Category Archives: Harlan Coben

The book review café book of the month **February 2020

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Whohoo March is here, and spring is in the air! (Well hopefully it is). It feels like I have spent the WHOLE winter, coughing and sneezing, and feeling generally unwell.  I’m seriously thinking of hibernating next winter!

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As usual I’m digressing but as it’s March it means it’s time to choose my book of the month for February. I read some cracking books in February, but if I’m honest the book I’ve chosen was always going to be a contender for my book of the month, and it’s already one of my top reads of the year so far.

How do I choose my book of the month?

I choose a book I feel is particularly outstanding, a book that covers every aspect of what I look for in a read, an original  plot, great characters and a storyline that draws me in from the first page and keeps me in its grips until I reach the very last page. So without further ado here’s my book of the month for February.

I Am Dust by Louise Beech

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Louise Beech is such an extraordinary author, she doesn’t just write a book; she gives each book a heart, a heart that gives life to her stories and her characters. I Am Dust takes you on a journey of magic and murder, love, ambition, jealousy and loss. It’s a ghost story entwined with a murder mystery, but it’s not the kind of ghost story that’s outside the realm of possibility, it’s plausible, heartbreaking, unnerving and creepy. You can read my full review here…I Am Dust by Louise Beech

Highly recommended

Full reviews can be found here…

The Other People by C.J. Tudor @cjtudor @MichaelJBooks #MustReads

The Guest List by Lucy Foley #BookReview #TheGuestList @lucyfoleytweets @HarperCollinsUK

Never Look Back by A. L. Gaylin #BookReview @Orionbooks

Liar Liar by by Mel Sherratt @writermels @AvonBooksUk #BookReview #BlogTour #LiarLiar

The Dilemma by B A Paris #BookReview @BAParisAuthor #TheDilemma @HQstories

The Murder House by Michael Wood #BookReview @MichaelHWood #CrimeFiction @0neMoreChapter_ #TeamDarke @HarperFiction #MustReads2020

Books I’m hoping to read in March

I have a couple of books to read for book blog tours, but apart from that I’m hoping to read some up and coming book releases, plus a couple of my own book shelf reads.

 

 

 

Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben

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I have always been a huge fan of Harlan Coben, so I was really looking forward to reading Fool Me Once. Maya is a former discredited special ops pilot who has had too deal with far too much tragedy in her life. Her sister Claire was murdered, followed closely by the death of her husband Joe, who was shot in what appeared to be a random act of violence. Maya’s life is in ruins, she is suffering from PTSD and is trying to carry on for her two year old daughter. Then one day she sees her daughter on the nanny cam sitting on her father’s lap, But Joe is supposedly dead. As events spiral out of control Maya finds herself questioning her own sanity, and it soon transpires she should trust no one, especially the people who appear to be closest to her.

I liked Maya the protagonist in Fool Me Once she comes across as feisty, persistent and determined in her bid to get to the truth, but there is also a vulnerable side to her, as she suffers bouts of PTSD bought about by her time in special ops, she takes medication, attends therapy, so she’s not your normal “level headed” protagonist, she has issues which make the reader question Maya’s perception of what she thinks is going on. I found her to be realistic in character, which certainly helps to draw the reader into the plot. There are an array of characters In Fool Me Once and the reader is so skilfully drawn in by the author, that each one become a suspect, and as I was reading Fool Me Once my mind was racing ahead with theories and outcomes, and they were all wrong by the way!

Fool Me Once is a masterfully written thriller, as Maya investigates her husbands killing the reader is presented with with multiple threads, which all come together to reach a nail biting conclusion. Many a time I thought I had worked out the plot and second guessed where it was going, but I was wrong every damn time, and this is down to Harlan Coben’s superb writing skills. I found the plot took a while to gather momentum, but once it did, it went from strength to strength. Fool Me Once is a solidly constructed thriller, masterfully written and shrouded in suspense, that is guaranteed to keep the reader guessing until the final few pages. Although I really enjoyed Fool Me Once I’ve given it 4 ⭐️ as it took a fair few chapters to draw me in.

4 ☕️☕️☕️☕️ Out of 5

Hardcover: 400 pages

Publisher: Century (24 Mar. 2016)

Kindle

Hardcover

 

 

WWW Wednesday

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It’s WWW Wednesday time.

The WWW Wednesdays meme is currently hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of https://samannelizabeth.wordpress.com/   and is a great way to do a weekly update on what you’ve been reading and what you have planned.

To take part all you have to do is answer the following three questions:

What are you currently reading?

What did you recently finish reading?

What do you think you’ll read next?

What are you currently reading?

Bloq by Alan Jones

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Book description

A gritty crime thriller. Glasgow man Bill Ingram waits in the city’s Central Station to meet his daughter, returning home from London for Christmas. When the last train pulls in, and she doesn’t get off it, he makes a desperate overnight dash to find out why. His search for her takes over his life, costing him his job and, as he withdraws from home, family and friends, he finds himself alone, despairing of ever seeing her again.

Publication date: 1st April 2016

What did you recently finish reading?

Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben

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Book description

your husband was murdered,
And you were a witness,
How do you explain it when he appears on your nanny cam?
You thought you trusted him.
Now you can’t even trust yourself.

Publication date: 24th March 2016

What do you think you’ll read next?

After The Lie by Kerry Fisher

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Book description

A perfect wife. A perfect life. A dangerous secret …

Lydia has the ‘right’ kind of friends, her children are at the ‘right’ kind of school and she’s married to the ‘right’ sort of man – kind, steady, reliable Mark. Her wedding business is flourishing and even though she is at loggerheads with her mother, she couldn’t ask for anything more from life.

But the truth is that Lydia has been lucky. She has been living a lie for years and Mark has no idea who he is really married to. But nothing lasts forever and the past has a funny way of catching up with the present. When the person who knows all of Lydia’s dark little secrets turns up at the school gates, his presence threatens to blow Lydia’s life apart.

What is Lydia’s terrible truth? Once the secret is out, you can’t put it back …
Publication date: 29th April 2016

Please feel free to leave a comment about the books you are reading this week

**Stacking the Shelves**

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Here’s my round up of stacking the Shelves hosted by http://tyngasreviews.com/. Stacking the Shelves highlight books which have been received In a week. Paper books, e-books, ARC’s received, books bought or borrowed, are all included.

ARC

Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben

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Book description

your husband was murdered,
And you were a witness,
How do you explain it when he appears on your nanny cam?
You thought you trusted him.
Now you can’t even trust yourself.

Dark secrets and a terrifying hunt for the truth lie at the heart of this gripping new thriller

The Lost by Claire McGowan

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Book description

Not everyone who’s missing is lost
When two teenage girls go missing along the Irish border, forensic psychologist Paula Maguire has to return to the hometown she left years before. Swirling with rumour and secrets, the town is gripped by fear of a serial killer. But the truth could be even darker.

Not everyone who’s lost wants to be found
Surrounded by people and places she tried to forget, Paula digs into the cases as the truth twists further away. What’s the link with two other disappearances from 1985? And why does everything lead back to the town’s dark past- including the reasons her own mother went missing years before?

Nothing is what it seems
As the shocking truth is revealed, Paula learns that sometimes, it’s better not to find what you’ve lost.

The Dead Ground by Claire McGowan

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Book description

A stolen baby. A murdered woman. A decades-old atrocity. Something connects them all…

A month before Christmas, and Ballyterrin on the Irish border lies under a thick pall of snow. When a newborn baby goes missing from hospital, it’s all too close to home for forensic psychologist Paula Maguire, who’s wrestling with the hardest decision of her life.

Then a woman is found in a stone circle with her stomach cut open and it’s clear a brutal killer is on the loose.

As another child is taken and a pregnant woman goes missing, Paula is caught up in the hunt for a killer no one can trace, who will stop at nothing to get what they want.

The Dead Ground will leave you gasping for breath as Paula discovers every decision she makes really is a matter of life and death…

The Good Mother by A.L. Bird

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Book description

The greatest bond. The darkest betrayal.
Susan wakes up alone in a room she doesn’t recognise, with no memory of how she got there. She only knows that she is trapped, and her daughter is missing.

The relief that engulfs her when she hears her daughter’s voice through the wall is quickly replaced by fear, knowing that whoever has imprisoned her has her daughter, too.

Devising a plan to keep her daughter safe, Susan begins to get closer to her unknown captor. And suddenly, she realises that she has met him before.

The Good Mother is a dark and disturbing psychological thriller for fans of C L Taylor, Kathryn Croft and S K Tremayne.

Sleep Sister by Laura Elliot

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Book description

childhoods destroyed.

One story they will never tell.

Until now.

Beth ran away from her family when she was a teenager. She left behind a terrible evil that took her innocence. She also left behind her sister, Sara.

When Beth returns home, she is shocked to discover her terrible secret is not just hers alone…she shares it with Sara. Under the shadow of a remote headland, the sisters make an oath they promise never to break.

Eva’s birth is a mystery that remains unsolved. Years later with her marriage in ruins, and her future uncertain, she realizes that to move forward with her life, she must first understand her past.

But while Eva is drawing closer to the truth about her roots, Beth and Sara’s lives are falling apart, crushed under the weight of the secret they carry. They must confront the past and face the darkness once more. But this time, their story will be heard.

The St. Tropez Lonely Hearts Club

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Book description

Description
Contessa Carlotta di Ponti, stunningly beautiful and filthy rich, has finally escaped her abusive marriage and is looking to find true love in St. Tropez.

The party season kicks off with a spectacular bash at billionaire Harry Silver’s palatial mansion, but tragedy soon strikes. Could seemingly innocuous events – a bad oyster, a fatal wasp sting, a faulty funicular – mean something more sinister for the bejewelled citizens of St. Tropez?

It is up to glamorous detective Gabrielle Poulpe to save the day and find the murderer in their midst or life on St. Tropez as its residents know it could be over forever. Can Gabrielle find the culprit before it’s too late?

Join the wealthy and the fabulous in the ultimate playground of the rich and the famous, for sun, sin, sex and scandal as they battle a threat from within…

A Mothers Secret by Renita D’Silva

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Book description
What if you discovered that everything you knew about yourself was a lie?
When pregnant Jaya loses her mother, then her baby son Arun in a tragic cot death, her world crashes down. Overcome by grief and guilt, she begins to search for answers – to the enigma of her lonely, distant mother, and her mysterious past in India.

Looking through her mother’s belongings, she finds two diaries and old photographs, carrying the smoky aroma of fire. A young boy smiles out at Jaya from every photograph – and in one, a family stand proudly in front of a sprawling mansion. Who is this child? And why did her mother treasure this memento of a regal family lost to the past?

As Jaya starts to read the diaries, their secrets lead her back to India, to the ruin of a once grand house on a hill. There, Kali, a mad old lady, will unlock the story of a devastating lie and a fire that tore a family apart.

Nothing though will prepare Jaya for the house’s final revelation, which will change everything Jaya knew about herself.

That Girl From Nowhere by Dorothy Koomson 

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Book description 

Clemency Smittson was adopted as a baby and the only connection she has to her birth mother is a cardboard box hand-decorated with butterflies. Now an adult, Clem decides to make a drastic life change and move to Brighton, where she was born. Clem has no idea that while there she’ll meet someone who knows all about her butterfly box and what happened to her birth parents.

As the tangled truths about her adoption and childhood start to unravel, a series of shocking events cause Clem to reassess whether the price of having contact with her birth family could be too high to pay…

I am determined not to buy any books (we will see how long that lasts!), until I have made a dent in my TBR pile.

Please free to leave a comment if you have read any of these books, or let me know what books you’ve received this week.