Merry Christmas

 

The Life I Left Behind by Colette McBeth

I'm the only one who knows the secrets her friends have hidden, the mistakes the police have made.
I'm the only one who can warn her she's still in danger.
I know exactly who attacked her.
He's the same man who killed me.

 

 

This psychological thriller/whodunnit novel is told through the voices of three women. The first one, Eve, is actually dead, the victim of a murder. The second, Melody, was attacked and left for dead by the same culprit a few years before. Due to her injuries she's unable to remember what happened to her on that fateful night. A friend of hers, David Alden, was convicted and now released from prison the police are presuming he's responsible for Eve's untimely demise too. The third woman is Victoria, a Detective Inspector investigating the murder. Melody hasn't coped well over the years and has changed from a confident young woman to someone who hides herself away. Too scared to leave the house, she only ventures outside if she has someone with her and keeps herself busy by throwing herself into the plans for her wedding to fiance Sam in a few months' time.

I loved this novel and despite not having been in a reading mood (very unusual for me) I started this the same afternoon it arrived from Headline. I struggled to put it down; a cliche I know but true. It has everything a fan of psychological thrillers will enjoy and expect; twists, secrets gradually revealed throughout the story and to be kept guessing as to the identity of the murderer until the very end. 

I also enjoyed the author's first novel Precious Thing; you can read my review for it here and I shall certainly be reading any future novels by her. 

 

Rating: 4 out of 5

 

Thanks to Headline and Bookbridgr for a copy of this book 

Book Beginnings On Fridays (The Life I Left Behind)

Book Beginnings on Fridays is hosted by Rose City Reader and as she says the idea of this meme is for you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name. There's a linky list on the website and you can use #BookBeginnings on Twitter.

 

My book beginning is The Life I Left Behind by Colette McBeth. It's published by Headline on 1st January 2015 and I've been lucky enough to receive an ARC from the publisher.

 

The first thing that strikes him is the cold. When he comes in from the garden he's always greeted by a hot blast at the door, like running into a band of warm cotton wool. Except today there's no cotton wool. This is his first disappointment. Outside. Inside. If there is a change in temperature between the two it's so minuscule it doesn't register. It's certainly not enough to thaw his fingers, which are the pink of raw meat. He inhales.

 

 

 

Book Description 

 

Five years ago Melody Pieterson was attacked and left for dead.

She coped by burying the person she was, locking away her memories and creating a new life for herself. Her attacker is behind bars. In four weeks' time she will get married. She's almost normal.

Then the body of another woman is found, close to where Melody was discovered. Like her she has blond hair and green eyes. Like Melody police find a gold bird cage necklace at the scene. And Melody realises her attacker has been out there all along.

The woman's name is Eve Elliot. Melody sets out to discover everything she can about Eve to work out why they were targeted. But the more she gets to know her the more she realises what's wrong with her own life. Eve may be dead but she's the only person who can teach Melody how to live again.

 

Book Blogger Hop (19th - 25th December)

 

The Book Blogger Hop is hosted at Ramblings Of A Coffee Addicted Writer and this week's question is:

 

Do you write a review for every book you read or only review copies from publishers?

 

I write a review for all the ARCs I've received from publishers but not every book I read. Sometimes it's nice to just enjoy a book without thinking about what I'm going to say about it. I go through stages where reviewing can feel like a chore and reading should be all about relaxing and enjoying the novel. For that reason I try and keep my review/Netgalley requests down to a minimum where possible or only for books that I really want to read.

Top Ten Tuesday - Top Ten Books I Read In 2014

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme by The Broke and the Bookish and each week there's a different topic. As always, even if you can't think of 10, do as many as you can.

Here's my list (in no particular order) of the ten best books I've read in 2014:

Wake by Anna Hope

Wake is set in London during five days in November 1920 when the body of the unknown soldier is being brought home to England from France. It is also about three women who are linked in some way to each other, have all been affected by and are struggling to get over loss following World War I. This is a book you pick up to read just a few more pages only to find an hour later that you haven't managed to put it down.  Parts of the story are heartbreaking and it gets across very well what life must have been like during and after The Great War and what people had to contend with.

No Harm Can Come To A Good Man by James Smythe

ClearVista is used by everyone and can predict anything. It's a daily lifesaver, predicting weather to traffic to who you should befriend. Laurence Walker wants to be the next President of the United States. ClearVista will predict his chances. It will predict whether he's the right man for the job. It will predict that his son can only survive for 102 seconds underwater. It will predict that Laurence's life is about to collapse in the most unimaginable way. Love all this author's books and think this is his best yet.

The Shock Of The Fall by Nathan Filer

‘I’ll tell you what happened because it will be a good way to introduce my brother. His name’s Simon. I think you’re going to like him. I really do. But in a couple of pages he’ll be dead. And he was never the same after that.’  This novel is about Matthew and his battle with mental illness.

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

Lighthouse keeper Tom lives with his wife Isabel on the isolated Island called Janus Rock.  Isabel is happy with their life apart from one thing; she wants to have a child, and after three miscarriages this isn't looking like it will ever happen. Then one day a boat is washed up and in it a dead man and a small crying baby. They both make a decision that will change their lives, and others', forever.

 

Revival by Stephen King

 

In a small New England town, in the early 60s, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to see the new minister. Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church. With Jamie, the Reverend shares a deep bond, based on their fascination with simple experiments in electricity. Then tragedy strikes the Jacobs family; the preacher curses God, mocking all religious belief, and is banished from the shocked town. Jamie has demons of his own. In his mid-thirties, he is living a nomadic lifestyle of bar-band rock and roll. Addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate, he sees Jacobs again – a showman on stage, creating dazzling ‘portraits in lightning’ – and their meeting has profound consequences for both men. 

The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins

 

The story is told through the voices of three women; Rachel, Anna and Megan. Rachel travels on the train every day, looking out of the window at the house she once shared with her ex husband Tom. He now lives there with second wife Anna and their young daughter, living the life Rachel always wanted, but hers is now a mess. A few doors away lives Megan, who Rachel often sees from the train out on her terrace. Rachel invents a life and name for Megan but when the latter goes missing Rachel becomes heavily involved in trying to find out the truth.

I read a lot of psychological thrillers, it's a genre that I love and The Girl On The Train is one of the best I've read in a while. 

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

 

 It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned; the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa — a large, silent house now bereft of brothers, husband, and even servants — life is about to be transformed as impoverished widow Mrs. Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers.

With the arrival of Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the “clerk class,” the routines of the house will be shaken up in unexpected ways. Little do the Wrays know just how profoundly their new tenants will alter the course of Frances’s life — or, as passions mount and frustration gathers, how far-reaching, and how devastating, the disturbances will be.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

 

DAY ONE
The Georgia Flu explodes over the surface of the earth like a neutron bomb.News reports put the mortality rate at over 99%.

WEEK TWO
Civilization has crumbled.

YEAR TWENTY
A band of actors and musicians called the Travelling Symphony move through their territories performing concerts and Shakespeare to the settlements that have grown up there. Twenty years after the pandemic, life feels relatively safe.
But now a new danger looms, and he threatens the hopeful world every survivor has tried to rebuild.  


   

Tony Hogan Bought Me An Ice-cream Float Before He Stole My Ma by Kerry Hudson

 

Tony Hogan tells the story of a Scottish childhood of sordid council flats and B&Bs, screeching women, feckless men, fags and booze and drugs, the dole queue and bread and marge sandwiches. It is also the story of an irresistible, irrepressible heroine, a dysfunctional family you can't help but adore, the absurdities of the eighties and the fierce bonds that tie people together no matter what.

Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans

 

Ten year old Noel has lived with his Godmother Mattie in London since he was four. He has no family of his own so when she passes away he is looked after by her cousin and his wife before being evacuated to St Albans. He is sent to live with Vera (Vee) Sedge who has a plan to make money because of the war. When she takes Noel along with her she soon realises that he is a lot cleverer than she first supposed. Vee's son Donald is also making a living for himself by taking advantage of his heart condition, but will these schemes of the Sedge's go unnoticed or get them into trouble?


 

  

 

 

Book Beginnings On Fridays (Still Alice)

Book Beginnings on Fridays is hosted by Rose City Reader and as she says the idea of this meme is for you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name. There's a linky list on the website and you can use #BookBeginnings on Twitter.

 

This week my book beginning is Still Alice by Lisa Genova. I haven't been in much of a reading mood recently but decided to give this a go as it's been on my shelf for a while. I'm pleased to say I'm really enjoying it, as soon as I started Still Alice I could tell it was going to be good, my love of reading is now back.

 

Alice sat at her desk in their bedroom distracted by the sounds of John racing through each of the rooms on the first floor. She needed to finish her peer review of a paper submitted to the Journal of Cognitive Psychology before her flight, and she's just read the same sentence three times without comprehending it.

 

 

Book Description:

 

When Alice finds herself in the rapidly downward spiral of Alzheimer's Disease she is just fifty years old. A university professor, wife, and mother of three, she still has books to write, places to see, grandchildren to meet. But when she can't remember how to make her famous Christmas pudding, when she gets lost in her own back yard, when she fails to recognise her actress daughter after a superb performance, she comes up with a plan. But can she see it through? Should she see it through? Losing her yesterdays, living for each day, her short-term memory is hanging on by a couple of frayed threads.

But she is still Alice. 

Book Beginnings On Fridays (In Falling Snow)

Book Beginnings on Fridays is hosted by Rose City Reader and as she says the idea of this meme is for you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name. There's a linky list on the website and you can use #BookBeginnings on Twitter.

 

This week my book beginning is In Falling Snow by Mary-Rose MacColl

 

Afterwards, she would find herself unable to describe the old man with whom they shared the elevator, other than a lascivious smile, as if he knew. She would forget the hotel lobby, the desk clerk, the room, even the view out the window which she knew must be the Luxembourg Gardens.

 

  

 

 Book Description

A vivid and compelling story of love, war and secrets, set against the backdrop of WWI France. 'In the beginning, it was the summers I remembered - long warm days under the palest blue skies, the cornflowers and forget-me-nots lining the road through the Lys forest, the buzz of insects going about their work, Violet telling me lies.' Iris is getting old. A widow, her days are spent living quietly and worrying about her granddaughter, Grace, a headstrong young doctor. It's a small sort of life. But one day an invitation comes for Iris through the post to a reunion in France, where she served in a hospital during WWI. Determined to go, Iris is overcome by the memories of the past, when as a shy, naive young woman she followed her fifteen-year-old brother, Tom, to France in 1914 intending to bring him home. On her way to find Tom, Iris comes across the charismatic Miss Ivens, who is setting up a field hospital in the old abbey of Royaumont, north of Paris. Putting her fears aside, Iris decides to stay at Royaumont, and it is there that she truly comes of age, finding her capability and her strength, discovering her passion for medicine, making friends with the vivacious Violet and falling in love. But war is a brutal thing, and when the ultimate tragedy happens, there is a terrible price that Iris has to pay, a price that will echo down the generations. A moving and uplifting novel about the small, unsung acts of heroism of which love makes us capable.

Hello & Update

Just wanted to say hello and give an update as I haven't been posting on here much recently. I'm up to date with review books and I've decided to try and catch up on my own tbr pile. If I read too many review novels then it starts to feel like a chore rather than something I enjoy, I find I spend a lot of time thinking about what I'll say about the story, characters etc instead of just enjoying the book. I'm getting back into reading just for fun, taking my time over a book and not thinking I need to get it finished and onto the next one as soon as possible.

 

I will still post on here and no doubt will be back in a reviewing mood again soon and as always appreciate you all visiting my blog and leaving comments.

Book Beginnings On Fridays (Station Eleven)

Book Beginnings on Fridays is hosted by Rose City Reader and as she says the idea of this meme is for you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name. There's a linky list on the website and you can use #BookBeginnings on Twitter.

 

This week my book beginning is Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. I'm only on page 56 but can already tell that this will probably be in my top ten books of the year.

 

The King stood in a pool of blue light, unmoored. This was act 4 of King Lear, a winter night at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto. Earlier in the evening, three little girls had played a clapping game onstage as the audience entered, childhood versions of Lear's daughters, and now they'd returned as hallucinations in the mad scene.

 

  

Book Description

 

DAY ONE

The Georgia Flu explodes over the surface of the earth like a neutron bomb.

News reports put the mortality rate at over 99%.

WEEK TWO

Civilization has crumbled.

YEAR TWENTY

A band of actors and musicians called the Travelling Symphony move through their territories performing concerts and Shakespeare to the settlements that have grown up there. Twenty years after the pandemic, life feels relatively safe.

But now a new danger looms, and he threatens the hopeful world every survivor has tried to rebuild.

STATION ELEVEN

Moving backwards and forwards in time, from the glittering years just before the collapse to the strange and altered world that exists twenty years after, Station Eleven charts the unexpected twists of fate that connect six people: famous actor Arthur Leander; Jeevan - warned about the flu just in time; Arthur's first wife Miranda; Arthur's oldest friend Clark; Kirsten, a young actress with the Travelling Symphony; and the mysterious and self-proclaimed 'prophet'.

Thrilling, unique and deeply moving, this is a beautiful novel that asks questions about art and fame and about the relationships that sustain us through anything - even the end of the world 

Book Beginnings On Fridays (The Clock Winder)

Book Beginnings on Fridays is hosted by Rose City Reader and as she says the idea of this meme is for you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name. There's a linky list on the website and you can use #BookBeginnings on Twitter.

 

The Clock Winder by Anne Tyler:

 

The house had outlived its usefulness. It sat hooded and silent, a brown shingleboard monstrosity close to the road but backed by woods, far enough from downtown Baltimore to escape the ashy smell of factories. The upper most windows were shuttered; the wrap-around veranda, with its shiny grey floorboards and sky-blue ceiling, remained empty even when neighbours' porches filled up with children and dogs and drop-in visitors. Yet clearly someone still lived there. 

 

  

 

Book Description:

 

Having sacked her handyman, newly-widowed Mrs Emerson finds a replacement in Elizabeth, a lanky, awkward girl. The Emersons - there are seven grown-up children - have a reputation for craziness and Elizabeth finds herself drawn into their disorderly lives against her will. But in the end it is hard to tell whether she is a victim of the needy Emersons, or the de facto ruler of the family.  

Dying For Christmas by Tammy Cohen

 

 

I am missing. Held captive by a blue-eyed stranger. To mark the twelve days of Christmas, he gives me a gift every day, each more horrible than the last. The twelfth day is getting closer. After that, there'll be no more Christmas cheer for me. No mince pies, no carols. No way out .

But I have a secret. No-one has guessed it. Will you?

 

My Thoughts

Jessica Gold stops to have a coffee while shopping on Christmas Eve when a good looking man asks to sit down at her table. They get talking and she agrees to leave with him, a decision she soons comes to regret. The novel is very dark and I was gripped straight away, desperately wondering if or how she would escape the clutches of Dominic, her captor. In part two the story takes an unexpected turn, it was certainly something I never saw coming. At this point that the story became less believable for me but was no less enjoyable because of it. I spent most of the book trying to figure out what was going on and it kept me guessing until the very end, exactly what you want from a psychological thriller as well as the twists that Dying For Christmas provides.

Rating: 4 out of 5

 

Thanks to Transworld and Netgalley for a copy of this in return for an honest review.

 

Published 20th November 2014 by Transworld Publishers  

Monday Posts

Mailbox Monday & It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

 

 

 

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. It was created by Marcia @ A Girl and Her Books but now has a permanent home here

 

This week I got the kindle ebook of The Fallow Season of Hugo Hunter by Craig Lancaster, you can read about it in my book beginning post here I also received a copy of Black Chalk by Christopher J. Yates that I won from the publisher in a Twitter competition.

 

One game. Six students. Five survivors. It was only ever meant to be a game played by six best friends in their first year at Oxford University; a game of consequences, silly forfeits, and childish dares. But then the game changed: the stakes grew higher and the dares more personal and more humiliating, finally evolving into a vicious struggle with unpredictable and tragic results. Now, 14 years later, the remaining players must meet again for the final round. Who knows better than your best friends what would break you?

 

 

It's Monday! What Are You Reading is a weekly meme run by Book Journey and you can mention books you've just finished, are currently reading and any you plan to read this week. You can leave a link to your blog and read other bloggers posts.

 

I've been busy recently so haven't had as much time for reading as I normally do. I did finish A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale though which was excellent. My current read is The Fallow Season of Hugo Hunter by Craig Lancaster. I only downloaded it at the end of last week but have loved three of his previous novels so started it straight away.

 

Book Beginnings On Fridays (The Fallow Season Of Hugo Hunter)

Book Beginnings on Fridays is hosted by Rose City Reader and as she says the idea of this meme is for you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name. There's a linky list on the website and you can use #BookBeginnings on Twitter.

 

My book beginning is The Fallow Season Of Hugo Hunter by Craig Lancaster and I'll start reading it later today. I'm looking forward to it as I have loved three previous books by the author.

 

The last time I saw Hugo Hunter in the boxing ring was on a miserable Tuesday that pissed down freezing rain in Billings, Montana. I stood in the shadows of the Babcock Theatre, past its prime just like Hugo, the stale stench of a century's cigarettes climbing down from the rafters.

 

  

Book Description 

From the bestselling author of 600 Hours of Edward comes the story of a boxer and a sportswriter whose fates are inextricably linked.
Hugo Hunter, a would-be champion who never quite made it, is on his last legs. Thirty-seven years old, soft around the middle, and broke, he’s plummeted from his glory days of title fights to small-time bouts against brawlers and punks. Watching ringside for nearly twenty years has been Mark Westerly, a sportswriter who has struggled to keep a professional distance from the man whose life and career have become enmeshed with his own tumultuous trajectory. Hugo and Mark share a history that runs deep and has at times gotten ugly. As Hugo lands on the ropes again, Mark steps in to try to save him—and unburdens himself of long-held secrets regarding Hugo’s past. But can these two men, who’ve lived so long under the weight of their own tragedies, finally help each other find redemption?

Mondays Posts

Mailbox Monday & It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

 

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. It was created by Marcia @ A Girl and Her Books but now has a permanent home here

 

This week I received a book proof copy of A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale. It's due to be published by Tinder Press in March 2015:

 

In the golden 1900s, Harry Cane, a shy, eligible gentleman of leisure is drawn from a life of quiet routine into courting and marrying Winnie, eldest daughter of the fatherless Wells clan, who are not quite as respectable as they would appear. They settle by the sea and have a daughter and conventional marriage does not seem such a tumultuous change after all. When a chance encounter awakens scandalous desires never acknowledged until now, however, Harry is forced to forsake the land and people he loves for a harsh new life as a homesteader on the newly colonized Canadian prairies. There, in a place called Winter, he will come to find a deep love within an alternative family, a love imperiled by war, madness and an evil man of undeniable magnetism.

 

It's Monday! What Are You Reading is a weekly meme run by Book Journey and you can mention books you've just finished, are currently reading and any you plan to read this week. You can leave a link to your blog and read other bloggers posts.

 

This week I finished Thinner by Stephen King. This was the second time I'd read it but couldn't remember much about it, he's one of my favourite authors and I often re-read his novels. I'm now onto A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale, details for which are above.

 

Book Beginnings On Fridays (A Place Called Winter)

Book Beginnings on Fridays is hosted by Rose City Reader and as she says the idea of this meme is for you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name. There's a linky list on the website and you can use #BookBeginnings on Twitter.

 

My book beginning is A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale. It is due to be published in March 2015 by Tinder Press and Georgina Moore was kind enough to send me a book proof. How can you read these first few sentences and not want to continue?

The attendants came for him as a pair, as always. Some of them were kind and meant well. Some were frightened and, like first timers at a steer-branding, hid their fear in swearing and brutality. But this pair was of the most unsettling kind, the sort that ignored him. 

 

 

 

Book Description:

In the golden 1900s, Harry Cane, a shy, eligible gentleman of leisure is drawn from a life of quiet routine into courting and marrying Winnie, eldest daughter of the fatherless Wells clan, who are not quite as respectable as they would appear. They settle by the sea and have a daughter and conventional marriage does not seem such a tumultuous change after all. When a chance encounter awakens scandalous desires never acknowledged until now, however, Harry is forced to forsake the land and people he loves for a harsh new life as a homesteader on the newly colonized Canadian prairies. There, in a place called Winter, he will come to find a deep love within an alternative family, a love imperiled by war, madness and an evil man of undeniable magnetism.

Monday Posts

Mailbox Monday & It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

 

 

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. It was created by Marcia @ A Girl and Her Books but now has a permanent home here

 

This week I downloaded the ebook of The Woods by Harlan Coben:

 

Twenty years ago, four teenagers at summer camp walked into the woods at night. Two were found murdered, and the others were never seen again. Four families had their lives changed forever. Now, two decades later, they are about to change again. For Paul Copeland, the county prosecutor of Essex, New Jersey, mourning the loss of his sister has only recently begun to subside. Cope, as he is known, is now dealing with raising his six-year-old daughter as a single father after his wife has died of cancer. Balancing family life and a rapidly ascending career as a prosecutor distracts him from his past traumas, but only for so long. When a homicide victim is found with evidence linking him to Cope, the well-buried secrets of the prosecutor's family are threatened. Is this homicide victim one of the campers who disappeared with his sister? Could his sister be alive? Cope has to confront so much he left behind that summer twenty years ago: his first love, Lucy; his mother, who abandoned the family; and the secrets that his Russian parents might have been hiding even from their own children. Cope must decide what is better left hidden in the dark and what truths can be brought to the light.

 

 

It's Monday! What Are You Reading is a weekly meme run by Book Journey and you can mention books you've just finished, are currently reading and any you plan to read this week. You can leave a link to your blog and read other bloggers posts.

 

This week I gave up on a review book that I really wasn't enjoying  despite it starting well, No One Gets Out Alive by Adam Nevill.  I did finish a very good one though and my review for The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins is here

I'm now reading Thinner by Stephen King for the second time but as the first time was many years ago I can't remember much about it.

The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins

To everyone else in this carriage I must look normal; I’m doing exactly what they do: commuting to work, making appointments, ticking things off lists. 

Just goes to show.

Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and every evening. Every day she passes the same Victorian terraces, stops at the same signal, and sees the same couple, breakfasting on their roof terrace. Jason and Jess seem so happy together.

Then one day Rachel sees something she shouldn't have seen, and soon after, Jess disappears. Suddenly Rachel is chasing the truth and unable to trust anyone. Not even herself.

Tense, taut, twisty and surprising . . . The Girl on the Train creeps right under your skin and stays there.

 

My Thoughts:

 

The story is told through the voices of three women; Rachel, Anna and Megan. Rachel travels on the train every day, looking out of the window at the house she once shared with her ex husband Tom. He now lives there with second wife Anna and their young daughter, living the life Rachel always wanted, but hers is now a mess. A few doors away lives Megan, who Rachel often sees from the train out on her terrace. Rachel invents a life and name for Megan but when the latter goes missing Rachel becomes heavily involved in trying to find out the truth.

 

I read a lot of psychological thrillers, it's a genre that I love and The Girl On The Train is one of the best I've read in a while. This book isn't published until January but is already receiving a lot of hype and I'm pleased to say that it more than lives up to and deserves all the attention it is receiving. The twists and turns and facts gradually revealed about all the characters lives made it difficult to put the book down. I was tightly gripping hold of the book for the last fifty pages as the suspense had built up to such a level that I couldn't wait to find out what would happen in the end. I'm pleased to say that the ending kept me guessing. 

 I can't see this book being anything other than a big success, and Paula Hawkins is an author whose future publications I shall now always look out for.

 

Rating: 5 out of 5

 

Thank you to Alison Barrow at Transworld for a copy of this novel.

 

Book Beginnings On Fridays (The Girl On the Train)

Book Beginnings on Fridays is hosted by Rose City Reader and as she says the idea of this meme is for you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name. There's a linky list on the website and you can use #BookBeginnings on Twitter.

 

My book beginning is The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins. It's published in January 2015 and I'm reading a book proof from Transworld Publishers. There's a lot of hype surrounding this book and I have to say so far it's living up to it.

 

There is a pile of clothing on the side of the train tracks. Light-blue cloth - a shirt, perhaps - jumbled up with something dirty white. It's probably rubbish, part of a load fly-tipped into the scrubby little wood up the bank. It could have been left behind by the engineers who work this part of the track, they're here often enough. Or it could be something else.

 

 

 

Book Description

To everyone else in this carriage I must look normal; I’m doing exactly what they do: commuting to work, making appointments, ticking things off lists.

Just goes to show.

Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and every evening. Every day she passes the same Victorian terraces, stops at the same signal, and sees the same couple, breakfasting on their roof terrace. Jason and Jess seem so happy together.

Then one day Rachel sees something she shouldn't have seen, and soon after, Jess disappears. Suddenly Rachel is chasing the truth and unable to trust anyone. Not even herself.

Tense, taut, twisty and surprising . . . The Girl on the Train creeps right under your skin and stays there

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday Posts

Mailbox Monday & It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

 

 

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. It was created by Marcia @ A Girl and Her Books but now has a permanent home here

 

Only one for me this week but it's a good one. The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins isn't published until January 15th next year but Transworld publishers have kindly sent me a proof copy.

 

To everyone else in this carriage I must look normal; I’m doing exactly what they do: commuting to work, making appointments, ticking things off lists. 

Just goes to show.

Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and every evening. Every day she passes the same Victorian terraces, stops at the same signal, and sees the same couple, breakfasting on their roof terrace. Jason and Jess seem so happy together.

Then one day Rachel sees something she shouldn't have seen, and soon after, Jess disappears. Suddenly Rachel is chasing the truth and unable to trust anyone. Not even herself.

Tense, taut, twisty and surprising . . . The Girl on the Train creeps right under your skin and stays there.

 

 

 

 

 

It's Monday! What Are You Reading is a weekly meme run by Book Journey and you can mention books you've just finished, are currently reading and any you plan to read this week. You can leave a link to your blog and read other bloggers posts.

 

This week I finished The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters. I thought it was a great book, I had to force myself to put it down and go to work, sleep etc. I'm now reading No One Gets Out Alive by Adam Nevill, a horror novel which is due to be published on 23rd October, just in time for Halloween.