Book Review: UNTIL THE DAY I DIE by Emily Carpenter

Title: UNTIL THE DAY I DIE

Author: Emily Carpenter
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Read: February 2019

Expected publication: 12 March 2019

My Rating: 🌟🌟

Book Description:

If there’s a healthy way to grieve, Erin Gaines hasn’t found it. After her husband’s sudden death, the runaway success of the tech company they built with their best friends has become overwhelming. Her nerves are frayed, she’s disengaged, and her frustrated daughter, Shorie, is pulling away from her. Maybe Erin’s friends and family are right. Maybe a few weeks at a spa resort in the Caribbean islands is just what she needs to hit the reset button…

Shorie is not only worried about her mother’s mental state but also for the future of her parents’ company. Especially when she begins to suspect that not all of Erin’s colleagues can be trusted. It seems someone is spinning an intricate web of deception—the foundation for a conspiracy that is putting everything, and everyone she loves, at risk. And she may be the only one who can stop it.

Now, thousands of miles away in a remote, and oftentimes menacing, tropical jungle, Erin is beginning to have similar fears. Things at the resort aren’t exactly how the brochure described, and unless she’s losing her mind, Erin’s pretty sure she wasn’t sent there to recover—she was sent to disappear.

My musings:

I absolutely loved Carpenter’s novel The Weight of Lies, which was one of my favourite books in 2017, with the “book-within-the-book” format also presenting one of the most original novels I have ever read. So I was overjoyed to receive the author’s latest novel Until the Day I Die, excited to find out what the author would come up with this time. And BTW, isn’t that cover absolutely stunning?

It is with some sadness that I have to say I have mixed feelings about this book. From the outset, I was struggling to fit it into a genre, comparing it in my mind to a hybrid between Nine Perfect Strangers, Lord of the Flies  and a James Bond movie as the plot unfolded. Whilst I found some aspects of the plot thoroughly intriguing and mystifying (like the coding and computer stuff, which seemed like a foreign language to me), other elements seemed to be so farfetched and stereotypical they fit more into the Bond category than the mystery I had signed up for. There are more serious topics, too, like grief, mental health, a coming-of-age story, and the mother-daughter dynamics I so enjoyed in The Weight of Lies. Not to forget the adventure / survival stuff as Erin tries to brave the wilderness, which made for a faster pace in the second half of the book. At times, I was left wondering if some elements were supposed to be dystopian, or maybe I have just been living under a rock (or a book) and have no idea of what is happening in the real world?

It was all there for the taking, and yet it never fully came together for me. Erin, who is portrayed as your typical corporate power-woman, seems meek and helpless for some parts of the story, and feisty in others, which was confusing. She seems to come more into her own as the book progresses, which redeemed her character slightly for me, but I never really bonded with her. I much preferred her daughter Shorie, our second narrator, whose brilliant mind when it comes to all things computer was a force to behold. Whilst the mother-daughter dynamics didn’t have the same emotional impact on me as those in The Weight of Lies, they matured slightly towards the end of the book, so if you feel as disheartened as I did at the start, take heart that things will improve on that front at least!

But where are the gothic elements that I adored in The Weight of Lies and in Every Single Secret? I appreciate that readers’ expectations must be the most frustrating hurdle for an author trying to branch out and try something different. Forgive me – I tried to keep an open mind, I really did! But at times I struggled to believe that this book was written by the same author who made me virtually house-bound whilst reading The Weight of Lies, which would have required an amputation to prise it out of my hands. Whilst Until the Day I Die kept me turning the pages, it never quite got under my skin the way her previous works had. I found the beginning too slow, and just as I thought that things were finally coming together, there was that very far-fetched ending that I just couldn’t wrap my head around.

Summary:

Ok, so here is my take on it: I recommend going into this one with an open mind and zero expectations. If you have read Carpenter’s work before, do a few deep breathing exercises and let all your preconceptions float off into the ether. Or maybe you are a reader who is a lot more flexible than my stubborn little mind, and won’t have any trouble enjoying this anyway. I am the first one to admit that my expectations ultimately were my downfall with this one, and that I may not be the right audience for the type of story that Carpenter is telling here. However, the plot contains enough elements to be entertaining and will undoubtedly be appreciated by many other readers, so please do not be deterred to pick this one up and judge for yourself! For now, let this just be a blip on the radar on my reading journey – I look forward to reading more from this author in future.

Thank you to Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for the free electronic copy of this novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.

Book Review: THE BOY IN THE HEADLIGHTS by Samuel Bjørk

Title: The Boy in the Headlights

Author: Samuel Bjørk
Publisher: Random House UK, Transworld Publishers
Read: February 2019

Expected publication: 21 March 2019

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟1/2

Book Description:

Munch and Krüger. An unexpected pairing. A brilliant team.

Winter 1999. An old man is driving home when his headlights catch an animal on the empty road up ahead. He stamps hard on the brakes. But it is not an animal at all. It is a young boy, frightened and alone, with a set of deer antlers strapped firmly to his head.

Fourteen years later, a body is found in a mountain lake. Within weeks, three people have died. Each time, the killer has left a clue, inviting Special Investigations Detectives Munch and Krüger to play a deadly game – a game they cannot possibly win. Against the most dangerous and terrifying kind of serial killer. One who chooses their victims completely at random.

To find the killer they must look deep within their own dark pasts, but how can you stop a murderer when you cannot begin to predict their next move?

My musings:

One of my favourite things about Scandi crime is the atmospheric setting, which normally includes a bleak winter landscape. True to the genre, Bjørk manages to set the stage of The Boy in the Headlights very quickly and immediately drew me into the chilling scene of a lonely, wintry country road, where an old man is driving through the night. Suddenly his headlights illuminate a creature he thinks is an animal crossing the road. But when he gets closer, he realises it’s a small boy running through the night with deer antlers strapped to his head. My interest was immediately piqued, even though it wasn’t until the very end that this particular thread came full circle and I managed to slot the piece of the puzzle into its rightful place.

The rest of the story follows more traditional guidelines of a Scandinavian murder mystery. There appears to be a serial killer on the loose, seemingly picking his victims at random and staging them in different locations in the Norwegian countryside. With no pattern or apparent motive to go on, this type of “thrill killer” is a detective’s worst nightmare. Investigative team Holger Munch and Mia Krüger, officers of the elite homicide squad, are pitching their brilliant minds against the devious plans of the murderer, racing against time to catch him before he can strike again – which will challenge even these two brilliant minds.

When I started reading The Boy in the Headlights, I didn’t realise that it was the third in a series featuring the two main investigators Munch and Krüger, and I wished immediately that I had read the other two books first before tackling this one. Whilst it can easily be read as a stand-alone, both Munch and Krüger are complex and interesting characters with a rich backstory. Munch, whose daughter is still recovering from injuries sustained in an attack that was somehow related to one of his investigations, still harbours regrets about his involvement and his recent marriage breakdown. Krüger, who has lost a sister to a drug overdose, is also still struggling with her own personal demons. With a brilliant mind but also very highly strung and prone to anxiety and depression, Mia makes a very clever but also volatile investigator. Her impulsive nature often sends her off on different tangents not obvious to the clue-by-clue detective, and I found her thought processes fascinating.

Bjørk makes good use of all the elements that make Scandi crime so enjoyable for me: an atmospheric setting, a brutal and yet imaginative and clever killer and an investigative team whose own personal stories will leave you wanting to see them in many more books to come.

I admit that the final reveal didn’t totally work for me, as I found aspects of it slightly baffling and far-fetched. I am wondering, however, if reading the earlier novels in the series would have filled in those gaps for me and am keen to start the series from the beginning to see what I have missed. 

Summary:

All in all, I really enjoyed this original police procedural and think it will appeal to readers who like interesting, complex detectives that don’t quite fit the mould of your average investigator.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers, for the free electronic copy of this novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.

Book Review: MY LOVELY WIFE by Samantha Downing

 

Title: My Lovely Wife

Author: Samantha Downing
Publisher: Berkley Books
Read: February 2019

Expected publication: 26 March 2019

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟1/2

Book Description:

Dexter meets Mr. and Mrs. Smith in this wildly compulsive debut thriller about a couple whose fifteen-year marriage has finally gotten too interesting...

Our love story is simple. I met a gorgeous woman. We fell in love. We had kids. We moved to the suburbs. We told each other our biggest dreams, and our darkest secrets. And then we got bored.

We look like a normal couple. We're your neighbors, the parents of your kid's friend, the acquaintances you keep meaning to get dinner with.

We all have secrets to keeping a marriage alive.

Ours just happens to be getting away with murder.

My musings:

Wow – what a hell of a ride this book was! It was also so much fun to read. Which makes me a little bit concerned about my own sanity, seeing how there were some pretty dark themes at play here: murder, torture, sexual predators, lies and infidelity. But, oh so very entertaining!

On the surface, Millicent and her husband are just an ordinary suburban married couple. Millicent sells real estate, whilst her husband gives tennis lessons to the rich bored housewives in the area. They come home at night, cook dinner, help the kids with their homework and ferry them around to their various sporting activities. They have strict rules in their household. Their children are well behaved and respect their parents. But at night when the kids are asleep, the couple meet for “date nights” in the garage where they pursue their own interests. Pretty normal, huh? Except that this is not stamp collecting, gardening or tinkering in the shed. Because Millicent and her husband are the sort of couple who like a thrill, and nothing makes them more excited than ....

STOP! No, I cannot give their delicious little secrets away here. Go into this book blindly and let it sweep you away in its murky current of WTH!!! You can thank me later ....

I loved every crazy minute of this unusual story. What made it even better was the lively discussion that ensued in our buddy read group. I think that every single one of us was blown away how entertaining and unique this book was. In a market oversaturated with psychological thrillers, Downing still managed to carve out a special niche for herself. Plus, she still manages to sneak in a damn good twist *applause*! 

Summary:

Macabre, shocking, twisted but unputdownable are the words that instantly spring to mind. Despite its dark themes, I think that this books will also appeal to readers who like a lighter mystery, as it doesn’t dwell on the serious and the gory. I cannot go into the story for fear of spoilers, even though I am itching to tell you my favourite parts of it! So all I will say is: do yourself a favour and pick up this book today. Or, even better, read it with a friend or a group, because you will want to SMS someone in the middle of the night as the crazy things unfold in front of your eyes. By far one of the more original books I have read in a long time, and one that I can highly recommend to all lovers of the genre! A great binge read – lock your doors, make sure you are stocked up on food and bevies and just enjoy the ride.

Thank you to Edelweiss and Berkley Books for the free electronic copy of this novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.

Book Review: THE END OF LONELINESS by Benedict Wells

Title: The End of Loneliness

Author: Benedict Wells
Publisher: Penguin Books
Read: January 2019

Expected publication: out now

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟

Book Description:

Jules Moreau’s childhood is shattered after the sudden death of his parents. Enrolled in boarding school where he and his siblings, Marty and Liz, are forced to live apart, the once vivacious and fearless Jules retreats inward, preferring to live within his memories--until he meets Alva, a kindred soul caught in her own grief. Fifteen years pass and the siblings remain strangers to one another, bound by tragedy and struggling to recover the family they once were. Jules, still adrift, is anchored only by his desires to be a writer and to reunite with Alva, who turned her back on their friendship on the precipice of it becoming more, but just as it seems they can make amends for time wasted, invisible forces--whether fate or chance--intervene.

A kaleidoscopic family saga told through the fractured lives of the three Moreau siblings alongside a faltering, recovering love story, The End of Loneliness is a stunning meditation on the power of our memories, of what can be lost and what can never be let go. With inimitable compassion and luminous, affecting prose, Benedict Wells contends with what it means to find a way through life, while never giving up hope you will find someone to go with you.

My musings:

Every now and then I like to step away from reading crime novels, and The End of Loneliness sounded just like the introspective, reflective novel I was craving at the time.

We meet a young Jules as his innocent childhood is shattered by the tragic death of his parents in a car accident, resulting in Jules and his three siblings getting sent off to boarding school. Each of the siblings deals with the tragedy in their own way. Liz, the eldest, adopts an air of confidence and a self-destructive streak that has an almost manic quality to it at times. Marty, the middle child, retreats into a world of logic that grounds him, early on meeting and marrying his soulmate. Jules, the youngest, is a dreamer who is saved from loneliness by his friendship with Alva, another child with a tragic family background. As the years go by, we get to follow the three siblings and their journey as seen through Jules’ eyes – there is tragedy and triumph, great love and great loss, and the ever present bond between them that ties them together as a family.

I also lost a parent as a child and spent a brief stint in a boarding school (the memories still make me shudder), so this book pressed quite a few emotional buttons for me. One line really stood out for me, which was when Liz remarks that the three are “the loneliest siblings in the world”. Wells describes the isolation that grief and despair brings so well, and I remember feeling exactly like this after the death of my mother. Whilst it was painful to relive those memories, it was also strangely cathartic, and it’s a rare book that can worm its way so deeply under my skin.

The End of Loneliness is a slow, character driven novel that follows one man’s journey from childhood tragedy to adulthood. Being used to fast-paced crime novels I found that the story lacked a bit of action for me at times, and I read it in a few instalments to be able to sit with it and absorb its atmosphere rather than rushing to the finish line as I would with my crime novels. There were some bleak moments, and some that really touched my heart. Wells does a great job in bringing out the emotional baggage of his characters and exploring the effects of their childhood trauma on their lives.

I was especially taken by the character of Liz, who really touched me. Despite her seemingly ebullient and outgoing nature, there is a self-destructive streak to her that was as fascinating as it was well observed, and my heart really broke for her. I would have loved to be able to read some chapters from the POVs of the other two siblings, Marty and Liz, to get a deeper feeling for their choices rather than seeing them solely through Jules’ eyes, but perhaps that would have taken some of the introspective character away that made this novel so powerful.

Summary:

All in all, the End of Loneliness is a melancholy, haunting tale about the effects of childhood trauma and loss on our lives and future choices. It is also a story of love, hope and redemption, and one that will tug on your heartstrings. Wells’ insightful observations drove this story for me and touched me deeply in ways that made me think about the characters long after I had turned the last page. 

Thank you to Edelweiss and Penguin Books for the free electronic copy of this novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.

Book Review: THE 7 1/2 DEATHS OF EVELYN HARDCASTLE

Title: The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

Author: Stuart Turton
Read: February 2019

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Book Description:

The Rules of Blackheath

Evelyn Hardcastle will be murdered at 11:00 p.m.
There are eight days, and eight witnesses for you to inhabit.
We will only let you escape once you tell us the name of the killer.
Understood? Then let's begin...

Evelyn Hardcastle will die. Every day until Aiden Bishop can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others...

My musings:

To be honest, I don’t know where to even start reviewing this one! What a head spin this book was. I found it both one of the most fascinating and also most frustrating books I have ever read in equal measure – meaning that in a good way, even if I felt at times that it was doing my head in.

Do you ever wonder where authors get their ideas from? To me, the novel had the feel of a sophisticated weekend of a murder-mystery getaway that has gone terribly wrong, where you no longer play out the role of your character but have to live it.

Turton may have chosen a classical 1920’s setting in an old English mansion and started his novel like a classical locked-room whodunit Agatha Christie style, but this is where the similarity ends. If you like your crime novels linear and with a nice little breadcrumb trail that allows you to solve it before the big reveal, then turn back now, because there is no hope of ever winning with this one! Of course, the real die-hard armchair detective may take on the challenge, but be prepared to give away your life to a sea of sticky notes to keep track of the crazy timelines. I am sure that everyone has heard that Turton uses a groundhog day type of scenario in his mystery, where the MC Aiden Bishop returns to the same day eight times in the bodies of different hosts to solve the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle. But the author is not satisfied with that. He also surmises that Aiden inhabits all of his eight characters at once, only ever seeing the day through his current day’s host. Yes, I know, it didn’t make much sense to me either, and still totally flummoxes my minds, but the story still managed to sweep me up in its dark current and trap me for hours in the nightmarish scenario until the mystery was solved. Could I have predicted the outcome? Never!

I will not go into the story here, and if you want the bare bones you can easily get that from the blurb. This book was such a headspin that I will concentrate on a few points, with the general premise that I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Well, listening to it, because I chose the audio version, which I regretted at times, when trying to recall the 100 different characters and timelines whilst commuting to and from work. One of my favourite aspects of the book was the premise that Aiden wakes each morning in the body of a different host, reliving the same day over and over again until he can solve the imminent murder of Evelyn Hardcastle, the daughter of the house. Whilst Aiden retains part of his own personality, he must also find a way to work with his hosts’ personalities and abilities, a task that sounds easier than it is, because not all of his characters are very nice people, or very smart. This was such a clever aspect of the story that made the reading journey a real adventure for me. Somehow Turton also manages to convey enough of Aiden himself so that the reader can “bond” with him, ensuring the emotional involvement that I find so vital for my enjoyment of a book.

I freely admit that there are some aspects of the story which still don’t make much sense to me. My limited intellect obviously doesn’t stretch far enough to comprehend the whole concept of time travel and being split into various characters, so forgive me if I concede defeat on that front. What I can say however is that this was one of the most entertaining books I have read in a long time, and definitely one of the most original mysteries ever to come on the market. If you are a fan of the traditional whodunit but also like something totally outside the box, then this is definitely for you!