certain age you realise that you have been lieing to yourself and then have the crisis of admitting your real heart's desire to yourself even if it does not fit in with family, friends or even societal expectations.  This book gives you "permission" to be true to yourself.

I thought it could have been tough going as I started reading this only 4 days after my Mother-In-Law passed away and this book starts with a funeral tea.  Fortunately, even this minefield was navigated with a warm humour that steered me through the rather dodgy territory and made me interested in the three women that were so different and yet each equally alone and floundering in their own way.  I didn't so much read this book as completely absorb it whilst playing chicken with my e-reader battery and the clock.  I am pleased to report the battery managed to last until the end of the book or we could have seen a decidedly matronly middle-aged woman throwing a tantrum fit only for Zac.

The three main characters are

Jo - Single business woman who is desperately trying to find a way to keep the family business going to the expense of her social and romatic life.

Sarah - Married with a young baby (the aforementioned Zac) and desperately trying to achieve partnership at work and balance her home life with her husband who is reluctantly providing the child care.

Carrie - Homemaker extraordinaire who can only find comfort in vast quantities of junk food and refuses to believe her husband when he says he finds her attractive.

They don't sound like much summed up like that do they.  However, they are rich characters that meld together well and have genuinely multi-faceted personalities.  Admittedly, some of the situations they find themselves in are a little far fetched but this is fiction after all and we do read for a little bit of a vicarious thrill.  It is a very cosy book with each character realising things about herself that help her move on to happiness but it is handled in such a way that you do keep wanting to read just the next chapter until suddenly you have completed the book and feel a little bereft.

Please do not read this book on your daily commute, you are going to miss your stop and likely find yourself at the terminus by accident!

Defy The Worlds by Claudia Gray

          I found this to be so much better than it's prequel Defy The Stars and my relief at this was immense as I had been waiting for this one since reading the initial chapters.  I did start off apprehensive as it all rather fizzled out at the end of the first book and I could not see how the tale of Abel and Noemi could be resurrected in a way which would hold my interest.

Fortunately the sub-plots in this book do not detract from the main storyline and the whole meshes together a lot better with one feeding into the other so you do keep turning the pages to find out exactly what has happened.  The science fiction is much sounder in basis this time and does not feel quite as much as though it is borrowing from other authors as the previous book did.  It now feels more like a fully realised universe rather than disparate sections and, on reflection of the context of the story, this may well have been intentional.

Abel and Noemi haven't changed too much and despite the strong romantic themes within the book they do not feel overwhelming and seem to compliment the tale rather than overwhelm it.  The sense of peril is well defined and builds to nice little crescendos of action several times throughout the book which feel wholly appropriate.  The corruption of power seems to be a strong theme within these pages and it is well executed and at no point slips in to parody or sermonising which I have found to be a common failure of similar treatments of this topic.

This was a good read, with strong characterisations and a free flowing plot that does keep you gripped.  The ending was a little weak and doesn't entirely set you up for aching for the next installment to come out but I will still be eagerly waiting for it.

I RECEIVED A FREE COPY OF THIS BOOK FROM READERS FIRST IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW.
       

Ragdoll by Daniel Cole

Not bad as procedural's go but rather too much about "damaged" detectives making their own rules to catch a killer for my liking - it has been done so often that it all feels a little trite and unfortunately this book gets sucked down in to that accepted trope.  Whilst the murders themselves are inventive and a little different from the usual shootings and stabbings they still feel a little mechanical somehow.  We have no basis for the crimes until very late in the book and that feels more tagged on than a pre-planned plot, I don't really understand why it feels this way as it is flagged quite early in the book when dealing with Wolf being sectioned in St. Ann's psychiatric wing with Joel.

Apart from Edmunds most of the characters are pretty unlikeable.  Baxter and Wolf in particular seem to have no redeeming characteristics and are all about "the job" and battling their personal demons very unsuccessfully.  Wolf's ex-wife, Andrea, is not particularly likeable either and falls in to the story at all costs journalist type; admittedly we do have moments of almost contrition for her worst excesses but then she returns to work and compounds them.  I also found it very far fetched that after commiting grievous bodily harm on a suspect that any police officer, no matter what their rank, would be allowed back in to the force in any capacity, let alone back in their previous role.

There are some nice pieces of humour within the book, but of a decidedly black nature and they are no doubt intended to give us a ringside seat to the camaraderie of the police force.  Unfortunately, they are few and far between and are not evocative enough - Lynda La Plante does the "humanisation" of the police so much better.  The story itself is pretty stop - start and their is insufficient flow to keep you turning the pages past bedtime, putting it down is all too easy if something more interesting comes along.  The denouement is rushed and there is little tension built although that is achieved with the murders of the Mayor and Rana it is sadly missing towards the end.

Not a bad book but not one that makes you cheer the protagonists on in their efforts to capture the killer.  The reasoning behind the murders is woolly at best and the leaps of imagination taken by Wolf and his colleagues are not real feeling in the slightest - there is only so far your gut can take you.  Maybe this is why Edmunds was my favoured character in the book - little angst and a good grasp of research and investigative techniques to secure a conviction; even if he does bend the rules by using his old Fraud IT connections to move his theory along.

Young Bess by Margaret Irwin

At the moment I have a bit of a "thing" for the Tudors and have been watching a lot of documentaries dealing with the wives of Henry VIII and the fortunes of his offspring.  I was recommended to read Phillippa Gregory but spotted this one on sale and thought I would give it a go.  I have to admit, it was money well spent and I was surprised to discover how long ago this book was originally published (1944) as some of what we think of as modern sensibilities are overlaid on to the telling of the tale.

Clearly based in a good dose of fact (going of what I have seen on my recent documentary splurge and a little judicious internet searching) with just enough licence taken with the events to make for a fascinating read.  Certainly no effort is made to project Elizabeth as a simpering princess or a wily-woman just waiting for her chance.  Instead, Elizabeth is at first a relatively innocent child who is just getting to grips with the machinations of those surrounding her when her father passes who rapidly develops a sharp political instinct which will see her well through the years to come.  I also enjoyed the fact that some reference is made to the numerous rumours circulated at the time that when Elizabeth went on "progress" to remote parts of her Kingdom she was really going to give birth to yet another Tudor illegitimate.  Whether the rumours started as early as her being 14/15 I have no idea but they certainly were plentiful during her actual 40+ year reign.

You do need to pay attention as there is a varied cast here and not always called by the same name with some characters referring to others by affectionate diminutives only and others by their titles and yet more by their actual birth name.  Compound this with the constant political upheavals and wranglings as each Lord tries to advance his cause whilst supposedly acting as part of a court of Regents for the young Edward as he grows towards Kingship and it does get a little bit confusing if you try and gallop through.  The turns of phrase also smack well of what we know of the era from extant documentary evidence and particularly in the surviving journals of Royalty and those who surrounded them.  The small sections written in the vernacular where wonderful to read as an evolution of our language.

If this is an era that interests you then this is a wonderful fictionalised account of the years during which Henry VIII dies and his young son is still only a King in name only, with all the power lodging with his Uncles.  Although much of the book does concern the young Elizabeth in the second half there is a lot of information about what is happening at the Court and in other countries during this time period.

Once I've caught up a bit on my reading I will certainly be purchasing the remaining books in the trilogy.

The Void by J. D. Horn

The third of this series of books is perhaps the best yet, from a pure fantasy point of view.  The Line is much more prominent here with less real bickering between the families and the anchors and more time seemingly spent on Mercy and her unborn child and how the revelations of Peter's origins will affect them all.  To me the writing felt more intricate with less of "this happened and then this happened because of it", things are certainly more convoluted in this book and we learn so much more about the purported origins of the line.  The action is unrelenting and the only thing I was a little narked with was constantly being told that only a few months have passed during the telling of the tale from Book One to now.

The scene setting is extraordinary and you really get a sense of the locations in this volume that makes them seem almost the other side of Mother Jilo's Haint Blue Room.  Maybe this is just the accumulation of the knowledge gained from the previous two installments but I felt that this book moved everything up a level whilst stepping beyond the fairly straightforward tale of witches in Savannah and their rather complicated entanglements.

I did wonder how certain plot points would be resolved, particularly with Maisie but the way in which they are eked out and not telegraphed is really rather enjoyable.  The twist at the end was certainly unexpected and left me eager to reach for book number four but as that is the last in this series I am rationing myself and will have to wait at least another week before indulging.

I would caution that these books are read in order else little here will make sense, particularly at the end of the tale where you will be wondering who on earth is that and why have they made an appearance at the end.  I know some readers felt this was a let down from the previous two but I thoroughly enjoyed it, maybe because of the fantastical steps taken within the plot and the resolutions this has caused at this point.  The writing is vivid and sucks you right in to the damp heat and makes you feel like somehow you are now part of The Line.

Operation Hail Storm by Brett Arquette

Don't be put off by the cover, it really doesn't do the book justice.  I don't tend to read this genre of book as I have it in my head that it is a "man's" book.  I don't know why but anything vaguely military in tone has always seemed to me to be for the male populace and not the female - terribly misogynistic I know.  In this case I have been proved wrong as I was completely absorbed in this book.  Set in the near future (we only know that it is post 2027) the world isn't so different from the one we are experiencing now but there have been some technological advancements and the book is stuffed full of them.

The book centres around Marshall Hail, a vigilante kazillionaire who is determined to avenge the death of his wife and twin daughters during The Five.  Having money, and intellect, to burn he had made his mark in Nuclear Technology and now he can give people power for pennies - if their governments will pay the price, he has started converting his cargo ships into floating hotels and battle stations for his handpicked staff.  I have to say the living and working conditions on board the Hail Nucleus (we are told that Hail Proton and Hail Laser and all his other fleet are identicial) sound exceptionally luxurious and I wouldn't want to leave ship either.  The bulk of his technological efforts are now spent in building military-grade drones that are beyond anything a regular army has available to them.  These drones are remotely deployed, can carry other drones in to secluded areas and can deliver poisonous death, cut through galvanised steel, provide audio and video surveillance or simply rain bullets down on you.

There is a lot of technological speak here but it is well explained without too much dumbing down.  The action is well constructed and believable, even if we aren't quite there yet it is based in sound fact - drones are starting to be used in theatres of conflict and their pilots are recruited from the gaming community.  There is a certain wry humour in the writing, especially the dialogue, and this helps the whole tale gel and move along at a clipping pace.  Even though Hail's heart is in the right place for now you can't help but wonder if the US Political system's wariness of him is well-founded as a private army can turn against you at any time and Madame President is all too aware of that fact.

Apart from Hail and Kara Ramey there is little overt characterisation within the book and yet you still have a sense of the different people aboard the Hail Nucleus.  This mainly comes from brief conversations during deployments but everyone seems to have their own personality rather than being simply a device to move a bit more of the technology from Point A to B.

There were a couple of niggles for me though.  In Act 1 we are introduced to the main team on board the Hail Nucleus and then about 15 pages later (my best guess I didn't count) they are all recapped - I do have an attention span somewhat greater than a gnat and could remember who everyone was thanks.  In Act 3 there is a needless chunk of Wiki-text explaining the Situation Room at the White House, if anyone didn't know what it was they could have googled it rather than slapping unnecessary text down.  The ship names are italicised throughout the text and this irked me increasingly through the book, this could have been a typesetting decision rather than the author's but it really is not necessary.  Finally in the Kindle version there are strange line breaks in the middle of sentences where you will have 2 words on a line and then it jumps to the next - disturbs the flow of the eye across the page and temporarily jolts you out of the story - not the athor's fault but could do with fixing IMHO.

If you are looking for a read with a LOT of action and some very believable tech them this is for you.  There are some good personal interactions within the tale so it isn't all "gung-ho" and there are the first stirrings of romance but not overtly so and certainly not enough to offend.  A great read and one that has gone some way to proving to me that when written right this is a genre for ANYONE.

I RECEIVED A FREE COPY OF THIS BOOK FROM THE AUTHOR IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW.

The Desperate Bride's Diet Club by Alison Sherlock

Such a shame that the writing is actually quite good for the genre.  Full of wit and moves the tale along at a good pace without feeling rushed.  Why is this a shame?  Simply because the underlying "message" in this tale is that unless you are slim then you cannot be attractive, unless you are slim you cannot have a valid emotional attachment with people, unless you are slim you cannot enjoy life, unless you are slim you can never be truly happy - it is all just a front, the curse of the jolly fat person if you will.  The members of the diet club (Violet, Maggie, Lucy, Kathy and Edward) don't really start getting their lives together until they start shedding those pesky pounds and this irritated me beyond belief as it is such a superficial expression of Humanity.

The pity is that the characters themselves are well observed and feel all too real.  They are easy to empathise with on the whole but then something jarring will happen that does not ring true.  The best example of this is in the opening scene when Violet steals a 12-portion double chocolate gateau from a stranger in the local store and proceeds to eat it all herself without throwing it back up.  Sorry, but that would make even the most dedicated chocolate hog throw up whether or not they were bulimic.  It also somewhat misses the point that obesity is caused, more often than not, by having too many calories in each meal and being sedentary as opposed to eating between meals or stuffing yourself with chocolate and cake and biscuits - portion control is the key.  But no, here the downfall for every last one of them is snacking and it irks me a great deal.  Not as much as the implication that you are worth less if you are fat but enough.

Maybe this is all written from the author's personal experience in which case I would suggest some sessions with a therapist as your self-worth should not be determined by your appearence.  Yes being fat is unhealthy and can cause serious medical complications but what it doesn't do is make you any less valid as a person and this was the message I came away with from this book.  As thrilling as it was to see the characters all rekindle their relationships or start new ones there was always this little voice cursing away in my head at the message being given.

I have given this 2 stars because the writing itself is good and the characters are wonderfully drawn but I can't give it anymore due to the handling of the subject matter.

Defy The Stars by Claudia Gray

          This is not a bad book but I did find it a disappointing book.  I felt as though it touched on so many themes and locations without ever really exploring anything other than the "super-mech" that is Abel and his enforced isolation leading to the development of his Humanity.  I did feel that rather than being a science fiction novel it was more of a romance between Noemi and Abel that just happened to take place in the 23rd Century.

There is plenty of action to be had and different world's to explore but the action is very linear and the worlds are never really explored in any depth.  Kismet is the party planet, Cray is the technology hotbed, Stronghold the resource heavy one and they are all sandwiched between the failing Earth and the verdant and idyllic Genesis.  For some reason the planets reminded me of H2G2 when Ford and Arthur meet with Slartibartfast and he explains how they tailor planets to the purchasers needs and the technology of the Gates used for travel between the planets reminded me of Stargate.

After reading the first few chapters of Defy The World I was compelled to purchase this book as it felt like this would be a great Science Fiction series and now I am not really that invested in reading the second one.  It all felt a little too formulaic and as though it borrowed too much from earlier outings in the genre to be great.  Maybe I have just read too much and am too old for this series, after all it is for a YA audience who probably have no idea what H2G2 is - although I suspect they will know Stargate from the multiple TV series rather than the original movie.

The characters had no real depth for me and I never felt like I got to know Noemi at all.  I knew the bare bones of her history and that she was a determined soldier for her home planet but beyond that she just seems to lurch from one crisis of confidence to the next.  Abel is much more rounded as we get to see the emergence of his personality triumphing over his coding.  Even then I never felt like I got to know him as more than words on a page.

The pacing of the tale was good but I never felt shocked by what happened next or like I had to turn the next page to find out what happened to them and how they would get out of this scrape.  The universe the action takes place in is well described and you get a good feel for where the action is set but it never quite manages to spark to life in your imagination.  The ending is rather rushed but does leave the way clear for the second installment but gives enough closure that if you can't be bothered to continue following the exploits of Noemi, Abel and The Remedy that you don't feel cheated.
       

The Little Lady Collection by Hester Browne

I had already purchased the first book in this series and found it to be an enjoyable book in it's genre and when I saw the second two for sale in a bundle I thought it would be a sensible purchase.  I had to skip past the first book as I had only recently read it but this was no problem at all.  I have reviewed all the books independantly but a brief summary would be:

The Little Lady Agency - 3.5 Stars
Good solid set up to how The Little Lady Agency comes in to being and spotted by wonderfully rich characters.  Only spoiled by everything being a little bit "upper middle-class English" and vaguely impenetrable in places.

Little Lady, Big Apple - 4 Stars
Much more polished storytelling this time around and everything just feels more settled in this book.  The wry humour and hopeless relationships are still there but in a much more pleasing way than the first book.  Set, as the title suggests, mainly in New York this is the strange Melissa/Honey hybrid being brought out to play for the first time rather than as separate individuals.

What The Lady Wants - 3 Stars
The weakest of the 3 books but still entertaining once you get past the plot holes.  Less of the "fixing" people in this one though and more of the romantic entanglements and boorish family.

Overall this is a middle of the road trilogy.  Ideal for curling up on bad weather days with a glass of wine and a box of chocolates to just enjoy a little bit of escapism.

What The Lady Wants by Hester Browne

Having read the first two of The Little Lady Agency books I was expecting good things from the third installment.  Unfortunately, I found that this book was particularly hit and miss and there appeared to be gaping plot chasms between this and previous books.  I did find myself wondering if the author had started writing this before the other two and then abandoned it in favour of the backstory so that by the time she returned to it nothing made any real sense at all.

The wit of the writing does salvage some of the plot shortcomings and this is most apparent with Melissa's dealings with her family and Honey's dealings with P. Nicky.  As with the previous books it is the sheer joy of the disfunctionality of Mel's family relationships that bring the greatest enjoyment as well as the greatest opportunity to cringe.  I did miss the scattering of useless Hooray-types that need the Agency's salvation; they are referred to but nothing like the glory of male ineptitude that there was in the first book, a generous dose of in book and just a teensy smattering in this one.  Sadly this one is more about places and things than people.

The romance in this book is mixed.  We have a miraculously repaired marriage, a broken engagement, a proposal and a rather bewildering passion between two characters who have gone down this route previously and decided they were more brother and sister than mr and mrs.

This book passed a pleasant few hours for me and entertained sufficiently but I did feel a little let down after the previous two.

In Search Of Us by Ava Dellaira

          On the whole I enjoyed this book but there were some writing devices used that served more to irk me than draw me in to the story.  Whether the tale is told from Marilyn's 1990's standpoint or Angie's contemporary one there is the constant inserting of songs and their artists in to the tale.  I know that music can be important in our lives and that certain songs become inextricably linked with personal events.  However, the constant "and strains of such and such could be heard from passing cars / behind windows" throughout the book began to grate after a while.  I felt it justified in the initial courtship of James and Marilyn and the use of the mix tape to link past and present but then it became, for me, an intrusion in to the story.

The tale itself is actually a really good one about finding yourself through your family and how important the history of that family is to shaping who you are as a person.  Although Angie is a bit of a whiny, self-absorbed brat even her tale is relatively enjoyable.  Personally, I was much more invested in Marilyn and her helicopter mother Sylvie and Marilyn's struggle to escape from what her mother wanted her to be and what she wanted for herself.  I was a little dismayed that Marilyn felt going to College would be her salvation and the making of her as a person but her situation is pretty desperate in lots of ways so I suppose it makes sense in some small ways.

I would have liked more from James' perspective in this book as he is such a pivotal character in the lives of both mother and daughter and yet we see so little of him.  His home life is pretty much idealised - his father may be very much a summer holiday kind of dad and his mother is dead so you would imagine that he is a doom and gloom gang type boy.  But no, he is living with his grandparents who have created this harmonious sanctuary for their 2 grandsons that is filled with the love and respect that I am pretty sure only ever exists in the pages of books and on movie screens.  It does serve a useful juxtaposition to Marilyn and Sylvie's almost couch surfing existence.

I really could not fully engage with either the tale or the people in it for some reason.  The writing style is fairly straightforward with no showy "look what I learnt in Creative Writing class" bits but it just didn't grab me and make me care enough.  It started off very strongly and I was sucked in but the longer I read the more that fell away and the less I engaged with the people and the places.  Not every book is for everyone and I just know that some people will be completely in love with this book and likely for some of the reasons that I became disenchanted with it.

I RECEIVED A FREE COPY OF THIS BOOK FROM READERS FIRST IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW.
       

Dollhouse by Anya Allyn

I was not too sure about this book when I started reading it, a disparate group of teens in the woods and something was bound to happen.  However, as I sunk in to the story I realised that this was not the straight-forward formulaic horror that it pretended it was going to be.  As soon as Ethan, Cassie and Aisha start chasing Lacey and find themselves in the old Fiveash house you know it is going to go badly wrong.

It is testament to the writing that I can still remember their names some 6 days after finishing the book - that is almost unheard for me.

The world they are plunged in to is like none you would dream exists and yet, it is all too real and there is no fantasy dimension here.  Nor are they plunged in to a hellscape.  Where they find themselves is in the oversized dollhouse of the title and it is chilling in there.  The descriptions are slight but telling and truly spark your imagination so that you start to live and breathe with them in the claustrophobic space.  So much so I was reading this book alongside another as I found it was overloading the synapses a little - not helped by my innate distaste for clowns and dolls.

Some sections feel a little repetitive in their action and on a couple of occassions I did become impatient for it to move on with the tale but these were relatively minor niggles when set against my enjoyment of the whole.  Definitely a leave the lights on kind of book though as it does cause your imagination to dwell in the dollhouse and you really do NOT want to be there.