The Night She Dissapeared by Lisa Jewell
Goodreads Blurb: 2017: 19 year old Tallulah is going out on a date, leaving her baby with her mother, Kim. Kim watches her daughter leave and, as late evening turns into night, which turns into early morning, she waits for her return. And waits. The next morning, Kim phones Tallulah’s friends who tell her that Tallulah was last seen heading to a party at a house in the nearby woods called Dark Place. She never returns.
2019: Sophie is walking in the woods near the boarding school where her boyfriend has just started work as a head-teacher when she sees a note fixed to a tree.
‘DIG HERE’ . . .
A cold case, an abandoned mansion, family trauma and dark secrets lie at the heart of Lisa Jewell’s remarkable new novel
My take: 4.25 out of 5. Is this Lisa Jewell’s best, but it is definitely up to her fabulous thriller standards. I really enjoyed this dual timeline thriller, and the twists and turns i didn’t fully see coming. You think you do and then you get surprised and taken for a loop. Highly recommend it.
The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams
Goodreads Blurb: An unforgettable and heartwarming debut about how a chance encounter with a list of library books helps forge an unlikely friendship between two very different people in a London suburb. Widower Mukesh lives a quiet life in the London Borough of Ealing after losing his beloved wife. He shops every Wednesday, goes to Temple, and worries about his granddaughter, Priya, who hides in her room reading while he spends his evenings watching nature documentaries. Aleisha is a bright but anxious teenager working at the local library for the summer when she discovers a crumpled-up piece of paper in the back of To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s a list of novels that she’s never heard of before. Intrigued, and a little bored with her slow job at the checkout desk, she impulsively decides to read every book on the list, one after the other. As each story gives up its magic, the books transport Aleisha from the painful realities she’s facing at home. When Mukesh arrives at the library, desperate to forge a connection with his bookworm granddaughter, Aleisha passes along the reading list…hoping that it will be a lifeline for him too. Slowly, the shared books create a connection between two lonely souls, as fiction helps them escape their grief and everyday troubles and find joy again.
My take: 3 out of 5. Im not really sure about this one. I really wanted to like this, and the concept is wonderful, yet i think the execution just doesn’t live up to the potential. i think There are such strong books made of reading lists and the power of books (case in point the jane Austen book club, such a strong book) that i think here I love the way the list gives the people hope and their relationship but there is not enough to be said as to how the books relate. Additionally I think it also mixes the two timelines in a very not clear way and they just seem like superfluous characters as there is not enough exposition.
Things we Save in the Fire by Katherine Center
Goodreads Blurb: Cassie Hanwell was born for emergencies. As one of the only female firefighters in her Texas firehouse, she’s seen her fair share of them, and she’s excellent at dealing with other people’s tragedies. But when her estranged and ailing mother asks her to uproot her life and move to Boston, it’s an emergency of a kind Cassie never anticipated.
The tough, old-school Boston firehouse is as different from Cassie’s old job as it could possibly be. Hazing, a lack of funding, and poor facilities mean that the firemen aren’t exactly thrilled to have a “lady” on the crew, even one as competent and smart as Cassie. Except for the handsome rookie, who doesn’t seem to mind having Cassie around. But she can’t think about that. Because she doesn’t fall in love. And because of the advice her old captain gave her: don’t date firefighters. Cassie can feel her resolve slipping…but will she jeopardize her place in a career where she’s worked so hard to be taken seriously?
My take: 4 out of 5. I really loved this book. It was a quite deep for a romance and it made me cry, it kept me on my toes and i was really invested in the characters. It is by far not predictable and tugs at all your heartstrings in all the right ways. The equivalent of a feel good, cozy up book if there was one.
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