Veronika Jordan's Blog, page 108

The Vow by Debbie Howells

Everything was perfect. And then her fiance disappeared…

Two weeks before her wedding, a stranger stops Amy in the street and warns her she’s in danger. Then that night, Matt, her fiancé, doesn’t come home. Desperate, Amy calls the police – but when Matt fails to emerge, she’s forced to call off her wedding day. Then another man is reported missing, by a woman called Fiona – a man meeting Matt’s description, who was about to leave his fiancée for her. He was supposed to be moving in with her – but instead, he’s vanished.

Amy refuses to believe Fiona’s lover can be her Matt – but photos prove otherwise, and it soon becomes clear that Matt has been leading a double life. As the police dig deeper, two conflicting, yet equally plausible stories emerge from two women who allegedly have never met. The wedding day never happened. But the funeral might.

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My Review

This was a riveting read, building and building with more and more secrets and lies. Told from the point of view of Amy, Fiona, and Amy’s daughter Jess, it’s hard to know who is lying.

As more information comes to light, we jump back to 1996 when the tragic death of teenager Kimberley, followed by the suicide of her boyfriend Charlie, is revealed. Are they connected and if so how?

The plot is very clever, though about two-thirds of the way through I guessed one particular connection,  but I couldn’t be sure so it didn’t spoil it for me at all. My main gripe is with the police questioning. I thought they were very hard on Amy and some things I questioned as to whether they would really say or do that. Also I don’t believe in coincidences and surely they must have realised certain things were linked. It took Jess to discover a lot of information that the police failed to find. In this day and age it should have been easy or maybe they just just didn’t look hard enough.

The idea of having two female protagonists (three if you count Jess who really is the stand-out hero) made this different from other psychological thrillers I have read in recent years (and I have read a LOT). Certainly an exciting and entertaining novel.

Many thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

About the Author

Debbie Howells is a florist and lives with her family and assorted animals in Sussex. She is the author of The Bones of You and The Beauty of the End. Her latest novel is The Vow.

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The Truants by Kate Weinberg

#TheTruants @kateweinberg @BloomsburyBooks

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Jess Walker, middle child of a middle-class family, has perfected the art of vanishing in plain sight. But when she arrives at a concrete university campus under flat, grey, East Anglian skies, her world flares with colour.

Drawn into a tightly-knit group of rule breakers – led by their maverick teacher, Lorna Clay – Jess begins to experiment with a new version of herself. But the dynamic between the friends begins to darken as they share secrets, lovers and finally a tragedy. Soon Jess is thrown up against the question she fears most: what is the true cost of an extraordinary life?

Goodreads

In this seductive coming-of-age debut, Jess Walker, a young and uninitiated first year student, falls in love with two great story-tellers. One, Alec, a journalist in exile, the other, Lorna, a charismatic literature professor. Starting out under the flat grey skies of an East Anglian University campus and ending up on an idyllic Mediterranean island, The Truants is about a group of clever and eccentric misfits who yearn to break the rules. As Jess’ experience of infatuation and betrayal, disappearance and loss gives way to a breathless search for the truth, she finds herself detective in a twisted crime of the heart. Unsettling, challenging, surprisingly funny and beautifully written, The Truants is a compulsively readable literary debut with a twist – and a dead body to boot.

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Many thanks to @annecater for letting me be part of #RandomThingsTours

My Review

The Truants is about a group of clever and eccentric misfits who yearn to break the rules….

I think it’s more that this is how they see themselves than how it really is. None of them is particularly eccentric (maybe misfits), just a group of students trying a bit too hard to be ‘extraordinary’. But that’s the whole point. Jess is our narrator, looking back from six years in the future. She is an undoubtedly a clever but rather ordinary student who has just started at the University of East Anglia. The middle daughter of middle-class parents she feels her creativity is being stifled and has chosen this particular university in order to follow her idol Lorna Clay – author of a book called The Truants, a book about being ‘extraordinary’. Failing to get into the lectures she wants, she is put into Clay’s talks and discussions on Agatha Christie. Jess is fascinated by the time when Agatha herself disappeared, having discovered her husband’s infidelity.

Actually, by early on I already liked Jess (in spite of her being naïve, ambitious, somewhat pretentious and ultimately foolish – but who wasn’t all these things at 18?), but I didn’t warm so much to Lorna Clay. Eccentric, glamorous and electrifying, students are drawn to her like a moth to a flame. She has her obvious favourites and her conduct around them seems somewhat unprofessional – like something you would have seen in the 1960s. Jess is frequently warned not to trust her and told she is dangerous, but at 18 Jess is attracted to danger.

Jess soon befriends Georgie, daughter of a very wealthy family. She is everything Jess is not. Voluptuous, attractive and fun-loving but unstable and hooked on drugs and alcohol, this is a girl who knows how to party. Then Georgie gets involved with the handsome, hearse-driving Alec, a South African reporter, a few years older and also the object of Jess’s desire. Alec is infinitely more dangerous than lovely Nick who Jess is having a relationship with and it is at this point that things start to spiral out of control.

That’s when it all gets messy and everyone’s lives become entangled and the lies and secrets start to come out. Is this a ménage à quatre or a ménage à cinq?

In fact, the second half of the book was much more exciting than the first, moving at a faster pace and revealing more and more about the characters. Is Jess an unreliable narrator? No, I don’t think so. I think looking back six years later, she simply sees how they were all, including herself – particularly herself – taken in spectacularly by both Lorna and Alec.

I loved this book. It’s beautifully written, the story unfolding gently, teasing the reader with titbits here and there. I would have maybe liked to see Jess’s point of view from more than six years later. I wonder how she would feel about it all when she is say 40 years old. Would she see it as a rather silly time in their lives and laugh at how naïve they were? Probably not as some of the events that took place were sad and tragic. But I think she and Georgie could still be friends. I wonder what you think.

About the author

Kate Weinberg was born and lives in London. She studied English at Oxford and creative writing in East Anglia. She has worked as a slush pile reader, a bookshop assistant, a journalist and a ghost writer. The Truants is her first novel.

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PHOTO CREDIT: James Rawlings

My Top 8 Books of 2020 so far

According to Goodreads I have already read 53 books this year and it’s only part way through June. But here is a list of my favourite eight books so far. I have tried to include a number of first time authors as well as established authors. They are in no particular order:

Dreamland by Nancy Bilyeau

I just loved this book. It’s 1911 and Peggy Battenberg works in the Moonrise Bookstore in New York. But Peggy is no ordinary shop girl. She’s an heiress belonging to one of the countries richest Jewish families. Then one day, while making martinis for an eminent – if rather salacious author – and his agent, Peggy is dragged away by her Uncle David to spend the summer in New York’s illustrious and hedonistic Coney Island with her extended family.

For my full review click here…

The Illustrated Child by Polly Crosby

This book is so beautiful and sad, words cannot give it justice. Yes it’s slow at times – especially in the middle – and I guessed at some of the tragedies that do not come to light until the end, but don’t let that put you off. It’s not yet another book full of twists and turns and a shocking reveal. This is a gentle read about Romilly’s coming of age and one that will have you in tears at the end.

For my full review click here…

The Miseducation of Evie Epworth by Matson Taylor

Probably one of the reasons I loved this book so much was because it is set in my era. I was only 10 at the time, much younger than Evie, and still at Primary School, but I remember everything she talks about, from Adam Faith (I loved him – his was the first record I ever bought) to Atora Suet (still don’t know what that is but I can still see the packaging) and our Dansette record player, though ours was red.

Full review to be posted on 29th June as part of the blog tour.

I Am Dust by Louise Beech

Magical realism is my favourite genre, but I Am Dust is all out supernatural featuring dead crows, bad dreams, Ouija boards, strange voices and ghostly happenings. And I lapped it up. Every scene and every word. Brilliantly written, it revolves around three teenagers in 2005 who mess around with dark things they don’t understand.

I can’t praise this book enough. It’s spooky and entertaining and I love the seance scenes…

For my full review click here…

The Secrets of Strangers by Charity Norman

This is such a hard book to review. It made me cry – buckets at times. It made me mad – how could ‘that’ have been allowed to happen? It made me sad many times for the wonderful, beautiful, real characters that Charity Norman has created. I loved every minute of this book.

For my full review click here…

Daughters of Cornwall by Fern Britton

I can’t praise this book enough. It has everything. Tears of sadness, tears of joy.

I literally read this in two sessions. I wasn’t sure what to expect, this being my first Fern Britton novel, thinking it was probably a romance set in Cornwall or a bit like The Shell Seekers (though I loved that book in my thirties). How wrong I was! This is a tale of three generations of incredible women.

For my full review click here…

The Split by Sharon Bolton

This was a roller-coaster of a ride from South Georgia (where even is that?) to Cambridge and back again. At times the pace of the story leaves you breathless and winded and you have to remind yourself to breathe. By the end I needed three Yoga sessions to bring my heart rate down.

For my full review click here…

Precious You by Helen Monks Takhar

You can read this book in two different ways. You can simply regard it as another psychological thriller featuring two main female protagonists or a protagonist and an antagonist, depending on whose shoes you are standing in, but if that is all you may be disappointed. Or you can see it as something much deeper. A power struggle between two women who should have been helping and supporting each other in the male-dominated world of publishing.

For my full review click here…

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I also have two other categories:

Most Original Read of 2020

The Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde

The Constant Rabbit is a serious insight into the human condition and how it will take another so-called ‘lower species’ (in this case rabbits) to make us realise who we really are and what we have done to this earth. It uncovers the hidden racism and the not-so-hidden hatred of anyone who is different. They’ll take over and then where will we be? It says a lot about our society and many people may even recognise themselves as marginally leporiphobic. I even cried at the end though I can’t say why without spoilers. And I laughed out loud many times throughout the book.

For my full review click here…

My Least Favourite

Mary Toft or The Rabbit Queen by Dexter Palmer

Only word word I’m afraid – why?

It’s so well-written and educational but it’s tediously overlong and I just ask myself why anyone would want to use their undoubtedly talented writing skills to tell this awful tale.

For my full review click here…

 

Monstrous Souls by Rebecca Kelly

What if you knew the truth but couldn’t remember?

Over a decade ago, Heidi was the victim of a brutal attack that left her hospitalised, her younger sister missing, and her best friend dead. But Heidi doesn’t remember any of that. She’s lived her life since then with little memory of her friends and family and no recollection of the crime. But lately, it’s all starting to come back.

As Heidi begins retracing the events that lead to the assault, she is forced to confront the pain and guilt she’s long kept buried. But Heidi isn’t the only one digging up the past, and the closer she gets to remembering the truth, the more danger she’s in. When the truth is worse than fiction, is the past worth reliving?

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My Review

Started this on Friday night and had finished it by Saturday night. An amazing page-turner, as they say, I just couldn’t put it down. However, there are a couple of reasons why I didn’t give it five stars. Firstly I guessed quite a bit along the way, probably more than I usually do. That’s not to say it was predictable, but I guessed the identity of The Chief almost straight away and also the young man following Heidi. It didn’t detract from my enjoyment. But the main reason is that I feel this story has been told so many times before, particularly at the moment. I keep starting a ‘murder mystery’ and then finding out it’s about child abuse and abduction.

I’ll tell you a little story. My husband has been encouraging me to write a novel and keeps coming up with plot ideas. He even started one himself. It was about organ harvesting. Then I read a book about a girl renting a room on the cheap and we find out that that the room goes to someone whose organs may come in handy for one or more of the residents. While reading it with The Pigeonhole one of the other Pigeons commented ‘Oh no, not another book about organ harvesting. It seems to be a thing at the moment’.

I feel a bit the same about Monstrous Souls. I really loved it and as I said, I couldn’t put it down, but there are so many stories out there that involve child abuse. I think I have read about three this year already. However this differs because it is partly seen through the eyes of Denise, the investigating police officer when Heidi was originally attacked in 2001 who now wants to open the case and also because of the amnesia aspect. In fact the premise is excellent. Heidi can’t remember anything about the attack, the murder of her best friend Nina or the disappearance of her younger sister Anna. Then one day little things start to come back and that is when we find out that Heidi’s life is still in danger. The book swaps between 2001 (the date of the attack) and 2016 (the present).

But don’t let my reservations put you off. It’s probably just that I read a lot of books. It’s beautifully written, well constructed and there are no stones left unturned. The characters are well developed and you really feel their pain. Well I did anyway. Highly recommended.

Many thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

 

About the Author

Rebecca is a writer from Berkshire. She lives with her husband and youngest son and an over-enthusiastic black Labrador, who gives her writing tips.

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Precious You by Helen Monks Takhar

‘Trusting you was my first mistake.’

To Katherine, twenty-four-year-old Lily Lunt is a typical ‘snowflake’. Soft, entitled, unflaggingly earnest, the privileged, politically correct millennial will do whatever she can to make it big as a writer, including leveraging her family’s connections. She’s got it easy. To Lily, Katherine Ross, a career woman in her early forties, is a holdover from another era: clueless, old-fashioned, and perfectly happy to build her success on the backs of her unpaid interns.

When Lily is hired as the new intern at Leadership magazine, where Katherine is editor in chief, her arrival threatens the very foundations of the self-serving little world that Katherine has built. But before long, she finds herself obsessively drawn to Lily, who seems to be a cruel reminder of the beauty and potential Katherine once had, things she senses Lily plans to use against her. Is Katherine simply paranoid, jealous of Lily’s youth as she struggles with encroaching middle age? Is Lily just trying to get ahead in the cutthroat world of publishing? Or is there a more sinister motivation at play, fuelled by the dark secrets they are both hiding? As their rivalry deepens, a disturbing picture emerges of two women pitted against each other across a toxic generational divide – and who are desperate enough to do anything to come out on top.

As unsettling as it is provocative, Precious You cuts to heart of questions surrounding modern female rivalry, obsession and deceit. Helen Monks Takhar delivers an explosive take on the contemporary workplace and the disparate generations that power it, turning the professional roles women play on their heads in a razor-sharp, revenge-driven thriller for our age.

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My Review

You can read this book in two different ways. You can simply regard it as another psychological thriller featuring two main female protagonists or a protagonist and an antagonist, depending on whose shoes you are standing in, but if that is all you may be disappointed.

Or you can see it as something much deeper. A power struggle between two women who should have been helping and supporting each other in the male-dominated world of publishing. Two successful women. But no. This is a story about jealousy and obsession. And nepotism. To what extent will Lily’s Aunt Gemma turn a blind eye to Lily’s behaviour?  She is ready to throw what should have been her ally in Katherine under a bus in order to protect Lily and push her to the top. Even though she knows what she’s done in the past. But this is also about rivalry. Gemma’s attempt to undermine Lily’s mum and show her how much more successful Lily can be with Gemma as her mentor.

Gemma says Katherine has become stale and Lily can help her writing by going to ‘copy camps’. Katherine is insulted and justifiably so. Many of us would have walked out at that point with heads held high. Or as Katherine would say ‘fuck it’.

But is this work-related competition all there is to it? This is personal and we need to know why. And just who is Ruth?

Katherine, however, is just as bad. She and partner of 20 years, Iain, have had an ‘open’ relationship. They can sleep with whoever they like so long as the other partner approves of their choices. We all know this will lead to trouble when Lily comes along. Katherine has used her interns as bed partners for years, including poor Asif, about whom she makes a racist slur to Lily. Big mistake as it will follow her wherever she goes. Lily’s generation don’t approve of ‘banter’ but then neither should they.

Katherine and Iain drink far too much. They think getting drunk is some kind of weird glue that keeps them together. Along with the lines of cocaine and the freedom they give each other. It’s killing them both but they can’t see it.

I became so invested in this book I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. I am not in my 40s or a millennial. I don’t really drink and I’ve never taken cocaine. I am a Baby Boomer born in the 1950s. We thought we had invented feminism. Us women in a battle against the patriarchy. I still believe that so I find this all rather sad. Katherine has turned everything we stood for on its head. It wasn’t, for us anyway, about being able to sleep around (the pill gave us freedom but that’s not the same thing as using people for sex or power) or drink till we fall down or push the younger generations out of the way. It was about women. Always about women.

I would have given this five stars apart from three things. Too much swearing till it really grated on me. One scene that was go gross and I’m not sure was necessary. And the degree of bitterness which I hope is not a reflection on Generation X. Stuck between us ‘over-privileged’ Baby Boomers and ‘snowflake’ millennials. All very interesting.

Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, my fellow Pigeons and the author for making this such an enjoyable read.

About the author

Helen Monks Takhar worked as a journalist, copywriter and magazine editor having graduated from Cambridge in 1997. She began her career writing for financial trade newspapers in 1999 before contributing to UK national newspapers including The Times and The Observer. Born in Southport, Merseyside in 1976, she lives in North London with her husband and two daughters. Precious You is her first novel.

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Daughters of Cornwall by Fern Britton

#DaughtersofCornwall @HarperCollinsUK @fictionpubteam @Fern_Britton

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1918 . The Great War is over, and Clara Carter has boarded a train bound for Cornwall – to meet a family that would once have been hers. But they must never discover her secret…

2020. Caroline has spent years trying to uncover the lies buried in her family history. And once she arrives in Cornwall, the truth finally seems to be in reach. Except with storm clouds gathering on the horizon, Caroline soon learns that some secrets are best left hidden…

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Many thanks to @annecater for letting me be part of #RandomThingsTours

My Review

I literally read this in two sessions. I wasn’t sure what to expect, this being my first Fern Britton novel, thinking it was probably a romance set in Cornwall or a bit like The Shell Seekers (though I loved that book in my thirties). How wrong I was! This is a tale of three generations of incredible women. Clara whose story is told partly by Clara herself and partly by her first and only true love, Bertie, during the First World War. Then it is the turn of her daughter Hannah, from the time she returns home from Penang in Malaya (as it was then called) where she and brother Edward were born, through to her time in the ATS during the second World War until 1947 and the illegitimate birth of her daughter Caroline.

We also hear from Caroline today, who has received a mysterious trunk containing letters, a Bible, a diary, clothes and other items which will tell her the true history of her family… and its secrets. All three women were born out of wedlock, but it didn’t stop them from being strong and courageous.

This book is truly remarkable. There are no holds barred when we are introduced to the horrors of the trenches, of the death, the rats, the bodies, the mud.

‘Mud’, says Bertie, ‘It was everywhere. In my eyes, my nose, my mouth, my ears. Men were going mad…. calling for their mothers……’

‘We fight, we carry the dead. We fight, we carry the dead’, he continues. Appalling.

The Second World War is not described in such horrific and graphic detail, but this is partly because the characters who were involved such as Hannah’s brother Edward in the RAF and Hannah in the ATS were fighting at more of a distance, while in Bertie’s case he was right in the thick of it, in the trenches, fighting at close quarters. And we see it from his point of view and in his beautiful letters to Clara.

I loved Hannah. She is so brave and resourceful. I wonder if I would have been like her. I hope so.

There is some romance too, but it takes place during both world wars when relationships developed very quickly, as partners had to return to the front or the air and knew that they might never come back.

I can’t praise this book enough. It has everything. Tears of sadness, tears of joy.

I only had one reservation about the unfolding of the story. Something that made me very sad, but that is the reality of what often happened, but I wish it could have been different. That’s all I’m saying. You’ll have to read it and decide for yourselves.

About the author

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Fern Britton is the highly acclaimed author of eight Sunday Times bestselling novels.

Born in London, into a theatrical family, Fern started her professional life as a stage manager. Theatre life was great fun but within three years, in 1980, she graduated to television and became a presenter on Westward Television. Here she achieved her ambition of living in Cornwall. Since then television has been her home. She spent 14 years as a journalist before presenting Ready, Steady, Cook for the BBC. This Morning for ITV came next where she won several awards and became a household name. Her interview programme Fern Britton Meets had guests including Tony Blair, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Dolly Parton and Cliff Richard. Fern presented The Big Allotment Challenge (BBC2), For What It’s Worth (BBC1), Culinary Genius with Gordon Ramsay (ITV)

Fern’s novels are all set in her beloved Cornwall. Her books are cherished for their warmth, wit and wisdom, and have won her legions of loyal readers. Fern was a judge for the Costa Book of the Year Award and a supporter of the Reading Agency, promoting literacy and reading.

Fern turned her talents to acting last year when she starred as Marie in Gary Barlow and Tim Firth’s award-winning musical Calendar Girls.

Fern has twin sons, two daughters and lives in Cornwall in a house full of good food, wine, family, friends and gardening books. She has a motor cycle licence, an honorary doctorate for services to broadcasting and charity, and is a member of Mensa!

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I Am Dust by Louise Beech

When iconic musical Dust is revived twenty years after the leading actress was murdered in her dressing room, a series of eerie events haunts the new cast, in a bewitching, beguiling and terrifyingly dark psychological thriller…

The Dean Wilson Theatre is believed to be haunted by a long-dead actress, singing her last song, waiting for her final cue, looking for her killer. Now Dust, the iconic musical, is returning after twenty years. But who will be brave enough to take on the role of ghostly goddess Esme Black, last played by Morgan Miller, who was murdered in her dressing room? Theatre usher Chloe Dee is caught up in the spectacle. As the new actors arrive, including an unexpected face from her past, everything changes. Are the eerie sounds and sightings backstage real or just her imagination? Is someone playing games?

Is the role of Esme Black cursed? Could witchcraft be at the heart of the tragedy? And are dark deeds from Chloe’s past about to catch up with her? Not all the drama takes place onstage. Sometimes murder, magic, obsession and the biggest of betrayals are real life. When you’re in the theatre shadows, you see everything. And Chloe has been watching…

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Magical realism is my favourite genre, but I Am Dust is all out supernatural featuring dead crows, bad dreams, Ouija boards, strange voices and ghostly happenings. And I lapped it up. Every scene and every word. Brilliantly written, it revolves around three teenagers in 2005 who mess around with dark things they don’t understand (… didn’t we all? OK that’s just me then). The story jumps around from Chloe, Jess and Ryan in 2005 to Chloe in 2019 working as an usher 14 years later in the same theatre where the murder happened during a performance of the musical Dust. So who killed the lead actress Morgan Miller? We need to wait a long time to find out. I only guessed at the very end. There were some clues but neither I nor the teenagers (or their adult versions) picked them up.

There is intrigue aplenty, plus jealousy and obsession. Ryan loves Jess but not as much as he wants power and riches. Chloe also loves Jess but not as much as Jess wants fame and fortune. Is Chloe psychic? Her Aunt Rosa thought so. Or is she a witch?

There is a bit of comedy with Chloe’s friend Chester who is also an usher at the theatre and brings some light relief to the proceedings. We also touch (sensitively) on serious subjects such as self-harm and teenage suicide but are these connected to the hauntings or are they coincidences?

When Dust is revived in the same theatre in 2019 (it closed after the murder and never re-opened), many people believe the show is cursed. But is it or is this just the media keeping the myth and hype alive?

I can’t praise this book enough. It’s spooky and entertaining and I love the seance scenes with the words spelled out.

YOU THREE NEVER BE UNDER ONE ROOF

I AM DUST

 

Double Agent by Tom Bradby

Kidnapped in Venice by a Russian defector, Kate knows she’s in trouble. But all is not as it seems. The spy offers her conclusive evidence that the British Prime Minister is a live agent working for Moscow. Kate’s holiday quickly becomes the start of her next mission.

With proof of the PM involved in a sordid scandal and a financial paper trail that undeniably links him to the Russians, the evidence seems bulletproof. But the motives of the defector are anything but clear. And, more worryingly, it seems that there are key people at the heart of the British Establishment who refuse to acknowledge the reality in front of them.

Kate can trust no one, and this mission will push her dangerously close to the edge… but is that the price to pay for the truth?

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I love Tom Bradby and I think he is an excellent writer, though I have to admit that spy stories are not my favourite genre. Every time I read about Russia I keep thinking Killing Eve and I am waiting for someone to be assassinated in a ridiculously theatrical style, while dressed as a clown. But this is serious. I read the first book Secret Service and enjoyed the relationship between our main protagonist Kate, her husband Stuart, his affair with Imogen who wants to be the next PM and Julie who is sleeping with the odious Ian who wants to be the head of MI6. This is a book about spies, politics, affairs and unbridled ambition. Double Agent continues where Secret Service left off.

When we start Stuart has been exiled to Russia, having been discovered to be the Russian agent Viper. Kate’s children Gus and Fiona are deeply upset and blame Kate. Kate is kidnapped and given a deal that they (more Russians) will give her a video that will destroy the career of the current PM in exchange for safe passage to the UK.

I read this with The Pigeonhole and it wasn’t helped by having one stave every two days, plus reading two other books which came out every day. I occasionally lost the plot (in more ways that one) but I still thoroughly enjoyed it and am looking forward to Book 3. Please make this into a TV series. I think it will work even better than the book. Especially if Keeley Hawes is Kate.

Many thanks to the Pigeonhole and to my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.

The Split by Sharon J. Bolton

No matter how far you run, some secrets will always catch up with you…

The remote Antarctic island of South Georgia is about to send off its last boat of the summer – which signifies safety to resident glaciologist Felicity Lloyd.

Felicity lives in fear – fear that her ex-husband Freddie will find her, even out here. She took a job on this isolated island to hide from him, but now that he’s out of prison, having served a term for murder, she knows he won’t give up until he finds her.

But a doctor delving into the background of Felicity and Freddie’s relationship, back in Cambridge, learns that Felicity has been on the edge for a long time. Heading to South Georgia himself to try and get to her first is the only way he can think of to help her.

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This was a roller-coaster of a ride from South Georgia (where even is that?) to Cambridge and back again. At times the pace of the story leaves you breathless and winded and you have to remind yourself to breathe. By the end I needed three Yoga sessions to bring my heart rate down.

South Georgia is in the Antarctic, an inhospitable, icy place where the only settlers were the whalers of long-ago, plus a smattering of scientists, seals and penguins. And Bamber. Who is Bamber? No-one knows. In fact South Georgia is so remote and far from civilisation that Felicity is happy to go there for a two-year assignment in order to escape her past and her ex-husband. And that’s where the story truly begins. When the boat comes in….(apologies to James Bolam and co).

We are then taken back to Cambridge where Felicity is receiving counselling before she can be declared fit to embark on her journey.  Joe is her counsellor but he can’t help being attracted to this quiet, intelligent woman. Joe is back at work after being off for a while having been stabbed in the stomach by Ezzy – a street girl who became obsessed with him. Pink-haired Delilah is his mum who just happens to be a detective, investigating the murder of a homeless girl Bella and the disappearance of Ezzy. And she doesn’t trust Felicity one bit. She warns Joe not to get too close again.

At this point it all got so involved and complicated that I gave up playing amateur sleuth and just wallowed in the plot. It was almost like a separate story developing as some of my fellow Pigeons pointed out.

Of course Felicity does get to go to South Georgia – but we know that already. Joe and Delilah are hot on her trail, the one to help her, the other to arrest her. And Freddie is also on the boat but we don’t yet know why.

This was such a great book. So different to anything I’ve read recently or probably ever. The subject matter and the setting are what sets it apart together with the race at the end, while theories are blown apart and fall to pieces and the truth is finally revealed.

Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, my fellow Pigeons and Sharon for making this such an enjoyable read.

 

 

The Baby Sitter by Phoebe Morgan

On the hottest day of the year, Caroline Harvey is found dead in Suffolk. Her body is left draped over a cot – but the baby she was looking after is missing.  

Hundreds of miles away, Siobhan Dillon is on a luxurious family holiday in France when her husband, Callum, is arrested by French police on suspicion of murder.

 

As Siobhan’s perfect family is torn apart by the media in the nation’s frantic search for the missing baby, she desperately tries to piece together how Callum knew Caroline.

What happened that night? Was Caroline as innocent as she seemed – or was she hiding a secret of her own?

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I’ve been a huge fan of Phoebe Morgan since The Doll House, so unsurprisingly I loved this one as well, her third novel. It’s a simple tale of murder, infidelity and a missing baby. You would think. Well let me tell you it’s not simple and the intrigue builds more and more till my fellow Pigeons (I read this with The Pigeonhole online book club) and I were screaming at the screen: ‘Where’s the baby?’ ‘Oh no! Not the baby!’ ‘Where’s the suitcase?’ and words to that effect.

Callum is a handsome, clever, successful TV Executive who loves women almost as much as he loves himself. His poor wife Siobhan – I quite liked her, others didn’t – knows about his affairs but is totally gob-smacked when he is arrested for murdering his lover Caroline and abducting the baby she was looking after. Poor Caroline is (or was in this case), a lonely, introverted children’s book illustrator with few friends or family. All she wants is love and a baby of her own. Sorry Caro I think you made a poor choice in Callum.

Siobhan has a sister Maria, never married, thinks her life of freedom and independence is so much better than Siobhan’s life of drudgery and motherhood. But Maria is thick as thieves with their daughter Emma (more one-upmanship), who is very po-faced and mixed up, but then she’s a teenager so no surprises there. The family are enjoying a break at Maria’s beautiful second home in France when the gendarmes come knocking.

The story is told from various points of view including Siobhan, Caroline and DS Alex Wildy who is on the case. With such a small cast of characters, I like the way the police side is given as it is less claustrophobic and gives another dimension to the story.

The Baby Sitter is so cleverly plotted and paced that you’ll be changing your mind continuously about who did it right until the very end. Just as it should be.

Many thanks to The Pigeonhole, my fellow Pigeons and to Phoebe for her constant engagement and for making this such an enjoyable read. Can’t wait for Book 4.