June 2023 in Books

The Scorpion’s Head - Hilde Vandermeeren

When Gaelle wakes up, the nightmare begins. She is lying injured in a psychiatric hospital in Berlin, with no memory of the tense holiday weekend she has just spent with her family. Her son is in a coma in a different hospital - and the police think she tried to kill him. Gaelle is sure she is innocent. But can she prove it?

Michael is a contract killer working for Scorpio, a shadowy organisation of hitmen led by the ruthless Dolores. Any agent who breaks the rules signs their own death warrant. When his latest assignment stirs up old memories, Michael refuses to do the job - and starts to run for his life.

Soon, both Gaelle and Michael will discover exactly what they are capable of doing to survive.

This book confused me a little, it was a nice read though.

Read for the 52 Book Club Challenge.
Prompt 30: An author with a same name as you.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

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Lady in the Lake - Laura Lippman

In 1966, Baltimore is a city of secrets that everyone seems to know—everyone, that is, except Madeline “Maddie” Schwartz. Last year, she was a happy, even pampered housewife. This year, she’s bolted from her marriage of almost twenty years, determined to make good on her youthful ambitions to live a passionate, meaningful life.

Maddie wants to matter, to leave her mark on a swiftly changing world. Drawing on her own secrets, she helps Baltimore police find a murdered girl—assistance that leads to a job at the city’s afternoon newspaper, the Star. Working at the newspaper offers Maddie the opportunity to make her name, and she has found just the story to do it: Cleo Sherwood, a missing woman whose body was discovered in the fountain of a city park lake.

If Cleo were white, every reporter in Baltimore would be clamoring to tell her story. Instead, her mysterious death receives only cursory mention in the daily newspapers, and no one cares when Maddie starts poking around in a young Black woman's life—except for Cleo's ghost, who is determined to keep her secrets and her dignity. Cleo scolds the ambitious Maddie: You're interested in my death, not my life. They're not the same thing.

Maddie’s investigation brings her into contact with people that used to be on the periphery of her life—a jewelry store clerk, a waitress, a rising star on the Baltimore Orioles, a patrol cop, a hardened female reporter, a lonely man in a movie theater. But for all her ambition and drive, Maddie often fails to see the people right in front of her. Her inability to look beyond her own needs will lead to tragedy and turmoil for all sorts of people—including Ferdie, the man who shares her bed, a police officer who is risking far more than Maddie can understand.

This was an okay read, not mind-blowing.

Read for the PopSugar 2023 Reading Challenge.
Prompt 21: A book set in the decade you were born.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

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Crimes Against a Book Club - Kathy Cooperman

Best friends Annie and Sarah need cash―fast. Sarah, a beautiful, successful lawyer, wants nothing more than to have a baby. But balancing IVF treatments with a grueling eighty-hour workweek is no walk in the park. Meanwhile, Annie, a Harvard-grad chemist recently transplanted to Southern California, is cutting coupons to afford her young autistic son’s expensive therapy.

Desperate, the two friends come up with a brilliant plan: they’ll combine Sarah’s looks and Annie’s brains to sell a “luxury” antiaging face cream to the wealthy, fading beauties in Annie’s La Jolla book club. The scheme seems innocent enough, until Annie decides to add a special―and oh-so-illegal―ingredient that could bring their whole operation crashing to the ground.

I didn't think this book was as funny as advertised, it was an okay read.

Read for the 52 Book Club Challenge.
Prompt 49: Books on the cover.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

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The Written - Ben Galley

Only half the recruits that undergo the Ritual survive to become Written mages. Only they can wield the fiercest of magics, to protect the Arka, until either death or the madness takes them.

Five scholars of Arfell have been assassinated. A spellbook has gone missing – a powerful summoning manual from the time of elves and fire-born daemons. The Arkmages are running out of time and options, and the world is once again on the brink of war with the Siren dragon-riders. It falls to Farden – one of the Arka's most powerful yet troubled Written mages – to keep Emaneska from falling into chaos.

Entangled in a web of lies and politics, Farden is tasked with hunting down the assassin, and recovering the spellbook before it falls into the wrong hands, and the world is cast into shadow. It will mean fighting his way across savage Emaneska and back, a land infested with wyrms, marauders, and betrayal. It will take every fibre of his will, every scrap of magic in his bones, and if he falls, so shall the world.

I normally love this kind of fantasy, but this really didn't grab me.

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Prompt 44: A book that was self-published.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

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Never Fade - Alexandra Bracken

Ruby never asked for the abilities that almost cost her life. Now she must call upon them to bring down a corrupt government in a world where children have been eliminated. When she is entrusted with an explosive secret, she embarks on her deadliest journey yet: leaving the Children's League to track down Liam Stewart, the boy who carries the truth about the disease that threw the world into chaos. The boy she once loved and hoped never to see again ...

This is the second book in The Darkest Mind series. I loved it and am looking forward to book 3.

Read for the 52 Book Club Challenge.
Prompt 35: A book you meant to read last year.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Britt-Marie Was Here - Fredrik Backman

For as long as anyone can remember, Britt-Marie has been an acquired taste. It's not that she's judgemental, or fussy, or difficult - she just expects things to be done in a certain way. A cutlery drawer should be arranged in the right order, for example (forks, knives, then spoons). We're not animals, are we?

But behind the passive-aggressive, socially awkward, absurdly pedantic busybody is a woman who has more imagination, bigger dreams and a warmer heart than anyone around her realizes.

So when Britt-Marie finds herself unemployed, separated from her husband of 20 years, left to fend for herself in the miserable provincial backwater that is Borg - of which the kindest thing one can say is that it has a road going through it - and somehow tasked with running the local football team, she is a little unprepared. But she will learn that life may have more to offer her that she's ever realised, and love might be found in the most unexpected of places.

I did not like this book. Britt-Marie is insufferable.

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Prompt 33: A book about an athlete/sport.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

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Tall Tales and Wee Stories - Billy Connolly

Tall Tales and Wee Stories brings together the very best of Billy's storytelling for the first time and includes his most famous routines including, The Last Supper, Jojoba Shampoo, Incontinence Pants and Shouting at Wildebeest. With an introduction and original illustrations by Billy throughout, it is an inspirational, energetic and riotously funny read, and a fitting celebration of our greatest ever comedian.

It is funny, but not the funniest thing I've ever read.

Read for the 52 Book Club Challenge.
Prompt 40: Written by a comedian.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

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The Underground Railroad - Colton Whitehead

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. All the slaves lead a hellish existence, but Cora has it worse than most; she is an outcast even among her fellow Africans and she is approaching womanhood, where it is clear even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a slave recently arrived from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they take the perilous decision to escape to the North.

At each stop on her journey, Cora encounters a different world. The Underground Railroad is at once the story of one woman's ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shatteringly powerful meditation on history.

Excellent read!

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Prompt 23: A book with a map.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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The Lake House - Kate Morton

June 1933, and the Edevane family’s country house, Loeanneth, is polished and gleaming, ready for the much-anticipated Midsummer Eve party. Alice Edevane, sixteen years old and a budding writer, is especially excited. Not only has she worked out the perfect twist for her novel, she’s also fallen helplessly in love with someone she shouldn’t. But by the time midnight strikes and fireworks light up the night skies, the Edevane family will have suffered a loss so great that they leave Loeanneth forever.

Seventy years later, after a particularly troubling case, DC Sadie Sparrow is sent on an enforced break from her job with the Metropolitan Police. She retreats to her beloved grandfather’s cottage in Cornwall, but soon finds herself at a loose end. Until one day, Sadie stumbles upon an abandoned house surrounded by overgrown gardens and dense woods, and learns the story of a baby boy who disappeared without a trace.

Meanwhile, in the attic writing room of her elegant Hampstead home, the formidable Alice Edevane, now an old lady, leads a life as neatly plotted as the bestselling detective novels she writes. That is, until a young police detective starts asking questions about her family’s past, seeking to resurrect the complex tangle of secrets Alice has spent her life trying to escape . . .

Really enjoyed this one!

Read for the 52 Book Club Challenge.
Prompt 11: A book about secrets.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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The Rabbit Queen - Dexter Palmer

Surgeon John Howard is a rational man. His apprentice Zachary knows John is reluctant to believe anything that purports to exist outside the realm of logic. But even John cannot explain how or why Mary Toft, the wife of a local farmer, manages to give birth to a dead rabbit. When this singular event becomes a regular occurrence, John realizes that nothing in his experience as a village physician has prepared him to deal with a situation as disturbing as this. He writes to several preeminent surgeons in London, three of whom quickly arrive in the small town of Godalming ready to observe and opine.

When Mary's plight reaches the attention of King George, Mary and her doctors are summoned to London, where Zachary experiences for the first time a world apart from his small-town existence, and is exposed to some of the darkest corners of the human soul. All the while, Mary lies in bed, waiting for another birth, as doubts begin to blossom among the surgeons and a growing group of onlookers grow impatient for another miracle . . .

A strange tale, and I had hoped it would be more enthralling...

Read for the PopSugar 2023 Reading Challenge.
Prompt 24: A book with a rabbit on the cover.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

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An Ice Cold Grave - Charlaine Harris

Harper Connelly was struck by lightning as a teenager, and now she can find the dead.

In her third case, Harper and Tolliver, her stepbrother, are hired to find a missing grandson. But the truth is far worse than a single dead child, for numerous teenage boys, all unlikely runaways, have disappeared from Doraville, North Carolina. Harper soon finds the eight bodies, buried in the half-frozen ground, but then, still reeling from coming into contact with her first serial killer, she is attacked and injured. Now she and Tolliver have no choice but to stay in Doraville while she recovers, and as she reluctantly becomes part of the investigation, she learns more than she cares to about the dark mysteries and long-hidden secrets of the town: knowledge that makes her the most likely person to be next to end up in an ice-cold grave.

I love the Harper Connelly series... I think Charlaine Harris has the most relateable paranormal heroes in her books. Love them all.

Read for the 52 Book Club Challenge.
Prompt 45: First word in the book is “The”

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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‘Salem’s Lot - Stephen King

'Salem's Lot is a small New England town with the usual quota of gossips, drinkers, weirdos and respectable folk. Of course there are tales of strange happenings - but not more than in any other town its size.

Ben Mears, a moderately successful writer, returns to the Lot to write a novel based on his early years, and to exorcise the terrors that have haunted him since childhood. The event he witnessed in the house now rented by a new resident. A newcomer with a strange allure. A man who causes Ben some unease as things start to happen: a child disappears, a dog is brutally killed - nothing unusual, except the list starts to grow.

Soon surprise will turn to bewilderment, bewilderment to confusion and finally to terror . . .

'Salem's Lot was the very first vampire book I read, and I loved it. I think it has been about 20 years since I'd last read it until this week. I enjoyed it tremendously again!

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Prompt 38: A book you read more than 10 years ago.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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The Sun Down Motel - Simone St. James

Upstate NY, 1982. Every small town like Fell, New York, has a place like the Sun Down Motel. Some customers are from out of town, passing through on their way to someplace better. Some are locals, trying to hide their secrets. Viv Delaney works as the night clerk to pay for her move to New York City. But something isn't right at the Sun Down, and before long she's determined to uncover all of the secrets hidden there.

Upstate NY, 2017. Carly Kirk has always been fascinated by her aunt Viv who disappeared from the Sun Down before Carly was born. Using a small inheritance from when her mom dies, Carly leaves college to go to Fell to figure out what happened to her aunt thirty-five years ago. Soon, Carly is mirroring her aunt's life, working as the night clerk at the motel, which hasn't changed since 1982. The guest book is still handwritten, the rooms still have actual keys, and a haunting presence still lingers. Carly discovers that Viv had been trying to unravel mysteries of her own - including a possible serial killer working in Fell. If Carly can find the answers Viv was searching for, she might be able to solve the mystery that has haunted her family for years.

Really enjoyed this!

Read for the 52 Book Club Challenge.
Prompt 50: Related to the word “Murder”.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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The Hidden Palace - Helene Wecker

Chava is a golem, a woman made of clay, who can hear the thoughts and longings of those around her and feels compelled by her nature to help them. Ahmad is a jinni, a restless creature of fire, once free to roam the desert but now imprisoned in the shape of a man. Fearing they’ll be exposed as monsters, these magical beings hide their true selves and try to pass as human—just two more immigrants in the bustling world of 1900s Manhattan. Brought together under calamitous circumstances, their lives are now entwined—but they’re not yet certain of what they mean to each other.

Both Chava and Ahmad have changed the lives of the people around them. Park Avenue heiress Sophia Winston, whose brief encounter with Ahmad left her with a strange illness that makes her shiver with cold, travels to the Middle East to seek a cure. There she meets Dima, a tempestuous female jinni who’s been banished from her tribe. Back in New York, in a tenement on the Lower East Side, a little girl named Kreindel helps her rabbi father build a golem they name Yossele—not knowing that she’s about to be sent to an orphanage uptown, where the hulking Yossele will become her only friend and protector.

Spanning the tumultuous years from the turn of the twentieth century to the beginning of World War I, The Hidden Palace follows these lives and others as they collide and interleave. Can Chava and Ahmad find their places in the human world while remaining true to each other? Or will their opposing natures and desires eventually tear them apart—especially once they encounter, thrillingly, other beings like themselves?

When I saw there was a sequel toThe Golem and the Djinni, I immediately bought it and started reading. Wecker has written two incredible novels!

Read for the 52 Book Club Challenge.
Prompt 34: Featuring mythology.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Pan’s Labyrinth - Guillermo Del Toro & Cornelia Funke

In fairy tales, there are men and there are wolves, there are beasts and dead parents, there are girls and forests.

Ofelia knows all this, like any young woman with a head full of stories. And she sees right away what the Capitán is, in his immaculate uniform, boots and gloves, smiling: a wolf.

But nothing can prepare her for the fevered reality of the Capitán's eerie house, in the midst of a dense forest which conceals many things: half-remembered stories of lost babies; renegade resistance fighters hiding from the army; a labyrinth; beasts and fairies.

There is no one to keep Ofelia safe as the labyrinth beckons her into her own story, where the monstrous and the human are inextricable, where myths pulse with living blood ...

This is a weird book - but not surprisingly as it's thought up by Guillermo Del Toro. I enjoyed it, but prefered one of his other creations: The Shape of Water.

Read for the PopSugar 2023 Reading Challenge.
Prompt 42: A book based on a popular movie.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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