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.

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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