Yes sorry this is late but it has been a manic month, not just a Manic Monday!!!  It was a mixed bag of books this month and although I had chosen books from authors I had read before and liked I did not quite get it right!  So we will dive in with this book:

****

I thought this would be a little different to what I have been reading lately as a mystery rather than a crime story.  

Tess has finally decided to go along with her best friend Allie on a caving trip, something she is very scared of.  Allie is a travel influencer and doing very well with her travels and has a life that Tess envies, especially as she is Allie’s assistant and helps her with her blog whilst Tess is studying to be a lawyer.  They descend into the depths of a cave Allie knows well but persuades Tess to follow her into the more difficult parts, when they realise they are not alone down there.  They end up in a small crawl space stuck.  Twenty four hours later Tess is in hospital telling the Detectives about their ordeal and her escape and Allie’s death.  However Allie was targeted by this stranger, why?  Tess is not now sure she even knew the real Allie!

The book started very slow, but was building the story and there were quite a few twists and turns in it.  I did work out half way through who the baddy was but it did not detract from the ending which was good.  

***

This was an okay book but did not blow me away.  I did end up skipping quite a lot of the book as it was filler.  The ending was just okay but the whole book did not blow me away.

Alex has given up on being a published author although she still likes to write.  However she then gets a once in a lifetime opportunity to go to a writing retreat with her most favourite author.  However the only downside is Alex’s former best friend, Wren, is also attending.

Roza, the famous author, drops a bombshell on all the attendees when they arrive they will complete their novel beginning from scratch by the end of the month long retreat which means writing all day.  If they succeed and Roza likes the book she will get it published   Over the course of the first few weeks Alex begins to realise that not everything is as it seems and then people start to go missing.  Will they make it to the end of the course and will she and Wren be able to put their past differences aside to survive?  

*

Leigh is a defence attorney and one evening is called by her boss to defend a high profile client.  Little does she know that this man she knew twenty years prior and an event that would change all their lives.  How can she defend this man and win when she knows he probably did the crime.  The only person can help her is her younger sister Calli who suffered more that she at the hands of this man.  Can the two of them succeed and come out of this free of that tragedy twenty years ago and alive?

I have read quite a few of Karin Slaughter’s books and enjoyed them but this was dreadful! Also check your trigger warnings with this book as there is a lot of drug use and sexual assault in it!

I would say that half of the book was slow and constantly repeated the same tropes again and again and I did in fact skip a huge chunk of the book and did not miss anything. The ending was probably what was expected but with loose ends abound.

All in all it was a depressing book with no real thriller part to it. This has now put me off reading any of her other books!

*****

Having been completely disappointed in my previous read I wanted something light and funny and this did not disappoint.  I only used to watch RHoBH because of Lisa Rinna and always found her to be, out of all them, the one who was honest.  Of course we have to remember that it is a Reality TV Show which is all scripted so how true it is I am not sure.  I actually listened to this on audio whilst working and it did make me laugh out loud in certain places.  Definitely needed after the last book.

*

In 1942 six separate people were responsible for Anna Mathesons family being destroyed and her father’s railway business. Anna under false pretences has lured them onto a train going from New York to Chicago and they and she are the only ones on the train.  One by one she is going to make them pay for what they did to her and her family.  Until one of the six dies and has obviously been killed by one of the others.  Now Anna has to find out who has done that before any of the others die and can be arrested in Chicago!

I see so many people recommending Riley Sager books and yet this one was slow and not thrilling at all. I think he was going for the Agatha Christie murder on the train trope but it was just not interesting. I got to the last bit but could not even be bothered to find out what happened in the end so it was a DNF for me!!!

****

Leila Reynolds, Barrister, is handed her first murder case to defend the accused and her husband, whom she works with in the same Chambers, is going to be prosecuting.  Now this is not a problem until of course it is!

The only problem Leila now has is that her client, the accused, is not talking and refusing to say anything about the night of the murder.  Then during the trial a person from her past makes their presence known so not only is she fighting for her Client, her marriage and now fighting to keep secrets from her past secret.  Who will win in the end?

I liked this book but I do tend to like court based stories. The one twist I saw coming and had worked out some of the story before the end but it did not distract from the book. My only gripe of the book was the ending which is left for you to decide which sometimes I think is a cheat!!!

*

He is watching your every move and although you think you are in control no you are not and he is going to make you pay one way or another!  The Puppet Master is coming for you and will not stop until you are dead.

The above is all the synopsis you get!  Well I really enjoyed the book “The Countdown Killer” by this author, so thought I would give this one a try! Could not have been more different if it tried especially as it is in the series! It was very, very slow to start and quite frankly boring for the first half of the book. I did skip quite a chunk of it and did not miss anything when I picked it up again almost at the end just to see who the killer was. There were no twists in it and the ending was like well here is the killer crack on with it. Really disappointed in this book.

*

Having just read two dreadful books I thought I would go in a different direction and picked this one up as an archaeological thriller, wished I had not bothered!

Ethan Frost runs his own company after his service as a Delta Force commander.  He is hired by Ben Hawthorne to locate his missing daughter  who is on a dig in the Yucatan but when they get there they find there is more to this than they first thought and Ethan will begin to worry about those around him and who he can and cannot trust.

This book was dreadful. It is very slow and quite boring and the characters are one dimensional!   I will not be reading any more of his books!

***

Leila is a career woman.  Top of her game in her own architectural company, married to a journalist and has it all, everything but the one thing she really wants, a baby.  Her sister, who she raised after their parents died, is married and has a little boy.  Her brother-in-law this one morning when Leila is racing to work asks her to take her nephew, Max, to nursery as he has an urgent appointment.  On the way to the nursery and then her office, Leila gets an urgent call from the office to say she needs to get there immediately as there is a problem with a big presentation.  She does that forgetting she has Max in the car.  She does not remember him until three hours later and he has been locked in her car on the hottest day of the year.  The next few hours are a blur for Leila especially when she is arrested for neglect.  Will she be able to prove that it was not neglect?

This book is very slow and probably could have been written in a lot less chapters! Some of the procedural things are wrong during the Court chapters. I had worked out the end by a 1/4 of the way through so there was no surprise there. The ending after wading through the book was flat. I did finish it but that is all that could be said about it. Will not be reading any more books by this Author.

******************************

So June for me was a mixed bag and although some of the authors I have read before I came across some real duds!  The only Five Star read was Lisa Rina’s book which is not taxing but it is funny.  I have begun on my July books and the first one was a Five Star read by an author I have read almost all his books now and they do not disappoint.  I did need that after June was such a miss mash of books!!!!!

I hope you found time to read a bit in June, the first month of summer and I am hoping to do more in July and definitely when we are away.  I will do a post next week of my top books so far after the first six months of the year.  

Hugs & Love, Susie & Bookish Coco xx

Thought I would be a literary Friday today, I know I am behind on Susie’s Friday Book Club, but will hopefully catch up over the weekend. 

I read “The Hobbit” when I was eleven and thoroughly enjoyed it and it introduced me to fantasy books, something I had not read until then.  I loved Bilbo Baggins and how he, over the course of the story, went from being a nervous Hobbit to one who showed courage, cunning and guile.  The book had a good ending with Bilbo getting back to The Shire having completed the quest given to him by Gandalf.

If you know the book or have only watched the film, which I thought was very well done, I did notice one or two things.  Like the fact that Gandalf is a wizard but he does not use a lot of magic in the book at all, something you think he would do especially the situations they get into!  Overall the Dwarves, Bilbo and Gandalf managed to defeat Smaug and the Dwarves got their homeland back, as well as defeating the armies of the Dark Force.

Now admittedly I have not read “The Lord of the Rings” for a while but again I did enjoy the films which were well made.  However I think I noticed this from watching the films more so than reading the book, again Gandalf does not use much magic during the first part “The Fellowship of the Ring” but Frodo Baggins is a complete numpty!  I don’t know how many times he gets himself stabbed, loses his way, loses The Ring and his Hobbit friends and finally gets to Mordor and just about manages to toss The Ring into the fires!!!  

Compared to Bilbo he really is not very good!!!!   As I say I did not notice it when I was reading the book but it definitely came across that way when I was watching the films.  I have just watched The Hobbit again and have started to watch The Lord of the Rings films again and I am half way through The Fellowship of the Ring and I just want to reach into the television and shake Frodo!!!!!  Come on you Hobbit get a backbone!

I sometimes get the same sort of feelings over Crime/Mystery books where the main characters are doing something really stupid and I just get mad.  I find if I am watching something on one of the streaming channels now, that if this happens I tend to fast forward it over these parts so I don’t get mad!  

Are there any books which make you this cross?  I could probably name quite a few if I put my mind to it!!!!

Any-who it is the Cake-Off Competition for Carnival tonight and then tomorrow is the main day and we are in luck as it is going to be sunny and warm but not the dreadful heat we have had over the previous week.  I will try and show you some pictures on Sunday.  

Have a wonderful weekend you lovely lot.  Hugs & Love, Susie & Coco xx

I honestly don’t know where the days and weeks go to!  It has been very busy with work and with Eldest’s work too and I am not complaining at all but some days I get up in the morning and then it seems I am going to bed, and my feet do not seem to have touched the floor!  

I have almost, with DH’s help, finished the Spring Cleaning and only have our kitchen, laundy and downstairs bathroom to do.  We have another three day weekend at the end of this month so am aiming to get it finished then along with a couple of other cleaning jobs which I need DH to help with.  The garden is starting to look good and my other cleaning job is to pressure wash our patio so we are able to get the outdoor furniture out.  The weather has been a bit up and down over the last few weeks and it has been quite cool but at the end of next week it is due to be warm.

Sorry the Friday Book Club is late, again, because of work but I have been keeping up with my reading!  SO here are May’s books so far.

“The Snow Killer” by Ross Greenwood  *****

This is another D.I. Barton book and in fact the first in the series of nine by Ross Greenwood.  As you will see if you follow my Book Club Fridays, this is the fourth of the D.I. Barton series I have read and they really are very good..

A family is killed and their bodies lay in the snow and the killer leaves however one of the children survives.  Three years later this child gets revenge on the killer by killing him on the first snowfall of the year and The Snow Killer is born.  After this the killings stop and Police think he went silent or is dead or in prison.  Fifty years later D.I. Barton is called to a murder scene on the first snowfall of the year but no one knows why the murder happened.  Then another body appears and with some investigation they find the pattern with the old murders.  Had the killer decided to start murdering again or is it someone new?

I enjoyed the book and gave it five stars and although this was the first book in the series it has all the writing of the latest ones I have read.

******

“The Late Show” by Michael Connelly  ***

I have read a few of Michael Connelly’s books and this, again, is the first book in the series introducing Detective Renée Ballard.  

Renée Ballard was a Detective in another district and was tipped for big things until she filed a sexual harrassment claim against her supervisor.  She lost and as punishment was moved to her new division but on the night shift or as it is known in the department The Late Show.  She and her new partner go out to crime scenes and take the details, witness statements and then pass it on the next morning to the relevant departments.  Thus not investigating or finishing any investigations.  This goes against everything Renée has been trained for and wants to do more but her partner says no that is not their job.

They get called to the hospital to take the statement of a prostitute who has been beaten up, when they arrive she is in a coma and they take her belongings into evidence but Renée wants to find out who did it.  They then get called over to a shooting at a club where several people have been killed, again they help with collecting evidence and one of the dead is a young waitress.  Renée wants to help find the killer.  Two young lives one barely alive and one dead and she is determined to find out who did it.

This is the Book that introduced Renee Ballard to the World and it was to say the least slow! The story plodded through her history and how she comes to be working “The Late Show”as no one wanted her on their squad she is put on the nightshift as the only place she will fit.  Ballard is not happy about this as the shift only go out and prepare any incidents for the main squads to take over during the day and she is an Investigator, a Detective dam it!!!! And that is the premise of the whole book.

I have read a few of Michael Connelly’s books but this one was by far the most boring. We get to the end of the book and the two cases she is involved in, despite being told not to be, concludes in a rush and you are left at the end with a oh, that’s it then all done!  Hence the three stars.

*****

“Betrayal” by Tom Bower ****

I don’t think I have ever read a book where I have rolled my eyes so much of the many, many things which have been written about in this book! To say that Harry & Meghan are in their forty’s they behave like a pair of teenagers who cannot get their own way!

A lot of people will probably say that this book is biased against them and is written to incite hatred against the Sussex’s but I believe that there is too much detail in here for it not to be true. Some of the revelations and things that have been in the press the book goes further and gives you the back story and I believe that it definitely happened as it has been written.

Harry & Meghan come across as bitter and lie about incidents to get the sympathy they crave especially when telling “their truths” which really is made up! I believe that Meghan thought her position as Duchess of Sussex was going to be the same level as the now Queen and the Princess of Wales and did not appreciate the role at all. Harry is just resentful of his whole life and instead of making something for himself, like The Princess Royal has done, is just determined to blame everyone and everything instead of himself.

Their dogged pursuit of money before they left and since is just appalling and towards the end of the book it says that they, in 2026, are at a point where they are quickly running out of money and with no way to finance themselves further without returning to the UK. I am in the UK and to be honest really do not want them back. I think the King would be willing for a reconciliation but the Prince of Wales not at all. After everything which has been said by the pair trust would have to be earned and I am not sure they would be able to get over all that has been said.

The book was well written and again the facts were put out without the Author, Tom Bower, putting his spin on it.

*****

“Whistle” by Linwood Barclay ***

This book has a quote by Stephen King which says “Terrific”! One of the things referenced in the book is “Needful Things” by Stephen King. This was the first book of Mr. King’s I ever read and loved it. Now you may wonder why I am mentioning this, well “Whistle” is “Needful Things” but with trains so I am not sure how Linwood Barclay has got away with this.

Annie is living her best life with her husband and young son, Charlie, in New York. She has succeeded in her goal of being a children’s book author, however one of her stories which was written to inspire children to strive to be their best made a very young boy die which Annie is heartbroken at. Then her husband dies in an accident and she and Charlie are devastated. To get away for the summer her Agent books them a house in upstate New York and he hopes that this will draw Annie back to her work.

They arrive at this fabulous house and settle in and Charlie finds an old train set and is allowed to set it up. Once he does strange things begin to happen a lone train whistle can be heard at night but with no active train lines near. Annie starts to feel like they need to go home but something keeps stopping them leaving.

I think the thing I was most conscious of reading this book was how similar it was to Needful Things. We get to the end of the book with an ending which is appropriate and a little like Stephen King’s books but I still could not get past how alike the two books are. Hence the three stars! I have read a few of Mr Linwood’s books now and this was not one of his good ones!

*****

“With A Vengence” by Riley Sager

I am currently reading this and about half way through.  

Ann Matheson’s family and their business was destroyed twelve years ago by six people and now she has them all on a train, with no one else on board and she is going to make them pay for what they did to her entire family who are all now dead.  However someone else has their plans too and as her victims start to die Ann is now going to have to find out who the murderer is and save the lives of the people she hates so she can get her revenge!

So far I am enjoying it!  I will let you know how I get on next month and what I rated it.

*****

I forgot to do a separate post of Jayne’s and my Cosy Girls Book Club Books that we have read in the last few months so here they are:

“Death At Castle Cove” by Mary Grand (Also Printed as “A Seaside Murder”) **

Susan loves living on the Isle of Wight with her dog.  However she is getting divorced and making a new life for herself too and decides to take in a lodger to help her out with the bills etc.  Collette comes to stay with her, with her dog too, and they get along well and Susan introduces her to the dog walking group which meet every day at Castle Cove to walk their dogs and catch up with the local news.  Over the years these people have become Susan’s friends and she likes that they accept Collette into their little group.

One evening Collette does not come back from work and she is found at Castle Cove dead and Susan then learns that the other members of the dog walking group were the last to see her, did one of them do it and if so who?

I have been conscious of the fact that I have been giving a lot of Five Stars to books but then looking at other people’s reviews even if they did enjoy the book they rate it lower!  This book was good although it was very slow!  Jayne also agreed.  It is definitely in the “cosy mystery” section of the book shop/library and the story was okay but I could have done with it moving faster.  Hence my Two Stars!

*****

“Love At First Knight” by Megan Clawson *****

So here we are back to Five Stars again!!!  This book is more of the romance which for those that follow know that I only read a few of, if at all, as I prefer the murder and mayhem!!!!

Daisy Hastings loves her job working with her Dad in his emporium.  She is the eldest of three siblings and should have gone to University but couldn’t.  The family also spend their weekends re-enacting battles and Daisy is only truly happy when doing this and feels she was definitely born in the wrong era.  Then her Dad sees an ad for summer work at The Tower of London at “Knight School” teaching chilldren all about the Knights of old and signs Daisy up for it!  At first she is horrified but decides if she ever wants to stand on her own two feet she needs to do this.

Theodore “Teddy” Fairfax is a minor member of The Royal Family, and has been in one too many scrapes and as “punishment” for his latest stunt he is sent to The Tower of London, not as a prisoner but to help with “Knight School”.  However he treats this as a laugh and does everything to make life difficult for the people in charge and the other members including Daisy!  In fact he is doing such a good job of being an “arse” he almost gets others sacked Daisy being one of them.  How is she going to survive the next three months and not be sacked?

It is a love story and it does follow similar patterns to other love stories but it is not full of sugar and spice and all things nice and that made a refreshing change from some of the romance books I have read.  It is funny and also moving and there is a good ending, hence the Five Stars!

*****

“The Couple Next Door” by Shari Lapena

This is our May book for Jayne and I to read, Jayne’s choice, and I have just started it and am enjoying it.  I have seen quite a few of Shari Lapena’s books recommended on Bookstagram so I am interested to see how this goes.  Again I will let you know next month how we get on.  

*****

I hope you have enjoyed these books and I am working on getting a few more off my TBR shelf read this next month and planning already what I will be taking away with me on our vacation in August.  That is definitely a more important job than packing clothes.  I need to carefully consider what books to take as I am such a mood reader and so this will not really be sorted until the night before we go and I have even been known to be changing books or throwing others in as DH is taking my book box out to the truck!!!!  I will let you have a little peak when I have got them sorted, sort of!!!

Have a terrific week coming up and don’t forget to make time to read something! 

Hugs & Love, Susie & Coco xx