Book Review: Courtney Summers - The Project (published in 2021)

 

I don't know why but when I read a book by Courtney Summers it takes me a while to really understand what I'm reading. I'm going to be re-reading [book:Sadie|34810320] to see what it is about her writing that is confusing me a bit. 

 

That having been said, once I got into it. I was fully into it, hard-hitting feels and all. 

 

This book is about two sisters. After Lo's parents die her sister Bea joins the Unity Project. Lo spends years trying to prove her gut-feeling that there's something wrong with The Project and its leader Lev, especially when her sister breaks off all contact with her. 

 

The cult-like religion is well-loved in the region though and she can't find anything concrete, until a man walks into the office of the magazine she works for to let them know that his son has been killed by The Project. This fuels Lo's passion to dive into the subject matter to find out what has happened to her sister for once and for all. 

 

Prepare to be shocked and amazed several times. I thought I could kind of foresee what would happen at the end, but I was wrong. Boy, was I wrong. 

 

Lo is a great conflicted character to be following. She has lived through intense trauma after surviving the car accident that killed her parents; that in combination with being abandoned by her sister brings on an interesting vengeful spirit. It's difficult to read between the lines of her emotions and the truth.

 

The only thing I didn't fully enjoy was the cult/religion element. This is what most people will love when they pick this book up, but I've seen too many documentaries and TV series about this subject recently. I'm happy to report that even if you're a bit "cult-sick" it's still worth the read.  

 

I think a lot of people will like this book and rightfully so. 

 

Many thanks to the publisher St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for providing me with a review copy!

4 stars

Statistics:

Date read: December 22, 2020

Date published: February 2, 2020

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Format: eBook

Pages: 345

Genre: Mystery/Thriller/Horror

My Number of Books Read by this Author: 2

Goodreads

 

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Book Review: Suzanne Redfearn - Hadley and Grace (published in 2021)

 

Suzanne Redfearn has done it again people! She has completely obliterated me with one of her stories. 

I went into Hadley & Grace thinking it couldn't be as good as In An Instant. I mean Thelma & Louise is a movie from the 90s, the story about two renegade ladies running lose in the USA has been done and told and frankly the concept is a bit outdated. 

 

Luckily, Redfearn realised this and changed Hadley & Grace enough to make it current. Apart from that, she makes it so that the story takes a hold of you and doesn't let go. Let me talk about the plot first. 

 

Hadley's husband Frank is a very bad man and father (to put it mildly). Hadley who has been nothing but obedient the last 15 years decides that enough is enough and sees her chance to escape from him with her 14 year old daughter Mattie and her sister's son Skipper. She knows Frank has some money lying around his office so that's the first place she goes. There she runs into Grace, a disgruntled employee who also decides to take Frank's money and run away with her baby boy Miles. 

 

These two ladies have nothing in common, but their fates intertwine on the day they decide to rob Frank. What they didn't know though is that the FBI has had their eyes on Frank's money as well. They end up not just running from Frank but also from the FBI. 

 

This is a road trip story, but really it's more about the characters then about the scenery. I like to travel, and I wasn't inspired once to check out where they were going, I was too immersed in the stories of the two heroines and their kids. I found out in the author's note that Redfearn based Skipper on a real person, I'm not surprised because he felt so real to me. All other characters are well-rounded; Mattie is a real teenager with troubled feelings and Grace and Hadley make decisions and choices that fit their personalities. 

 

The last thing I want to mention is this: Have you ever felt like a scene in a novel or film was so frustratingly heart breaking that you feel it's unnecessary, but it's still good? That's what I have with this book. My heart broke, I felt it was not needed I could've thought of so many other ways this story could end, but I understand it. I think I can find it in my heart to forgive Redfearn. 

 

Many thanks to the publisher for providing me with a review copy!

5 stars

Statistics:

Date read: December 15, 2020

Date published: February 1, 2021

Publisher: Lake Union Publishing

Format: eBook

Pages: 347

Genre: Contemporary

My Number of Books Read by this Author: 2

Goodreads

 

Book Review: C.J. Tudor - The Burning Girls (published in 2021)

 

I picked up the latest C.J Tudor against my better judgment. I read The Chalk Man in 2018 and I left a scathing review for it on Goodreads. I read the synopsis of The Other People and The Hiding Place and decided to skip them. 

 

In short, I was hesitant to pick up another novel by C.J. Tudor. 

 

Along came The Burning Girls which will be released in 2021. I have to be honest here and I was rueing my decision to request it from the publisher who kindly provided a copy to me. I was armed with apprehension and reasons why I wouldn't like it started to stack up as the novel picked up. 

 

The novel is about Jack Brooks, a single parent and unconventional vicar who moves to a small town in the English countryside with teenage daughter Flo. Jack is escaping life in Nottingham where a whole lot has happened that we will uncover throughout the novel. 

 

However, this isn't some sleepy town either. Jack unwittingly moves into a community where two girls have gone missing 30 years ago, and where protestant martyrs were burned five hundred years ago. The more Jack and Flo get acquainted with the town and its history, the deeper they are drawn into its mysteries. 

 

Tana French wrote a really slow-burning novel about a small town in the Irish countryside this year called The Searcher. The Burning Girls is nothing like that. No pun intended but it burns with a passion. 

 

C.J. Tudor tries to cram a lot of subjects into this 300 page novel. I tried to keep track but I might have missed a few: exorcism as misogyny, mental illness, addiction, child abuse, the church and its inner workings, nature vs nurture, racism, homosexuality. That's not it, because the plot also contains a lot of different mysteries and every character has a backstory which contains some kind of death. 

 

I thought I was in this novel to dislike it.  Imagine my surprise when I crossed the 75% mark and found myself enthralled by the plot while the mysteries were slowly unravelling. It turns out, the story isn't such a stretch after all and C.J. Tudor has weaved it all nicely together. 

 

I ended up enjoying the overall experience, which goes to show that you should really give authors another try even if you disliked one of their novels. They might surprise you after all. 

 

This novel isn't really for the faint of heart, but those who like fast-paced mysteries with a few unexpected reveals might enjoy this read. 

Many thanks to the publisher Penguin Michael Joseph UK and Netgalley for providing me with a review copy!

3.5 stars

Statistics:

Date read: December 7, 2020

Date published: January 21, 2021

Publisher: Penguin Michael Joseph UK

Format: eBook

Pages: 304

Genre: Mystery/Thriller/Horror

My Number of Books Read by this Author: 2

Goodreads