Archive for the ‘Penguin Books’ Category

Review: Survive – Alex Morel

January 17th, 2013 Vicky
Cover of Survive by Alex Morel

Title: Survive
Author: Alex Morel
Publication date: August 2, 2012
Publisher: Razorbill (Penguin Books)
Format: Ebook
ASIN: B006CU9XRI
Length: 273 pages
Genre: Adventure
Age group: Young Adult
Source: Purchased
Add it: Goodreads
Buy it: Amazon US | Amazon UK | The Book Depository

Synopsis

Jane is on a plane on her way home to Montclair, New Jersey, from a mental hospital. She is about to kill herself. Just before she can swallow a lethal dose of pills, the plane hits turbulence and everything goes black. Jane wakes up amidst piles of wreckage and charred bodies on a snowy mountaintop. There is only one other survivor: a boy named Paul, who inspires Jane to want to fight for her life for the first time.

Jane and Paul scale icy slopes and huddle together for warmth at night, forging an intense emotional bond. But the wilderness is a vast and lethal force, and only one of them will survive.

My thoughts

I don’t know what it is about plane crash/survival stories that fascinates me but I’ve always loved these types of books. Judging by the synopsis, Survive sounded just like my cup of tea but it turned out to be even better than what I expected. There are actually no words to describe how much I enjoyed reading this book, other than… oh my goodness.

In terms of the plot itself, it’s not the most mysterious story you’ll ever read. Basically, a girl called Jane Solis, who’s been living in a mental hospital for the past 12 months or so, is on her way back home for the Christmas holidays – the problem is, she doesn’t intend to leave the plane alive. She carefully planned her own death down to the tiniest details – but things don’t go her way. Just when she’s about to hit the switch and swallow a handful of pills, the  plane hits turbulence and crashes. They landed on a snowy mountaintop in the middle of nowhere and no one seems to be alive but her. Jane, who was about to take her own life a few hours ago. Then he finds a guy called Paul and as much as they irritate each other at first, they join forces and try to figure out how to stay alive and get out of there as soon as possible. Since most of these are given in the synopsis, things don’t take you by surprise – but still, there was something about this book that made me keep on reading. I’m quite a slow reader but I devoured the first half of the book in one sitting. I think that says it all.

One of the things I loved the most about Survive is how much Jane changed during those 6 or 7 days they’ve spent on the mountain. She’s definitely come a long way from being a suicide, someone who’s constantly angry, anxious and just bored with her own life. I also loved how her relationship with Paul has changed during their adventure and how they kept motivating each other to go on and fight. I pretty much sobbed my way through the last 40 or 50 pages – it was beautifully written.

(more…)

Posted in 5 stars, Action/adventure, Book reviews, Penguin Books, Razorbill, YA Tags: , 16 Comments »

Review: Got You Back – Jane Fallon

November 3rd, 2012 Vicky
Cover of Got You Back by Jane Fallon

Title: Got You Back
Author: Jane Fallon
Publication date: August 15, 2008
Publisher: Penguin Books
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-141-03440-9
Length: 406 pages
Genre: Women’s fiction
Age group: Adult
Source: Publisher
Add it: Goodreads
Buy it: Amazon US | Amazon UK | The Book Depository

Synopsis

The husband: James never intended to lead a double life – with a wife in London and a mistress in the country, it’s exhausting. But that’s all about to change…

The wife: Stephanie isn’t really snooping when she finds a text message from a strange woman on her husband’s mobile. But now she’s found it, how can she ignore it? It’s time to track the woman down and find out what’s going on…

The mistress: Katie has no reason to believe her boyfriend, James, is cheating until someone claiming to be his wife gets in touch. Now she’s been cast in the role of mistress. Not one she’s happy with…

Once Stephanie and Katie know about each other, they must decide what to do. They could both just throw him out or they could join forces to make his life hell first… But revenge isn’t always sweet. And what happens when one woman thinks enough is enough but the other doesn’t know when to stop?

My thoughts

My love for Jane Fallon’s work started years before I even started blogging. I remember randomly picking up Getting Rid of Matthew in our local bookshop when I was 17 and instantly falling love with Fallon’s writing. I know I loved her style even then but I wasn’t really keen on how the story ended and felt that it fell a bit flat. Since I found the author’s style so absorbing and so well-written, I knew Got You Back would be another brilliant read but I was hoping the ending wouldn’t disappoint. Well, it didn’t. Got You Back turned out to be even more captivating than I thought it would be and it has quickly become one of my favourite books of the year from this genre. It’s very cleverly written, its characters are relatable and realistic and the story is definitely a unique one.

Both the story and the writing reminded me of Tamar Cohen’s A Mistress’s Revenge, a book which I reviewed only a few months ago. Both books deal with love affairs gone wrong in quite a different way but in a similarly entertaining and gripping fashion. Got You Back centres around Stephanie, a stylist working in London and James, a vet who divides his time between his rural practice in Lower Shippingham and his work in north London. While he loves his wife and his son, he feels that his life got a bit dull over the years. So when he meets Katie in Lower Shippingham and suddenly feels more alive, his fate is sealed. They move in together in Katie’s cottage, spending three nights a week together while Stephanie and their son Finn are both in London. But when James forgets to delete one of Katie’s texts and Stephanie finds it by accident, a whole new chapter begins.

Instead of the usual cheating husband scenario, Stephanie gets in touch with Katie and they come up with a plan: they join forces in order to take revenge and make James’s life as miserable as he made them feel. Fallon kept me on the edge of my seat all the way through the end and I had no clue what was going to happen. The fact that James has no clue what’s going on behind his back or even the fact that his wife and his girlfriend know each other makes the story utterly hilarious and impossible to put down. (more…)

Posted in 5 stars, Book reviews, Penguin Books, women's fiction Tags: , , 18 Comments »

Review: The Mystery of Mercy Close – Marian Keyes

September 21st, 2012 Vicky
Cover of The Mystery of Mercy Close by Marian Keyes

Title: The Mystery of Mercy Close
Author: Marian Keyes
Publication date: September 13, 2012
Publisher: Michael Joseph (Penguin Books)
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 9780718155315
Length: 528 pages
Genre: Women’s fiction
Age group: Adult
Source: Publisher
Add it: Goodreads
Buy it: Amazon US | Amazon UK | The Book Depository

Synopsis

Helen Walsh doesn’t believe in fear – it’s just a thing invented by men to get all the money and good job – and yet she’s sinking. Her work as a Private Investigator has dried up, her flat has been repossessed and now some old demons have resurfaced.

Not least in the form of her charming but dodgy ex-boyfriend Jay Parker, who shows up with a missing persons case. Money is tight – so tight Helen’s had to move back in with her elderly parents – and Jay is awash with cash. The missing person is Wayne Diffney, the ‘Wacky One’ from boyband Laddz. He’s vanished from his house in Mercy Close and it’s vital that he’s found – Laddz have a sell-out comeback gig in five days’ time.

Things ended messily with Jay. And she’s never going back there. Besides she has a new boyfriend now, the very sexy detective Artie Devlin and it’s all going well, even though his ex-wife isn’t quite ‘ex’ enough and his teenage son hates her. But the reappearance of Jay is stirring up all kinds of stuff she thought she’d left behind.

Playing by her own rules, Helen is drawn into a dark and glamorous world, where her worst enemy is her own head and where increasingly the only person she feels connected to is Wayne, a man she’s never even met.

My thoughts

Marian Keyes has been one of my favourite authors ever since I can remember so seeing one of her books hit the shelves always fills me with excitement. The Mystery of Mercy Close is the fifth and final Walsh sister book, featuring the youngest Walsh sister, Helen. Although I was sure the book would be another fantastic read, I had absolutely no idea what to expect from Helen. We already met her in her sisters’ books when she was still a teenager – she was the pretty and popular one who was known for her sharp tongue, her sarcasm and brutal honesty. She was hilarious in her own way but  for some reason I could never relate to her character as much as I could to some of her sisters’. Which was another reason why I’ve been so eagerly waiting for this book – I was really intrigued to see how her quirky character would work if she had her ‘own book’ and to see how much she’s changed throughout the years. As it turns out, she has changed a lot. So much so that a few chapters in she became my favourite Walsh sister and The Mystery of Mercy Close turned out to be my favourite book from the series.

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Posted in 5 stars, Book reviews, Michael Joseph, women's fiction Tags: , 17 Comments »

Review: Mammy Walsh’s A-Z of the Walsh Family – Marian Keyes

August 28th, 2012 Vicky
Cover of Mammy Walsh's A-Z of the Walsh Family by Marian Keyes

Title: Mammy Walsh’s A-Z of the Walsh Family
Author: Marian Keyes
Publication date: 27 August, 2012
Publisher: Penguin Books
Format: Ebook
ASIN: B008PS0I6K
Length: 67 pages
Genre: Women’s fiction
Age group: Adult
Source: Purchased
Add it: Goodreads
Buy it: Amazon US | Amazon UK

Synopsis

For all fans eagerly awaiting Marian Keyes’ new novel The Mystery of Mercy Close – featuring Helen Walsh and out in September 2012 – here is an irresistible ebook-only guide to everyone’s favourite dysfunctional Irish family, Mammy Walsh’s A–Z of the Walshes.

My thoughts

As a huge fan of both the Walsh family and Marian herself, Mammy Walsh’s A-Z of the Walsh Family was a definite must-read for me. With The Mystery of Mercy Close‘s release day only a fortnight away, Mammy Walsh’s book is perfect for those who – just like myself – are anxiously waiting for Helen’s story.

With only 67 pages, the book is not a long read – it’s short enough for you to read in one sitting (curled up in bed, with a cup of tea in hand) after a long and exhausting day at work. It’s exactly what the synopsis says – it’s basically an A-Z list of things that are somehow relevant to the Walsh clan, including the five daughters’ relationship with alcohol, Mammy Walsh’s take on fake tan, cooking, eejit sticks (oh, how I wish they were real!), Helen’s shovel list, G-strings, real men and false goodbyes. Mammy Walsh -who, along with Mr Walsh, is one of my favourites from the previous Walsh family books – is such an entertaining character and I’m glad she finally has her own book.

It’s quite difficult to talk about it without giving too much away but trust me when I say it’s utterly hilarious. Mammy Walsh’s A-Z of the Walsh Family had me roaring with laughter and reminded me of why I fell in love with Marian’s stories and all the craziness that goes on in the Walsh household all those years ago. Fans of women’s fiction, brace yourselves. Marian is back!

Teaser

“There’s this woman I know from bridge, Mona Hopkins, a lovely woman she is, even if I must admit I’m not that keen on her myself, and she said a great thing the other day. I was expecting her to say “Two no trumps,” but instead she comes out with a saying about her children. She says, “Boys wreck your house and girls wreck your head.” Isn’t that a marvellous bit of wisdom – “Boys wreck your house and girls wreck your head!” And God knows it’s the truest thing I’ve heard in a long time. I should know. I have five girls. Five daughters. And let me tell you, my head is wrecked from them.Although, now that I think of it, so is my house . . .”


Rating:
5 star rating
Posted in 5 stars, Book reviews, chick lit, Michael Joseph Tags: , 9 Comments »

Review: A Message to Your Heart – Niamh Greene

July 18th, 2012 Vicky
Cover of A Message to Your Heart by Niamh Greene

Title: A Message to Your Heart
Author: Niamh Greene
Publication date: May 30, 2012
Publisher: Penguin Ireland
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-844-88261-8
Length: 357 pages
Genre: Chick lit
Age group: Adult
Source: Publisher
Add it: Goodreads
Buy it: Amazon US | Amazon UK | The Book Depository

Synopsis

Frankie Rowley is far too practical to believe in karma or fate…

Work-obsessed Frankie is also far too busy to spend time with her family or friends. They all reckon the strongest relationship she has is with her phone. (And why not? At least it never judges her when she cancels dinner for the millionth time.) So when she loses that precious phone on a crucial business trip to San Francisco, Frankie is beside herself – her life was on it.

Sure, Frankie can make and take calls on a hired phone, but it’s not the same. This new phone isn’t a part of her like the old one. And the last straw is when she starts getting texts meant for someone else – someone called Aimee. This Aimee seems like a lot of fun, and clearly her family loves to keep in touch, but why is Frankie getting her messages?

Bad enough that she has lost her old phone, but now Frankie is supposed to share her new one with some stranger. Frankie goes on the warpath, but she is in for some surprises when she blunders into Aimee’s life. And the biggest surprise of all is how your life can be changed for ever by losing a phone.

Frankie may not believe in karma or faith, but suddenly they seem to believe in her…

My thoughts

Even though I have a copy of the Secret Diary of a Demented Housewife – one of Niamh Greene’s earlier books – I haven’t managed to read it yet. So when I received A Message to Your Heart, I had no idea what to expect. The story itself reminded me a little bit of Sophie Kinsella’s I’ve Got Your Number but it turned out to be completely different. However, it is an entertaining and a very uplifting read – if you like this genre and you’re looking for a quick summer read then it is definitely something you must add to your reading list.

If I had to pick one thing I enjoyed the most in this book then I would say the setting and the way San Francisco is described in the story. At the end of the book the author mentions that she spent some time living in San Francisco and in this novel she tried to give a sense of what this city meant to her – and she really managed to get her message across. I’ve been fascinated by this place ever since I read Meg Donohue’s How to Eat a Cupcake and the two books are quite similar in this respect. Both of them are very atmospheric and they’re guaranteed to make you feel as if you were there, sitting on the balcony of a small Italian restaurant in the dazzling sunshine, eating pizza and sipping a glass of wine.

As for the characters, I think Frankie, with her slightly sarcastic attitude and Irish humour, makes a great narrator. Take Frankie – a workaholic and tiny bit impatient literary agent whose only hope for saving her agency is signing a book deal with a writer called Ian -, add a stubborn and eccentric writer called Ian who’s afraid to step outside his comfort zone and who’s like a big kid, and spice it up with the world’s clumsiest PA named Helen and you know you’re in for a funny adventure!

The only thing I wasn’t particularly fond of is the fact that the story can be quite predictable at times. Aimee’s story is a nice touch and I love the mystery element in the novel but as soon as it turns out who’s behind these unknown messages and why they’re texting Frankie instead of Aimee, it’s quite easy to predict where the story is going and what’s going to happen next.

Other than that, it’s a nice summer read filled with down-to-earth characters, beautiful setting and more importantly, humour – it’s definitely one of those books that you can read in your garden with a cup of tea (or a glass of wine) in hand on a bright summer day. If you’re looking for a book to take on holiday, A Message to Your Heart is a must-have.

Teaser

“In another corner there’s a playground where children are pushing each other energetically on the swings and scrambling up and down the slide. How easy everything is when you’re a kid – the worst that can happen is that your best friend can go higher on the swing than you. If only the rest of life was so straightforward.”

 

Rating:
3 star rating
*Thank you to Penguin Ireland and Niamh Greene for sending me a review copy of this book*
Posted in 3 stars, Book reviews, chick lit, Penguin Books Tags: , , 15 Comments »

Review: The Watcher – Charles Maclean

May 1st, 2012 Vicky
Cover of The Watcher by Charles Maclean

Title: The Watcher
Author: Charles Maclean
Publication date:  January 5, 2012
Publisher: Penguin Books
Format: Paperback
ISBN:978-0-241-95622-9
Length: 332 pages
Genre: Horror
Age group: Adult
Source: Publisher
Add it: Goodreads
Buy it: Amazon US | Amazon UK | The Book Depository

There was no warning of any kind . . .’

Friday rush-hour. Martin Gregory, laden with packages, just manages to catch the 4.48 train. Tomorrow is his wife’s birthday – he has a surprise in store – and he plans to devote the weekend to her and their beloved dogs. But Saturday morning, Martin rises early and does something so horrific, so inexplicable and so out of character his only option is to run . . .

And from this shocking incident the journey begins. With the help of a therapist he can’t trust, and friends who no longer trust him, Martin’s quest for meaning takes him down shifting realities and twisting corridors of time into the deepest recesses of the human mind. It is a world of menace and obsession from which neither he – nor the reader – can escape, for Martin Gregory is either lost in a dark maze of madness and horror, or frighteningly sane.

The Watcher by Charles Maclean is another great example for the common saying “don’t judge a book by its cover”. When I looked at my review copy and read the synopsis, I thought I knew what was coming: a fast paced horror story, people dying one by one, the protagonist getting madder by the day. Boy, was I wrong. Even though it’s completely different from what I expected, it’s an interesting read and without a doubt nothing like any of the horror stories I’ve read before.

Contrary to my expectations, it’s definitely not an easy read. It starts in a rather shocking way which, if you’re easily upset, might put you off. If you like dogs, I don’t recommend that you pick this up at all. While it didn’t put me off entirely, it was enough to make me feel a contempt for Martin from the very beginning. The narrative, on the other hand, is very cleverly written – one minute we see everything from Dr. Somerville’s (the therapist) perspective and think that Martin’s a lunatic, then we see things from Martin Gregory’s perspective and think that Somerville is trying to set him up, to manipulate him. Throughout two-thirds of the story, I had no idea who to belive – Martin or Somerville.

As I said, the plot is very different from what I expected. For me the first half of the novel dragged on a little bit and it didn’t really wow me, but the second half was really creepy. It’s not even what happens in the story but how Martin acts – as he’s getting more and more paranoid and mentally unstable, us readers feel less and less insecure because we have literally no idea what he’s capable of or what he might do next.

It’s quite a disturbing read, I have to agree with that – but not in a gory way, rather psychologically. If you’re looking for a murder mystery, this one is definitely not for you. Since the novel deals with regression therapy, hypnosis and how our subconscious works (rather than who kills whom), fans of psychology or psychological horror/thriller will no doubt find The Watcher rather interesting.

Rating:
*Thank you to Penguin for sending me a review copy of this book*
Posted in 3 stars, Book reviews, horror, Penguin Books Tags: , , 21 Comments »

Review: The Brightest Star in the Sky – Marian Keyes

October 6th, 2011 Vicky

Author: Marian Keyes
Copyright: 2009
Publisher: Penguin Books
ISBN: 978-0-141-39997-3
Pages: 613
Genre: Chick-lit / Romance

When people ask me who my favourite authors are and I start gushing over Marian Keyes’ amazingness, they tend to think: right, she’s a chick-lit girl. She’s living in her fairytale world, likes pink, wears high heels 24/7, is addicted to chocolate and most importantly, doesn’t like classic literature.Those people who tend to label us for reading chick-lit should be prepared because they are in for a surprise. The Brightest Star in the Sky is so much more than just a nice story.

On a bright summer day, sometime in June, a mysterious visitor arrives at 66 Star Street. He’s patiently waiting while we get to know the tenants of this Dublin house – Katie, who works in the music industry and spends her time looking after once fabulous rock starts and appears to be celebrating her fortieth birthday. In the flat below hers, a female taxi driver called Lydia – a tough cookie, I would say, and definitely one of the most interesting characters in the novel. She lives with her two flatmates, Jan and Andrei – two good-looking Poles. The first floor flat is occupied by Jemima, an 88-year-old psychic who is currently looking after her foster son, Fionn. Fionn – originally a gardener from a little town called Pokey- is a good looking guy and is auditioning for his own TV show in Dublin. On the ground floor we find Matt and Maeve, a married couple with odd habits and dark secrets. As the days are passing by and our visitor is still waiting, Keyes invites us on a journey and we enter a magical world full of laughter, tears, love and hate, memories and well-kept secrets.

The Brightest Star in the Sky is a charming tale about life and the problems of our generation, where teenagers grow up in the belief that self-harm is fun and getting pregnant to get attention is nothing out of the ordinary. It shows how thin the line is between love and hate, it proves that nothing is what it seems like therefore we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. It shows that there’s no such thing as a perfect family, a perfect relationship. We all tend to believe what we are allowed to see but Keyes lets us take a sneak peek behind closed doors and proves us wrong. It’s a gripping story with an unusual narrative which encourages us to pluck up the courage to make decisions, to stand up for ourselves and most importantly, tells us not to worry about things too much because “one day we’ll all be dead and none of this will matter”. Keyes’ work is almost like a movie – you keep wanting more, you simply don’t want it to end. Expect the unexpected because Keyes will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end.

Marian Keyes is the international bestselling author of Watermelon, Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married, Rachel’s Holiday , Last Chance Saloon, Sushi for Beginners, Angels, The Other Side of the Story,and Anybody Out There. She is published in twenty-nine different languages. Two collections of her journalism, Under the Duvet and Further Under the Duvet, are also published by Penguin. Marian lives in Dublin with her husband. The Brightest Star in the Sky is Keyes’ 10th novel.

Rating:
Posted in 5 stars, Book reviews, chick lit, fiction, Penguin Books Tags: , , 8 Comments »
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