Don’t Stand So Close – Luana Lewis

Psychological Thriller
3*’s

Luana Lewis the author of Don’t Stand So Close is a psychologist so it is no wonder that her debut novel features some damaged people.

When agoraphobic Stella is confronted by a knocking at her door she wants to ignore the sound and the possibility that someone has managed to get passed the sensor which is there to warn of intruders. It is snowing and the girl on her doorstep introduces herself as Blue, she used to live in the house and wants to come in out of the cold, and so the story starts.

We have the present with Stella and Blue, what should Stella believe? Is there any need to feel quite so scared of a young girl? Stella had been a psychologist and it looks like her last case may explain why she is so frightened to leave her own home. Luckily for the reader we have an insight to her casebook in 2009 and gain an understanding of the woman she was before…. Max, Stella’s husband is also a psychologist, we also see some of his sessions through his patient’s eyes.

I loved the structure of this book, I get a real sense of satisfaction when reading a book with different viewpoints and I’m interested in the way minds work, particularly damaged minds. The difficulty I had with this book (and others like it) is that those suffering mentally, often have irrational feelings which I find hard to follow. To be blunt, I wanted to shake some of the characters as the denouement became more and more obvious. As the book had revealed enough clues by the half-way stage for me to realise what the links probably were, from that point on, bar some events which I found quite shocking, I felt that I was going through the motions to find out what I already knew.

Having said that there is some great writing in this book. Luana Lewis set the scene impeccably, I think I could probably sell Stella’s house it was so vividly described! The snow falling outside added to the feeling of helplessness that poor Stella felt and was mirrored in little Blue poorly dressed for the wintry weather and in need of something….. A great book for whiling away a few hours on a cold weekend.

I’d like to thank Bantam Press for allowing me to read a copy of this book in return for my honest review. Don’t Stand So Close is due to be published today 13 February 2014!

WWW Wednesday (February 12)

Hosted by Miz B at Should be Reading
To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…
• What are you currently reading?
• What did you recently finish reading?
• What do you think you’ll read next?

I am currently reading Don’t Stand So Close by Luana Lewis

Blurb

What would you do if a young girl knocked on your door and asked for your help?
If it was snowing and she was freezing cold, but you were afraid and alone?
What would you do if you let her in, but couldn’t make her leave?
What if she told you terrible lies about someone you love, but the truth was even worse?

This is proving to be another good read, Blue has visited Stella, an agoraphobic, former psychologist in the middle of a snow storm.  Why is she there and what does she really want?

I have just finished one of those wonderful books where the characters linger on in your mind; Someone Else’s Skin by Sarah Hilary

Click on the cover to read my review

Someone Else’s Skin is due to be published on 27 February 2014 and I highly recommend this one for those of you who love a good crime thriller with fantastic characters. great pace and a twisty turny plotline!

Next I will be reading A Pleasure and a Calling by Phil Hogan

Blurb

You won’t remember Mr Heming. He showed you round your comfortable home, suggested a sustainable financial package, negotiated a price with the owner and called you with the good news. The less good news is that, all these years later, he still has the key.
That’s absurd, you laugh. Of all the many hundreds of houses he has sold, why would he still have the key to mine?
The answer to that is, he has the keys to them all.
William Heming’s every pleasure is in his leafy community. He loves and knows every inch of it, feels nurtured by it, and would defend it – perhaps not with his life but if it came to it, with yours…

I am someone who can read about murder’s but it is these sort of creepy home invasions that really make my skin crawl so I have a feeling this one may spook me a little.

I’d love to know what you are reading this week, have you found some gems too?

Teaser Tuesday (February 11)

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My Teaser this week comes from Don’t Stand So Close by Luana Lewis

Blurb

Stella has been cocooned in her home for three years. Severely agoraphobic, she knows she is safe in the stark, isolated house she shares with her husband, Max. The traumatic memories of her final case as a psychologist are that much easier to keep at a distance, too.
But the night that Blue arrives on her doorstep with her frightened eyes and sad stories, Stella’s carefully controlled world begins to unravel around her…

My Teasers

Heavy snowflakes swirled everywhere, as though a million goose-down pillows had been sliced open in the sky.

She was a child: helpless and cold. A part of Stella was excited, the part she usually kept locked down tight.

Friday Finds (November 29)

Hosted by Should be Reading

FRIDAY FINDS showcases the books you ‘found’ and added to your To Be Read (TBR) list… whether you found them online, or in a bookstore, or in the library — wherever! (they aren’t necessarily books you purchased).

So, come on — share with us your FRIDAY FINDS!

Thinking in Fragments wrote a fantastic review of The Riot by Laura Wilson.

Blurb

August 1958. London is hot and tired, and nowhere more so than Notting Hill, where DI Stratton has just been posted.
Stratton’s new manor is dirt poor and rife with racial tension. The end of the war saw a flood of Caribbean migrants. Now, a decade later, working-class Teddy Boys are showing mounting hostility towards their black neighbours.
Notorious landlord Danny Perlmann, a Polish refugee, is taking full advantage of others’ reluctance to rent to the immigrants – or to prostitutes – and is making a fortune off the high rents he charges. Caught in the middle of this war over rents and turf is Irene, a young runaway on the verge of going on the game.
When Perlmann’s rent collector is murdered, Stratton is called to investigate. Notting Hill is a cauldron, soon to be the scene of the worst racial violence England has ever known, and Stratton is right at the heart of it. Amazon /blockquote>
This is five books into a series which starts with Stratton’s War so this may in fact be more than one book added this week….

The Riot

Having just read The Moon Field set around World War I and the upcoming anniversary of the start of this war has drawn me to the following two books

The Tailor’s Girl by Fiona McIntosh was reviewed at Write Note Reviews

Blurb

From the bustling streets of 1920s London to the idyllic English countryside, this is a breathtaking story of passion and determination from a phenomenal Australian storyteller.
When a humble soldier, known only as Jones, wakes in a military hospital he has no recollection of his past. Jones’s few fleeting memories are horrifying moments from the battlefield of Ypres. His identity becomes a puzzle he must solve.
The Eden Valentine arrives in his world, a stunning seamstress who dreams of her own high-fashion salon in London. Mourning the loss of her brother in the war, Eden cannot turn away the soldier in desperate need of her help.
The key to Jones’s past – and Eden’s future – may lie with the mysterious Alex Wynter, aristocratic heir to the country manor Larksfell Hall. But the news that Alex bears will bring shattering consequences that threaten to tear their lives apart. Amazon

The Tailor’s Girl

On Fiction Books I found my second book set during World War I, Dance the Moon Down by R.L. Bartram

Blurb

In 1910, no one believed there would ever be a war with Germany. Safe in her affluent middle-class life, the rumours held no significance for Victoria either. It was her father’s decision to enroll her at university that began to change all that. There she befriend the rebellious and outspoken Beryl Whittaker, an emergent suffragette, but it is her love for Gerald Avery, a talented young poet from a neighbouring university that sets the seal on her future. After a clandestine romance, they marry in January 1914, but with the outbreak of the First World War, Gerald volunteers but within months has gone missing in France. Convinced that he is still alive, Victoria’s initial attempts to discover what has become of him, implicate her in a murderous assault on Lord Kitchener resulting in her being interrogated as a spy, and later tempted to adultery. Now virtually destitute, Victoria is reduced to finding work as a common labourer on a run down farm, where she discovers a world of unimaginable ignorance and poverty. It is only her conviction that Gerald will some day return that sustains her through the dark days of hardship and privation as her life becomes a battle of faith against adversity. Amazon

Dance the Moon Down

Random House are still enabling my addiction to Netgalley – I have a copy of Don’t Stand So Close by Luana Lewis with a publication date of 13 February 2014

Blurb

What would you do if a young girl knocked on your door and asked for your help?
If it was snowing and she was freezing cold, but you were afraid and alone?
What would you do if you let her in, but couldn’t make her leave?
What if she told you terrible lies about someone you love, but the truth was even worse?
Stella has been cocooned in her home for three years. Severely agoraphobic, she knows she is safe in the stark, isolated house she shares with her husband, Max. The traumatic memories of her final case as a psychologist are that much easier to keep at a distance, too.
But the night that Blue arrives on her doorstep with her frightened eyes and sad stories, Stella’s carefully controlled world begins to unravel around her…

Don’t Stand So Close

This sounds like my sort of psychological thriller…

 

So what did everyone else find this week?