Cover Reveal - Lost in the lake - A J Waines

Today I am delighted to announce the cover reveal for the forthcoming new novel by one of my favourite Authors A J Waines:

AJ Waines has sold over 400,000 books worldwide and topped the UK and Australian Kindle Charts in 2015 & 2016 with her number one bestseller, Girl on a Train. Following fifteen years as a psychotherapist, she is now a full-time novelist with publishing deals in France, Germany, Norway, Hungary and USA (audiobooks).

Her fourth psychological thriller, No Longer Safe, sold over 30,000 copies in the first month, in thirteen countries. AJ Waines has been featured in The Wall Street Journal and The Times and was ranked a Top 10 UK author on Amazon KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) in 2016. She lives in Hampshire, UK, with her husband. Visit her websiteand blog, or join her on Twitter, Facebookor on her Newsletter.  

Here's the blurb for her new thriller: Lost in the lake, I am really looking forward to getting stuck into it, having met Sam Willerby in Inside the whispers - you can read my review of this book here

Lost in the Lake by A J Waines

She came at first for answers…now she’s back for you

Amateur viola player Rosie Chandler is the sole survivor of a crash which sends members of a string quartet plunging into a lake. Convinced the ‘accident’ was deliberate, but unable to recall what happened, she is determined to recover her lost memories and seeks out clinical psychologist, Dr Samantha Willerby.

But Rosie is hiding something…

Sam is immediately drawn to the tragic Rosie and as she helps her piece the fragments together, the police find disturbing new evidence which raises further questions. Why is Rosie so desperate to recover her worthless viola? And what happened to the violin lost in the crash, worth over £2m?

When Rosie insists they return to the lake to relive the fatal incident, the truth about Rosie finally creeps up on Sam – but by now, she’s seriously out of her depth…

The second book in the Dr Samantha Willerby series, Lost in the Lake is a nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat Psychological Thriller that will leave you glancing over your shoulder.

Pre-Order on Amazon from 13 July 2017
Find all books by AJ Waines here

Release date: 7 Sept 2017

and finally here is the fab cover

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Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine - Gail Honeyman - captivating

Eleanor Oliphant is completely fine - Gail Honeyman

My thoughts

This is one of those books which is pretty hard to categorize. It turned out to be not quite what I was expecting - but in a good way. I read a description which called it a laugh out loud comedy and this very nearly put me off! Yes it has some hilarious moments but mainly it is deeply emotional, with some quite dark moments and I was unable to completely put aside the fact that Eleanor is the way she is, as a survivor of something quite dreadful which is a very dark layer to the book.

Eleanor is a wonderful quirky character, she never quite fits in, she won't conform, she sees the world differently to most people and behaves in unusual ways, reacting to everyday occurrences with bewilderment and inappropriate attitudes, she is lonely and isolated and in some ways is like an elderly woman in others like a newborn, very innocent and childlike. Her social graces aren't just lacking they are practically non existent.

Anyone who has ever worked in a large office based organisation will recognize Eleanor, she is the hard working, slightly weird spinster whose eccentric manner of dress and speech and mannerisms makes us roll our eyes, but its all right because she just gets on with her job and we don't HAVE to include her in our conversations, we don't have to sit with her in the canteen and we certainly don't have to get to know her!

Eleanor's life centres around her unfulfilling job, with colleagues she just can't seem to figure out, who don't include her and often mock and even bully her. Then she goes home to her non existent social life, to spend time in her shabby single flat furnished with cast offs, pour a glass (or three) of vodka and waits for the weekend to disappear before returning to her desk to do it all over again. I bet there are far too many of us who can relate to ALL of this!

But we mustn't forget her weekly phone call to Mother, nasty Mother, sly Mother, loathsome Mother, but she is Eleanors only relative and above all else she is a dutiful daughter.

But Eleanors life is about to change and it's all because of a man! She is ready to fall in love, when she comes across her perfect man and gradually begins to blossom.

Yes, this is romantic fiction but it is also one of the most profound books I've ever read too. I defy anyone to read this and not warm to Eleanor after an initial bafflement and frustration at her idiosyncrasies. I laughed, groaned, smiled and sobbed in equal measure as Eleanor tore my heart to pieces and made me feel guilty for not being more tolerant to people who don't follow my rule book.

There aren't enough superlatives in my vocabulary to describe how utterly captivating and delightful I found this book to be. So just read it - I'm sure it won't disappoint.

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Review - the Upstairs Room - Kate Murray-Browne - unsettling

Review - the Upstairs Room - Kate Murray-Browne

A macabre, chilling and unsettling debut novel, The Upstairs Room is a contemporary take on the classic "young couple move into a new home that turns out to have something sinister lurking upstairs".

Eleanor and husband Richard have found their new family home for themselves and their 2 young daughters. They know it will be a struggle financially to buy in a desirable area of London so they settle for an older property that "needs a bit doing" well frankly it needs quite a lot of renovation and redecoration but they're young and enthusiastic and it can be a project for them to enjoy together.

Bit it becomes more of a money pit than they imagined, and in order to keep their heads above water they rather reluctantly sub-let the basement to a young woman lodger and into the periphery of their lives comes Zoe. However living in this gloomy and outdated home soon makes Eleanor in particular begin to feel distinctly uneasy, in fact she begins to be frequently ill and fears its the house affecting her health.

Plans to renovate are soon shelved and even redecorating the dark and outdated decor is beyond their means and the rooms remain gloomy and the unnerving scribble which adorns in particular an unused attic bedroom with the name Emily scrawled repeatedly together with disquieting drawings has to remain. Eleanor begins to find this writing concealed elsewhere in the house too.

Whilst Eleanors life crumbles and Richard grows ever more distant, obsessed with planning and pointlessly plotting the elaborate restoration project which seems doomed to never happen. Their lodger Zoe's life seems to be taking a turn for the better, she gets a new job, OK it's not very stimulating and her lodgings aren't quite the chic city apartment she dreamed of but when a new man enters her life and romance seems likely, she feels quite settled ... or does she? Is the house somehow influencing everyone who lives there?

It certainly seems to be having an adverse effect, even on the little girls, whose increasingly difficult behaviour becomes almost the final straw for struggling Mum Eleanor.

All the way through the book is a creeping sense of unease and terror and the puzzle of whether it is in fact the house to blame, or the people within it?

Its creepy and scary and gives you that lump in your throat which gulping hard just can't quite shift.

I did consider the ending a little rushed and not quite as explosive as I hoped but the whole book is filled with creeping menace and subtle insinuations and its a real page turner that's sure to entertain and really makes you think how you'd react in some of the situations. The subtly flawed characters and the macabre location combine to create an engaging work of psychological horror.

The Blurb

Eleanor, Richard and their two young daughters recently stretched themselves to the limit to buy their dream home, a four-bedroom Victorian townhouse in East London. But the cracks are already starting to show. Eleanor is unnerved by the eerie atmosphere in the house and becomes convinced it is making her ill. Whilst Richard remains preoccupied with Zoe, their mercurial twenty-seven-year-old lodger, Eleanor becomes determined to unravel the mystery of the house’s previous owners – including Emily, whose name is written hundreds of times on the walls of the upstairs room.

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Review - He Said She Said - Erin Kelly - darkly convoluted

My review of He Said, She Said by Erin Kelly

Wow - wonderful twisty read, blew my socks off. 

It's not often that I finish a book and can't really find words to write a review straight away. But I loved this book so much I had to take a step back and examine what I thought or just babble away senselessly. 

Its delightfully different and darkly convoluted. It actually took me a little while to get into it at the beginning as it's deliberately written in several voices from different viewpoints and jumps back and forth several years and it does take a while to get into the rhythm, but when you do boy does it grab you and just won't let go!

We begin our tortuous journey by being introduced to a young couple, Laura who is pregnant and her partner Kit who is heading off across the seas to witness an eclipse. For that is what this young couple do as a hobby, they are eclipse chasers and travel all over the world joing festivals and celebrations and watching eclipses. They've always travelled together but heavily pregnant Laura is staying home this time whilst Kit goes off. It's immediately apparent that something untoward has happened in their past to make them distrustful of strangers, paranoid and both trying to keep a very low profile.

As we whip back and forth over about 15 years, we discover that at one such festival the pair witnessed a shocking and unpleasant event in addition to the eclipse. They stumble across a degrading and violent sex attack and Lauras determination to ensure justice is brought to bear makes her act somewhat rashly and utter words that are set to haunt her.

Back and forth in time we go whilst the noose tightens, events grow more complicated. I began to mistrust folk, then evidence is presented that made me change my mind, again and again until I didn't know who I could believe any more.

This is an extremely clever psychological twister and illustrate that when everything hinges on what he said and what she said, just a few tiny words can make a vast difference to how we perceive things.

There are so many smoke screens and distractions I didn't see a couple of things coming til they smacked me in the face and even then when I thought smugly I'd sussed everything out along comes another curved ball for me to deftly duck.

Clever, crafty and conniving, a terrific heart stopping novel tackling taboo subjects and with some delightfully unreliable narrators and a final kick up the bum that has my cheeks still smarting!

The Blurb

In the hushed aftermath of a total eclipse, Laura witnesses a brutal attack. She and her boyfriend Kit call the police, and in that moment, it is not only the victim's life that is changed forever. Fifteen years on, Laura and Kit live in fear, and while Laura knows she was right to speak out, the events that follow have taught her that you can never see the whole picture: something, and someone, is always in the dark. 

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Code Name Verity

(Goodreads) I have two weeks. You’ll shoot me at the end no matter what I do.

That’s what you do to enemy agents. It’s what we do to enemy agents. But I look at all the dark and twisted roads ahead and cooperation is the easy way out. Possibly the only way out for a girl caught red-handed doing dirty work like mine — and I will do anything, anything, to avoid SS-Hauptsturmführer von Linden interrogating me again.

He has said that I can have as much paper as I need. All I have to do is cough up everything I can remember about the British War Effort. And I’m going to. But the story of how I came to be here starts with my friend Maddie. She is the pilot who flew me into France — an Allied Invasion of Two.

We are a sensational team.

The Short Story? - A powerful novel about loyalty, friendship and sacrifice. While I didn't feel like the book lived up to all the hype and raving reviews, it was nevertheless a heart-wrenching read that will move readers to tears (if you're a sucker for sob stories like me). The book was a little slow but the ending was absolutely devastating and definitely worth the build up. Well-written, Wein clearly knows her stuff about planes and war, there are a lot of technical aspects that in this book and it's very detailed and interesting. The characters were endearing, I absolutely loved both of the girls. Overall, it was a really good book, I think I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't gone into reading with such high expectations.

The Long Story? - I was so excited to read Code Name Verity after reading so many reviews from other bloggers raving about how good it is. Unfortunately, this book fell short of the hype for me and I think part of the reason is because I expected too much from it. The novel as a whole was really well-written and enjoyable. It was refreshingly in the sense that the book actually focused on the power of this incredible friendship between the two protagonists. Wein didn't mask the horrors of war behind some love story, it was something different from the norm of the YA market. The pace was a little slow for my liking, most of it was just recounting past events. The book was also very technical, Wein goes into a lot of details about planes and war, great if you love that kind of stuff, not so great if you don't. I personally didn't mind the details. I absolutely loved the ending, it really took my breath away ( I might have shed a couple of tears), it was the best ending that a book like this could have been given. Devastating but not unreasonable and completely unforgettable, I have to give Wein credit for such a spectacular ending. 

The book is written in two parts, the first from Verity's perspective (not her actual name -duh, I'll leave that as something for you guys to find out) and the second from Maddie's perspective. I adoredVerity as a character, she was so brave. For her to keep her head up during what she had to endure, I honestly salute this girl. I grew to really like Verity and while I couldn't relate to her, I could connect with her and understand her. Maddie, on the other hand, was definitely the less vibrant of the two characters, we have very different personalities however her section of the book was easier to read. I admire Maddie for what she had to do, it would have absolutely wrecked her but she did the right thing (haha vague!). I think Wein did a fantastic job portraying these two very different characters and she's developed this beautiful and believable friendship between the two girls. 

As you can see, there isn't much I didn't like about this book but I just felt that it fell short of my expectations. I expected more from Code Name Verity but overall it was very enjoyable and heart-wrenching read. I would definitely recommend this book because it's different from the other books on the market, there is no love story, it's set in a very dark part of history and the friendship and sacrifice between the two girls is incredible. Definitely worth a read! 

Purchase - The Book Depository | The Nile | Booktopia | Book World

Badass Bookie xx

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The Elite

Review Time! Okay so I was totally planning on posting a heap in January but instead I took another hiatus from posting (oops). In my defence, December was super busy on the blog AND I read a lot of books which need reviewing so I'm back (for now)! The Elite by Kiera Cass is the second book in the The Selection trilogy, I'm a huge fan of the first book so I'm glad that I found the time in December to finally get around to reading it! You can purchase a copy of The Elite from The Book Depository | The Nile | Booktopia | Bookworld. Thanks to HarperCollins for the review copy (sorry for the super late review)!

(Goodreads) Thirty-five girls came to the palace to compete in the Selection. All but six have been sent home. And only one will get to marry Prince Maxon and be crowned princess of Illea.

America still isn’t sure where her heart lies. When she’s with Maxon, she’s swept up in their new and breathless romance, and can’t dream of being with anyone else. But whenever she sees Aspen standing guard around the palace, and is overcome with memories of the life they planned to share. With the group narrowed down to the Elite, the other girls are even more determined to win Maxon over—and time is running out for America to decide.

Just when America is sure she’s made her choice, a devastating loss makes her question everything again. And while she’s struggling to imagine her future, the violent rebels that are determined to overthrow the monarchy are growing stronger and their plans could destroy her chance at any kind of happy ending.

The Short Story? - I'm aware there is a lot of hate out there for The Elite but I'm not sorry for LOVING THE BOOK. I loved The Selection but The Elite was so much better, I laughed, I cried, the book was an emotional roller coaster. There was more action and while some people found the love triangle to be annoying, personally I think it's one of the high points of the novel. This series has quite possibly one of the best love triangles out there, there is drama, intensity and scandal - what more do you want from a love triangle? Well written, great characterisation, The Elite was an incredible sequel to The Selection.

The Long Story? - I like to read reviews of books before I read them because it gives me perspective on the book. Before I read The Elite, I read a bunch of horrible reviews about how terrible the book was however I disagree with every one of those reviews. Just because a book isn't typical to the genre doesn't mean it's a bad book. I think people need to be more open-minded about the dystopian genre. It doesn't HAVE to have a crazy amount of action, a body count and an over-the-top rebellion movement. So what if romance is the main focus, personally I think it's refreshingly different. The Elite provided a nice alternative to the typical dystopian genre and there was action and drama incorporated into the plot even if it wasn't the main focus. I'm not a fan of love triangles but when it's well done - they make pretty great books and the love triangle America, Maxon and Aspen is a roller coaster ride. Beautifully written, I think Cass did an incredible job with this sequel and I look forward to reading the last instalment.

I'm very impressed with the characterisation, I thoroughly enjoyed the characterisation in book one but the growth in America as a character was amazing. She's starting to stand up for what she believes in even if it means dire consequences, I'm starting to see a fighting spirit inside her. My connection to America as a reader is incredible and I completely emphasise with her. Definitely a great protagonist who I expect great things from in book three! I'm very torn over Maxon because I love him and I'm rooting for Maxon 120% however he made poor choices and he needs to stick up to his father, HE NEEDS TO GROW A BACKBONE. Aspen is lovely but is very much overshadowed in this book and from what I did see of him in the book, I didn't really love. He's an okay guy and he always has America's back but I just don't think he's the one for her (read: I wouldn't be upset if he died).

I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Elite and it's definitely one of my favourite reads of 2013 (although I only read like 50 books). The writing was great, the characters were fantastic and I think Cass did a wonderful job with the world-building as we are starting to see more cracks in the society. I also loved the romance, the drama and the action of The Elite and I'm excited to see what kind of conclusion book 3 will bring. Two thumbs up for The Elite!

What's it Worth? - Hand Over the Paycheck 

Badass Bookie xx

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Day Twenty-Five: NIL + Giveaway!

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Book Profile

Name - Nil (Goodreads)
Author - Lynne Matson
Genre - YA Science Fiction
Release Date - March 4th 2014

On the mysterious island of Nil, the rules are set. You have one year. Exactly 365 days--to escape, or you die.

Seventeen-year-old Charley doesn’t know the rules. She doesn’t even know where she is. The last thing she remembers is blacking out, and when she wakes up, she’s lying naked in an empty rock field.

Lost and alone, Charley finds no sign of other people until she meets Thad, the gorgeous leader of a clan of teenage refugees. Soon Charley learns that leaving the island is harder than she thought . . . and so is falling in love. With Thad’s time running out, Charley realizes that to save their future, Charley must first save him. And on an island rife with dangers, their greatest threat is time.

Available - The Book Depository | Fishpond | Amazon | Barnes and Noble 

The Insider's Scoop

1) The original title of NIL was DAYWATCH, because the kids are watching the days, but the more I wrote, the less that title fit. Plus, DAYWATCH sounds a lot like BAYWATCH, which is SO not what I was going for.;) 

2) NIL was born in Hawaii, on the big island. My husband had won a trip with his company, and it was our first real getaway from our four boys, EVER. After we landed, as we left the airport, we drove through miles of ancient lava fields. Broken red rock stretched endlessly on each side, gorgeous and desolate. There were no roads, no buildings, no people–just the sound of wind blowing over the barren rocks. The surrounding silence was powerful, like it had a presence all its own. I remember thinking how creepy it would be to wake up there, all alone, and I remember thinking how much it all looked like an alien planet (think DUNE). And I remember thinking how scary it would be as a teenager, to wake up by yourself, not having a clue where you were or how you how got there, and what if–because isn’t this every person’s worst nightmare?!–what if you woke up naked? NIL was born in that moment. 

3) NIL is told from a dual POV, and the timeline is continuous with one exception: the scene where Charley and Thad first meet. That one moment is seen through both character's eyes. 

4) Characters come from all over the globe, which I felt was important to the core of the story.

5) Not every character escapes….

*runs away before I spill ALL THE SEKRITS* :)

~Giveaway~

Lynne is giving away SIGNED Hardback Copy of NIL + Swag!

Rule of Entry -

- INTERNATIONAL

- Ends 25th of January

- Must be 13 or older

- Optional Entries :

   * Leaving comment on either of Lynne's posts +2 each

   * Follow Me on Twitter +1

   * Follow Lynne on Twitter +1 (@LSMatson)

   * Like Lynne Matson Books on Facebook +1

   * Tweeting Giveaway +1

   * Follow Badass Bookie via GFC/Linky or RSS +2

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Badass Bookie xx

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