Book Review
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People to Follow by Olivia Worley | Book Review
People to Follow by Olivia Worley
Published by St. Martin's Publishing Group on October 31, 2023
Genres: Young Adult Fiction / Thrillers & Suspense / Psychological
Pages: 352
Format: eBook
In Olivia Worley's pitch-perfect debut, People to Follow, ten teen influencers come to a remote island to star in a reality show, but when one of them winds up dead, they realize that this time, the price of getting “cancelled” could be their lives.
A reality show on a remote Caribbean island. Ten teen influencers. One dead body.
Welcome to “In Real Life,” the hot new reality show that forces social media’s reigning kings and queens to unplug for three weeks and “go live” without any filters. IRL is supposed to be the opportunity of a lifetime, watched closely by legions of loyal followers. But for these rising stars--including Elody, an Instagram model with an impulsive streak; Kira, a child star turned fitness influencer; Logan, a disgraced TikTok celeb with a secret; and Max, a YouTuber famous for exposés on his fellow creators--it’s about to turn into a nightmare.
When the production crew fails to show up and one of their own meets a violent end, these social media moguls find themselves stranded with a dead body and no way to reach the outside world. When they start receiving messages from a mysterious Sponsor threatening to expose their darkest secrets, they realize that they’ve been lured into a deadly game...and one of them might be pulling the strings.
With the body count rising and cameras tracking their every move, the creators must figure out who is trying to get them canceled--like, literally--before their #1 follower strikes again.
People to Follow is a fun, fast paced thriller in which influencers are dropping dead left and right on a remote island. I had so much fun trying to figure out who was behind the murders, and this reminded me a lot of the vibe of Bodies Bodies Bodies (although less sarcastic and on the nose) with young people running around a mansion on a private island.
There are multiple points of view in this book, which I feel was the only downside. I would have preferred to have focused on just one or two characters, but there were four POVs in total and it all got a bit much because they all sounded the same. I don’t think thrillers generally need more than two POVs.
I read this book in pretty much one sitting and that’s how you can tell it’s a decent thriller book! I’ll be adding this one to my list of recommendations.
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Just Another Missing Person by Gillian McAllister | Book Review
Just Another Missing Person by Gillian McAllister
Published by HarperCollins Publishers on August 1, 2023
Genres: Fiction / Thrillers / Crime
Pages: 496
Twenty-two-year-old Olivia has been missing for one day...and counting. She was last seen on CCTV, entering a dead-end alley. And not coming back out again.
Julia, the detective heading up the search for Olivia, thinks she knows what to expect. A desperate family, a ticking clock, and long hours away from her husband and daughter. But she has no idea just how close to home this case is going to get.
Because the criminal at the heart of the disappearance has something she never expected. His weapon isn't a gun, or a knife: it's a secret. Her worst one. And her family's safety depends on one thing: Julia must NOT find out what happened to Olivia - and must frame somebody else for her murder.
If you find her, you will lose everything. What would you do?
This clever and endlessly surprising thriller is laced with a clever look at family and motherhood, and cements Gillian McAllister as a major talent in the world of suspense and a master of creating ethical dilemmas that show just how murky the distinction between right and wrong can be.
I read and loved this author’s previous book, Wrong Place Wrong Time, and so I jumped at the chance to request Just Another Missing Person when it was put up on Netgalley. Gillian McAllister clearly has a talent for plotting and introducing mind bending twists. Because I didn’t bother to read the synopsis for this one before jumping into it (out of excitement!), I didn’t really know what to expect. I wasn’t sure if it would have similar speculative elements to Wrong Place Wrong Time or if it would just be a flat out thriller. Just Another Missing Person is the latter, but that didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book.
Just Another Missing Person has a very slow start. It took me about 50% of the book to start caring about any of the characters because it just dragged. Admittedly, once the twists start happening the novel picks up and heads in several different directions, and so I flew through the last half of the book. It’s just such a shame that it took me forever to get into it in the first place, because I was so excited for it!
I think reading Just Another Missing Person will be a whole new experience upon a reread. There are definitely things that you can pick out from the first 50% that lead up to the twists in the latter half of the book, and I think it would be very interesting to go back and reread now that I know the twists. I’m going to have to wait for the paperback release for that!
I always seem to enjoy the way McAllister tackles family relationships, particularly marriage and mother-child relationships. I was a bit shocked when I read the acknowledgements and found that she doesn’t have children herself yet, because the way she handles these relationships seems to speak to her own experiences. Maybe she’s just very empathetic!
Overall, I really enjoyed Just Another Missing Person. Particularly the last half and all the juicy plot twists and drama. It’s not as strong of a plot as Wrong Place Wrong Time but I found this one to be very clever and I was in awe of the twists in some places.
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Finding Bear by Hannah Gold | Book Review
Finding Bear by Hannah Gold
Published by HarperCollins UK on September 28, 2023
Genres: Middle Grade / Contemporary
Pages: 352
Format: eBook The unmissable follow-up to the phenomenal bestselling and award-winning The Last Bear. Beautifully illustrated by Levi Pinfold and perfect for readers 8+
April Wood has returned home from her adventure on Bear Island. But, over a year later, she can’t stop thinking about Bear.
When April hears that a polar bear has been shot and injured in Svalbard, she’s convinced it’s her friend and persuades her dad to travel with her to the northernmost reaches of the Arctic. So begins an unforgettable journey across frozen tundra and icy glaciers.
But along the way, she discovers much more than she bargained for – a tiny polar bear cub, desperately in need of her help. In freezing temperatures, April must navigate the dangerous Arctic terrain and face her deepest fears if she’s to save him.
Beautifully illustrated by Levi Pinfold, Finding Bear is a stunning story of survival and a heartwarming tale of love that shows us how hope is born from the smallest of beginnings.
‘A beautifully written and illustrated story of determination, courage and hope’ The Sun
‘Magically inspiring’ Daily Mail
I wasn’t expecting The Last Bear to get a sequel, but look what’s here! Finding Bear is the follow up to April’s first journey to the arctic. In this book, she follows Bear’s call and has to help save his cub.
As always with Hannah Gold’s books, this one was full of heart and bravery, and I loved it a lot. I didn’t enjoy it as much as The Last Bear, admittedly, but I had the best time following April around the arctic again.
I got super emotional at some points, especially when April was talking about climate change and how we can try to help the wildlife being impacted by human mistakes. It’s a topic that I’m very passionate about, and I always love when books include it in the narrative.
Overall, Finding Bear is a lovely follow up to an already great story. You won’t regret picking it up!
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Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood | Book Review
Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood
Release Date: 13th June 2023
Genre: Adult, Romance
Source: Publisher, NetGalley
Rating: ★★★.5The many lives of theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway have finally caught up with her. By day, she’s an adjunct professor, toiling away at grading labs and teaching thermodynamics in the hopes of landing tenure. By other day, Elsie makes up for her non-existent paycheck by offering her services as a fake girlfriend, tapping into her expertly honed people pleasing skills to embody whichever version of herself the client needs.
Honestly, it’s a pretty sweet gig—until her carefully constructed Elsie-verse comes crashing down. Because Jack Smith, the annoyingly attractive and broody older brother of her favorite client, turns out to be the cold-hearted experimental physicist who ruined her mentor’s career and undermined the reputation of theorists everywhere. And that same Jack who now sits on the hiring committee at MIT, right between Elsie and her dream job.
Elsie is prepared for an all-out war of scholarly sabotage but…those long, penetrating looks? Not having to be anything other than her true self when she’s with him? Will falling into an experimentalist’s orbit finally tempt her to put her most guarded theories on love into practice?
You know what, I was really struggling with this book in the beginning and I was even contemplating putting it down for a bit and possibly not returning. Fortunately, I persevered, and I ended up really enjoying Love, Theoretically! It’s definitely not Hazelwood’s strongest book. I think a lot of readers will struggle at the start because the romance takes so long to get going. But if you are already a fan of her works, like I am, and have faith that it will get better then I would recommend continuing on through the somewhat difficult first few chapters.
It took about 100 pages for me to really get into this book and start liking the romance. While we’re introduced to the main character and her love interest and their dynamic quite early, it took a long time for me to connect with and understand their energy. But I loved it once I got used to it!
Of course, there are the usual tropes of the guy being Just So Big and the female main character being super tiny. I was expecting this from Hazelwood at this point, and I had a good laugh with my spouse about the “oh I’m so tiny” comments because we may or may not know some real people who come out with that in real life.
Also, I’m pleased to say that I think Hazelwood has improved in the sex scene department! After THAT scene in The Love Hypothesis, I kind of lost hope, and I can’t remember really being into the love scenes in her sophomore book. Thankfully, I ended up quite enjoying the scene in this one. It’s still slightly cringey and not really my thing, but it wasn’t as bad as the scene in her first book.
All that to say, I really enjoyed this because it was a fun, light read while also tackling slightly deeper topics, but not so much that it’s going to ruin your evening.
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Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin | Book Review
Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin
Release Date: 22nd February 2022
Genre: Adult, Dystopia
Source: Publisher, NetGalley
Rating: ★
Beth and Fran spend their days traveling the ravaged New England coast, hunting feral men and harvesting their organs in a gruesome effort to ensure they’ll never face the same fate.
Robbie lives by his gun and one hard-learned motto: other people aren’t safe.
After a brutal accident entwines the three of them, this found family of survivors must navigate murderous TERFs, a sociopathic billionaire bunker brat, and awkward relationship dynamics―all while outrunning packs of feral men, and their own demons.Look at that cover! It’s the whole reason I picked this book up because it’s just excellent. Unfortunately, the book itself was not. In fact, it was pretty awful. And I’m really sad about it.
I was really into this book at the start because I was so intrigued by the premise. I think the idea itself was a good one and had a lot of potential, but ultimately I felt like the plotting throughout was very basic and jumpy. I don’t feel like the book flowed very well at all.
I also found the characters’ dialogue to be very disjointed, which leads me to believe these issues are just down to the author’s writing style being blunt and to the point rather than them being inexperienced as a writer. It just wasn’t the writing style for me.
This book is super gory, which I didn’t really have a problem with since I was expecting it (again, see the cover!) but I just didn’t like the way it was written.
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Lights by Brenna Thummler | Book Review
Lights by Brenna Thummler
Release Date: 5th September 2023
Genre: Middle Grade, Paranormal
Source: Publisher, NetGalley
Rating: ★★★★Marjorie Glatt’s life was forever changed the day she discovered a group of ghosts hiding in her family’s laundromat. One of those ghosts was Wendell: a lonely phantom turned Marjorie’s best friend. When he and Marjorie are joined by ghost-enthusiast Eliza Duncan, the three friends band together in friendship, bravery, and all things paranormal.
Wendell died far too young and now must wander the Land of Humans with nothing more than a sheet for a body. He knows how he died—a tragic drowning accident—but lately he’s grown curious about his past life. He wants to know more about why he died, not just how he died. It’s not easy, though, since Wendell’s memory of his human life has grown increasingly blurry. With Marjorie and Eliza’s help, they set out on a journey to find out more. When they hear a rumor about Wendell’s death, they wonder if it might not have been an accident after all. Meanwhile, Marjorie and Eliza’s friendship is tested when Marjorie starts to befriend the very people who used to bully Eliza.
In the third and final installment of the Sheets trilogy, Wendell will finally uncover the truth of his human life. Marjorie and Eliza will learn that some people really can change. Most of all, they start to see that everything can cast shadows, but if you look hard enough, you can find the light.
Prior to this year, I had seen the Sheets graphic novels around but I was never really interested in picking them up until a few close friends recommended the first book to me. I was taking part in a reading challenge in February and I needed some graphic novels, so I decided to give these a try, and I absolutely fell in love with Marjorie and Wendell. So much so that I’ve now finished the trilogy in just a couple of months!
Lights is the perfect ending to this slow and dreamlike trilogy. I’m very pleased that we got to learn about what happened to Wendell, as I feel both he and the readers needed closure to move on.
The ending to this trilogy is heartfelt and lovely. I even teared up a bit at the end because I had become so invested in the relationships between all these characters.
I’m very pleased with how everything wrapped up with these characters, and I’m pleased that I discovered this heartwarming story about friendship, loyalty, and love.
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The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston | Book Review
I really enjoyed the concept of The Seven Year Slip. I haven’t read Poston’s adult romance debut, but from what I can tell everyone is loving her switch to this genre. I’m definitely keen to pick up The Dead Romantics after reading this one, because I found myself really enjoying Poston’s little twist that she put on the genre.
I really enjoyed reading about Clementine as she interacted with Iwan, a man who was literally existing in the past. Seeing Clementine deal with her struggles and learn to open herself up again after losing her aunt and her best friend.
I wasn’t expecting this book to deal so much with grief, but that was one of the major topics. I was very impressed with how Poston handled it, and I even shed some tears towards the end because it was just so lovely.
I also found myself relating to Clementine in terms of her attitude towards her work and career, so it has given me a lot to thing about in that regard too.
Overall, I’m really pleased to have read The Seven Year Slip and I’m going to have to go and get my hands on The Dead Romantics now!
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Will They or Won’t They by Ava Wilder | Book Review
Will They or Won’t They by Ava Wilder
Release Date: 27th June 2023
Genre: Adult, Romance
Source: Publisher, NetGalley
Rating: ★★★★Lilah Hunter and Shane McCarthy are madly in love— at least, their characters are. As the stars of the hit paranormal TV show Intangible, they spent years pining for each other on-screen… until Lilah ditched the show at the end of season five in hopes of becoming a film star. With no such luck, she’s back to film the much-hyped ninth and final season, in which their characters will get together at last.
But coming back means facing one of the biggest reasons she left: Shane. Ever since their secret behind-the-scenes fling imploded at the end of the first season, the two of them have despised each other.
Now back on set together for the first time in years, with the world’s eyes on them and their post-show careers on the line, they’ll have to grit their teeth and play nice. But under pressure to give Intangible’s fans the happy ending they’ve been waiting for, Lilah and Shane are forced to get closer than ever. And if they’re not careful, they just might get blindsided by one final twist: a real-life happy ending of their own.
I hadn’t read anything by Ava Wilder before, but I had to pick Will They or Won’t They up when I read the description and realised it’s basically Nian fanfiction. I won’t be elaborating on that particular interest of mine any further, but if you know you know.
I had such a blast with this though! The pacing of the romance was absolutely perfect for me. Shane and Lilah start off meeting in the prologue, and then by the time chapter one rolls around you’re alreayd rooting for them. Unfortunately, their relationship had already crashed and burned by then. I was so invested in the two of them getting back together immediately!
Thankfully, none of it was rushed. I loved that the pair had to go to couple’s therapy despite not being a couple. Wilder touched upon how helpful therapy can be here in a subtle way. I really enjoyed being in both Lilah and Shane’s heads and figuring out what was going on with them.
I always love stories about famous actors in Hollywood, so that combined with a little bit of fandom history (unofficially, because I don’t think anything has been confirmed or even mentioned) made this a complete hit for me. I’m going to have to pick up Wilder’s first book now!
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Drowning by T. J. Newman | Book Review
Drowning by T J Newman
Release Date: 30th May 2023
Genre: Adult, Thriller
Source: Publisher, NetGalley
Rating: ★★★★Flight attendant turned New York Times bestselling author T. J. Newman—whose first book Falling was an instant #1 national bestseller and the biggest thriller debut of 2021—returns for her second book, an edge-of-your-seat thriller about a commercial jetliner that crashes into the ocean, and sinks to the bottom with passengers trapped inside, and the extraordinary rescue operation to save them.
Six minutes after takeoff, Flight 1421 crashes into the Pacific Ocean. During the evacuation, an engine explodes and the plane is flooded. Those still alive are forced to close the doors—but it’s too late. The plane sinks to the bottom with twelve passengers trapped inside.
More than two hundred feet below the surface, engineer Will Kent and his eleven-year-old daughter Shannon are waist-deep in water and fighting for their lives.
Their only chance at survival is an elite rescue team on the surface led by professional diver Chris Kent—Shannon’s mother and Will’s soon-to-be ex-wife—who must work together with Will to find a way to save their daughter and rescue the passengers from the sealed airplane, which is now teetering on the edge of an undersea cliff.
There’s not much time.
There’s even less air.
With devastating emotional power and heart-stopping suspense, Drowning is an unforgettable thriller about a family’s desperate fight to save themselves and the people trapped with them—against impossible odds.
When I saw that T J Newman was releasing another thriller book based on a plane, I knew I had to pick it up. I read Falling by her last year and very much enjoyed the anxiety it gave me – I’m not the best with flights – so I wanted to have those same feelings again with this one. Because I don’t read synopses for thriller books to avoid being potentially spoiled, I didn’t actually know this was about a plane that sank to the bottom of the ocean. Guess what? I’M TERRIFIED OF OPEN WATER.
I felt such tension throughout this entire book. From the very first page you know there’s no hope for the plane and that it’s going to crash into the water, and you know the rescue teams are going to struggle to reach the survivors. I was holding my breath the entire time as I tried to conserve air alongside the trapped passengers.
I liked how Newman utilised various points of view in this one. If she had only focused on the one main character, I think it would have been a very, very short book because this character, Will, only had about five hours of air left before he suffocated. Newman also chose to focus on Will’s wife, Chris, as she tried to help in any way she could from the surface.
There are some truly horrific moments in this book, which is exactly what I seek out in survival thrillers. A couple of these scenes in particular will stick with me for years to come. Did I mention I hate the ocean?
Overall, I highly recommend Drowning by T. J. Newman to anyone looking for a heart-pumping thriller that will keep you up late into the night. I literally stayed awake until 4am reading this, partly because I couldn’t sleep during the UK heatwave but also because I was so concerned about the characters.
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The Hike by Lucy Clarke | Book Review
The Hike by Lucy Clarke
Release Date: 27th April 2023
Genre: Adult, Thriller
Source: Publisher, NetGalley
Rating: ★★★Maggie, Liz, Helena & Joni. Old friends bound by history, adventures, old secrets.
And now, bound by murder.
They lace up their hiking boots for the adventure of a lifetime in the Norwegian wilderness: a place of towering mountains, glass-like lakes, log cabins and forests stolen from a fairytale.
It’s the perfect place to lose yourself – until a broken body is found at the bottom of a ravine.
Somewhere out there, someone knows exactly why a woman has died. And in this deep, dark wilderness, there’s a killer on the trail…
I’ve only ever read one book by Lucy Clarke – The Castaways – and I very much enjoyed it. Clarke seems to often write books set in places that I’m curious about, and The Hike was the same. I have been starting research holidays in Norway recently because I love the idea of hiking around the fjords, so I snapped up this book when I saw it was available for review!
As always, Clarke writes about complicated relationships and friendships amongst a vivid setting. I really enjoyed reading about this group of friends as they commenced their completely unprepared hike through the mountains. There were lots of secrets involved, and I loved digging into them.
Other than the setting, though, I don’t think much about The Hike really stood out. It was a fun thriller, but certainly very average and not an all time favourite of mine. It also included a twist that I really don’t enjoy reading about, so the ending was a little bit of a let down for me!
