The Books I loved in April

*Features advance review copies via NetGalley. This post contains affiliate links

April was a good month for books here and it was so hard to pick just a few of my favourites for my April round up! Here are the ones I enjoyed the most!

Table of Contents

Pretty Things by Janelle Brown

Soon to be a TV Series starring Nicole Kidman

First up, I know they say you should never judge a book by its cover but wow – this one really is as beautiful as it’s title suggests! After reading the synopsis, I felt that this book would be right up my street.

Pretty Things tells the story of Nina – a grifter, who was raised by her con artist single Mum, forever deceiving rich men out of money at the local casino. She vowed that she wouldn’t end up like her Mother and studied for a fine arts degree in the hope of getting a ‘real’ job and legitimate future, but when her Mum gets Cancer and needs medical bills paid fast, Nina turns to what she’s always known. She teams up with Lachlan, an old friend of her Mother’s and they plan what could be their biggest and most dangerous con yet.

As a child, Nina had a history with Benny – the son of the Leiblings family who own a huge estate. His sister, Vanessa Leibling is now heiress to the estate after both parents tragically died. A successful instagram Influencer, she shares all her many luxuries on her grid for the entire world to see. When Vanessa’s engagement breaks down and she finds herself alone and lonely, she decides to rent out the cottage on the estate. This presents what could be an incredibly lucrative con with Nina hoping to worm her way into Vanessa’s life and luxuries whilst simultaneously getting revenge for her family away all those years before.

Pretty Things is quite a long book, and it’s fair to say the pace builds up slowly but ramps up hugely in the second half. Told through two perspectives, both Nina’s and Vanessa’s, at times the same conversations are repeated. At first I found this a little odd, feeling like I was reading the same content twice, but the subtle differences to their version and recollection of events is actually really important and helps build up a detailed back story.

There are loads of twists and revelations in Pretty Things, with some real jaw dropping moments that I most certainly did not expect. At times some of the plot and decisions require you to suspend belief (it’s clearly amazing what isolation and desperation can make you do!) but overall I really enjoyed seeing the con emerge and the lies, secrets and unexpected turn of events that followed.

I am looking forward to seeing the adaptation of Pretty Things on screen, and can only assume Nicole Kidman would play Nina’s mother. Definitely one to look out for!

4/5

The Good Sister – Sally Hepworth

“Maybe when it comes to sisters, boundaries are always a little blurry. Blurred boundaries, I think are what sisters do best,”

I absolutely loved this book. The perfect blend of thriller and family drama with empathetic characters who draw you in from the outset. Fern has quickly become one of my favourites!

Fern and Rose are fraternal twin sisters and thick as thieves, having grown up with a seemingly unloving mother and her abusive partner. Fern has sensory processing issues and is on the autism spectrum and as such, Rose has always been her protector – whether it’s from shielding her from loud noises, busy places or simply helping her navigate through her very literal understanding of the world. Rose has even protected her from her past – never telling a soul what happened that fateful day when they were 12 when Fern killed Billy. She held him down under the water until he stopped breathing. It’s their little secret.

The Good Sister is told through two perspectives, Rose – via her therapist journal describing the past and Fern, very much describing the present. I instantly felt sympathy for Rose. Due to her sister’s condition her Mother always seemed to love Fern more, Rose always had to cover for her and always got the blame. She was sexually abused by her mother’s boyfriend and even now as a grown up she can’t get the only thing her heart desires – a child of her own.

Fern decides she owes it to her sister to give her the child that she craves so badly. After all how hard can it be? She’s had sex before and it wasn’t so bad. Now she has to just find a willing participant.

What follows is a truly captivating story. I fell in love with Fern and her innocence, her literal understandings and love of routine. I found myself smiling at the thought of her and Wally (Rocco), and her finding ‘her person’.

This book starts of slow, drawing you in, gaining your investment into the characters and then really ramps up in the second half, to the darker, more thrilling and dramatic elements at the end. The ending was full of twists and dramatic reveals with a truly climatic ending.

Sally has written an intelligent and sympathetic coverage of learning disabilities and some hard hitting topics in a way that will stay with you long after you’ve turned the final page.

5 stars from me.

Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner

Thanks to NetGalley, Bloomsbury Publishing and Katherine Faulkner for the advance review copy of Greenwich Park.

First up – this is an EPIC debut novel – reading this book you would never guess that this is Katherine’s first book – the plot builds up well and is packed with twists, turns, secrets and gradual reveals. It is well paced and the ending is superb!

At the start of Greenwich Park we meet Helen. She is expecting her first child after a series of losses, and living in her parents old Victorian home with her husband Daniel, life is finally starting to look up. Even better, her brother Rory and his beautiful wife Serena are also expecting their first child, so they plan to complete their antenatal classes together.

At the first class however Daniel is running late from work and Serena and Rory fail to show. Helen is left attending alone when Rachel arrives – a bold brash single mum top be who quickly latches on to Helen and wants to learn everything about her, every, little detail!

Suddenly Rachel is everywhere, turning up at Helen’s house unannounced, bumping into her in restaurants and becoming far to inquisitive into Helen and her friends lives. Helen starts to wonder if there is more to Rachel. Where did she come from? Who is the married father of her child? Why does she always have so much cash?

As time passes, we start to discover that there is far more to Rachel than meets the eye, with deep dark secrets from the past coming back to haunt the present day.

Whilst I did suspect the outcome, it’s fair to say I changed my mind about 100 times and did suspect almost every character at least once before being taken off in another direction., An amazing final clanger at the end bought the book to a really gripping conclusion.

4/5 and a fantastic debut psychological thriller.

The Whole Truth – Cara Hunter

First of all I should point out that at the time of requesting this book, I hadn’t appreciated that this was the 5th book in a series. I was worried at first that this would take away my enjoyment and understanding of the book, however the author Cara Hunter had included a really useful Who’s Who type intro at the beginning which acted as useful background on all the characters or an aide memoir to help refresh people’s memories.

A psychological Crime series feauring Di Adam Fawley, this latest story has two stories running alongside each other.

The first is a call about a sexual assault at an Oxford college. The team think they’ve seen it all before – a student accusing a professor, except this time it’s a male rugby playing student who is accusing a female highly regarded professor of sexual assault.

At the same time, Adam Fawley’s heavily pregnant wife Alex starts seeing a white van close to their home and is worried that the so called Roadside Rapist is back. Alex is one of the rapists’ victims and thanks to her now husband Adam, they secured the evidence to get him convicted. He’s now our of prison and Alex is convinced hes coming back to get them – just like he threatened when he went to the cells.

Adam finds himself thrust into the limelight when evidence arises that links HIM to a serious crime. Is he being framed and what can he do to prove his innocence?

The story lines both have DI Fawley as the common denominator and as a newbie to the series I almost expected them to merge. The story was well paced with lots of twists and reveals and I really enjoyed the inclusion of podcasts, newspapers and text messages to add another dynamic to the story. That said, the handdrawn note images didnt work well at all on a kindle – sadly there was no way of zooming in to fully read the text!

Overall I enjoyed The Whole Truth but I do wonder if I would be more invested with the characters if I had read the whole collection.

3/5

The Therapist – BA Paris

With the exception of the title which I felt was totally wrong for the general story line of this book – I really enjoyed this one.

Alice moves to a new house with her previously long distance boyfriend. A secure estate called The Circle, the intimate setting where everyone knows everyone, but the welcome is far from warm. She later learns that someone called Nina (the same name as her later sister) was murdered in this house – and worst of all, her partner knew and hadn’t told her! Nina’s husband was accused of her murder and later committed suicide protesting his innocence.

When a private investigator knocks on Alice’s door saying he is trying to prove the husbands innocence on behalf of his sister, Alice becomes more invested in trying to find out the truth about what happened to Alice. When things start moving inside her home and she wakes feeling like someone is in the house… her mission to find out the truth becomes scarily close to home!