The Neighbours Secret by Dan Clark

 A NEW NEIGHBOUR. A NEW FRIEND. A NEW THREAT.

At first it was exciting to see the new neighbour move into the vacant apartment across the way... then it quickly changed.

Grace and Mike have lived in Church Place for almost four years. It's their home, they're settled and are extremely content.

When the new tenant asks for Grace's help during a time of need, she's happy to assist as it gives her an opportunity to learn more about the woman.

It isn't long until Grace and Mike discover who she really is.

Only now it may be too late…

Thanks so much to Dan for sending me an arc of this book, and HAPPY PUBLICATION DAY!!!!

Ok so I started this one slow, why? I don’t know, honestly not sure. But when I got back to reading it I devoured the last 70% over 3 days! What a story, with twists I did not see coming. I liked the characters Grace and Mike, they seem normal happy folk, that is until the new neighbour Jade starts stirring things up. I didn’t see where this was going, there are little things I missed and didn’t pick up on, but some strange goings on make you wonder whats happening.

This is the first of Dan’s books I’ve read and won’t be the last.

Thanks again Dan!

The Vintage Shop of Second Chances by Libby Page

 

Among the cobbled streets of the Somerset town of Frome, Lou is embarking on the start of something new. After the death of her beloved mother, she takes a deep breath into the unknown and is opening her own vintage clothes shop. 

In upstate New York, Donna has just found out some news about her family which has called into question her whole upbringing. The only clue she has to unlock her past is a picture of a yellow dress, and the fact it is currently on display in a shop in England. 

For Maggy, she is facing life as a 70-something divorcee and while she got the house, she's not sure what to fill it with now her family have moved out. The new vintage shop in town sparks memories of her past and reignites a passion she's been missing...

Together, can these three women find the answers they are searching for and unlock a second chance at a new life?

I was thrilled to be asked to be on the book tour for Libby’s new book! I was on the tour for The Island Home and loved it, so was very excited to read this one. 

I absolutely loved it. I devoured it over maybe 3 days, and fell in love with the characters. I think Maggy is my favourite . I loved how she and Lou ended up being such good friends, I’m glad their paths crossed in the way they did. I wanted so much for Maggy, and it went exactly the way I thought it would. 

The story of the dress was so interesting, I was desperate to know what happened! It sounded so pretty, The shop sounded beautiful, somewhere I’d like to visit. I can imagine it being so homely and welcoming. Libby is so good at writing characters and making you love them, I don’t know how she does it!  But all 3 ladies were such lovely characters, they seem like the type of ladies who would be happy to let anyone join them and have a good chat and a laugh.

Thanks so much to Orion Publishing for my beautiful proof, and for asking me to be on the tour. And thanks to Libby for writing such a lovely story.

The interview by C.M Ewan

 

It's 5 p.m. on a Friday. You have been called to an interview for your dream job. In a stunning office thirteen floors above the city below, you are all alone with the man interviewing you. Everyone else has gone home for the weekend.

The interview gets more and more disturbing. You're feeling scared. Your only way out is to answer a seemingly impossible question. If you can't... what happens next?

So my husband has been reading this book for months. He is not a reader at all but it grabbed his attention on ibooks, hes slowly been making his way through it. He spied it in a Charity shop for 50p and said he was buying it for me as he really thought I’d enjoy it. I don’t think he expected me to jump right in and finish it before him.

I really enjoyed this one. I loved chatting to my husband about it too until 

I got past where he is and had to keep my mouth shut. 

The idea of this was so freaky! Imagine being in that situation? I was glued to the pages, I liked Kate, and I was eager to know what happened in her previous job. I kind of expected a few things and was right, but some stuff I didn’t see coming. 

If you enjoy fast paced thrillers I think you’ll like this one. I hope Mr Dee enjoys it when he finishes it.

What July Knew by Emily Koch

 

Summer, 1995.

July Hooper knows eighteen things about her mother. Like number thirteen: she loved dancing on the kitchen table. And number eight: she was covered in freckles.

And then there’s number two: she died after being hit by a car when July was small. She keeps this list hidden in a drawer away from her father. Because they’re not allowed to talk about her mother. Ever.

But an anonymous note slipped into July’s bag on her tenth birthday is about to change everything she thinks she knows about her mum. Determined to discover what really happened to her, July begins to investigate, cycling around the neighbourhood where her family used to live.

There she meets someone who might finally have the answers. July wants her family to stop lying to her, but will the truth be harder to face?

First off, a massive thanks to Vintage Books for my gorgeous physical copy, and for approving me on Netgalley for the e-arc.

I buddy read this with my pals Lucy and Bex, and once I started I felt I couldn’t stop. It was so good. 

July is this beautiful sweet 10 year old, who lives with her father, her stepmother, and step sister. She doesn't get on so great with either of them, but she tries so hard. My heart broke for July so many times throughout the story, but the last page absolutely threw me into tears. There is so much pain in the book, but July pushes through it in order to find out more things about her mum. I loved the list, I loved that she finds things to add to it, and I would have loved to do a school report about a family member. There was just so much to unravel, and it all unravels in a magnificent fashion!

As my pals have said, this story throws you back to your childhood (well if you were a 90s kid like me), with mentions of so many things I loved from back then. Its nostalgic, beautiful, and heartbreaking. I hope everyone loves it as much as I did.

Metronome by Tom Watson

 

Not all that is hidden is lost. For twelve years Aina and Whitney have been in exile on an island for a crime they committed together, tethered to a croft by pills they must take for survival every eight hours. They've kept busy - Aina with her garden, her jigsaw, her music; Whitney with his sculptures and maps - but something is not right.

Shipwrecks have begun washing up, and their supply drops have stopped. And on the day they're meant to be collected for parole, the Warden does not come. Instead there's a sheep. But sheep can't swim...

As days pass, Aina begins to suspect that their prison is part of a peninsula, and that Whitney has been keeping secrets. And if he's been keeping secrets, maybe she should too. Convinced they've been abandoned, she starts investigating ways she might escape. As she comes to grips with the decisions that haunt her past, she realises her biggest choice is yet to come.

This was a strange one. I loved the idea of it when I read the blurb, and ny reading pal told me to talk to her about it when I was finished as she’d recently read it. 

The idea of Aina and Whitney being punished for a crime by being placed on island alone, was something different to anything I’d read before. The pills had me intrigued, I wondered why they had to keep taking them. The story starts out really interesting, I liked reading the flashbacks to their lies before this, but the world sounds crazy! When you read it you’ll know what I mean.

The last maybe third of the book seemed very rushed, and I think it could have been played out a bit more. The first ⅔ were really detailed and had me hooked, but the last ⅓ just felt too quick.

Overall a good story, a really different idea. 

The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard

 I was the girl who survived the Nothing Man. 

Now I am the woman who is going to catch him...

You've just read the opening pages of The Nothing Man, the true crime memoir Eve Black has written about her obsessive search for the man who killed her family nearly two decades ago.

Supermarket security guard Jim Doyle is reading it too, and with each turn of the page his rage grows. Because Jim was - is - the Nothing Man.

The more Jim reads, the more he realises how dangerously close Eve is getting to the truth. He knows she won't give up until she finds him. He has no choice but to stop her first…

Okay, wow. This book was amazing. Aging read one of Catherine’s book earlier this year (56 Days) and enjoying it, I went into this one with high hopes, and boy were my hopes right! I’ve been scared by 1 book before while reading (The Girl in the Walls by A.J. Gnuse), but this one terrified me! I was lying in bed, 12am, pitch back, reading about this bloody scary guy creeping into peoples houses and bedrooms in the dead of night. Not a good idea! 

I finished late last night, I stayed awake until 12.45am to finish the last 40% as i just needed to get it finished and find out what was going to happen!

Jim AKA the Nothing Man, was so scary. His thoughts behind things, planning, the crimes he committed. This is some seriously scary guy. I loved Eve, and I felt so bad for her reading back on what happened to her family. The bathroom scene was so intense! 

Fantastic writing Ms Howard, you blew me away!