Top Ten Tuesday – Unique Character Names

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Unique Character Names. 

I’m the worst at remembering character names and I will most likely butcher the punctuation of a character’s name, especially if it is unique. So here are some of my favourite characters’ names:

1. Sara Linton – Grant County series by Karin Slaughter
2. Katniss Everdeen – The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins
3. Sarah Brandt – Gaslight Mystery series by Victoria Thompson
4. Kim Stone – Kim Stone series by Angela Marsons
5. Emily Fields- Pretty Little Liars series by Sara Shepard
6. Jessica Fletcher – Murder, She Wrote series by Donald Bain
7. Harry Bosch – Harry Bosch series by Michael Connelly
8. Serena van der Woodsen – Gossip Girl series by Cecily von Ziegesar
9. Blair Waldorf – Gossip Girl series by Cecily von Ziegesar
10. Kimberly Quincy – Quincy & Rainie by Lisa Gardner

What are some of your favourite characters’ names? Do you have any least favourite?

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The Date by Louise Jensen

Such a beautiful cover!

Something bad has happened to Alison Taylor.

Her Saturday night started normally. Recently separated from her husband, Ali has been persuaded by her friends to go on a date with a new man. She is ready, she is nervous, she is excited. She is about to take a step into her new future.

By Sunday morning, Ali’s life is unrecognizable. She wakes, and she knows that something is wrong. She is home, she is alone, she is hurt and she has no memory of what happened to her.

Worse still, when she looks in the mirror, Ali doesn’t recognize the face staring back at her. She can’t recognize her friends and family. And she can’t recognize the person who is trying to destroy her…

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I’m a huge fan of Louise Jensen’s after reading her debut novel, The Sister! Check it out if you have never read of it! I think I read the last few chapters with my mouth wide open just because I was so shocked about what was happening!

Now on her 4th novel, Jensen proves that she can write and she can give a mystery that will have you second guessing and her last scenes are super suspenseful. I really liked the ending of The Date, it really delivered.

The problem that I find with Jensen’s novels is that they are never realistic. In The Date, Alison wakes up and doesn’t recognize herself and she doesn’t have any memory of the previous night. Before this novel, I had never heard of face blindness and found that it was an interesting take on a mystery. Who is at the door? It looks like a stranger, but it could be my husband, brother, best friend, etc.

I also found that the novel was too descriptive for my tastes. I like a novel to move along at a quick pace and found that there was long paragraphs describing something and I ended up just skipping over those parts.

3 calculators out of a potential 5. A bit too long winded in some places, but overall a great thriller that has you trusting no one!

Thank you to Netgallery and Bookouture for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

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Cemetery Lake by Paul Cleave

Cemetery Lake begins in a cold and rainy graveyard, where Private Detective Theodore Tate is overseeing an exhumation—a routine job for the weathered former cop. But when doubts are raised about the identity of the body found in the coffin, the case takes a sinister turn. Tate knows he should walk away and let his former colleagues on the police force deal with it, but his strong sense of justice intervenes.

Complicating matters are a few loose ends from Tate’s past. Even good guys have secrets, and Tate thought his were dead and buried for good. With time running out and a violent killer lurking, will he manage to stay one step ahead of the police, or will his truth be unearthed?

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I think I have a new favourite rouge ex-detective (sorry Bosch)! Enter Theo Tate who is still recovering from a horrible accident that turned his life upside down two years ago. He lost his job at the police department and now works as a private detective. Tate lives by his own rules and isn’t going to listen to anyone, especially anyone in the police department.

I was a fan of Tate for the most part, but there were definitely some moves that he did that I questioned and didn’t agree with. Cleave did a great job making him so flawed, but the reader was still able to draw sympathy for him and you were rooting for him the whole time.

The mystery, the investigation and the conclusion was done perfectly. I loved how there were little shockers thrown throughout the novel that had me wanting more! I was surprised how everything tied together in the end and was shocked by the murderer and the reason why!

4 calculators out of a potential 5. Don’t let this book fall off your radar! I’m so excited that there are 3 more Tate novels in this series!

 

WWW Wednesdays – May 16, 2018

Welcome to WWW Wednesday! This meme is hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words. The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?

Something bad has happened to Alison Taylor. 

Her Saturday night started normally. Recently separated from her husband, Ali has been persuaded by her friends to go on a date with a new man. She is ready, she is nervous, she is excited. She is about to take a step into her new future. 

By Sunday morning, Ali’s life is unrecognisable. She wakes, and she knows that something is wrong. She is home, she is alone, she is hurt and she has no memory of what happened to her. 

Worse still, when she looks in the mirror, Ali doesn’t recognise the face staring back at her. She can’t recognise her friends and family. And she can’t recognise the person who is trying to destroy her…

I’m a big fan of Louise Jensen so I’m really excited to be reading her new novel (thank you Netgallery)!

What did you recently finish reading?

Cemetery Lake begins in a cold and rainy graveyard, where Private Detective Theodore Tate is overseeing an exhumation—a routine job for the weathered former cop. But when doubts are raised about the identity of the body found in the coffin, the case takes a sinister turn. Tate knows he should walk away and let his former colleagues on the police force deal with it, but his strong sense of justice intervenes.

Complicating matters are a few loose ends from Tate’s past. Even good guys have secrets, and Tate thought his were dead and buried for good. With time running out and a violent killer lurking, will he manage to stay one step ahead of the police, or will his truth be unearthed?

Really enjoyed this one! Can’t wait to share my review tomorrow!

What do you think you’ll read next?

When Nora takes the train from London to visit her sister in the countryside, she expects to find her waiting at the station, or at home cooking dinner. But when she walks into Rachel’s familiar house, what she finds is entirely different: her sister has been the victim of a brutal murder.

Stunned and adrift, Nora finds she can’t return to her former life. An unsolved assault in the past has shaken her faith in the police, and she can’t trust them to find her sister’s killer. Haunted by the murder and the secrets that surround it, Nora is under the harrow: distressed and in danger. As Nora’s fear turns to obsession, she becomes as unrecognizable as the sister her investigation uncovers.

I think this will be the perfect long weekend read! Also is it bad that I’m really excited that it is only 240 pages?!

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What are your WWW? Have you read The Date, Cemetery Lake or Under The Harrow?

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Top Ten Tuesday – Books I Disliked/Hated but Am Really Glad I Read

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, featuring a different top 10 theme each week. This week’s topic is Books I Disliked/Hated but Am Really Glad I Read.

This is a tricky topic! There aren’t too many books that I disliked, but glad I read. I’m posting my top ten somewhat “popular” books that I’m glad I read, not because I enjoyed them, but because I can contribute to the conversation when people talk about them!

What are some books that you disliked, but are glad that you read them?

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