Weekly Wrap Up (May 20)

I do hope you have all had a great week full of sunshine and books. After conquering the ability to listen to audio books my journey home from work has been accompanied by a podcast (how on trend am I?) via Audible. West Cork is fascinating and so well produced and narrated by Sam Bungey and Jennifer Forde, with the soundtrack summoning up the winds and feeling of remoteness of the scene of the crime. The investigators successfully compressing over twenty years of information into a coherent narrative yet never forgetting that there was a victim, and her family, at the heart of the tragedy.

About

This much we do know: Sophie Toscan du Plantier was murdered days before Christmas in 1996, her broken body discovered at the edge of her property near the town of Schull in West Cork, Ireland. The rest remains a mystery.
Gripping, yet ever elusive, join the real-life hunt for answers in the year’s first not-to-be-missed, true-crime series. Investigative journalist Sam Bungey and documentarian Jennifer Forde guide listeners through the brutal, unsolved murder and the tangled web of its investigation, while introducing an intricate cast of characters, a provocative prime suspect, and a recovering community whose story begs to be heard. Audible Original

This Week on the Blog

It’s been a week of five star reviews this week starting on Monday with my spot on the blog tour for The Dissent of Annie Lang by Ros Franey, set in the midlands during the 1930s this book really got under my skin.

My excerpt post came from The Portrait of a Murderer by Anne Meredith one of the books in the British Library Crime Classic series which I intend to read very soon.

This Week in Books featured the authors Martin Edwards,  Marie Belloc Lowndes and Peter James.

My second review of the week was for the latest in the Roy Grace series, Dead If You Don’t by Peter James an action packed police procedural that was awarded the full five stars.

This was followed up by another five star review, this time for Isabelle Grey’s latest book featuring DI Grace Fisher; Wrong Way Home.

I rounded the week off with the tag My Name in TBR Books a bit of fun but also a way for you to help me prioritise the best of these books.

This Time Last Year…

I was reading In Deep Water by Sam Blake, the second book in this crime fiction series featuring Cathy Connolly. The story around a journalist warned off covering a story because it is simply too dangerous then turns into  a missing persons crime. This is a superbly well-researched novel, a proper police procedural with the aspects of the investigation qualified with plenty of explanations which only rarely impinged on the flow of the storyline as the story gets darker, and darker.

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

Blurb

Good intentions can be deadly . . .

Cat Connolly is back at work after the explosion that left her on life support. Struggling to adjust to the physical and mental scars, her work once again becomes personal when her best friend Sarah Jane Hansen, daughter of a Pulitzer-winning American war correspondent, goes missing.

Sarah Jane is a journalism student who was allegedly working on a story that even her father thought was too dangerous.

With Sarah Jane’s father uncontactable, Cat struggles to find a connection between Sarah Jane’s work and her disappearance. But Sarah Jane is not the only one in deep water when Cat comes face to face with a professional killer . . . Amazon

Stacking the Shelves

I have been approved to read a few new titles this week starting with Lisa Jewell‘s latest novel Watching You which will be published on 12 July 2018.

Blurb

You’re back home after four years working abroad, new husband in tow.

You’re keen to find a place of your own. But for now you’re crashing in your big brother’s spare room.
That’s when you meet the man next door.

He’s the head teacher at the local school. Twice your age. Extraordinarily attractive. You find yourself watching him.

All the time.

But you never dreamed that your innocent crush might become a deadly obsession.

Or that someone is watching you. NetGalley

I also have a bit of historical fiction with Summer of Secrets by Nikola Scott at the moment sporting a plain jacket until closer to publication in early September 2018

Blurb

August 1939. At peaceful Summerhill, orphaned Maddy hides from the world and the rumours of war. Then her adored sister Georgina returns from a long trip with a new friend, the handsome Victor. Maddy fears that Victor is not all he seems, but she has no idea just what kind of danger has come into their lives…

Today. Chloe is newly pregnant. This should be a joyful time, but she is fearful for the future, despite her husband’s devotion. When chance takes her to Summerhill, she’s drawn into the mystery of what happened there decades before. And the past reaches out to touch her in ways that could change everything… NetGalley

My new acquisitions are rounded off with a copy of The Love Letter by Lucinda Riley which was originally published under the title Seeing Double author, Lucinda Edmonds back in 2000 but has been repackaged in the wake of this author’s rising star.

Blurb

Joanna Haslam, bright young investigative journalist, covers the funeral of a great actor, the greatest of his generation. It seems like a straight story, but a chance encounter at the service leads her into a dramatic chain of discoveries that will force her to abandon the man she loves and uncover a ruthlessly guarded secret that threatens to bring down the very highest in the land.

Lucinda Edmonds’ latest, most searing novel weaves sharply through forbidden domains of British society, culminating in a compelling revelation. Amazon

Since my last post I have read 2 books and I have gained 3 the TBR has risen by one to 179
Physical Books – 112
Kindle Books – 48
NetGalley Books –18
Audio Books –1

I haven’t reviewed any of my own books this week so I’m still 1 2/3 of a book in credit!