Laura

I was excited by the description given of this book pre-release and when it arrived on my Kindle on release say I delved in pretty quickly and somehow in under 24 hours I'd completely devoured this book.

It is a book that starts out innocently, a tale of affluent and seemingly perfect couple Jack and Grace, they host perfect dinner parties for friends, take fabulous holidays abroad and are soon to take over care of Grace's sister who although suffering from Down Syndrome is a huge part of their world.

Their new neighbour senses something is off, the broken lunch dates Grace doesn't attend, her absence of mobile phone or email, the way she seems to have no negative comments about her husband. Even when she calls to drop off a book during the day she finds bars on the Windows and nobody home.

This book was fascinating, it was dark and tense and had a great story. It didn't feel revolutionary or ground breaking but it was gripping and just kept you turning the pages to see how on earth this story would end.

The sheer planning that Jack must have had to undertake to even begin to put together his life is mind boggling. A nastier or more devious character I've had more distaste for I can't think.

I'd recommend this book, it despite it's story contained a lot of touching moments, especially those between Grace and her disabled but hugely endearing sister. It was a light and engaging ready.

It's nice at this time of year to curl up with a Christmas story and I thought I'd give this a try. The story of Pippa, Marianne and Cat who live in the little village of Hope Christmas and their entangled lives and respective families.

Pippa is a busy new mum struggling to juggle the guilt of being a working mum, Cat is struggling to identify with her wild daughter Mel and Pippa is trying to deal with the challenges of having respite care for her disabled daughter Lucy removed when her husband Dan has a terrible accident. Together they try to pull together and help each other through but it's the strange new visitor in town who seems to be full of the best advice.

Set over the course of a year the book is a really nice read - not taxing, not going to win any literary awards but nice to curl up with on a cold winters night whilst you nurse a glass of wine and some nibbles....or is that just me

I knew this book had been highly applauded since its release, I had picked it up in a charity shop haul and promptly put it on my bookcase and there it has lingered for some months now but after finishing an epic fantasy I felt the need for a little slice of real life and decided to delve into a book that I hoped very much lived up to the praise I'd heard.

The first thing that struck me about this book was the social inadequacies of our heroine, Eleanor Oliphant, a thirty-year-old single girl living in Glasgow who spends Monday to Friday at her mundane office job and then goes home at the weekend with two bottles of vodka and a Margherita pizza and speaks to and sees no one all weekend. This is described on the book jacket but inside the covers, we discover she finds making conversation with other people difficult, she spends her evenings reading books and listening to the radio. The one event that really highlighted for me how awkward was when she goes to a pub for a drink with a colleague and offers to buy the drinks then before he leaves asks him for the £3.50 for his pint of Guinness back.

There are points in the early pages of the book where Eleanor makes you cringe, so inept is she in the ways of social niceties. She's strange and a little aloof and unfalteringly honest about the things she sees around her, even when sharing her views may be unwelcome. As the pages go on however we begin to identify more familiar emotions, she's lonely, desperately lonely. She's been raised in the care system and with no understanding of affection or parental love. She's had nobody show her any interest and thus has been happy to blend into the background. Her only contact with her family is her weekly phone calls from her ‘mummy' who we learn is a complex and at times vile creature.

The beautiful story in Gail Honeyman's novel is a joy to read, Eleanor slowly forms a friendship with her co-worker Raymond when they see an old man collapse in the street and find themselves visiting him in the hospital together. The care and patience with which Raymond pulls Eleanor our of her shell and helps her to explore the world around her is beautiful and is one of the most heartwarming stories I've ever read. The way in which Eleanor begins to realise that her lonely existence may not be all the world has to offer her and that perhaps she can find people who could care about her is an absolute joy to read. It is heartbreaking when we delve beneath the veneer of Eleanor's world to her childhood and her experiences that led her to shut herself away from the world. We want to take her in our arms and shelter her and to make things okay for her.

This book was the Costa Award winner of 2017 for a debut novel and it is absolutely worthy of every plaudit and great review it has received. Touching, emotional and truly unforgettable Eleanor Oliphant is a heroine of our age, the Bridget Jones of the millennium she is funny and honest and strong and yet fragile and vulnerable. Gail Honeyman is an author whose debut has promised a bright future and I'm sure like many anxious readers I'm not alone in eagerly awaiting whatever she may release next.

The last Katie Fforde book that I read I ended up giving up on half way through because the characters were too high brow for my liking and I didn't relate to them. It's been a number of years since that experience and reading the inside flap of Wedding Season was enough to prompt me to give it a try.

The story of Sarah a wedding planner and her two friends Bron and Elsa is a great read. The weddings Sarah is planning still give a glimpse into that world of the wealthy but the 3 main characters are very grounded girls who are working hard in their individual wedding related buisnesses when love comes their way in unexpected ways.

I found this a great summer book, light and easy to read - very well written and with strong lead female characters and dashing male romantic interests it was a really pleasant surprise and it has given me hope that Katie Fforde may be an author that I've been unnecessarily harsh on first book round and I'm now going to read some more of her books based on how much I enjoyed this one.

Definately worth reading if you enjoy authors like Freya North, Cathy Kelly and Marian Keyes.

I read Code Name Verity last year and loved the World War II based story. I was therefore excited to read the prequel to Julia's story, The Pearl Thief which charts Julia's last summer at her grandfather's ancestral home as it is broken down and sold to a boarding school to cover the family debts.

I think it is important to understand that I very very rarely DNF (do not finish) books, even if I feel so-so about them I will almost always work through until the end. With The Pearl Thief, however, I kept trying and trying to love it, to the point I read 50% in total but unfortunately, the call of at least another 50 books sitting on my TBR shelf eventually persuaded me that the investment was not worth it to finish this book. For me this book read like an Enid Blyton Famous Five novel. It all felt a little too jolly hockey sticks and ginger beer for me. It didn't have any real stakes and Julia was just so frustrating to read from the perspective of in this book. She came across as hugely immature, flaky and lacking in emotional substance.

Although it was meant to have a mystery at the heart of the story by halfway through I just couldn't get invested in the plot at all. We have a missing person who we are not really introduced to so we don't really care where he has gone, also we have missing pearls that again don't feel very interesting or intense as a story arc and finally the mystery of who attacked Julia. By this point, I was wishing it was me who had bopped her over the head as she was just driving me crackers.

Disappointed by this one, I gave it a good chance but not wasting time this year on reading books I'm not invested in. Onwards and upwards to my next read.

Kitty, owner of a bridal shop gets the shock of her life when one day her husband Mark walks out on their marriage and disappears. She's left trying to find a way to deal with it yet still play the perfect hostess to brides trying to find their perfect dress.

This is the first novel by Claire Allen that I've read and it stands up alongside the other chicklit novels out there as an good read. It occasionally lacked a little pace and I found myself willing it to pick up the pace but when it did pick up again it would race along for a chapter or two before dropping back in pace again.

This “book” has been receiving such a huge amount of hype this year. Absolutely everyone seems to have been waiting for more from Sarah J. Maas world of Feyre and Rhysand. With 3 really strong and comprehensive novels making up the trilogy there was a huge amount of expectation about how Sarah J. Maas would extend the stories of our favorite High Fae and his mate whilst leading us into the story that will form the future of the series as we move forward.

This is a very compact novella rather than a full-blown novel, coming in at a modest 220 or so pages we have literally only delved back into the world of all our favourite characters when it is all coming to a close. And this is because throughout this series we have emotionally invested in so many characters, Azriel, Cassian, Mor, Amren, Nesta, Elain, Lucien, Tamlin.....the list goes on and on. We want to find out what happened to them all after A Court of Wings And Ruin and this novella whilst allowing us a glimpse is nowhere near comprehensive enough to answer all our lingering questions. Instead, it lifts the veil and allows us a little glimpse of where they are now and a hint as to what their futures may hold.

Based at Winter Solstice it has a festive feel as the High Fae of the Night Court come together to celebrate this special occasion and Feyre's 21st Birthday. There is lots of heat and passion still flowing between our main romantic pairing of Feyre and Rhys and it's lovely to be back with them again. Whilst this was nice it's all the unresolved stuff around them that is truly where the future is all about.

There is a definite move towards the lingering effect the events of A Court of Wings And Ruin has had upon Nesta and how her mate Cassian is coping with her detachment from her family and friends. This seems to be where we are moving towards for the next novel in this series and this novella helped me get excited about what is to come. It didn't provide any really comprehensive story within the novella to which we could see a beginning and an end but instead, it moved the chess pieces around on the board to a point where we can pick them all up again in Book 4.

I liked this little check in with my favourite series, it was nice to catch up with everyone even if it felt all too brief. It will be devoured by fans of the series I am sure and will keep us all going until Maas gets around to delivering for us another fully packed novel full of the world we have all fallen in love with.

This book was recommended to me by my mum, I hadn't been aware of its connection to the Richard and Judy book club but the story sounded intriguing.

The story follows orphan Amy Snow who was found on the grounds of a large estate when just a baby, abandoned in the snow she was found by the daughter of the estate owners Lord and Lady Vennaway. Persuaded by their headstrong daughter Aurelia the child was kept and raised in the kitchens of the house until old enough to work.

Fundamentally the story is about the friendship between Amy and Aurelia but when the book opens we find that some years later Aurelia has died at a young age and Amy who has remained her close companion is to be thrown out of the house with a modest sum from her old friend but nothing of great value and nowhere to go.

Amy soon discovers her friend has left her secret letters that contain a treasure hunt from beyond the grave. She is told Aurelia has a secret she needs to share but must lead her on the hunt before sharing it. The book then moves back and forward between the treasure hunt and time after Aurelia and the years the friends spent together under the cruelty of Aurelia's parents towards Amy.

At this point the story was progressing really well, it was exciting and engaging and action was unfolding quickly and my attention was piqued. The switching timeline was good because I really enjoyed the glimpses into their differing childhoods. I had really high hopes for this book. However from just after the half way point I began to feel a little frustrated. Suddenly the focus seemed to shift away from Aurelia and Amy and began to be a strange love triangle story between Amy and 2 potential suitors. I struggled with this because I didn't warm to either of the men Amy became entangled with. For someone who was supposedly quite timid and inferior in her behaviour I found it difficult to suddenly believe her so readily able to form 2 engagements.

Also by this point in the story her letters from Aurelia kept urging not to trust anyone in regards to the treasure hunt and so I kept suspecting the two love interests of being plants trying to derail her and so think this made me suspicious of them and so I expected a betrayal to come which ultimately didn't, especially when Amy kept utterly disregarding what she'd been told and blabbing about what she was doing anyway.

I wanted a dramatic end and this also didn't happen, when she'd eventually moved her attention away from the men in her life and got back to the treasure hunt it was too late for any surprises. If already guessed the big secret and therefore felt the ending a little anti-climatic.

It was a good idea for a book but it wasn't very well executed. The lead character was weak and at times I found her tedious to read about, cue lots of skimming the pages. it was a shame the most interesting character was talking mostly from beyond the grave. If have liked more chapters from Aurelia telling about her secret from her perspective and although we might not have had the big secret but it might have been a better read.

All in all I was a bit disappointed by this one.

Lisa Jewell is one of the 5 authors whom I've read for the most number of years now, along with Jane Green and Mike Gayle and a few select others. I've been reading her novels from those very early ones like Ralph's Party and I love it when a new one is released and yet somehow I Found You, which was released in 2016, slipped through my To Be Read pile last year.

Jolted into realisation by the recent release of her 2017 novel ‘Then She Was Gone' I immediately decided to rectify the situation and delved into I Found You immediately. Since the 2015 release of The Girls, Jewell's books have taken a slightly different turn. They have become more steeped in mystery and the stories unravel themselves still with the same emotion and wonderful characters as she has always written but they are darker and more mysterious than her earlier novels which were more frothy and light hearted. Perhaps this change in tone had made me miss this one on my kindle but either way, I knew that the quality of the author should be recommendation enough.

This is a story that begins with 40-something single mum, Alice, finding a man sitting on the beach across from her home, he is lost and has no memory of who he is or where he has come from, he cannot remember anything. Alice takes him into her home and takes care of him and helps him to feel safe whilst he waits for his memories to return. She is kind and warm and her children name the stranger Frank and slowly over the days he stays he becomes part of their home.

Elsewhere a young Ukranian woman waits for her husband to come home from work. Married just a few weeks they are still madly in love and deliriously happy. She is new to the country having moved after their honeymoon and she relies upon her husband Carl to do everything. When he fails to come home she finds it difficult to get the police to take his disappearance seriously and when eventually they do she is shocked to find that her husband's passport is fake and her husband doesn't exist.

All these people are tied up in a mystery that took place in Alice's home town in 1993 and the story keeps flitting back to the story of the holiday town in the summer of that year, a mystery that was never solved and the people who left that town scarred for life. It's how this story links to the mysterious man with no memory and the missing husband that forms the basis for this story.

This book grips you from the outset, it's short snappy chapters mean you fly through it so quickly as it's ever so easy when you think of stopping to say, “Just one more chapter, I can manage just one more”. Suddenly you've read another 5 and those dishes you swore you'd wash are still sitting by the sink. The characters are really well written and actually the mystery of who Frank is and where he has come from and is he the mysterious Carl who never came home keeps you hanging on through most of the book.

Your mind will spin through all the possibilities of how Frank has come to be in Alice's home, some you will want to believe to be true, others you will pray are not. You will flit between feeling compassion for him and understanding Alice's need to care for him and wanting to slap her for being so stupid and bringing someone she doesn't know into a home with 3 children when really he could be anyone and has said himself he feels he has done bad things. The chapters move between different perspectives and from present day to the fateful year of 1993 and just when you think you've go it all figured out you realise you have it all wrong and need to keep going because this book has more secrets yet to reveal. There is that conflict as a reader because you like ‘Frank' and he is clearly in distress and being wonderful to Alice but there is always that doubt that he could be something sinister and it's a really difficult thing to not let yourself go and be on his side from the outset.

The setting for the book as also wonderfully atmospheric, the little seaside town which draws tourists in the summer and has beachside cafe's and little pubs it seems the perfect place but as we learn it was home to a terrible tragedy and this book takes us slowly up to the point where we have it all unfold and it's touching and devastating and is tackled beautifully by Lisa Jewell.

This was a book I completed in just a little over a day, I couldn't put it down, I loved it. I really felt like I rediscovered an old friend in Lisa Jewell, one who you haven't seen for years but whom the minute you see you feel like you've never been apart. A solid 4 star read.

Amanda Prowse seems to have exploded into the writing scene in the last year or so, releasing several novels and short stories. All seem to have been well received and I'd purchased a couple when prices dropped to bargain prices and stored them away waiting for the right time to delve in.

The subject matter of What Have I Done was enticing, the story of Kathryn a headmasters wife who suffers daily abuse at the hands of her headmaster husband and also the pain of the seeming indifference of her children toward her. This environment spawns dreadful consequences for them all.

Flitting through periods before, during and after Kathryn's abusive marriage Prowse writes an insightful tale which I found to be very moving to read. Not written with huge detail into the abuse it instead floats above it letting us glimpse Kathryn's pain as she lives it. I found this really moving and at times upsetting even though Prowse did not feel the need to graphically outline the events taking place.

Reading about Kathryn's abuse was difficult but it was her children's relationship with their mother which I found more difficult to read about. Their indifference to her feelings was heartbreaking and you could feel her aching from the pages and although some reviewers have said their characters made them dislike this book I fully understood their pain and the way they reacted to their mother especially when it was outlined in the present day meetings between mother and son.

The only reason I have given the book 3 stats and not 4 is because of the ending, I couldn't quite fathom how we got from the meeting between Kate & Dom and the way it ended. It was such a dramatic and unexplained turn around. I could have done with just one more chapter to fully explore a resolution and bring a more rounded end than the suddenness. The only other niggle I had was her travels to St Lucia seemed to have a very significant impact upon Kate yet she never seemed to come back to this again as an author. I felt this could have been further explored.

It's a good read and I'm certainly looking forward to reading more by Amanda Prowse now. I'm glad I didn't allow some of the very poor reviews of this book to influence me.

I have been struggling a little with reading the past month or so. Not that I haven't enjoyed the books I've read but my concentration and time levels have been constrained. I decided to see if Charity Norman's novel After The Fall could snap me out of my reading funk.

And boy did it do just that! This is the first book I've read by Charity Norman and so I just hoped for the best and went based upon the dust jacket blurb.

This is the story of Martha & Kit who emigrate to New Zeland with their twin boys and teenage daughter. Another book about emigration but oh so different in tone to my last book by Nick Spalding. The book opens as Martha deals with the immediate aftermath of her young son Finn falling from a balcony in their New Zeland home and the questions asked about the circumstances surrounding the fall.

From the springboard the story jumps back to 18 months earlier and the chain of events leading to the fall right back to the family's decision to leave the UK. We are clearly told something is amiss but the book beautifully leads us through the story.

It was such a gripping book, the first in a long time I've been desperate to get back to. Choosing it over the latest episode of Greys Anatomy and Dr McDreamy is high praise indeed. The characters are well written and the book beautifully atmospheric.

It doesn't over dramatise the events in the book, it isn't so extreme as to be unbelievable and it is sensitively handled. It evoked real tears from me in the closing chapters as it reached it's conclusion. It didn't lead us into an easy tale of heroes and villains but one of shades of light an dark.

A truly wonderful read, I would very thoroughly recommend this as a 5 out of 5 stars

Lord of Shadows has been one of the most hotly anticipated Young Adult releases of 2017, since it was released in May it has been a very hot topic on book forums and BookTube and the reviews on this latest installment from Cassandra Clare have been rave with many hailing it her biggest success to date.

Now bearing in mind that at the release date of this book I literally had only read one of the Cassandra Clare books required leading up to this one, I have been marathoning all of them over the past few months leading up to the moment when I would delve into Lord of Shadows and have a chance to see if all the reviews indeed did the book justice or whether it was worthy of all the hype. I have been living through the eyes of all Clare's characters for the past few months and have come to love them and hold a special affection for many of them and so I really hoped this book would be as good as it hinted at being.

The first thing I was really pleased about in this book is that we are beginning to see the worlds of The Mortal Instruments, The Infernal Devices, and The Dark Artifices coming together. We have several of our favourite Shadowhunters and Downworlders featured in this book in various ways and this mixed with all the new characters we had introduced in Lady Midnight give us a real sense of being with friends. I am absolutely delighted to have Magnus and Alec back in this book as they have always been my favourite characters and they really made this book so much more engaging for me.

Secondly, as we did in Lady Midnight we get plenty of new additions to the story as well, my favourite being Kit Herrondale, the Lost Shadowhunter discovered at the end of Lady Midnight. His relationship with autistic Ty was one of the most beautiful friendships I've read about and I really liked him and his character arc in this book. I have a feeling there's lots more of his story we don't know about yet and I'm really keen to see where Clare takes this in the last installment of this series.

This is a hefty book at nearly 700 pages and so it took me a little bit to get through it but never did I find myself being frustrated with the story, it flowed really well and there was always lots going on to keep you engaged and hanging on for the next twist and turn. It is though a book that is clearly about setting us up for the showdown which is due to come in the next book in the series. The book has an almighty cliffhanger ending and a heartbreaking one at that. It was shocking and desperately sad and leaves us uncertain about what is to come. I can imagine with the excitement that people had for this books release we can only expect that to be increased for book 3 with the ending having so much tension and unanswered questions.

I didn't give this book 5 stars and that was only because if I had to compare it to Clockwork Princess or Clockwork Prince I'd still say those were my favourite of this series but I would put this as being of a much better calibre than many of The Mortal Instruments series, there is much more action packed within the pages and the stories seem to have become more encompasing of all the different facets of the Shadowhunter world which adds depth that some of the earlier books lack.

I have a mixed relationship with Cassandra Clare and her writing, there are books I love like The Infernal Devices and the first two of the Dark Artifices series and then there are those I have struggled with such as Queen of Air & Darkness. Throughout all the books, however, there is one constant that keeps me reading and that is the engaging, quirky and incredible character that is Magnus Bane. He's like a thread that pulls all the books together and is the sun around which our Shadowhunter world rotates so when I heard there was going to be a series focused upon Magnus and his love Alec's adventures together I was in wholeheartedly.

The first thing that struck me about The Red Scrolls of Magic is that it's not a hugely long book, often with Cassandra Clare we've become used to epic 800 plus paged novels. The Red Scrolls of Magic comes in at under 400 pages so it means you can fly through it reasonably quickly. The second thing I needed to get sorted out was the timing of this book as it takes us back retrospectively to the point in The Mortal Instruments where we are in City of Fallen Angels and Magnus and Alec take a vacation. This really helped me once I figured this out as there were some contextual things that I was confused about where I was thinking this book was set after The Mortal Instruments and so couldn't understand why things mentioned didn't make sense. I think if you have this straight before you go into it and maybe refresh what happened around that book then it will help.

Now, Magnus and Alec are really just the cutest couple ever and the start of this book finds them vacationing in Paris with them trying to get to know each other and build their relationship. Then Tessa Grey shows up and informs Magnus that a cult he founded is causing all sorts of trouble and Magnus needs to sort it out, only problem is Magnus cannot remember ever setting up the cult nor why he would have done so. This means that we have lots of great Magnus moments as he goes back through his history reminding himself of how it might have come about.

We travel across Europe as Alec and Magnus try desperately to put an end to this cult before Magnus is reported to the Clave and punished for causing mayhem. We go from Paris to Venice to Rome with them and meet some familiar faces along the way that we've fallen in love with throughout the Shadowhunters series such as Helen Blackthorn, Ragnor Fell and Raphael Santiago. It therefore assumes that you will have read the Cassandra Clare books pretty much in publication order so that you will understand the connections and all the insider jokes that exist. I would probably recommend that to get the most from this book you pretty much have read at least The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices.

I really liked this story overall, it never really got too in-depth though and it was a much lighter read than her latest series The Dark Artifices has been. It felt more humorous and whilst we introduced the story that will form the arc of this trilogy it was much more about setting it all up than getting into the bones of the story. Not until the very last pages do we begin to understand that there is going to be much more to come and that we have a cliffhanger to tide us over until book 2.

I didn't love this as much as I though I would, it was a joy to spend so much time in the company of Magnus Bane and there were moments where Magnus goes back in his history to his childhood and broke my heart explaining his relationship with his stepfather and I was absolutely engaged 100% but then we'd drift back to the more fast-paced lighthearted stuff and I'd still be crying out for more of Magnus' origin story and lots of the emotional stuff so we could really really get inside the head of Magnus. At times it gave me glimpses of brilliance but they didn't appear as often as I'd have liked.

For me then a 4 star read and yes I will be picking up book 2 in the series because of that cliffhanger and I will always take any excuse to spend time with my very favourite Warlock but next time I am hoping for more old school Magnus.

Jenny Colgan novels are always a wonderful thing to delve into, like comfort food in book form they are warm and reassuring and wonderfully fulfilling. Add to that the joy of the festive novels she has added to each of her series of favourite characters and it makes for a magical combination.

I have been following the story of Polly and her little Cornish bakery, her boyfriend Huckle and their puffin Neil since the series began a few years ago now. This third book in the series,Christmas at the Beach Street Bakery is our opportunity to spend the Christmas season on Mount Polbearn with all of the characters we have come to know and love over the previous two books. It is clear from the outset of the book that all is not going to go to plan this festive season as the books initial chapters take place approximately 8 months prior to Christmas and set up the major story line for the rest of the book, once the scene has been set we are catapulted forward to the weeks leading up to Christmas and join Polly.

Polly is still living in her run down lighthouse with Huckle and running her little bakery empire on the island, she is stressing however as she makes plans for the festive season ensuring that she lets no one down whilst ensuring she caters for the Christmas fair and her friend Reuben's various relatives visits from America. Her best friend has a huge secret that Polly finds herself drawn into the middle of and this one seems to be set to tear her and Huckle apart.

I had been struggling to find a book that I could get lost in, I'd been through a difficult few weeks personally with a brief stay in hospital and I really needed a book to lift my spirits and help get me in that warm fuzzy mood that we should all enjoy before the madness of Christmas begins to kick in and the exhaustion of it all takes over. This book helped me do that perfectly. It was the perfect story to curl up with on the sofa with a big hot chocolate, the only thing missing was some of Polly's lovely baking to go along with them.

It's ending was delightful and whilst I hope this isn't the end of Polly's story it was eminently satisfying and a fitting place to leave our heroine, pottering around her kitchen whilst all is good with the world and the two men in her life are nearby.

This science fiction series really gripped my attention earlier this month when I fell in love with the first book in the Themis Files series, Sleeping Giants. I sometimes can be a bit lax in immediately continuing with a series, sometimes leaving it for months or years, but in this case I literally could not stop myself from immediately requesting the next book from my library.

So following on 9 years after the first novel we are back following the characters we were all gripped by in Sleeping Giants. The EDC has been continuing its investigations into where the giant robot appeared from and just who left it buried on earth. Their investigations have proven limited and instead Themis is displayed around the world as an attraction, designed to demonstrate the highest weapon we now have on earth but that we all share together.

The story-line of this second novel is much more high stakes than novel one when an even bigger robot suddenly appears in a London park. It stands there for days doing nothing and the world goes into panic, everyone wants to know where it came from, why 9 years later has it suddenly appeared and why is it just standing there. Mass panic ensues and everyone has a different approach for what to do next. Perhaps unwisely the display of military might we decide to show is the wrong move and we are left with over a million dead as it wipes out much of London. It's up to the team at the EDC to try and fight might with might by sending in Themis but how will they fare against a newer, more high tech robot piloted by the people who actually built Themis and know properly what it is for.

Things continue to spiral when a year later 13 more robots appear in the biggest, most densely populated cities on earth. With the warning shot in London having being fired and us now knowing how deadly the robots can be the human race is suddenly faced with potential extinction and we have to find some way to ensure our survival against a smarter, more resilient and deadlier race.

I love the format these books are told in. The interviews, press coverage, meetings in restaurants are all wonderfully engaging and because of the format it makes it a really quick read and you find yourself slipping through the pages almost without realising it. I am really not a science fiction fan, these are one of a handful of books I have read in the genre and I find the format makes it easier to digest the story and to not become too bogged down in the scientific bits.

Neuvel also does a wonderful job of relating his stories back to real life scenarios that we are familiar with. Real world news events that he links in to raise moral and ethical questions along the way and they are hugely impactful when they are used. He is an intelligent and well informed writer on his subject matter and I learned quite a bit in this book about subjects that I otherwise wouldn't have read up on such as genetics and DNA.

Another triumphant book in the series. Book 3, Only Human was released a month or so ago and it is now on my TBR shelf having acquired a copy from my local library so it will definitely not be too long before I conclude this wonderful series. I can't wait.

I've been reading quite extensively this month and mostly fantasy novels which had culminated in a wonderful book that I'd become pretty invested in and so when I finished it I had to find something that would cure my book hangover without immediately plunging me into another lengthy fantasy. I needed something light, quick and contemporary and I'd heard nothing but good things about Emery Lord's The Names They Gave Us.

I've not read any books by this author before and I, therefore, was going on the recommendations of other book reviews and bloggers but the story in itself on the back cover synopsis was enough to pique my interest. The story of Lucy Hanson, a girl about to enter her final year of high school when her mother announces that her breast cancer has returned and she will need further treatment. Lucy's family have a strong faith, her father being a pastor, yet Lucy struggles with this turn of events and how it impacts her belief. Things are made more difficult when her mother suggests that she not help at the family church camp that year but instead work nearby at a summer camp for troubled kids where there is a role as a counsellor. Lucy is thrown entirely out of her comfort zone into a world she's unsure of and people she doesn't know when all she wants to do is be near her parents.

The first thing about this book is that the faith of the central character and all the surrounding people she engages with form a pretty strong theme in this book. At times Lucy almost measures people by their faith and how they live their lives according to their faith. She is a character who has led a relatively sheltered life and so when she engages with the kids and teens at the new summer camp it is an eye-opening experience. Whilst I didn't find Lucy to be an annoying character to read about there is definitely an innocence about her views and how she views the people around her. At the start of the book she has a pretty clear black and white view of the world, you are either good or you are not and she finds it hard to see the shades of grey. This could be a little off-putting to some readers I found it was one of the most enjoyable parts of the book to go on the journey with Lucy as she learned to be more adaptable in her views and choices.

The surrounding characters in this book are wonderful. The people Lucy meets at camp and the way their friendships grow throughout make it a really heart-warming story. Many of the people she works with have been working in the camp for more than one summer and so bring their maturity and experiences to the table and allow Lucy to learn from them. The bond they form as the book progresses is lovely to read about and you cannot help but be glad as Lucy moves away from the safety of the friends and acquaintances she's known to understand that friends aren't necessarily those you've known longest but those who are there for you when things get tough.

This was a quick read for me, completing it in around a day. I really enjoyed the story, the twists and turns about Lucy's relationship with her parents, the things she discovers about them over the summer and how she copes with her mother's increasingly severe illness. I had to knock off one star from the rating though because I wanted a little more time at the end to pull all the threads together. I felt we exited the story just a tiny bit early. I needed closure on Lucy's story and I didn't feel this was quite given the exploration it needed. A strong 4 out of 5 stars though and a good contemporary read about faith and family.

In the summer I know lots of people turn to light breezy contemporary novels to fly through in the sunshine but somehow beside my love of fantasy I've been finding myself turning to thrillers when I feel the need for something a little bit different. I'd heard some good things about Peter Swanson and when I saw Her Every Fear on my local library shelves I decided I'd give it a go and see how I got on.

Now firstly it's worth mentioning that I did the unthinkable with this book and started it then put it aside to read something else but this was not because I didn't enjoy it initially instead it was driven by the fact that A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab had arrived on order for me at the library as well and I could only borrow it for 2 weeks and as it is a massive book I decided to put Her Every Fear aside to focus upon that instead. I, therefore, read about 8 chapters of this before having to take a break of around a week.

This is a thriller about 2 cousins who decide to swap houses with Kate moving to Boston into her cousin Corbin's flat and allowing him to move into her London home for 6 months. Kate has a difficult history having previously suffered with a controlling, psychopathic boyfriend and she is therefore anxious and nervous and constantly hyper-aware of danger, it is, therefore, a huge blow when she finds out that one of her new neighbours in the flat she has moved into has been found dead and even more so when she thinks that potentially her cousin could be involved.

This book seemed to receive really strong reviews and I'd heard people talk well of it. I'd heard it sold as a story of Kate watching everything that is going on and being watched herself and I expected a bit more of a stalkerish type storyline and instead, I was surprised to find very little anticipation in this book. I expected dark and twisty and yet not once did I feel any building anticipation with this book. I expected a more paranoid main character but instead she didn't seem that bad to me, all things considered, she was much more balanced and calm than I had anticipated. I thought there would be lots of investigation and focus around the mystery of the people living in the block of flats, about Kate finding out about each of them and having much more of a tangled web to unfurl.

Instead around a third of the way through this book, we veer away to her cousin Corbin's point of view and suddenly everything is made crystal clear. These, in fact, were some of my favourite chapters of the novel because, at last, there was some real darkness there. The stakes are raised and I struggled with the fact that despite the fact that you should dislike Corbin intensely I kind of felt a little bit sorry for him. However, this aside, by introducing this so early in the book it answered many of our questions. Suddenly the mystery we were following wasn't quite so mysterious anymore and it was a case of just waiting for all the obvious bits to slot into place.

This was an okay thriller but it didn't really grip me enough. I wanted something to make me keep turning the pages and instead I found myself skimming through the last few chapters just so I could get it finished because by that point all the mystery had been revealed and I hadn't built up enough emotion for the characters to really be invested in how things all turned out.

A 3 out of 5 stars, but barely.

I loved the first book in this trilogy, Three Dark Crowns, and this meant I knew I wouldn't be able to wait long before diving into One Dark Throne, the second book in the series and the continuing story of the three triplet sisters fighting to decide who should sit upon the throne and reign as Queen having killed her two sisters.

Three Dark Crowns had ended with several shock revelations, one particularly which impacted the future power balance between the sisters. We find poisoner Kat returned very changed from an awful betrayal suffered when the sisters began their ascension year. She is a different character entirely from that in Three Dark Crowns, in this book she's definitely darker and more fierce and this whilst making her a more interesting character to read also gives us a villain of the three to dislike.

With Arisone leading the forefront in this book we find much of it is focused on her, Jules and Joseph, as she begins to learn more about her gift and Jules, struggles with her own discoveries about her abilities. I loved the parts set within their naturalist village and the ongoing support she draws from the people around her and she remains my favourite of the three sisters and is the one who seems to be continually fighting hardest to find any way to not have to slaughter her two siblings.

This second book has more action packed into it, probably because we don't need to do as much world building in it. There's more darkness and we find the sisters really coming up against one another in a way they didn't in Three Dark Crowns. The threat level is heightened and it makes for really engaging reading.

If I had one reservation about this book though it would be that I almost wanted a little more world building. At one point of the book, Arisone meets the midwife who raised her and her sisters until they were separated and taken to develop their gifts with different foster families. I felt this would have been an ideal time for some background, some flashbacks about the sisters and their mother. It is touched on but not explored as much as I would have liked. In fact throughout these books we touch on the Queens of the past but we never spend long understanding the history of the world in any great detail and I feel this would add context and richness. I could happily have spent another hundred or so pages in this kind of expansion.

I enjoyed this book very much and it's clear we have some work to do before we reach the end of the sisters' story and this is set to come in Book 3, The Queens of Fennbrin set for release next year I believe. I will be anticipating the release of this book and be delving in shortly after its release as I'm keen to find out how this story will conclude and whether just one Queen will sit upon the throne or in fact if any will.

A good sequel to book one, perhaps not as strong but still immensely enjoyable.

Traitor to the Throne is a book I've had sitting on my TBR shelf for a little while now. I read Rebel of the Sands, the first book in the trilogy, earlier this year and whilst it was okay it hadn't left a lasting impression and I wasn't feeling pulled back to the series as quickly as I had expected to be. Having renewed and renewed this book with my local library I only had a week left to read it before I had to return it so with that pressure upon me I eventually picked it up.

Boy was this a different book from Rebel of the Sands, whilst Rebel of the Sands was quite a short read focusing mainly on Amani the desert girl running away from an arranged marriage and Jin the prince who is helping his brother to lead a rebellion against his father the Sultan. It was a book focused very much on setting up the world and didn't give us as much action as perhaps I'd been expecting. Traitor to the Throne is a much meatier book in all possible ways. It's a good 200 pages longer than Rebel of the Sands and each of those 200 pages are used to their full potential as we develop the world building of Book 1 into a more politically charged and high stakes story.

We pick up just after Rebel of the Sands with Amani and Jin working with the Rebellion to try and overthrow the Sultan. Soon we find Amani captured and taken to the Sultan's palace where she is imprisoned in the harem. From within the palace, she uses her position to find out important political information that she can use to help the rebellion. As a result of this shift in the setting we are introduced to a whole host of new characters, the sultan, his sons and wives in the harem, we see the return of some underused characters from book one like Tamid. This gives the book more depth as we get to know more about what the Rebellion are fighting against and the political situation across the country and the history of how we got there.

That is one of the main reasons I fell in love with this book so much, those deep political conversations between Amani and the Sultan, the context we gain about the history of the country and the role of the Demdji and how they can be used for political gain. The life within the Harem makes for fascinating reading as well as we see how the women use every advantage they can scrape to ensure they don't become usurped by a new potential wife.

The book is my favourite type of fantasy, it was driven by changing alliances and character actions rather than big battles and fighting. The endings twists and turns leave us with a really good draw to pull us back into the final book of the series with a really good OMG reveal in the last pages. We have all the players on the board now, we know them all and we really are set for the closing rounds to play out in the last book.

Really really good book, if you didn't love Rebel of the Sands and like me aren't sure of returning for book 2 please please do, it pays you back dividends with a more mature, developed and engaging book.

There are very many books exploring the topic of domestic violence but what intrigued my about Accidents of Marriage was the fact it promised a look at the less public topic of emotional abuse and it's impact upon marriage.

The story follows Maddy and her 3 children as they live on a knife edge around her husband Ben and his ever changing moods. His temper and outbursts have led to a world where they all try to avoid upsetting him. Eventually, the books description outlines, an outburst leads to a car accident in which Maddy is left fighting for her life.

This description of the book was truly intriguing however once I began reading I was left a little disappointed. From page one of the book we are made aware that Maddy has a reliance upon prescription drugs in order to function day to day. This is stated as being due to Ben's behaviour. The book however did a really poor job of defining the seriousness of his behaviour. Rather than being an emotional account it all felt a little too wishy washy and clinical for me. We are only given one or two brief examples. I would have preferred some flashbacks to the incidents to allow me to identify with them more. Instead we are offered a view from Ben where he talks about feeling like a constant failure to Maddy and at times due to the way her behaviour is outlined I could actually empathise as it did appear this was the case. She seemed to find great comfort in complaining about him to friends. It just wasn't enough for me to make me feel that Ben's character was an awful person, instead he came across as misunderstood.

Also the accident described in the book is a difficult one as they blame Ben but when I read it I felt blame was to be shared by Maddy as well as it appeared that she also wasn't in the best frame of mind at the time and had in fact removed her own seatbelt in order to have a distracting family discussion with Ben as he drove. Also we are told later the other vehicle involved had a drink driver and this seems to be skimmed over.

The second part of the book was painfully slow and I just truly couldn't care what happened to the family in the end. The characters were very two dimensional and it was a book that for me missed a great opportunity. To write an amazing book about the crippling effects of emotional abuse and instability caused by a persons moods would have been a remarkable thing to read and what I hoped for but instead it became a journey back to health for Maddy and the trials of her daughter rather than the journey of a marriage.

I wanted to love this but I couldn't and wouldn't say I'd recommend it very highly

It's been a long time since I read a book in under 24 hours, I have 4 children who are currently on school holidays so finding time to read at all is difficult let alone finding time to finish a whole book. Like many other people felt, I would imagine, this one could not wait. So long was it in it's coming that I had to be devoured immediately. The boy wizard is back, although less boy now and more 40 something man, Harry Potter still remains the world's most loved literary character.

I'd had my excitement for this book further heightened as my stepson and his girlfriend had been lucky enough to attend preview performances of both parts of this play at the Palace Theatre, London last month and returned saying it was by far and away the “best thing I've ever seen” and promised the story was exceptional so as my clock ticked to just after midnight and my copy arrived I delved straight in and was immediately lost. I freely admit that absolutely nothing has been achieved in my house today in terms of washing and housework and dinner was provided courtesy of our local chip shop but this was like reviving my life blood and partying with some very old friends who I hadn't heard from for years.

I am going to avoid providing any spoilers of the story, firstly because I know J K Rowling has worked very hard to stop secrets spilling out before the release of this book and also because I think it's imperative that people be allowed to enjoy this story as I did, fresh and without any idea of where Rowling is taking us. All I will say is that it was exactly I needed. Because it is in the format of the script from the play currently playing in London it isn't flowered with any of the descriptive text we find in a novel. There are stage directions and lots and lots of wonderful dialogue from our characters. The action therefore moves very quickly, there's little time to catch your breath and before you know it you've flown through 50 pages and are lost. Every character you would expect to find within a Potter tale at this point in time is there and it picks up exactly at the end of book 8, The Deathly Hallows, with Harry & Ginny and Ron & Hermione waving their children off as they go to begin their first year at Hogwarts.

We are introduced to new characters, Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy and their story is front and centre of this play. The way in which we grow to love them throughout is brilliant and testament to Rowling's writing. It is clear her years away from the franchise have not lessened her love for the characters who made her famous and she's happy to now introduce the next generation. It is a clever story, using tools and tricks we are familiar with from old novels to weave us a tale which makes us smile in delight and gasp as we make links to events of old which are recast in the future.

I cannot tell you how much fun I've had today, I feel fulfilled in a way no book has been able to leave me feeling for quite some time. I've been lacklustre as a reader recently, a part timer drifting around not really committing to anything wholeheartedly. Today I feel like I've come home, I've found myself again in a world of characters who have shaped literature for people around the world over the last 15 years. It's a phenomenon that I've shared with my children and even now it has important lessons to share. Would it make a wonderful movie? Absolutely. Do I wish I'd been fortunate enough to experience it onstage? Yes, although reading at home I could visualise my beloved characters as I wished, hear their voices spoken in the familiar tones I've loved rather than by actors and actresses new to the franchise. Although my stepson assures me the acting on stage is exceptional it' difficult to reshape the vision in my head. Do I pray for more? Absolutely. Please, please tell me this is only the beginning of a new chapter in the world of Harry Potter and we do not need to wait so long for the next one this time.

So well have I done with all the Shadowhunter world books this year that the only 2 I have left to read are the collections of novella's in Tales from The Shadowhunter Academy and The Bane Chronicles. Keen to try and reach my achievement of reading them all by the end of 2017 I decided to push on and read Tales from The Shadowhunter Academy, the book that would ultimately complete my Good Reads 2017 challenge of reading 52 books this year.

This book picks up with Simon after the end of City of Heavenly Fire so if you haven't read the mortal instruments series it's probably best you do that first to avoid any spoilers as this collection is full of references to both The Infernal Devices and The Mortal Instruments. It also looks forward into the books that came after this one, The Dark Artifices and offers a brief glimpse at some of the new characters who Clare is going to be building her new adventures around in the Shadowhunter world so we meet Emma and Julian and Mark & Helen Blackthorn.

Set inside the school for Shadowhunters we follow Simon as he trains to become a Shadowhunter himself and the different people he meets during his journey and the friends he makes and trials he faces. Popping in and out of the school we find lots of familiar faces who are either just dropping by to see Simon such as Isabelle, Clary and Jace or we have some guest teachers who drop by to share their stories from the Shadowhunter world in the case of Magnus Bane, Tessa Grey and Robert Lightwood.

There are lots of cautionary tales in here for new Shadowhunters that give us extra glimpses into the world we've learned about through the previous series' and it's nice to revisit stories that have been touched on but never fully explored in the past. They are also great at highlighting the political and social inequalities in the Shadowhunter world, the prejudices they inflict on others and their harsh rules that they often live by and hide behind. As we have moved into The Dark Artifices this has become more important to Clare's storytelling and so this book was another great chance to explore stories that make you think about whether at its core there is something corrupt in the whole world.

I am not a lover of short stories which is effectively what this book is, all be it strung together cohesively into a sort of story. I sometimes find myself losing focus with them but I didn't find this an issue with this book. It was because of the way the stories were drawn together and fed on from each other that I think helped with this. It didn't feel so much like jumping from one time period to another without reason or hearing about tales individually from each other, they were all linked with clever storytelling and strong moral teachings from each one.

I have given this a 4 out of 5, but honestly, I'd probably lean more towards a 3.5 however this is because held up against the other Shadowhunter novels it is one that you really could take or leave and not impact your understanding of the others. It was a good read but it was really a filler book to get us from The Mortal Instruments to The Dark Artifice through the use of the short stories that had been written about the world.

Lisa Hall is a new author who has released for her first novel, Between You and Me, a tale of domestic violence and the shattering impact it can have on relationships and the ripple effect of that to all family members. The thing about this book though is I would honestly advise you to steer clear of reading lots of review on it before you pick up the book because there is a really big plot twist at the end of the book and I honestly can say I didn't see it coming and I'm glad I didn't so I am going to write a very careful but hopefully helpful review without giving too much away.

Sal and Charlie seem from the outside to have a very happy marriage, they have a young daughter Maggie and Charlie is climbing the ladder at work as a lawyer aiming to make partner. Having met at university and married young the couple have fallen into the routine where Sal is happy to help Charlie climb the career ladder by staying home and caring for Maggie full time whilst putting the career they loved as a teacher on hold.

The thing about the marriage though is that Sal is terrified of Charlie, lives in fear of how Charlie will react to every little thing that happens in their marriage. There have been incidents since they met which have been escalating where Charlie controls everything Sal does and if Sal doesn't do precisely as told will be rewarded with a slap, a punch, things being thrown or broken or things withheld. It is a volatile relationship and one in which Sal lives in fear. Charlie is living with the shadow of a traumatic childhood raised in a house where a violent stepfather ruled the house. This has led to a cycle that has now passed onto Charlie's own marriage.

The book leads us through a period where Charlie is trying to close a major deal at work and stress is building, as a consequence events at home become magnified and Charlie becomes more difficult to live with than ever, taking it out on Sal and reacting in violence. Sal knows that it's time to escape but doesn't know where to start and is too scared to take help, even from friend and neighbour Laura who seems to know what's going on.

The writing in this book was amazing. I honestly have to say that the way it was written was so very clever as to not give even the slightest indication of the twist that this book's final few chapters. I normally am really sharp and can spot twists before they come but this time when it happened I was really stunned. I had to go back and read a few chapters before. I was flicking back thinking “How did I miss that?” and it really challenged me as a reader.

It is a book that will make you stop and question how the author was able to do what she does with the plot so effectively and what is it about us a readers that allows us to make that possible and for us to be so blindsided by it. I would honestly say it's one of the books that has surprised me the most. I wish I'd read it a few days earlier when I answered a question about the most surprising plot twist in the 30 Day Reading Challenge as there are few books that have surprised me as much as this one did.

I would highly recommend this book, if you love a good thriller and you liked Into The Darkest Corner or Gone Girl then this would be great for you.

Young adult fiction is one of my guilty pleasures, although I now beyond the age group where I could ever be considered a young adult I find this genre is currently burgeoning with brilliant authors with some strong stories to tell and I enjoy reading them, they are an escape from the adult world back to a more innocent time when you didn't have to worry about what bills to pay and what everyone is having for dinner that evening. A time when anything was possible and you have your whole future in front of you.

Jennifer Niven has become very highly regarded in this genre after her last novel “All The Bright Things” received rave critical reviews, I haven't read that book yet however and I decided to start with Holding Up The Universe. I was lucky enough to listen to this book via audiobook as well as reading parts and whilst I do not regularly listen to audiobooks as I sometimes find they interfere with my enjoyment of the story, this adaptation was exceptional and it is highly recommended if this method of enjoying the book appeals to you more.

This is a great story of Libby Strout and Jack Masselin, two teens who are preparing to return to school after the summer break. For Libby however it is a huge undertaking, she was one “America's Fattest Teen” unable to leave her home and having had to be cut out of her bedroom by emergency services very publicly a few years before. She has spent the last years losing weight and addressing the demons which caused her to eat excessively after the death of her mother. Not having attended school for many years she is now ready to return and face the world and her peers, she is fierce and happy and with a dream to be a dancer she makes one of the most endearing heroines I've read for some time. Vulnerable and yet feisty and strong it is almost impossible not to fall in love with Libby.

Jack doesn't face a world without difficulties either, popular and enigmatic he is the centre of the popular kids at school but Jack is hiding a strange and unusual secret, he suffers from prosopagnosia, a condition which means that he is unable to recognise faces. Even the faces of the people he holds dearest he is unable to recall, he has to learn people by other identifying features such as their hair or size or sticky out ears in the case of his younger brother. Nobody is aware of Jack's secret and he tries disguising it each day, leading to awkward situations such as when he kisses his girlfriends cousin thinking it's his girlfriend and suddenly everyone is outraged at him.

Jack and Libby's worlds are about to collide, at the outset of the book we are told Jack is going to do a bad thing but we aren't aware what that thing is going to be. It is, however, going to be the catalyst that throws them both together and once they meet it begins a chain of events that will change both of their lives forever.

I literally loved this story, Jack and Libby are both incredible characters. Jack is cocky on the outside but struggling to hide his illness on the inside and so he uses his bravado to get him through. Inside he is a good guy, he tries to run with the crowd but his conscience jars him and we know he a decent human being. Libby is outwardly strong and feisty but inside she's still struggling with people bullying her for her size and shamed by the fact everyone knows about her having to be cut from her home years before. It's a story about how difficult high school can be to manoeuvre, the judgements teens make on each other and how cruel their jibes can be. How even the simplest of things can make you stand out from the crowd and how if your crimes are as heinous as Libby's and you dare to be physically different to the extreme people will go to any lengths to let you know you aren't wanted.

I read this book at the same time as watching the TV series 13 Reasons Why and whilst this book doesn't by any stretch cover bullying to the same extent the themes resonated through both and left me feeling that for all that we have become more aware of the impact bullying can have there still seems to be no end to the ability for people to be cruel in their judgement of others in the ability to make themselves feel more secure. As is said in 13 Reasons Why, of course the popular kids are cruel that's how they got popular in the first place.

I loved spending time with Jack and Libby, they are beacons of hope in a world where people allow themselves to become boxed in by the standards of others. They lift each other up and make us want to root for them and that is a very special thing.

I hadn't read a Jodi Picoult novel in quite a while, I had loved the initial releases on which she made her name such as My Sister's Keeper and Nineteen Minutes but I had become hardened to the moral dilemma format of her stories and had begun to find them samey, in fact the last book I read was the one's that saw her writing with her daughter as they were a complete departure from the norm. Advertising for Small Great Things really captured my imagination though.

This is the story of Ruth, a 40 something Black Labour & Delivery nurse with more than 20 years experience in her job. A single parent working hard to raise her honour roll son to be able to fulfil his potential and gain entry to a good college. She is called in to assist in the post delivery checks for a couple on her ward and is shocked when during her examinations the father demands that she not touch his newborn and asks to speak to her supervisor. It quickly becomes apparent that the father, a white supremacist, has elected to have her removed from the child's care because of the colour of her skin. Barred from touching the child she is angry and upset at the lack of support she received from her colleagues and disgusted by the beliefs of the father. She carries on with her job though until she finds herself, in an emergency, left alone with the child as he recovers from a circumcision. When the child stops breathing she is faced with a choice, does she assist the child and break the guideline she's been given not to touch him or does she ignore the fact the child is in distress.

Picoult has picked a very difficult topic for this novel, it is one the author admits she has been longing to write for some time since she read a story about a black undercover police officer being shot in the back by his colleagues during an altercation despite having the designated marker highlighting him as police clearly showing. Race issues in the United States have been igniting more and more often recently as people question the way police officers treat people of African American heritage.

In this book Picoult brings it to the fore in a story where Ruth is charged with the murder of the newborn she has been told she cannot touch because of her race, when the father of the child deems her responsible for his death. From there we find ourselves seeing events through the eyes of all the different characters in turn. Ruth, who has always seen herself as part of the hospital team, a good mother and with a son with wonderful prospects suddenly finds herself on trial for nothing other than her race, she begins to question everything she's stood for and the steps she's taken to ensure she ‘fits in'. Turk, the father of the baby leads us through his journey into the world of white supremacy, his relationship with his wife Brittany who shares his beliefs and the violence that always bubbles just below his surface. Finally we view events through the eyes of Kennedy, Ruth's lawyer who is undertaking her first murder trial and has to tread a careful line of not making the courtroom case entirely about race as that is not how the system would view as appropriate.

It is a book that I found quite difficult to read because some of the chapters shine a light on a hard truth, that race equality is something that although we believe we have made progress with is still, and may always be an issue right across the world. One chapter highlighted it best for me when Kennedy visits a store and finds herself faced with hair products for black people and states that she has no idea how these work or that they ever existed because the only shampoo or hair commercials we ever see on TV are for white people. Similarly how when 80% of the celebrities in movies are white then that means that so often the movies on screen do not represent the world as black children know it. Whilst this is the case how can we ever claim that equality exists?

Having a break from the novels of Picoult perhaps allowed me to really reach into this one with such enjoyment. Really when you strip everything away the old tried and tested format she has become famous for was the basis for this story and that hadn't changed so perhaps if I'd come to this direct from one of her other more recent books I wouldn't have found it quite so fresh and engaging. It is brilliant then that I've had that break and it felt like catching up with a long lost friend as I slipped back into her writing style.

This book is one that will cause you to question yourself, your own approach to race and as Kennedy says in the book force us to admit that really we are all still a little racist as the system is built that way. It challenges the way you look at the subject, it forces you to look at the extreme beliefs of Turk and Brittany and question how this level of hatred can still exist. It also has the most wonderful ending, the most unexpected twist and this for me was such a wonderful gem of a way to end the book. I don't want to say too much as it would ruin it for other readers but when the event happens you catch your breath and silently punch the air, you suddenly see the whole truth and it's appropriate and a twist that will make it stand out from other books for me in months and years ahead.

Absolutely wonderful and very very highly recommended.