Weekly Wrap Up (April 22)

I’m so glad the spring has finally sprung especially as we had visitors last week including two of the small variety which meant I had my first visit to the beach of the year where we collected lots of lovely shells.

I also finished my snow day scarf just in time for the hot weather! Here it is just before it passed the finish line although if I’d be clever I would have worn a contrasting outfit.

This Week on the Blog

This week started with my review for Broken Bones by Angela Marsons which was my 11th read for my Mount TBR Challenge – the aim is to have finished 36 of my own books bought before 1 January 2018 before the end of the year so I am more or less on track!

My excerpt post was from Three Martini Lunch by Suzanne Rindell which I’m hoping to read soon.

This Week in Books featured the authors Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Sharon Bolton and Rebecca Fleet.

My second review of the week was for Rebecca Muddiman’s Murder in Slow Motion which went behind the scenes on a domestic abuse storyline for police duo Gardner and Freeman.

My final review of the week was all about an obsessive man, told from his viewpoint in Our Kind of Cruelty by Araminta Hall.

I finished the week with a tag – Currently Reading – about my reading habits which quickly focussed on how accommodating or otherwise I need to be to indulge my habit of reading in bed.

This Time Last Year…

I was reading Little Deaths by Emma Flint which is a fictionalised tale of Alice Crimmins (in the book she becomes Ruth Malone) whose two young children disappeared from their bedroom in Queens, New York in the 1960s. The story explores how much the resulting investigation and trial was powered by the fact that Ruth did not behave in a way that was expected of a mother. This was an incredibly powerful read, easily one of my favourite books of 2017 with its complex character leaping off the page.

You can read my full review here or click on the book cover

Blurb

It’s the summer of 1965, and the streets of Queens, New York shimmer in a heatwave. One July morning, Ruth Malone wakes to find a bedroom window wide open and her two young children missing. After a desperate search, the police make a horrifying discovery.

Noting Ruth’s perfectly made-up face and provocative clothing, the empty liquor bottles and love letters that litter her apartment, the detectives leap to convenient conclusions, fuelled by neighbourhood gossip and speculation. Sent to cover the case on his first major assignment, tabloid reporter Pete Wonicke at first can’t help but do the same. But the longer he spends watching Ruth, the more he learns about the darker workings of the police and the press. Soon, Pete begins to doubt everything he thought he knew.

Ruth Malone is enthralling, challenging and secretive – is she really capable of murder?

Haunting, intoxicating and heart-poundingly suspenseful, Little Deaths is a gripping novel about love, morality and obsession, exploring the capacity for good and evil within us all. Amazon

Stacking the Shelves

Well as you know I have sworn off NetGalley for the month of April but I did win a competition run by the lovely Portobello Book Blog to celebrate her third year of blogging. My mystery book was Beneath the Water by Sarah Painter and came with some beautiful bookmarks. Even better the book includes rummaging through some archives, something I always find irresistible! Thank you so much Joanne!

Blurb

Munro House is the new start Stella needs. But it will also draw her back to a dark past…

Devastated by a broken engagement, Stella Jackson leaves her old life behind for a new start in rural Scotland. But when she arrives in the remote coastal village of Arisaig, nothing is what she expected.

At the edge of Arisaig sits Munro House; grand, imposing and said to be cursed by a string of tragic deaths. No less intriguing is its eccentric and handsome young owner, Jamie Munro, who hires Stella as his assistant while he pursues a seemingly impossible aim. Working through the great house’s archives, Stella soon finds herself drawn in by a cache of increasingly erratic letters from a young Victorian woman about her husband, Dr James Lockhart, a man whose single-minded ambition has strange parallels with Jamie’s.

Just as Stella begins developing feelings for Jamie, she discovers that the connection between the Lockharts and the Munros could have sinister repercussions for them both. She’s finally found the life she wants to live—but is it all an illusion? Amazon

My second book is one that I requested for review prior to the self-imposed ban beginning – honest – The Dissent of Annie Lang by Ros Franey was published on 19 April 2018.

Blurb

“Growing up in a strict religious family between the wars, Annie Lang wasn’t convinced that Jesus was such a great friend to little children. Or why would he have snatched away her lovely mother when she was only six? Witness to disturbing events that no one can explain, Annie is confused and sister Bea can’t help.

Six years on and student Annie returns from France to find her brother in the local mental hospital, her father rarely home and her friend and Sunday School teacher missing. With the help of her childhood diary Annie turns detective to try and understand the past. Her journey leads to a discovery that she believes will ruin all their lives, unless they can somehow atone for what has happened.

Impulsive, brave and lovable, Annie Lang is formidable when she takes matters into her own hands.” Amazon

Since my last post I have read 5 books and since I have gained 2 so my TBR has fallen to its lowest level yet in 2018, a mere 182
Physical Books – 113
Kindle Books – 50
NetGalley Books –19

 

Since my last post I have banked 2/3 of a book token so I am 1 book in credit! Which is just as well as I’m off on holiday in June and I can’t have absolutely no new books to take!