Once again, I’m joining in with Tynga at Tynga’s Reviews and Marlene of Reading Reality for Stacking Shelves, where you share the real and virtual books you have added to your shelves in the last week.
I haven’t done this meme for a while but it feels nice to be back – for this week at least – and even if I only have a few books to share.
Dark Matter is not my usual type of read. It’s Sci-Fi, which I don’t normally go for. BUT, last year I read so many good reviews that, when I saw it at the library, I decided it was worth a try.
It starts in the present, the here and now, with Jason Dessen helping his wife, Daniela, and son, Charlie, make dinner. It’s their Thursday night tradition and he is happy. Life is good, not what he might have thought it would have been when he was younger, but right where he wants to be.
Then, breaking with tradition, Daniela persuades him to go and meet a friend for a drink. That’s when it all starts going a bit – more than a bit – wrong as he is followed home in the dark and forced to drive to a remote location, where he is given a pill that will change his life.
Once again I’m linking up again with Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea who hosts a post every Tuesday for people to share the first chapter / paragraph of the book they are reading, or thinking of reading soon.
I’m also joining in with Teaser Tuesday, hosted by The Purple Booker, where you share teasers from your current read. I read a lot of these posts over the course of an average Tuesday so thought it would be fun to join in here too.
This week, I’m reading one of my Cloak and Dagger Challenge reads – Hide and Seek by M. J. Arlidge (an author I also like a lot)…
Six responsible adults. Three cute kids. One small dog. It’s just a normal weekend. What could possibly go wrong?
Sam and Clementine have a wonderful, albeit, busy life: they have two little girls, Sam has just started a new dream job, and Clementine, a cellist, is busy preparing for the audition of a lifetime. If there’s anything they can count on, it’s each other.
Clementine and Erika are each other’s oldest friends. A single look between them can convey an entire conversation. But theirs is a complicated relationship, so when Erika mentions a last minute invitation to a barbecue with her neighbors, Tiffany and Vid, Clementine and Sam don’t hesitate. Having Tiffany and Vid’s larger than life personalities there will be a welcome respite.
Two months later, it won’t stop raining, and Clementine and Sam can’t stop asking themselves the question: What if we hadn’t gone?
Liane Moriarty is one of those authors I have always felt slightly guilty and embarrassed not to have read. I have seen rave reviews of her books online and there was so much hype around Big Little Lies when it came out earlier this year that I felt I had to be missing out on something. So, I finally got my act together and got myself a copy of Truly Madly Guilty. Why this one? Because it was the only one available at the library if I’m honest and that’s where I was when the determination to read her at last struck.
Once again I’m linking up again with Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea who hosts a post every Tuesday for people to share the first chapter / paragraph of the book they are reading, or thinking of reading soon.
I’m also joining in with Teaser Tuesday, hosted by The Purple Booker, where you share teasers from your current read. I read a lot of these posts over the course of an average Tuesday so thought it would be fun to join in here too.
This week, I’m reading Dear Amy by Helen Callaghan, another of my recent library haul and which attracted me with the cover but hooked me with the blurb. Here’s what it’s about…
The observant amongst you will have noticed I haven’t been posting on the blog this last week. Cold Blood was one of the reasons. I needed to read it, and didn’t want anything getting in the way of my reuniting with Erika Foster, a favourite detective from a favourite series.
Those self-same observant people may have also noticed that I haven’t started this post out the way I normally do, with the goodreads book blurb right next to the title. It’s still here for those who want to read it – but at the end because I was worried it would give too much away for a book that holds a lot of twists, turns and surprises. This is too good a story for spoilers (in my humble opinion!).
Once again I’m linking up again with Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea who hosts a post every Tuesday for people to share the first chapter / paragraph of the book they are reading, or thinking of reading soon.
I’m also joining in with Teaser Tuesday, hosted by The Purple Booker, where you share teasers from your current read. I read a lot of these posts over the course of an average Tuesday so thought it would be fun to join in here too.
This week, I’m reading The Pocket Wife, which more than one person has said they really enjoyed when I posted I had picked this up from the library earlier this week – how can a girl resist? Here’s what it’s about…
It was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime, a final adventure before settling down.
After a perfect start, Daniel and Laura’s travels end abruptly when they are thrown off a night train in the middle of nowhere. To find their way back to civilisation, they must hike along the tracks through a forest…a haunting journey that ends in unimaginable terror.
Back in London, Daniel and Laura vow never to talk about what they saw that night. But as they try to fit back into their old lives, it becomes clear that their nightmare is just beginning…
Where to start with Follow You Home – there are so many twists and turns it is hard to describe it without spoilers, which I always want to avoid. It starts with a mid-30’s couple travelling across Europe and making the mistake of falling asleep on a train as they head into Romania. This mistake leads to missing passports and their being thrown off the train into a dark night with no phone, no map, and no way of knowing where they are going.
Once again, I’m joining in with Tynga at Tynga’s Reviews and Marlene of Reading Reality for Stacking Shelves, where you share the real and virtual books you have added to your shelves in the last week.
Thankfully, this week was a lot calmer than last and I am back in my comfort zone of three to four books a week max. being added to the shelves. As always there is a mix of bought, loaned and review copies.
Two girls go missing, decades apart. What would you do if one was your daughter?
When eight-year-old Grace goes missing from a sweetshop on the way home from school, her mother Emma is plunged into a nightmare. Her family rallies around, but as the police hunt begins, cracks begin to emerge.
What are the secret emails sent between Emma’s husband and her sister? Why does her mother take so long to join the search? And is Emma really as innocent as she seems?
Meanwhile, ageing widow Maggie Taylor sees Grace’s picture in the newspaper. It’s a photograph that jolts her from the pain of her existence into a spiralling obsession with another girl – the first girl who disappeared…
So as well as a title that sends me back to my teenage years and memories of watching Top of the Pops, 99 Red Balloons has everything I look for in a psychological thriller – missing children, family secrets and a story that slowly comes together through the eyes of a number of characters, none of whom seem to be quite telling the truth.
And I got all that and more, with a book with plenty of twists, turns and red herrings plus a “wow” moment about two-thirds in that had me pause for a second so my brain could readjust and rethink everything I had read so far. You’ve got to love those moments and it completely changed the book for me.