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The Shadow Key
The Shadow Key
Susan Stokes-Chapman | 2024 | Fiction & Poetry, Horror, Mystery
8
9.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
The Shadow Key is an enjoyable, unnerving read, set in a quiet, secluded Welsh village in the late 1700’s.
Henry has been disgraced in his London medical practice, and takes a job as a doctor in a small Welsh mining village. A lucky break, perhaps? Except, no. The inhabitants of the village don’t like him at all, because he’s English, his employer, the local Lord, is decidedly odd and menacing, and Lord Julian’s sister is clearly suffering from some sort of mental illness.

Henry does start to like the village, and the villagers learn that he will help them with no conditions.

There’s an underlying menace throughout the book, and if I were Henry I wouldn’t have stayed to tough it out!

The descriptions of the village and the family seat, swing between beauty (particularly the landscape) and dread. I felt as a reader I was constantly being wrong-footed, played with. It really is a good read - the tension!!
Most definitely recommended!
  
A Quiet Place: Part II (2021)
A Quiet Place: Part II (2021)
2021 | Horror, Thriller
Sequel to the 2018 original, which - despite being a commercial and critical darling - was a film that I couldn't really see what all the fuss was about.

Despite being a sequel, this actually starts back at 'Day One' with a protracted flash-back scene that I'm not quite sure the point of, before jumping ahead to pick up almost immediately (like, immediately immediately) after the ending of the first film, with the remnants of the same family now leaving their refuge and trekking cross-country to the hills where they know there are other survivors (Cillian Murphy), but now also armed with the knowledge of how to defeat the seemingly-invincible 'hunt by sound' creatures.

What follows is roughly an hour and a half, maybe three quarters or so, where they continue to make bad decision after bad decision, and where the tension is consistently racked up, almost to the the point where the jump scares lose most (but not all) of their impact ...
  
40x40

Hazel (2934 KP) rated Her Perfect Twin in Books

Jan 23, 2022  
Her Perfect Twin
Her Perfect Twin
Sarah Bonner | 2022 | Crime, Thriller
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Well, I think I can safely say that I absolutely loved this book. Yes it might be a little implausible but I thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless and it's a great, deliciously dark and twisty debut.

This is one of those books that has you wondering what the heck is going to happen next and then you keep reading it into the night to find out only for another twist to come along or bombshell dropped - I found it hard to put down.

I'm not even going to try and sum up the plot but will say it includes Covid, domestic violence, controlling and coercive behaviour, gaslighting, sex and violence so if this isn't your thing, you might not want to pick this one up.

With great characters, excellent pacing with plenty of tension and twists, this is a book I have no problem recommending and my thanks must go to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for my copy in return for an honest, unbiased and unedited review.