eARC Review: Cleanness, by Garth Greenwell

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Categories: Literary Fiction, M/M

Goodreads

I received an advanced copy via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

I have not read Garth Greenwell’s other work What Belongs to You, and it was with no expectations and hardly any memory of the synopsis that I started it. What I knew of the book is that it would be an exploration of sexuality and identity, which is absolutely true. This book is very sexually explicit and beautifully written, the sentences not too flowery but still poignant. I was not sure I liked this book for the majority of it, because although I appreciated the writing and the themes, erotic literature is not quite what I normally pick up, and I felt uncomfortably like a voyeur. Basically, if you’re a prude like me, maybe skip this book. The main character, an American teacher, tells episodes of his life in Bulgaria, and how they reflected previous experiences he had in the US years before. I really enjoyed reading about Sofia and had my heart broken when learning the reality of homophobia there. Reading this a very immersive experience.

eARC Review: A Beautiful Crime: A Novel by Christopher Bollen

Rating: ★★★★☆

Categories: Mystery, M/M

Goodreads

I received an advanced copy via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

A Beautiful Crime tells the story of two young men who are planning the scam of their lives to save themselves from financial ruin. Nick, a handsome boy from New York, is meeting his boyfriend Clay in Venice for what will be the adventure of a lifetime – or his worst mistake. With Nick’s charming personality and Clay’s knowledge of their target, they are sure they can succeed. But can they?

I think it is inevitable to compare this book with The Talented Mr. Ripley, and the similarities in atmosphere and even the plot mirrors it a bit: two Americans meeting in Italy, scams and even murder. I had a lot of fun reading this character-driven novel! It is a mystery, and I would hesitate to call it a thriller due to the plot being definitely too slow for that, but I was positively anxious by the end of the book and just had to know what happened next.

Review: Proper English, by KJ Charles

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Historical F/F Romance, Murder Mystery

Goodreads 

Proper English is the story of Pat, a sensible young woman, who’s going to the country house of Earl of Witton for a shooting party. She’s also meeting her old friend, Jimmy, and his new fiancée. The problem? It might just be worst party of all time, as tensions grow and secrets are spilled out, revealing shocking betrayals, and worse – they’re all stuck together through a storm that might last several days. And Pat has yet another problem: Jimmy’s fiancée, Fen, is a lovely, beautiful girl, and Pat has never met someone quite like her. When a body is discovered in the house, Pat and Fen must do what they can do find the murderer.

Review: Missing, Presumed Dead by Emma Berquist

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Mystery, Young Adult, F/F Paranormal Romance

Goodreads

Lexi doesn’t like it when people touch her. No, that’s an understatement – Lexi flinches whenever someone touches her, because she can see how anyone will die if she has contact with their skin. She also sees ghosts, and can send them to wherever it is they should’ve gone when they died, but at great cost to her. She’s lonely and miserable, working at a night club to make ends meet where people like her are welcome. One night, she touches a woman who’s going to be murdered violently that night and when she meets her ghost, she knows she must do whatever it takes to avenge her.

Mini-Review: Behind Closed Doors, by B. A. Paris

Rating: ★★★★★

Genres: Thriller

Goodreads

Jack and Grace are a perfect couple – he is handsome and rich, she is charming and loving. But behind closed doors, things may not be so perfect after all.

This was the second B. A. Paris book I read, after The Breakdown, and I loved it so much. I am partial to books about couples that aren’t what they seem, so I was definitely inclined to like this one anyway. I listened to this in audio, which was absolutely brilliant! It was so well done, and kept the story just as (or even more) gripping and intense as reading it would have been. This is a whip-smart thriller that I highly recommend.

eARC Review: Murder Theory (The Naturalist #3), by Andrew Mayne

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Thriller, Crime

Goodreads

Murder Theory is the third book in The Naturalist series, following Dr. Theo Cray as he gets involved with another strange case… this time, a series of senseless murders apparently disconnected from each other take place not that far apart, except – all the murderers have no history of violence and no reason to commit the murders at all. They all look vacant and have no memory of what they did. What if there’s something infecting them, affecting their brains and making people attack loved ones? What if someone is spreading this infection on purpose?

Review: Sharp Objects, by Gillian Flynn

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Thriller

Goodreads

Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects tells the story of Camille, a reporter who’s just back from the hospital where she was treated for cutting words into her skin. She gets the assignment to go back to the town where she grew up and cover the murders of two girls whose bodies were discovered without the teeth. As she is confronted with her past, and the family she has been trying to avoid, Camille finds herself in a darker place than she’s been before.

This was a complicated read for me.

I remember thinking that Gone Girl was brilliantly dark and that it was so unique, but Sharp Objects felt like it tried a bit too hard to be cool and dark and gritty, and the women are represented in such a negative way, whether they were a tomboy, a girly girl, a group of older women, Camille’s former classmates. They were all so mean. I also had issues with the portrayal of self-harm – I have no experience with that myself, but it felt romanticized and possibly triggering. I had to take a breather from how intense this book was and pause several times while reading.

Mini-Review: Lying in Wait, by Liz Nugent

Rating: ★★★★★

Genres: Psychological Thriller

Goodreads / Amazon

“My husband did not mean to kill Annie Doyle, but the lying tramp deserved it.”

This is such an interesting thriller – in the very first sentences you know who’s the murderer and who’s the victim. The rest of the story is an unnerving psychological thriller, watching the murderers get away with it, the victim’s family trying and trying to get the truth, sometimes getting closer, sometimes being drifted away. The stakes get higher as the story goes on, and there is a constant tension in the air, even when things are going “okay” (it does get a bit slow sometimes, but just you WAIT). I was very impressed by this novel, and really enjoyed seeing the point of view of the murderer and his family. I must say I do like books where you get the narration from the guilty part – Lydia was so very manipulative, psychopathic and strange, it was great. Really amazing thriller!

Resenha: Caixão Fechado, por Sophie Hannah

Nota: ★★★★☆

Gêneros: Mistério, crime

Este é o segundo livro de Sophie Hannah continuando a nova série de livros com o detetive Hercule Poirot, de Agatha Christie. Na verdade, eu não ia ler esse livro, já que li Os Crimes do Monograma e achei bem meh. Mas no fim me emprestaram este livro e pensei: por que não?

A minha impressão imediata é que Caixão Fechado tem um estilo muito mais parecido com o de Agatha Christie do que o primeiro livro. Isso já me deixou mais animada para ler, e acabei me envolvendo com a história e o mistério. Tanto a história como os personagens tinham um ar bem nostálgico com uma senhora rica mudando o testamento e logo depois disso… um assassinato ocorre! Me lembrou um pouco O Natal de Poirot, entre outros.

Review: Six Wakes, by Mur Lafferty

Rating: ★★★★★

Genres: Science Fiction, Mystery

Goodreads / Amazon

I got the recommendation for this book from SFF Yeah! podcast and it sounded so, so good I couldn’t help getting it almost immediately.

The crew of a ship wakes up with no memory of the last 25 years. They are all clones, woken up all at the same time to a gruesome scene: all their previous clones drenched in blood, floating around the spaceship. They were all murdered, and now the murderer is newly awaken, with no memory of doing it. Ian, the Intelligent Artificial Network, is down.