Monthly Wrap-Up May 2016

May has been a really busy month for me and my family, we've had loads of birthday parties to attend which has been lovely but hasn't left as much time for reading. We've also being spending a lot of time in our vegetable garden which is now full of little vegetable plants and seedlings.

So here are the books I've managed to finish reading this month:

   

  

This month I have yet again been sent some fabulous book from publishers:

       

 

Massive thank you to all the publishers and authors which have sent me books this month, I'm really looking forward to reading all of them.

Once again I've gone crazy on Netgalley, surprise, surprise! Requesting all the fabulous books is becoming an addiction and I really need to find a away to read at least three times faster to catch up. So here is the massive list that's made it onto my Kindle this month:

               
       

I'm currently reading:

   

As you can see I haven't read much more of most of these so this month I'm challenging myself to finish all of these. I'd also like to try and push myself and finish ten books this month, which should be quite hard as I've been averaging seven books a month but we'll see.

And finally onto my book of the month which has to be:

I absolutely love everything about Angela Marsons' D.I Stone novels, for me they are crime perfection and her latest Play Dead was just as good as her previous three, I'm just sad now as I've read them all.

So until next month Happy Reading

Joanne x

Blog Tour Review: My Husband's Wife by Jane Corry

My Husband's Wife by Jane Corry

Published: 26th May 2016 (eBook)

Publisher: Penguin, Random House

Pages: 534

Available on Kindle

Order now from Amazon

Blurb

FIRST COMES LOVE. THEN COMES MARRIAGE. THEN COMES MURDER...
When lawyer Lily marries Ed, she's determined to make a fresh start. To leave the secrets of the past behind.
But then she meets Joe. A convicted murderer who reminds Lily of someone she once knew, and who she becomes obsessed with freeing.
But is he really innocent?
And who is she to judge?

Review

My Husband’s Wife by Jane Corry is a novel which intrigued me as soon as I read the tagline: “First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes murder” What on earth must happen in this book for love to end in murder?

Right from the start we know it is Ed who has been murdered but we have no clue as to who did it or why. They main story is split into two parts, the first being fifteen years earlier when Lily and Ed are newly married and young Carla enters their lives. Told in alternating chapters between Lily and Carla we begin to build up a picture of these two characters who both have aspects of good and bad in them.

Lily and Ed have recently married after a whirlwind romance. Really they are still getting to know each other and soon it is obvious that they are both hiding things from the other.  Lily has just been made a criminal defence lawyer and her first case is defend convicted murderer Joe Thomas in his appeal case. Instantly Lily is drawn to this man who reminds her of her brother Daniel and she goes out of her way to ensure that he walks free, whether he was guilty or not. As the case develops Lily and Ed’s argue more and more and their marriage begins to hit the rocks, can they find a way to start again?

Carla lives in the same building as Ed and Lily with her mother Francesca who is having an affair with a married man named “Larry”. Carla is being bullied at school for being different but receives very little comfort from her mother who seems more concerned with pleasing Larry than her own daughter. When Carla is sent home one day from school after an incident Lily steps in to look after her, as her mother is nowhere to be found. This sees the start of Carla spending more and more of her weekends with Lily and Ed acting as a buffer for their marriage until an chance encounter blows everything apart.

Fast forward twelve years later and a grown up Carla makes her way back in the lives of Lily and Ed, she’s looking for revenge for the unhappiness of her childhood and the consequences for Lily and Ed are devastating.

Right from the start I found this a very intense read, it’s one of those books which you know is building up to something and it makes you feel unsettled. I found that most of the characters seemed to be hiding something and were always very tense with each other trying not to let all the secrets come pouring out and I didn’t really like any of them.

I found Francesca and Ed to be both selfish characters who only seemed to be focused on making themselves happy, which did at times make me feel sorry for Lily and little Carla. But as the story progressed it’s obvious that Carla is quite a manipulative child and will get want she wants even if she goes about it in the wrong way and as she gets older what she wants becomes bigger and bigger. Lily was the character I was most unsure about, I really wanted to like her but I just couldn’t. She’s hiding something from her past and it unsettled me that she wasn’t honest with Ed. As the story progresses Lily begins to hide more and more little things so you never really know when she’s being completely honest.

My Husband’s Wife is an intense novel full of blackmail, hidden secrets and watching the consequences when those little white lies all come tumbling out. It’s a novel which has been very cleverly written so you’re not sure who is good, who is bad and who is telling the truth. It’s a novel which will make you question the morality of every decision you’ve ever made, will make you wonder if even the very best people have a little bit of bad in them and it will make you wonder how far people will go to get what they want. In the end, the question at the centre of this book is who do you believe more Lily or Carla?

Despite not liking the characters I did really enjoy reading this book, I think perhaps not liking the characters has left me thinking about the book more as I’m not entirely sure which characters story I believe, if I’d had a favourite then maybe I would have an answer.

 My Husband’s Wife is a book which had me hooked from the start and has left we with many things to think about, which for once I rather like. I’d like to rate this book 5 out 5 and would recommend it to anyone who loves an intense read full of mind games and moral questions.

Thank you so much to the publishers for sending me a copy to review and also for inviting me to be part of the My Husband’s Wife blog tour.

Play Dead (D.I. Stone book #4) by Angela Marsons

Play Dead (D.I. Stone Book #4) by Angela Marsons

Published: 20th May 2016

Publisher: Bookouture

Pages: 390

Available in Paperback and on Kindle

Order now from Amazon

Blurb

The dead don’t tell secrets… unless you listen. The girl’s smashed-in face stared unseeing up to the blue sky, soil spilling out of her mouth. A hundred flies hovered above the bloodied mess.

Westerley research facility is not for the faint-hearted. A ‘body farm’ investigating human decomposition, its inhabitants are corpses in various states of decay. But when Detective Kim Stone and her team discover the fresh body of a young woman, it seems a killer has discovered the perfect cover to bury their crime.

Then a second girl is attacked and left for dead, her body drugged and mouth filled with soil. It’s clear to Stone and the team that a serial killer is at work – but just how many bodies will they uncover? And who is next?

As local reporter, Tracy Frost, disappears, the stakes are raised. The past seems to hold the key to the killer’s secrets – but can Kim uncover the truth before a twisted, damaged mind claims another victim …?

Review

Play Dead is Angela Marsons fourth novel, yes fourth! Which is shocking when you think a little over a year ago no one had heard of DI Kim Stone and now she has built up a massive loyal following, which just goes to show what a talented writer Angela Marsons’ is. I was a little nervous when starting Play Dead as what if this one wasn’t as good as the others, well never fear, once again Angela Marsons’ has written a novel which sucks you in from the very first paragraph and hooks you until the very end.

This time a body is discovered quite by chance when Kim and her team are visiting a “body farm” which is researching various forms of decomposition. When a second victim is left for dead in a horrific state just days later, it’s up to the team to find this gruesome killer before they strike again.

Once again I have been blown away by  just how detailed these novels are, Angela Marsons really seems to know criminals and police procedure perfectly which makes for gripping and sometimes horrifying reading.  My favourite thing about these novels is how she gives both the killer and the victim a convincing voice, giving the reader a fuller understanding of motives and feelings.

This is this first novel by Angela Marsons where I have had suspicions about who the killer might be, I was right but not in the way I thought. This didn’t ruin the book for me at all as once again I wasn’t prepared for the number of twists and shocks which were given before the motive and killer are revealed.  I adored reading this adrenaline fuelled rollercoaster of a book and am sad it’s over and I have to wait months for the next ride.

I love how with each new novel we are learning more about Kim, her team and people who are becoming “regulars” in the D.I. Stone novels. In this novel Tracey Frost a news-reporter from the previous novel Lost Girls is brought back and Kim learns they have more in common than she would like to admit.  Another character who returns is Daniel Bate and there is a spark of chemistry between him and Kim but will she finally left someone in?

After reading this Angela Marsons has secured the top spot of my favourite crime writer and I know it will take something special to replace her. So please, please go and read Play Dead, it’s a fantastic novel and you won’t be disappointed.

Play Dead from Angela Marsons received 5 out 5 for me and is one of my favourite books of the year.  Thank you so much to the publishers Bookouture and NetGalley for the review copy in exchange for my honest opinion.