Review: We Could Be So Good

We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Nick Russo is a big brawny Italian American writer for the New York Chronicle, he's also gay which is a problem in 1950s America. To try to live as authentic a life as possible he has moved to The Village area, away from his family so that he doesn't have to pretend. However, his only 'romantic' encounters are of the one-night stand variety and cloaked in fear and secrecy.

Andy Fleming is the boss' son. Nick's polar opposite, he's charming and slightly helpless, forever losing his glasses or his keys, getting lost on the subway etc. As part of his grooming to take over the newspaper from his father Andy is rotated to work with Nick in the newsroom.

Nick finds himself attracted to Andy, even though he knows Andy isn't gay, in fact he's dating one of Nick's closest friends. Over the months they work together Nick spends his time finding Andy's keys, rescuing him, etc and they become best friends. So who else would Andy turn to when his fiance suddenly dumps him?

Andy has always wanted a family, marriage, children, maybe a dog, that's just how he's made, maybe in reaction to his parents' divorce and his mother's globe-trotting career as an investigative reporter. And for his entire life that vision included a woman. But sharing Nick's apartment suddenly opens Andy's eyes to a hitherto unacknowledged attraction.

Goodness, this was just sooooo good. I loved it. I loved Andy and Nick, I loved their family lives, I loved the way in which they could quarrel/speak at cross-purposes and then both come back with an apology. I loved the 1950s vibe and the reminder that while we haven't overcome homophobia yet we are still a long way past the repression and hatred of those times.

View all my reviews

Review: A Lethal Walk in Lakeland

A Lethal Walk in Lakeland by Nicholas George
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Rick Chasen, nicknamed Chase, is a retired American police detective. A fan of walking, he has arranged to meet his friend Billie and love-interest Mike on a shortened Coast-to-Coast walking tour in the Lake District. Unfortunately, an outbreak of some mysterious illness in Mike's home county of Devon means he cannot join them (he's the local coroner). Even worse, instead of the disparate group of walkers Chase was hoping for, the remainder of the group consist of a Canadian bird watcher and six members of the Upton family from Texas.

The reasons for the family joining the trek aren't clear, none of them seem like hikers. The oldest brother appears overly familiar with his younger sister and picks on one of his twin brothers, his wife is ridiculously superstitious. One twin is gregarious and outgoing, although too fond of a quick fix. The other twin is a former soldier who seems to have psychological problems. The only sister is a recent widow, although by her on admission she cheated on her husband while he was dying of cancer. The final member of the family group is actually the sister's best friend, although she gossips incessantly about all the other family members and clearly had a crush on her friend's husband.

The tensions between the family group frequently boil over into arguments, and occasionally physical fights, at one point the tour guide even kicks them all off the tour, although he is persuaded to reconsider.

But when one of the Uptons is mysteriously poisoned at a country hotel suspicions fall on the other members of the walking group and it is up to Chase to give the local police force the benefit of his observations about the group.

I think part of the reason for my average score for the novel is that I have recently read another book about a Coast-to-Coast walking tour, You Are Here so the theme was familiar. Also, given the mention of Mike, I assumed he would play a role in the story, but he only appears towards the end. Finally, although I knew that Chase had retired I assumed he was a fifty-something retiree rather than close to seventy.

I felt that any one of the tour group could have murdered the victim, because they were all given plausible motives, and I was rather irritated that the 'evidence' of the murderer was something that the reader could not have seen (which I am pretty sure breaks one of the mystery writing rules I read recently in another novel).

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

View all my reviews

Review: Famous Last Words

Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Camilla Deschamps is at the end of her nine months' maternity leave and about to go back to work as a literary agent. However, when she wakes up her husband Luke is nowhere to be seen, apparently he (a ghostwriter for celebrity memoirs) has gone into to his shared workspace early. Cam feels slightly aggrieved by this, she's the introvert and catastrophiser and he's the extrovert happy-go-lucky one -on a day like today she really needs him to talk her off the ledge about putting their daughter Polly in nursery. He's not even answering his phone or reading her messages.

Later that morning at work, Cam is astonished to see that the man holding three people hostage in a London warehouse is none other than Luke. Although instinctively she can't think of any reason why this charming, sunny-natured man would do such a thing, as the police question her she recalls a few instances where he snapped at her, or behaved out of character.

I don't want to spoil anything so I'll be vague. Seven years later Luke has disappeared without a trace, Cam seesaws between thinking it has all been a big mistake and hating him for what he put them through. Although the police are monitoring Cam's internet searches and phone calls their investigation is very low key, except for Niall, the hostage negotiator that day, whose personal and professional lives fell apart on that day. he can't get over what happened and is looking for some kind of closure.

Can Cam or Niall piece together the clues and find out what really happened that day?

First off, let me say this was a really good book, loved the story. However, having read a couple of Gillian McAllister's books before I was already looking for the surprise twist - didn't always get it right, mind - and therefore in some respects this was a little too predictable. I also felt at one point that there were going to be too many similarities with (what I consider to be her best book) Wrong Place Wrong Time, although that turned out to be incorrect.

Overall, if you are new to Gillian McAllister's work I think you'll love the twisty-turny plot, but if you read and loved Wrong Place, Wrong Time I suspect you will find it fell slightly flat. Still better than most of the contemporary mystery/thrillers out there.

I received an ARC from the publisher Penguin Random House via NetGalley.

View all my reviews

Review: Famous Last Words

Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Camilla Deschamps is at the end of her nine months' maternity leave and about to go back to work as a literary agent. However, when she wakes up her husband Luke is nowhere to be seen, apparently he (a ghostwriter for celebrity memoirs) has gone into to his shared workspace early. Cam feels slightly aggrieved by this, she's the introvert and catastrophiser and he's the extrovert happy-go-lucky one -on a day like today she really needs him to talk her off the ledge about putting their daughter Polly in nursery. He's not even answering his phone or reading her messages.

Later that morning at work, Cam is astonished to see that the man holding three people hostage in a London warehouse is none other than Luke. Although instinctively she can't think of any reason why this charming, sunny-natured man would do such a thing, as the police question her she recalls a few instances where he snapped at her, or behaved out of character.

I don't want to spoil anything so I'll be vague. Seven years later Luke has disappeared without a trace, Cam seesaws between thinking it has all been a big mistake and hating him for what he put them through. Although the police are monitoring Cam's internet searches and phone calls their investigation is very low key, except for Niall, the hostage negotiator that day, whose personal and professional lives fell apart on that day. he can't get over what happened and is looking for some kind of closure.

Can Cam or Niall piece together the clues and find out what really happened that day?

First off, let me say this was a really good book, loved the story. However, having read a couple of Gillian McAllister's books before I was already looking for the surprise twist - didn't always get it right, mind - and therefore in some respects this was a little too predictable. I also felt at one point that there were going to be too many similarities with (what I consider to be her best book) Wrong Place Wrong Time, although that turned out to be incorrect.

Overall, if you are new to Gillian McAllister's work I think you'll love the twisty-turny plot, but if you read and loved Wrong Place, Wrong Time I suspect you will find it fell slightly flat. Still better than most of the contemporary mystery/thrillers out there.

I received an ARC from the publisher Penguin Random House via NetGalley.

View all my reviews

Review: The Blitz Detective

The Blitz Detective by Mike Hollow
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Its 1940 and the Blitz has begun. For Detective Inspector John Jago it brings back unpleasant associations from his time in the trenches in WW1, being bombarded day and night. During the height of the bombing of East London an ARP Warden finds a man dead, slumped over the steering wheel of a van, it appears he has committed suicide, but on closer inspection he has also been stabbed in the heart.

The victim, Charles Villiers is a local Justice of the Peace and owns a printing factory nearby. However, before DI Jago and his new assistant Detective Constable Peter Cradock can get a police photographer and coroner to view the body the van is hit by German bombs and explodes!

When Jago starts to investigate Villiers it appears he wasn't a very nice man. His wife was clearly put upon, his son feels relief that his father is dead, his brother barely speaks to him, he's known to chase his female employees (and worse) and a lot of the people Jago speaks to suspect that he may have been involved in something 'dodgy'.

I did have trouble keeping the various characters straight in my head at times, especially when the story just leaps into a discussion between (say) Albert and Gus and you can't for the life of you remember who either of them are. Also because the man was such a pill there are clearly a lot of people with motive.

On reflection, perhaps the motive was a little far-fetched, and the final discovery overly dramatic, but it all hung together.

On to the second book.

Read on my Kindle Unlimited subscription.

View all my reviews

Review: The Soho Murder

The Soho Murder by Mike Hollow
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the ninth book in the series, I hadn't read any of the others and it didn't affect my enjoyment of the plot.

Detective Inspector John Jago and his trusty sidekick are called to disreputable Soho where an antiquarian bookseller has been found shot in his own flat. The man, only fairly recently married (ie last few years), owned a bookshop and his wife owned an ecclesiastical printing business and bookshop.

Investigating the murder will take John deep into Soho, exploring the jazz clubs which tip off their (male) customers, and the underground card games which sucker in losers.

This was a well-written and fast-paced detective story, set against the backdrop of the Blitz. On the strength of this book I have downloaded the first two in the series (which are currently available on Kindle Unlimited if anyone wants to try before they buy).

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

View all my reviews

Review: Caroline Minuscule

Caroline Minuscule by Andrew Taylor
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a bit of a curiosity, having read several of Mt Taylor's other series I bought this book because it was only 99p, but was (frankly) put off by the title - don't be. It's not clear when this is supposed to be set, I initially thought the 1950s but I suspect it was contemporary when it was written in the 1980s - doesn't' that make me feel old!

William Douglas is a mature(ish) student who chose the rather obscure Caroline Miniscule medieval script for his post-graduate studies (mainly because of its obscurity which would make any research easier to pass off as new). He is lackadaisically preparing to provide a translation of a piece of said Caroline Miniscule from a photo provided by his tutor when he finds the tutor's body garotted in his study. Rather than call the Police, William basically runs away.

Later William is accosted by a man called James Hansard, who he suspects is his tutor's murderer, apparently his tutor was to have translated the text in the photograph for this man and he offers William an eye-wateringly large sum of money to translate the script instead.

But then William reads that James has been killed and later receives a letter and a parcel from James' bank. The letter explains that James was searching for a cache of diamonds, hidden by a client, but the client has shared clues with James and another man, James suspects this man will kill him and has asked William, if that happens, to find the diamonds in his place.

The ensuing search involves a road trip from London to East Anglia and the fens. There's murder, double-crosses, and more.

Loved it, loved the ambiguous ending and I've already bought the second book in the series.

View all my reviews

Review: The Perfect Rom-Com

The Perfect Rom-Com by Melissa Ferguson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Two years ago Bryony Page attended a rom-com workshop/conference to try to get an agent for her book, which is a genre-defying fictionalisation of her grandmother's work setting up an ESL school, where Bryony also works. She never got any interest in her book (she's still trying), but the last agent she met, Jack Sterling, offers her a job as ghost-writer for Amelia Benedict, a successful rom-com writer, famous for being the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in the US.

Two years on, Jack hasn't been able to get even a whiff of interest in Bryony's own book, but she has proved herself a brilliant ghostwriter, successfully increasing Amelia's sales and critical acclaim. Bryony has tried to walk away from the contract many times, but she is paid handsomely for her work (including a percentage of sales) which she uses to anonymously donate to her grandmother's school, and Jack can talk her out of anything, she's such a pushover.

Jack and Bryony have become friends, maybe even best friends, over the past two years. They eat together once a week and play on the same bowling team. If it weren't for Bryony's boyfriend Parker (also an ESL teacher in Aukland, Russia) and Jack's girlfriend Chloe (or is it Claire) ...

Amelia is a nightmare. She only wrote the first book and since then has relied upon a series of ghostwriters, but Bryony is so good that over time the others have been let go. Amelia doesn't even read her own books and has made some truly awful gaffes about characters and scenes when being interviewed or when talking to fans.

Bryony wants to complain about the ever-shortening deadlines and pressure to write two books a year, on top of her dayjob, with Amelia's mindless twittering about how she wants the books to be written, but instead she gets railroaded into going on a two week book tour with Amelia and the rest of the team to perform damage limitation after saying things like she based one of her characters (a murderer) on her father.

Two weeks on the road with Jack and feelings are starting to develop, but when a multi-millionairess relies on you to write the books that get her fame and publicity she has a vested interest in forcing you to stay.

I wanted to like this because I loved Meet Me in the Margins, but sadly there were too many flaws with this. Firstly, the convenient boyfriend who's been overseas for 27 months - puhlease that relationship is so dead. Second, to have become a successful writer and not realise that your original story was an overblown, confusing mess? Smacks of one of my favourite films Teacher's Pet (amazing film starring Doris Day). Third, the way in which the conflict was resolved was pure end of the film Singing in the Rain. Fourth, Bryony was just so wet. And finally, Jack said something to Bryony which I imagine was supposed to be sweet and romantic but came across as slightly alarming and a bit of a red flag. (view spoiler)[You might not have been dating me for the last two years, Bryony, but i've been dating you (or words to that effect). (hide spoiler)]

As above, I liked it but I didn't love it.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

View all my reviews

Review: The Death at the Vineyard

The Death at the Vineyard by Emylia Hall
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Shell House Detectives are called in to investigate the theft of quad bike by Owen Harper, oldest son and part-owner of the late Frank Harper's farm turned vineyard Shoreline Vines. Owen, his mother Ruth and younger brother Edwin, together with Edwin's wife Karensa run the vineyard together but Frank's death uncovered that the vineyard was not in a good financial state.

Just as Ally and Jayden are approaching the vineyard they see the police are already in attendance, apparently a man has been trampled to death by their neighbour's cattle which he keeps in a field he rents from the Harpers. Although the body is unrecognisable the Harpers are sure it is Russell Tremaine, the ne'er do well son of their former odd-job man, Shaun Tremaine. Their story is that Russell stole the quad bike and was coming back to see what else he could steal when he got scared, hid in the field and got trampled by the cattle.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Owen is no longer interested in finding the quad bike (although the loss of a £10,000 practically new machine must be a blow to a struggling business), but Shaun asks the Shell House Detectives to find out what really happened to his son, because he's convinced that nothing on earth would have persuaded Russell to go anywhere near cattle.

Their investigations uncover all sorts of secrets and come to a very satisfying conclusion - nice to know I was right in my suspicions!

I think this series has really hit its stride. The personal stories are advancing slowly, the characters are deepening and the investigations are more organic. I still have a soft spot for Mullins and Saffron, but he still has some developing to go.

And can I just say how much I love these covers? Honestly its what drew me to the series in the first place.

Read on my Kindle Unlimited subscription.

View all my reviews

Review: The Death at the Vineyard

The Death at the Vineyard by Emylia Hall
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Shell House Detectives are called in to investigate the theft of quad bike by Owen Harper, oldest son and part-owner of the late Frank Harper's farm turned vineyard Shoreline Vines. Owen, his mother Ruth and younger brother Edwin, together with Edwin's wife Karensa run the vineyard together but Frank's death uncovered that the vineyard was not in a good financial state.

Just as Ally and Jayden are approaching the vineyard they see the police are already in attendance, apparently a man has been trampled to death by their neighbour's cattle which he keeps in a field he rents from the Harpers. Although the body is unrecognisable the Harpers are sure it is Russell Tremaine, the ne'er do well son of their former odd-job man, Shaun Tremaine. Their story is that Russell stole the quad bike and was coming back to see what else he could steal when he got scared, hid in the field and got trampled by the cattle.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Owen is no longer interested in finding the quad bike (although the loss of a £10,000 practically new machine must be a blow to a struggling business), but Shaun asks the Shell House Detectives to find out what really happened to his son, because he's convinced that nothing on earth would have persuaded Russell to go anywhere near cattle.

Their investigations uncover all sorts of secrets and come to a very satisfying conclusion - nice to know I was right in my suspicions!

I think this series has really hit its stride. The personal stories are advancing slowly, the characters are deepening and the investigations are more organic. I still have a soft spot for Mullins and Saffron, but he still has some developing to go.

And can I just say how much I love these covers? Honestly its what drew me to the series in the first place.

Read on my Kindle Unlimited subscription.

View all my reviews

Review: Fair Play

Fair Play by Louise Hegarty
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Abigail's brother Benjamin's birthday is on New Year's Day and so, to make it special they started a tradition of booking an AirBnB stay with a group of old friends and Abigail meticulously plans a murder mystery evening, loosely based around a theme. This year things are a bit tense, Benjamin has invited his PA Barbara of all people to join them, which won't go down well with his ex-fiance Margaret. Abigail is glad that Benjamin's school friend Stephen is coming alone, his girlfriend has gone home to Poland for Christmas, because she's always harboured a bit of a crush on him. Then there's another of Benjamin's old friends Cormac, and his newish girlfriend Olivia, and finally Declan, he grew up with Abigail and Benjamin but hasn't really grown-up, Abigail understands Benjamin has had to bail him out with money more than once. So they all meet up in this big old Irish house and drink champagne and play their murder mystery, but in the morning Benjamin is found dead, locked in his room. The police believe it's suicide but Abigail is sure its murder so she hires the renowned detective Augustus Bell to discover the truth. As another reader said, so far so good, although I found the writing style of the omnipotent narrator a bit irritating.

But then, the story changes, new characters are added, the house is no longer an AirBnB but Benjamin and Abigail's family home. New information is given about each of the characters (just like in a murder mystery game). The reader gets 'treated' to tracts of rules about classical murder mysteries (many of which have been flagrantly broken time and time again). Augustus Bell himself seems to know he is a character in a book as he often informs people that something will happen later ie in chapter sixteen I will ask three of the guests to try to climb into Benjamin's window, he also refers to previous cases by the sort of name they would be given in a Golden Age mystery. I also noted a fair few references to other detectives of the Golden Age eg (Lord Peter) Wimsey and Tommy and Tuppence.

So we now have two stories running in parallel, one an homage/send-up of a Golden Age mystery with overlapping characters but different stories (eg in one story Benjamin runs the family business whereas in the other he is merely an employee at a company). The formatting of the ARC didn't help as there were asterisks cross-referencing to footnotes relating actions/characters to mystery theories but sometimes they were several pages apart.

There were also some random passages where things were repeated but altered slightly five or six times on the trot, eg Abigail's recounting of how she and Benjamin spent Christmas.

(view spoiler)[Much like a hapless Golden Age detective Bell ends up accusing pretty much each of the suspects, giving plausible motives and methods - but some of them were ludicrous - if he had been strangled even a hapless detective could have seen the ligature marks on his neck? And again, the whole 'aha, I know who did it round up the suspects' bit was repeated each time - I'm not sure if this is supposed to be one of those books where you choose your ending? (hide spoiler)]And then it just abruptly ends. No resolution of any description, people confess and then it seems Bell dismisses their confessions and accuses someone else.
This to me was just a hot mess. Some reviewers have raved about this as a study in coming to terms with loss, well I'm impressed that they found that from this hotchpotch of tales that go nowhere.

I received an ARC from the Publisher via NetGalley.

View all my reviews