Hi, and welcome to my Flashback Friday feature!
On the first Friday of each month, I like to look back at the books I was reading the previous year during the same month.
Please do join in if you have the time, I’d love to see your posts 🙂
A big thank you to those who already join in regularly! x
Here are my reviews from July 2024 + a link to previous July FBFs….
Unspeakable Things is a disturbing but engaging read. There’s a palpable tension throughout which made me feel very uneasy about the direction the story was going to take. I was gripped!
I worried about Cassie, her sister, and their mother, the whole way through. Her father is a very controlling and unpredictable character. He made my skin crawl, as did more than one of the other characters in this book. These are not nice people!
When local boys start going missing, I was dreading how things were going to go but I couldn’t stop reading. I needed to know.
I didn’t realise until now that this book is inspired by a true story. That makes it even more harrowing!
If you love a good psychological thriller than I’m sure you will love this one.
** According to Amazon I purchased the Kindle edition of Unspeakable Things on the 1st of December 2019 **
Inspired by a terrifying true story from the author’s hometown, a heart-pounding novel of suspense about a small Minnesota community where nothing is as quiet—or as safe—as it seems.
Cassie McDowell’s life in 1980s Minnesota seems perfectly wholesome. She lives on a farm, loves school, and has a crush on the nicest boy in class. Yes, there are her parents’ strange parties and their parade of deviant guests, but she’s grown accustomed to them.
All that changes when someone comes hunting in Lilydale.
One by one, local boys go missing. One by one, they return changed—violent, moody, and withdrawn. What happened to them becomes the stuff of shocking rumors. The accusations of who’s responsible grow just as wild, and dangerous town secrets start to surface. Then Cassie’s own sister undergoes the dark change. If she is to survive, Cassie must find her way in an adult world where every sin is justified, and only the truth is unforgivable.
I ordered a copy of The Murmurs after recently joining in with the cover reveal for book three in this series, The Howling, which will be released in September.
What a start to a series!
I became slightly obsessed with this book. It’s one of those you think about a lot when you’re not reading it and can’t wait to get back to.
Annie Jackson is a very likeable character, and I quickly found myself becoming increasingly concerned about her. Her premonitions are terrifying! Even more so for knowing that people think she is crazy when she tries to explain. I can’t even imagine where I would start to process these visions, let alone the family history that is unearthed as the story progresses. There are so many sad and shocking moments in this book I’d be surprised if anyone didn’t find it completely compelling!
A chilling tale I found extremely difficult to put down!
LOVED it!
I have already ordered book two and look forward to book three later in the year.
In the beginning there was fear.
White-hot, nerve-shredding fear.
Terrifying premonitions of deaths.
And then they started…
The Murmurs…
On the first morning of her new job at Heartfield House, a care home for the elderly, Annie Jackson wakens from a terrifying dream. And when she arrives at the home, she knows that the first old man she meets is going to die.
How she knows this is a terrifying mystery, but it is the start of horrifying premonitions … a rekindling of the curse that has trickled through generations of women in her family – a wicked gift known only as ‘the murmurs’…
With its reappearance comes an old, forgotten fear that is about to grip Annie Jackson.
And this time, it will never let go…
A compulsive gothic thriller and a spellbinding supernatural mystery about secrets and small communities, about faith, courage and self-preservation, The Murmurs is a startling and compulsive read from one of Scotland’s finest authors…
The Stranger in Room Six is a captivating story told from the point of view of Belinda and Mabel. Two very different ladies, with a considerable age gap, who have led very different lives, but now find themselves becoming friends at Sunnyside Home for the Young at Heart. Neither knows of each other’s past, to begin with, until they agree to share their secrets with each other and promise to keep each other’s confidences. I thought this was a very clever way of revealing their pasts to the reader. I was as keen as they both were to learn the next chapter of each of their stories.
Belinda is trying to move on after serving a long prison sentence for murdering her husband. She’s not the murdering type you would imagine though. Far from it. I liked her and I really felt for her.
Mabel owns the home she lives in, inherited from her aunt. She lived there as a child where she got herself involved in things she never truly understood as a teenager, during the war. Things that leave her in danger now. I really liked Mabel too. She’s a fascinating lady with a fascinating and difficult past. I found her story particularly compelling.
I thoroughly enjoyed the ladies’ chats and discovering the truths they unravel between them. I found the fact that someone was watching them from room six very unsettling and I needed to know what they were up to, why, and if Belinda and Mabel remained safe in their beds. I was well and truly hooked!
An easy five stars for me, I loved it!
** I won a paperback copy of this book via a fellow bookstagrammer’s giveaway. After I’d read it, I was approached by the publisher to join in with the blog tour, which is why I haven’t posted my review before now **
You may not know the stranger in room six. But they know everything about you.
It’s been fifteen years since Belinda was convicted of her husband’s murder. Now, she’s ready for her life to begin again, and she’s set on that happening at Sunnyside Home for the Young at Heart.
The owner, Mabel, has spent her life here. First as an evacuee during the Blitz and now as the care home’s oldest resident, Mabel has held the secrets of this house for as long as she can remember. Secrets that could kill if in the wrong hands.
But history won’t stay hidden forever and someone is onto them both. Watching and listening from room number six, they’ll stop at nothing to find out the truth.
With a past this dark, is anyone as innocent as they seem?
The Salt Path has been on my radar for ages, and I had to bump it to the top of my list in anticipation of seeing the film at the cinema. I’m so glad I finally got to read it! My Mum, and others at Book Club, have been going on about it since they read it years ago.
It absolutely deserves the recognition it has received. It’s such a fascinating, heart-wrenching, and inspiring story. I honestly can’t imagine how I would deal with the hand this couple were dealt. My heart went out to them, but I take my hat of to them at the same time.
It seems a bit harsh to say I thoroughly enjoyed their story. Probably better to say I am thoroughly inspired by their story. The pain, fatigue, hunger, and uncertainty they endure is just heart-breaking. Through it all though their love and devotion for each other shines through. Home really is where the heart is.
I did thoroughly enjoy some of the interesting people the meet along the way (especially turtle man. IYKYK!) and I was shocked by some of the negative attitudes they encounter. I was also surprised by how many people refer to them as old!! As a 47-year-old with a 50-year-old husband, I found this quite disconcerting. I’m sure we would be more then capable of walking the salt path. Not quite sure about the wild camping part or having no money for food, but I don’t think we’re ready for the scrap heap yet! Walking the salt path is now on my bucket list. Maybe if Steve retires at 55, we’ll give it a go, health permitting.
I have to say that as a Book Club we really enjoyed the film too. Six of us went together on Monday. Obviously, there is a lot of the book not included which many will no doubt say, but I always expect this otherwise these films would be about six hours long! I thought the film truly captured the essence of the story and I found it equally touching.
I’m looking forward to reading Raynor Winn’s other books, hopefully soon.
** I read the paperback edition of The Salt Path, borrowed from my Mum. Thanks Mum **
Just days after Raynor learns that Moth, her husband of 32 years, is terminally ill, their home is taken away and they lose their livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall.
Carrying only the essentials for survival on their backs, they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable journey.
The Salt Path is an honest and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.
Hi, and welcome to my Flashback Friday feature!
On the first Friday of each month, I like to look back at the books I was reading the previous year during the same month.
Please do join in if you have the time, I’d love to see your posts 🙂
A big thank you to those who already join in regularly! x
Here are my reviews from June 2024 + a link to previous June FBFs….
Safe at Home is one of Mel Sherratt’s standalone novels. I have loved every book she has published, and this one has been no exception.
Clara has had a troubled past and she battles daily with her inner demons. She just wants to be loved and accepted. To find a home where she feels safe and secure. To do some good in the world, so she can finally feel good about herself. This was never going to be easy for Clara though and my heart went out to her, especially as I got to know her better. She’s done things she’s not proud of and paid for them. I really liked her though. I was rooting for her to find peace and the life she was craving. It’s understandable that others might be wary though when they learn of her past.
Safe at Home is a highly emotional read, featuring characters you could so easily have living in your street. Struggling in ways you might never know. Mel Sherratt always manages to write flawed characters you can’t help but like, and can easily empathise with, despite what they might have done.
Character driven psychological fiction at its finest!
I was glued to my kindle, as I always am with Mel’s books.
** Many thanks to Mel Sherratt for my kindle review copy. Proud to be part of #TeamSherratt **
She just wants to belong. But some scars run too deep.
Clara’s past is never far behind—but this time, she’s determined to outrun it. Starting over as a support worker, she finds unexpected refuge in Cedric House, the home of kind-hearted widow Roberta. It feels like a second chance. Maybe even a home.
But Clara is no stranger to damage—nor to the anger simmering just beneath the surface. She’s trying: therapy, anger management, staying out of trouble.
Then everything begins to crack. A workplace confrontation. A neighbourly dispute. And the fragile peace she’s fought so hard for starts to slip through her fingers.
Safe at Home is a raw and moving portrait of a woman on the edge—craving connection, battling inner demons, and trying to prove that even the most broken people deserve a place to belong.
The only sin is betrayal…
It is the year 1715, and Thomas True has arrived on old London Bridge with a dangerous secret. One night, lost amongst the squalor of London’s hidden back streets, he finds himself drawn into the outrageous underworld of the molly houses.
Meanwhile, carpenter Gabriel Griffin struggles to hide his double life as Lotty, the molly’s stoic guard. When a young man is found murdered, he realises there is a rat amongst them, betraying their secrets to a pair of murderous Justices.
Can Gabriel unmask the traitor before they hang? Can he save hapless Thomas from peril, and their own forbidden love?
Set amidst the buried streets of Georgian London, The Betrayal of Thomas True is a brutal and devastating thriller, where love must overcome evil, and the only true sin is betrayal…
The Betrayal of Thomas True
#PaperbackEdition
Not long after we meet Nell, she recognises there is a job opportunity at Starling Villas which might just be the first step in turning her life around. She convinces the man of the house, Robin, to take her on as his live in housekeeper. Being a runaway from her foster home this feels like a huge step up for her and she begins to settle. Although the house sounds really creepy to me so I’m not sure I’d want to live and work there. As Nell starts to make progress with the house Robin’s wife turns up throwing a cat among the pigeons (to put it mildly!).
Nell is a fascinating character. I couldn’t help but feel for her, especially as the story progresses. She’s done things she isn’t proud of, just to survive. Her relationship with Joe is a complicated one, especially given their shared secrets. A secret that underpins the whole story, maintaining the tension throughout. Their foster ‘mother’ is quite the piece of work!
This is quite an unsettling read. I felt on edge, wondering what might happen next and what truths might be revealed. To say I was intrigued would be an understatement. The creepy, tense, atmosphere created is quite addictive. An extremely clever psychological thriller.
Brilliant!
** My paperback copy of Fragile was a Wishlist gift from one of my very lovely Bookstagram friends **
Nell Ballard is a runaway. A former foster child with a dark secret she is desperately trying to keep, all Nell wants is to find a place she can belong.
So when a job comes up at Starling Villas, home to the enigmatic Robin Wilder, she seizes the opportunity with both hands.
But her new lodgings may not be the safe haven that she was hoping for. Her employer lives by a set of rigid rules and she soon sees he is hiding secrets of his own.
But is Nell’s arrival at the Villas really the coincidence it seems? After all, she knows more than most how fragile people can be – and how easily they can be to break . . .
Audible Audiobook – Unabridged
Will has been waiting patiently in my Audible library since December 2021 (I listen to them in order of purchase) and this is a long one (over fifteen hours), so it’s taken me a while to get through. I have thoroughly enjoyed it though!
I love Will Smith. I LOVED The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, I love his music, and I love his films. I was interested to listen to “Will” and I wasn’t disappointed. This is a very frank and honest account of his life from childhood onwards. It’s quite the eye-opener at times!
Sometimes sad, touching, emotional, but more often than not hilarious. Highly entertaining!
I recommend to any fan.
Narrated by Will Smith.
One of the most dynamic and globally recognised entertainment forces of our time opens up fully about his life, in a brave and inspiring book that traces his learning curve to a place where outer success, inner happiness and human connection are aligned. Along the way, Will tells the story in full of one of the most amazing rides through the worlds of music and film that anyone has ever had.
Will Smith’s transformation from a fearful child in a tense West Philadelphia home to one of the biggest pop stars of his era and then one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood history, with a string of box office successes that will likely never be broken, is an epic tale of inner transformation and outer triumph, and Will tells it astonishingly well. But it’s only half the story.
Will Smith thought, with good reason, that he had won at life: not only was his own success unparalleled, his whole family was at the pinnacle of the entertainment world. Only they didn’t see it that way: they felt more like star performers in his circus, a seven-days-a-week job they hadn’t signed up for. It turned out Will Smith’s education wasn’t nearly over.
This memoir is the product of a profound journey of self-knowledge, a reckoning with all that your will can get you and all that it can leave behind. Written with the help of Mark Manson, author of the multimillion-copy best seller The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Will is the story of how one exceptional man mastered his own emotions, written in a way that can help everyone else do the same. Few of us will know the pressure of performing on the world’s biggest stages for the highest of stakes, but we can all understand that the fuel that works for one stage of our journey might have to be changed if we want to make it all the way home. The combination of genuine wisdom of universal value and a life story that is preposterously entertaining, even astonishing, puts Will the book, like its author, in a category by itself.
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