This Week in Books is a feature hosted by Lipsy at Lipsyy Lost and Found that allows bloggers to share:

• What they’ve recently finished reading
• What they are currently reading
• What they are planning to read next

The last book I finished reading was Dunbar by Edward St Aubyn, which is part of the Hogarth Shakespeare Project.

Henry Dunbar, the once all-powerful head of a global media corporation, is not having a good day.  In his dotage he handed over care of the corporation to his two eldest daughters, Abby and Megan.  But relations quickly soured, leaving him to doubt the wisdom of past decisions.

Now imprisoned in a care home in the Lake District with only a demented alcoholic comedian as company, Dunbar starts planning his escape.  As he flees into the hills, his family is hot on his heels.  Who will find him first, his beloved youngest daughter, Florence, or the tigresses Abby and Megan, so keen to divest him of his estate?

My current read is Now You See Her by Heidi Perks which I’ve just started, but that is already off to a great start.

Charlotte is looking after her best friend’s daughter the day she disappears.  She thought the little girl was playing with her own children.  She swears she only took her eyes off them for a second.

Now, Charlotte must do the unthinkable: tell her best friend Harriet that her only child is missing.  The child she was meant to be watching.

Devastated, Harriet can no longer bear to see Charlotte.  No one could expect her to trust her friend again.

Only now she needs to.  Because two weeks later Harriet and Charlotte are both being questioned separately by the police.  And secrets are about to surface.

Someone is hiding the truth about what really happened to Alice.

My next read will probably be The Killing of Butterfly Joe by Rhidian Brook.

‘I killed Joe once, in a manner of speaking.  But not twice.  Not in the way you mean.’

Llew Jones wanted to see the States and write about the experience.  Then he met Joe Bosco, a butterfly salesman as charismatic as he is infuriating, and they were soon hurtling across 1980s America together, caught up in an adventure that got way, way out of control.  Now Llew is in jail, his friend is gone, and he has to give his side of the story if he’s ever going to get free…

Part existential road trip, part neo-gothic thriller, part morality tale, The Killing of Butterfly Joe by Rhidian Brook is a dazzling and propulsive novel full of characters you’ll never forget.  An epic story of friendship, desire, and participating in the Great American Dream – ‘the one that leads from rags to riches via pitches’ – whatever the consequences.

And that’s my week in books! What are you reading this week?  Let me know in the comments! 😎

This Week in Books is a feature hosted by Lipsy at Lipsyy Lost and Found that allows bloggers to share:

• What they’ve recently finished reading
• What they are currently reading
• What they are planning to read next

The last book I finished reading was Suicide Club by Rachel Heng, which I absolutely loved!  I posted my review of this wonderful new dysptoia yesterday.

What are you doing to help yourself? What are you doing to show that you’re worth the resources?

In a near-future world, medical technology has progressed far enough that immortality is now within grasp -but only to those who show themselves to be deserving of it. These people are the lifers: the exercisers, yogacisers, green juicers and early nighters.

Genetically perfect, healthy and wholesome, one hundred-year-old Lea is the poster girl for lifers, until the day she catches a glimpse of her father in the street, eighty-eight years after their last encounter. While pursuing him, Lea has a brush with death which sparks suspicions. If Lea could be so careless, is she worthy of immortality?

Suicide Club wasn’t always an activist group. It began as a set of disillusioned lifers, gathering to indulge in forbidden activities: performances of live music, artery-clogging meals, irresponsible orgies. But now they have been branded terrorists and are hunted by the state.

And Lea has decided to give them a call.

My current read is Trust No One by Anthony Mosawi.

THEY FOUND HER WHEN SHE WAS TEN.

Locked in a sensory-deprivation tank.  Trapped for days in the dark.  Listening to the same message over and over: ‘My name is Sara Eden.  My name is Sara Eden’.

Her memory gone, this is all Sara knows about herself.

There were a handful of clues.  A battered necklace.  A few scraps of paper.  And a Polaroid of a stranger with a handwritten note: ‘Don’t trust this man’.

Now an adult, Sara knows a few more things.

That the government agents pursuing her will never stop.  And that the only path to her identity is to find the man she must not trust.  But there is something else in Sara’s past that is more dangerous, more deadly, than her pursuers.  And the only thing she knows for certain is that she must TRUST NO ONE.

My next read will be A Noise Downstairs by Linwood Barclay.

EVERY STEP…

Paul Davis forgets things – he gets confused, he has sudden panic attacks.  But he wasn’t always like this.

TAKES YOU CLOSER…

Eight months ago, Paul found two dead bodies in the back of a co-worker’s car.  He was attacked, left for dead, and has been slowly recovering ever since.  His wife tries her best but fears the worst…

TO THE TRUTH…

Therapy helps during the days, but at night he hears things – impossible things – that no one else can.  That nobody else believes.  Either he’s losing his mind – or someone wants him to think he is.

Just because he’s paranoid doesn’t mean it’s not happening…

And that’s my week in books! What are you reading this week?  Let me know in the comments! 😎

This Week in Books is a feature hosted by Lipsy at Lipsyy Lost and Found that allows bloggers to share:

• What they’ve recently finished reading
• What they are currently reading
• What they are planning to read next

The last book I finished reading was Call of the Curlew by Elizabeth Brooks which I reviewed for the blog tour on Monday.

Virginia Wrathmell has always known she will meet her death on the marsh.

One snowy New Year’s Eve, at the age of eighty-six, Virginia feels the time has finally come.

New Year’s Eve, 1939. Virginia is ten, an orphan arriving to meet her new parents at their mysterious house, Salt Winds. Her new home sits on the edge of a vast marsh, a beautiful but dangerous place. War feels far away out here amongst the birds and shifting sands – until the day a German fighter plane crashes into the marsh. The people at Salt Winds are the only ones to see it.

What happens next is something Virginia will regret for the next seventy-five years, and which will change the whole course of her life.

My current read is When I Find You by Emma Curtis, which I am loving so far!  My review will be posted on Friday for the blog tour.

What do you do when someone takes advantage of your greatest weakness?

When Laura wakes up after her office Christmas party and sees a man’s shirt on the floor, she is horrified. But this is no ordinary one-night-stand regret.

Laura suffers from severe face-blindness, a condition that means she is completely unable to identify and remember faces. So the man she spent all night dancing with and kissing – the man she thought she’d brought home – was ‘Pink Shirt’.

But the shirt on her floor is blue.

And now Laura must go to work every day, and face the man who took advantage of her condition. The man she has no way of recognising.

She doesn’t know who he is . . . but she’ll make him pay.

My next read will be Suicide Club by Rachel Heng, which sounds very much like my kind of read!

What are you doing to help yourself? What are you doing to show that you’re worth the resources?

In a near-future world, medical technology has progressed far enough that immortality is now within grasp -but only to those who show themselves to be deserving of it. These people are the lifers: the exercisers, yogacisers, green juicers and early nighters.

Genetically perfect, healthy and wholesome, one hundred-year-old Lea is the poster girl for lifers, until the day she catches a glimpse of her father in the street, eighty-eight years after their last encounter. While pursuing him, Lea has a brush with death which sparks suspicions. If Lea could be so careless, is she worthy of immortality?

Suicide Club wasn’t always an activist group. It began as a set of disillusioned lifers, gathering to indulge in forbidden activities: performances of live music, artery-clogging meals, irresponsible orgies. But now they have been branded terrorists and are hunted by the state.

And Lea has decided to give them a call.

And that’s my week in books! What are you reading this week?  Let me know in the comments!

This Week in Books is a feature hosted by Lipsy at Lipsyy Lost and Found that allows bloggers to share:

• What they’ve recently finished reading
• What they are currently reading
• What they are planning to read next

The last book I finished reading was For the Immortal, the final instalment in Emily Hauser’s Golden Apple Trilogy.  My review will be posted as part of the blog tour later this month.

Thousands of years ago, in an ancient world where the gods control all and heroes fight to have their names remembered down the ages, two extraordinary women become entangled in one of the greatest heroic tales of all time… and must face how much they are willing to risk for immortality.

Desperate to save her dying brother, Admete persuades her father, the king of Tiryns, to let her join Hercules on one of his legendary twelve labours. Travelling to the renowned female warrior Amazons in search of a cure, Admete soon discovers that both Hercules and the fearsome Amazons are not as they first seemed.

The Amazons greet the arrival of the Greeks with mixed feelings – and none more so than Hippolyta, the revered queen of the tribe. For Hercules and his band of fighters pose a threat to her way of life – but also stir up painful memories that threaten to expose her deepest secret.

As battle lines are drawn between the Greeks and the Amazons, both women soon learn the inevitable truth – in war, sacrifices must be made; especially if they are to protect the ones they love most…

My current read is The Lost Letters of William Woolf, which I’ve only just started, but I’m already loving!

Lost letters have only one hope for survival…

Inside the Dead Letters Depot in East London, William Woolf is one of thirty letter detectives who spend their days solving mysteries: missing postcodes, illegible handwriting, rain-smudged ink, lost address labels, torn packages, forgotten street names – they are all the culprits of missed birthdays, broken hearts, unheard confessions, pointless accusations, unpaid bills and unanswered prayers.

When William discovers letters addressed simply to ‘My Great Love’ his work takes on new meaning. Written by a woman to a soulmate she hasn’t met yet, the missives stir William in ways he didn’t know were possible. Soon he begins to wonder: Could William be her great love?

William must follow the clues in Winter’s letters to solve his most important mystery yet: the human heart.

My next read will probably be Alone Time by Stephanie Rosenbloom.  I say probably because I tried planning my reading list for the next few weeks at the weekend, and I’d deviated from said plan before the day was out.

Travelling with friends and family is usually thought of as a privilege. In theory, anyway. In practice, it’s more often about debating which sights to see, panicking over diminishing phone batteries and bickering over what to eat. Not much joy in that. But alone you can do as you please. You can wander markets, relish silence, go to a park. Go to Paris. Why not?

In Alone Time, New York Times travel columnist Stephanie Rosenbloom travels alone in four seasons to four remarkable cities – Paris, Istanbul, Florence and New York – exploring the sensory experience of solitude. Along the way she illuminates the psychological arguments for alone time, revealing that whether you recognize it or not, it’s good to be alone now and then.

This is a book about the pleasures and benefits of savouring the moment, examining things closely, using all your senses to take in your surroundings, whether travelling to faraway places or walking the streets of your own city. Through on-the-ground observations and anecdotes, and drawing on the thinking of artists, writers and innovators who have cherished solitude, Alone Time lays bare the magic of going solo.

And that’s my week in books! What are you reading this week?  Let me know in the comments!

This Week in Books is a feature hosted by Lipsy at Lipsyy Lost and Found that allows bloggers to share:

• What they’ve recently finished reading
• What they are currently reading
• What they are planning to read next

The last book I finished reading was Hunted by G. X. Todd, which I really enjoyed – my review will be up soon!

The birds are flying. The birds are flocking. The birds sense the red skies are coming.

One man is driven by an inner voice that isn’t his – this Other is chewing at his sanity like a jackal with a bone and has one purpose.

To find the voice hiding in the girl.

She has no one to defend her now.

But in an inn by the sea, a boy with no tongue and no voice gathers his warriors. Albus must find the girl, Lacey . . . before the Other does.

And finish the work his sister Ruby began.

Hunted is the second book in the acclaimed Voices series, where the battle between Good and Evil holds you in its vice-like grip.

#HearTheVoices

My current read is The Old You by Louise Voss which I’m reading as part of the blog tour.

Nail-bitingly modern domestic noir.

A tense, Hitchcockian psychological thriller.

Louise Voss returns with her darkest, most chilling, novel yet…

Lynn Naismith gave up the job she loved when she married Ed, the love of her life, but it was worth it for the happy years they enjoyed together. Now, ten years on, Ed has been diagnosed with early-onset dementia, and things start to happen; things more sinister than missing keys and lost words. As some memories are forgotten, others, long buried, begin to surface … and Lynn’s perfect world begins to crumble.

But is it Ed’s mind playing tricks, or hers…?

My next read will be Sympathy by Olivia Sudjic, which I picked up at last year’s Hay Festival, and has just been released in paperback.

An electrifying novel of blood ties, online identities, and our tormented efforts to connect in the digital age.

At twenty-three, Alice Hare leaves England for New York. She falls in love with Manhattan, and becomes fixated on Mizuko Himura, an intriguing Japanese writer whose life has strange parallels to her own.

As Alice closes in on Mizuko, her ‘internet twin’, realities multiply and fact and fiction begin to blur. The relationship between the two women exposes a tangle of lies and sexual encounters. Three families collide as Alice learns that the swiftest answer to an ancient question – where do we come from? – can now be found online.

And that’s my week in books! What are you reading this week?  Let me know in the comments!

This Week in Books is a feature hosted by Lipsy at Lipsyy Lost and Found that allows bloggers to share:

• What they’ve recently finished reading
• What they are currently reading
• What they are planning to read next

The last book I finished was My Sweet Friend by H. A Leuschel – a wonderful novella that I read in a single sitting.

A perfect friend … or a perfect impostor?

Alexa is an energetic and charismatic professional and the new member of a Parisian PR company where she quickly befriends her colleagues Rosie and Jack. She brings a much-needed breath of fresh air into the office and ambitiously throws herself into her new job and friendships.

But is Alexa all she claims to be?

As her life intertwines with Rosie and Jack’s, they must all decide what separates truth from fiction. Will the stories that unfold unite or divide them? Can first impressions ever be trusted?

In this original novella, H.A. Leuschel evokes the powerful hold of appearances and what a person is prepared to do to keep up the facade. If you like thought-provoking and compelling reads with intriguing characters, My Sweet Friend is for you.

My current read is The Retreat by Mark Edwards – I’m really enjoying this creepy novel so far!

A missing child. A desperate mother. And a house full of secrets.

Two years ago, Julia lost her family in a tragic accident. Her husband drowned trying to save their daughter, Lily, in the river near their rural home. But the little girl’s body was never found—and Julia believes Lily is somehow still alive.

Alone and broke, Julia opens her house as a writers’ retreat. One of the first guests is Lucas, a horror novelist, who becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to Lily. But within days of his arrival, the peace of the retreat is shattered by a series of eerie events.

When Lucas’s investigation leads him and Julia into the woods, they discover a dark secret—a secret that someone will do anything to protect…

What really happened that day by the river? Why was Lily never found? And who, or what, is haunting the retreat?

From the bestselling author of Follow You Home and The Magpies comes his most terrifying novel yet.

My next read will be Hunted by G. X. Todd, the follow on to the absolutely brilliant Defender.

The birds are flying. The birds are flocking. The birds sense the red skies are coming.

One man is driven by an inner voice that isn’t his – this Other is chewing at his sanity like a jackal with a bone and has one purpose.

To find the voice hiding in the girl.

She has no one to defend her now.

But in an inn by the sea, a boy with no tongue and no voice gathers his warriors. Albus must find the girl, Lacey . . . before the Other does.

And finish the work his sister Ruby began.

Hunted is the second book in the acclaimed Voices series, where the battle between Good and Evil holds you in its vice-like grip.

#HearTheVoices

And that’s my week in books! What are you reading this week?  Let me know in the comments!

This Week in Books is a feature hosted by Lipsy at Lipsyy Lost and Found that allows bloggers to share:

• What they’ve recently finished reading
• What they are currently reading
• What they are planning to read next

The last book I finished reading was Bring Me Back by B. A. Paris which I won in a giveaway from the lovely Eva @ Novel Deelights.  This was a fun read, although I did guess the twist quite early on…

The Disappearance

Twelve years ago Finn’s girlfriend disappeared.

The Suspicion

He told the police the truth about that night.

Just not quite the whole truth.

The Fear

Now Finn has moved on.

But his past won’t stay buried…

My current read is The Man on the Middle Floor by Elizabeth S. Moore.

Despite living in the same three-flat house in the suburbs of London, the residents are strangers to one another.  The bottom floor is home to Tam, a recent ex-cop who spends his days drowning his sorrows in whisky.  On the middle floor is Nick, a young man with Asperger’s who likes to stick to his schedules and routines.  The top floor belongs to Karen, a doctor and researcher who has spent her life trying to understand the rising rates of autism.  They have lived their lives separately, until now, when an unsolved murder and the man on the middle floor connect them all together.  Told from three points of view, The Man on the Middle Floor is about disconnection in all its forms; sexual, physical, parental and emotional.  It questions whether society is meeting the needs of the fast growing autistic section of society, or exacerbating it.

My next read is likely to be Keeper by Johana Gustawsson.

Whitechapel, 1888: London is bowed under Jack the Ripper’s reign of terror.

London, 2015: actress Julianne Bell is abducted in a case similar to the terrible Tower Hamlets murders of some ten years earlier, and harking back to the Ripper killings of a century before.

Falkenberg, Sweden, 2015: a woman’s body is found mutilated in a forest, her wounds identical to those of the Tower Hamlets victims.  With the man arrested for the Tower Hamlets crimes already locked up, do the new killings mean he has a dangerous accomplice, or is a copy-cat serial killer on the loose?

Profiler Emily Roy and true-crime writer Alexis Castells again find themselves drawn into an intriguing case, with personal links that turn their world upside down. Following the highly acclaimed Block 46 and guaranteed to disturb and enthral, Keeper is a breathless thriller from the new queen of French Noir.

And that’s my week in books! What are you reading this week?  Let me know in the comments!