As a result of genetic manipulation, Teagan has powers of telekinesis and a traumatic back story that is teased out in this enjoyable action adventure story. I don’t usually go for books with lots of ‘action’ and at times this one was too violent for my tastes, but I still really enjoyed reading it. I liked getting to know the main character as well as some of the subsidiary characters, and the plot was interesting enough to keep me hooked. There was a good balance of humour, tension and relationship stuff. It is the first book in a series, and while I didn’t love it enough to rush out and buy the rest, I have added the other books to my Wishlist so if they’re going cheep on kindle I’ll buy and read them.
When I reviewed the first Thursday Murder Club book by Richard Osman, I said that it was not what I expected, and that threw me a bit. This time around, I knew what to expect, and I had a nice warm cozy feeling upon being reacquainted with the cast of old people sleuths, a bit like getting back into a still warm bed in the night after having to get up to go to the loo (!). I actually really enjoyed listening to this story. I think the writing, which I had felt meandered a bit too much in the first book, was more focussed with better structure and the plot held together well. Once again the book was both humorous and poignant and whilst Joyce’s character is sometimes pushed a little too far into caricature, I still really felt bonded to her and a certain kinship with her!
You do have to suspend belief somewhat – I don’t think that in real life either the police or the secret services would work so closely with these amateur retirees or indeed let them take the lead so much in an investigation of murder, diamond theft and drug dealing gang wars! If you imagine The Famous Five all got old and lived in a retirement village but still had adventures and solved crimes, then this is the book you’d get.
I did really like it thought – apart from the interview at the end of the audiobook between the author and the narrator which was all ‘ I love you, you’re so great…’ ‘no, I love you more, because you’re even greater,’ ‘no you’re the best’ ‘no you are…’ and so on. Puh lease. Get a room.
I loved the first half of this book – the writing is really moody and atmospheric and I loved the mystery and the magical realism of the setting.
A boy with chronic pain is taken from hospital and left at the gates to an old house that seems to be ‘made of ash’. He is met by a child who welcomes him in. It seems that the only inhabitants of the house are all children who don’t actually live in the house but in greenhouses in the grounds.
The boy is given a new name and struggles to remember much of his life before arriving at the Ash House.
The children are secretive about some things, but tell of a benevolent headmaster who used to look after them but hasn’t been seen for three years, and a ‘doctor’ who visits but they are all afraid of.
I was disappointed by the ending of the book. The second half doesn’t really go anywhere and the denouement is very inconclusive. Hmmm.
It was interesting reading this book so soon after Exit by Belinda Bauer as both books deal with issues surrounding end of live/suicide/euthanasia. In this book a married couple, who in their fifties have to deal with the terrible decline in physical and mental health of their parents, make a pact to perform a joint suicide on their 80th birthday (or the wife’s 80th as she is a year younger than the husband).
The book then follows a ‘sliding doors’ pattern of exploring various different possibilities of how this might play out in reality – whether one or other (or both) of them pulls out of the pact, and what happens next, or what if they go through with it, or something else….
If I’d have known that this was the structure of the book, I probably wouldn’t have read it, because usually I don’t like this messing with the fourth wall type of storytelling, but actually I thought it was amazing (in a good way!).
Strangely, seeing the different possible endings of these people’s lives made me get to know them and care about them really deeply and even though I guessed how the book would end, that didn’t annoy me because it just felt so right.
This was my book group read for October and I probably wouldn’t have read it otherwise, but I’m really glad I did because I thoroughly enjoyed it. I listened to the audiobook and I thought the narrator (Alana Kerr Collins) was brilliant – lovely Irish accent and great storytelling with her voice.
The book is set during the first Covid lockdown in Dublin – just reading about the characters’ reactions to the news stories and the deaths and the regulations being imposed that we all lived through over the last 18 months was surreal – so familiar and yet so odd.
It’s a murder mystery with lots of layers and twists and turns and interesting motivations and traumatic backstories. It kept me guessing for a while and I found the ending satisfying.
I thought this book was great. It has a sort of lighthearted murder mystery feel and yet it deal with such deep and profound issues as well. Felix lost his wife to a debilitating illness, and with hindsight wished he could have ended her suffering sooner. This motivates him to join a group who ‘help’ terminally ill people to end their own lives with simple dignity and without family members and, more crucially sometimes, insurers, from knowing.
When Felix learns that he accidentally ‘helped’ the wrong person and a murder investigation is opened his life starts to unravel. He is no murderer, and he is torn between going to the police and confessing, and following up himself on a few things that make him suspicious of the whole set up.
I loved the characters in the book, and the moral dilemmas and the mystery as it unfolded was interesting.
It took me a while to warm to this third installment in the quantum curators parallel universe series. Book one was exciting as it was set in our world with the protagonist learning about the parallel universe and meeting people from it, and book two was exciting because he had to come to terms with being stuck in the parallel world and learn how to cope with all the differences, so book three was like, yeah, still here…
But, once the plot got going with the ‘real’ personifications of mythological people popping up and causing havoc things got more exciting and I did get into the book and really enjoy it.
In this installment of The Last Dragonslayer series, trolls are invading the ununited kingdoms and there is little hope for the survival of humans against their endless numbers and merciless killing. As is usual for Jasper FForde, there is a lot of humour as well as pathos and thought provoking stuff and wonderful character development. Gentle fun is poked at many fairy tale tropes (like arrogant handsome princes expecting the princesses to swoon at their derring do etc.) . This is supposed to be the final book in the series, and we do get to learn some of the secrets of Jennifer Strange’s backstory, but I can’t help hoping that Jasper Fforde decides to keep the story going (I’m still desperately hoping for the promised sequel to Shades of Grey thought, so, whatever…)
I found this book quite a hard read for a couple of reasons. It seemed long, with a lot of characters and quite a lot of history, politics and war stuff which is not really my bag. That was one reason it was a hard read – the other was the sadness and brutality it conveyed.
Set in the Ottoman Empire in the time leading up to and passing the first world war, at the start of the book , the inhabitants of a village in Turkey live together as friends and neighbours even though they are a mixture of ethnicities, nationalities and religions.
As world political events unfold, this peace is shattered and former friends are torn apart by the cruelties of war.
There are lighter moments and lots of getting to know diverse characters, but it is still, I think a pretty heavy book. I loved Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, and some people say this is a more accomplished book, and maybe it is, but for me it was a less enjoyable read.
I mostly enjoyed this audiobook. At times it seemed very long and went into so many characters’ backstories that I just wished it would get on with the plot (although, saying that, when it got to the denouement, all that extra detail did actually enrich the reveal and make the ending more satisfying).
The dual stories surround two women – one a modern actor portraying an historical figure of a female pilot from the early twentieth century, and the other, the character she is portraying.
Most of the book deals with the historical character, delving into her family history as well as her childhood and whole life story really, for which I’m glad because her story was more interesting and engaging than that of the actor.
The contemporary character does however serve to illustrate that todays women still experience at least some of the unfairness that females have battled with throughout history. The pilot had to dress as a boy in her youth to be allowed to do jobs that were considered unsuitable for girls, and the actor suffered from being judged more harshly than her male co-star on social media , as well as being expected to accept sexual harassment (at least earlier in her career) in order to get roles.
The stuff about planes and flying was quite interesting, as well as the mystery element of what happened to the pilot when she and her plane disappeared.
I listened to some of this book on my holiday in Wales whilst running in the early mornings beside the beautiful Caernarfon Harbour which was lovely!
Sarah Wray Writer 