RoroblusMumReadsReviews/Rants

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.

3.5* The title was too much of a giveaway of the storyline. Decent read but no surprises, except for Natalie. This is a decent read but there were no surprises about it. Names, events, hsppenings, characters, were all a bit clunky and plonked-in, rather than blending in. I figured out who the bad guys were just from the mention of 10 years. And all the body parts that Cam's dad had been collecting for years. The only kind of nice thing about the tale was that life goes on. Natalie was a surprise, and even when her life as a kid was mentioned, I wasn't sure where she was going - prostitution was what jumped to mind. The book ends well. There's life for more than I expected, although with social media, VPNs and the likes, it could've been happier for many more people. ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Storm Publishing, for my reading pleasure.

3.5* Decent intro to this author, despite a rather slow, unexciting yet it-pulled-me-in tale. I don't recall reading the blurb to this book, so it was pretty much all reveals. Done UK-style, so without faux American gloss ir bigging-up, which made it work. Was it creepy? Yes. How does someone get so evil so quickly, without anything huge enough to be their catalyst?  I'm not sure I felt for either Bella or Jade; neither had enough depth to them. Neither felt capable of real feelings - was it because of what happened to them? Because of the circumstances of their birth? If they were victims, they were very different ones. One silver spoon nepo baby, one council-house-ish, although she maybe hadn't needed to be because of the reveals.  Anyway, the ending was satisfying although I needed to suspend disbelief a bit.  ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Thomas and Mercer for my reading pleasure. 

 5* Struggling to think of a title for one of my best reads this year. It's beautifully British, believable, and it ends in a way that makes me impatient for book 3. This picks up immediately where book 1 ends, with the police and Callie trying to figure out her mentor's murder. And there's more death. Senseless death, it seems until someone presumed dead happens not to be and Blackbird comes to light. The author's drawn on some of the frankly shit, abominable, unpalatable, racist, private militia stuff that's come out in that orange twat's 2nd administration in the formerly decent US of A, now more so the plaything of said orange twat. It's only a small part of the tale but it's the thing that set things into motion, with an abuse of power - or maybe a head trip - and political lies and eventual cover-up. It's utterly believable and dovetailed.  Callie's her usual self - boozing, smoking, junk eating, but wised-up to Richard, despite her guilt a...

 4* Good, but best to re-read book 2 so as not to be lost here.  I'm glad that the romance that was a non-starter for me in both books 1 and 2 takes a back seat in this book that starts with a walk in a forest, only for Nicole, Rowan and Thor the dog to discover a serial killer's lair. And connections to Emma, Nicole's adopted daughter.  It becomes a battle against an adversary that seemingly has the upper hand, until a spectre from Emma's past is revealed. Not a scary spectre, but one that was self-serving for the most, until it decided to do the right thing, and paid the price. The red herrings and investigation are solid. There's a glimpse of Mercy and Truman, but the book sticks to the policing aspects. The romance still doesn't work for me. Nicole and Bloke kind of feel dead from the waist down in those stakes. But they're better working together, thankfully.  Emma is the heroine of this tale, and boy does that woman deserve a break. It was bad enough w...