General information

This is a story about Fleetwood, a 17-year-old wife of a noble person living in England, in the year 1692. Fleetwood is going through her new pregnancy, having miscarried several times before. She’s worried that this baby won’t survive too, and that her life is also in danger. She meets Alice who gives her some hope. Unfortunately, Alice might be one of those uncomfortable women who are not tolerated by people in power. This is a story about women who are trying to save and to be saved.

How was it?

I expected to be infuriated by the story, and I was. It could not be different with a book about women that are treated like cattle. It raised lots of questions. Was it truly that bad? How did it come to this?

Have things really changed much since then?

Good things about the book

The story

The story is very gripping, it’s hard to put the book down. There’s lots of action going on.

The ending

I liked it because it felt realistic and natural.

Things that I liked less

The editing

The passage of time feels very abrupt sometimes. The book feels raw and unpolished at places.

Those nasty bad men, those great good women

As I told in one of my reviews before, I’m tired of this concept. I understand that in a book about a witch hunt such element is inescapable, but I still believe that characters have to be more diverse in order to be plausible and interesting.

The husband issue

I find the eventual situation with the husband implausible and obscene, especially taking into account all the things we’ve read about him.

Questions that I still have

I wish I could learn more about Alice, but I’m also wondering about those historical times in general. If it was that bad could such brave, rebellious Fleetwoods really exist? Did they? Or was the mere thought of going against the current impossible for women then? Well, unless they were witches…

Would I recommend the book?

I’d definitely recommend it to those who are looking for an adventure story with strong female characters. The Familiars will be out in two weeks, on 19.02.19.

Many thanks to the publishers for the copy in exchange for my honest review.

I fell in love The Last as soon as I read the excerpt. I love good writing. As long as the story flows naturally, I want it, regardless of the genre or description. That was exactly what happened with The Last. More than that, I found the description very intriguing. Who wouldn’t? 

BREAKING: Nuclear weapon detonates over Washington

BREAKING: London hit, thousands feared dead.

BREAKING: Munich and Scotland hit. World leaders call for calm.

General information

This is a story about a group of people left stranded in a Swiss hotel after nuclear bombs demolish major cities and wipe out most of the planet’s population. People are left with no connection to the outside world, no ways to learn about their families, no news. There’s also not enough food and it’s getting very cold as the nuclear winter begins. It’s a whole new life now for those who survived. There are new rules, and the values get adapted to the new reality.

What I loved about the book

The protagonist

I loved the protagonist’s voice. I could hear him and I believed him. He felt absolutely real.

The atmosphere

Whenever I closed the book, the atmosphere stayed with me. It was so consuming that for a few nights I was having apocalyptic dreams.

The plot

I loved how the plot branched out to so many different storylines. I really couldn’t let go of the book, I had to know what happened next.

The higher purpose

The book is very thought-provoking. It makes you debate and argue. The topics will not leave you indifferent, and I am especially thankful for that. 

What I liked less 

The background stories of characters

I think the book progresses rather slowly in the parts where the background stories are introduced. I really wanted more action in those places and felt a bit bored.

The description of how the community changed

I would love to see more examples of how the community changes. The book merely states that people did change, but because there are no actual actions to demonstrate it, the statement alone feels forced.

What I disliked a lot

One of the choices the characters made

Imagine you live in a diminishing community and suddenly discover a dangerous member amongst you. It’s not clear if he’s really guilty but the presumption of innocence doesn’t exist anymore so he’s presumed dangerous. What do we do with him? Just for the record, we constantly need people to search for food, someone to dig graves, someone to clean, to watch over water supplies. There’s lots of other work that’s needed for the survival of our small community. What would we do with such a member then? Would we try to make him somehow useful? Maybe, we’d lock him in the basement with a task to attempt growing mushrooms for the community (or any other useful task)? Well, the people in The Last make a very different choice.

Politics

I feel like the book is trying to make a statement that if people choose wrong leaders, or don’t speak up against wrong leaders, we will have a nuclear war. I would have loved it if The Last had gone even deeper than that. No lunatics in power is a good idea. No power would have been an even better one.

Final thoughts

The Last is interesting, fast-paced and easy to read. It’s also multilayered and thought-provoking. I’m giving it 4 stars and I will gladly recommend it to anybody who’s interested in this genre. The digital version of the book is already out. The paperback will be available from 31st January.

Thanks a lot to the publishers for my copy in exchange for my honest review.

The Songbird Girls is the second book in the series about a detective called Tom Fabian. I didn’t read the first book but I was still able to understand what was happening in the second one.

What I liked about The Songbird Girls by Richard Parker

It was quite a good thriller. The writing is great, the characters are busy playing their roles, there are no huge plot holes to dance around or ignore. The Songbird Girls is fast-paced and very easy to read. You can read the whole book within one weekend.

What I didn’t like about the book

Lack of logic

I understand that the serial killer doesn’t really need any logic or motivation, he’s a psychopath after all. But the book states he chose to do some things to get to certain outcomes which he suddenly annihilates by now choosing to do opposite things. Sure, he’s mentally unstable so the erratic behaviour shouldn’t really surprise anyone, but I still feel it’s a flaw in a story when “he’s just crazy” is the only explanation.

Redundant scenes

Imagine Professor Moriarty trying to get Holmes to the The Reichenbach Falls but failing at his first attempt. Then imagine we suddenly learn he actually succeeded at his second attempt. We don’t witness the second attempt. Nothing meaningful happens as a result of the first one either. Question: why is the first scene there at all?

The ending

The ending is well-formed even though it’s quite abrupt. It does answer questions but it also makes the existence of those answers pointless, so it doesn’t really bring any satisfaction.

Final thoughts

It is definitely not a bad thriller. If someone’s looking for a decent well-written mystery and crime story, The Songbird Girls might be the right choice.

I’m very thankful to the publishers for the copy in exchange for my honest opinion. The book will be out in ten says, on 19.12.18.

I’m starting to suspect that some level of implausibility is expected in thrillers in the same way as dragons and elves are expected in fantasy.

The Stranger Diaries is not a bad thriller. It’s gripping, fast-paced and it’s a very easy read. It took me just a few hours to finish the book. My eyes were gliding through the book. I wasn’t bored once and I even managed to like a couple of characters and to chuckle a couple of times. That alone means that the book is a proper read for a few hours to kill.

The story is about students, teachers and their families. Someone of them is a murderer.

I found it hard to believe, though, that two main characters managed to miss major spheres of each other’s lives. Their friends and even random strangers who accidentally walked into their rooms discovered the secrets within minutes and yet these two family members living under the same roof did never notice such things.

The Stranger Diary is described as “contemporary gothic” and it’s not really untrue. It’s just that contemporary in this book goes one way while the gothic part goes the other. The gothic floats in contemporary like oil in water. They do not mix or match. There’s a modern family story, there’s a gothic family story. They do not cross. If you try really hard you can find a few threads to bind them together just for the sake of justifying the existence of the gothic part in the plot. If you pull them apart you will have two fully formed unconnected stories. Up to the shocking point that one of them is squeezed whole at a very unexpected moment of the other.

My other, very likely overly subjective, reason to be confused with the story is that its characters’ names often start with the same letter. Try to distinguish between them when you have a dozen of others to keep an eye on: Holland, Henry Hamilton, Herbert. One of them is a dog. At one point the protagonist talked about two of them. It took me some time to remember who of them was the dog.

A few other implausible moments happen when a character contradicts his own behaviour. At first he protects something and just a few pages later launches to destroy it with no reason for the change. One mystery is solved because apparently nobody has ever looked at a historical artefact close enough, but now a teenager did so and the answer is suddenly found. A character gets shocked at an “unacademic” word “creepy” but then says something as unacademic as “soonish”. (That “soonish” made my Kindle come too close to be disposed through the window).

Thus, although The Stranger Diary is entertaining, fast-paced and gratifyingly easy to read, these details soured my experience. I’m giving the book 3.5 stars, but I can imagine that many people will like it more than that. 

I’m thanking the publishers for the copy that I received in exchanged for my honest and unbiased opinion.

Genre: Gothic and historical fiction. Stars from Goodreads: 3.8. Stars from me: 5.

Melmoth. The story.

Have you ever watched the Japanese version of The Ring? Do you remember the moment when that long-haired lady crawls out from the TV screen? That’s approximately how it feels to be reading Melmoth. Only the feeling is not as simple because Melmoth is not a story to spook you for your entertainment. Melmoth does get out of the book but not to harm you. She wants to show you how people can harm.

Melmoth is a story about human nature shown through some elements of fantasy. It takes you through several different timeframes and storylines but its core story is set in Prague, in winter. I felt the snow and saw it falling. It was so realistic I had to collect my things from the hot beach and retreat to my shadowed bedroom in order to escape the contradiction.

Melmoth. The writing.

I don’t know how Sarah Perry does it but I’m so grateful she does it. Just like her character, she takes you by your hand and leads you through the story. She tells it in her very special way and it works. From the first pages there’s a rhythm and a style. And from the first sentences you want more. My copy is a tree of shining bookmarks.

The bookmarks point to quotes, although I can’t even call them quotes. They are universes of their own. Look at some of them:

• “She notes with unease how he holds it with both avarice and distaste, as if it were an object he had coveted all his life, only to find that having paid the asking price it had a foul smell.”
• “You are so ordinary your very existence makes the extraordinary seem impossible. I mean it as a compliment.”
• “The change that has come over him is nothing less than the change from mortality to immortality: it all at once occurs to her, as it never has before, that he’ll die; that death already has its imprint on him, on the days he’s not yet lived, like a watermark on empty sheets of paper.”
• “The silence is something more than the absence of noise.”

And one more, from those jackdaws crying for the first time. The moment freezes your blood.

• “Why? they said: how? how? why? I looked away.”

I read this book, sometimes putting this composition on. I think it enhances the experience and brings even more Melmoth into your life. Try it.

Melmoth. Other reviews.

Melmoth is everybody’s mirror. The reflection is different for every reader. I’m attaching the list of bloggers’ reviews that I liked the most.

1. Ova’s honest and deep review of Melmoth.
2. An absolutely amazing review from Umut where she analyses the structure of the book.
3. Another very informative review of Melmoth.
4. And one more very good review.

Do I suggest you read Melmoth? I don’t just suggest you do it, I dare you to.