#116 Second Cousin Once Removed

 Second Cousin Once Removed by Kenneth L Toppell

I was asked to be on the blog tour of this book run by Dave (@TheWriteReads) who always does such an amazing job with these tours! Admittedly this book doesnt sound like something i would usually read but given how short it is (232 pages) i thought id give it a whirl.

The story follows Henry, a semi retired lawyer who is a senior partner at Foxglove Associates. Hes not your typical high profile defense lawyer or a district attorney instead Henry works on the boring side of law that no one ver hears much about. (I personally work at a law firm so think im entitled to comment on how mundane his job is haha). When Henry begins researching his family tree and discovers a second cousin that he has never met, he immediatley begins delving into this lost connection to find more information about him. Henry contacts his Uncle Ira to find out more about this cousin, Shelley. When Ira ends up dead and Henry gets a text from Shelley that basically tells him to stop looking Henry fears for his life. 

Henry bumps into a lady at his office called Carolyn and after she mentions Ira's name Henry immediatley becomes suspisious that shes been sent by Shelley or that shes bad news. When he confides in her about what is happening the two set off out of state to evade Shelley whilst continuing their investigation on him. 

My initial impression of Carolyn is that she doesnt make much sense as a character. When she met Henry and he was so elusive yet aggressive towards her why didnt she run for the hills like any other normal person would have? Instead she leaves the state with a man she doesnt even know, cuts all her hair off and agrees to temporarily change her identity. It all felt a bit off to me if im completely honest. 

I found the plot a bit disjointed, both Henry and Carolyn fear for their lives but have no confirmation that Ira is dead or that Shelley is in any way dangerous (these things come much later but it didnt make much sense about how they panicked without knowing all the facts, didnt seem at all rational to me) 

As the story goes on i did grow a bit fond of Henry i must admit and the writing is good i just dont think im the target demographic for this book. It also very American and a bit old fashined with its references, for example, Burt Lancaster (im sorry but who?), Elmer Gantry and 'It Happened One Night'. They all went over my head im afraid and i do think it hindered my enjoyment of the book overall. 

Shelley is a bit of a weird antagonist, i dont think i could take him very seriously with a name like Shelley. I would have liked a bit more of his background and why he was a contract killer etc. 

Overall this wasnt terrible, it just wasnt for me at all. I could see my dad reading and enjoying it a lot more than me which is no fault of the book really.

#115 The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

 The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab 

My most anticipated book of forever, i feel like ive been waiting and wishing for this book for such a long time. I was gutted that the Waterstones edition sold out so fast so had to pre-order this on amazon as i have no independent book shops near me *cries* and amazon completely messed up my preorder and estimated that i would receive to book in the second week of December. Thankfully my girl Steffi hooked me up with the e-book like the lifesaver that she is.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue follows Addie in France in the 1600's, when she is expected to marry a local widower and help raise his young kids Addie runs into the forest and pleads with the gods to help her to get out of this situation but what she doesnt realise is that the sun is setting and Addie summons the devil instead. She pleads for a life that belongs to no one but herself which he grants but he decieves her, the consequence of the deal she makes means that no one is able to remember her. When Addie meets someone if they leave the room they automatically forget who she is. Addie is also immortal as a result of her deal with the devil and is destined to live a very long and lonely life.

This book is very different from any of VE Schwabs other work (believe me, ive read it all haha) it read more like literary fiction which im typically not drawn towards but honestly this was gorgeous. It was atmospheric and whimsy but so sad at the same time. The book is told in split timelines of past Addie in the 1600's in Villon, France where she lived in a small town with her mother and father and housekeeper and present day 2013-14 with Addie in New York living her day to day life. When one day Addie steals a book from a bookshop she goes back the next day to try to return it only to find that the man working there, Henry remembers her from the previous day. Obviously Addie is immediatley drawn to him as hes the only one in centuries to ever remember who she is. The book is very complex as it delves into Addies situation so deeply, it covers exactly how this deal has affected her. She cant have a job, doesnt have any friends, doesnt have any money or a way of making any and cannot rent somewhere to stay as she is instantly forgettable. My god my whole heart went out to her.

The story really picks up with Addie trying to figure out why after so long Henry seems to be able to remember her. Honestly this plot is so unique. I could sing VE Schwabs praises all day. If you have never read anything by her i implore you to do so (Viscious is a masterpiece) 

Lets discuss the ending (no spoilers). Everyone said that my heart would be ripped out by the end, i sent posts on youtube and twitter of people crying their eyes out by the end. I didnt shed a single solitary tear for this book which im not sure what that says about me, i just didnt find it that sad? I was glad that it didnt end the way i thought but it didnt feel very satisfying either. In the end i decided on a 4 star rating as the book was mesmorising and just stunning but the ending left me feeling a little flat. 

This book reminded me a lot of The Starless Sea, not in plot but definitely in style. Ive also hear it compared to The Shadow of the Wind which i highly agree with too. Overall, i really enjoyed this. A true Schwab masterpiece as always. The only criticism i can muster is that the pacing at times felt a little off but thats only if im really knit-picking. 

#114 The Wolf and the Water

 The Wolf and the Water by Josie Jaffrey

First off a huge thank you to the lovely author for sending me an incribed (my frist ever!) physical arc of this gorgeous book. Which i was delighted to hear was self published as it made me want to support the author by promoting the shit out of this book even more! Admittantly i didnt know much about this story before i agreed to apart of The Write Reads blog tour and was completely sucked in my that amazing cover. I assumed this would be a light hearted YA fantasy read, oh boy was i wrong!

The Wolf and the Water is an ancient greek inspired high fantasy adult novel that follows the story of Kala. Kala is the daughter of Glauks which is one of the ten important houses in this society. When Kalas father dies under suspicious circumstances, Kalas mother Charis is ordered to remarry straight away as is customary in this world that Jaffrey has so wonderfully crafted. When Charis chooses to marry the suitor from Lykos who is a very cruel man Kala immediatley fears for her life. The suitor from Lykos is called Nikos and he has two children, Leon and Eulalia. At the beginning of the story someone tries to poison Kala in the same way her father was murdered which instantly makes her question everyone around her and their motives. 

Kala lives with a disability from a childhood illness and walks with a cane as a result, she has spent the majority of her life being looked down on as vulnerable and weak, she ultimately fears that her new step father will murder her as to not be shamed by her. 

This book has what most adult fantasy lacks, both disability and LGBT rep. I cant really speak for the disability rep but i did like how Kala didnt hide from it and it didnt hold her back from how badass she was in protecting herself and the people she cared about. I really loved the sapphic romance in this book and how both Melissa and Kala were bonded from such a young age, it gave me Priory of the Orange Tree vibes. I wasnt the biggest fan of the relationship with Leon as it all felt a bit sudden, there was no slow burn or build up. They met, spend a fracture of time together and then he is declaring his love her her which also didnt really make sense that he was calling her sister when they first met. It just wasnt overly believeable to me. 

I thought the world building was a little under developed and hope to see more of this in the next book, the world sounds so rich and i really wanted to immerse myself in it. I would also like to see more about the politics of each house and their motivations or desire for power. I would have loved to see more of that and less on the romance side of things. 

Overall this is a really great read, it reads very quick even though the chapters are a little on the long side. Its very reminiscent of early Brandon Sanderson which is what made me fall for it and keep reading. I enjoyed the cliffhanger that this book ended on and it made me very excited to carry on the story. Hoping the next book has an equally gorgeous cover! 

There is a full page of trigger warnings included in the back of the arc so please do check that out before you read it as there are a few triggering themes in this book. 

Please look into this book and support the author:

https://www.josiejaffrey.com/ 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wolf-Water-secrets-killing-Deluge-ebook/dp/B08DXXPNS1/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+wolf+and+the+water&qid=1601043981&sr=8-1

Release date: 8th October 2020

#113 Conversations with friends

 Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney 

This is the second book ive read from Sally Rooney and can i just make it known that i feel like she just gets me? Like every word, sentence, paragraph etc feels like its written for me. Ive never felt that way about an authors work even my all time fav authors. I dont know whether its the Irish connection or what but both Normal People and Conversations with Friends spoke with my very soul. Im so annoyed that ive only discovered her work now even though shes been published for a few years. Better late than never, eh?

Conversations with Friends is set in Dublin (where my mum lives, yay!) it follows our main protagonist Francis and her ex-girlfriend/best friend Bobbi. At the beginning of the story Francis and Bobbi meet Melissa and her husband Nick at a spoken word poetry event that Francis and Bobbi were performing at. 

Francis is a twentyone and is studying at Trinity College in Dublin, she has never worked and lives off an allowance from her alcoholic father who she rarely sees. She has a somewhat bizarre relationship with her mother and is all together pretty angsty as a human. Needless to say i absoloutley loved her! 

Melissa is a journalist and Nick is a lesser known actor and they are both in their mid thirties. Melissa invites Francis and Bobbi back to her house after the poetry event for a drink and it all starts from there really. Bobbi becomes a bit obsessed with Melissa and hangs off her every word which leaves Francis in the background and feeling like a bit of a third wheel. As a direct consequence of this Francis takes the opportunity to get to know Nick and forms the same obsession that Bobbi has with Melissa only with Nick. 

I loved the writing style so much, i love how with Normal People this book is so authentically Irish. She uses the same slang and doesnt dumb things down or change things for the non Irish reader. For example she has a meaningless conversation with one of Nicks friends with Francis and he asks her a question about the All Ireland which anyone outside of Ireland probably wouldnt even know what that is (its the final of the Gaelic football) but i just loved that and the whole book just felt like home to me. Another thing i really enjoyed was the endometriosis rep! i was diagnosed with Endometriosis over 18 months ago and have never heard it mentioned in a book before even though quite a lot of women suffer from it so props to Sally Rooney for that! 

I managed to devour this book in under 24 hours, i was so captivated by it. I found it fascinating that Francis was having an affair with Nick whilst hiding it from all of her friends and his wife whilst still hanging out with them all in a group, it made for a fascinating read. The characters are all written to be quite unlikeable but i found that made me more drawn to each of them, they were so flawed and real. 

Dont get me wrong there were a few passages of dialogue in this where i found myself thinking is this necessary to the plot or is this Sally Rooney just trying to sound woke? like there were a few conversations regarding monogamy between Bobbi and Francis that just was so unnecessary really. I was also mostly confused with Francis' and Nicks relationship... like i got the point that he had depression and his wife is a bit up herself and didnt give him much attention but really... what does a twnety one year old have to offer him? He was a somewhat successful actor whos married and owns his own home. His motivations didnt make that much sense really. 

Overall, i did really enjoy this and will subsequently read everything that Sally Rooney ever writes. She has become a new fav of mine from 2020 (thats one good thing to come from the shit show that has been 2020 so far) I have read some of the less than good reviews and i must admit i do get some of their points but books are for enjoyment and i think if you dont read into the sub text of every little thing you are able to enjoy it for what it is. I can see me rereading this one constantly. 

#112 Our Stop

 Our Stop by Laura Jane Williams

Our Stop follows two characters in split chapters, we have Nadia who is successful late 20's lady who works in artifical intellignece. She has her life somewhat together and has set friendships. We also follow Daniel a 30 year old engineer who has just lost his father, he lives with a roomate that he met online and has a few questionable friendship. When Daniel spots Nadia on the tube one morning he leaves the encounter kicking himself that he didnt approach her. He write into the local papers 'missed connections' section in the hope that she will see it and get in touch. 

The book has a few mixed media elements as it shows you the text from the missed connection articles which was a nice touch and i did enjoy the exchanges between them. I also really enjoyed some of the themes that were introduced, there was some really healthy conversations surrounding feminism and supporting women. I also really enjoyed the conversations around the importance of consent and it honestly made me fall in love with Daniel a little bit. Nadia was a really relatable character, she was frazzeled, always running late and she was jealous of her work bestie and non work bestie getting on so well, it just felt like she was a real person to me. She had just come out of a emotional abusive and manipulative relationship and i just rooted for her. I wanted her to meet Daniel (a lot sooner than she bloody did) and fall in love. I really did want a happy ending for both of them. 

I dont usually read romance or contemporary much generally but ive been making an active effort in 2020 to read outside of my comfort zone more. Ok, this is not a straight forward teview to write as this laregly annoyed me but then at the same time it would constantly pull me back in again. The thing that annoyed me was the fact that they kept missing each other, i swear they didnt actually meet until the last 10% of the book. I wanted a bit more from it. I wanted to know more about the beginning of their relationship and yearned for an epilogue that was a 5 years later scenario so that felt pretty disappointing. It just feels like the biggest build up for not too much at the end of it. I would find myself going back and forth constantly with this, almost like every build up to them meeting i would be like yes this is it, its happening! and then it wouldnt happen and it would annoy me. I didnt want to have to read another massive build up for it to crash and burn again, that was my only main criticism. Another huge no no for me is when you have split Nadia chapters and split Danile chapters you dont randomly have 1 chapter (yes just 1) of another characters POV, i was so thrown off by this. I remember thinking i dont care about Eddy and i dont want to hear from him! I have literally no idea why the author did that, seemed very disjointed to me.

Overall this was an ok read for me, i enjoyed bits and others i didnt but i think if you like reading romance then you would enjoy it a lot more as it is very cute. 

#111 These Vengeful Hearts

 These Vengeful Hearts by Katherine Laurin

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers RB media for granting me access to this audio book in exchange for an honest review.

These Vengeful Hearts follows the story of highschooler Ember, star track athlete, model student and captain of the debate team who is destined for great things but all of it is an act to gain entrance to 'The Red Court'. The Red Court is a secret society run within Heller High where members work on a favor based system to take someone down, expose them or ruin their life in return for a favor from the person requesting. When Ember was fourteen her sister was victim to The Red Court and after a terrible accident was left paraplegic. Ember has always sought revenge and wants to join in order to take the organisation down from the inside. The society is run by the elusive 'Queen of Hearts', all requests are approved by her and she is the one who grants favors to serving members. 

The other main characters are April Embers sister, Gideon who is Embers best friend, Hayley who becomes Embers partner in The Red Court and Chase who is Embers love interest. After Ember is accepted into The Red Court she is immediatley send jobs to do but when the jobs involved are surrounding her closest friends she has to evaluate what is more important choosing her friends or keeping up the charade in order to take down the secret society.

Over the last year or two i have really enjoyed some of the dark academia books i have read and its becoming one of my favourite tropes but this one was a bit juvenile for my tastes. it never really felt like the stakes were high enough, i wanted to be on the edge of my seat. Some of the 'take downs' were built up and then felt quite anti climatic. It has an element of Mean Girls to it in the same way that Ember is pretending to be a part of the Red Court but finds herself enjoying some of the jobs shes given which causes her to lose some friends along the way. 

Some of the relevations towards the end were well done and i didnt see them coming. After that point in the story i started to feel for Ember whereas i didnt really before, she just seemed a bit bitter over everything. 

Overall, this was a quick easy read (or listen should i say) the narrator did a great job. I did enjoy it but i wanted it to be darker, creepier and more high stakes. Id still recommend for readers wanting to get into dark academia but more of a YA take on the genre. 

#110 The Inheritance Games

 The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes 

Firstly (as always) a huge thank you to @TheWriteReads for organising yet another amazing blog tour, honestly the amount of work that you put in is astounding and also a huge thank you to penguin, the author Jennifer and of course Netgalley too.

In all honesty i hadnt heard much about The Inheritance Games before agreeing to read it, i was completely won over by the tag line that it was similar to One of Us is Lying which i read last month and adored. The cover is also gorgeous and the premise sounded really unique and fun.

The story revolves around Avery who is your not so average teenager in the fact that her mum died of cancer leaving her in the custody of her not much older than her half sister. Avery's life is turned upside down when she finds out that she has inherited billions from Tobias Hawthorne, a man that she has never met at the same time an entire family has been disinherited and they cannot work out why or who this mysterious girl is. 

One of the stipulations of the will is that Avery must immediately move into the family mansion and live there for a year. She finds that not only do the entire Hawthorne family live in this mansion but that she will have to live alongside Tobias' four grandsons, Grayson, Nash, Jameson and Xander. Each boy was the right amount of broody in his own right but i must admit that i didnt fall for any of them (i think i may be too old for teenage book boyfriends now *cries*) When the will is read each of the boys and Avery receive a letter from their grandfather and immediately work out that there is a riddle to be figured out with Avery at its very centre. Along with the riddle Avery becomes increasingly concerned for her safety living amongst the resentful Hawthornes which made for an edge of your seat mystery read.

I very much enjoyed this book and was glad to see it lived up to all of the early hype surrounding it. The chapters are short (which i loved) and the writing flows well. You cant help but root for Avery who has been plunged into this world with no clue how she fits the puzzle. The ending surprised me as i had a ton of theories but none of them came to anything which is the sign of a great read. I just love it when an ending shocks you. Id be really keen to read anything that Jennifer Lynn Barnes writes next as this was a wonderful read! I highly recommend to anyone who loves a fast paced mystery book.