Review: The Guilty Wife

Rating: 3 Stars

The Guilty Wife by Elle Croft is the story of Betthany Reston, who loves her husband very much but is also having a secret affair. The affair has to remain absolutely secret because it’s not only Bethany who has a lot to lose. Her secret lover is married, and very famous. So, it is imperative that no one knows about them.

When her lover is murdered, following an argument with her, Bethany has to work very hard at hiding her grief from the world. She thinks she’s succeeding until she finds out that someone knows all her secrets. And, now they’re threatening to expose her as the killer. She knows she’s innocent, but there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary. To prove herself innocent, Bethany must now find out who actually killed her lover.

The plot is interesting and the characters believable, except that the book gets increasingly boring as it goes on and on about Bethany’s quest to find the killer. Around the halfway mark, I just wanted to roll my eyes at Bethany and the determination of the writer to give her so many redeeming qualities to offset her audacity to conduct a secret affair!

There is no way to form any kind of opinion about the lover as he is only shown through the eyes of Bethany. The husband comes off as sort of loser in the beginning, and then more of a loser as the story progresses. The lawyer friend is like all lawyer friends in thousands of books that we have read. I began to suspect the killer quite early on in the book, and though I was suspicious of another character, I still bet on the one I first suspected. I was right.

It is unfortunate that we have had so many similar books about murders and mysteries, that there is hardly anything new to find anymore. I like books with twists and crazy endings, but it has to make some sort of sense at least. I would have been happier with the end if there hadn’t been an epilogue. The last chapter was enough to satisfy a thriller buff and maybe for someone to buy its filming rights. The epilogue completely spoiled the book for me, and that’s funny because the epilogue was what I had suspected from the beginning!

An average read that goes on for longer than it should.

Review: The Death of Mrs. Westaway

Rating: 3.5 Stars

I realize that I’m a bit late to this party, but despite having bought this book back in July 2018, I only just got around to reading it. At first, it was the size that seemed too much to me, and then it was the fact that I wasn’t too impressed with Ruth Ware’s The Lying Game and didn’t want to be disappointed again.

The Death of Mrs. Westaway is more like Ware’s The Woman in Cabin 10, though. It is interesting, if predictable, and just fun to read. I mean fun for those who like light mysteries and thrillers.

Harriet “Hal” Westaway is a young Tarot card reader in Brighton, who has gotten into trouble with a loan shark. She is all alone in the world after her mother’s tragic death three years ago. When she gets a letter saying that she her grandmother has left her a bequest, Harriet knows that it’s not true. Her grandparents died more than 20 years ago, and she has no other living relatives that she knows of.

As the loan shark becomes more persistent, Hal decides to pretend to be the real Harriet Westaway, in order to get her hands on the bequest. It is only when she gets to the Cornish estate, that she realizes the pitfalls of the web that she is weaving. There seems to be someone who doesn’t want her around, and is willing to do anything to get rid of her.

Ruth Ware is not too much into suspense and thrills. I have understood that from her previous books. I was able to predict everything almost down to the last detail quite early on in the book. Nevertheless, it is quite gratifying to find that you were right about what will happen all along.

Harriet is a likable character, as are almost all other characters in the book. For once, we see a family who with all their differences possess enough love to want to welcome a long lost relative into their midst. It is a nice change to read about good coming out of the most adverse circumstances, of love and acceptance growing from a childhood of hate and neglect.

I enjoyed reading this book, even though it is too tame and predictable to be a thriller.

Review: Believe Me

Rating: 4 Stars

When I read J. P. Delaney’s The Girl Before, I thought it was good, except the last part which fell flat for me. I don’t have any such complaints with Believe Me. This is my kind of book, with enough twists and turns, and grey characters to make me happy. This is one of those books that I picked up at an airport, not because I wanted to read it, but because it’s a sin to not buy a book from the airport! I had no idea what it was, and I have never seen a single review for it. Once again, I was so happy to be taken by surprise.

Claire Wright is a British student, some people say an excellent actress, with a problem. She’s studying drama in New York on scholarship, but doesn’t have much money for anything else. She cannot work like other students because she doesn’t have a green card and is not allowed to work off-campus. The only way for her to make ends meet and pay the rent is to work for a law firm, acting like an easy pick up to gather evidence against philandering husbands. Even this stroke of luck seems to be running out as the firm decides to part ways with her.

And then, a client is murdered and her husband, who had been one of Claire’s target, is accused of the crime. The police want Claire to help them catch the killer, and Claire, backed into a corner, agrees. As she plays her part, she begins to fall for the suspected killer, Patrick Fogler, and it dawns on her that things might not be as straight forward as they seem.

With the backdrop of New York, Broadway, theater and drama school, this fast paced thriller goes from one high to another without losing momentum. As soon as you start believing in a character, they give you reason to doubt. Everything that you read seems like a deception. There are no innocents, yet you can’t figure out who’s guilty either. It was a pleasure reading this book, which I managed to finish in less than a day.

Recommended for all fans of thrillers.

Review: Pieces of Her

Rating: 3 StarsPieces of Her by Karin Slaughter is about how an act of terror in a local mall changes the life of Andrea Oliver. Andy is 31 years old, and lives at home with her mother, having moved back from New York a few years back after her mother’s health problems.Andy’s life is boring and monotonous. She’s aimless and has no real ambition in life except to live from one day to the other, and that too in the most mundane way possible. She’s ashamed of the time she spent in New York, and is unwilling to tell anyone about her dreadful existence there.While Andy is celebrating her birthday with her mom, a gunman enters the cafe and proceeds to open fire. When Andy’s mother disarms the gunman, and manages to kill him, she is all over the news, especially as someone has managed to make a video of the whole incident. It takes Andy a few hours to realize that her mother might not be what she seems, and that Andy needs to act timely for once to save her mother and herself.Karin Slaughter spins a great story with enough twists and mysteries to keep the reader engaged. Unfortunately, her heroine is unbearable. When a woman of 31 acts like a 16-year-old, I find myself wanting to shake her really hard. At first, I thought she must be like this because of some trauma in her past, but that turned out to be a false hope. And when the same woman of 31 suddenly finds her spine and starts facing killers and being on the run on her own, I thought that I must be reading about someone else!Since the narrative goes back and forth in time, it is even more frustrating to read about another woman unable to make her own decisions and behaving in a similar manner. I couldn’t help but think that for someone who has gone through so much in life, she would at least raise a daughter who is strong and faces life head on.I’m not against having weak women characters in a story, or showing how a woman can overcome odds under adverse circumstances, I just want it to be believable. Slaughter’s Charlie and Samantha Quinn from The Good Daughter were a couple of badass women, who were believable with all their issues and baggage. Here, I was just left wishing for a couple of more engaging female protagonists.I also have a problem with the male characters in the book. Andy’s stepfather, who we come to know is the most important man in Andy’s life, vanishes from her life after Andy runs away. All the other male characters are also there to fill some gaps and then disappear into thin air. Overall, I couldn’t get myself to get behind any of the characters in this book, which is a shame because I really like Karin Slaughter as an author and want to read her other books too.

Review: Nine Perfect Strangers

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Liane Moriarty is always a gamble for me. While I absolutely love Big Little Lies, I’m not a fan of some of her other work. It took me a long time to get around to reading Nine Perfect Strangers, but once I started, I managed to finish it in one day. What makes Moriarty a winner in my eyes is how easy it is to read her books.

Nine people book a 10-day retreat at a very expensive health resort known as Tranquillum House. All of them have different reasons for attending the retreat. None of them are quite ready for what coming here entails.They don’t have access to the outside world at all, their electronic gadgets all being taken away from them. The program surprises them, and most of them are resistant to the rules they have to follow.

The mastermind behind the retreat is a formidable woman, Masha, the resort’s director, who is determined to see her retreat program succeed at any cost. She dreams of changing the lives of these nine people like she has changed her own. Helping her achieve her dream are Yao and Delilah, both willing to do what is necessary to attain their own goals.

However, everything is not as it seems, for Masha has not disclosed the exact nature of the methods she intends to use for everyone to become a new person. As the group becomes used to the strict rules of the retreat, they are not ready to face the truth about what’s going on at the resort.

Told from alternating perspectives of all twelve people involved, the story is gripping and fast paced. Morairty uses simple language and short chapters which keep you from getting bored. All the characters are interesting, and have different outlooks on life which keeps the story from becoming monotonous.

What keeps it from being an excellent book in my eyes, is the plot that offers nothing new; we have all read books and watched movies with similar plots and stories. There is no big revelation, or a twist of epic proportions, and the characters are all squeaky clean with hardly any shades of grey. Even Masha’s character made me roll my eyes during the climax! Such a grand build up, and then it all just whimpers away.

Overall, an average read, with an extra half star for easy reading.

Review: The Rumour

Rating: 3 Stars

The Rumour by Lesley Kara is a domestic thriller that looks into the how rumours spread, and how they can lead to unexpected outcomes.

The story follows Joanna, an almost-single mother, who has moved to Flinstead-on-Sea, a small, sleepy town, from London in order to be close to her own mom. Jonanna’s son is having difficulties settling into the new school, and Joanna is clueless about how to help him. Then one day she hears a strange rumour that she cannot get out of her mind. She doesn’t do it intentionally, but a careless remark from her starts a chain of rumours that cannot be broken. Now everyone is talking about how a child killer might be living in their town under a different identity.

Ten-year-old Sally McGowan stabbed and killed four-year-old Robbie Harris almost 50 years ago. When she got out of the correctional facility, she was given a new identity and the press was banned from ever reporting about her. The Harris family, however, have never gotten over the tragic death of Robbie and feel that they were given the short end of the stick. No photos exist of Sally from the time she came out from rehabilitation, and no one seems to know where she is.

As rumours fly, Joanna becomes suspicious of everyone, especially when she starts to fear for the safety of her son. There might be some truth to the rumours, and someone is aware that Joanna is to blame for them. The child killer is suddenly closer and more dangerous than she realized.

The book is just about average as far as thrillers go. The story has some merit but it seems to meander here and there. I started to lose interest in the middle, and it was hard to come back to the story. Joanna comes across as neurotic and high strung without reason. The common habit of going off alone to shady places, like all Hollywood heroines, is also present in Joanna. Who goes off alone into all these places if they know that they are already being threatened?

There are too many suspicious characters in an attempt to make everything more entertaining, but it becomes a struggle to make sense out of all their stories. There are some too-good-to-be-true coincidences, like Liz not knowing who Michael was, and Joanna seeing Kay’s mail, which just seem a bit irritating.

Overall, an average book that is good for reading on the beach and not putting too much thought into it.

Review: A Firefly In The Dark

Rating: 3 Stars

I’m suitably spooked. The book cover tricrked me into thinking this was a children’s book, if not funny, then surely a bit sad and melancholy. The name of the writer tricked me into thinking that this would be a lighthearted affair, suitable for reading before going to bed. I was so off the mark that I’m convinced I need to read more reviews before I buy a book!

A Firefly in The Dark by Shazaf Fatima Haider is a book that brings to life all the horror stories that we ever listened to, be it the ones told by our grandmothers or the ones by older siblings/ cousins who wanted to watch us squirm, or by that crazy school friend who was not quite right in the head! This is not the horror of Hollywood movies or other English books that you have read. This is the horror of your childhood, when you were afraid to go out of the house in the afternoon because you might meet the woman with turned feet, or you hid in your blanket at night because there was something that was always scratching on your window. So, yeah, after reading this, there go my dreams of giving it to my daughter to read. She will probably make my life miserable by refusing to sleep alone.

Sharmeen is an almost-thirteen year old, who comes to live with her maternal grandmother after her life is turned upside down by a sad accident. She is unhappy with this new life where she feels like an outsider both at home and in school. The one spot of light in her bleak existence is the unbelievable stories that her grandmother tells her. These dark and twisted tales are the bone of contention between Sharmeen’s mother and grandmother, making the house a battleground.

As Sharmeen begins to realize that these stories are not really stories but have a basis in truth, tragedy strikes again and she has to come face to face with these forces of evil. However, she is not alone, as she meets her own personal jinn, Jugnu, so named because of his first appearance as a firefly. It’s a race against time as Jugnu and Sharmeen struggle to fight and destroy this evil before it destroys her whole family.

It was seriously good writing with a bit of humor and lots of darkness, but sadly, it also clashed with my faith and beliefs. It was hard to overcome my prejudices because all the stories and characters were so close to home. When you read mythological stories from other regions and countries, it’s easier to dismiss them as fiction and move on, but when faced with stories from your childhood that might have some basis in truth, the mind refuses to accept things that challenge personal belief.

So, yes, it has been quite an experience reading this book. I can’t wait for other books by this author because she is definitely one of the few local authors who I think are genuinely gifted writers.

Review: Daisy Jones & The Six

Rating: 4.5 Stars

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid may be a fictional account of a 70’s rock band, but the stories, the songs and the music sound so real that you can’t help but think about getting your hands on that awesome album that doesn’t really exist!

The book follows the rise of Daisy Jones and Billy Dunne and his band, The Six; and how it all came to an abrupt end after a sold out show at Chicago Stadium. No one knows why it all ended the way it did when everything seemed to be going so well for the band. Now, after more than 30 years, someone is making an effort to find out what actually happened.

The book is written as an oral history, recounted by several people. However, instead of going the usual route of everyone telling their stories one by one, this book gives a voice to everyone in one go. It feels like you have a number of people in your head talking about the same thing, yet looking at it from different perspectives.

I thought Jenkins Reid was a good writer when I had read her “Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.” This book confirms my belief. The way she writes about her female protagonists, it’s impossible not to feel their pain. You may not agree with their life choices, or what they stand for, but you can understand their misery.

Throughout the book, what I wanted to do the most was to hear all these great songs being talked about. You know a writer is a winner when she pushes herself to write all the lyrics for all the songs mentioned in her book! I certainly hope someone can get a real life Daisy Jones and a real life Billy Dunne to sing these songs some day!

A powerful book with a great soundtrack to accompany it!

Review: Norse Mythology

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Mythology has always held some appeal for me. From Greek myths, to Roman Gods, from Hindu deities to Mayan ruins, I have always been fascinated by these stories that people have believed in for thousands of years. Sadly, Norse mythology has always been more of a comic book thing for me.

My only introduction to Thor was through Marvel’s Mighty Thor, which,unfortunately, didn’t endear him much to me. Even with the wildly popular movies, he remained one of my least favourite gods, a mere caricature when compared to the more cunning and colourful, Loki.

Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology expands on some of the better known stories from this almost-forgotten mythological era. It brings to life some characters who we know from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and introduces us to some who we never knew about.

My interest in reading these stories stemmed more from reading Gaiman’s American Gods than anything else. So, if you want to do a bit of background reading about Norse gods and what they got up to, then this should be the book you pick up.

Review: The Hiding Place (The Taking of Annie Thorne)

Rating: 3 Stars

Ever since I read The Chalk Man last year, I had been waiting for C. J. Tudor’s next. I love thrillers that combine suspense with just the right kind of creepiness. The Chalk Man reminded me of Stephen King, but with less horror and more suspense. The Hiding Place (or The Taking of Annie Thorne) didn’t quite manage to live up to my expectations.

I realize that it is quite unfair to compare two books, as each has its own strengths and weaknesses. Even with that in mind, The Hiding Place turned out to be quite average as far as thrillers go.

There is no doubt that C. J. Tudor is a master storyteller. Her words have the power to transport you into the setting of the story, and actually feel the characters. The problem occurs when the characters are not strong enough to arouse any feelings inside the reader. The worst thing for a character to do is to inspire indifference. This book, while written well, fails to deliver in the give-a-damn department.

Joe Thorne never thought he’d be back in Arnhill. He thought he had left it all far behind; the toxic friendships, the incident at the abandoned mine, the suicide, and most of all, the disappearance of his sister. But he finds himself not only going back, but also lying his way into a teaching position at his former school. He has his own reasons for returning, and trying to stay low-key, one of which is a strange e-mail that he has received.

As soon as he sets foot in his hometown, Joe encounters hostility from old friends as well as new acquaintances. He is not surprised, nor is he deterred from his objective. For he knows what actually happened at the old mine the night that his beloved sister went missing. He was devastated by her disappearance, and thought that there couldn’t be anything worse than that. But he was wrong, because there was something worse that could happen, and it did. His sister came back.

The plot and characters are somewhat reminiscent of Stephen King’s It, which remains to date, the scariest book that I have ever read. But other than the most superficial similarity, The Hiding Place fails to scare and creep out. Even the most horrific scenes felt one-dimensional and just not scary enough. It was like watching a movie where the actors fail to deliver the required emotions and expressions.

It is an average thriller that while interesting will most probably fail to impress the hardcore horror/ thriller fans. However, C. J. Tudor is one writer who I will never hesitate to read, so I’m looking forward to her future endeavors. Hopefully, I will find my next favourite book then.

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