Sam's Fireside - Cosy Book Reviews & Recommendations

"The sun's reflection flares hotly in the swathes of plate glass". @megbatsbooks and I read The Fall together and it really was a case of wondering whether anyone else was going to die?! 😳🔪 I read The Long Weekend a few years ago but I haven't read anything else by Gilly since. The Fall was equally as good. It kept me on my toes and every time I turned the page, it seemed that something else was going to give me those gasp-out-loud moments. 😱 I think Meg and I both decided that there was something 'off' with most of the characters, to be honest. Any one of them could be capable of murder and yep, it wasn't until close to the end that things started to become clearer, at least for me. 👀 I love a book where the house is stunning, with all mod cons (that actually don't always work), and Gilly transplanted me right in the middle of Nicola and Tom's amazing house, so I was quite happy wandering around there and wondering how anyone would want to kee...

“I felt like I needed to throw a dish towel over his penis and wait an hour to let it rise.” 😂 I couldn't help myself with this quote - sorry, not sorry! I'm sure I'll need to censor it for some platforms! 🙈 Anyway, #thatbonkersbookclub chose  Yesteryear  for our Chiller Shelf for July and, quite honestly, I'm still unsure how I feel about it. Weird is the first word that springs to mind, with religious coming a close second. 🤔 Also, since when has the phrase 'trad wife' become a thing? It's only within the last year or so that I've even heard of it - maybe that's just me. 🤷‍♀️ As I'm sure was the author's intention, I was left wondering throughout much of the book exactly why Natalie was in 1855. Was she time-travelling? Was it a reality show? Was she ill? 🧐 You won't get any spoilers from me, so you'll need to read it or ask someone else. 😉 I have rated it quite highly on the places where a star-rating is necessary, but really...

“Have dinner ready… be happy to see your husband and greet him with a warm smile.” The Woman in the Cabin was my April read for the @hook.me.a.book challenge – the  #NeglectedFaithfulsReadingChallenge – and a book that’s been sitting on my shelf for way too long 📚✨ It was dark, full of all sorts of wrongness… and I loved it so much 😈 I had to keep reading. I needed to know if Mary was going to be okay 😰, whether the control-freak husband was going to hurt her 😡, and just what other madness he had up his sleeve 👀 I think this book will send readers one of two ways: you’ll either be completely intrigued (like I was) and desperate to keep turning the pages 📖🔥, or you’ll be hugely frustrated by our female main character — like, kill the b*****d already! 😤 And if you’re big on women’s rights, this might make you properly angry at how any man could treat a woman like this 💔 However you feel, if you enjoy a captive thriller, you’re going to love this one 🖤 If you’re thinking of ...

“I’d been secretly fantasising about you waking up fully restored back to factory settings.” I Found You is another one that I'm just catching up with my review for. I listened to this in the summer of 2024 and I remember so much about it, which is unusual - I usually forget about a story as soon as I finish it! I definitely wouldn't have done what Alice did, and invited a stranger inside my house to stay with me and my kids! But her heart is in the right place and thankfully, she has the support of her friend to keep an eye on her! The story is written from three points of view, two from the present day and one from 1993, from the point of view of two kids who holidayed in the same place where Alice now lives.  I really enjoyed listening to this, I thought I'd worked out who the man on the beach was, and then there was another twist and I was back to the drawing board! About the Book In a windswept British seaside town, single mom Alice Lake finds a man sitting on the beac...

'One thing’s for sure: not everyone is going to be leaving this island alive' Firstly, my apologies to the publisher, who gifted me a copy of She Started It, back in the middle of 2024. I did read it in July 2024, but I have only just got around to writing my review - yes I know, I'm rubbish! Five women, a beautiful Caribbean island, first-class treatment all the way, and three days of pure relaxation. How idyllic does this sound? Well it might sound blissful and to begin with it was, but this is a thriller and idyllic is far from how it ended! Told from multiple points of view, from each of the women, it took me a short while to identify each one, but once I had, I found it to be uniquely and cleverly done. I didn't particularly like any of them, but of course this is how we were supposed to feel. They were spiteful, and Poppy in particular was incredibly vindictive. Would I have been like that, if I'd been bullied, and I had the opportunity for revenge? Yes, absol...

'Oh my god. This woman is like a sorceress. She has enchanted them all'. This one had my head spinning around and around from the very beginning to the very end. I think I honestly suspected every single character in the book of being the fruity-loop mad one who was lying - did I get it right - ever? No, not really, not until right at the very end when it was becoming apparent anyway. Kudos to Nicola for keeping me guessing.  I can't say that I particularly liked any of the characters, there were devious sides to them all, lies that they all told, and judgments that were made with no thought for the people being judged. However, the unlikeable characters definitely brought that added extra to the story and were brilliantly thought out and written.  Praise to Jodie Harris for her narration. Her investment in the characters, had me even more invested than I would have been if I'd simply read it.  Thank you to Dreamscape Media and Libro FM for the opportunity to listen to ...

'Someone is lying. Someone is missing.  Someone is guilty'. The Guilty One was twisted with a capital T and so messed up that I spoke out loud to my audiobook more than once! 😂 I really enjoyed it, even if Tate was a total douchebag, and that's being kind. Urgh, many of us will know how it feels to be bullied and to be so scared of someone that you will do what they tell you to do, no questions asked and this is what Tate does to people and how he makes them feel.  The story was told between two different timelines, then and now and there were so many twists and turns, I was exhausted - but in a good way! Everyone lies, everyone has something to hide and just when I thought I had worked out what was going on, Kiersten threw another spanner in there and contorted it that little bit more!  The narrators each brought their own special touch to the book, and yep, the characters you're supposed to dislike, you definitely did! They all did a great job. If you like twisted, d...

I was disappointed.... I’ve never read a Freida McFadden before, no particular reason, it just hasn’t really been on my radar, plus I have an ARC backlog of 9 million years, plus an endless and ever-growing TBR! But, #bookstabritsbookclub chose The Crash for their May read and so here we are.  I listened to this one and it was enjoyable, if predictable. To be honest, Tegan, who was the female main character was a bit of a wet lettuce. At the beginning I thought she was going to have a lot more spunk than it turned out she had! Hank was two sandwiches short of a picnic and Polly was just devious, manipulative and as mad as a March hare!  There were inconsistencies that annoyed me, and if this had been an ARC, I would have overlooked them - knowing (hoping) they’d be picked up in the final edit. However this wasn’t an ARC and so I couldn’t just ignore them. A couple of people I spoke to said they were part of the story/plot but actually, I don’t think it was. I was disappointed,...

.... when the lives of the people you love are at stake, rules are made to be broken. Have I really not read a Brian Freeman book before? 🙈 Of course I've seen the Jason Bourne movies, and perhaps I did read these before I got back into reading - I can't remember though. Anyway, I loved this, from beginning to end. It was fast-paced, exciting, and there were so many twists and turns, I met myself coming backwards, more than once! Honestly, I was exhausted by the time I took my AirPods out for the final time! At the start I thought Tommy was a bad man, but he really isn't, he loves his wife and daughter more than anything in the world and if he has to kill to avenge their kidnapping, then that's exactly what he'll do. Along the way, he has unexpected assistance from professionals and amateurs alike, all of who are looking for the same outcome.  Scott Brick did a sterling job as the narrator, throwing me into every single scene as though I really was there too, fight...

One toxic family. Eight suspicious guests. Everyone is guilty. But who is a killer? I may be a bit of a dunce, but I had no idea what a locked-room mystery was - but now I've worked it out! Duh - pretty self-explanatory, really! Anyway, this is one, and I loved it, it was such a great listen, and because we are kept in the dark about so many things, it was really difficult to try to work out who the killer was. Throughout, I was guessing, and with each chapter I was wrong and had to try to think again! I enjoyed the constant back-and-forth from the present time, to specific times before the murder, it made it much more exciting and definitely helps clarify events, so the reader can decide who is and isn't in the frame! Each and every one of the characters brought an element of 'screwed up' to the story and yep, many of them had a reason to be the killer! Kathleen Early as the narrator brought that element of mystery and suspense to the story, which always makes a book ...

Missing girls but no bodies.... This was an audiobook listen for me and made all the more enjoyable because of the four narrators, who really made the story their own. It became quite apparent from the beginning that the majority of this small community has had a strict religious upbringing and continues to follow their faith. The wife's role was to bring up the kids and look after the house, and absolutely everything has to be run past their husbands first. I appreciate that there are many, many communities in the US that put their faith above everything, but I don't think I've read a book that focuses highly on this, not one set in the 21st century anyway.  I worked out pretty early on who the bad guy was going to be, but that didn't spoil the enjoyment at all. There were still plenty of moments when I nearly changed my mind, as every now and then the plot took a diversion! A great story with underlying themes of grief and the difficulties of motherhood.  Thank you to...

Well, that was a dark ending! I'm flying through my audiobooks this year, and The House on Cold Creek Lane was another good one. I seem to be picking up the thriller audiobooks rather than the physical or digital copies, and I'm loving the immersiveness of them. A good narrator makes for an even better story, and Emily Ellet and Gail Shalan did a fantastic job of picking me up and depositing me into the lives of those who live or have lived on Cold Creek Lane.  I didn't care for Laurel's husband, yep, he might have wanted what was best for her, but he didn't handle her very well. He came across as controlling and bossy, many a time I wanted to throw that influencing attitude right back at him.  Told alternatively from Laurel and Corey's point of view, both characters were pretty screwed up in different ways.  I worked out pretty early on who the bad guy was, but what I wasn't expecting was that ending! Wow, Liz, just wow! As an author I'm pretty sure you...