Blog Tour Review: The Dead Ex by Jane Corry

The Dead Ex by Jane Corry

Published: 28th June 2018

Publisher: Penguin- Viking

Pages: 422

Available in Paperback and on Kindle

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Rating: 5/5

Blurb

'I wish he'd just DIE.'
Vicki's husband David once promised to love her in sickness and in health. But after a brutal attack left her suffering with epilepsy, he ran away with his mistress.

So when Vicki gets a call one day to say that he's missing, her first thought is 'good riddance'. But then the police find evidence suggesting that David is dead. And they think Vicki had something to do with it.

What really happened on the night of David's disappearance?
And how can Vicki prove her innocence, when she's not even sure of it herself?

Review

I have loved Jane Corry’s previous two novels and was expecting great things from her third The Dead Ex, I was not disappointed it was another example of gripping twisty story-telling where you never really know what’s going on until the very last page.

Vicki’s ex husband David is missing. After he left her three years ago for his mistress, following a brutal attack leaving her with epilepsy Vicki has had very little to do with David. But the police think David’s dead and they think Vicki knows something about it. Vicki’s almost certain she’s not involved but when the evidence starts to mount up against her Vicki needs to convince the police and herself that she really is innocent.

Scarlet is eight years old and has just watched her mother being arrested by the police and taken away from her. She’s put into foster care where she rejects any form of support from her foster parents preferring instead to still follow suggestions from her mother in prison.

These were two very different narratives and I wasn’t sure how they would merge together to form one story; Vicki’s narrative is also split between the present and the past where we learn about her relationship with David and the lead up to her attack. When they do come together its brilliant and results in a very clever ending.

Vicki’s a character whom you want to believe is innocent and trustworthy but all they way through the book I had that niggling feeling that something wasn’t quite right with her. I love Jane Corry’s writing for creating characters which give me this feeling, it’s fantastic to read.

Each chapter in this book has been cleverly crafted to give more insight and more doubt into each of the characters and I loved how each chapter we’re left wondering with a cliff-hanger ending.

This is an utterly gripping novel which I couldn’t put down, I love how all the different strands weave together to form an intense and unexpected story. I highly recommend this to anyone who loves a good thriller, it’s my book of the year so far.

Thank you so much to Penguin for sending me a copy to review and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

Blog Tour Review: Do Not Become Alarmed by Maile Meloy

Do Not Become Alarmed by Maile Meloy,

Published: 6th July 2017

Publisher: Penguin Viking

Pages: 352

Available in Paperback and on Kindle

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Rating: 3/5

Blurb

When Liv and Nora decide to take their husbands and children on a holiday cruise, everyone is thrilled. The ship's comforts and possibilities seem infinite. But when they all go ashore in beautiful Central America, a series of minor mishaps lead the families further from the ship's safety.
One minute the children are there, and the next they're gone.
What follows is a heart-racing story told from the perspectives of the adults and the children, as the distraught parents - now turning on one another and blaming themselves - try to recover their children and their shattered lives.

Review

From the title Do Not Become Alarmed I was expecting this book to be full of suspense and very gripping, sadly I found it unconvincing and in places boring.

After Nora loses her mother best friend Liv decides the best thing for both families is to take a vacation for Christmas and so a cruise around South America is booked. One aboard the two families begin to relax and enjoy their holiday. Everything is perfect until Nora and Liv decide to take the children on an expedition with tour guide Pedro and leave the husbands to play golf. The trip does not go well, after their jeep breaks down they are left stranded. Pedro guides them to a secluded beach where the children play and the women relax and take their focus off the children. Nora goes off with Pedro to look at the birds while Liv falls asleep after too much cocktail. When Nora and Pedro return all they find is Liv asleep and no children.  What follows is a frantic search to find the children before something bad happen to them.

What I was expecting from this novel was an emotional read where the parents become distraught because the children have vanished from the ship, but the whole beach scene left me unconvinced, how exactly can six children disappear from the view of four adults? To me the parents just didn’t seem as alarmed as I would have been in a similar situation. I was expecting guilt, especially from Nora and Liv, anger from the husbands and tears from everyone, but everything they did felt a little flat.

What made this book better for me was the children, their story was far more interesting, gripping and even had a sinister note to it.  I also found their personalities much more engaging especially Penny and Isabel. I loved the way Penny took “charge” and looked after everyone especially her brother Sebastian who has diabetes and became ill.

There were one or two threads in the book which left me confused, like the story of little Noemi, I’m not sure how this really fitted into the story and if it really added anything.

I found Do Not Become Alarmed a completely different story to what I was expecting, it was darker featuring much more of the underground criminal scene of South America including drug trafficking and murder. This gave the book a sinister tone in places but for me something was missing and it wasn’t as gripping as a thriller should be.

Thank you to Penguin Viking for sending me a copy to review and for inviting me on this blog tour.

Blog Tour Review: Blood Sisters by Jane Corry

Blood Sisters by Jane Corry

Published: 29th June 2017

Publisher: Penguin Viking

Pages: 464

Available on Kindle and in Paperback

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Rating: 4/5

Blurb

Two women. Two versions of the truth.
Kitty lives in a care home. She can't speak properly, and she has no memory of the accident that put her here. At least that's the story she's sticking to.
Art teacher Alison looks fine on the surface. But the surface is a lie. When a job in a prison comes up she decides to take it - this is her chance to finally make things right.
But someone is watching Kitty and Alison.
Someone who wants revenge for what happened that sunny morning in May.
And only another life will do...

Review

Jane Corry’s debut thriller My Husband’s Wife was one of my favourite books of last year, it was a book full of twists, turns and intense relationships. I found Blood Sisters a good follow up but I did enjoy My Husband’s Wife more.

Blood Sisters is a book which is sure to catch your attention with the tagline: Three little girls. One good. One bad. One Dead. It is a book which had me curious from the start and as I read it was a book that filled me with a sense of uneasy dread that made it hard to put down.

The story starts with Alison an art teacher working in an adult community college teaching stained glass window making. She lives alone and it’s soon very obvious she’s not a happy individual, mainly because she has been using pieces of broken glass to cut herself. Alison seems to have no close bonds with anyone and appears to be living a life of depravity almost. When she takes the job in the prison it’s almost as if she believes she should be locked up herself. I found her a very hard character to like but was intrigued as to what had happened to her to make her so shut away from life.

We then meet Kitty who is mentally and physically disabled, has suffered memory loss and is living in a care-home, she is unable to talk clearly and all her carers can hear is incoherent babbling. Kitty communicates to her carers with head movements which often get misinterpreted but what I found the most interesting was that Corry has given the readers a chance to hear the voice of Kitty and this is something which works very well. Kitty’s voice comes from her internal thoughts and from these we learn that Kitty is quite a character with a very sarcastic temperament. What Kitty wants to know most of all is how she became like she is and as the story develops it clear that she too is hiding things.

I think Jane Corry has been very clever with the way she has written Kitty’s character, never before have I read a book where a mentally ill person has been given their own voice. I found Kitty a fascinating character and was surprised how much I like her. I do think certain events that happened to her were a little unrealistic though.

Blood Sisters is a book about the relationship between sisters and I think Corry has done a good job of exploring this dynamic and what it really means. It was a novel which I found quite intense at times and had a chilling feeling about the whole book, I wouldn’t recommend reading on your own as certain parts made me jumpy. One thing which lessened the intensity for me was everything seemed a little too coincidental and this took away from the shock factor for me. I also found the very end was a little predictable but was perhaps the best way to end Alison and Kitty’s story.

I enjoyed reading Jane Corry’s second novel, her ability to right about complex relationships comes through in Blood Sisters and she has not lost that ability to feel uneasy while reading something. I’m looking forward to seeing what she writes next.

Thank you to Penguin Viking for sending me a copy to review and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

Blog Tour Review: All the Good Things by Clare Fisher

All the Good Things by Clare Fisher

Published: 1st June 2017

Publisher: Penguin Viking

Pages: 228

Available in Hardback and on Kindle

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Rating: 4/5

Blurb

Twenty-one year old Beth is in prison. The thing she did is so bad she doesn't deserve to ever feel good again.

But her counsellor, Erika, won't give up on her. She asks Beth to make a list of all the good things in her life. So Beth starts to write down her story, from sharing silences with Foster Dad No. 1, to flirting in the Odeon on Orange Wednesdays, to the very first time she sniffed her baby's head.

But at the end of her story, Beth must confront the bad thing.

What is the truth hiding behind her crime? And does anyone-even a 100% bad person-deserve a chance to be good?

Review

Twenty-one year old Bethany Mitchell is in prison for doing a bad thing. She’s given up on herself but prison therapist Erika will not. She gives Beth a notebook to write down all the good things in her life, Beth initially believes there will not be any good things as the bad thing she has done has eaten away at her. But as Beth goes back over her life she finds plenty of good things and begins to realise that maybe what she did was not completely bad and that she may not be 100% to blame.

It is pretty obvious from the start what the bad thing was that Beth did but as the story unfolds and we learn more about her it’s impossible not to feel your heart break for Beth she’s not a bad person she’s just had a bad life and has reached a point where she’s so overwhelmed she snaps.

This was a very emotional read which examines the important question of does doing a “bad thing” makes us a “bad person”. As Clare Fisher has brilliantly examined in this novel events cannot be perceived in just black or white and most human experiences are covered by a grey area which can be interpreted differently depending on circumstances.

I found Beth and her story fascinating, she has been consistently let down all her life and every time she gets a glimmer of a better life it seems to be snatched away from her just as she seems to feel happy and yet she keeps going trying to do the best she can in her lonely and poor state.

Despite this being a short novel it’s full of emotion right from the start and will probably end with you in tears. It’s not all sadness though and some of my favourite parts are when Beth works at the Odeon with Chantelle and the Chuckle Sisters when we see Beth at her best as a young girl just trying to have a little fun.

Well done to Clare Fisher for a very moving and relevant debut, I look forward to seeing what she writes next.

Thank you to Penguin Viking for sending a copy of All the Good Things and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.