Another Love - Amanda Prowse

In the early years, she was happy.

Romilly had worked hard for her stunning, modern house in one of Bristol's most fashionable suburbs. She adored her gorgeous, gap-toothed daughter and her kind and handsome husband. Sure, life was sometimes exhausting - but nothing that a large glass of wine at the end of the day couldn't fix.

But then, as deep-buried insecurities surfaced, everything started to unravel. A glass of wine became a bottle; one bottle became two. Once, Romilly's family were everything to her. Now, after years of hiding the drinking, she must finally admit that she has found another love...

What did I think?

Having heard so many great things about her, I have been meaning to read an Amanda Prowse novel for quite some time.  So when Another Love popped through my letterbox as the result of a Goodreads Giveaway, it had barely hit the mat before I had ripped it open and turned to the first page.

What an amazing story - it was heartbreaking, uplifting, tear-jerking, joyous, despairing and hopeful - this book really does have it all. Romilly is the most flawed character I have ever come across.  She just doesn't know when to stop drinking and she is almost bi-polar in her outbursts when the alcohol has her in its grip.  Her whole family is affected, none more so than her daughter Celeste and my heart was breaking as each chapter ends with a snippet from her diary.  She loves her mum but she is also afraid of her and it was absolutely devastating reading all of Celeste's feelings.

Romilly's husband, David, clearly loves her but you can feel him getting to the end of his tether and I was wondering how much more he could take.  As Romilly spirals out of control, David asks her to make a heartbreaking choice - her family or the booze.  A decision that Romilly has to live with for the rest of her life - a life that I feared grew shorter every time the bottle hit her lips.

Amanda Prowse has really managed to get under the skin of an alcoholic; the denial, the lies and the feeling of euphoria were all described so well that I felt I was standing in Romilly's shoes.  Alcoholism is a serious battle and I can now see how easily alcoholics can fall off the difficult and long path to recovery.

I did need my tissues at the end of this book as the tears fell down my face, blurring the words on the page.  I think perhaps they were tears of sadness, joy, and even a mixture of both, as the ending wrapped up perfectly.

Now I know why readers get excited when a new Amanda Prowse novel is released - I will certainly be one of them from now on.

I received this book from the publisher, Head of Zeus, via a Goodreads Giveaway.  

My rating:

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Cobwebs in the Dark (Nighthawk book 3) - Rachael Richey

With NightHawk newly reformed and preparing for a world tour, Abi Hawk finds herself unaccountably insecure about the attention her husband Gideon, the band's frontman, will receive from groupies. In New Zealand for the first leg of the tour and a visit with Gideon's sister, they are faced with a new problem. An outrageous claim pushes Abi's insecurities to new heights, and it takes all their resolve to stick together and sort it out.

Meanwhile their daughter Natasha goes on an adventure of her own, one that places her in danger from an old adversary, forcing Abi and Gideon to summon all their combined strengths to rescue her.

What did I think?

I emitted a little squeal of excitement when I received an email from Rachael Richey, offering me a review copy of the next instalment in the Nighthawk series.  Having read Storm Rising and Rhythm of Deceit, I have been secretly looking forward to this next instalment.  Although you could read Cobwebs in the Dark as a stand-a-lone, you should really read the two prior novels to fully understand the history of Abi and Gideon, and also because they are brilliant entertaining books that you should not miss.

Rachael’s writing style flows so easily that she effortlessly moves from past to present, revealing just enough information each time and leaving the reader clamouring for more.  This ensures that the reader voraciously devours every page and constantly reads ‘just one more chapter’.

The Hawks are written with so much warmth that I felt as if I was a part of their family.  What I found so brilliant about this book was the almost ‘Back to the Future’ feel of it – all of the nearly moments when Abi and Gideon might have run into each other in the past.  I felt like Marty McFly spying on his parents where a tiny alteration to any moment in the past could have changed the course of their history.  It was quite sad how close they came to meeting again but who knows, perhaps they wouldn’t still be together if they had met back then.

It was interesting to learn more about Natasha’s history in this book along with another appearance of Psycho Simon - I couldn't read quick enough to find out what he would come up with next.

This was another treat from Rachael Richey - I feel like I'm part of the Hawk family myself.  I always feel a little sad when I finish one of the Nighthawk books but Rachael leaves a little treat in the last few pages - a tantalising snippet of the next book, so I know I'm going to be reading more soon!

I received this e-book from the author, in exchange for an honest review.

My rating:

Published 17th Feb - preorder from Amazon

BLOG TOUR: Victim Without a Face - Stefan Ahnhem guest post

I am honoured to be the first stop on the Victim Without a Face Blog Tour.  Thank you to Suzanne from Head of Zeus for putting my question to Stefan Ahnhem and thank you to Stefan for such an amazing guest post.

In this day and age of social networking, I was intrigued by the school photo idea in Victim Without a Face.  When reading Victim Without a Face I was reminded of times when old school friends had posted photographs on Facebook or Friends Reunited and I racked my brain to try to remember everybody in the picture.  There always seems to be one or two names that have disappeared through the cracks, so I asked Stefan Ahnhem if he could remember everybody from his class in school...

Do you remember everyone from your class in elementary school?

My answer to this question is no. To be honest, I couldn’t even remember half of them. Perhaps I am particularly bad with names and faces, but I suspect that a variation on this is true for most people. In a class with more than twenty kids there will always be one or two who have simply slipped out of your mind.

This doesn’t especially matter. After all, it’s likely that everyone will have forgotten a different person. If you and your friends all clubbed together, you could probably make a collective effort and remember everyone in your class. Right?

In Victim Without a Face, that is not the case. Twenty school friends, now all grown up, have all forgotten about a former classmate – a person who was so bland, it was as if they never existed. And it is this person who proves to be the key to everything.

I have always been interested in the effects of bullying, but it was only when I started my research for Victim Without a Face that I learned that being ignored and treated like air is the worst kind of bullying a person can endure.

I was fascinated by an experiment performed by the psychologist Kipling D. Williams which showed that being exposed to social exclusion triggers the same part of the brain as being exposed to physical pain. So I figured that, as with physical pain, social exclusion might make people want to retaliate – to take revenge on those that made them suffer.

These days social exclusion is not just something that occurs behind the schoolyard fence. It happens every day for almost all of us. We update our Facebook status and don’t get the desired number of likes from colleagues. So we enter the office without saying hello. The next time we are snubbed by a friend, we take a mini-revenge by ‘accidentally’ forgetting that friend’s birthday.

The killer in Victim Without a Face takes things one or two steps further (okay three) when he takes revenge on his classmates. But he hasn’t just been snubbed, he has been erased from history, forgotten by everyone. He no longer has an identity in the eyes of the world. What better person to be a killer than someone who has already been a victim, without a face?

Stefan Ahnhem

Stefan Ahnhem is an established screenwriter for both TV and film, and has worked on a variety of projects, including adaptations of Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallender series. He also serves on the board of the Swedish Writers Guild. He lives in Stockholm. Victim Without a Face is his first novel.







You can read my review of Victim Without a Face here.
Buy it now from Amazon for the amazing price of 99p for Kindle - click here

The Wind Guardian - Frank Scozzari

The ultimate threats facing United States come to life in Frank Scozzari's fast-paced thriller. With the help of an inside man, a group of determined terrorists siege a nuclear power plant, intending to spread radiation and wreak destruction into the world.

The only thing standing in their way are two misfit security guards, who return to their posts and realize what is happening in the power plant. The two soon find themselves in a battle against time and odds, as the terrorists facing them will stop at nothing to accomplish their goals.

The Wind Guardian exposes the vulnerability of a terrorist attack on one of our nation's nuclear power plants from an insider’s perspective.

What did I think?

I absolutely loved Frank Scozzari’s previous novel, From Afar, so I didn’t hesitate when I was invited to read his next book.  The Wind Guardian was clearly meticulously researched and so thorough that I almost feel like I could now apply to work in a nuclear power plant myself.

It started off with the murder of a security guard and continued at a hundred miles an hour, barely giving the reader time to draw breath.  As soon as the security pass has been stolen at the murder scene, and the night shift commences, the air is crackling with so much tension as you wait for the inevitable to happen.

Two of the guards have a mutual attraction and decide to meet up during their shift.  I loved the couldn’t-care-less attitude of Cameron and Grace as they experienced the excitement of new love.  Without spoiling the story, it falls to Cameron and Grace to save the whole plant when it comes under attack.  It is only due to them sneaking away to a dead zone for a bit of a canoodle that they survive the initial onslaught.

With terrorism so much on our minds now, this book is so realistic that it does actually give you chills while you are reading.  The lengths that people will go to for their beliefs or for money is quite astounding.  At the end of the book, when I finally caught my breath, I was thinking of what might have happened had the plan succeeded.  As much as this story is a 'what might have been', it could very easily be something that might happen. 

This story is written with so much tension; it’s fast paced and gripping.  It has an enough of a human element with Cameron and Grace’s story without it being too mushy.  I think it would make a really good film or tv mini-series and I wouldn't be surprised to see this snapped up and on our screens at some time in the future.

I really have to applaud Frank for writing two very different books; both are excellent and unputdownable for very different reasons. Frank Scozzari is certainly one to watch.

I received this e-book from the author in exchange for an honest review.

My rating:

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Beside Myself - Ann Morgan

Helen and Ellie are identical twins – like two peas in a pod, everyone says. 

The girls know this isn't true, though: Helen is the leader and Ellie the follower.

Until they decide to swap places: just for fun, and just for one day.

But Ellie refuses to swap back...

And so begins a nightmare from which Helen cannot wake up. Her toys, her clothes, her friends, her glowing record at school, the favour of her mother and the future she had dreamed of are all gone to a sister who blossoms in the approval that used to belong to Helen. And as the years pass, she loses not only her memory of that day but also herself – until eventually only 'Smudge' is left.

Twenty-five years later, Smudge receives a call from out of the blue. It threatens to pull her back into her sister's dangerous orbit, but if this is her only chance to face the past, how can she resist?

Beside Myself is a compulsive and darkly brilliant psychological drama about family and identity – what makes us who we are and how very fragile it can be.

What did I think?

This book was both sad and creepy, and completely messed with my head.  What started out as a game for Helen and Ellie, with an identity swap, turned into something a lot more sinister when Ellie refused to swap back.  This is the point when Helen's life spirals out of control and I could have cried in frustration for her.

When Ellie becomes Helen she very easily takes on a completely different persona whereas Helen fights against the enforced Ellie-ness at every chance she gets.  I questioned who was who on several occasions, and I even wondered at one point if they weren't twins at all, but perhaps one little girl with a split personality.

The story mainly revolves around Helen, stuck as Ellie, and how the swap affected her life.  It would appear that she would do anything just to feel some kind of emotion and I felt that Ann Morgan had really allowed the reader to experience this emotional turmoil with Helen (now Ellie).  Helen has completely lost her identity and it's little wonder that she refers to herself as Smudge and her sister as H-ellie.

It's only on reading further that we understand why Ellie wanted to leave her identity behind and I raged at the inability of their mother to comfort her girls when they needed her most.  Yes, she had also lost her husband but it's in a mother's nature to protect her young; a task she failed miserably at.  Just exactly how much she failed did not become clear until the end and we got a glimpse into how selfish she really was.

I am amazed that this is Ann Morgan's first novel, as it is so well written and emotional.  I was unable to put this book down and it left me with the thought that a name is only a label and underneath we are who we are, nobody can ever take that away from us no matter how hard they might try.  It's chilling, gripping, compulsive reading - I couldn't take my eyes off the page.

I received this e-book from the publisher, Bloomsbury, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

My rating:

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The One in a Million Boy - Monica Wood

Miss Ona Vitkus has - aside from three months in the summer of 1914 - lived unobtrusively, her secrets fiercely protected.

The boy, with his passion for world records, changes all that. He is eleven. She is one hundred and four years, one hundred and thirty three days old (they are counting). And he makes her feel like she might be really special after all. Better late than never...

Only it's been two weeks now since he last visited, and she's starting to think he's not so different from all the rest.

Then the boy's father comes, for some reason determined to finish his son's good deed. And Ona must show this new stranger that not only are there odd jobs to be done, but a life's ambition to complete . . .

What did I think?

I think this will be one of those quirky books that divides opinion.  Headline have certainly put a lot of effort into the publicity of this book and I do think it is deserved, although it didn't have as much of a magical effect on me as I had hoped.

Ona is a fabulous character - I described the book as quirky and Ona accounts for most of that quirkiness, along with the 'boy' in the title.  Ona is 104 years old and is helped by the local scout group, which is how she meets 'the boy', after unsuccessfully trialling several scouts.  They hit it off immediately and become firm friends, but one day 'the boy' doesn't show up and his father comes instead.  Ona is determined not to like him but fate has other ideas and the two hit it off, showing Quinn that his son was more like him than he realised.

I struggled slightly with 'the boy' - everyone calls him 'the boy' and it's almost as if he doesn't have a name.  It just seems so impersonal when he made such an impression on so many lives, but at the same time it makes sense as it's how Ona refers to him and the book is written mainly from her perspective.  It's probably because she can't remember his name, which is the reason I've heard some older people use such a reference.  So nothing against the book, it's simply because it annoys me in real life too!

One thing that amazed me, and it is testament to Monica Wood's exceptional writing skills, was that my brain could hear the boy's words in the one sided interview transcript with Ona.  I even didn't realise I was filling in the gaps at first, but, without realising it, 'the boy' had gotten under my skin too.

I really enjoyed the boy's obsession with the Guinness World Records.  His enthusiasm was caught by Ona and certainly gave her a new lease of life.  Reading the records at the end, you just knew that the boy's family had a huge part to play in them.

Despite the sad subject matter, I did get a warm glow at the end of the book.  I think it just goes to show that a short life can have a massive effect.

I received this e-book from the publisher, Headline, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

My rating:

Published 5 April 2016 - pre-order from Amazon

Victim Without a Face - Stefan Ahnhem

A KILLER WITH A MESSAGE

The first victim was a bully who liked using his fists. The second was a thug who favoured steel-capped boots. Their bodies bore the marks of a killer who knew their sins. A single clue was left at the scene: a class photo from 1982, with two faces neatly crossed out.

A DETECTIVE WHO CAN'T LET GO

There are eighteen men and women in the photo who are still alive - and one of them is the lead detective on the case. Fabian Risk thought he'd left his schooldays behind. Now his classmates are dying for the sins of their childhood ... Who is the faceless killer who's come back to haunt them?

CAN YOU EVER HIDE FROM JUSTICE?

What did I think?

I have read very little Nordic Noir so for me this was something a little bit different and I really enjoyed it.  I was on the edge of my seat for most of the book, trying to read fast but, at the same time, avert my eyes from the horror unfolding on the page.  It's pretty gruesome in some parts but so clever the way that each person was killed depending on what offence they committed at school.  

I loved Fabian Risk as the main character - Risk by name and risk by nature.  He really doesn't care what he needs to do to get the job done, in the same manner as my old favourite, Harry Bosch.  He's supposed to be on leave but joins in the hunt for his classmates' killer and not even second degree burns can stop him.  This even has an effect on his home life, although he barely notices.

I was reading so fast that at first I was confused by the Swedish and Danish names, but it doesn't take long to get used to who is who.  I was intrigued by the rivalry between the two police forces; Swedish and Danish, and it had a great ending to that little part of the story.

Thinking of school photographs, I think it could be true for a lot of us (over a certain age) that we struggle to remember the name of every single person in our class.  We're told that school days are happy days but I can't imagine that bullies or their victims would describe themselves as having been happy.  Perhaps it's true what they say - the quiet ones are the worst.  I'm really looking forward to reading more Fabian Risk - thankfully, Stefan Ahnhem doesn't plan to stop with just this one Risk novel.

With absolutely nothing lost in translation, it's so fast paced, gripping, gruesome and thrilling - I really enjoyed it and I will definitely be looking out for the next Fabian Risk book.

I received this e-book from the publisher, Head of Zeus, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

My rating:

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