thereadingmum's reviews
818 reviews

This is how girl power should be written. Yes, some men are turds, but some are not and some are quite nice. Yes, you may have to fight for your rights and to be taken as seriously if you want to do something that has traditionally and predominatly been done by men. No, you don't have to forsake the things women do well to do this. Yes, you can have both though you may need to compromise and that is perfectly fine.

I really enjoyed this audiobook and there are some elements of Pratchett that are better read by others. However, I think I still want to read the physical books as well because I think I missed some bits.

My favourite part about this book was its design and feel. Honestly, it made me slow down and want to prolong the reading of it because it just felt and looked so nice. 

The story itself is a typical YA retelling of mythology where there is very little accuracy in historical tone and a lot of modern sensibilities liberally slathered throughout. This was fine for me because I knew what I was getting into. 

I love that Eirene is not the typical willowy, beautiful heroine. She is small but stocky and stubborn and resourceful. Her sole purpose in life has been protecting her sickly, but beautiful sister Phoebe from the evil men abounding, including the dastardly Leandros, who peddles the drug Desire, which has been enslaving the young girls on the island one by one to unsavoury husbands. His eye is set on Phoebe after his young wife, Alexandra, is found murdered and drained of blood in his own house. 

The beginning chase scene ending with Alexandra's demise sets a bit of a bar for the rest of the book. I would say it was mostly upheld. Lots of mystery and thrilling scenes that had me racing through. 

The thing that rankled, as with many current mythology retellings and other historical fiction with magic as a theme was the extreme man-bashing. I mean not one single male was a decent human being. Even Eirene's friend the apothecary's assistant has selfish motivations. Not only is this not realistic but it's getting very tiring to read the same themes again and again.

As a woman and a mother of a teenage daughter, I'm a bit concerned about what stories like these are reinforcing in our young women. Strength and independence, yes. But that every man is out to get you or get something from you? 

I really really wanted this to be read by Josh Brolin. 

Another Christie with a more sinister edge to it. 

This is one of the Tommy and Tuppence series where the couple are much older, though I still see them in their thirties. Then again I still see myself in my thirties. 

Although there are still waffly old people, nosey small village busy bodies and a vague vicar, that cosiness that is usually there in the Poirot or Marple books is decidedly missing here. It actually got quite tense at the climax of the novel. Perhaps I was also influenced by the creepy AF cover. The plot was slightly convoluted and I was wondering for awhile how she was going to tie it up. 

A good one for #spooktober for sure!

I fell in love with the blurb months before this came out, which is not the smartest thing to do because blurbs are often misleading. In this case, I think it just raised my expectations higher than they needed to be. 

Paice, I think, is more of a poet than a novellist. It shows in her writing, which is lyrical and doesn't always flow in the usual narrative way. I enjoyed this for the most part, but it got a little bit tiresome at points. It's a style that does well for short novels or novellas. 

The story itself also read like a very long poem. The magical realism had too much magic so that the real parts got a bit confused. 

I didn't dislike the characters, but every one of them annoyed me in parts so that the overall level of irritation affected my reading pleasure. 

And yet. I remember this novel vividly despite reading it several weeks ago. I may even one day read it again because I feel like it needs a second reading to fully appreciate what the author has done. 

It is definitely a book you need to read yourself to gain an accurate opinion on.

This was a review copy kindly gifted by HarperCollins in exchange for an honest review, which I think I have achieved.

It's very hard to rate biographies because I feel like I'm rating someone's life. However, I have given this a rating based on the writing, because it felt a lot like she was practising her writing in her entries. The annoying thing is that she writes so well even in her private journal. Although she is very typical of an angsty teenage girl in the first half. She writes incessantly about men and her romantic prospects. 

Discharged nurse, Laura Iven, goes back to the battlefield of WWI to search for her missing brother, Fred, presumed dead. There she and her two fellow nurses have a strange encounter in the midst of battle, stumbling into a hotel of sorts where the proprietor plays the violin with unnatural beauty. She thinks she spots Fred in the room. Then the fury of battle and caring for its broken men engulfs her once again. Told in conjunction is Fred's story of waking trapped in an overturned concrete pillbox with a wounded German soldier. Together, they manage to get out and decide to journey together back to civilisation. On the way, Fred loses himself when he commits an unforgiveable act to save the man he has forged an unlikely bond with. They encounter the strange violin-playing hotelier and Fred is forced to trade himself for Winter's life. 

This story really really reminds me of another yet I can't pinpoint what it is and it is driving me crazy. Anyone who knows, please let me know! It's the plot of a mysterious pseudo evil character during war time luring people to trade their lives for a favour. In any case, this was why I gave it a lower rating because the story felt rehashed and done before.

However, ultimately I loved this book because of the characters and felt a bit teary when Laura finally had that moment of allowing herself hope. If you loved Arden's Winternight trilogy, this is totally different. It's more realistic and the fantasy element is woven in. Whereas in the trilogy it was much more evident.

Ordeal by Innocence is a standalone novel written in the late 1950s and set in the same period.

Arthur Calgary returns from a polar expedition and realises that he is the alibi for a convicted murderer who died in prison. He tells the family of the dead man, thinking they would be relieved that their brother/son has been exonerated. However, instead, it throws everyone else in the family into suspicion for the murder of their mother.

I found this, like And Then There Were None, to be more psychologically thrilling with more of a sense of menace than her usual cosy murder mystery formats. It was well-plotted and kept me guessing with a good resolution to the mystery. My only bug-bear were the two romantic relationships between much older men and young women. Not that I don't understand how they occurred and it was likely more common and isn't that icky given they're both adult women, but still irked me slightly.