Tag: suspense

Book Review · Books

Do No Harm by Jack Jordan [BOOK REVIEW]

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Do No Harm by Jack Jordan [BOOK REVIEW]

I am so happy I had the chance to celebrate the publication of Do No Harm by Jack Jordan and be part of a huge readalong that included patient charts and heart rate monitors. Huge thank you to Tandem Collective, Simon & Schuster and Jack Jordan himself!

About The Book:

Do No Harm by Jack Jordan [BOOK REVIEW]


Pages: 432

Genre: Medical Thriller, Suspense, Mystery

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Format I read it in: Paperback, Uncorrected Proof

Rating: ★★★★★

My Thoughts:

Anna is a surgeon and quite good at her job. She is also a mother to 4-year-old Zack and is going through a divorce. She’s scheduled to do a surgery on a VIP patient, but when she gets home, her world is about to change – for the worse! Her son has been kidnapped and the only way to save him is to kill her patient on the operating table.

And in Do No Harm, this seems to be only the beginning. While we are following Anna’s point of view and her impossible options to choose from, we also get to meet Margot and Rachel. Margot works as a nurse, together with Anna, and has some financial hardships that make her do things she wouldn’t usually do. And Rachel works in the police and has her own tragedy that unable her to move forward with her life. When a lot of things start to happen, the lives of these three women will intertwine and bring out sides of them they didn’t know existed.

Through the stories of these three women, a lot of intense moments happen. This book had me glued to my seat, flipping pages and unable to stop until I finished it.

What would you do? Would you Save or Kill the Patient?

When we started the readalong for this book, we were asked to choose whether we would kill or save the patient. I’ll be honest, for me it was a straightforward and also an unpopular decision. I chose to save the patient. My thoughts at the time were that if the people that took my child had the power to blackmail me, I probably can’t save him anyways, so I might as well not lose my medical licence. However, throughout the book, I changed my decision too many times. As I read the initial circumstances of Anna’s situation, and also reading the plot twists throughout the story, my initial choice went back and forth like a ball on a tennis court.

Reading Do No Harm was such a thrill! Every chapter is suspenseful and you never know in which direction the plot is about to go next. I definitely didn’t expect the ending and even now, days after finishing the book, I am still trying to figure everything out. That’s how shocked this book made me feel.

Do No Harm is the book version of the most intense Grey’s Anatomy episode. That’s the only way I can explain this book in one sentence. It has the hospital setting, the chilling suspenseful moments and never-ending action. And on top of it all, it has a character that’s been given an impossible choice. Do No Harm is a must-read. It will get your heart rate up for sure!

About The Author:

Do No Harm by Jack Jordan [BOOK REVIEW]

Author of Anything for Her, My Girl, A Woman Scorned, Before Her Eyes, and Night by Night. My next thriller, Do No Harm, is published 26th May 2022.

Instagram: (@JackJordan_author)
www.instagram.com/jackjordan_author

Twitter: (@JackJordanBooks)
www.twitter.com/jackjordanbooks

Facebook: (@jackjordanofficial)
www.facebook.com/jackjordanofficial

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Book Review · Books

The Maid by Nita Prose [BOOK REVIEW]

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The Maid by Nita Prose [BOOK REVIEW]

In today’s world of mundane and one-dimensional characters, the narration of Molly in The Maid by Nita Prose is a desperately needed breath of fresh air.

About The Book:

The Maid by Nita Prose [BOOK REVIEW]


Pages: 352

Format I read it in: Hardcover

Publisher: Harper Collins

Purchase Links:
Amazon UK | Amazon US

★★★★

My Thoughts:

The beginning hooked me instantly. Molly is such a lovely character. She is a good soul as well as a very hard-working maid in the Grand Regency Hotel. She is very socially awkward and doesn’t understand social cues like the majority of the people do. This something causes people to make fun of her, underestimate her, take her for granted and hurt her. And she knows it, she doesn’t sugar-coat it either. However, throughout her life, she’s always had her Gran as her support and counsellor in social behaviour. But since her grandma died, there is no one else to tell Molly how to separate a good egg from all the bad ones.

When one of the hotel guests is found dead in the hotel and Molly is the one that discovers the body, her whole world turns upside down. Molly very quickly realizes that she cannot trust everyone, and that people are not always as trustworthy as they seem to be.

“I was just thinking how one day can be so utterly grim and the next such a blessing. In this life, you just never know what’s around the bend, be it a dead man or your next date.”

Honestly, very early in the book I really struggled with how naive Molly can be at times. At one point, I wanted to shout “How can you not realize what is going on in that hotel room?”. However, very soon it all starts to make sense, and my amazement for Molly only continues to grow. Her positive attitude and the ability to only see the good in others really humbled me at times. I was team Molly all the way through and loved watching her stand up to people in the end.

“As I cleaned, I fantasized about all the things I would do – spray bleach in her face, strangle her with a bathrobe tie, push her off the balcony – if ever I caught Cheryl red-handed, stealing tips from one of my rooms.”

Molly and Gran

The relationship between Molly and her Gran is so precious. Even though her grandma is not longer there, we can always feel her presence. She taught Molly amazing lessons as well as raised her in a lovely woman. As someone who spent a lot of time with my grandparents growing up, I really felt their connection. And also the emptiness when those people you so much admire are no longer with you, but their spirit and their lessons always remains.

“We’re all entitled to a bad day now and again, I heard Gran say in my head. But when they are all bad days, with no pleasant ones, then it’s time to reconsider things.”

The Mystery

The Maid would be considered as a cozy mystery. Although the murder is a big event in the book, it’s also a side story that helps Molly to develop her character, find her place in the world and learn so many new things about herself and the world around her. The entire hotel was also a place of mystery, suspense and intrigue for me. I loved Molly’s interactions with her coworkers and the guests, as well as her thoughts throughout her shifts. The writing is very fast-paced and very captivating. Before you realize, you’ll be 80 pages in.

“For the first time in my life, I think I understand what a true friend is. It isn’t just someone who likes you; it’s someone willing to take action on your behalf.”

The Maid is the perfect mix of suspense, friendship, trust, hard work and doing what’s right. There is a lesson that you should always be kind, and that sticking up for your friends is always worth it, as long as you know who your true friends are. No wonder this book is all people are talking about this January. Its recognition is very well deserved and I very warmly recommend it!

About The Author:

The Maid by Nita Prose [BOOK REVIEW]

Nita Prose is a longtime editor, serving many bestselling authors and their books. She lives in Toronto, Canada, in a house that is only moderately clean.

Visit Nita at nitaprose.com, on Instagram @nitaprose or on Twitter @NitaProse.

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Book Review · Books

The Spiral by Iain Ryan [BOOK REVIEW]

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The Spiral by Iain Ryan [BOOK REVIEW] This book really took me on a rollercoaster and I still feel the adrenaline after the ride.

★★★

I was reading The Spiral by Iain Ryan as part of a readalong with some amazing people on Instagram. I have a few readalongs in the pipeline for 2021 for both book bloggers and bookstagrammers, and you can read more and join HERE if you want to. Reading The Spiral was a very unique experience!

Synopsis:

Erma Bridges’ life is far from perfect, but entirely ordinary. So when she is shot twice in a targetted attack by a colleague, her quiet existence is shattered in an instant.

With her would-be murderer dead, no one can give Erma the answers she needs to move on from her trauma. Why her? Why now?

So begins Erma’s quest for the truth – and a dangerous, spiralling journey into the heart of darkness.

My Thoughts:

First of all, I feel the need to say that I still feel confused after finishing The Spiral. But in a good way. This book really took me on a rollercoaster and I still feel the adrenaline after the ride. And don’t let my 3-star rating put you off, because it’s a very strong 3 star. The Spiral is definitely one of those books that is bound to give you a hangover. The characters will haunt for me for a while, especially Erma.

Erma’s life changes when her assistant Jenny tries to kill her and then kills herself. With Jenny dead, Erma has no answers on why Jenny did that, and all she can do is try and follow her steps and try to reveal the reason why.

Through Iain Ryan’s amazing writing and creativity, this book takes a very unique approach. I loved how the author incorporated the “choose your own adventure” narrative not just in the book, but also as part of the book plot. It was a very new experience for me, and I had lots of fun reading it! If you are not familiar with the “choose your own adventure” format, these types of books are written with a narrative that give you an option, as the reader, to make certain choices. And they usually contain sentences like this one:

” You are standing between three doors. If you choose the red door, go to page 35. If you decide to go for the white door with blue sparkles, go to page 46. And if you are feeling brave today, and want to choose the black door surrounded by thorns, proceed to page 59.”

– Please note that this quote was a product of my imagination, and is not an actual quote from the book.

But now you sort of get the point. You go to a certain page, and then read a story based on your choices. Then you end up making more choices along the way. These books usually have a lot of different endings that you can unravel. The Spiral, however, uses this “choose your own adventure” narrative to provide more information on different character’s plotlines, but doesn’t actively impact the outcome in the end. Well, not completely. Just a little.

I still feel like there are many questions that were left unanswered, and I am currently in between two worlds. The curious part of me wants a conclusive ending, and doesn’t like to keep wondering. And the creative part of me things that this is the point of the book – to give us a chance for us to imagine how the character’s future will unfold.

The Spiral is a very dark, very eerie, very unpredictable book. It’s also full of twists, or dare I say, spirals 😂. I enjoyed it a lot and I hope you’ll give it a chance if the synopsis pulls you in.

“Memory isn’t fact. Memory is subjective and loose. A memory can get close enough to fiction that the line blurs. What good is it?”

Purchase Links:
Amazon UK | Amazon US

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Book Review · Books

The Love Letter by Lucinda Riley [BOOK REVIEW]

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The Love Letter by Lucinda Riley [BOOK REVIEW]

★★★★

The Love Letter was my first book by Lucinda Riley, and I can’t believe I haven’t read a book by this author before. This is a magnificent book, full of secrets, forbidden romances and unsolved mysteries of the past.

Synopsis:

Set in London in 1995, this book starts off when Sir James Harrison passes away. He was one of the greatest actors of his generation. During his funeral, a lot of people gather, considering how impactful he was. Among them, one old woman, that sits alone in the crowd…

Joanna Haslam is a young journalist, and she is assigned to cover the actor’s funeral. Many famous celebrities will be there, and she can’t miss this moment. But something else captures her attention. An old woman, that shares a secret letter Harrison left behind, which needs to keep a secret forever.

The closer she gets to tracking down the source, the more she realises how dangerous this secret is. Many people are interested to keep this letter a secret, and they’ll stop at nothing.

My Thoughts:

The Love Letter is a book my mum chose for me, when “Mama Pick” came up on my TBR game. It’s a book she really enjoyed and I am so glad I was able to share this with her. I am very excited to see what she’ll pick next when the next prompt comes up for her.

I find it very intriguing that there seems to be a certain mysteriousness of the censure this book received. It was mentioned in the acknowledgments that some obstacles occured with the ability to get it published, due to the fact that there is a royal family involved, even though a fictional one.

The Love Letter is mysterious from the very beginning, when Joanna meets the old lady. Little does she know that she will be involved with keeping a very dangerous secret that happened many moons ago. Things start to get very interesting when the reporter gets close to the actor’s family. Each of these individuals keeps their own little secrets too, and everyone keeps playing games to their own liking.

The storytelling, the characters and the many plot twists were incredible.

I was turning the pages so fast, desperate to see what happens next. Desperate for more. I was eager to discover all their secrets and found myself hoping for their wellbeing. The plot twists would happen in places I would least expect and I loved the ending.

The Love Letter takes you to a very different set of culture, and reading this in 2020, I could easily notice it is set in 1995. There are many small things in the book that happen, which reminded me that time has passed since, and I really enjoyed that. It has been a while since I have read something over two decades ago.

A wonderful fiction, full with secrets, drama, suspense and a bit of romance. I loved every single moment of it. Lucinda Riley is definitely an author I will read more books from in the future.

Purchase Links:
Amazon UK | Amazon US

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Book Review · Books

The Flight by Julie Clark [BOOK REVIEW]

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The Flight by Julie Clark [BOOK REVIEW]

★★★

The Flight (also known as The Last Flight) by Julie Clark is a suspenseful novel, with two very different characters that share the same goal – to escape their past and start a brand new life. I am glad my fascination with planes put this book on my radar! Thank you to the teams at Hodder & Stoughton and Netgalley, for providing me with an e-ARC copy of this book in exchange for my book review.

Synopsis:

Two women. Two Flights. One last chance to disappear.

Claire Cook lives a perfect life. On paper. She is married to a political figure, lives in a lovely place full of staff. She is surrounded by elegance, her days are planned and her future already known. But when no one is looking, nothing is as it seems. Her perfect husband has a bad temper, and he’s tracking Claire’s every move, making sure she lives up to his impossible standards. But what he doesn’t know is that Claire has been planning for months on how to disappear.

At the airport, she somehow encounters a woman whose circumstances seem equally dire. Together they choose to make a last-minute decision to switch their plane tickets. Claire takes Eva’s flight to Oakland, and Eva now has a ticket to Puerto Rico. They believe this swap will be the final action they’ll have to take to finally leave behind their identities. But when the flight to Puerto Rico crashes, Claire realises it is no longer a head start, but a completely new life. Cut off and out of options, with news surrounding her death in the media, Claire now has to pretend she is Eve and live as her. But when what Eve told her on the airport is a lie, and she has no clue who Eve was, Claire has new challenges facing her. Challenges full of danger.

My Thoughts:

The Flight follows these two different characters and their lives, as destiny connects them at the airport. They both have their own story and they both need to escape from something. While we know from the very beginning what Claire is escaping from, we know nothing about Eve’s secrets. And as we go along the story, the dynamic stays the same. Claire’s future combines with Eve’s past, as we follow a present narrative. And this part was very interesting to follow and read, and it was all I ever wanted it to be – intense, mysterious and exciting!

“That sometimes, the death of a dream can finally set you free.”

I am and have always been fascinated with planes, especially plane crashes. There is an irrational fear I always have when I am flying, and because of this I have spent many hours of doing research, learning about planes and how they work, as well as reading about the most unfortunate plane crashes. This was the main reason I chose to read this book. Somehow, I had the feeling that the plane and the crashing, or even the airport scenes would be more prominent in the book, but this wasn’t the case. The airport was just a pit stop for the plot to thicken, and not realising this at the beginning is on me. This is the main reason why I probably didn’t enjoy this book as much as I had hoped to. But this also doesn’t mean that the book is not good, because it truly is!

“But what I’ve learned in life is that in order for true forgiveness to occur, something has to die first. Your expectations, or your circumstances. Maybe your heart.”

The characters are very well written and they are likeable.

I couldn’t connect to them enough to care, but both their stories were really intriguing. I have never been in association with rich people, or a victim to violence or surveillance without consent to be able to identify with Claire. Additionally, I also didn’t experience the type of life Eva had either, so that might have been the case. I did, however, really loved Danielle, who plays a critical role at the end of the book.

The writing was great and the intensity kept increasing as I kept reading, which I loved. It was very easy to read and I finished it very fast. The ending wasn’t predictable, but it also wasn’t as intense as I hoped the climax would be. The Flight was definitely a solid read and it kept me engaged all the way through. If you love suspenseful novels with vivid characters, I highly recommend it!

Purchase Links:
Amazon UK | Amazon US

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