The Gift by Louise Jensen

What a brilliant thriller: intense suspense, more twists than a country lane, and a clever, original plot that is engrossing and enthralling from beginning to end.  Jenna, the main character, has received a heart transplant but discovers that this amazing gift of a second chance at life comes with a cost.  She starts to experience dreams and recollections that are not her own.  Is she being possessed by her donor?  Her life becomes more traumatic and out of control as she tries to make sense of it all, and danger is lurking.  It's an amazing story that is utterly gripping, a terrific read.

Miss Wrong and Mr Right by Robert Bryndza

Robert Bryndza has conjured up a fascinating and believable world peopled by engaging and sympathetic characters in this delightful story.  Natalie was going to marry her childhood sweetheart until it occurred to her that there might be more to life than becoming a teenaged bride.  Her fiance, Jamie, was not prepared to wait while she found herself, so they parted ways.  Natalie works hard to overcome her poor academic performance and manages to forge a brilliant career in the world of theatre.  We find her having cast  an American heart-throb TV actor in a production of "The Scottish Play", hoping to have a financially successful run at her theatre, and with a boyfriend who is a yoga teacher, when her eccentric Hungarian grandmother turns up in London - and things start to go wrong.  What is going on in the building over the road to her theatre?  And Jamie comes back into her life - as a business rival.  This is a romance, but with added humour and wit, an absolute joy to read.  I loved it.

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.

Local Girl Missing by Claire Douglas

A thrilling tale set in an atmospherically and realistically described out-of-season seaside town, when Sophie's historic disappearance and presumed death is brought into the present with the discovery of a foot in a trainer matching that  she had been wearing when last seen.  Her school friend, Francesca, is asked back to the town by Sophie's brother Daniel, to try to find out just what happened.  Secrets are uncovered and it is hard to know who can be trusted.  The results are surprising and shocking and make a very enjoyable, chilling story.

Oldcliffe-on-Sea is a fictional town on the Somerset coast, but to anyone living in the area, it will be immediately identifiable and that added to my pleasure, but this book does not rely on local knowledge to work well.

The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen aged 83 and a quarter years old by Hendrik Groen

This is a delightful book, and Hendrik Groen is a delightful if occasionally curmudgeonly diarist: a lovely book to dip into over a series of days, as his account of his year in his care home is told. He gives his account with charm and humour, which he needs to survive the stultifying routine and company there. However, you cannot keep a good man down for long, and Hendrik and his small band of friends find new ways to make life bearable. There is plenty to make the reader smile, and food for thought in the issues it raises about the practice and politics of the care for the elderly, in any country, as well as the practice of making the most of what you've got whe you've got it . The book is a tragicomic treat and I would love to hear more from the wonderful Hendrik Groen.

Lie With Me by Sabine Durrant

Such an unusual thriller, set in London where the past catches up with has-been author, Paul, and an Ionian island, where he joins a group of old friends for a reunion holiday in the sun.  Paul is something of a fantasist and freeloader, who has spent a dissolute youth and whose drink-drenched memories of ever more youthful conquests are somewhat sketchy.  He has been basking in precocious literary success for a long time, and nothing written since has found favour with his publisher.  But will the exploiter be exploited?  Or can he turn the tables once again?  And has he at last found love?  Sabine Durrant manages to create a character in Paul who is much more engaging than he should be, and has written him into a compelling, suspenseful and dramatic tale in well described settings.  A jolly good read.

The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena

This book is such a killer chiller thriller. Every parent's nightmare is the disappearance of their baby, so when this happens to Anne and Marco while they are visiting their next door neighbours with the baby alarm as their babysitter suddenly has to let them down, it is all too easy to identify with their distress, panic and pain when, on one of their half-hourly checks, little Cora has gone from her cot. At six months old, she cannot have removed herself, so what has happened? Clearly someone has taken her, but who, and why? So the waiting game begins, and so does the guilt, and so does the uncovering of secrets. Anne is forced to consider just who would take her baby and why, and who she can trust. The police are involved - will they solve the mystery and return the baby home? This tale is gripping and compulsive reading, with so many twists and turns that it keeps the reader guessing most enjoyably, right to the shocking end. An excellent grip lit read.

Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty

Another stonker of a story from Liane Moriarty. She has the gift of creating believable, familiar, three dimensional characters and of taking a situation and minutely dissecting it with almost forensic detail, weaving its precursors and impact on those characters into a compelling, entertaining and darkly humourous psychological thriller. She teases the reader with possibilities and enthrals as the tale unfolds. A brilliant book.

Lying in Wait by Liz Nugent,

A monster lurks within these pages, nesting in buried secrets, watching and waiting.  Who it is and what monstrous actions they will cause is cleverly woven into this tale of two Irish families and how their lives become connected across the class divide  Tense and unsettling, a story of Laurence's childhood evolves into a powerful psychological thriller as the monster claims its victims.  Grip lit at its best!

The Beauty of the End, by Debbie Howells

A moving and powerful story of Noah's relationship with Grace, from adolescence, when he, an unpopular and bullied outsider, is smitten and besotted by the goddess he perceives her to be, to an excavation of secrets in a search for the truth as a desperate situation unfolds. What has Grace been hiding and what has been haunting her? What is his old school friend, Matt's, role in this? This is a taut and intelligently crafted story, a psychological thriller to keep the reader guessing, and a compelling read.

"Nina Is Not OK" by Shappi Khorsandi

An amazingly insightful book with a main character, Nina, who tore at my heartstrings.  Everything has gone wrong for poor Nina: her father died of alcoholic pancreatitis when she was little, her Mum has a new life with a new partner, and her beloved boyfriend Jamie has decided to take a gap year in Hong Kong before university, then dumps her long-distance when he meets someone else.  Like many young people, Nina likes a drink - or many, and it is starting to leave black holes in her memory and mess up her life.  This story depicts an avalanche of ill fortune and bad judgement but told in such a deft way that our sympathies are kept very much on Nina's side, as we learn how very badly people can behave.  Will Nina be the ultimate victim?  Or will she learn to live with herself and others, and take a different path?  I thought this story was brilliant and that it should be read by everyone.  It shows how damaging low self esteem can be and how it is possible to take a new direction in life.  With cyber-bullying and revenge porn such contemporary issues, it is highly relevant to growing up today and it is one I would want to share with my teenaged children,  It is a gem of a book.  Shappi Khorsandi has a magic muse.

All Is Not Forgotten by Wendy Walker

A somewhat difficult book to read and to review, without giving too much away.  The book is set in small town America and opens with the story of a teenager going to her first house party, invited by her crush.  Things do not work out as anyone would have hoped, and there is an account of a harrowing, brutal rape which I found hard to read and almost gave up.  However, I persevered.  The victim, Jenny is given a drug treatment to erase the memories of this horrible attack, even though it will hinder police investigation of the crime, but it does not work well and memories begin to bubble up, causing much distress.

The next section is written like a case history, as a psychiatrist/psychotherapist gives his account of his treatment of Jenny and her family, and others who have suffered various trauma.  Having  worked in psychiatric and therapeutic settings, I felt very much at home with this, until events made me begin to question the professionalism and ethics of the psychiatrist.

The book throws up all sorts of questions and, as others have mentioned, would be rich pickings for a book club discussion: power in relationships, professional boundaries, the morality of removing troublesome memories of trauma as opposed to seeking to help trauma victims come to terms with what has happened to them and deal with triggers for PTSD are just some of them.  Also,  how far would you go to protect your child?

"Physician, heal thyself" seems pertinent, as does the famous Hippocratic oath, "First,  do no harm."  It is a thought provoking and good if (at times) difficult read.  My final summation was Macchiavelli meets Lolita.  It is a good psychological thriller that will keep the reader guessing.  It is powerful stuff.  You can buy yours in any good book store, or via this link.

 Wendy Walker has worked as an attorney specialising in family law. She lives in Connecticut where she is at work on her next novel.

Want to see what other reviewers have thought?  Here are the other stops on the blog tour:-

Crime on the Fens, by Joy Ellis

Crime on the Fens is an atmospheric book: fenland is described to great effect in this suspense-filled, enjoyable story.   If fiction is to be believed, to be maverick is a person specification for the post of Detective Inspector in the UK., and Nikki Galena certainly fits the (B)ill.   Life and work may have left her a damaged, brittle person, and her approach to work means she is on her last chance with the powers that be in Lincolnshire Police Force., but she has to investigate the case of a missing person with the help of her "dysfunctional" team and a new Detective Sergeant from another station.  Nikki has a personal history with the local underworld, and this may prove a help or a hindrance.  And, like us all, she has secrets.

Events unfold into a complex situation as it seems that someone may be fomenting war between local gangs, while someone else disappears...

 The main characters are developed into well-rounded, likeable people and I sincerely hope that this is just the beginning of our acquaintance with the CID at Woodborough Police Station.  A satisfying page-turner.

Blog Tour - The Killing Files by Nikki Owen

The Killing Files is an incredibly tense yet engaging thriller.  Maria Martinez is no ordinary protagonist: she is a highly trained plastic surgeon who has been convicted of and imprisoned for the murder of a priest, who has been described as paranoid and also has Aspergers Syndrome which  causes difficulties in dealing with emotions, anxiety and social situations.  She does not sound very likeable when described in this way,  and yet Nikki Owen has succeeded in writing her as a vulnerable and engaging character - I really felt for her throughout this book.

Having successfully appealed her murder conviction, she takes refuge in her native Spain until evidence strongly suggests that she is in danger.  She is concerned for the safety of her beloved family and the few friends she has found it so difficult to make.  Is she paranoid?  Is she being stalked?  And just what is The Project?  The construction of the plot is so clever, because the tension and suspense are maintained to the point that it is hard to stop reading and put the book down, and I found myself holding my breath and fearing for my blood pressure.  Maria's resourcefulness and longing for friendship are strong themes in this story and I am missing her now the story has concluded - but at least I can read the first volume of the trilogy, Subject 375, while waiting for the third part to become available.

As they say, "Just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not out to get you."  The Killing Files makes for great reading, especially for those who enjoy psychological thrillers.  I really enjoyed it.

For more information, the Amazon link is here.

Nikki Owen is an award-winning freelance writer and columnist currently based in Gloucestershire.
Previously, Nikki was a marketing consultant and University teaching fellow before turning to writing full time. As part of her degree, she studied at the acclaimed University of Salamanca – the same city where her protagonist of the Project trilogy, Dr Maria Martinez, hails from.

Find more reactions to The Killing Files by following its Blog Tour at the above stops, until 11th June 2016.

Burnt Paper Sky by Gilly MacMillan, Piatkus, 2015.

I've just reviewed Burnt Paper Sky over here.  It's a really good read, which was published last year and I borrowed from the library.

I'm enjoying the warmer weather and the sunshine, although the accompanying tree-pollen related hay fever is tedious.  The washing is blowing on the line and I will have to get it in shortly because it is, I suspect, barbecue time.

It is hard to believe that a week ago we were just back from a very chilly, snowy Lake District, where I had spent a few lovely days in Grasmere with some very special creative friends.  We are all determined to keep the creative vibe going on, but returning to the world of daily life and domestic routine makes that challenging.

New Blog for Books

I've got a new blog - Reading in the Magic Armchair - in which to write about my book adventures and travels.

 Hopefully I'll be returning to blogging on life in general here from time to time - books haven't altogether taken over my life (though some might argue with that!)  I hope to see you there as well as here.

The Bones of Grace by Tahmina Anam

An unusual, glorious tale of love, tragedy and adventure: a search for identity and meaning, and a rite of passage.  I loved the lyrical writing and the complex plot, set in the contrasting worlds of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Bangladesh.  Zubaida is an engaging heroine, seeking fulfilment through career (as a paleontologist) and relationships, and also seeking her roots, her place in the world, peace and grace,  This story also had me searching on the internet for the Glass Flowers of Harvard museum - well worth investigating and I would now love to see them.  This book, as exquisitely crafted as the flowers,  swept me up and delighted me.  Where we come from may shape us, but in the end we must take responsibility for our own destiny.

The Course of Love by Alain de Botton

Such an unusual novel: it reads rather like a single case study in social psychology or a fly on the wall television documentary, which sees a couple through stages in their relationship with a running commentary to consider what is going on at deeper levels.  It is wry, wise, funny and tender but also oddly objective and interpretative.  It is easy to forget that it is a novel.  It makes for interesting and entertaining reading.