The Enigma of Room 622 – Joel Dicker

It all starts with an innocuous curiosity: at the Hotel de Verbier, a luxury hotel in the Swiss Alps, there is no Room 622.

This anomaly piques the interest of Joel Dicker, Switzerland’s most famous literary star, who flees to the Verbier to recover from a bad breakup, mourn the death of his publisher, and begin his next novel.

Before he knows it, he’s coaxed out of his slump by a fellow guest, who quickly uncovers the reason behind Room 622’s erasure: an unsolved murder. The attendant circumstances: a love triangle and a power struggle at the heart of Switzerland’s largest private bank, a mysterious counter-intelligence unit known only as P-30, and a shadowy emigre with more money than God.

Murder Mystery Galore!

I quite liked this story, as long as it was, and had no idea it was a translated edition, from French, I’m assuming. The only issue I had was the timeline. It kept bouncing back and forth and the only year that was specific was the year Joel was in, 2018. Everything else was twenty years ago, twenty years later, a few years ago, the night of, the day before. It became confusing the longer the book went on.

There was also a twist at the end I did not see coming and I had to go back and read the last couple of pages again. Interesting turn of story there, Mr Dicker…

I also seem to be reading a few novels about authors. Considering I’ve written a few myself, I think I’m being drawn to them because I’m coming up with my own murder mystery concerning an author.

I gave it 7/10. Three off for the timeline issues, but get a look at the cover.

A Novel Love Story – Ashley Poston

Eileen Merriweather loves a good love story. The fictional kind, anyway. After all, imaginary men don’t break your heart.

That’s why she’s so excited for her annual book club retreat – instead, when her car breaks down en route, Eileen finds herself in Eloraton. A town where every meet is cute, the rain always comes in the afternoon, and the bookshop is always curated with impeccable taste.

It feels too good to be true … because Eloraton is the setting of her favourite romance series. And Eileen is sure she must be here to bring the town its storybook ending.

But there’s one character she can’t place. The grumpy bookshop owner with mint-green eyes, and an irritatingly sexy mouth. He does not want Eileen to finish this story, but how else can she find her happily-ever-after?

I’ve read two other Ashley books, and they’re cute little stories about love and romance and finding Mr Right while giving the story a supernatural twist.

Does Eloraton actually exist? And if it doesn’t, then how did Anderson manage to survive it?

I love the fact he owns a bookstore in the town, and then when Eileen leaves she sets up a little bookstore called The Grand Romantic in her own town with her best friend. 

I gave this 7/10.

The Birdcage – Eve Chase

Kat, Flora and Lauren are half-sisters who share a famous artist father – and a terrible secret.

Over the years they’ve grown into wildly different lives. But an invitation to Rock Point, the Cornish cliff house where they once sat for their father’s most celebrated painting, Girls with Birdcage, reunites them.

Rock Point is a beautiful, windswept place, thick with secrets, electrically charged with the one subject the family daren’t discuss. And there is someone in the shadows watching their every move. Someone who remembers the girls in the painting. What they did.

The sisters must unlock the truth to set themselves free – and find each other again.

The premise of this sounded oh so spooky and mysterious, but I found myself annoyed by the characters. Three sisters, all halves to each other, and a back story from childhood that rendered them with issues throughout their lives.

Lauren had mental issues, writing notes to dead people, missing her recently deceased mother, missing parts of her childhood and her childhood friend.

Flora is married to a control freak with a four year old son, Raff, and is run down and tired all the time.

While Kat’s running out of time with her company and doing the deals she’s meant to be back in London doing.

And then there’s the stalker, the death, the best friend, and that damn birdcage. And what the hell was grandma up to?

I gave this book 5/10, purely for the unresolved, in my book, issue surrounding Gemma. No one felt guilty, Lauren didn’t seem to care all that much at her hand in it. They all just moved on after the truth was revealed.

The Three Lives of Cate Kay – Kate Fagan

Cate Kay knows how to craft a story. As the creator of a bestselling book trilogy that struck box office gold as a film series, she’s one of the most successful authors of her generation. The thing is, Cate Kay doesn’t really exist. She’s never attended author events or granted any interviews. Her real identity had been a closely guarded secret, until now.

As a young adult, she and her best friend Amanda dreamed of escaping their difficult homes and moving to California to become movie stars. But the day before their grand adventure, a tragedy shattered their dreams and Cate has been on the run ever since, taking on different names and charting a new future. But after a shocking revelation, Cate understands that returning home is the only way she’ll be a whole person again.

Quite an interesting concept of an author (another book about an author) and why she changes her name, and then why she uses a pen name.

As with most characters, they need some angst as to make up their why. Anne Marie/Cass/Cate has a pretty interesting reason why, but running away from it made me hate why she did it. It was a weak excuse. Her best friend went without her best friend when she needed her the most because Anne was running away for God knows why. That, unfortunately, made her very easy to manipulate by someone she barely knew who consumed her life. The obsessive controlling nature of her lawyer pissed me off.

Why lie about something so catastrophic? Why do that to someone who was so completely devastated by it? Sidney was nothing but a control freak bitch and it took thirteen years for Anne to find her way home and back to her best friend.

I went back and re-read the ending to make sure I got it right. I don’t condone why she left, but I do condemn her for her behaviour of leaving everything up to everyone else to deal with instead of getting her life together.

I gave this book 7/10.