Handsome Brute: The True Story of a Ladykiller
Book
Handsome Brute explores the facts of a once-renowned, now little-remembered British murder case, the...
Hazel (2934 KP) rated The House of Ashes in Books
Feb 13, 2022
This is a sad and tragic story told from the perspective of two women, Sara and Mary, and from two timelines, the present and sixty years ago, with all 'action' taking place on an isolated farm in Northern Ireland.
This is not a story full of joy or happiness but rather there is an overwhelming sense of darkness and sadness with a foreboding undertone from start to finish that is intense and certainly keeps you on edge. Having said that, it is also a story of strength, survival and hope amidst a backdrop of abuse, control and gaslighting.
I admit this isn't a story for everyone and I can't say I enjoyed it given the nature of its content, however, it was an excellent read that had me hooked and took me through so many emotions that many books don't do nowadays that I can only recommend it to others who enjoy dark, psychological thrillers with a little of the supernatural thrown in to enhance the overall feel of the book.
Thank you to Bonnier Books UK and NetGalley for my copy in return for an honest, unbiased and unedited review.
The Final Revival of Opal and Nev
9.5
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A queen of punk before her time. A duo on the brink of stardom. A night that will define their story...
Historical Fiction Music Feminism Race USA
Tabloid Secrets: The Stories Behind the Headlines at the World's Most Famous Newspaper
9.0
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Both as chief reporter and news editor for nearly twenty years at the now defunct News of the World,...
Brushstrokes from the Past (Soli Hansen Mysteries #4)
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WWII and the mid-seventeenth century are entwined in this fourth dual timeline novel about Nazi art...
Historical Fiction Mystery Sweet
Lighter-Than-Air: The Life and Times of Wing Commander N.F. Usborne RN, Pioneer of Naval Aviation
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Neville Florian Usborne entered the Royal Navy as a cadet in 1897. In the years between him joining...
Aled Jones - My Story
Book
Aled Jones was a choirboy with a remarkable voice, whose prodigious talent propelled him to...
After Sex?: On Writing Since Queer Theory
Andrew Parker, Janet E. Halley, Richard Rambuss and Lauren Berlant
Book
Since queer theory originated in the early 1990s, its insights and modes of analysis have been taken...
Deborah (162 KP) rated The Tudor Rose in Books
Dec 21, 2018
Overall the book follows a somewhat traditionalist stance, although Henry Tudor comes across as pretty cold and unlikeable. I wasn't convinced by some of the internal logic and some of the characterisation though. Anne Neville, for example. She is a figure we really don't know that much about, but it's hard to conceive she could be as simple and naive as she is portrayed here! Barnes does try it on a bit with trying to make us wonder if 'Perkin' is really Richard of York (and here the historical novelist has licence, because we really don't know!), despite having Bess keep adamantly stating that she knows her brothers are dead. We're also told that Elizabeth Woodville believes they died, which might lead one to question why she would have a finger in a rebellion against her daughter as queen consort? And if everybody really believed this, why did Sir William Stanley lose his head for saying he wouldn't fight against 'Perkin' if he was really a son of Edward IV - and that is in the historical record as well as this novel. There's an awful lot about Bess believing both Richard and Henry have potentially been culpable in acts of murder, but she herself in this novel is guilty of an act of treachery that is at least as bad!
Not a badly written novel, but I found it frustrating overall!
More Lives Than One: the Extraordinary Life of Felix Dennis
Book
Canny, infuriating, cynical and generous by turns, Felix Dennis was a true one-off. When he died in...