Eight Pieces of Silva by Patrice Lawrence

 

Ebook previously provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

3/5 stars

Becks's mum and Silva's dad have just got married and gone on their dream honeymoon. Silva at 18 is supposed to be the responsible adult looking after 16 year old Becks but then Silva doesn't come home after waving the parents off.

Becks's cat Azog decides to poop in Silva's room and while cleaning it up Becks finds a bunch of receipts for random items, the earliest dated has a handwritten message on it expressing romantic interest. Further investigation reveals other strange items: a crappy wig, fairground token, medal, locker key and a football related newspaper article.

So I loved Becks. Black, out and proud lesbian, Marvel and Tolkien obsessive (her cat's name even comes from the Hobbit movies). Also China - I wish we could have had more of her. Raych was interesting but we didn't know her enough to care about what happened

But Silva. Silva pissed me off in short. She's supposedly so fragile following her mum's death from cancer but it's not like she was a little kid (I can't recall if the amount of time was specified), enough time has passed for her dad to feel comfortable remarrying. Also her blind obsession frustrated me to no end. You are 28 yet you are acting like a child!

The ending was also very abrupt like the author didn't want to go over a certain word count.

Steff Out x

Day of the Accident by Nuala Ellwood

 

Paperback read but ebook previously provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

4/5 stars

Content warnings: child death, suicide plus attempts, eating disorder, grief.

Maggie has just woken up from a coma to be told that her daughter Elspeth has drowned and her husband Sean has left. Maggie's injuries tell the police that she tried to stop the car going into the river but what caused the accident? Maggie has lost her memories of the day. Then she's told that due to her husband leaving she now has no home or belongings and very little money of her own.

This was a gripping, fast-paced novel with nice short chapters. Some of the chapters were separated by letters from an unnamed child in some kind of children's home situation. You might have guesses as to who this child is but you are probably wrong because that particular reveal comes quite late.

The only thing I didn't like was that the whole situation between Maggie and her husband is very brushed over and I feel like it needed more page time.

Steff Out x

The Villa by Jess Ryder

 

Ebook previously provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

3/5 stars

3 years ago Dani, Aoife, Tiff, Beth and Celine came to Villa Floriana in Marbella for Aoife's hen party. Aoife was killed in a suspected burglary gone wrong. Dani was never convinced by this story so she's brought the other hens back to the villa to try and figure out the truth.

Told in dual timeline of then and now and from the perspectives of the 4 surviving hens. Tiff and Beth are Aoife's childhood best friends, Dani is her adulthood best friend who was leading her astray - according to Tiff - and Celine is someone she worked with who technically wasn't supposed to be there due to some "mix-up" of a 6 person villa being booked as opposed to a group-friendly hotel.

I liked the mystery surrounding what happened and the gradual reveal of the events but apart from Dani the characters are mostly unlikable in their secret bitchy-ness. Are you people her friends or not? Also the reveal was a letdown and in my feeling not really believable. There were also some other plot points that were introduced so late that they may as well not have been there, it's like the author was just trying to add extra tension instead of working with what she already had.

Steff Out x

Isle of Ever by Jen Calonita

 

Ebook provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

4/5 stars

12 year old Everly "Benny" Benedict is living with her mum in a tiny flat worrying about how they're going to afford the rent and whether they'll have to move again when a lawyer shows up.

Benny's great great grandmother (not sure how many greats) has left a letter addressed specifically to her. She will inherit Evelyn Terry's estate and accompanying vineyard and her fortune but only if she completes her game by the 12th June.

Told in dual timeline between Benny's search in the present day and Evelyn's journal in 1835 when the area was plagued by Pertussis known as The Cough. I really enjoyed the concept for this and I liked the characters although despite them being described as Benny's age Zara and Ryan read as a little older and understandably due to the journal format we didn't learn a lot about the historical characters.

The pacing was a little uneven, slow in parts, fast in others. The explanation for Benny specifically being addressed could have come a little earlier and there was a particular troublesome family that were mentioned but that didn't come to anything at this point. A cliffhanger ending which certainly entices you to pick up the next book and I'll certainly keep my eye out for it.

Steff Out x

See the Stars by Eleanor Ray

 

Ebook provided by NetGalley. Thank you.

5/5 stars

Alice is an astronomer. Previously she was studying for her masters degree but left it suddenly and joined the world of finance in the city. As a kid she loved nothing more than stargazing with her beloved grandpa until his descent into dementia and rambles about a comet no-one else could see.

Following a collapse at work and the diagnosis of a mini-stroke Alice goes home to Yorkshire to recuperate, re-discovering her grandpa's logbooks in the process and maybe he wasn't wrong about the comet? Along the way she reconnects with her teenage crush Matt, through his nerdy, autistic nephew Berti. I loved Berti as a character and his autism is obvious to me but unfortunately never named on page which is my only slight bugbear with this novel

Told in dual timeline between Alice's time as a child and her university journey and present day this is an emotional, engaging story and I didn't find the space stuff too complicated or overwhelming in the way it was written. The characters were all well-written and easy to connect to. I was hoping for a certain outcome and I was not disappointed but no spoilers here of course.

Steff Out x

The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey

 

3/5 stars

I'm going to call this one of the most disappointing books I've read. The title implies some kind of X-Men style abilities and the blurb gives nothing away apart from a comment about "I don't bite". The reality is much more different.

We open at a facility where a young girl, Melanie, is waiting in her cell to be strapped into a wheelchair and taken to the classroom for lessons, hoping it's with her favourite teacher Miss Helen Justineau. One day two of her classmates disappear, then Helen is told off for showing Melanie affection, then Melanie herself is taken to scientist Dr Caroline Caldwell. But before Dr Caldwell can do what she plans the base is attacked and the three escape with Sergeant Parks and young soldier Gallagher.

What follows is basically a road trip. There are hairy moments along the way and a couple of losses (no spoilers here) and then after an information reveal it basically just ends. There's no clarity on what happens next.

The writing style was engaging on the whole but there's a lack of world-building. It's set in post-apocalyptic Britain, long enough ago that the young soldier is confused by the sight of a broken down bus. I would have liked more information on the start of this whole thing. There's another group of people seen at one point and are considered a great threat but then aren't seen again. It would have been nice to have had more information on them. Who are they? What is their goal?

Also unrelated to the plot etc but apparently there is a film adaptation of this book - script written by the author - and Helen in the book is described solidly as black, the word mahogany is used specifically, yet the film cast the very white Gemma Arterton 🤨😒

Steff Out x