Author: bookhermitt

Let me start by thanking NetGalley and Aria Publishing for letting me read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Now.  How have I not heard of any books by Carys Jones!!!  After reading Best Friends, I will be adding her other books to my TBR listv

Book description
Four friends, a terrible secret, and one week to stay alive…
Grace doesn’t have a family. That was taken away one dreadful day when she was just six, and her twin brother Peter was killed. Instead she has her best friends and flatmates Jasper, Franklin and Aaron and nothing can tear them apart.

Living in London, and trying desperately to make a living, the four friends are rapidly running out of money and hope. So, when they find a discarded suitcase in a skip, they can’t believe their eyes when its contents seem to answer all their prayers.  But then there is a knock on their door, and a very disgruntled thug with revenge on his mind gives them one week to return his belongings, or they will pay with their lives. Soon the fractures in their friendships begin to show, and when one of them ends up fighting for his life, the stakes are raised even higher.

Will any of them get to the end of the week alive, or will the best of friends become the deadliest of enemies…

Continue reading “Book Blog Tour – Best Friends by Carys Jones”

The Chalk Man is C.J. Tudor’s debut novel.  Usually debut novels are like the “test pancake”.  You make a small pancake to make sure the griddle is hot enough and then the next pancakes are perfect.  Well, not for C.J. Tudor.  She starts off with the perfect pancake right off the bat!!

Goodreads summary:
In 1986, Eddie and his friends are just kids on the verge of adolescence. They spend their days biking around their sleepy English village and looking for any taste of excitement they can get. The chalk men are their secret code: little chalk stick figures they leave for one another as messages only they can understand. But then a mysterious chalk man leads them right to a dismembered body, and nothing is ever the same.

In 2016, Eddie is fully grown and thinks he’s put his past behind him, but then he gets a letter in the mail containing a single chalk stick figure. When it turns out that his friends got the same message, they think it could be a prank–until one of them turns up dead. That’s when Eddie realizes that saving himself means finally figuring out what really happened all those years ago.

This book had just the right formula of creepy and mystery. It reminded me a little of The Long Walk by Stephen King. It does flash back and forth but the author does a great job with this so you aren’t confused. This is a quick read and is hard to put down. The ending is soooo worth it!!

I would like to thank NetGalley and Crown Publishing group for letting me read an Advanced Readers Copy in exchange for an honest review.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Aria Publishing for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

What extent would you go to to keep a dark secret??  Would be truth just be better??  Or the consequences too hard to face?  This is what Elizabeth Perkins faces in If You Only Knew.

I really loved the concept of this book.  However, I just couldn’t get into it.  I did finish it but it took me way longer than normal.  It just didn’t grip me where I couldn’t put it down.

I consider myself an avid reader.  Mostly Mystery and Thrillers with some Stephen King or Joe Hill thrown in for fun.  I have read some really good Thrillers.   Some that still haunt me.  The Good Mother by Karen Osman will be on the list of books that haunt me.

About the author

Originally from the UK, Karen won the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature Montegrappa Novel Writing Award 2016 with her crime-thriller novel and now has a three-book deal with Head of Zeus. When she’s not writing novels, Karen is busy bringing up her two young children and running her communication business Travel Ink.

Follow Karen

Website: https://www.karenosman.com/

Twitter: @KarenAuthor

About the book

How far would you go to protect your children?

A gripping psychological suspense, with a shocking twist that will leave you reeling…

Catherine is a good mother and a good wife. The family home is immaculate, her husband’s supper is cooked on time, but when she starts writing to Michael, a prisoner convicted of murder, she finds herself obsessing about his crime and whether he can ever truly be forgiven…

Kate has no time for herself.  Caught in the maelstrom of bringing up two young children with no money, and an out of work husband, she longs to escape the drudgery of being a wife and a mother. And she soon starts taking dangerous risks to feel alive…

Alison has flown the nest. But university life is not what she had hoped for, and she finds herself alone and unhappy. Until the day her professor takes a sudden interest in her. Then everything changes…

Three women – all with secrets. And as the days tick down to Michael’s release, those secrets can no longer be ignored.

Available on NetGalley: http://bit.ly/2jQwtfq

Buy links:

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2hllmdI

Kobo: http://bit.ly/2wL90xt

iBooks: http://apple.co/2wLlV2e

Google Play: http://bit.ly/2wauh47

Follow Aria 

Website: www.ariafiction.com

Twitter: @aria_fiction

Facebook: @ariafiction

Instagram: @ariafiction

The characters in this book pull you in from the start.  You feel for Catherine, the mom who fills her time keeping a nice home for her husband and older daughter and volunteering in her spare time.  You sympathize with Kate who is a young married mother of two young kids with a husband who is unemployed.  You want to take Allison under your wing to help guide the young college student through her ups and downs.  And Michael, the inmate that Catherine befriends as a good volunteer to help ease him back into the real world if he is paroled.

The twists and turns of this book will keep you intrigued right until the last page.

So make a pot of coffee and get read for a thrill ride!!

Goodreads Synopsis:

People keep a house alive, not the other way around. Alex Proctor has seen the truth of this in every empty, rundown property she’s bought and renovated since her divorce almost three years ago. She’s also experienced the thrill of making each one into a home. 

Her newest project is a dilapidated, century-old house just a few blocks from Geneva Lake, Wisconsin. Time and neglect, along with rats and raccoons, have ravaged it inside and out. Only Alex can see the beauty of what it once was and might become again. In just a few weeks by the time the cicadas make their scheduled reappearance after seventeen years underground the house should be ready to sell. In the meantime, there are construction disasters, and surprises, to contend with. 

Amid overgrown grounds and rooms brimming with debris, Alex finds treasures- pocket doors, hardwood floors hidden beneath layers of linoleum and grime and carved initials that reveal a long-ago love story involving Alex’s elderly neighbor, Elsie, and another cicada summer. At the same time, Alex finds herself searching for a way to reconcile her new life with lingering feelings for her ex-husband. For so long she felt sure that moving on was the only option, but maybe this house, and everything she’s learning in it, could give Alex room for a second chance . . .

My Review:

I completely adored this book.  It was stepping out of my usual genre type but it was so worth it!  Being a single mom, this book hit home for me.  From her dating trials to her love for her daughter, I could really relate to the single mom, Alex.  The symbolism you find in her passion to renovate the century-old house is heart-warming.  She is able to see the beauty beneath and doesn’t let anything stop her.

I highly recommend this book!

Goodreads synopsis:

Who Are You When No One Is Watching?

When a beloved high schooler named Lucinda Hayes is found murdered, no one in her sleepy Colorado suburb is untouched—not the boy who loved her too much; not the girl who wanted her perfect life; not the officer assigned to investigate her murder. In the aftermath of the tragedy, these three indelible characters—Cameron, Jade, and Russ—must each confront their darkest secrets in an effort to find solace, the truth, or both.

In crystalline prose, Danya Kukafka offers a brilliant exploration of identity and of the razor-sharp line between love and obsession, between watching and seeing, between truth and memory. Compulsively readable and powerfully moving, Girl in Snow offers an unforgettable reading experience and introduces a singular new talent in Danya Kukafka.

My Review:

I thought this book started off great.  I liked the way Danya Kukafka drew you in with the characters.  I felt sorry for Cameron and his unhealthy obsession with Lucinda but on the flip side I thought it his obsession was heart-warming.  I was not a fan of Jade’s rebellious look and behavior but I also understood why she was that way.  And poor Russ, the poor guy was just a mess but you will totally understand this as well once you read it.

I did, however, think that this book was slow in places.  I found myself thinking, “just hurry up and tell us who killed her.”

The ending is worth it though so just speed read through those slow parts.  🙂

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the privilege of reading this book.

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Sorry, i have been MIA on this blog.  But that doesn’t mean I have stopped reading.  I have read TONS and now that volleyball season is almost over, I will be playing catch up.  I plan on reviewing the following this weekend:

1. Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka
2. Cicada Summer by Maureen Leurck
3. Final Girls by Riley Sager
4. Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race and the Gothic South by Karen L. Cox
5. Descent by Tim Johnson
6. Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips
7. 7 by Van R. Mayhall Jr.

Whew!  I am going to be burning up the keyboard!

Final Girls was a pretty good thriller.  As with lots of thrillers, I went through almost all of the characters thinking they were the ones who did it.  Once you find out, the reveal is somewhat disturbing.  But in these types of books, disturbing is a good thing.  I want a thriller to bother me to the point that I cannot put the book down.  This one was gripping and I highly recommend.

Thank you NetGalley for letting me get a jump on this one!  Gina Royal finds out that her husband is a serial killer.  She had no idea or involvement but because of internet conspiracy trolls, she has to stay on the run.  This leads her to Stillhouse Lake.  A small town in Tennessee where sweet tea can cure all.  She finally believes she has found a safe place to stay.  But that is when all you know what breaks loose.

This book is extremely fast paced.  It will have you on the edge of your seat from the beginning.  Trust NO ONE!

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book. I thought this book was well written. The characters were well developed. I had not read the prequel to this book but the author did an amazing job in making sure to provide enough information that you were not lost. I really enjoyed the historical background of the “older” characters. I will definitely be reading Sarah Fleming Mountford’s first book!