RoroblusMumReadsReviews/Rants

 3* Misses the mark due to uninteresting and unlikeable main characters. The 2 besties are great, though.  I've only read Always You and Me by this author, a book that had me in tears at the start and end. It set a really high bar that unfortunately this book couldn't reach for many reasons, the main 2 of which are in the review title.  So, the male lead, despite being a dad, was pretty boring and a bit of a wallflower. I really couldn't see him despite the many mentions of startling green eyes and the lightning 'tattoo'. He seemed blind to his ex's machinations, and to the ex's BFF's machinations, and fell for the fake illness episode they concocted. No questions asked. Hmm.  The female lead seemed unemotional and selfish, ghosting her best friends for 9 months until she decided she needed to make changes to her life. Why they gave her the time of day was beyond me, because the author didn't tell us a single likeable thing about her. Just that her h...

 5* Good catch-up with the characters, although a sad tale.  I'm not sure how much time has lapsed since the previous book, but Jayden and Cat have a 1yo son and a 3yo daughter now. An former teen love is trying to become a more permanent fixture in Ally's life, but she's still stuck on her late husband Bill, and there's her good old friend Gus, who's finally stopped talking about finishing his novel and has gotten there, and is doing edits. Add in DS Mullins and the café owner whose name I forget, and the same characters all muck in to make a going tale. Even Mullins's 'I hate the Shell House detectives' boss seems a tad more likeable and on-board.  There's a sad tale of inheritance, of trying to right 'wrongs'; of living with PTSD and loss; of dysfunctional families; of the price of war; of betrayal by a loved one - or more - and lies. The dovetailing is excellent and the flawed but understandably so characters, I warmed to. Except one who ...

 4* Decent, if predictable. Violent guy in private, suave operator in public, commits suicide because his ponzi scheme is about to unravel and he can't face it. Supposedly. The abused wife takes herself off and makes a quiet life for herself, until a year on, life isn't so quiet anymore.  It's not badly done, with enough suspense and build-up but it's very predictable on her name change, not being in witness protection, the lodger she takes in, the things that start to appear. She doesn't even have the common sense to change her locks once she's spooked, resulting in the death of someone looking out for her. And there's time for a new romance. Hmm.  A decent one-time read. ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Storm Publishing for my reading pleasure. 

5* Not a book with nice characters you feel for, but flippin' eck, what a good murder-mystery with twists and reveals I didn't see coming. This isn't a book with a single character that I liked, cared about or empathised with. It's told from Courtney's POV for the most - she's the sister and sister-in-law of the so-far vics; mother to Cass and wife to Elliott, and possibly once an 'the other woman', as he was married when he met her. It's revealed that she doesn't trust him, and I was really hoping that lawyer-him would be clever enough to know that and confront her.  The second person whose voice we hear is spoilt, woe-is-me and my 1st-world problems, whiny, bitchy, unpleasant, selfish, with anger issues Reese, 'like the candy'. She's a piece of work who's lucky not to end up being raped or killed, though she's not clever enough to fully embrace that. The tale itself is well done. Little reveals about the characters make you ...

3* it almost felt like this tale was more about the female lead's libido and closure on the failed marriage than the blurb. And goodness, the woman barely showered! This is readable but the female lead isn't likeable and being in her head is tiresome. She's a lot me, me, me and she doesn't deserve Sebastien after cheating on him with her ex. Yes, she does come clean and he's understanding of it, expecting of it, almost, but ick.  She's paranoid, I'd say, not with the good instincts that the book tries to make you think, with reason. Her sleuthing at the end is what results in a tragedy, but she doesn't seem all that bothered by it. The result is that she discovers her daughter's killer's identity but it feels quite a bit of a stretch and quite weak after a tale with several red herrings. An OK read but not what I was expecting. 

4* Good red herrings in a tale with multiple characters, any number of which could've killed the awful Ellen.  Ellen seems to be a very twisted Hyacinth Bucket-type character; keeping tabs on everyone and their - in her eyes, misdemeanours - making threats; interfering in their business; reporting them; spreading rumours and more. We don't fully learn what motivates her, as she's killed in the first few pages. She seems to have been a half-decent sleuth, with a very unchristian heart, sadly. Did she deserve her ending? For most of the tale I thought she did, but when the killer was revealed, perhaps Ellen had been trying to do a form of...not quite good, maybe, but the right thing? I mean, she'd have still had an ego boost out of it had she succeeded in unmasking the killer, but some people got the closure they needed after far too many years.  The characters in this were decent as was most of the police work. I'm not sure that some of the police should've been ...