Old School Murder, Lies and A Bit of Fluff – Bookhaul #3

I knew this was bound to happen, have seen it before, and yet, I was unable to put a stop to it: I embarked on an adventure called charity shop hunting and it was an all out massacre. I’m just glad I had help to carry all the loot home. This whole idea of saving money and supporting various charities at the same time is kind of exhilarating, to be honest. Knowing that someone will put my money to good use (well, hopefully, anyway) makes me feel all soft and fuzzy on the inside.

Without further ado, let’s take a look at this month’s acquisitions.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (Hercule Poirot #4)
by Agatha Christie

This is the book that made Agatha Christie truly famous, and caused quite a buzz at its publication in 1926 with its unique (at that time) plot twist.
I’ve read it when I was 19, and was so enthralled that I didn’t even realize I was sitting in the blazing sun for hours, sporting a red, sunburnt nose at the end. However I’ve never actually read it in English, so I had to pick it up, obviously. The cover is absolutely beautiful too!

 

Trust Your Eyes
by Linwood Barclay

I’m totally in love with Linwood Barclay’s writing. When I first started reading his work, I didn’t realize that many of his books are connected in one way or another. They actually work quite well as standalone, so kudos for this. Trust Your Eyes tells the story of Thomas, a map-obsessed dude, who while surfing a street view program, sees a woman being murdered behind a window on a New York street.
Suspense, guys, suspense! I was delighted when I saw that Inge @The Belgian Reviewer is also a fan.

City on Fire
by Garth Risk Hallberg

The odd one out. I have not heard of this book or author before, but it’s promised to be an unforgettable novel about love and betrayal and forgiveness, about art and truth and rock ‘n’ roll, about what people need from each other in order to live… and about what makes the living worth doing in the first place.
Also, it says on the cover that Stephen King liked it… Enough said.

Lies
by T.M. Logan

When this book came out last year, I kept receiving notifications one after the other from Amazon, because apparently based on the books I read this would be the obvious next choice. Well, I guess so, but that’s just how I am with pushy comments… I resist them, because don’t tell me what I like, thank you.
Lies follows Joe Lynch who spots his wife where she’s not supposed to be, and his investigation leads to a violent altercation, and later on to mysterious, threatening messages.

 

The Lie
by C.L. Taylor

 

Because apparently I can’t get enough of stories about people whose whole life is lie.
Jane Hughes has a loving partner, a job in an animal sanctuary and a tiny cottage in rural Wales. She’s happier than she’s ever been but her life is a lie. Jane Hughes does not really exist.
Dunn-dunn-dunn!

The Summer That Melted Everything
by Tiffany McDaniel

I came across this book when I was browsing Chelsea’s blog, The Suspense is Thrilling Me, and her review gave me the thrills too.
Fielding Bliss has never forgotten the summer of 1984: the year a heat wave scorched Breathed, Ohio. The year he became friends with the devil.
Sal seems to appear out of nowhere – a bruised and tattered thirteen-year-old boy claiming to be the devil himself answering an invitation. Fielding Bliss, the son of a local prosecutor, brings him home where he’s welcomed into the Bliss family, assuming he’s a runaway from a nearby farm town.
How can I not read this? Bonus: it’s set in 1984, the year I was born.

The Loney
by Andrew Michael Hurley

If it had another name, I never knew, but the locals called it the Loney – that strange nowhere between the Wyre and the Lune where Hanny and I went every Easter time with Mummer, Farther, Mr and Mrs Belderboss and Father Wilfred, the parish priest.

A good, old fashioned horror that sounds creepy as fuck. Exactly what I’ve been craving for a while!

Getting Rid Of Matthew
by Jane Fallon

I only came across Jane Fallon and her books last year when I read My Sweet Revenge, and I just knew I have to try some of her other stuff too. I don’t consider myself a Chick-Lit reader, but there’s just something about writing I really enjoyed and felt connected to. The main characters feel like real people and it’s easy to connect with them.
Jane Fallon is a London based author, and as such, is the perfect choice for one of the prompts on the Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book by a local author.

Girl Unknown
by Karen Perry

A daughter, a sister, a friend . . . an enemy?
Who is this mysterious girl? Soon after she walks into Professor David Connolly’s office his life is turned upside down.

I’m not one to turn down a promising suspense book, so let’s just hope this won’t suck like many other books I’ve read recently from this genre.

The Road
by Cormac McCarthy

When I first read Cormac McCarthy, his writing style nearly put me off after only a few chapters. My curiosity won however, and damn, it was the best decision ever. There is something definitely beautiful in the simplicity of his prose, even if it took me a while to get used to the lack of dialogue tags.
The road tells the story of a man and his son’s dangerous journey through a desolate, post-apocalyptic America.
Note to self: will definitely need a blankie for this one.

Mother Island
by Bethan Roberts

This is a story of a nanny who abducts the child she’s looking after. Sounds straight forward enough, I guess! But since that’s what the blurb says, I was kind of wondering what else is there to know, and the promise of long buried family secrets decided it for me.

The Cuckoo’s Calling (Cormoran Strike #1) & The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike #2)
by Robert Galbraith / J.K. Rowling

I have never read the Harry Potter series (and to be fair have no plans to), or anything else written by J.K. Rowling. One of the prompts on the Popsugar Reading Challenge was a book written by a female author with a male pseudonym, and this was the final nudge I needed to finally acquaint myself with the author’s work.
I seriously don’t even understand how could I resist the Cormoran Strike series for so long. I mean, hello? It has a lone detective with a dark past, it’s set in London, and his first case to investigate the death of a rich and famous model, followed by the gruesome murder of a well-known novelist in the second book just gives me so many Lew Archer vibes, that I can’t even…

Whispers Under Ground (Peter Grant #3)
by Ben Aaronovitch

I’ve never been a great fan of the supernatural, but every now and then I find an author who does is well. Ben Aaronovitch is one of them, and his urban fantasy series about Constable Peter Grant are hilarious and thoroughly enjoyable. I adore his witty humour and the way he weaves the magic into the stories in a way that it almost feels natural and never obnoxious.

And down in the dark, in the tunnels of London’s Underground, the buried rivers, the Victorian sewers, I’m hearing whispers of ancient arts and tortured, vengeful spirits…

The Wren Hunt
by Mary Watson

Because I seem to be a sucker for pretty covers… To be fair, the story does sound intriguing and it seems to be a standalone, which is great, because I’m kind of drowning in series.

Every Christmas, Wren is chased through the woods near her isolated village by her family’s enemies—the Judges—and there’s nothing that she can do to stop it. Once her people, the Augurs, controlled a powerful magic. But now that power lies with the Judges, who are set on destroying her kind for good.

Have you read any of these books yet?