Camelot by Giles Kristian

Ten years after 'King' Arthur's defeat in the 'last great battle' against the Saxons, Britain is a leaderless land, fallen into famine and desolation. Arthur has disappeared, feared dead, and the Saxons are preparing to sweep through the country and take over.

For those ten years, Galahad has lived in a remote monastery in the marshes, expecting that one day he will become one of the brotherhood who guard the Holy Thorn of Joseph of Arimathea, but fate has more exciting and dangerous things in store for him - first when he meets the spear-wielding, Saxon-killing girl, Iselle (she saves his life), then when famed warrior Gawain arrives, determined that Galahad should join his band of men and help oppose the Saxon advance. And off they go, on a series of quests, to find Arthur, the druid Merlin, and a magic cauldron, and hopefully rid Britain of the Saxon invaders.

Camelot is an interesting retelling of the story of Galahad, son of the Lancelot, which mixes legends about King Arthur and the Round Table with fairly accurate historical setting of the turbulent post-Roman 'Dark Ages'. For this isn't a tale of gallant knights in shining armour, but of a people plunged into despair, vaguely remembering the glory days of Arthur and his knights, but lacking the will to band together and bring back those days. In contrast, Gawain and his men may be grizzled old warriors, somewhat past their prime, but they still believe in the cause they once fought for, and are ready to give their all for one last chance to push back the encroaching Saxons. The involvement of Merlin and his (rather dubious) magic, takes the story out of straight 'historical fiction' and adds a 'fantasy' element.

Oddly, because it is primarily a story filled with fighting and unpleasant deaths, it's not necessarily quickly-paced. There's a lot of description of settings from the marshes of Somerset, to cliff top castle at Tintagel, to atrocities encountered along the wayside, but these help build the atmosphere of place and time (and to be honest I sometimes find blow by blow fight scenes tedious) 

The author describes Camelot as a 'companion' rather than sequel to his previous novel, Lancelot, and it certainly worked well for me as a stand alone book. 

Maryom's review - 4 stars 
Publisher - Bantam Press
Genre - adult, historical fiction, fantasy

Surprise Me by Sophie Kinsella

review by Maryom

Sylvie and Dan seem to be a perfect couple - they've been together ten years, have a happy marriage, twin daughters, and a lovely home. They've grown so close, they can tell what the other is thinking, can finish their sentences, predict their every move. They're looking forward to a long life together  ... till someone mentions that could be sixty-eight years! Sixty-eight years! How can any relationship survive that long, especially when they know each other so well? Suddenly the future is stretching out before - filled with boredom! What they should do, they decide, is surprise each other more often - with unexpected gifts, sexy lingerie, brunch dates, even a new pet - but soon Sylvie begins to think Dan is not so much trying to surprise her, as keep secrets from her.
Sylvie's professional life is also under scrutiny, as the niche museum she works for finds itself being roughly dragged into the twenty-first century.

Surprise Me is the latest stand-alone novel from Shopaholic series author Sophie Kinsella - and a little bit different to her other books. It starts out pretty much as you would expect from a romcom  - light-hearted, with misunderstandings and pratfalls, as the couple try to outdo each other in their attempts to liven up their marriage, but the last third of the book moves into murkier territory as the secrets Dan's been keeping are gradually brought to light. Even so, I really enjoyed it. It's perhaps on the whole, not as laugh out loud funny as other of Sophie Kinsella's work, but that's balanced by a deeper insight into long-term relationships, and the secrets families hide beneath a happy exterior.

Maryom's review - 4 stars 
Publisher - Bantam Press
Genre - adult, romcom

My Not So Perfect Life by Sophie Kinsella

review by Maryom

Katie likes everyone to believe she's leading the perfect life - a dream job in London, a fancy apartment, wining and dining at the trendiest places - but really nothing could be further from the truth - her job is entry-level admin, she lives in a tiny room in a house shared with dreadful house mates, and her insider knowledge of where to eat comes from newspapers and magazines. One day, her life will match her dreams, until then she endures the commute, manages without space for a wardrobe, and stalks her mega-talented, oh-so-successful boss Demeter, who really does seem to be living the dream.
Could Katie's not-so-perfect life get worse? Unfortunately, yes. The gorgeous man she's just met turns out to be having an affair with Demeter, and on top of that, Katie loses her job. There's nothing for it but to head home to Somerset and help with her dad's latest project, turning the family farm into a swish glamping location, pretending all the while that she's merely on sabbatical ...

As you'd expect from Sophie Kinsella, this is a light, fun read - one to curl up with and forget the world, like comfort food in a book. I'm happy enough to read a gritty thriller, or a heavy literary classic , but there' still space on my shelf for a well-crafted romcom, and Kinsella is one of my favourite authors in this field.
The characters are vaguely familiar - a young, impressionable woman, trying to live the dream but frequently disappointed; a tall, handsome man with a twinkle in his eye that says he'd like to know her better, but (of course, there's a 'but') he might not be as free as Katie thinks; and the formidable 'other woman', in this case Katie's boss, Demeter - but familiarity is part of the comfort of a light romcom read. It's funny and a little wicked, as Katie tries to get her revenge by coaxing Demeter into joining in bizarre spiritual rituals, because "Gwyneth" does, and we can all laugh, because we'd never be persuaded to do that, right?
 There is, if you like, a message here too - that, no matter what you read or how you feel, everyone else is NOT leading that perfect life, that social media and aspirational blogs only show a slanted view of life, capturing the good times, and ignoring the bad - so don't believe everything you read on the web ...

Maryom's review - 4 stars 
Publisher - Bantam Press
Genre - adult, romcom

The Terror by Dan Simmons

review by Maryom

In 1845 Sir John Franklin led an expedition to discover the North-West Passage, a sea-route passing through the maze of ice and islands that make up Canada's northern coast to reach Alaska and the Pacific Ocean. His two ships - Terror and Erebus - were equipped with the latest steam technology and ice-breaking hulls, but even that wasn't enough to cope with treacherous Arctic conditions, and the ships became trapped in the ice - not just over winter, but throughout an exceptionally cold summer too.
At that point, history leaves the crew marooned with no real explanation of what happened to them - and that's where Dan Simmons steps in with The Terror ...
After two years stuck in the ice, food and coal supplies are getting low, but a greater danger is stalking the expedition; a huge, nameless, formless thing that attacks and kills crew members one by one.

I've had The Terror sitting around on my 'to be read' shelf for a long while, and picked it up just before Halloween thinking it would be a fitting read, but at over 900 pages, it's taken a while to get through. I would say though that at no point in all those pages was I bored!
As you've probably surmised, the story is a mix of historical adventure and horror - and to be honest I found the history of the expedition fascinating and didn't think the story needed the horror aspect.
I was aware to a certain extent of the Franklin expedition and its search for the North-West passage, but only in the briefest way. Simmons brings those bare facts and dates to life; the conditions on board ship, the extensive supplies designed to last five years, the hopefulness and enthusiasm at the beginning of the voyage and gradual decline in moral as both officers and men realise that they're stuck not merely overwinter (which is to be expected) but through summer and at least another winter in the ice. I was particularly impressed with how Simmons used a mix of flashbacks and conversations to flesh in the details of past voyages to both Arctic and Antarctic, without having to fall back on just listing events. The descriptions of long, dark endless nights, the sound and feel of ice moving and cracking bring the almost alien surroundings vividly to life.
The horror didn't grab me, or frighten me as much, but I wasn't worried; the whole story of the Franklin expedition is a mystery, and fascinating as such, so this is an excellent read as a fictional version of an intriguing piece of history. (For anyone interested, I read somewhere recently that the Erebus may have been discovered at last, making this a doubly timely read)

Maryom's review - 4 stars 
Publisher - Bantam Press
Genre - adult, exploration, arctic 

The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena

review by Maryom

When their babysitter cancels at the last minute, Anne and Marco decide, after an argument, that it will be fine to go round to their neighbours for a dinner party as planned - after all, the houses are joined, they'll be able to take the baby monitor and nip back every half hour to check up on baby Cora ... surely nothing could go wrong?

When Anne and Marco return home the front door is open, and their baby gone. At first, guided by what Anna and Marco appear to be thinking, the reader is led to believe that Cora must have been taken by someone who broke into the house, but then the police arrive, and Detective Rasbach's cynical assessment of the situation and detailing of all the ways parents could kill and dispose of a baby, made me stop and wonder if perhaps Anne and Marco weren't to be trusted all that much....

A thriller tapping in on what must surely be any parent's worst nightmare, The Couple Next Door is a gripping, fairly quick read at just over 300 pages. I found it started rather slowly, setting up the scene, calling in the police etc, but after 50 pages or so the drama kicks off, and then I really, really wanted to see how it all ended, so finished it in a day!
Although told in the third person, the reader is still presented with the 'face' that the characters display in public, and their secrets and motivations are only revealed as the plot twists and turns its way to a resolution - and what secrets they're all hiding! Anne's post-natal depression hides a more serious underlying condition; Marco might not have been quite honest about his relationship with their attractive neighbour, Cynthia; and she, too, has a secret or two hidden away ...
To be honest, I didn't feel the characters had much depth - yes, they're all hiding something, but not deep character flaws, the revelation of which would change who they fundamentally are, and a lot is said of Anne and Marco's shock and grief but I didn't feel it. I don't think it really mattered though, because this is a plot-driven story, leading my suspicions first one way, then another, and keeping me guessing till the end.

Maryom's review - 4 stars 
Publisher - Bantam Press
Genre - adult, crime, thriller

The Widow by Fiona Barton

review by Maryom

Until three years ago, Jean and Glen Taylor were an average unremarkable couple. Then Glen was accused of the abduction and murder of a small girl, Bella Elliott. Since then, their life has revolved around his attempts to clear himself. Now Glen's dead, and to be honest Jean isn't really sad he's gone, but reporters are besieging her house and at last she's ready to tell her side of the story....

The Widow is the story, not of the accused, but of the loyal wife who stood quietly by his side through court appearances and as he faced the Press. She's seen often enough in newspaper photos or on TV, but no one asks what she knows or how she feels. Does she believe her husband guilty as charged, or does she truly, completely, believe him to be innocent? For Jean the initial allegations came as a shock; her Glen would never do such a thing! But gradually the police investigation reveals a side to Glen's character that she'd never guessed at - so what else might she have been mistaken about? While Glen is held by police awaiting his trial, Jean has to put a brave face on things and face the everyday world, coping with the suspicions of her neighbours, work-colleagues, and even family, and dealing with the barrage of reporters all after a story.

The story is told mainly from three points of view - that of Jean, of reporter Kate Waters, intent on grabbing an exclusive interview, and of detective Bob Sparkes, who never gave up on his belief that Glen Taylor was the man responsible for Bella's abduction. The three story-lines move between the present, just after Glen's death, and the events which were triggered three years ago with the disappearance of Bella, and weave round each other showing Jean's changing attitude towards her husband, the tricks that Kate uses to win her confidence and exploit a seemingly vulnerable woman, and the dogged pursuit embarked on by Bob Sparkes, even at the risk of his career.

 Before I started reading this, I was aware that the reviews appearing from bloggers were a bit mixed - some praising it highly, some unimpressed - but that's always the sort of reaction to get me reading a book and this time I'm glad I did. I think if, from the tag 'psychological thriller', you're expecting Gone Girl style over the top character and events, The Widow may leave you feeling a little flat. This is a much more subtle tale about people who could be anyone you know - your friends, your neighbours, even your own family - and, for me, this is why it works. Jean starts out a little meek and mild, almost adoring the ground Glen walks on, and certainly too gullible when it comes to accepting some of his stories about work, but as events unfold, the balance in their relationship changes till she becomes the stronger partner and her husband reliant on her.

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Bantam Press
Genre - adult, crime, psychological thriller

Little Black Lies by Sharon Bolton

review by Maryom

Catrin and Rachel had been friends for most of their lives till a moment of carelessness on Rachel's part led to the death of Catrin's two sons; since then, as best possible in a small island community, they've ignored each other. Three years on, Catrin feels she has nothing left to live for - apart from revenge. Her plans are disrupted though when a young boy goes missing. Although he's believed to have just wandered away from a family picnic, this isn't an isolated incident - two other boys have disappeared in the last couple of years leading some people to fear there's a killer at large on the island. The thought that one of their own number could be abducting children seems beyond belief, but what other explanation could there be?


Spanning a few days in November 1994 Little Black Lies is a gripping stand-alone psychological thriller from Sharon Bolton, author of the Lacey Flint series It's set on the remote Falkland Islands - a ready-made 'closed room' location of a tight-knit community where visitors are rare, mainly confined to the cruise ships that pass through in Summer. The story is told from three points of view, starting with Catrin, who while seemingly going about her day to day life is constantly thinking about death - that of her sons, her own, and the possibility of causing someone else's. Her version of events is followed by that of  her ex-lover Callum; one of the British paratroopers involved in the Falklands War, he's suffered post traumatic shock ever since, and has found that the only place he's at peace is oddly back on the Falkland islands, but he's still subject to periods of black-out during which he can be aggressive and violent. Lastly, we hear Rachel's point of view - for three years she has lived a life full of guilt and remorse, but maybe now there's a way she can make amends. As each version unfolds, we realise that what we first accepted as solid fact is open to interpretation, and that maybe events aren't as clear cut as we'd believed. I certainly found my sympathies shifting from one character to another as their back stories emerged. It's very cleverly done, and leads the reader first one way, then another, saving the final twist to the last page.
Definitely the sort of book that once started, you won't want to put down till it's finished!



Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Bantam Press
Genre - adult, crime, psychological thriller

The Shut Eye by Belinda Bauer

review by Maryom

On the morning of Bonfire Night four year old Daniel Buck disappeared, slipping out of an accidentally left-open door and down the street, leaving behind him a trail of footprints in new cement but then seemingly vanishing into thin air. Now four months later, his mother Anna guards those last reminders of him, cleaning and polishing them daily despite the odd looks and rude comments from passers-by, clinging on to her desperate hope that somehow, someday he'll come home. When she sees an advert for a local psychic, Richard Latham, Anna fees a burst of hope - this could be the way to find Daniel!
DCI John Marvel's favourite thing in the world is a good murder - a difficult, hard to solve one that allows him to pit his skills against a devious opponent. The case he'd like to be working on is that of twelve year old Edie Evans, who went missing over a year ago, and who Marvel believes must have been murdered - so he's less than pleased when he's asked to help find his super's wife's missing dog! He's even less pleased when the case brings him into contact with psychic Richard Latham ..... Marvel believes the man to be a fake, building false hope and exploiting the vulnerable, but what if he's the real thing, a shut eye, able to contact the dead, the missing and even an apricot poodle?

I know by now that when I settle down with a Belinda Bauer novel I'm in for a first-class, compelling read, full of excellent characterisation, unexpected twists and turns, dramatic reveals and a heart-stopping climax - and The Shut Eye is no exception!
What I love about Bauer's writing is her ability to create a whole range of believable characters and place them in unenviable situations. The 'crime' aspect of the novel pursues three seemingly unrelated cases - two missing children and a missing dog - but it also follows Anna and James Buck, a couple placed in a situation that none of us would ever want to share.  James is haunted by guilt and would do anything to take back that simple slip-up he made; Anna is barely able to cope with anything any more, slowly sliding towards insanity, and only kept back from it by the daily ritual of cleaning her son's footprints. When she starts to sees visions, are they merely a further sign of insanity?
John Marvel, meanwhile, with his no nonsense, no sentiment attitude tramples through, a bit like a bloodhound on the trail, ignoring everyone's feelings while he pursues the crime.  
And there's also the story of a young girl, Edie Evans, who wanted to go into space, to visit distant planets and meet aliens but had a sadly very different fate. 

As in Rubbernecker, there's a similarity to Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie novels with the feeling of the random inter-connectedness of all things and that sometimes the world is weirder than we think. Maybe if you're a person who firmly believes that all psychics or mediums are charlatans, that there's no possibility of being contacted by the dead, then this isn't the book for you, but for everyone else this is an unmissable read. I'd just say that I was left at the end thinking that at some point (I shan't say when for fear of spoilers) a police investigation team hadn't done their work well enough and had missed something vital and blindingly obvious - I'm not sure if this was deliberate on the part of the author or not, but it didn't detract from the overall story.


 Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Bantam Press
Genre - adult, thriller, crime


Maryom's reviews of previous Belinda Bauer crime novels; Rubbernecker, Darkside, Blacklands

Cute Emergency by Tony Heally

review by Maryom

Don't we all occasionally feel the need for something to brighten a dull or stressful day? Well, here's the answer - a delightful little book filled from cover to cover with adorable cuteness that's sure to lighten your mood. 
 
Compiled by the creator of well-known 'cutesy' Twitter accounts, @CuteEmergency, @EmrgencyKittens, @OhMyCorgi and @HereBeHuskies from thousands of pet pictures sent in by fans, it's a hundred or so pages of animals behaving cutely.
We've all got a soft spot for animals, and from kittens and puppies, rabbits and hamsters to elephants, bears and gorillas, there has to be something here to appeal to each and everyone of us, whatever our age. It's hard to pick a favourite but this huge St Bernard taking care of tiny kittens is mine.

For just a few minutes, leave the cares and worries behind and indulge in this cute-fest, I dare anyone to flick through it and resist smiling!



Publisher - Bantam Press
Genre - picture book, all ages

Time and Time Again by Ben Elton

review by Maryom

For over 300 years, the Masters of Trinity College, Cambridge have been closely guarding a secret - that on a certain date in 2024 a loop in time will allow someone to travel back 110 years... to June 1914 a few weeks before the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand sparked a war that engulfed the whole of Europe. If only someone could be sent back in time to alter events and prevent the devastation that is to come ... but that person would be trapped back in 1914 as a new page of history was written...and their family and friends back in the 21st century would cease to exist. Enter retired army captain Hugh Stanton, a man with few friends and, following a tragic car accident, no family. Still mourning his wife and children he has nothing to lose, so when approached by his old professor, now the Master of Trinity, he agrees to this unusual 'mission'.

Following his last novel set in 1930s and 40s Berlin, Ben Elton takes us further back in time to the crucial months in 1914 when Europe was balanced on the brink of war.....and maybe the right man in the right place could have prevented it. Hugh of course is aware that all of his actions, no matter how insignificant, will change history as he knows it - but he can't help but intervene from time to time, with potentially disastrous results. As he seeks to fulfil his mission Hugh saves lives, takes lives and still finds time to fall in love.

It's not an unknown premise for a story - from Kate Atkinson's Life After Life, to Stephen Fry's Making History, or even a Star Trek film - but Elton pulls it off in an original and entertaining way. As a thriller, it didn't really keep me on the edge of my seat, as I fully expected Hugh to complete his task, but the real plot twists come after that.
It's a book which will have you wondering - if I could change history, what would I change, what were the truly pivotal moments, does history turn on the actions of one man or the mass consciousness of nations?

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Bantam Press
Genre - adult, thriller, time travel, historical fiction

Other reviews; For Winter Nights

WTF Knits by Gabrielle Grillo and Lucy Sweet

review by Maryom

Think you know knitting? Well, think again. These days it's not just about lacy baby clothes or heavy Sara Lund style Nordic sweaters, it all more arty and...well, frankly....weird.

Since 2010 Gabrielle Grillo had been collecting photos of strange, mind-boggling knitting on Tumblr and here it is collected together in book form.
There's the fairly common knitted food - hamburgers, fruit, veg, a whole butcher's display - and cigarettes if you really need them, odd but kinda-cute headgear for your favourite pet - dress your dog as a unicorn or reindeer, or disguise your tortoise's shell as a bat or tor(toise)illa. There are murder scenes and knitted celebrities, internal organs and rather a lot of knitted poo (fortunately there's a knitted toilet roll to accompany it)

Some of it might be considered art, some of it's just macabre but, however you feel, it certainly stretches the imagination about what can be achieved with yarn and some needles.
This isn't a knitting 'pattern' book, just a collection show-casing what others have made. I was a little disappointed that some didn't have patterns - I'd love a Princess Leia hair-style hat, and some seemed ideal for unusual Halloween costumes - but for the most part they're perhaps best just left on the page.

It ISN'T a book for granny or an elderly aunt, unless you're confident of their open-mindedness - but for any knitter who delights in the bizarre and wacky it could prove an ideal Christmas present.

Publisher - Bantam Press
Genre - knitting, art, craft

A Dark and Twisted Tide by Sharon Bolton

 review by Maryom

Sharon Bolton is back with an extraordinary thriller set among the old wharfs, abandoned warehouses and industrial relics of the Thames. Ex-detective Lacey Flint is living and working right in the heart of them; her home is an old houseboat moored in a marina off Deptford Creek, and her work-place is on the river as part of the Metropolitan Police's Marine Unit. She'd hoped that quitting her detective role and getting back to 'proper' policing would lead to a quieter life - but things are rarely that easy.
Out for a morning swim in the Thames, Lacey discovers a partially submerged body wrapped in a shroud-like cloth, and Lacey just can't help getting pulled into the investigation. The body is quickly linked to other disappearances, and it soon appears that someone is abducting and murdering young (probably illegal) immigrant women along the banks of the Thames. It's just coincidence that Lacey seems to always be the one to find the bodies, isn't it?

I came a bit late to the Lacey Flint series - jumping in at book 3 Like This, For Ever  which I found a bit confusing with its on-going personal story-arcs. Now I know the characters and slipped back into their world comfortably. Lacey's private life is pretty much on hold for now as the man she loves, Mark Joesbury, is off undercover somewhere, out of touch with anyone and everyone, but there are still the prison visits to serial-killer Toc and enticing glimpses of Lacey's past.

A Dark and Twisted Tide starts chilling and tense, and stays that way! A complex story developing in unforeseen ways, involving people trafficking and other things too plot-spoiling to mention, it's, as you may guess from the title, as dark and twisted as you could wish for. I thought I'd unravelled the whole back-story to the murders and found myself expecting the story to move in certain directions - but I hadn't and it didn't! I love it when a thriller writer can manage that!

It's not necessarily easy to keep track of everything as the story is told from multiple points of view and the time line jumps about a bit,so it's only towards the end that everything slips nicely into place. But it's a story that grabbed me and had me reading late into the night. I'm not an explorer of caves, tunnels or anything under ground, so having action set in a half-flooded drainage tunnel with a rising tide is NOT my idea of fun - all of which made for an extra-dramatic nail-biting climax.

Something that delighted me was the way A Dark and Twisted Tide opened my eyes to a whole new perspective on London - not the bustling shopping areas or seedy backstreets but the marinas, creeks and inlets that lead into the Thames - for the most part dingy and polluted but in the midst of them an almost enchanted garden that I'd love to explore.

I'm now truly hooked on the Lacey Flint series and want to find and read the earlier ones (sadly not in stock at my library, as I checked yesterday) and can't wait to read Book 5 - no pressure on the author there!

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Bantam Press
Genre - adult, crime, thriller

Buy A Dark and Twisted Tide: Lacey Flint Series, Book 4 from Amazon

Keep Your Friends Close by Paula Daly

review by Maryom

Natty and Sean are a happy, successful couple. After a shaky start to their married life, things have just got better over the years. Now they have everything they could want - a top-notch hotel business, flash cars and two lovely teenage daughters. Then the unthinkable happens - on a trip to France, younger daughter Felicity is rushed to hospital with a life-threatening burst appendix. Fortunately old family friend Eve is visiting so Natty is on the next plane out there, leaving Eve to help out at home.
Two weeks later, Natty returns to discover Sean and Eve are now an item. Sean has discovered 'real' love at last and is off to make a new life. Can this really be love or has he just been totally manipulated by Eve? Is there any way Natty can fight back? When she receives an anonymous note saying Eve has done this before, she thinks maybe she can.

You know how there are some books that once you've picked them up, you don't want to put down till the end? Well, this is one of those. I romped through it, pulled in by twists and turns and the gradually leaked back story, desperate to discover how all would be resolved. The reader soon learns of the secrets that Natty and Sean hide, as Eve twists them to her own advantage, but as Natty uncovers more of Eve's murky past the surprises mount up.
 Eve is that most-evil of villains - one who looks innocent and victimised while twisting people round her little finger to achieve her goal, and leaving a trail of broken lives behind her. She also feels rather scarily real! While Eve remains outwardly cool and collected, Natty is full of anger and frustration and can't help letting these feelings get the better of her; she's trapped in a nightmarish situation and losing everything - husband, children, home - and whatever she does seems to make things worse.

Detective Constable Joanne Aspinall who appeared in Paula Daly's previous thriller Just What Kind of Mother Are You? , is back, looking at events from a different angle and piecing together the history of Eve's manipulations. So too is her aunt 'Mad' Jackie Wagstaff with her outspoken  plain talking ways and no-nonsense attitude - rapidly growing into one of my favourite characters.

A totally gripping book from page one to its deliciously wicked, and extremely satisfying, ending.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Bantam Press
Genre - adult, psychological thriller

I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes

review by Maryom

Pilgrim is the code name of a former secret ops guy, sometimes known as Peter or Scott or a variety of other aliases, who having retired from the dangerous world of espionage has written a book on how to commit the perfect murder. He's beginning to wish he hadn't as someone appears to have read it, taken notes and be using it as a manual. From a textbook murder in New York, Peter or Scott or Pilgrim becomes involved in the hunt for a killer intent on carrying out not just one murder but the mass eradication of all Americans.

I'd better come straight out and say that despite all the excellent reviews I've read for this book, I Am Pilgrim didn't turn out to be my kind of spy-novel. I thought, with the murder scene that opens the book, that I was going to enjoy it but once matters moved on to the spying-game things went downhill for me. Anyone within ear-shot of me while I was reading it will know how many times I've found plot-holes or commented on this supposed super-spy's lack of 'tradecraft'; for a supposed master of his craft, Pilgrim didn't half make a lot of mistakes. The plot relies too much on coincidence and a lot of the detection seems based on guess work. It's definitely more of an action-adventure than I'd expected and if I'd been carried along by the action, I think these things would have niggled less - but sadly I wasn't, so they did.

Pilgrim doesn't have the intellectual insight of Smiley, the down to earth world weariness of Charlie Muffin, the cynicism of Harry Palmer or the glamour of Bond. Sorry, not my kind of spy-thriller at all.

Maryom's review - 3 stars
Publisher - Bantam Press
Genre - adult, thriller,

Stone Bruises by Simon Beckett

review by Maryom


Sean is speeding flat out through France, trying to put as many miles as possible between him and something that happened back in London. The reader doesn't know what's happened but there's blood on the front passenger seat and seat belt, a polythene-wrapped packet of 'white powder' in the glove compartment and bruises all over Sean's face. His car is running out of fuel, so he dumps it, smashing off the number plate and removing anything that could identify it, and continuing on foot despite the heat.Trying to avoid an approaching police car, he jumps a fence into a wood - only to be ensnared in a man-trap. Delirious from pain and lack of water, he's eventually rescued by two women, the daughters of the wood's owner, and taken to their farm where he is nursed back to health. At first forced to stay by his injuries, Sean finds himself drawn to the elder daughter Mathilde and the mystery that seems to surround the farm, but he soon begins to wonder if he would have been better off facing his troubles in London.

Stone Bruises is a tense psychological thriller that starts full of menace, and just winds it up from there. Set mainly in France with flashbacks to Sean's life in London, the two story-lines unfold side by side and had me racing through to uncover their secrets. The "French" sections grabbed me most; the setting, which could have been so idyllic, contrasting sharply with the man-made atmosphere of barely suppressed violence that fills the place - the aggressive farmer, his violent pigs, man traps placed to keep everyone else very firmly outside.The only down-side was that I found some of this plot predictable; the London based story-line didn't hold me at first but proved more surprising in the end.

 Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Bantam Press
Genre - adult, thriller,

Buy Stone Bruises from Amazon

In The Summer Time by Judy Astley

review by Maryom

It's 20 years since Miranda visited the Cornish seaside village of Chapel Creek - back then it was the place where her family spent all their summers, where the teenage Miranda swam and sailed, flirted and fell in love. Now she's returning with her own teenagers and her mother Clare, to scatter the ashes of her stepfather in the sea overlooked by their old holiday home. The village seems remarkably unchanged with many of the old familiar faces still there. Should Miranda rekindle her teenage romance or is she just longing to be young again?

In The Summertime is an unashamedly romantic novel with seemingly everyone looking for love - divorced Miranda wonders what happened to her summer-fling boyfriend of her sixteenth year, her mother Clare is getting over the death of her husband and happy to get reacquainted with someone she too knew twenty years before, sister Harriet finds the best antidote to being dumped by a footballer is to find another one and teenaged Silva just hopes to attract the attention of the coolest surf-dude on the beach. It's a dead-cert that at least one of them will find true love!
In the Summer Time is funny and smart and, despite the romance, avoids being too sickly sweet. It's a bit predictable at times but very readable. A lovely light-hearted summer read that's ideal for your own beach-side holiday.

Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Bantam Press
Genre - adult, romantic fiction

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Just What Kind of Mother Are You? by Paula Daly

 review by Maryom

A mother's worst nightmare must be for something horrific to happen to her child but what if you were responsible for something happening to your best friend's child?
Lisa Kallisto lives in a whirl, chasing this way and that after work and family commitments, so it's easy to forget that her ill teenage daughter should have been having best-friend, Lucinda, round for a sleepover. Until, that is, the next morning when Lucinda fails to show up at school. She's the second girl to go missing in the area in a couple of weeks - and the last one was found half-clothed and dazed wandering the town centre. How can Lisa forgive herself for what's happened? Lisa has always felt herself a little inferior to Lucinda's mum, Kate, with her so-perfect life and family. Now, blamed by everyone, Lisa's only hope is to find Lucinda before her worst imaginings become real. As the police investigation takes one route, Lisa follows another - uncovering a web of secrets behind the picture-postcard prettiness of her Lakeland town.

In this stunning debut thriller, Paula Daly takes your second-worse nightmare and makes it real. Lisa is a typical harassed mother and there's a nasty feeling that it could happen to anyone. Most of us only have to worry about a child's mislaid lunch or PE kit, but everyone's heard the tales of a baby left on a car roof or a child forgotten at the pub; how easy is it for something truly dreadful to occur? This isn't merely a story of modern-day parenthood though. Alongside Lisa's mainly accidental discoveries runs the police line of enquiries, giving the reader a glimpse of things Lisa is unaware of. In retrospect, there are clues hidden all along the way but I never recognised the villain.

Just What Kind of Mother Are You? is an excellent gripping read with a great, original twist at the end. About 50 pages from the end, I tried to persuade myself to stop reading and go to bed - but I was so engrossed I stayed up till half past one to finish. That's got to be the sign of a good book!

Maryom's review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - Bantam Press
Genre - adult, thriller, crime

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Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer

 review by Maryom



Samuel Galen is in a coma following a car accident and although unable to communicate with anyone can still hear and understand what is happening around him. Slowly he regains the use of some senses but what he sees may make him wish he hadn't...
Meanwhile, in the dissection lab, anatomy students are cutting open cadavers....
Patrick has Asperger's syndrome and, following his father's untimely death, a desire to understand what happens after people die. Following a childhood spent in dissecting every dead mouse or bird he could find, he signs up for a university anatomy course in the hope of finding answers there. As his group work their way through the remains of their subject, cadaver No 19, Patrick begins to find that it's not what happens AFTER death that's so interesting as the circumstances that led to it. How can he hope to solve a possible murder that no one else believes has happened?

I've read Belinda Bauer's first two crime thrillers set on Dartmoor but Rubbernecker is even better. With a main character suffering from Aspergers, there are obvious parallels to be drawn with Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time but the multiple points of view and interlocking stories of the 'supporting cast' also reminded me of Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie series. A couple of pages in, I was hooked and didn't want to stop reading!

The two focus points of the novel are Patrick and Samuel and for most part the reader is inside the head of one or the other of these two very contrasting characters. Patrick's tightly focussed view of the world means he doesn't understand people's motivations and interactions; the subtleties of facial expressions and body language are lost on him. Samuel understands all these things only too well but cannot act upon what he sees.
The minor characters are well fleshed out too - from Patrick's fellow students to the nurses working on the coma ward - and all of them have their part to play in the scheme of things.

As you might expect from a story set largely in a dissection lab, there's a lot of gore and grissly bits but it was Sam's situation, regaining consciousness but still trapped in an unresponsive body in the coma ward, that I found more terrifying. There's also a lot of dark humour and I was surprised to find myself laughing out loud occasionally.

All in all a wonderful unputdownable crime thriller with twists and turns till the very end.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Bantam Press
Genre - adult, thriller, crime




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