We read to know we are not alone. – C.S. Lewis

A Game of Lies – Clare Mackintosh

Hardcover – 20 July 2023

We all lie, right? Some are bad lies, some less so or are well intentioned, others are for survival. Imagine if your lies were made the subject (unknowingly) of a televised reality show, unscrupulously embedded in the T&C’s thinking the aim of the game was more agility based. Miles Young is a power hungry TV producer, keen to make his mark (and money) regardless of the fall out, but you can only push people and their vulnerabilities so far. Local Detective Ffion Morgan, with her inimitable Welsh charm/sarcasm and unique modus operandi is on the job, but is she too close to everyone involved? Or is she too distracted to see what is right in front of her?

This is the second book in the series but as I had not read the first, I can wholeheartedly say it is not a necessity to enjoy and understand the dynamics in the book. Ffion is brilliant and leaps off the page immediately as someone you want to follow and get onboard with. Oh, and Dave, I was really invested in Dave.

The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell - Gail Aldwin

This book was perfectly timed for me, having only recently listened to my first ever unsolved crime mystery podcast in the last few weeks, I know, very late to the party. And I loved it.

It is 2014 and Stephanie has just been made redundant from her position at the local paper after many years of service, yet Doug her boss thinks this is a great opportunity for her to flex her creative muscles in new media, namely podcasting. Back in 1979 when Stephanie was starting out in Journalism a girl from her school went missing and to this day we still don’t know what happened to her. Could modern communication and a less ‘newbie’ approach to investigative journalism be the answer to uncovering the truth? While delving into the past and forging a way through with her future, Stephanie gets to encounter new people, gain a better understanding of small town ignorance’s, learn about resilience and humanity. But, will she get to uncover what happened to Carolyn Russell?

 

The Good Daughter Laure Van Rensburg

Released 03/08/2023

An eerily suspenseful novel that takes you on a traumatic ride through the grief, persecution and entrapment of being a good daughter and how institutional abuse can lead you to do crazy things. The more people treat you like your are crazy, how long before you start to believe it or become it?

Religion isn’t for everyone and not all religions have everyone’s best interests at heart. In fact what crosses the line of a religion to a cult? Are you devout or brainwashed? Good or subservient? But when ‘feminism’ is a bad word used to describe moral decline, your own family can no longer be trusted to have your best interests at heart and you have more in common with strangers getting you to question your own way of life, all you have ever known - the alarm bells ring. How the hell do you escape ‘being good’?

 

Seven Exes - Lucy Vine

That novel you read by the pool or in the queue at passport control, giggling to yourself, like a plonker. So one could assume…

Many of us have had a cacophony of exes that have been dodgy in a meticulous amount of ways both truly and self-preservedly. Hey, subjectivity is a thing! With hindsight, looking back at the ones that your remember for whatever reason, have we remembered them correctly, honestly and sympathetically? Does experience make us regret the decisions we made or nostalgia cloud our judgement? Well, I guess there is only one way to figure that out, visit them all like a messed up voluntary Scrooge epiphany. But IRL.

Very funny, relatable and full of great characters.

 

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