RoroblusMumReadsReviews/Rants

4* Been waiting for this one for a few years, and it didn't disappoint.  This book isn't the first Sci-fi tale from BE, but it's definitely unique - what sweet, lovely Joe is forced to do will make your eyes water, both times, and yes, he's tortured by it, but his instinct to live, by whatever means possible, means that it's inevitable. And, I think the part of him he left behind, definitely did its thing along the way for Kaden.  I don't know who I liked more. Gentle Kaden with his great dad and a great relationship with his dad, or lovely Joe who literally had no one and nothing to his name. I know who I didn't like - the ex, but for once, him not getting Scorpio-level-satisfaction comeuppance sat OK with me. I was hoping he wouldn't turn even more dastardly with the hitchhikers he'd picked up, but nope, Marmite  al rescate!   The book ends well, many years down the line. The boys are happy cat slaves. Joe's brain is helping him help humanity, ...

2* Has too many things going on, and nothing felt entirely believable. I've not read a GM book since his horror heyday, and probably shouldn't have bothered with this. The female lead is supposedly in a happy relationship with a judge, but gets into bed naked with a female subordinate, and doesn't hesitate to make a move on her before belatedly coming to her senses - this is despite just having reassured the judge that if she commits to marrying him, she'll be faithful. Hmm. Then there's the nursing home with the strange vibes and the residents forced to rewrite their wills in favour of the owners, under actual torture. With the aid of a corrupt solicitor. How was this not spotted by the regulators? How were the repeat deaths not considered suspicious? Do Irish authorities not inspect care homes or do DBS checks on employees?  The PIP aspect really, really, really deserves a strong warning of graphic animal cruelty. I had to skip several pages because of this.  The ...

3.5* Good storyline, progress towards Carve-Up's comeuppance, hopefully, but...MAJOR SPOILER.......... ....Andy Maslen copped out. All the Van/Marnie stuff, all the flirting between Kat and Jack was just a big fat nothing. Don't get me wrong, I didn't want either Kat or Van to cheat, but all the bigging up, all the innuendo, all the butterflies, and it was resolved with: THEIR MARRIAGE WAS FINE. MARNIE WAS JUST A HARMLESS, IF DETERMINED, FLIRT - LIKE JACK. SHE FOUND, WITH A SENSE OF RELIEF, THAT SHE DIDN’T EVEN THINK OF HIM THAT WAY NOW THAT HANNAH WANTED TO MAKE A PLAY FOR HIM. So yeah, twee and not-believable avoidance. And yet just pages before, there'd been mention of Van maybe not believing her protests about Jack. Hmm. Titillation for nothing.  The Hannah character stole the show. There's already a massive spoiler in this review, so I won't add another, but she kicked arse. Her neurodivergence worked, and it was great to see Carve-Up humiliated.  The Under...

4* Well executed but loses that 1* for me as the reveal of the actual baddie didn't feel believable, nor did the SOCOs attending the house and not spotting a phone was on charge...won't spoiler here, but yeah, a bit of a big one to swallow.  This is a well-done tale with several characters who could've been the killer/s, and events that felt sufficiently murky from 35 years ago, to make the then-story work well with the reveals in the now. I'm not sure that IRL the male detective - I've forgotten his name - would've been allowed to investigate events, given his connections with cases past and present, so that was a big suspension of disbelief ask of me. I managed it.  The detective work was good, aided by today's technology but British policing doesn't work at the speed that was described here, especially where budgets are concerned, and more so, where permission from local councils and use of GPR come into it.  Still, a decent tale not bogged down by pe...

3.5* Much improved writing and editing.  This follows on from A Body In The Forest, and you do need to read the predecessor so as not to be lost in this tale. Someone at Joffe has been hard at work weeding out all the editing issues and making a smoother read, so this was much easier to get into.  Some of the writing still isn't the clearest, such as why a character was expecting Samantha and didn't query why instead they were meeting Sam, a different person, nor why Sam took food to meet said person. Those bits were never explained.  The tale was in parts sad and in parts, shocking. Poor Sam. Poor Emmi. Poor dad. Poor mum. And some of the crimes were a bit farfetched for rural Wales, but you hsve to go with the flow. The trafficking storyline faded out a bit too conveniently, I suspect because there's no way to really bring that to a satisfactory conclusion where justice is done, but I rolled my eyes and went on. Is this the end of the line for the series? I think it's...

3* Kind of predictable but an OK read. Slightly unpalatable at the end.  This is short and works because of today's culture of everything online. Some of it needed a bit of suspension of disbelief, because organisations don't work that quickly irl, but the theory is doable. What I didn't like is that none of the characters had any personality.  ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Amazon Original Stories, for my reading pleasure.