(I received a free copy of this book from Curiosity Quills in exchange for a review).

(This review may contain spoilers).

Although I’ve not read any of the original Sherlock Holmes books, I have seen a couple of different version films and television wise, so I have a bit of passing knowledge about the characters and situations.

I found the idea behind this book to be quite an intriguing one. It was interesting to see characters that I recognised, though Moriarty came across as completely different to how I understand his character to be.

I felt it fit how Holmes seemed to attach himself so quickly to Watson. That seems to be the case in pretty much anything, though in this case, I felt it worked especially well with the setting. I liked their interactions with each other, but at times, I felt that they came across as too adult. Holmes’ arrogance did come across really well, as did the fact that he had no idea about anything to do with emotions, despite being a genius in other areas.

There was enough of a mystery in this to keep me entertained and there were also some amusing moments. I would have liked a bit more explanation as to how Holmes especially was so skilled in certain things, though. It isn’t really made very clear.

The book was fairly well written, though I did notice some mistakes. However, this book did fall into one of the traps I often see with first person narrative – talking about what another character is thinking/feeling, when the POV character isn’t a mind reader. Aside from that, I did find this particularly easy and entertaining to read.

I would definitely be interested in reading more books in this series in the future.

(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).

(This review may contain spoilers).

I found this book to be a really good, entertaining read that I finished faster than I’d expected to.

When I entered to win a copy of this book, there wasn’t much information about it. I entered to win because I often like reading murder mysteries.

I was a bit surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. The main character, Maggie, was really engaging and easy to relate to. The fact that she was pregnant added a whole new dimension to the character, I felt.

I did like Maggie’s other friends in the book, though I wasn’t sure of them at times. I liked Maggie’s relationship with her husband. I thought the author did a really good job of showing their struggles… but also how much they cared for each other. (I did, however, think that Laurent was very controlling at times).

I did particularly dislike certain characters. Even the parts from their POV didn’t do anything to endear them to me and I just couldn’t see any redeeming characteristics in them.

There was quite a lot of humour in this book, which I felt worked well. I did notice one issue with the murder mystery, but on the whole, it worked really well.

The book was really well-written, with only some errors that didn’t really detract from my enjoyment. I would definitely be interested in reading more books in this series in the future.

(I received a free copy of this book from Hodder & Stoughton, through NetGalley, in exchange for a review).

(This review may contain spoilers).

It might be worth noting that, when I requested this book, I didn’t have any information other than the title, author and publisher, and the front cover. I asked for it purely based on the fact that the cover looked like the sort of thing I would like.

The idea of four separate planes crashing on the same day was a particularly intriguing one. The first part of the story was quite creepy, as much because the little boy’s eye half-covered by hair made me think of Sadako from Ringu.

I think this book, no matter what the actual answer was, did a good job of showcasing how situations can get out of hand and how people can take minor things that happen and twist them to become much worse than they actually are. At the same time, I think the author gets across the feelings and emotions of the characters particularly well – like guilt and anger, whether at themselves, or at the survivors.

It was interesting that this book was written mostly like a documentary, but it did mean I kept getting confused at times. I often couldn’t tell when a new character was speaking.

The uses of different ways of getting information across was quite interesting. Because of the way the author chose to write the book, the disastrous things that happened weren’t shown in the same way and I didn’t see any scenes that were written from the point of view of one of the three.

Some parts of the book were particularly creepy, while others were more sad. I was really confused by the ending, though. It didn’t make it clear what was going on – I would have liked to have more information; maybe even a sequel.

I would be interested in reading more books by this author in the future. This was quite an entertaining read, even though it was particularly dark in places and didn’t come to an ending that was entirely satisfactory, at least in my opinion.

(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).

(This review may contain spoilers).

When I first entered to win a copy of this book, I originally thought it was a historical novel set in Ancient Rome. It wasn’t until after I’d actually won it that I realised it was a fantasy. Or science fiction. Or a combination of both.

I like books with swords and sorcery in and have done ever since I started reading the Lone Wolf Adventure game books when I was much younger. Although this wasn’t entirely a unique storyline, it was an interesting take on the whole thing.

Although I was slightly confused with the constant changing of characters at first, I eventually got to know the characters and the storyline. It was good to see how everyone became connected throughout the course of the book.

I did like Cedrin as a character and I particularly liked Marken, too. I liked that the author had the characters actually get hurt and not be amazing fighters – and that they were skilled with certain weapons, but not all.

The descriptions in the book were particularly good. I found it really easy to empathise with the characters and the relationships that developed were good and believable.

There were a couple of humourous moments in the book that came across really well. The idea of the tattoos was quite an interesting one and I would have liked a bit more explanation about what they all meant, though the author did do a good job of imparting that information without actually creating an info-dump.

The book was really intense and kept me reading throughout. Although it was the second in a trilogy, I didn’t struggle with relating with the characters or get too confused about what was going on. I do intend to read the third and first books in this trilogy at some point in the future and I would also check out other books by this same author.

(I received a free copy of this book from Bethany House, through NetGalley, in exchange for a review).

(This review may contain spoilers).

Ideally, I’d like to give this book 4.5 stars – not quite 4; but not quite 5, either.

It did take me a couple of pages to properly get into this book. I wasn’t sure what to make of it at the beginning, but I was eventually able to empathise with the characters and felt better able to understand them.

This book is part of a series, a fact that I didn’t realise until after I began reading and saw there were references to past events. Even so, though, this book was fairly easy to read as a standalone work.

This was a fairly entertaining read. I liked the use of fairy creatures in this book and the characters were really intriguing. There were some bittersweet, slightly emotional scenes that affected me even though I hadn’t seen the events leading up to them.

There were a few things that I didn’t understand – the whole wolf thing was a bit confusing, though by the end, it did make a bit more sense.

I did like the religious allegory in this book, though that might be more because I am a Christian. There were quite a lot of relationships that I liked and would have liked to see further explored – Foxbrush’s relationship with his cousin, for instance.

The wood almost seemed like a character in itself and I quite liked that. The creatures were interesting and diverse and this book has made me want to read the other books in this series. When I looked on Amazon, I realised I had book one in this series already on my Kindle. I will read it at some point – and in the future at some point, I intend to buy the other books in this series.

If you like this type of book, I do recommend it. There are some recognisable fairy tale scenes, but nothing that detracts from the story itself. It was definitely a good, entertaining read and one I expect I would be prepared to read again in the future, which is what I do with books I particularly enjoy.

(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).

(This review may contain spoilers).

I have to be honest and say… I really found this book hard to read. It wasn’t the plot so much as the writing itself.

I’ve personally found it really hard to read blocks of text and there were a lot of those in this book. Paragraphs weren’t used in the correct way – several characters were speaking in the same paragraph. There was also a lot of switching between tenses. That really throws me out of a story and I almost considered giving up on this, despite the commitment I make to read books I receive advance copies of.

It took me a little while to fully work out what side the characters were on, or even to fully relate to them. I liked Daniel’s relationship with Jeff and I would have liked to see more of it. However, a lot of things were skipped over. There was one line in particular: ‘He talked to his nephew about things an uncle talks to his nephew about’. I’m sorry, but that’s a big turn-off for me with books. For one thing, people aren’t going to have the same conversations all over. For another… that was character development that was missed completely.

I think there are a lot of improvements that could be made. The plot – or what I could understand of it – was well-thought-out. But the blocks of text and lack of character development really made it difficult to read.