Tag: fiction

Review: The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy

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Happy Halloween everyone!

This year seems to be really flying in. As it is Halloween I thought it was the perfect opportunity to share my review of one of my favourite reads from the last couple of weeks, The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen. It’s You’ve Got Mail but with zombies, well kind of. There’s an enemies to lovers, grumpy sunshine type romance at the centre with a truly unique world and some wonderful secondary characters.

What’s the story…

Hart is a marshal, tasked with patrolling the strange and magical wilds of Tanria. It’s an unforgiving job, and Hart’s got nothing but time to ponder his loneliness.

Mercy never has a moment to herself. She’s been single-handedly keeping Birdsall & Son Undertakers afloat in defiance of sullen jerks like Hart, who seems to have a gift for showing up right when her patience is thinnest.

After yet another exasperating run-in with Mercy, Hart finds himself penning a letter addressed simply to “A Friend”. Much to his surprise, an anonymous letter comes back in return, and a tentative friendship is born.

If only Hart knew he’s been baring his soul to the person who infuriates him most – Mercy. As the dangers from Tanria grow closer, so do the unlikely correspondents. But can their blossoming romance survive the fated discovery that their pen pals are their worst nightmares – each other?

My thoughts

I really, really liked this book. I was very tempted to give it 5 stars based on the ending but I don’t think I can quite justify a perfect rating. It did come very close though as it has all the things I love in a fantasy romance.

I originally spied this on booktok and just loved the sound of it. It’s very much based on the movie You’ve Got Mail with a fantasy twist. Some of the scenes and plot lines could have been almost lifted directly from the film. I just love the whole enemies to lovers thing so it was right up my street. I loved that they hated each other and couldn’t have a single civil conversation but formed such a true connection through their letters.

I liked Mercy a lot but I think I loved Hart the most. He is the grump in this grumpy sunshine relationship but it’s largely surface grumpiness driven by grief, loneliness and fear. Underneath it all he’s a big marshmallow. I really wanted to give him a hug (even though he’d hate it).

Mercy was much more open, upbeat and positive but still a little bit lonely and isolated and carrying so much responsibility with no one to lean on or confide in. Basically they were perfect for each other but were completely clueless. I adored the letters they sent each other. I could very happily have read more of them but I guess then I would have missed out on the fun of the other relationships and secondary characters.

The other characters were for the most part equally lovable (there are a couple of villains in there) and I loved the relationships between them. Highlights for me were Mercy’s sister Lil who is not afraid to speak her mind and is pretty bad ass and the relationship between Hart and apprentice Duckers. The teasing is a lot of fun and it was great to see Hart lightening up and also opening up.

My only slight niggle and the reason I don’t think I can quite give 5 stars is the world building. I do think the world the author has created is wonderful. It’s clear a lot of thought has gone into it and it’s really original. The problem I had is that it was probably too original and there was just too much going on and not all of it was really explained or described.

There are a lot of place names, a whole religion and belief system and a lot of new words and language. Forms of transport, days of the week all seem to have these different words and there are certain things that I never really understood what they were and couldn’t picture.

The story is however strong enough that I could skim over these without it affecting my enjoyment too much. I do think it would have been better if kept a little simpler.

Overall though a very enjoyable read and one I’d definitely recommend

4.5 of 5 stars

Review – Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney

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Happy Sunday all,

I hope you’ve been having a great day. The weather here has not been great this weekend so while I did manage to get out for a nice long walk this morning I’ve had some time to catch up on my reading and write up some reviews (I am very, very behind on my reviews). Today I thought I’d share my review of the brilliant Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney, I noticed it was a kindle daily deal today and it’s set at Halloween so seemed appropriate. I read this a few months ago and absolutely loved it. I think I can safely say it’ll make my list of favourite books this year.

So what’s the story…

Daisy Darker’s family were as dark as dark can be, when one of them died all of them lied and pretended not to see . . .

Daisy Darker is arriving at her grandmother’s house for her eightieth birthday. It is Halloween, and Seaglass – the crumbling Cornish house perched upon its own tiny private island – is at one with the granite rocks it sits on. The Darker family haven’t all been in the same place for over a decade, and when the tide comes in they’ll be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours. When the tide goes back out, nothing will ever be the same again, because one of them is a killer . . .

My thoughts

Wow, wow, wow!!! I’m a big fan of Feeney’s writing so had high expectations of this book but this absolutely blew me away. It’s one of those books that’s going to be buzzing around my head for a while which is quite an achievement considering how common the storyline is.

Like an awful lot of other books that seem to be around at the moment (or possibly it’s just me reading these kinds of stories) this has an And Then There Were None feel to it. A group of people, a family this time, go to a remote location for a celebration but one by one they end up dead. Has someone else snuck in or is there a killer in their midst.

I absolutely love these kind of stories and Feeney really does it so well. It seems to be a pretty common theme at the moment but somehow the author makes it very much her own. Her writing is brilliant and I found myself constantly highlighting sentences or paragraphs that I absolutely loved or that rang true to me.

There’s a very limited cast of characters in this story, Nana whose birthday they are there to celebrate, her son and his ex wife Nancy, their 3 daughters, Rose, Lily and Daisy and Lily’s daughter Trixie. As you can probably guess from the title the whole story is told by Daisy, the youngest granddaughter and the only one who seems to actually like Nana.

Daisy is, in fact, one of the few characters in this story who is in any way likeable and even then I had my doubts about how reliable a narrator she was. Almost every character in this story is horrible in one way or another. Vain, selfish, manipulative, greedy or cold, this is not a happy or loving family by any stretch of the imagination.

Ostensibly they’re there to celebrate nana’s 80th birthday but as nana believes she may not live much longer they’re really there to find out what’s in her will and they are really not happy when they discover exactly what they’re getting. When the clock strikes midnight one of them is found dead, and then another an hour later. It seems clear there’s a murderer in their midst.

I absolutely loved the way the author made this book so unique. Nana wrote children’s books and rhymes so there are grisly little poems scattered throughout signalling each characters fate. I also loved the way we learn more of the family’s backstory, and how the relationships between them broke down, through both Daisy’s memories and also through the home movies someone is leaving for them with cryptic notes attached. It really brought each of the characters to life in all of their horrible glory.

If I had one criticism of this book it’s that I found my attention wandering a little around the halfway point. I think the characters were just so unlikeable it was difficult to be overly concerned about who would be next (or why someone was killing them). The story became a little repetitive, the remaining characters would reminisce about an event 20 years ago, then one would die, they’d watch a home movie, another would die and so on. It was difficult to see how the author could build the tension back up for the big finish.

However, when the big reveal came it blew everything out of the water. I had an inkling of who was behind it and I was partially right but also completely wrong. No spoilers but the ending of this story was brilliant and completely made up for the niggles I had along the way.

Overall, this was brilliant and unexpected and I feel like I want to read it all over again. Definitely one I’d recommend.

Thanks to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an advance copy. This has in no way influenced my review.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Review: One Summer in Paris by Sarah Morgan

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One Summer In Paris by Sarah Morgan

Yet another wonderful story from one of my favourite authors. Emotional and addictive I very much enjoyed this story of an unlikely friendship.

THE BLURB

One charming bookshop, two unlikely friends, and a summer in Paris that will change their lives forever…

Grace can’t believe it when her husband of twenty-five years announces he doesn’t want to join her on their anniversary trip to Paris – instead, he wants a divorce. Reeling from the shock, Grace makes the bold decision to go on this holiday of a lifetime alone.

Audrey leaves behind heartache of her own when she arrives in Paris. A job in a bookshop is her ticket to freedom, but with no knowledge of the French language, her summer adventure seems doomed to fail. Until she meets Grace, and everything changes…

Living in neighbouring apartments above the bookshop, Grace and Audrey form an unlikely friendship. They came to Paris to find themselves, but finding each other might be the best thing that’s ever happened to them.

MY REVIEW

I love Sarah Morgan’s books, I love Paris and I love stories about friendship so it seemed pretty certain I was going to love this book, and for the most part I did. As always the writing is wonderful, the characters likeable (or at least the ones you’re supposed to like) and it’s very easy to become immersed in both the story and the setting. In fact I became so immersed in it that yet again I devoured the whole thing in an afternoon as I just couldn’t stop reading.

The story itself follows, and is told from the pov of, two very different women, Grace and Audrey. Grace is approaching middle aged and happily married with a teenage daughter who is about the fly the nest when all of a sudden her marriage falls apart and she’s left facing a future on her own. Audrey is a teenager, with a troubled home life who can’t wait to make her escape. They both end up in Paris alone, but a chance encounter results in an unlikely friendship between them as they discover they have more in common than they thought.

I’m not always sure about books told from multiple pov’s (I prefer to stick with one character) but I thought it worked incredibly well in this book. Grace and Audrey have very distinctive voices and I was impressed with how convincingly the author wrote from Audrey’s perspective in particular (although not being a teenager myself I can’t really speak to authenticity). Both characters were likeable and even though I didn’t initially connect with either one they really grew on me and I definitely became emotionally invested in their stories (yep Morgan made me cry again).

The story is a little heavier than many of the author’s previous books and deals with some serious issues making it an emotional read but as well as the tears there are a few laughs too and overall it has quite a hopeful and positive feel to it. There is a little bit of romance for both women but while it is quite sweet it’s very definitely secondary to the friendship that develops between them. They seem like such a mismatched pair but each is exactly what the other needs in their life at that point and watching them grow to trust and support each other was wonderful. It also makes a nice change to read a book about female friendship.

If I had one criticism of this book however it’s that I felt it didn’t make the most of the Paris setting. There are various places mentioned but a lot of the story takes place within the bookshop or in the hotel. I mean I’m not going to complain about a bookshop setting but it would have been nice to see them venture out a little more and to bring in more of the French culture and way of life.

Overall though, this is yet another wonderful story from Morgan.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an advance copy of this book. This has in no way influenced my review.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Scandal by Fredrik Backman

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The ScandalThe Scandal by Fredrik Backman

My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

Wow… This book was not at all what I was expecting, I actually put off reading it because I didn’t think it’d be my thing but…. wow.

Brilliant, powerful, atmospheric, frustrating, emotional, hopeful, beautiful and cold. The writing in this book is incredible, I think I ended up highlighting most of the book.

The Blurb

‘Late one evening towards the end of March, a teenager picked up a double-barrelled shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else’s forehead and pulled the trigger. This is the story of how we got there.’ 

Beartown is a small town in a large Swedish forest.

For most of the year it is under a thick blanket of snow, experiencing the kind of cold and dark that brings people closer together – or pulls them apart.

Its isolation means that Beartown has been slowly shrinking with each passing year. But now the town is on the verge of an astonishing revival. Everyone can feel the excitement. Change is in the air and a bright new future is just around the corner.

Until the day it is all put in jeopardy by a single, brutal act. It divides the town into those who think it should be hushed up and forgotten, and those who’ll risk the future to see justice done. At last, it falls to one young man to find the courage to speak the truth that it seems no one else wants to hear.

No one can stand by or stay silent. You’re on one side or another.

Which side will you find yourself on?

My Review

I have to admit I kind of wish they’d kept the title of this book as Beartown rather than The Scandal for the UK market as this story is about so much more than one event, it’s the story of a town, of a community. Yes there is a scandal (although I personally think that’s the wrong word to describe what happens) but really it’s about the environment that allowed such a thing to happen and the reaction of the residents and neighbours when it does.

It’s about a community that’s slowly being destroyed and has one final hope, one last chance, one thing they can be proud of and how they’ll go to any lengths to protect it. It’s about belief, faith, determination, hope and bravery but also about divisions in class and status, despair, grudges and inequality. It’s also about ice hockey, which may be only a game, but for the residents of Beartown hockey is everything. It both unites them and divides them. It’s their one final hope to save a town in the middle of nowhere which is slowly disappearing.

It’s only a game. It only resolves tiny, insignificant things. Such as who gets validation. Who gets listened to. It allocates power and draws boundaries and turns some people into stars and others into spectators. That’s all.

I have to confess I know very little about hockey but for this story you could just as easily substitute in any sport as it’s more about the relationship between the sport and the town, although I suspect hockey was picked because it’s such a hard and violent sport (much like Beartown). Everyone has their hopes pinned on the junior team winning but they all have very different reasons for it. Some see it as a business opportunity, some a chance to escape and move up in the world and some just see it as proof that their town can still win at something.

It’s a very insular community. Small, isolated and fiercely proud of who they are. They have their own hierarchy, rules and beliefs all based around hockey. The more you can do for the team, the more power you have and the more you can get away with. The town is pretty much run by the best players and the sponsors but it’s unwise to ignore the hardcore working class fans either who feel the team belongs to them. Incomers, who don’t know the rules or have the same beliefs aren’t welcome. It’s very old fashioned, with only men allowed to play or even like hockey and the women expected to stay at home and support them. Everything is cold and hard and at times the whole story feels very claustrophobic, particularly when you see how everyone can turn on whoever falls out of line.

There aren’t really any main characters in this story but rather it’s told from multiple perspectives all of the time, jumping from one person to the next every page or two or sometimes every few paragraphs. These multiple view points and swift changes between them make it feel very episodic. I will admit I found it a little confusing in the beginning but it is brilliantly done and really gives you a feel for every aspect of the story. You’re very much in each and every moment and with every character and every single thing that happens feels completely real.

As you would expect there are some characters that are more likeable than others but as with all great stories I found my feelings towards them changing throughout as they developed and we found out more about them. A character I felt sorry for in the beginning turned out to be not very nice and one who didn’t really register, I kind of fell in love with by the end.

The story is slow, particularly in the beginning, but it’s captivating. The writing is beautiful and I found myself taking my time just to enjoy it. The author has such a wonderful way of capturing thoughts and beliefs. I always highlight sentences I like or that speak to me in some way as I read but had to stop myself from just highlighting everything it’s soo good.

I will say that I did find it frustrating in places, there are so many hints of what’s to come it began to drive me crazy, but it was literally impossible to put down. I read the majority of it in a day and this was while I was in the midst of a reading slump. I do think there was a little bit of the emotion missing, it didn’t stay in one place long enough, but it is a truly brilliant book.

I do feel like I have to add that there are a few events which may be triggers (I won’t put details here but happy to discuss in comments) but they are all handled with real sensitivity by the author.

Overall, this is definitely a book I’d recommend even if like me you’ve been put off by the idea of a book about hockey.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book. As always all thoughts are my own.

 

Review: Ginny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig

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Ginny MoonGinny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig

My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

Completely original, compelling and a little bit heartbreaking this is an incredible debut novel from Benjamin Ludwig. It’s not my usual type of read and I didn’t expect to love it but I totally did.

Definitely not tedious.

Synopsis

Meet Ginny. She’s fourteen, autistic, and has a heart-breaking secret…

‘Brilliant’ – Graeme Simison, author of The Rosie Project

Ginny Moon is trying to make sense of a world that just doesn’t seem to add up….

After years in foster care, Ginny is in her fourth forever family, finally with parents who will love her.

Everyone tells her that she should feel happy, but she has never stopped crafting her Big Secret Plan of Escape.

Because something happened, a long time ago – something that only Ginny knows – and nothing will stop her going back to put it right…

A fiercely poignant and inspirational story a lost girl searching for a place to call home. Ginny Moon will change everyone who spends time with her.

Thoughts

They like you, Ginny, and believe me, it’s hard to find people like that. It’s much easier to love someone than it is to like them.

Let me just start by saying that I’m completely in awe of anyone who cares for an autistic child and having read Ginny Moon I’m now even more in awe. I have to admit that it’s not something I know a lot about as I don’t really have anyone in my life who’s autistic but this definitely opened my eyes. The whole story is told from inside Ginny’s head giving a completely unique and fascinating view of what it’s like to have a brain that just doesn’t quite work the same way as everyone else’s. It’s compelling, frustrating, amusing, touching and emotional. Once I started reading I literally couldn’t stop.

Ginny is an absolutely fabulous character and I couldn’t help but love her, even though she drove me and everyone around her crazy at times. She is completely single minded and once she’s on a path there is absolutely no way you’ll change her mind. She takes everything literally and picks up the most bizarre words and phrases from those around her. I found myself laughing at some of the things that come out of her mouth one minute and being so incredibly frustrated the next that I wanted to shake her.

Ginny was brought up in an abusive home (trigger warning: there are some disturbing scenes) but despite being in her newest forever home she can’t let go of the past and is determined to escape and find her birth mother Gloria who she hopes has her baby doll. I felt so sorry for her adopted parents Brian and Maura and I could feel their frustrations that they want to give her a stable and loving home but she seems determined to leave. While Ginny is unable to interpret their emotions and reactions the author still managed to transfer them to the reader through her observations, something I thought was incredibly well done.

There were more than a few occasions where I felt like crying or shouting because Ginny just doesn’t see what she’s doing to those around her. Her aunt “Crystal with a C” in particular really got to me. Her guilt, frustration and just desperation to do the right thing was a little bit heartbreaking.

I have to confess that I was surprised the story held my attention the way that it did. It’s not my usual type of read and I would stop every so often and think “I don’t know where this can possibly go” and “I’m not sure how the author can keep this level of engagement and intensity for the remaining x number of pages” but somehow he did. I found myself unable to put it down and even when I wasn’t reading it I was thinking about it or talking about it.

It’s not a perfect book, there are elements that are a little unbelievable, but I definitely think it’s a worthwhile read for everyone. There aren’t anywhere near enough characters like Ginny in books and it gives a real insight and unique perspective to their everyday lives and thoughts as well as those around them.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review and apologies for taking so long to read it.

Review: And I Darken by Kiersten White

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And I Darken (The Conqueror's Saga, #1)And I Darken by Kiersten White

My rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

When I originally read the blurb for this I immediately thought “must read”. Seriously, gender switching Vlad the Impaler story, how could I resist….and then I saw some of the reviews which weren’t exactly glowing and it gave me pause. Thankfully I trusted my initial instincts and I’m so glad I did as this book is absolutely brilliant.

It’s packed full of action, political maneuvering and intrigue and has some incredible world building and a strong female main character. I can’t wait for the rest of the series.

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Review: Blacklist by Alyson Noel

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Blacklist (Beautiful Idols #2)Blacklist by Alyson Noel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Blacklist, the second book in Alyson Noel’s Beautiful Idol’s series is even more addictive than the first. It’s a fast paced and enjoyable read and there are plenty of reveals and twists to keep you hooked. With another cliffhanger ending I will definitely be looking out for the third and final book in this trilogy.

Note as this is the second in the series there are some spoilers for the first book.

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