Sunshine And Sweet Peas In Nightingale Square by Heidi Swain

3.5 Stars

This is a fairly charming tale of starting over after your Happily Ever After becomes a Fairy Curse.  The problem for me was that I found Kate to be quite an unlikeable character who was quick to judge others and rather inflexible in her opinions and life.  I know that part of that was to serve the plot but that didn't stop me from finding her unpleasant and as the tale is told from her viewpoint that did spoil my enjoyment of it.

The secondary characters of Lisa and Harriet(?) are wonderfully written and had that breath of reality infusing them that I have come to expect from Ms Swain.  I would love to know more about both of them but suspect that this is unlikely.  Although, there is much more to Nightingale Square than the 3 ladies,there are a host of supporting characters that live and breathe on the page - more importantly they garden together and party together too.  I did find the battle for a community allotment to be a great plot device to absorb newly arrived Kate in to the Nightingale Square crew and a good way of introducing everyone to us.  Sadly, I think communities of this type only exist within book pages these days.

The romance angle of the book is quite pronounced but from the unusual perspective of Kate refusing to have anything to do with it as she has blown her chance after separating from her husband.  The real reason why is dragged out through the book and I did find that infuriating as it became this big "thing" that Kate would not reveal and turned out to be fairly pedestrian in the end.  The resolution to all this is that of course she does realise that there is more than one love out there for her and it is who you suspect it is going to be from the moment they first meet.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable book that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys this genre of fiction.  There is a warmth to Ms Swain's writing that invites you in and she has a real knack with drawing a great character on the page.  Unfortunately for me I did not like her main character so I have marked the book accordingly but the story arc is well paced and the people believable - trust me if you want a hug from a book this will provide it.

Killman Creek by Rachel Caine

This was a very patchy book, with sections leaving you almost breathless as you raced to find out what happened next and others leaving you shaking your head and tutting with impatience at how farfetched some of the scenarios were.

Picking up where Stillhouse Lake leaves off, Melvin Royal is still at large having escaped prison; Gwen/Gina is still running; Absalom is still pulling the strings.  This time she has help from Sam Cade and support from the local gun range owner and his policewoman girlfriend - even better Sam has friends in high places and maybe, just maybe he can call in a few favours.

My biggest problem with this was second book was that you could actually see the plot wheels turning on the page - there was little to no suspense built up for the majority of the read.  This was largely due to everything being flagged up a few pages before it happened, there were a few exceptions (the cabin in the woods, the side story of the attempted abduction) but everything else felt the story arc wheel had been spun so we had to move on to the next cliche.

The saving grace is the characterisation, especially Gwen/Gina's emotional state.  Personal reactions to situations are fairly realistic (for unrealistic situations) and give you a good insight in to each character.  This is particularly true with the children and how they are coping with the various revelations of what their father did and how their mother was (seemingly?) involved.  It is these moments that elevated the book from 1.5 Star to 3 Star, certainly not the almost Bourne-like tales of cross and double cross and dark web ne'er do wells.

That said I would struggle, in all good conscience, to recommend this book to another reader.  A shame as I thoroughly enjoyed the first in the series and I am now unlikely to bother with the next installment when it is published.

The Finishing Touches by Hester Browne

I was actually quite disappointed with this book as it lacked some of the warmth of the previous Hester Browne novels I have read.  I'm not sure why really as all the ingredients are there for a comforting romantic comedy but I just felt like I was reading all the time rather than living vicariously through the pages of the book.  This could quite likely be because I just could not take the heroine of this book, Betsy, seriously as a character.  She lacked a certain depth somehow and everything seemed to be just about her surface veneer.

The tale itself is actually quite a decent one, just don't expect any surprises or real tension.  Betsy's love interest is flagged up early and from the first few chapters you know exactly who she is going to end up with.  There is a real possibility for interest with her search for her birth mother but that didn't really work for me that well as I wasn't really invested in the character.  Many of the supporting characters, especially the handful of girls at Treadwell's Academy, are caricatures rather than real people - particularly noticeable with the headmistress of the Academy.

Of course the setting is a rather rarefied atmosphere of the Finishing School and one that is firmly set in he 1950s with it's attention to dining etiquette and how to greet various echelons of Society.  To be honest I kept comparing it to the finishing school in Shirley Conran's Lace (I love that book) and found it coming up short.  The thread that deals with Betsy's ideas to bring the school up to date is well plotted and fairly realistic; to be honest I left the book wishing there was somewhere you could go that would teach you how to deal with the Modern World- but the world in the book is a stratosphere away from the one I inhabit so knowing how to get papped without looking like you have had major plastic surgery that failed wouldn't be high on my list of priorities.

In short it is an enjoyable, fluffy read that didn't suck me to another world or really involve me in the life of the characters.  Ideal coffee break read really as you can pick it up and put it down without feeling ike you just have to read one ore chapter.

A Good Heart Is Hard To Find by Trisha Ashley

I think Ms Ashley missed her calling, whilst her romantic comedies are actually pretty good I think her Gothic horror could be even better - judging by the excerpts in this book attributed to our heroine Cass Leigh.  They certainly have the ring of authenticity of the genre and,in some cases I was more interested in how that story worked out than in Cass's story.

It did feel a little odd to be reading a Trisha Ashley novel not set in or around The Mosses if I'm being honest.  However, as this is one of her early books (Singled Out) titivated up a little and released under a new name maybe The Mosses just don't exist in her literary orbit yet - although there was a nod to another book tucked discretely in there (Wish Upon A Star).  As I have come to expect from her books the tale is told with a gentle humour by a self-aware narrator who you instantly feel you have known for ever.

This is a warm hug of a book that will leave you with a smile on your face and a slight sense of unease relating to graveyards.

Killing It by Asia Mackay

          When I started reading this book I wasn't really too sure what to expect from it.  What I got was a totally unexpected spy thriller that romps along at a great pace and keeps you turning pages just to find out exactly how the Rats of Unicorn are going to get their guy.  From the initial set up you can be excused for being lulled into a false sense of security that this is just another new mum struggling in the workplace book.  Trust me it really isn't that.

Lex is a highly trained, government sponsored assassin and she loves her job.  She is also a wife and new mother who loves her family and is struggling to mesh the two sides of her life together.  After all, it's one thing killing for a living but it is quite another getting through teething.

There is a great deal of humour within these pages and I did find myself snorting quite a lot whilst reading it.  Even better is all the machinations and inner workings of Eight as they go about trying to bring Dimitri down and so save the world from Russian technological domination.  The twist, when it comes, is from a really unexpected angle and one I genuinely didn't see coming.  I also thoroughly enjoyed the juxtaposition between mummy Lex and Rat Lex.

The supplementary characters in the book, Will, Jake, Dasha and even the barely touched on ones of the "Yummy Mummies" are all well fleshed and come to life well on the page.  The pacing is just right with the hectic, task oriented segments mellowed by the mundanity of bringing up a child.  To some extent you can even get under Lex's skin as she battles with infant-induced self deprivation.

This book is a lot of fun and I really, really hope there will be a follow up.
       

Everless by Sara Holland

I wasn't particularly sure that I was going to enjoy the book from the first couple of chapters.  However, once I had settled in to it I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it.  Although, it must be said right up front that Jules is a very frustrating character and I did spend a lot of time tutting and mentally shaking my finger at her as she continued to make silly assumptions and not see what was right in front of her face.  Don't you hate it when characters do dumb things!

The world building here is exceptionally good and it is not just the blood-iron coins and how the whole upper classes rely on "stealing" time from the lower (although this has been meticulously thought through) but the actual places in this world are rich and real.  Although, they do have a sort of Sherwoodesque Medieval feel to them this is nto necessarily a bad thing.  At the very least it means that we are in a fantasy world that looks and functions much as ours does, this makes it easier to slip in to the story without pesky details about what would seem anomalous features yanking us back out.

The basic tale here is of Jules and her attempts to earn some blood coin to save her father having to donate his last time to keep a roof over their heads.  Unfortunately this means a return to Everless, where she was brought up and from where her and her father where exiled.  Backed in to a corner Jules has no choice but to try and become a servant at Everless now The Queen is coming to visit for the celebration of her ward to one of the Gerling Princes of Everless.  A Gerling Prince that Jules knows all too well.

The plot itself moves along at a good pace and is full of quirky little details and odd little coincidences that point the reader in the direction of the truth whilst leaving the characters themselves in the metaphotical dark.  I was quite pleased to have guessed at most of the major plot points before their big reveal but it may have been more fun to find them out with Jules.  I did have a great deal of fun reading this book though and I am looking forward to Evermore being released.

The Liar's Room by Simon Lelic

From the title you automatically know that everything you read is to be taken with a pinch of salt, after all everything has the potential to be a lie between these pages.  Maybe it is that fact alone that sets you in to the right frame of mind to forensically examine every single interchange, every casual observation as you are reading.  I certainly felt my brain cells being given a good workout throughout the book.

We start off with Susanna who has become a counsellor after some trauma in her past - initially we aren't entirely sure what it is except that it revolves somehow around her family life.  We know she is estranged from her husband and lives with their, now teenage, daughter Emily and that there was a son, Jacob.  We also know that she has some big secret, something that she psychologically tortures herself with every day.  Today she has 2 new patients at her counselling practice, maybe it will be a good day?

Then we meet Adam, new patient number one.  Adam is a bit of an enigma at first and we struggle to understand what he is doing at Susanna's offices at all, he isn't exactly forthcoming in his reasons.  As he begins to tell Susanna about his reasons for being there even she suspects that all is not what seems and that he is spinning her a line.  Adam soon shows his hand, a hand wrapped around a knife blade, as he confesses he has her teenage daughter and that Susanna better answer his questions "or else..."

The beauty of this tale is not really in the characters, it is in the atmosphere and the plotting.  Really we only have Adam and Susanna for the majority of the book and it is clear that neither of them can be trusted in what they say.  Mr Lelic knows how to create tension on the page, tension so think that you can feel your breath catching in your throat and the sweat leaping in to your palms.  The plotting is so well constructed that just when you have formulated a theory some tiny, insignificant fact is revealed that causes you to curse and stomp moodily back to your mental drawing board.

The claustrophobia of the meeting between Susanna and Adam is occassionally lightened by snippets from Emily's diary, brief forays in to Ruth's (the dentist that Susanna shares the building with and who is her best (although really only) friend) view of what is happening from the outside.  There are also the off flashback to life with Jacob and Neil and what exactly happened to Jacob.  In some ways these dissipate the tension but you are always aware of that lurking menace around the corner - this is particularly the case with the sections dealing with Jacob and the build up of little incidents that led to "the thing".

This is a real page turner of a book and I found myself becoming completely absorbed in the plot.  To be honest I couldn't really tell you much about the characters as people or how they develop on the page.  The plot is the characater and the character is the plot, so to describe one is to spoil the other.  Hard, hard book to review without spoilers and as there are so many misdirects thanks to the lies our 2 protagonists tell it is very important not to spoil the plot.

A terrifically engaging read that you need to clear your schedule to read because it will suck hours from you as you keep turning the pages just to find out how your latest theory stacks up - it won't, although I did get a plot point fairly early on it was just a lucky guess.

THIS IS AN HONEST AND UNBIASED REVIEW OF A FREE COPY OF THE BOOK RECEIVED FROM THE PIGEONHOLE.