What Remains of Me by A. L. Gaylin

An exciting, suspenseful thriller which kept me engrossed, enthralled and guessing right to the end.  There is a web of tangled secrets to be unravelled when death continues to follow Kelly Lund.   Convicted of murder at the age of seventeen when the body of a Hollywood director is discovered, she serves her time and picks up the pieces of her life.  When her father-in-law is found fatally shot, suspicion falls on her again.  But what has really happened, and has there been a gross misjustice?   Who is innocent and who is guilty?  This book really deserves to be described as a thriller.

Girl Unknown, by Karen Perry.

The makings of a great thriller.  First year student Zoe turns up in the office of university lecturer David Connolly and reveals to him that he is her father and she the product of a long ago fling before he married Caroline and had two lovely children with her.  Is Zoe who she says she is?  What are her intentions?  And why is this secret only revealed now?  So far, so good.  However, I was infuriated by David's reactions and unconvinced by his reasoning in not telling his wife and talking it through with her, and how he was prepared to jeopardise the security and well-being of his family for the sake of someone who is a virtual stranger.  He treats, I thought, Caroline, particularly badly and so he lost my sympathy altogether.  Unfortunately, neither Caroline or any of the other characters really found it and so I was frustrated by the story.  Maybe it was just me, because this book has had wonderful reviews elsewhere, but I was disappointed and so relieved when it came to an end,

The Food of Love, by Amanda Prowse

This is a very engaging, engrossing but harrowing and heartbreaking story about how a previously happy family copes with their daughter's mental health problem and the repercussions that this has on their relationships and lives.  As a mother, it was very easy to identify with Freya Braithwaite and the account of her marriage and the problems that unexpectedly beset their family.  She is  a food writer and food enthusiast, and there is an extreme poignancy in what happens to her daughter.  The story reads like a psychological thriller in many ways, and I found it a compulsive page-turner while dreading what would happen next.  It's a powerful piece of writing.