Blood Ties by Sam Hayes is a gritty tale of child abduction, prostitution, child abuse, past traumas, family secrets and betrayals. Multiple narrators blend in the story and from different timelines. Some of the raw human emotions in this domestic suspense novel will cut you like a knife, making you feel the pain each character is experiencing. The book grabs me from the start. ...

I have never read any of Peter James’ books before so I did not know what to expect when I started reading  his A Twist of the Knife, a varied collection of 30 short stories. As with any book of short stories I find some of the stories really good but there are others that I feel indifferent to.  Three of ...

Set against the backdrop of Kenya’s December 2007 turbulent and corrupt election for a new president,  The Honey Guide by Richard Crompton brings Nairobi and its tribal tensions to life. The Honey Guide by Richard Crompton The Honey Guide introduces Mollel, a former Maasai warrior, who was once a homicide detective but was moved to traffic after a nervous breakdown ...

It is 1993. Young and inexperienced Garda Cormac Reilly answers a call for help and  witnesses  a scene that will haunt him forever. Two silent, neglected children – fifteen-year-old Maude and five-year-old Jack – are waiting for him at a crumbling country house. Upstairs, their mother Hilaria Blake lies dead from an apparent drug overdose. Fast forward 20 years to 2013. Surgical resident ...

Set against the backdrop of a fictional island named Belport Island in Australia, The Wife and the Widow by Christian White is a thriller told from the perspectives of two women: Kate, a Melbourne widow, and Abby, an island local. The story begins with Kate and her daughter waiting at the airport for her husband John to return from London. But he isn’t on the plane at all. ...

I started reading Two Can Play by Kate Kessler without realising that it is the second book in the series.  Usually books in a crime series can stand alone without reading the earlier books, but Two Can Play makes quite a lot of reference to the first book It Takes One that I felt lost at times. You will enjoy ...

Repeat After Me by Rachel DeWoskin is a bittersweet cross-cultural tragic love story between two persons whose lives briefly intertwine but are changed forever. The story follows the relationship between Aysha Silvermintz, a young neurotic ESL teacher in Manhattan, and Da Ge, her student who is a Chinese dissident who comes to the U.S. just after the Tiananmen Square uprisings. Both Asyha and Da Ge come from ...

I have just finished reading The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin without knowing that this is a children’s book as the plot transcends all age-bracket genres.  I find it a bit humorous that at age 64, I am reading a book meant for children. On the other hand, I think children would need to be good in English to read ...

Wake In Fright by Kenneth Cook, first published in 1961, have achieved a cult status as the Australian answer to US and UK novels of 1960s youthful alienation. Though it is only 174 pages in length, it packs a powerful punch. It is the gruelling story of John Grant, a young  bonded schoolteacher on his way back from the remote township of Tiboonda in New ...

The Seventeen Second Miracle by Jason F. Wright is a heartwarming story about loss, tragedy, forgiveness, healing, love and the joy that comes when you reach out to make a difference in the life of another. Small kindnesses can lead to  life-changing miracles. Rex Connor learned on a summer afternoon in September 1970 that seventeen seconds can change a life forever when, ...