The Dolocher is set in the mid-1700s Dublin and people are being murdered by what many believe is a demon spirit from a man who killed himself while awaiting execution. Merriment O’Grady becomes caught up in the investigation into the murderers when a lodger moves into her building - journalist Solomon Fish.

This book as absolutely brilliant. It was written in a way that was very accessible, historical, set the scenes really, really well and just read so easily. I thought the build-up of the characters and their personalities and connections was done really well from the lovely mother/daughter relationship that occurs between Merriment and Janey Mack, and then the chemistry-laden relationship between Merriment and Solomon that just sizzled really well.

Janey Mack was hands down my favourite character. From her very first scene she was absolutely brilliant and I feel she stole every scene that she was in for the entirety of the novel. She was a child but she never had the annoying feeling that children can sometimes tend to be in books - she talked more or less like an adult which considering the time era and where she had come from was really realistic.

Merriment was the feminist heroine of Georgian Dublin I didn’t know I needed. She was an ex ship-surgeon, wore men’s breeches, carried a gun and ran her own business. She was a total boss, and was not afraid to take charge and tell people where to shove it when needed.

Solomon was probably the weakest character for me - maybe because he had some weak traits like drinking, gambling and whoring that made me roll my eyes when he slipped up really badly. But eventually he had a great redemption arc.

The mystery in this book was brilliantly told - there was the air of what the hell was going on, but there was a great mixture of horror and gore in it as well (there are some graphic descriptions in this book for those adverse to it). I thought the very end was slightly anti-climatic maybe a little bit, it felt like it was going really well, and then it just tailed off slightly.

nope

I received a free digital copy of this book from the publishers/author via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Detective Jim Clemo is back on duty after some time off, and is immediately put on the case of a boy who is in a coma after falling into a canal. The only witness was his best friend, who is refusing to speak to anyone. As Clemo investigates deeper, he starts thinking there’s more to the story.

I loved being back with Jim Clemo, who was the lead detective in Gilly MacMillan’s debut novel Burnt Paper Sky/What She Saw. Hi is a pretty great detective to follow as he’s realy good at his job, but he also has some things going on in his life that are interesting but don’t distract from the main mystery of the story.

I think I actually liked this one better than Burnt Paper Sky, even though I also loved that one. There was something about this that I just thought it was tied together really, really well from the relationship between Noah and Abdi, to Abdi’s parents’ background and then Noah’s illness and how it shaped his personality a bit.

I thought the way Gilly wrote an emotionally manipulative friendship was really, really well done. It slowly unravels how obsessive Noah was with Abdi being only his friend but we also don’t get much answers about exactly what happened, and none of the glimpses we do have seem to make Noah out to be anything but a victim but there’s something there that just doesn’t add up.

I really liked the side twist about Abdi’s parents and their tough journey from refugees in Somalia to British residents. I liked that it was made clear they speak their own language in their home, and some of the ways in which they all feel vulnerable when out and about in public just because of the way they look (for example how Abdi’s sister and mom are treated for wearing hijabs, and how Abdi hides his face because he’s black when he and Noah bypass a group of men drinking late at night). We see the differences in privilege between Abdi and Noah on a number of occasions, and how Noah has no idea how Abdi has to always think about what he does because of how he could be treated because of the colour of his skin.

The ending of this may be a bit over the top for some people, but I really liked it. At that stage, I’d been reading the book all day so was in a high state of excitement and when it all blew off, i was so there for it.

The letters at the end definitely shocked me a bit but I liked how they proved

what an emotionally manipulative boy Noah was. Who WANTS their best friend to watch them take their own life. The fact he wanted to make his friend witness something so horrible, and felt like he was gifting him something, just proved to be that Noah was definitely not this sweetheart everyone else thought him to be.

3.5 stars.

I received a free digital copy of this book from the publishers/author via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Paris Adrift follows a young woman called Hallie making a new life for herself in Paris, France, and ends up figuring out that in particular places in the city, she’s able to time travel. But the future of the world may depend on things Hallie can change in the past - she just has no idea.

This book is pretty strange, and at times complex and it’s one that when I initially started it, I was afraid I may have had to DNF it but it actually completely gripped me and even though not everything made sense to me, I really enjoyed the ride it took me on.

I don’t think will be a book for everyone but if you’re a reader willing to take a chance on a twisting, strange tale with a science fiction element (aka time travel!) then I would say to give it a go. But also don’t be too surprised if for the first quarter you have no idea what’s going on.

I actually genuinely would have been able to read this book without the opening chapter showing a very horrible future, and people discussing incumbents, anomalies and time travel. It left me feeling really confused but once I was in Hallie’s POV, I was able to follow the story and what was happening to her. I think Leon’s connection with Hallie would have even been better if it was a surprise for us, the readers.

I liked the ending and how things wrapped up though I wasn’t mad about Hallie and Leon’s relationship because I felt no chemistry between the two of them. It kind of felt like the author put them together just because she should, and they didn’t have enough real moments for me to really love them together. They always seemed more like close friends than two people in love to me.

I really enjoyed Hallie’s time travel and would have liked more sections like when she traveled to 1875 and we could really see what she was doing. It felt like we got a good look at 1875, a simpler look at WW2 Paris and then pretty much nothing of her other time travel adventures. I would have liked more of them and less of Hallie’s time in Millies.

I did really enjoy this book though and it’s one I’d tentatively recommend to others with a warning to just give it a fair chance.

3.5 Stars

Miles/Pudge Halter goes to boarding school where he finally makes some friends, one of which includes a girl called Alaska Young. Pudge learns how to smoke, prank people and fall in love. The book is split into two parts: Before and After. Before a bad thing happened and after a bad thing happened and how he deals with it

This book was okay but I definitely didn't love it. There were some parts I enjoyed, the pranks, the friendships, the blowjob story (hilarious) but I didn't feel totally connected to Pudge and Alaska. Pudge was very much a normal John Green-protagonist and maybe if I didn't already have Q and Augustus in my heart, there'd be room for Pudge but there wasn't as that space is full. Alaska actually irritated me most of the time. It's probably terrible but I feel like if she had gone to my school, I wouldn't have liked her and would have just classed her as an annoying attention-seeker. There's some things she did that kind of annoyed me, like yelling at the Colonel for 'objectifying women' when he mentioned Lara's breasts but then did things like tell Pudge in a flirty way not to stare at her butt while climbing out the window, which he was obviously going to end up doing cause she told him not to (?) and then do very flirty things and then go on about how much she loved her boyfriend.

I felt a bit bored for most of the first half of the book mainly because I felt like I'd already read a similar storyline in The Perks of Being A Wallflower - guy goes to new school, is introvert and likes to read. Makes friends with guy and girl. They introduce him to smoking, drinking and general debauchery. Falls in love with girl. Shit ensues.

The second half was a bit better and i do like how Takumi and Lara were still in the little loop. I didn't feel particularly emotional about anything that happened. I also guessed the whole reason for the freakout really early on as well so it was annoying it took everyone else so long. And then they didn't really figure it out in the end. So yeah, glad i finally read it but definitely not my favourite John Green book, that's still reserved for Paper Towns or TFIOS (I can't really decided because TFIOS (!) and then Paper Towns was my first JG foray).