Book favoritism: Looking back on 2017

I love the ticking over of a new year as a chance to reflect and plan. Looking back on 2017, I have had a great reading journey. This is reflected in my high average rating of books: 3.9 according to Goodreads! Not bad at all! I revisited some of my favourite authors (Sharon Bolton, Jane Casey, Ruth Ware, Michael Robotham, Mary Kubica and Jane Harper to name a few) and discovered quite a lot of new ones I will keep looking out for.

Some of my all-time favourites last year were discovered through the supportive bookish communities on Goodreads and Instagram – thank you to all who pointed me in the direction of some fantastic reads! I love interacting with other readers on social media, and spend way too much time online browsing. Despite this, I still managed to surpass my 2017 reading challenge by 23 books, with 123 read in total.

It is never easy to choose favourites, but there were a few books that stood out from the rest, and I cannot help myself but sing their praise here. And perhaps you will find your next favourite read amongst the list!

 Favourite book (male author): The Scandal (or “Beartown”) by Fredrik Backman

 Favourite book (female author): You Be Mother by Meg Mason

 Favourite book in a series: Force of Nature by Jane Harper

 Favourite debut novel: 99 Red Balloons by Elisabeth Carpenter

 Favourite dystopian novel: Bird Box by Josh Malerman

 Favourite historical novel: The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Laneby Lisa See

 Favourite psychological thriller: The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

  Favourite Scandinavian noir: Dark Pines by Will Dean; and Watching You by Arne Dahl

 Favourite family drama: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

 Favourite first book in a new series (can’t wait to read the next one): The Child Finder by Rene’s Denfeld

 Best bookclub book: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

 Most interesting / unusual protagonist general fiction: EleanorOliphant is completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

 Most interesting / unusual protagonist mystery / suspense: Eyes Like Mine by Sheena Kamal

 Best audiobook (and one I still can’t get out of my head): OurEndless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller

 Most anticipated read that lived up to all expectations: Dead Woman Walking by Sharon Bolton

 Most creative narration / format: The Weight of Lies by Emily Carpenter (which contained a book within a book)

 Favourite from my older TBR pile: The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson

I also established my bookstagram account early in 2017, and have been having great fun with my bookish photos, featuring nature at its best in the beautiful Great Southern region. I hate to admit this, but at times the idea for a bookstagram image was a great motivator to get me out hiking in winter. So I also have to include my personal favourite bookstagram photo in this post – which contains my favourite book cover of 2017 – doesn’t that eye look so creepy!

Reflecting on my reading goals for 2018 – to be honest, I don’t have much of a plan, preferring to be taken on a surprise journey. Some of my all-time favourite books have come out of left field, surprising me by appearing just as I needed them most. The only thing I want to try is to expand my armchair travel map by a few more countries – but I will explain this in another post. For now, I am loving the clean slate 2018 is presenting. Inviting new and wonderful books into my life, and welcoming suggestions.

Thank you for being part of my reading journey!

Book Review: THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW by A.J. Finn

Title: The Woman in the Window

Author: A.J. Finn
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
Read: December 2017

Expected publication: 25 January 2018

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Book Description:

What did she see?

It’s been ten long months since Anna Fox last left her home. Ten months during which she has haunted the rooms of her old New York house like a ghost, lost in her memories, too terrified to step outside.

Anna’s lifeline to the real world is her window, where she sits day after day, watching her neighbours. When the Russells move in, Anna is instantly drawn to them. A picture-perfect family of three, they are an echo of the life that was once hers.

But one evening, a frenzied scream rips across the silence, and Anna witnesses something no one was supposed to see. Now she must do everything she can to uncover the truth about what really happened. But even if she does, will anyone believe her? And can she even trust herself?

My musings:

There are three things I expect from a good psychological thriller: 1) it needs to mess with my mind; 2) it needs to mess with my mind; and 3) it needs to MESS WITH MY MIND! The Woman in the Window delivered that in spades, constantly making me question what was going on. Anna really is the perfect protagonist for a psychological thriller. Afflicted with a mental illness that makes her confined to her house, she is also taking a cocktail of heavy psychotropic drugs she washes down with copious amounts of alcohol. How could she possibly be a reliable narrator? I love nothing more than a protagonist I can sympathise with but one whose perception of reality I need to question constantly. Has Anna really witnessed a crime, or is she simply hallucinating? Truth or lie, reality or fabrication - the images swirled together in a crazy caleidoscope of unanswered questions that made me feel like I had indulged in a few of Anna's medications myself! At times the story drove me crazy with wanting to know if my hunches were right, and made me read until the early morning hours until I finally got my answers. Just a word of advice: pick up this book with plenty of time to spare, or you will suffer sleep deprivation!

Apart from an exquisitely unreliable narrator, there is the writing – oh, how I loved the writing! It is no accident that Anna is a lover of black and white Hitchcockian movies, because the story followed very much along those lines. Here we have a claustrophobic setting, a disturbed main protagonist and several suspects who might or might not pose a danger to Anna. The whole setting features a mere block of houses, and stars only a small cast of characters, but this story packs a punch! Have I mentioned that it messed with my mind? A few die-hard psychological thriller fans may guess some elements of the plot (as I did), but don't despair, there are plenty of other surprises in store. Also be aware that the book starts of slowly, cleverly setting the scene, which is essential for the plot to work. Soon you will be caught up like a spider in its web, suspecting each and every character, even Anna herself!

I am happy to end 2017 with a book that was one of the best psychological thrillers I have read in a long time. To say I loved it is an understatement. It was EXACTLY what I look for in a psychological thriller, containing all the right elements and presenting them in a way that was simply irresistible. Sometimes you know after a mere few pages that the book is going to work for you – the writing style, the voice, the characters. I am very happy I stumbled across this gem on Netgalley – what a fitting finale to my 2017 reading journey. 

Summary:

I very much recommend The Woman in the Window to all lovers of the genre – let its black-and-white kaleidoscope of secrets seduce and confuse you. 

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

If you liked this book, you may also like:

 Her Every Fear by Peter Swanson

 The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

 Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson

Book Review: THE DAYS WHEN BIRDS COME BACK by Deborah Reed

Title: The Days When Birds Come Back

Author: Deborah Reed
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Read: December 2017

Expected publication: 9 January 2018

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

These are the days when birds come back,

A very few, a bird or two,

To take a backward look. (Emily Dickinson)

Book Description:

June is undoubtedly in transition. Reeling from her divorce, trying to stay sober, and faced with a completely stalled career, she’s recently returned to the beautiful Oregon coast where she grew up. She must decide what to do with her late and much-loved grandparents’ charming cedar-shingled home, a place haunted by memories of her childhood.

June hires Jameson to renovate the old house to sell. He too is unmoored as he struggles to redefine his marriage in the aftermath of tragic loss. Over the course of the summer, their conversations about the house quickly turn to the personal—of secrets hidden in walls and of stories from the past half-told. June and Jamison repel and attract, sensing kinship and shying away from hurt. But what can the future hold as long as the past’s grip remains so firm?

Brimming with empathy, The Days When Birds Come Back, like the house itself, is a graceful testament to endurance, rebuilding, and the possibilities of coming home.

My musings:

  

The Days When Birds Come Back is a line from a melancholic poem by Emily Dickinson, written in seclusion and dealing with people’s emotions and the changing seasons. It is a fitting title for this bittersweet tale of two people scarred by loss, whose chance meeting prompts them to reflect on the past and initiate the first steps towards healing. Both Jameson and June are beautifully drawn, each carrying a deep sorrow in their hearts that has shaped their lives and made them isolate themselves in their little bubbles of grief, guilt and regret. Thrown together in the picturesque setting of June’s childhood home, a little cottage in rural Oregon, they forge a fragile connection that allows them to slowly confide in each other and find solace in each other as they try to come to terms with the past.

Reed’s writing is beautiful and wistful, creating true-to-life characters and an atmospheric setting that is almost a character in itself, as it plays such an important part in the story. I loved being taken on a journey of discovery of the events that have made June and Jameson the people they have become, and to witness their slow emergence from the quagmire of grief as the seasons change. This is a slow, character driven and reflective story. Anyone who is not a stranger to loss and grief will find elements of June and Jameson’s story resonating with their own lives. An exquisite and beautifully crafted novel that touched me deeply.

Thank you to Netgalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the free electronic copy of this novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.

Book Review: THE TREE HOUSE by Glenn Haybittle

Title: The Tree House

Author: Glenn Haybittle
Publisher: Cheyne Walk
Read: December 2017

Expected publication: 11 January 2018

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟1/2

It takes more courage than most people have not to submit to the pressure to conform.

Book Description:

Max and Ada, ten-year-old neighbours, are engrossed in composing a book of spells in a tree house in Paris when the Nazis arrive to occupy the city. Max, the child of a rape and abandoned by his mother, is in foster care; Ada is Jewish.

Almost fifty years later Max, the black sheep of the family, summons his grandson to tell him the story of those years in Paris and reveal a guilty secret that has eaten away at him. His mind is now set on digging up the past and he wants Mark to accompany him across the English Channel. His dying wish is to shed light on the two missing women in his life: Ada and his mother. Mark though is struggling with his own existential crisis. There is a missing woman in his life too.

A deftly accomplished tightrope act of pathos and humour, The Tree House is a bewitching novel of loss and restitution, heritage and the hereafter.

My musings:

I’ve read quite a few WWII books this year, but The Tree House was very different from the rest. Told from the perspectives of a grandfather and his grandson, this is a bittersweet tale of guilt and looking for redemption. Max summons his grandson to reflect on his perceived betrayal of the love of his life, Ada, in Paris during WWII, when they were both just children. He is still tortured by his last cruel and thoughtless words to his best friend before she got captured by Nazi soldiers and shipped off to a death camp, never to be seen again. Haunted by the ghost of his friend and images of a mother who abandoned him as a child, Max’s memories take on an almost surreal, dreamlike character, like the books of spells Ada and Max created in their short time together.

His grandson Mark is battling demons all of his own, reflecting on the events that lead to the breakdown of his relationship to dancer Katie, who he still can’t get out of his mind.  As the two men reconnect after years apart and confide in each other, both offer one another a strange kind of solace from their regrets. And whilst it is too late for Max to undo the past, there may still be time for Mark to make amends.

The Tree House is a tale of two men connected by blood and past regrets. Whilst the holocaust plays only a small part in the story, and the horrors of war are only ever hinted at through the eyes of an innocent child, the story explores how it has shaped Max and his life from the time Ada was taken. I enjoyed how the author connects the past and present through the relationship between the two men, one old and one young, but both haunted by their own demons. Only in each other can they find solace and a strange kind of healing. The grandfather-grandson relationship is beautifully portrayed and made this a reflective and somewhat wistful read for me. 

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

Audiobook Review: UNTOUCHABLE by Sibel Hodge

Title: Untouchable

Author: Sibel Hodge
Narrators: Shaun Grindell, Henrietta Meire, Simon Vance 

Read: December 2017

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟

Book Description:

It’s Maya and Jamie’s anniversary, and she waits with excitement for him to return home for a celebratory dinner. There’s a knock at the door. It’s the police. Jamie has been found hanging in a local wood.

His death is ruled a suicide, but Maya doesn’t believe Jamie would take his own life. Something isn’t right. Someone has broken into her house. Someone is watching her. And someone has gone to great lengths to cover up what Jamie was doing before he died.

Maya’s grief turns to suspicion, and as she begins to investigate the weeks leading up to Jamie’s death, her trail leads her to a place known as “The Big House” and the horrific secrets within. Secrets people will stop at nothing to keep hidden. People linked to the heart of the Establishment who think they’re untouchable.

Now Maya has a dangerous decision to make. How far is she prepared to go to reveal the truth?

My musings:

Wow – this certainly was a powerful, disturbing and haunting tale of abuse and revenge! Apparently some scenes in the book were inspired by real police investigations, and Hodge has obviously  done her homework, not holding back when describing the full horror of unspeakable acts committed to the children in this story. As a warning to the faint hearted: some of the scenes in this book are very explicit and contain graphic  descriptions of child sexual and psychological abuse that will definitely disturb some readers. I listened to the audio version, and felt that some of the images it evoked were upsetting and sickening – even more so to know that these events are not pure fiction and are based on real life events. I shuddered many times when exposed to the full horror of some of the children’s ordeal, and must admit that I found the revenge part not nearly as satisfying as I had hoped. How can such terrible acts ever be truly avenged?

If you like dark and disturbing thrillers that contain a certain element of conspiracy theory on a larger scale, and are able to stomach the more explicit details, then this is the right book for you! I found some of the political details the story is based on quite intriguing, and it certainly challenged my trust in law enforcement and democracy as a whole, even though some of Mitchell’s theories seemed a bit over the top. I applaud the author for tackling such a difficult and emotionally charged topic and weaving it into a multi-layered and gripping thriller. Whilst it was more a tale of seeking justice and revenge than a psychological thriller, it made for a captivating read and I am looking forward to reading more from this author in future.

A solid and heart-felt performance by all three narrators, which made the audiobook version a great choice!