Eeny Meeny by M.J. Arlidge

 

4/5 stars

CW: small amount of transphobic language, misgendering and use of outdated terms.

This was so nearly a 5 star book! The story was ever so gripping and drew me in straight away.

Pairs of victims are being kidnapped, held in a secure location and starved. They are left a gun with a single bullet and an instruction to kill or be killed.

The DI on the case - Helen Grace - is a strong, stoic character who is struggling to find the reason behind the crime. Soon another pair appears, seemingly unconnected to the first but clearly the same perpetrator, and unusually a woman!

I loved all the different points of view and the descriptiveness of the author's writing. The characters and story were engaging and the pacing was good overall but the ending was seriously lacking.

The killer's explanation was vague and sparse, I had to guess her motives and even then I'm unsure overall.

I did appreciate the overall reveal though. But after the killer is apprehended everything just stops and that's it, the book is over.

There was an extract from the next book in my copy which picks up a short time after and presumably gives a lot more of the aftermath, so it's disappointing that it's not included in this book. However I enjoyed it enough to seek out more in the series.

Stef Out x

Seven Days by Alex Lake

Ebook provided by NetGalley for review. Thank you.

4/5 stars

Read November 2021

In seven days Maggie will lose her son because in seven days Max turns 3. 3 years old is when he takes them away. It's happened before. Twice. Maggie has been held captive by him for 12 years now.

This was so nearly a 5 star book. I loved the set-up, I loved the multiple points of view, seeing how things developed over the years. The writing was descriptive and emotional, a great study in humanity and how differently people can react to a missing family member.

There was one part of the plot that I initially thought was a red herring becasue it was revealed so early but as the novel unfolded the reasoning became clearer and it worked so well!

My main criticism was that it ended very quickly. It felt like the author was given a maximum page/word count that they couldn't go over so everything was tied up a little too quickly in my opinion. I wanted more of the "after" and how it was going back into real life.

Stef Out x

Madness by Paityn Parque

Ebook provided by the author for review. Thank you.

Read November 2021

3/5 stars

Firstly, apologies it has taken me so long to type this up. I finished the book, hand-wrote the review in a notebook and then life got in the way a little bit.

Ezra is a normal student until the night that she's murdered. Anyone would think that this is it but then Ezra wakes up. She's in a strange game called the Battles. It's kill or be killed, and if you are killed you just come back.

I was reading this in chunks spaced quite far apart so that may have affected my opinion but to begin with I wasn't sure what to rate this. There was a lot of action but that action could be repetitive: scout, kill, sleep, occasionally shower or train, though rarely eat.

I understand that while in the game past lives and interests are pretty irrelevant but it still would have been nice to have learned more about the characters as we went along. They generally lacked distinction for me and kind of blurred together. Also time, was time still passing outside? Have the kids disappeared completely or were they found comatose in their own beds? I wanted more detail.

The feats overall were a nice addition although I'd like to know more about them and how they're allocaed, but maybe that's covered in the sequel. I did think the reveal around Jack's feat was a bit abrupt, and a bit rushed. I still don't really understand it.

The ending however was very gripping and sets up perfectly for a sequel. Hopefully we find out more about the origins and the mechanics of the game itself.

Also overall the writing was very good, no obviously clunky phrasing, smooth to read, though a lot of sneering going on in the last quarter or so.

Stef Out x

New Year's Resolutions 2022

1. Get at least one piercing
2. Get at least one tattoo
3. Add 20,000 words to my WIP novel
4. Write 30,000 words for National Novel Writing Month 2022
5. Break in all my Dr Marten shoes properly
6. Get a new job
7. Learn to drive
8. Get a new car
9. Sew a garment
10. Learn how to crochet
11. Learn how to cross stitch
12. Read 100 books
13. Watch 100 films
14. Go to the cinema 5 times
15. Go to Longleat Safari Park
16. See a show on stage

I also have extra mini goals like getting a bit fitter and clearing my Gmail and Outlook inboxes. Gmail is where Quora stuff gets sent (it was a little bit of an obsession for a while) and Outlook is Pinterest emails. Both require more time dedicating to them than I usually want to spend on them. I have been making progress on the Pinterest ones this week though, no money to shop with (£10 til PayDay) and bank holidays meaning not many working days this week meant I've had a little more computer time, in between colouring my calendar for this year.

Then of course on top there are the extra "need to buy" goals. I need a new laptop, I'd like to go old school and get an old iPod Classic for my music. We need a new carpet in the living room, we need to vinyl in the hallway and kitchen. I need a new desk chair. We'd like to re-replace the sofas for comfier ones. (Background - one of the old sofas broke so they were emergency replaced last September but the only ones we could afford turned out to not be overly comfy.) We both need new beds and probably mattresses.

All in all a lot of reasons to need a new job with more hours/more money. Sigh.

I also need to catch up a lot with my NetGalley books. I've decided to put a pause on requesting for a bit to give myself time to catch up a little, I have over 300 that I need to read and that's on top of my existing reading lists for this year. I've thought up a 22 in 2022 list plus I want to try and read the alphabet as well. Anyway this is long enough now so I'll leave it there.

Stef Out x

2021 Resolutions Recap

 Before I start anything else can I plead with the universe to make 2022 less of a shit show??? Please!!! Although early signs are not hopeful. Onto the recap before I get into that...

1. Get at least one piercing
2. Get at least one tattoo
3. Read 100 books
4. Watch 150 films
5. Go to the cinema 5 times
6. Learn to drive
7. Get a new car
8. Go to Longleat
9. See a show on stage
10. Learn to cross stitch
11. Learn to crochet
12. Write 20,000 words of a novel
13. Get fitter
14. Break in my sequin Doc shoes
15. Keep up to date with book reviews
16. Start to grow my hair out

Well that was a disaster. Coronavirus is still affecting everything massively. As are my pathetic finances. I still haven't found a new job but that is a definite goal for 2022. To cut a long story short my old manager quit with a week's notice so I was running the shop single-handedly 5 days a week from end of July to the beginning of October. I debated taking it on permanently but I didn't decided quick enough and now I have a new manager. It has been... tough. She's lazy and slapdash about everything and has criticised me to my face and it's hard. I've lost all confidence in myself and my ability to do the job because whatever I do it's wrong or not good enough or ignoring something I didn't realise she'd said. I'm just tired of it all.

I was up to date on book reviews for a while but there's one from April I still haven't posted and two that have been hand-written but need typing up. I've decided to stop requesting from NetGalley for a bit, I just have too big of a backlog that I really need to catch up with, plus I have three (!!!) to read that were author requests. On top of that I've created a list of 22 books to read in 2022, plus I want to try the Alphabet Challenge.

Films were a disaster this year for some reason. I got to 95 I think it was and only managed two cinema trips, both in December: A Boy Called Christmas and Encanto. Both were amazing and I've already bought the Encanto soundtrack. We were hoping to see the new Spiderman film but there's just one teensy problem there... The car is broken. It's been making a strange noise when you reverse for a while and then the other day it made a loud clunk so we're thinking whatever it is has broken. It means I'm using foot power to get to work at the moment as well which is fun. Not. Mum gets her money on the 14th so hopefully it won't be too expensive to fix.

Speaking of the car, over the space of a couple of months we bought two new ones and then bought our original one back. The first was an Audi estate which had a broken window and an unfortunate gear problem - it would jump into fourth when you wanted second, not good. Then we ended up with a Skoda Fabia, just getting home was fun with that one, it was running on fumes and the petrol cap was jammed. The first station's attendant couldn't help and they were out anyway but the second managed to sort it. It was an uncomfortable car but it ended up needing to go because it had a habit of just stopping without warning. A tad dangerous. Then thanks to notifications from the DVLA because the logbook hadn't been done we discovered that our original one hadn't been sold yet so we bought it back.

Writing was OK this year, I manged 26,000 words for National Novel Writing Month in November so I'm really pleased with that. Fitness, hair etc, forget it, I kind of forgot about the crafty stuff and I feel guilty about my shoes. 2022 will be the year! I hope...

Anyway that's long enough for now, I will be back soon-ish with my 2022 Resolutions (I haven't even come up with them yet...).

Stef Out x