Behind Closed Doors Review

Behind Closer Doors by B. A. Paris

Rating: 5/5

Source: Bought from Amazon UK

Released: 11th February 2016

Everyone knows a couple like Jack and Grace

He has looks and wealth, she has charm and elegance. You might not want to like them, but you do. You'd like to get to know Grace better. 

But it's difficult. Because you realise they are never apart. Some might call this true love. 

Others might ask why Grace never answers the phone. Or can't meet for lunch, without Jack. And why there are bars on one of the bedroom windows. 

Sometimes the perfect marriage is the perfect lie. 

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God Of The Internet Review

God Of The Internet by Lynn Lipinski
Rating: 3/5
Source: NetGalley
Released: 16th August 2016

When a hacker known as G0d_of_Internet hijacks millions of computers to do the bidding of an Islamic jihadist group, their first act is to disrupt the water treatment systems in Boston, Dallas and Los Angeles. Next, the power grids go down. Is this the start of a digitalworld war?

The only thing standing between the terrorists and their goal to weaponize the internet is a small band of white hat hackers, including cybersecurity guru Mahaz Al-Dossari and his wife Juliana.

The search is on for a couple hundred lines of code and a global hacker network before they can make good on their ultimate threat to divert money from the world’s banks. But G0d_of_Internet has been tracking their every move. And t’s Juliana, a PR manager lacking in technical skills, who may hold the key to unmasking the hacker.

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Dear Amy Review

Dear Amy by Helen Callaghan

Rating: 5/5

Source: NetGalley

Released: 16th June 2016

Margot Lewis is the agony aunt for The Cambridge Examiner. Her advice column, Dear Amy, gets all kinds of letters - but none like the one she's just received:

Dear Amy,
I don't know where I am. I've been kidnapped and am being held prisoner by a strange man. I'm afraid he'll kill me.
Please help me soon,
Bethan Avery

Bethan Avery has been missing for years. This is surely some cruel hoax. But, as more letters arrive, they contain information that was never made public. How is this happening? Answering this question will cost Margot everything…

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Sister Sister Review

Alice: Beautiful, kind, manipulative, liar.

Clare: Intelligent, loyal, paranoid, jealous.

Clare thinks Alice is a manipulative liar who is trying to steal her life.

Alice thinks Clare is jealous of her long-lost return and place in their family.

One of them is telling the truth. The other is a maniac.

Two sisters. One truth.

We start the book with Clare, successful solicitor, mother of two daughters and wife to a stay at home dad and artist. She has the perfect little family, perfect big home, her mother on the scene acting as a live-in babysitter and she works with two close friends. Perfect life, eh? The only thing that could complete Clare's life is if her long lost little sister would come home. 

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How To Be Happy Review

How To Be Happy by David Burton
Rating: 4/5
Source: NetGalley
Released: 26th August 2015

A funny, sad and serious memoir, How to Be Happy is David Burton’s story of his turbulent life at high school and beyond. Feeling out of place and convinced that he is not normal, David has a rocky start. He longs to have a girlfriend, but his first ‘date’ is a disaster. There’s the catastrophe of the school swimming carnival—David is not sporty—and friendships that take devastating turns. Then he finds some solace in drama classes with the creation of ‘Crazy Dave’, and he builds a life where everything is fine. But everything is not fine.
And, at the centre of it all, trying desperately to work it all out, is the real David.
How to Be Happy tackles depression, friendship, sexual identity, suicide, academic pressure, love and adolescent confusion. It’s a brave and honest account of one young man’s search for a happy, true and meaningful life that will resonate with readers young and old.

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Broken Silence Review

Broken Silence by Danielle Ramsay
Rating: 4/5
Source: Buy - Waterstones
Released: 14th October 2010

Back on active duty after an enforced break in his less-than-glittering career, DI Jack Brady is barely holding it together. With his personal life resembling a car crash, his problems only intensify when his close colleague Jimmy Matthews reveals that he was with the victim on the night of the murder. 

What first appealed to me about Broken Silence was that it is set in my hometown of Whitley Bay. The front cover features the Rendezvous Cafe, somewhere I've had many an ice cream over the years.  One piece of advice I can definitely offer to any reader; if you have the chance to read a book set in your hometown or somewhere you know inside out, do it. Danielle Ramsay's incredible writing and knowledge of the North East had me fully immersed and walking past landmarks, pubs and other buildings in my mind, that I'd walked past dozens of times in real life but never really noticed before. She paints a very dark image of life in Whitley Bay but it's far from exaggerated, the majority of those who live in the area know not to venture to South Parade at night unless you're looking for trouble. 

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