Every Move You Make – C. L. Taylor

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Bewertung: 4 von 5.

Five very different people who are tormented by a stalker meet through a support group online. When one of them gets killed by their stalker things suddenly get intense. They get a thread that one of them gets killed in ten days. They decide to fight back. But that is easier said than done.

The story unfolds from the remaining five characters POV’s. There is a kind of countdown until the day someone is supposed to die. The story is intense and you can feel the dread of the characters being stalked, to always live in fear of your stalker being there watching you, interfere with your life. What an awful feeling. There are some twists and some action and yes, not everything sounds believable and some things are a bit over the top but I was fortunately never stalked so what do I know. The author explains in her acknowledgement that she has been a victim of a stalker herself so she knows what she is talking about.

The book held my interest and I was very invested in the story. This was my fifth book from this author and I had very different opinions about them. But I liked this one and I will surely look out for her next book.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Au Pair – Jane Renshaw

⭐⭐⭐

Bewertung: 3 von 5.

18 year old Alice travels from the US to Scotland to become an Au Pair for a family who lives in an old Scottish mansion. She did not told her parents that she was leaving beforehand, she just left a note that she goes somewhere to the UK, took some money and disappeared. Alice is incredibly naïve and inexperienced. So she is very impressed when she arrives in Scotland and meets her family. The mansion is huge and she got the “princess room” in one of the towers overlooking the breathtaking landscape. She is charmed by the children, thinks the mother is glamorous and soon she swoons over Gray, the handsome brother-in-law.

In this book there are two Au Pairs. Alice, of course, and then there is Melanie aka Donna. Alice obviously went missing soon after her arrival and Melanie, who is not really an Au Pair, takes her place because she wants to find out what happened to Alice. She sees everything through different eyes. The mansion is run down and the family seems fishy. We will find out how she is connected to Alice later in the book.

The chapters of the girls alternate and soon you can sense there is something going on in this family. But the first chapters held a promise the rest of the book could not keep. The story quickly fell off. Something is always happening but the story is all over the place. While Alice and Melanie are well done characters, the family is a bit wishy-washy. Especially the mother acts inconsequent and erratic.

Nevertheless, the book held my interest and I kept reading. The story touches a lot of topics but it never gets deeper. It is an easy read with a dark touch that does not get to uncomfortable.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Search Party – Hannah Richell

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Bewertung: 4 von 5.

Max and Annie gave everything up in London and are going to open a glamping site in Cornwall. But before they are letting paying guest in they want to host a pre-opening party with their old friends and their children. So they invite them for a weekend of drinking, relaxing and catching up. But of course there are hidden tensions and secrets lurking under the cheering surface. And everything turns even sinister when someone gets missing.

This is not a new and exciting story. I’ve read similar books over the years. But it is still entertaining. There are a lot of characters to follow, they all have children and I mixed them up for quite a while. The story is told in various POV. Unfortunately this slows the story down a bit. Sometimes you see the same situation through somebody else’s eyes again. And sometimes a chapter gets interesting but the next chapter lets somebody else telling something from a subplot. On the other hand it kept my interest so that I flew through the chapters. The author does not give this genre a new dynamic but it is still an entertaining read.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The School Reunion – Shalini Boland

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Bewertung: 4 von 5.

This was my first book from Shalini Boland so I didn’t know what to expect. What I definitively did not expect was that I all I thought I knew about the characters is simply not true.

Chloe is thirty something and recently divorced. This breakup left her with no friends, they all sided with her ex, and a boring job. Then she receives an invitation to a school reunion. That gives her the opportunity to rejoin with two of her former friends and swoon about Nathan Blake, her crush back in the days. She hopes he will show up so that she can catch up on that little spark that was between them. Chloe seems very insecure, her own mother keeps nagging at her for everything she does. And she still things about her ex-husband and his new wife and kid. When the day of the reunion arrives it seems at first that everything will go to plan. But soon everything suddenly is totally different than what I thought.

Chloe is not an easy character but I could feel for her at first. There are also chapters with flashbacks to the time at the school and there is another POV from someone called Dean who got into trouble with a wealthy man he worked for and did not get payed. For quite a while I was irritated by these chapters and could not fit it into Chloe’s storyline. But towards the end everything comes together and left me puzzled. I really did not expect that ending.

Up until half of it I thought this would be a solid 3 Stars review. It was a decent book with an easy to follow story. But after finishing it I must admit that it surprised me and that I underestimated the plot. So I happily give it 4 Stars.

In The Blink Of An Eye – Jo Callaghan

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Bewertung: 4 von 5.

„In The Blink Of An Eye” ist ein interessanter und auch emotionaler Thriller. DCS Kat Frank ist nach dem Verlust ihres Mannes zurück in ihrem Job. Sie soll ein Pilotprogramm leiten bei dem die Hilfe einer KI eingesetzt wird. Kat ist skeptisch, denn sie vertraut sehr auf Intuition und Bauchgefühl. Sie steht der KI, die übrigens als Hologramm durchaus sehr präsent wirkt, zu Anfang ablehnend gegenüber und nimmt die Aufgabe hauptsächlich an, um zu zeigen, dass sie nicht taugt zur Polizeiarbeit. Da sie nicht an laufenden Fällen arbeiten dürfen, rollen sie zwei alte Vermisstenfälle von zwei verschwundenen jungen Männern wieder auf. Schon bald werden diese Fälle aber sehr aktuell, denn tatsächlich finden sie neue Anhaltspunkte. Und dann verschwindet jemand aus Kats unmittelbarer Nähe.

Die Ausgangslage ist sehr interessant. Kann KI der Polizei helfen bei Ermittlunsarbeiten oder ist Erfahrung und Menschenverstand unersetzbar? Die Charaktere sind sehr gut geschrieben, sie sind sehr real und haben alle ihre eigene Persönlichkeit. Auch Lock, die KI, ist ihr sehr gut gelungen. Ich persönlich bin sehr technikaffin und seit dem Film „I, Robot“ warte ich auf meinen persönlichen Roboter. Lock hat mir sehr gut gefallen und ich war von Kats sehr deutlicher Ablehnung doch etwas genervt. Sie handelt im Grunde so vorurteilsbeladen wie sie es bei anderen Menschen ablehnt. Leider war mir Kat sehr unsympathisch. Sie ist sehr störrisch und ich habe leider nicht die Brillanz bei ihr gesehen, die ihr alle anderen zusprechen. Die Krimihandlung selbst ist von der Thematik her interessant, aber leicht zu durchschauen. Was diesen Thriller ausmacht, sind seine Figuren und die KI Lock. Das Buch ist leicht und flüssig zu lesen, gut geschrieben, ernsthaft, emotional und doch mit feinem Humor. Sollte die Ermittlungseinheit in Serie gehen, wäre ich beim nächsten Buch dabei.

Ich habe eine digitale Ausgabe vom Verlag via NetGalley erhalten, wofür ich mich herzlich bedanken möchte.

The Blackhouse – Carole Johnstone

⭐⭐

Bewertung: 2 von 5.

I really wanted to like this book. I enjoyed the authors last book “Mirrorland” although it was a challenging read. But it was worth the effort. Unfortunately this time it was not.

When Maggie was five years old she claimed to be the reincarnation of a man who lived on a small Scottish island and who was murdered there. Her mother was a psychic and she took Maggie to this island and made a big show about it. Now Maggie is twenty-five and her mother recently died. Maggie is a nervous wreck and was diagnosed to be bipolar. She does not remember that time when she was five but she wants to know what happened then and if her claim was true. So she travels again to this island but the people there are not happy to see her.

I try to express what I did not like about the book without any major spoilers.

• The story is not very complex, although it seems like it at first. But after finishing it I think the story is too thin to carry through all those pages.
• The pace is painfully slow. There is too much back and forth in Maggie’s head.
• Too many characters. I could not tell most of them apart until the last page. There is a glossary at the end and I wish I knew this from the start.
• Maggie is not a character I could warm up to. And all other characters are not very well developed. Maybe because there are so many of them.
• The final “twist”. Well, what shall I say? I did not like it.
• Maggie is diagnosed as bipolar. I do not have experience with this but for me Maggie is her chaotic self the whole time. There is no change. She is just inconsistent.
• I hate it when people in a book come together to talk and then they don’t. They lie, don’t tell anything important or just speak in riddles and it just fills page after page. That happens here all the time.
• All the people of the island. They are a special breed, maybe it is like this on remoted islands. But how they treated Robert, the second narrator of this book, is despicable. He needed help but they just made him worse. And they did not learn. They are playing games with Maggie all the same.

The setting on the island is eerie and atmospheric. But the story itself could not win me over. This was a weird book.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Other Mothers – Katherine Faulkner

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Bewertung: 4 von 5.

Tash is struggling with her new role as a mother and without a real job. Her son is not happy to go to his new playgroup so she is delighted when a group of privileged women befriend her and let her into their close circle. Tash soon gets addicted to their high class lifestyle which she cannot afford herself. At the same time she gets obsessed with the case of a dead young woman who was also the nanny of one of the women. Soon Tash gets dangerously entangled in the mystery as well as in the affairs of the women.

This story is well crafted and slowly building up a web of secrets in which Tash gets caught up in. There are a lot of twists and turns and you never know which one to trust. Tash herself is not a very nice person and an unreliable narrator, which I both liked very much. I was really engrossed into the story. The only thing that troubled me was that motherhood and having children was showed as being something really dreadful. Tash loves her son, there is no question about that, but she feels lost without her job as a journalists and being a parent is obviously something that is so frustrating and unpleasant work and downgrading. I came across that in a lot of books and I find it very disturbing. I am a mother of two, they are adults now, but I never would describe being a mother in such a negative way. That really irked me.

This was my first book of this author and it would not be my last. I already have “Greenwich Park” on my kindle and I am looking forward reading it. I liked her writing style and how she created this complicated story.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Girls Of Summer – Katie Bishop

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Bewertung: 4 von 5.

This was an interesting read. It deals with the topics of abuse and how cultural changes can reshape your own view of what really happens.

When Rachel was seventeen she traveled through Europe with her friend during summer. Their last stop is a small Greek island. Rachel is naïve and shy, not as outgoing as her friend. But on this island she makes a lot of new friends and, most important, she meets a man. Alistair. He is much older than her, he is in his thirties, but Rachel is smitten immediately. It seems that he can see her like nobody else can. She feels special when she is with him. When the time to leave comes she decides to stay. But there is something more sinister going on and Rachel is not aware of that. For her this summer is magical and she is happy because she is in love and feels loved. But is it all as it seems?

Right at the beginning we learn that Alistair left Rachel behind and everything on this island is in shatters. Then the story jumps to adult Rachel fifteen years later. She is back in London, married and has a normal life. But she never got over that first love and she still thinks about Alistair. Rachel idealized this summer on the island but after meeting one of the girls from then she slowly begins to understand that there was something going on that she in her naivety did not realized. Or rather just did not want to see it.

This book reminded me a bit of “My Dark Vanessa”. In both books a woman even as an adult does not see that she was abused. She wants this to be a love story and not a story of abuse. Young Rachel was too vulnerable and impressionable but it is sometimes almost unbearable to see how stubborn she is as an adult. She never moved on in the fifteen years afterwards. She even ruins her marriage because of her love for Alistair and her unwillingness to see the truth. Adult Rachel is not a very nice character. She cheats and lies and she is very selfish. But it is hard to look back and realize you were a victim and not a young girl in love. Unfortunate it is true that in the past abuse of women was just not seen as such. And even the women herself did not see it that way. I hope that the cultural changes #metoo started will go on and change how people see certain things.

I enjoyed this book as far as you can call it “enjoy” reading about such horrible topics. The pace is slow and the reveal about what is going on is protracted a bit although you can easily see what is going on as a reader. But it is still an important topic and I think the author did a good job handling it.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Vanishing Of Class 3B – Jackie Kabler

⭐⭐⭐

Bewertung: 3 von 5.

The premise intrigued me. A bus full of children and their teachers vanishes into thin air after a day trip. Unfortunately the story lost its momentum after a good start. It is told by several POV and so it gets a bit repetitive. The parents are all well off, some of them are even famous, so they soon expect a ransom note. It seems somebody knows a secret about one of them and wants to be payed to keep silent. But of course it turns out not only one has a secret. So several parents think they are the target. The story jumps between different persons and their stories. We also see the police doing their work. It felt for a long time that nothing happened. None of the characters is likable or interesting. The secrets are, except for one which is amazingly the only secret to be immaterial, not worth all the hassle. Towards the end it is a lot of telling and less showing.

The idea is good but it is told in a very slow and repetitive way. In my opinion the reason for all this does not justify this extreme action. It’s a clear case of overreaction and overall the whole story is a bit bonkers and over the top. I am a bit disappointed because I was so intrigued by the blurb that I was looking forward reading it. But it did not fulfill my expectations.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Wenn Worte Töten – Anthony Horowitz

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Bewertung: 4 von 5.

Hawthorne und Horowitz are back. Ich habe die ersten beiden Bände dieser Serie geliebt. Sie waren witzig, spannend und herrlich britisch. Deswegen habe ich mich sehr auf dieses Buch erfreut.

Horowitz schreibt gerade an dem zweiten Band seiner Reihe „Hawthorne ermittelt“. Deswegen ist er nicht sehr erbaut als sein Verlag ihn zu einem Literaturfestival auf eine kleine Kanalinsel schickt. Hawthorne soll ihn begleiten. Und der ist, zu Horowitz‘ großem Erstaunen, sofort begeistert von der Idee. Horowitz hat das Gefühl, immer einen Schritt hinter Hawthorne herzuhinken. Und er ist auch ein wenig neidisch, das er im Schatten seines Helden steht. Und nun soll er ihm auch noch die Show auf diesem Festival stehlen. Aber Horowitz ergibt sich seinem Schicksal. Und dann geschieht ein Mord auf dieser winzigen Insel und Hawthorne ermittelt wieder mal. Zeit, sich Notizen für das dritte Buch zu machen.

Ich mag, wie Horowitz sich selbst in die Geschichte einbaut und gelegentlich zu uns Lesern spricht. Seine Schreibweise ist leicht und locker und hat, zumindest im englischen Original, feinen englischen Humor. Horowitz nimmt sich selbst nicht zu ernst und schreibt mit einem sympathischen Understatement, das man ihm auch abnimmt. Leider ist diese Story nicht ganz so packend wie die der beiden Vorgänger. Das Horowitz immer hinter Hawthorne herstolpert und ihm in Beliebtheit hinterhersteht ist inzwischen ein etabliertes Element. Das ist zwar immer noch amüsant aber nicht mehr neu. Die Morde auf der Insel sind zwar mysteriös, aber trotzdem ist die Spannung nur mittelmäßig. So wirklich kam bei mir kein Interesse auf. Die Handlung tritt leider im Mittelteil ein wenig auf der Stelle. Für mich ist es das schwächste Buch der Reihe. Beim ersten begeisterte mich die Einführung der Personen, inklusive des Autors selbst als eine der Hauptfiguren. Beim zweiten fand ich die Handlung sehr spannend. So sehr ich die merkwürdige Beziehung der beiden Hauptakteure mag, sie ist nun aber etabliert und deswegen muss die Story über die Handlung funktionieren. Das tut es hier leider nur bedingt.

Zum Glück legt Horowitz eine kleine Spur zum Schluss die schon wieder neugierig macht auf das nächste Buch. Sehr clever. Ich bin wieder dabei.