Book, Film & TV Reviews
Originally published in 2020, The Mothers by Sarah J. Naughton follows five women who meet at their NCT group. But the only thing they have in common is that they’re all pregnant. Three years later, they are all good friends. Aren’t they? Now the police have come knocking. Someone knows something. And the trouble with secrets is that someone always tells.
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Originally published in January 2021, The Push by Ashley Audrain follows Blythe who determined that she will be the warm, comforting mother that she herself never had. But in the thick of motherhood’s exhausting early days, Blythe becomes convinced that something is wrong with her daughter, Violet – she doesn’t behave like most children do. Or is it all in Blythe’s head? Her husband, Fox, says she’s imagining things. The more Fox dismisses her fears, the more Blythe begins to question her own sanity, and the more we begin to question what Blythe is telling us about her life as well.
Set to be released on 30th September, We Are All Liars by Carys Jones follows five friends – Allie, Stacie, Diana, Emily and Gail – who have been by each other’s sides for as long as they can remember. But growing up has meant growing apart. And little white lies have grown into devastating secrets.
When Gail invites the increasingly estranged friends to reunite at her Scottish cabin, it could be the opportunity to mend old wounds and heal the cracks in their friendship. But when a freak snowstorm rocks the cabin and one of the girls is found dead on the ice, their weekend away becomes a race against time – and each other – to get off the mountain alive.
And in the end, whose story can you trust when everything was founded on lies to begin with?
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A Parent Apart by Gary Wright follows Andrew Wicks who would do anything for his family. But when tragedy strikes, he is forced to make a split-second decision, one that is layered with deception, desperation and self-preservation. As a tenacious police officer unravels his web of lies and exposes the truth, worlds collide.
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Set to be published on 30th September, The Lighthouse Witches by C.J. Cooke is set on a remote Scottish island where the Stay family move into a 100-year-old lighthouse where single mother Liv is commissioned to paint a mural. The locals warn her about wildlings, but Liv doesn’t believe in witches or dark omens. But within months, Liv will only have one of her three daughters, Luna, left, after two of her sisters go missing. Twenty years later, Luna is drawn back to the place her family vanished when one of her sisters is found – only she’s the same age as when she disappeared. Now, it’s up to Luna to find out the truth. But what really happened at the lighthouse all those years ago?
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Set to be published on 14th September, Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty follows the Delaney family who love one another dearly — it’s just that sometimes they want to murder each other.
The Delaneys are fixtures in their community. The four Delaney children — Amy, Logan, Troy, and Brooke — were tennis stars in their younger years. But as their father will tell you, none of them had what it took to go all the way. That’s okay, as they are all now successful grown-ups and there is the wonderful possibility of grandchildren on the horizon. Their parents, Stan and Joy, have just sold their famed tennis academy and are ready to start what should be the golden years of their lives. So why are they so miserable?
One night, a stranger named Savannah knocks on Stan and Joy’s door, bleeding after a fight with her boyfriend. The Delaneys are more than happy to give her the small kindness she sorely needs. But when Joy goes missing and Savannah is nowhere to be found, the police question the one person who remains: Stan. But for someone who claims to be innocent, he, like many spouses, seems to have a lot to hide. Two of the Delaney children think their father is innocent, two are not so sure. But as the two sides square off against each other in perhaps their biggest match ever, all of the Delaneys will start to reexamine their shared family history in a very new light.
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The 2021 book by Paula Hawkins, A Slow Fire Burning follows three women. Laura has spent most of her life being judged. She’s seen as hot-tempered, troubled, a loner. Some even call her dangerous. Miriam knows that just because Laura is witnessed leaving the scene of a horrific murder with blood on her clothes, that doesn’t mean she’s a killer. Bitter experience has taught her how easy it is to get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Carla is reeling from the brutal murder of her nephew. She trusts no one: good people are capable of terrible deeds. But how far will she go to find peace? Innocent or guilty, everyone is damaged. Some are damaged enough to kill.
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The 2018 book from Fredrik Backman, Beartown is set in a small Swedish town cut-off from everywhere else that experiences the kind of isolation that tears people apart. And each year, more and more of the town is swallowed by the forest. Then, the town is offered a bright new future. But it is all put in jeopardy by a single, brutal act. It divides the town into those who think it should be hushed up and forgotten, and those who’ll risk the future to see justice done. Who will speak up?
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How To Kill Your Best Friend by Lexie Elliot follows Georgie, Lissa and Bronwyn who have been best friends since they met on their college swimming team. Now, Lissa is dead – drowned off the coast of the remote island where her second husband owns a luxury resort. But could a star open-water swimmer really have drowned? Or is something more sinister going on?
Brought together for Lissa’s memorial, Georgie, Bron, Lissa’s grieving husband and their friends find themselves questioning the circumstances around Lissa’s death – and each other. As the weather turns ominous, trapping the guests on the island, it slowly dawns on them that Lissa’s death was only the beginning. Nobody knows who they can trust. Or if they’ll make it off the island alive…
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Published on 2nd September, Freckles by Cecelia Ahern follows Allegra Bird, nicknamed Freckles, who is told by a stranger that: “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” These words turn her highly ordered life upside down. In her current life as a parking warden, she has left her eccentric father and unconventional childhood behind for a bold new life in the city. But a single encounter leads her to ask the question she’s been avoiding for so long: who are the people who made her the way she is? And who are the five people who can shape and determine her future?
The Dark by Emma Haughton is set in the most inhospitable environment – cut off from the rest of the world – where a killer is on the loose. A&E doctor Kate North has been knocked out of her orbit by a personal tragedy. So when she’s offered the chance to be an emergency replacement at the UN research station in Antarctica, she jumps at the chance. The move seems an ideal solution for Kate: no one knows about her past; no one is checking up on her. But when she finds out that the previous doctor, Jean-Luc, died in a tragic accident while out on the ice, she begins to suspect that Jean-Luc’s death wasn’t accidental at all. And the more questions she asks, the more dangerous it becomes for them all…
Set to be published on 2nd September, Next Of Kin by Kia Abdullah follows sisters Leila and Yasmin who have always been close. So when Yasmin’s husband, Andrew, asks Leila to take her nephew, Max, to nursery, she’s more than willing to help out, despite her busy schedule. Hours later, Andrew goes to pick up Max from nursery. But he isn’t there. Leila was supposed to drop Max off that morning. But she forgot. Racing to the car park, she grasps the horror of what she has done. Max has been locked in her car for six hours on the hottest day of the year. She’s too late.
Set to be published on 2nd September, Five Minds by Guy Morpuss is set in a future where the Earth’s spiralling population has finally been controlled. Lifespans are limited to eighty years, except for those who make an extreme choice: to become a commune. Five minds sharing one body, each living for four hours at a time. But with a combined lifespan of nearly 150 years.
Alex, Kate, Mike, Sierra and Ben have already spent 25 years together in what was once Mike’s body, their frequent personality clashes leading to endless bickering, countless arguments, and getting themselves stranded on a Russian arctic freighter. Wanting to buy upgrades for their next host body, they decide to travel to a Death Park where games are played and time can be gambled like money. But things go very wrong when Kate accepts a dangerous offer, and one of them disappears.
It soon becomes clear that someone is trying to kill off members of the commune. But why? Is one of them responsible? Or is an outsider playing a deadly game? It’s hard enough to catch a murderer. It’s almost impossible when you might be sharing a body with them…
Published in 2016, Behind Closed Doors by BA Paris follows married couple Jack and Grace who are the envy of everybody they meet. He has looks and wealth, she has charm and elegance. You’d like to get to know Grace better, but it’s difficult because you realise that Jack and Grace are never apart. Some might call this true love. Others might ask why Grace never answers the phone. Or how she can never meet for coffee, even though she doesn’t work. How she can cook such elaborate meals but remain so slim. And why there are bars on one of the bedroom windows.
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Set to be published on 31st August, The Chateau by Catherine Cooper follows married couple Aura and Nick who have just moved to France and have bought a chateau to make a fresh start. Because they don’t talk about what happened in England. Their kids need them to stay together – whatever it costs. The ex-pat community is welcoming, but when someone is murdered at a lavish party, Aura and Nick don’t know who to trust. Someone knows exactly why they really came to the chateau. And someone is going to give them what they deserve.
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Set to be published on 2nd September, Invite Me In by Emma Curtis follows mother and wife Eliza Curran who appears to have it all with her stunning family home and wealthy, adoring husband. No one would guess the reality of her life: trapped in an unhappy marriage to a controlling man.
When she takes on a new tenant, her life changes unexpectedly. Dan Jones is charming and perceptive and quickly becomes a close friend to the whole family. But Dan’s arrival threatens to tip Eliza’s fragile world out of balance. And when someone has as many secrets as Eliza does, the smallest slip could destroy everything . . .
Published earlier this week, Lost Angels by Stacy Green is the third book in her Nikki Hunt series which sees Special Agent Nikki Hunt called to the Boundary Waters near Stillwater, Minnesota, where the body of a young woman has been found frozen beside a remote lake. This time, Nikki is devastated to see that the victim is her childhood friend Annmarie, and she recognizes the velvet ribbon tied in her hair as the hallmark of a serial killer who she has been hunting for years.
Desperate for justice, Nikki throws herself into the case. But she is shaken by what she finds at Annmarie’s home: a photo of Nikki’s mother that no one has ever seen. Has the murderer at large been in Nikki’s life since she was a child? Nikki soon realizes that the key to unlocking this case is in her own family, but digging up the past could put her own daughter in danger.
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Published earlier this month, For Your Own Good by Samantha Downing follows Teddy Crutcher who has just won Teacher of the Year at the prestigious Belmont Academy. Everyone thinks he’s brilliant. They all smile when he tells us his wife couldn’t be more proud – though if they stopped to think about it, they would realise no one has seen her in a while. They’re impressed when he doesn’t let anything distract him – even the tragic death of a school parent. Even when the whispers start, saying it was murder.
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Set to be published on 26th August, The Women Of Troy by Pat Barker follows on from its predecessor with the fall of Troy. The Greeks have won, and are waiting to return home as victors. All they need is a good wind to lift their sails, but the gods have been offended, and in these empty, restless days, the hierarchies that held them together begin to fray, old feuds resurface and new suspicions fester. Largely unnoticed by her squabbling captors, Briseis remains in the Greek encampment. She has survived the Trojan War, but peacetime may turn out to be even more dangerous…
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Published in 2018, Anatomy Of A Scandal by Sarah Vaughan follows a scandal amongst Britain’s privileged elite and the women caught up in its wake. James is a loving father, a handsome man, a charismatic and successful public figure. And yet he stands accused of a terrible crime. His wife Sophie is convinced he is innocent and desperate to protect her precious family from the lies that threaten to rip them apart.
The prosecution is being led by Kate, an experienced lawyer who knows that the law is all about winning the argument. And yet Kate seeks the truth at all times. She is certain James is guilty and is determined he will pay for his crimes. But who is right about James: Sophie or Kate? And is either of them informed by anything more than instinct and personal experience?
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