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

When Elizabeth returns home to the Irish country town she grew up in after her mother's death, she ends up discovering facts about the father she was told died before she was born. Elizabeth ends up discovering who she really is, while also trying to stay grounded to help her wayward teenage son.

Graham Norton is honestly becoming a master at being able to capture the essence of Irish country life, and all the people you expect to see in such places. It's obvious he understands what it's like to live in such a place, and has a real respect for the Irish countryside, and its people, while still being able to capture the types of characters that can be deemed stereotypical.

I loved Elizabeth's journey in this book, and found myself completely sucked into the mystery of who she was and what happened to her mother before she was born. I had a nice chuckle at the Farmer's Journal letters - like Tinder before smart phones! Though this story definitely screams of stranger danger too. I read this book basically in one sitting, which goes to show how easy the writing is, and how engrossing the story becomes. I just couldn't put it down until I had all the details.

There were some times when dialogue became a bit awkward - normally conversations between women and men in a romantic sense, and I did cringe a bit at some of the more awkward questions and statements that I just can't imagine people actually saying or doing. I did find the side plot with Elizabeth's son a bit distracting, and for the most part I didn't care what was happening with him because I just wanted to get back to the past mystery storyline. Things did all tangle together in the end but I still could have done without the side plot.

I received a copy of this book from Titan Press in exchange for an honest review.

Victor, Mitch, Sydney and Dol are back, and this time Victor is on another mission which is leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. In a secure facility, Eli is planning his revenge, and another EO Marcella has risen up, literally, from the ashes and is taking on the mob from the inside, slowly bringing her closer to an encounter with both Victor and Eli.

I really loved this follow-up to Vicious, and I actually think I enjoyed it more than the first book. I particularly liked the character development of Sydney, who readers really know as a little girl abandoned by her sister, as she grows into a teenager and has to struggle with being stuck in a child's body but a woman's mind. The introduction of June was a great idea, and I found her a fascinating, engaging character. I actually would love a prequel novella about June and her story leading up to Vengeful, and honestly would also be happy with another sequel with a focus on her.

I never warmed to Victor and Eli as much as others did in Vicious, and I think I felt the same in Vengeful. My favourite characters in the books are definitely the side characters like Sydney and Mitch, and in Vengeful definitely Marcella who was a riot. I loved slowly starting to love-hate Marcella and her journey into villainous madness.

I do think the very end felt a tiny bit rushed. I would have expected a little bit more in the Doctor's 'lair' if that's what you want to call it before the big show down, and it all seemed to end rather quickly.

I'm not sure if this is the end of our EO journey though I really hope it isn't because I loved this so much, and I really feel it ended in a way that subtly said 'To be continued..'

2.5 stars

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

When Maddie was 17 years old, her best friend Nora disappeared, never to be seen again. Now ten years later, Maddie is back to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Nora's disappearance but the next day, Noelle - Nora's 17-year-old sister- is found dead in the last spot Nora was seen. Maddie is determined to get to the bottom of both mysteries.

I had some high hopes for this book, the premise of it just sounded really appealing to me and i couldn't wait to see how it was all laid out. However, it ended up being a disappointment and I think some of it may have had to do with this being a first book, and while the idea was good, future books will probably be better, but there was a lot in this book that just needed to be tightened up in my opinion.

I found Maddie to be a very unlikeable character for starters, and I found it really irritating how she'd let Nora's disappearance wreck her life. She wasn't Nora's only friend, and she wasn't family yet she seemed to monopolise the grief over the loss of Nora. I also thought it really inappropriate the way she started investigating Noelle's death, and her social media without talking to the police at all and she didn't seem to care about it possibly impeding the investigation. It was just really dumb.

There were some small things to do with the writing in this book that I also felt were a product of it being a debut - first of was that Maddie also lived in a place called Madison, and referred to it often and I felt like this was just a bit sloppy on both the writer's and editors' parts. Noah, Nate, Noelle and Nora also all obviously had 'N' names, and I found it really cheesy. There was a moment in this book where it seemed like this may have had something to do with the murder/disappearance but it literally ended up meaning nothing.

I guessed who the killer was in the first chapter too so honestly, i was left totally unsurprised by the reveal in the end. It was so obvious for a lot of the book.

One thing that irked me A LOT in this book was the articles that Maddie kept reading, all of which were biased and sensational and not responsible reporting at all. Honestly, this book was the unfortunate victim of being the one that just ended up with me finally losing my patience with irresponsible reporting in fiction, and while sometimes this type of media in books can progress a story, for this it was just a case of bad media, reporting on the edge of defamation and just one more dangerous example of 'distrustful media.' As a journalist, I'm sick and tired of seeing it in fiction.

I did like parts of this story, mainly the overall plot/idea. I think it had good bones, but the meat just didn't fill it out well enough for me. I will read more from AM Taylor, I just hope what let her down in this book is improved upon.

I received this book from Pan Macmillan in exchange for an honest review.

Two Dark Reigns is the third book in the Three Dark Crowns quartet following queens and triplets Mirabella, Arsinoe and Katherine as they continue to contend to become true Queen Consort of the island of Fennbirn. But there is a twist when the magical mist that has always protected the island suddenly turns against its inhabitants, and a new Legion Queen appears and is set on a rebellion.

This book was fantastic - it was really fast-paced and all the twists and turns in it kept me hooked. I've always enjoyed the sisterly bond in these books, between Mirabella and Arsinoe at least, and I really liked seeing their relationship develop and deeper in this book, while at the same time we're seeing Katherine begin to slowly unravel, and really see the affect of her relationship with the Dead Queens.

I thought Jules' storyline in this book was extremely interesting, and I can't wait to see it develop further and I can't help but wonder what the author's plans for Jules are. The more i find out about her, and particularly the prophecies surrounding her, the more likely it is I feel like she's going to be a major catalyst in the ending of the story.

One of my favourite parts of this book was finding out about the Blue Queen and Daphne. I'm definitely going to pick up the novella The Queens of Fennbirn, and honestly I could probably read a book of short stories about the past queens. Delving into the history of the queens and the bloodlines over 500 years earlier was fantastic, and it's nice to see how different yet how similar our Queens' time is.

This book was dark in all the right places, and it had a touch of power and enough gore to jeep me hooked and disgusted, and a little bit afraid and awed, all at the same time. I really cannot wait for the fourth and final book.

I received this book from the publishers/author via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Ruth Butterham is awaiting her hanging in a women's jail, and is pretty secure in her crime. When rich do-gooder, Dorothea Truelove visits Ruth with an aim to study phrenology and use Ruth as a test subject, she ends up finding out the real truth behind Ruth's crimes, and the strange power with needle and thread that Ruth believes she wields. But is Ruth just a poor girl framed for murder, or does she really possess a wicked power?

I really enjoyed this and I think this is a great book to read during the Autumn months if you don't want something outright scary, but just a book that will leave you feeling a slight chill and raise some goosebumps on your skin. I really enjoyed the Victoria setting, and I think Laura Purcell always manages to capture a woman's lot at this time really well, be it a rich spinster like Dorothea or a young girl like Ruth forced to work like a slave to help her family. This book was dark and grimy but it a way that suited the tale really well, and I could easily picture a small home, lit with a single candle and a mother and daughter struggling to sew in the corner to earn their bread and butter - all in the shadow of rich women buying their wares, willfully blind to the suffering of those below them.

The way this book is written reminded me a lot of Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood. It's really up to the reader for the most part to decide if Ruth is guilty or not, and I love that questions are left hanging at the end. I actually enjoyed this book better than AG, and I found Ruth a skilled storyteller and she was easy to feel for. Dorothea was definitely harder to get along with, and was certainly high and mighty at the best of times but I did enjoy her interactions with people as well and the slight cheekiness she showed at times.

I do really recommend this book for anyone looking for a chilling tale, and one with a great foot in Victoria history that brings the era to life - not with colour but with shadows and death.

3.5 Stars

When River moves to a new town with her mother, she becomes just like everyone else and quickly falls under the spell of The Graces - a family thought to have magical powers. But unlike others, River soon becomes one of them, and finds herself wrapped up in magical secrets and feels like she belongs for the first time in her life. But people have secrets, including River, and does magic actually exist?

This was a nice, atmospheric book which I think really suited the time of year I was reading it well (Halloween, obviously). This book isn't for people who love very obvious magic in their books but more for readers who love having the question posed on them on what is actually going on, and what's real or not real, magic or coincidence?

I think some of the styling in this was done quite well, such as never actually knowing River's real name, only the name she identified herself with but I think some of the description building lacked in little ways. I never really got a proper idea of what River looked like (though having met Laure Eve at a signing a few years ago, I kind of ended up picturing River looking like her), and the characters with the best description were definitely the Graces themselves and they came alive on the page.

There were parts of this that were a bit juvenile for me, and it does suffer from some YA tropes like the 'absentee parent who suddenly starts to care.' I also was a bit uncomfortable at times at the throwing around of certain words such as when Summer is pressuring River about possibly being a "lesbian" because she hasn't shown interest in guys, and the constant use of 'mentally unstable' to describe Marcus.

I did like how this book ended, and I will be reading the next one.

Judith is a struggling assistant at a lucrative London art dealers but a chance encounter with an old friend introduces her to a special club where being a much-desired hostess can bring in rakes of cash. When she's fired from the art dealers after uncovering a fraud, Judith allows her anger to take control and soon is travelling around Europe bringing down the men who wronged her as she goes.

I'm not really sure what I thought this book was going to be but I definitely thought it would be a bit more classy than what it ended up as. I actually was under the assumption this book was well-loved until i actually went back and checked the Goodreads rating, and it's not actually very popular at all.

I think it did start out quite well, and I was invested in Judith and her dark furore into the seedy underbelly that was the special club. But there was so much tasteless passages in this that were purely there for just the shock factor. Every sex scene was over the top with the descriptions with a lot of vulgar words used, which is fine in moderation but I found it a bit much in this book.

And honestly it just went to kind of bad to downright insane, and I really just to roll my eyes at the plot at that stage. LS Hilton definitely seems to know the art world very well, and it's obvious how much Judith wants everyone to know how much she knows with all the pointless descriptions the readers are given about everything - if I'm reading a thriller, I'm not reading it to learn more about art which I'm not remotely interested in. And then comes a weird kind of bloodlust/murder craze and I found a lot of Judith's plans just really sloppy.

There's just so many problematic things in this book from the emphasis on being thin and beautiful, and forgetting your roots to go forward in life, but not to mention the fat-shaming, oh my god the fat-shaming! I've never read a book that concentrated so much on weight before, particularly with male characters. I don't think there was any time when the character of James was mentioned, when his weight wasn't described in some way. It honestly just made me feel a bit disgusted. He was fat, who cared and why did it matter so much? There was also a point when Judith presumed Steve was asexual because he hadn't shown any interest in her sexually or other women or men despite not having a single conversation with him about his sexual orientation.

I will say there were times the audiobook was quite entertaining, and I think the narrator, Emilia Fox, did a good job. I probably wouldn't pick up the next book in physical format again but maybe if I'm short of audiobooks, I'd get it from my library app.