I seem to be reading more through winter, while I’m not writing myself, so here are four more books I’ve read in the last couple of months.

 

You Are Fatally Invited by Ande Pliego

The Host

Legendary mystery author J. R. Alastor’s books are sold all over the world, but no one knows his real name. After years hiding in the shadows, he has sent out six invitations to an exclusive murder mystery retreat on his private island.

The Assistant

Mila del Angel has been hired to ensure the week runs smoothly. She has yearned for revenge on a ghost from her past for years – and this could be her chance to get it.

The Players

The six bestselling thriller writers accept their invitations without question – it’s an opportunity any author would kill for.

The Game

What should have been a week of trope-filled games takes a sinister turn when one guest is found dead, and the others find themselves in the midst of a nightmare drawn from Alastor’s dark imagination. They may have written thrillers – but now they and Mila must survive one…

I’m giving away spoilers.

When I first read the blurb for this book I was instantly intrigued and checked my local library system to see if they had it. they did, so I reserved it.

I waited about four months before getting it and read in in about five hours as I am not one to read a chapter each day. I’m a in one go gal.

By the time I finished this book I was disappointed to find it was the exact storyline as The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz that I read a couple of months ago.

Multiple writers attend a retreat by a well-known author, shit happens to them, multiple end up dead, the house burns down, and there are three left, two of which write a book together.

But, having said that, this story was far better than that tripe. At least the reasons for why it was happening were far better, the twists and turns kept me going, you couldn’t tell which character was who, and who was doing what. The plot was very detailed, sometimes drawn out. A murder happens within chapters, something that surprised me as you don’t think a good guy would be killed off the way he was, and even though the backstories are slowly told, they take the whole book to reveal themselves bit by bit. A slow burn, so to speak.

And, thankfully, no character was stupid as fuck or got drunk to piss their pain away and do stupid shit while high on drugs.

This is a very detailed plot with lots of twists, turns, and backstory.

I give You Are Fatally Invited 8/10.

 

The Man Made of Smoke.

Dan Garvie can’t move on from a thing he didn’t do. He saw the boy. He knew he needed help. But he ran and hid – and a terrifying serial killer got away.

Years later, Dan is a successful criminal psychiatrist, unpicking the very darkest of human behaviour. Because, despite what he saw that day, Dan knows there’s no such thing as a monster.

But now his father, John, has disappeared. And days before he vanished, he’d found a body near his home, which might just link back to the serial killer from that fateful day.

If this a chance for Dan to save his dad and find redemption. Or is he walking straight into a trap..

Alex North’s books are known for their paranormal twists, but this book, just didn’t have the same twists as the last three.

While I loved his first, The Whisper Man, and his second, The Shadow Friend, and both made me blubber like a baby, his third, The Half Burnt House was off kilter. While still paranormal, it was as if he’d phoned it in and hadn’t put much writing skill into it, but you can read that review here.

The Man Made Of Smoke was all crime thriller.

Nothing paranormal about this.

Daniel, grows up to be a psychiatrist working with criminals. But when he was a teenager, he came across a criminal himself.

The man come to be known as The Man Made of Smoke.

All crime thriller, with a normal twist I didn’t see coming, but then he did lead us down the path of believing it was one person while it ended up being another.

No mention of where Daniel’s mother was, no mention of what happened at the end with the fourth boy who was missing, so a little loose end there. Did the house burn down? Don’t know. Was the killer found after all? The original one, yes, I suppose he was.

While it was an easy to read story to consume, this wasn’t like his first two.

Maybe he’s shying away from the paranormal twists. Maybe he wants to do more crime than paranormal. And another thing, it reminded me of a Catherine Ryan Howard novel. The same kind of crime vibe.

I give it 7/10.

 

 The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair – Joel Dicker

August 30, 1975. The day of the disappearance. The day Somerset, New Hampshire, lost its innocence.

That summer, struggling author Harry Quebert fell in love with fifteen-year-old Nola Kellergan. Thirty-three years later, her body is dug up from his yard, along with a manuscript copy of the novel that made him a household name. Quebert is the only suspect.

Marcus Goldman – Quebert’s most gifted protege – throws off his writer’s block to clear his mentor’s name. Solving the case and penning a new bestseller soon merge into one. As his book begins to take on a life of its own, the nation is gripped by the mystery of ‘The Girl Who Touched the Heart of America’.

But with Nola, in death as in life, nothing is ever as it seems.

A slow burn, this book starts with a lot of back story, but if you keep at it, the story reveals itself bit by bit. A red herring here, a clue there, but the thoughts I had for who the murderer really was revealed itself to be correct, and it wasn’t just one.

There were some characters I hated, like Tamara Quinn who I just wanted to shut up. Some I wanted to root for, like Jenny (I know full well what it’s like to live a life I hate and can’t do anything about). And some I wanted to kill myself like Marcus’s publisher who planned on suing him for $10,000,000 because he didn’t deliver a manuscript in time, and then threatened him and released excerpts of the book to the papers while claiming a break-in. Ugh!

And then there was Harry himself. Ah…Harry…you conniving old bastard.

An intricately weaved story, with lots of twists and turns and culprits who did anything they could to cover up their own crimes, kudos to Mr Dicker for telling an intriguing story that held my attention once the boring back story was out of the way. And it’s translated so well you don’t even know it wasn’t originally written in English.

I give it 8/10.

 

Atmosphere – Taylor Jenkins Reid

An epic novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s space shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits.

In the summer of 1980, astrophysics professor Joan Goodwin begins training to be an astronaut at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond; mission specialists John Griffin and Lydia Danes; warmhearted Donna Fitzgerald; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer. As the new astronauts prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined and begins to question everything she believes about her place in the observable universe.

Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, everything changes in an instant.

On Amazon it states…

Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting readers to iconic times and places, creating complex protagonists, and telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love – this time among the stars.

No, it wasn’t her best. This was a step backwards for me, with her writing style and her story.

The story wasn’t interesting, but then I didn’t find Carrie Soto interesting, or After I Do, or Daisy Jones.

Her writing, style wise, has slid backwards. If you’ve read all of her books in order, you’ll know what I mean.

Forever Interrupted, Maybe In Another Life and One True Loves all had the same writing style and format layout. After I Do, supposedly the second book published, was so badly written and such a boring story I’m surprised I finished it.  Evelyn Hugo was the first I read, and the best book, story wise. Daisy was a Rolling Stone magazine article, Malibu Rising was well written, better than those before it, and had a great story until it fell apart towards the end with the timeline and was a complete bust. Carrie, boring, and now Atmosphere.

I just couldn’t get into it and skimmed each page enough to get the whole story. Was it sad that three of the characters died? Sure. Did I cry? I shed a tear. But they weren’t “the story”. I cried when I was led to believe Vanessa had died and thought, “you can’t end the book here”, but then she was saved, along with Lydia, and the book ended. Did I think Joan’s sister was a bitch and shouldn’t have married a man that didn’t want kids? Absolutely. Poor Frances, being treated badly by a mother who had no problem having sex, but had every problem raising the child that came from it.

Hopefully, Joan, Frances, and Vanessa lived happily ever after, but I really hate it when I’m left hanging.

I gave it 6/10.