Reading Round Up 2021 #21

Hello lovely bookworms.

How are we all, another week into the year. Has anyone found any lasting sunshine yet?

It was a good week of reading last year. Had to give myself a big push up the bum as I've said yes to being a part of quite a few blog tours which meant I needed to increase my reading pace (a lot).

And for that reason a lot of my reviews will be short and snappy as you'll be able to see my entire thoughts when the blog tour posts go live over the next month or so.

On that note, here are the novels I managed to read and enjoy over the last week:

After the Rain by Natalia Gomes 5 out of 5 stars

Two strangers

Jack was sporty and outgoing. Alice was bookish and introverted. Their lives were on completely different paths.

One life-changing tragedy

That is before the day they were in the wrong place at the wrong time: before the day their lives were torn apart in a bombing.

A hopeful new friendship

Struggling to cope with their new worlds, their unlikely new friendship helps them find hope. But can they help each other rebuild their lives and start again?

                                                                                                                                                                           

I was intrigued by the blurb, I fell in love with the characters and the story simply consumed me.

If you're expecting a romance then I'll tell you now, this isn't that. It isn't your typical trope of geek meets jock and falls in love.

After the Rain is so much more special than that.

This was an emotional read.

What I took from it is that our dreams don't have to stop when the path we were going down suddenly veers off in a different direction. We just have to be brave, adapt and make the best of any situation.

Raising Hell by Bryony Pearce 4 out of 5 stars

Once upon a time, Ivy and her friends did a very stupid thing and now there's a rift letting dark matter into the world. Dark matter that manifests as black magic which actually works. Now every teenager with access to the Internet is raising hell. Literally.

Ivy's doing her best to stem the tide, but her new job working school security barely pays the bills and there's only so much one girl with a machete (and a cat possessed by her own dead grandmother) can do against the forces of evil.

Now she's facing a teenaged goth with an attitude, a dark cabal with a terrifying agenda and a potential zombie apocalypse.

Ivy losing her job might be the best thing to happen to the world!

                                                                                                                                                                           

The action starts from page one and continues right through to the last page.

Fast-paced.

Thrilling.

I don't think you need to be young to read this book.

The Lock In by Phoebe Luckhurst 5 out of 5 stars

One Saturday morning, while nursing The Hangover from Hell, a flooded kitchen leads best mates Ellen and Alexa, and hapless housemate Jack, into their attic to turn off the water supply.

But when Ben - Alexa's date from the night before - walks in, the door slams, the handle breaks and all four of them are trapped.

Cue The Worst morning-after-the-night before.

As the hours tick by, Ellen nurses her sore head and watches as her best friend falls for this handsome stranger.

Only for a horrifying realisation to hit. She is sure she knows Ben from somewhere.

Frantically searching her memories, Ellen tries to piece together exactly how they've met before.

When a distant memory finally comes to her, she desperately wonders: could Ben really be who she thinks he is . . .

And more importantly, what on earth is she going to do about it . . .

                                                                                                                                                                           

Sometimes we all need a good laugh.

Something to make us stop and forget our worries.

For me a good book can do this and Phoebe Luckhurst certainly hit the spot with her debut novel The Lock In.

This is definitely a rom-com for the modern ages.

The Serial Killer's Wife by Alice Hunter 5 out of 5 stars

Beth and Tom Hardcastle are the envy of their neighbourhood – they have the perfect marriage, the perfect house, the perfect family.

When the police knock on their door one evening, Beth panics. Tom should be back from work by now – what if he’s crashed his car? She fears the worst.

But the worst is beyond imagining.

As the interrogation begins, Beth will find herself questioning everything she believed about her husband.

                                                                                                                                                                           

A psychological thriller that had me mulling over a multitude of theories as to who done what and which characters knew more than they were willing to reveal.

There were so many people that I suspected of being guilty, not just of the murder itself but certain circumstances that over shadowed the events that followed on from that.

My heart was racing as a read.

And I know it is probably cliche to say this, but this was a real page-turner. I read it in one sitting, it took me less than three hours to devour the entire story.

I'm currently trying to make my way through three books. The most recent being Mrs England by Stacey Halls. How many books do you normally have on the go at once?