Tag: Reviews

#TopTenTuesday Books On My Spring 2022 TBR

whatcathyreadnext16 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

The rules are simple:

  • Each Tuesday, Jana assigns a new topic. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want.
  • Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own Top Ten Tuesday post.
  • Add your name to the Linky widget on that day’s post so that everyone can check out other bloggers’ lists.
  • Or if you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.

This week’s topic is Books On My Spring 2022 TBR. Where do I start? Okay, here are just ten with the emphasis on those I need to read for blog tours and books on the longlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2022. The shortlist in announced at the beginning of April so I need to get a move on…

Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson – The winner of the Costa First Novel Award 2021, this is March’s pick for my book club. 

Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu – Described as ‘a moving debut novel about war, migration, and the power of telling stories’ following three generations of a Chinese family on their search for a place to call home.

China Room by Sunjeev Sahota – On the longlist for the Walter Scott Prize, it combines the story of Mehar, a young bride in rural Punjab in 1929 and that of a young man who in 1999 travels there from England in enforced flight from the traumas of his adolescence.  

Traitor in the Ice by K. J. Maitland – Historical crime novel set in 1607 by a favourite author of mine, the follow-up to The Drowned City.

The Magician by Colm Tóibín – Another book on the longlist for the Walter Scott Prize, it’s the story of the life of writer Thomas Mann.

Still Life by Sarah Winman – A Walter Scott Prize longlisted book, in which young English soldier, Ulysses Temper, and middle-aged art historian, Evelyn Skinner, meet in Tuscany in 1944 setting off a chain of events. 

The Fall by Rachael Blok – A simple case of suspected suicide turns into an investigation into a long-buried past, involving a mental hospital, a pregnant woman, and fifty years of silence.

The Dark Flood by Deon Meyer – The eighth in the Benny Griessel series of crime novels by an author described by Wilbur Smith no less as ‘the undisputed champion of South African crime’.

The Birdcage by Eve Chase – Set on the Cornish coast, it’s the story of Kat, Flossie and Lauren, half-sisters who share a famous artist father – and a terrible secret.

Fortune by Amanda Smyth – Another book on the longlist for the Walter Scott Prize. Set in 1920s Trinidad, and based on a real-life event, it’s described as a novel about love, money, greed and ambition.

 

#BlogTour #BookReview The Night Shift by Alex Finlay @HoZ_Books

whatcathyreadnext

Welcome to today’s stop on the blog tour for The Night Shift by Alex Finlay. My thanks to Polly at Head of Zeus for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my digital review copy via NetGalley. Do check out the post by my tour buddy for today Ashleigh at Ashleigh Mordew Reads.

The Night ShiftAbout the Book

What connects a massacre in a Blockbuster video store in 1999 with the murder of four teenagers fifteen years later?

It’s New Year’s Eve of 1999 when four teenagers working late are attacked at a Blockbuster video store in New Jersey. Only one inexplicably survives. Police quickly identify a suspect, the boyfriend of one of the victims, who flees and is never seen again.

Fifteen years later, four more teenagers are attacked at an ice cream store in the same town, and again only one makes it out alive.

In the aftermath of the latest crime, three lives intersect: the lone survivor of the Blockbuster massacre who is forced to relive the horrors of her tragedy; the brother of the fugitive accused, who is convinced the police have the wrong suspect; and FBI agent Sarah Keller, who must delve into the secrets of both nights to uncover the truth about the night shift murders.

Format: Paperback (320 pages)     Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 3rd March 2022 Genre: Crime, Thriller

Find The Night Shift on Goodreads

Purchase links
Bookshop.org
Disclosure: If you buy a book via the above link, I may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookshops

Hive | Amazon UK
Links provided for convenience only, not as part of an affiliate programme

My Review

The first night shift I need to tell you about is the one I put in reading this book until way past my bedtime which should tell you all you need to know about the compelling nature of this book.

The blurb poses the question, What connects a pair of small-town murders that happened fifteen years apart? There are the obvious ones: Ella, the lone survivor of the first massacre, now pursuing a rather unlikely, it has to be said, career as a therapist given her risk-taking behaviour, and Chris, a public defender who also happens to be the brother of the man accused of the original murders. Then there’s FBI Agent Sarah Keller, who despite being eight months pregnant with twins can still be a ‘badass’ when the need arises – and it does.  I loved Sarah Keller as a character and her young assistant Atticus (yes, he is named after the character in To Kill A Mockingbird), keen and highly intelligent but still wearing his ‘L plates’, as it were, when it comes to fieldwork. I must also mention Bob, Sarah’s lovely husband, who ensures she eats a nutritious breakfast before setting off to work and provides her with a healthy drink to sustain her during the day, even if it does resemble green slime.

So three characters with connections to the two massacres but perhaps there’s someone else as well?  In a novel like this when we’re given small details about a secondary character my immediate thought is, why is the author telling me this? Is it to flesh out a minor character or is it concealing a subtle clue? In fact a ‘blink and you’d miss it’ detail did allow me to guess the guilty party. However I find there’s just as much enjoyment from being driven mad by the fact you got it wrong as there is from the smug satisfaction you got it right.

Those who like plenty of action in their crime thrillers will not be disappointed; nor will those who love a fiendishly complex plot and positively enjoy being wrong-footed and surprised.

The Night Shift is a supremely well-crafted, totally absorbing and deliciously twisty crime thriller.

In three words: Pacy, ingenious, gripping

Try something similar: Final Girls by Riley Sager

Follow this blog via Bloglovin

Alex FinlayAbout the Author

Alex Finlay is the pseudonym of Anthony Franze, an author who lives in Washington D.C. As Alex Finlay, he writes gripping psychological thrillers such as Every Last Fear. As Anthony Franze, he writes compelling legal thrillers including The Advocate’s Daughter, The Outsider and The Last Justice. He’s garnered national praise for his work as a lawyer in the Appellate and Supreme Court practice of a prominent Washington, D.C. law firm and he has been a commentator on high-court issues for The New Republic, Bloomberg, and National Law Journal.

Connect with Alex
Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Instagram