Time for some mini-reviews! What are mini-reviews, you ask? As the title suggests, these are short reviews, consisting of one paragraph tops, about a book. It’s a way to catch up on the books I’ve read a while ago, but never got around to reviewing.
Winter Chill
Tite: Winter Chill
Author: Joanne Fluke
Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Suspense
Rating: 3 stars
Purchase: Amazon
The moment Marian Larsen sees the patrol car stop outside her house, she feels a shiver of foreboding. The news is even worse than she feared. Marian’s husband and young daughter have been in a snowmobile crash. Dan is paralysed and Laura is dead, her body broken on the icy ground.
. . .With A Chilling Secret
Friends and colleagues in Marian’s Minnesota home town rally around to try and ease her grief. But soon there are more horrible accidents. Then the rumours start–that these are not coincidences at all, that someone is picking off victims one by one. And as winter deepens, the search for answers will reveal a killer whose blood runs colder than the blinding snow. . .
Review: While the book offers an intriguing plot, the characters are as thin as a sheet of paper, the language feels outdated, and while a huge part of the novel is build on the psychological state of the main characters, the characters themselves lack personality and character development. Gripping writing though, and an interesting plot, but fails to deliver.
Lynnwood
Title: Lynnwood
Author: Thomas Brown
Genre: Horror, Suspense, Mystery
Rating: 4 stars
Purchase: Amazon
The unthinkable is happening in Lynnwood – a village with centuries of guilt on its conscience.
Who wouldn’t want to live in an idyllic village in the English countryside like Lynnwood? With its charming pub, old dairy, friendly vicar, gurgling brooks, and its old paths with memories of simpler times.
But behind the conventional appearance of Lynnwood’s villagers, only two sorts of people crawl out of the woodwork: those who hunt and those who are prey. Visitors are watched by an entity between the trees where the Dark Ages have endured to the twenty-first century. Families who have lived behind stone walls and twitching curtains know that the gusts of wind blowing through the nearby alluring Forest bring with them a stench of delightful hunger only Lynnwood can appease.
Review: I had trouble getting into the feel of the novel, but after the first few chapters, I got used to the cinematic, descriptive writing, and the setting. It’s a well-crafted tale of horror in a quaint, remote English village, that reminded me of gothic horror classics, and gave off a disturbing, claustrophobic feel. Excellent writing, and a plot that surprised me and chilled me to the bone.
Now You See Me
Title: Now You See Me
Author: S.J. Bolton
Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Thriller
Rating: 4 stars
Purchase: Amazon
One night after interviewing a reluctant witness at a London apartment complex, Lacey Flint, a young detective constable, stumbles onto a woman brutally stabbed just moments before in the building’s darkened parking lot. Within twenty-four hours a reporter receives an anonymous letter that points out alarming similarities between the murder and Jack the Ripper’s first murder a letter that calls out Lacey by name. If it’s real, and they have a killer bent on re-creating London’s bloody past, history shows they have just five days until the next attempt.
No one believes the connections are anything more than a sadistic killer’s game, not even Lacey, whom the killer seems to be taunting specifically. However, as they investigate the details of the case start reminding her more and more of a part of her past she’d rather keep hidden. And the only way to do that is to catch the killer herself.
Fast paced and completely riveting, S. J. Bolton’s Now You See Me is a modern gothic novel that is nothing less than a masterpiece of suspense fiction.
Now You See Me is a Kirkus Reviews Best of 2011 Mysteries title.
One of Library Journal‘s Best Mystery Books of 2011
Hello Majanka,
Just a quick message to say thank you for taking the time to read and review my book. It’s always a pleasure when someone reads and ‘gets’ something you have written. For me, this is the best feeling, so thank you. I wondered if you might share the review on Amazon.co.uk too?
All the best,
Tom