The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

To everyone else in this carriage I must look normal; I’m doing exactly what they do: commuting to work, making appointments, ticking things off lists.

Just goes to show.

The Girl on the Train, where do I start? It took a lot of running around to get my hands on it. I refused to download it.

First reviews I read for this book mentioned it was similar to ‘Gone Girl’. Unconventional female characters, unreliable narrators, unnerving, gritty and psychologically thrilling and that’s where the similarities ended for me.

The Girl on the Train was faster, creepier and unsettling. Unsettling, I say that because no one can be trusted including the three female characters narrating their stories: Rachel, Megan and Anna.

Rachel is ‘The Girl on the Train’ who takes her mind off life by observing, imagining the lives of other people, especially ‘Jess and Jason’, as she has aptly named them. They look so happy in their perfect lives…

They’re a match, they’re a set. They’re happy, I can tell. They’re what I used to be, they’re Tom and me, five years ago. They’re what I lost, they’re everything I want to be. 

… that is, until one day she sees something she shouldn’t have that shatters the image of the perfectly happy ‘Jess and Jason’ that exists in her head. Suddenly, Rachel is chasing the truth and unable to trust anyone.

This book is just full of secrets. As a person who is insanely curious, I absolutely blitzed through the book wanting to know every single secret being held. It got me thinking; how much do we really know anyone? What goes on behind closed doors? Are we ever capable of stripping ourselves of every layer to show our true selves to anyone?

This book was gripping, very fascinating, and really got me thinking on a level I haven’t been pushed to in a while. I quite enjoyed reading it.

It is not like ‘Gone Girl’ by any means. I highly recommend this one, totally worth it!

Get on to it people.

Happy Reading! xx

The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon

The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon is the second book in the seven part ‘The Bone Season‘ series. I’d been waiting for this book for a while. It was scheduled for a release in October 2014 but was delayed until January 2015. I was so glad when I finally got my hands on it!

I say, lets get started with the blurb:

Paige Mahoney has escaped the brutal prison camp of Sheol I, but her problems have only just begun: many of the survivors are missing and she is the most wanted person in London…

As Scion turns its all-seeing eye on the dreamwalker, the mime-lords and mime-queens of the city’s gangs are invited to a rare meeting of the Unnatural Assembly. Jaxon Hall and his Seven Seals prepare to take centre stage, but there are bitter fault lines running through the clairvoyant community and dark secrets around every corner. Then the Rephaim begin crawling out from the shadows. But where is Warden? Paige must keep moving, from Seven Dials to Grub Street to the secret catacombs of Camden, until the fate of the underworld can be decided.

Can I just start of by saying, I’m a huge fan of the first book, The Bone Season. It introduced this awesome world of clairvoyance that absolutely captured every part of my imagination. The Mime Order just made it a whole lot better. It (clairvoyant world) is so detailed and insanely immersive. It is reminiscent, to me, of old/historical London.

This book started exactly where the first one left of. Where The Bone Season was an introduction, The Mime Order is the build-up. If I criticised the first book for bombarding us with information, I take it all back. I’m kinda glad it did and even more surprised that I managed to retain it all and all fell into place with this one. The plot, as I discovered, is deliciously multilayered with a solid purpose behind every description and detail.

The characters in this book are quite complex, mysterious, dark and extremely well written which made this book quite a good read. Paige has shown the most growth as a lot has happened to her since the first book. I really like her and totally admire her strength. Warden is one character I absolutely love. He is a questionable figure with intentions that are not quite clear and his temperament is quite singular. Jaxon is someone I love to hate. You can’t quite place his concern for Paige as being genuine or not.

If I had to pick one negative with this book I would point out the way it has been paced. Where the first book was super cruise-y; I found this book didn’t really allow me to blitz through it. It could have done with about hundred pages or so less. The last hundred however were where this book really kicked it up a notch and I loved every second of it.

All in all, I would say this is a strong sequel and would highly recommend this series. I believe Samantha Shannon is out to take us on a long, winding ride that is going to be totally worth it!

Can’t wait for the next one! 🙂

Happy reading peeps!

xx

Are you Chasing Tomorrow?!

Tilly Bagshawe has recently announced a sequel to the very popular Sidney Sheldon book, ‘If Tomorrow Comes‘. It will be called ‘Chasing Tomorrow‘ and below is what the cover is (apparently) meant to look like.

This book will see the return of possibly the most popular and enduring heroines Sidney Sheldon had introduced, Tracy Whitney.

Here is the blurb:

Tracy Whitney never thought she wanted to settle down. With her suave and handsome partner, Jeff Stevens, she’d been responsible for some of the world’s most astounding heists, relishing the danger and intensity of life on the wild side. But there is still one thing missing from Tracy’s perfect life: a baby.

At first “going straight” feels like a new adventure. But as the months pass and Tracy’s longed for pregnancy doesn’t happen, she finds herself yearning for the adrenaline rush of the old days.  When a mysterious and beautiful stranger enters their lives, Tracy and Jeff’s once unbreakable partnership is suddenly blown wide open. Jeff wakes one morning to find Tracy gone, vanished without a trace.

For more than a decade, a broken Jeff struggles to carry on knowing Tracy is out there somewhere. But the rest of the world believes Tracy Whitney is dead . . . until a series of murders leads a tenacious French detective to her doorstep. Eleven victims, in ten different cities, over nine years—all of the cities where Tracy pulled off some of her most brilliant capers. Someone is targeting her, manipulating a series of disturbing events and raising terrifying ghosts she thought were dead and buried.

Once again, this clever woman finds herself out on the edge, playing the odds in a desperate game of roulette. But this time, she’s got everything to lose—including the man she cannot forget.

Tomorrow has come at last. But it isn’t the future Tracy bargained for . . .

This is obviously SOME news. I don’t think anyone expected a sequel to ‘If Tomorrow Comes’, I certainly didn’t. As always, I’m excited about this one. Tilly Bagshawe has tried to keep Sidney’s writing flare alive and in my opinion, she has managed to do it quite well.

Here’s to adding another book to my ‘To Read’ pile.

On another note, pre-orders are available for this book on iBooks and Amazon and of course you can check other book related websites as well. It is scheduled to be released on 7th of October’ 2014.

Not too long to go….

Until then, Happy Reading Peeps!

xx