Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens


Gingerbread - Helen Oyeyemi


The Doll Factory - Elizabeth MacNeal


The Yellow House - Emily O'Grady
(I loved this one - we read it for book club last year. You can see my review here)

Once Upon a River - Diane Setterfield
(I can't believe I never review this! I read it on our holiday over Christmas and enjoyed it very much! I'm adding it to my review list!)


The Ex - Nicola Moriarty

In case you're curious to know, she chose The Yellow House and it was a hit =)

xo Bron

***
Gingerbread and The Doll Factory were both sent to me for free by the lovely team at Pan Macmillan Australia. The others I either bought myself or was given by friends.

I just loved this - I think the twist at the very start of the book, where the heir notices the 'wrong' sister, sets up for a different kind of story than I expected. I loved that it put both young women out of their comfort zones, and we see them having to adapt quickly to deal with the challenges they are facing.

Without giving away any spoilers, I really liked reading about both the situation the girls end up in - the brutality of the prison, and also the political issues that Nomi finds herself in the middle of in the palace.

Like I said above, I don't know how it took me so long to read this one, and I'm hoping to get to the sequel (Queen of Ruin) sooner rather than later!
 

xo Bron
 ***
Grace and Fury by Tracy Banghart
Out now from Hachette
On Goodreads
Source: Free e-copy provided by  Hachette (via NetGalley)
Category: Fantasy, dystopia, feminism, politics

In the year 2424, it seems crazy that people once needed film to take photos. Max and Oscar – Bluggsville’s smartest sleuths – are shocked when they find a 400-year-old roll of film. They’re even more shocked to discover that it still seems to contain someone’s happy snap!
Unfortunately, they’re not the only people who realise how rare, and valuable, this photo could be. Max and Oscar are going to need all of their wits to make sure the photo ends up in the museum, where it belongs!

Max Booth is such a fun read! I think the premise of having a kid in the future investigating "ancient" technology is so clever - it is perfect for kids and parents to read together, since the technologies (in this case the camera film) are things that today's parents used but our kids won't necessarily recognise. This gives it a great balance of nostalgia for grown up readers, and adventure and discovery for everyone else.

Max himself is a great character. He is smart and a bit sassy - but also a bit vulnerable - and despite living over 400 years in the future he feels relatable. While Max was fun, his K-9 robo-companion Oscar was my favourite character!

I think the book is really approachable for new and reluctant reader. The text is nicely spaced on the pages so that it isn't overwhelming, and the gorgeous illustrations that feature throughout make it a great bridge between more heavily illustrated junior fiction and middlegrade novels. I really like the illustrations, and was very tempted to take my coloured pencils to them!

In the back of the book we get the blurbs of the first three books in the series, as well as a tiny sneak peak of Max's next few adventures - they all look really fun and I'm totally keen to check them out!

I found this was a pretty slow burn - most of the action happens in the last 50 pages or so, but this is kind of what I had expected (And I assume is typical of these sorts of books?). Much of the book is about introducing us to the characters - Matthew and his husband, and two of Matthew's colleagues in particular. Of course we also meet a lot of locals as the investigate unfolds. While we spend a lot of time with the police officers as they interrogate the people close to the mystery I never felt like this was too police process-y, and I thought the story came together quite naturally rather than in information dumps.

One of my favourite things about this book was how well Cleeves wrote the setting - I found it really comfortable to read, and I could imagine being right there on the shore with Matthew during his investigations. I'm not sure whether it was the fact that I know Shetland and Vera from the tv, but I just found this really easy to picture as a tv adaptation, and was unsurprised to hear that there have been talks about adapting it already I feel like the way Cleeves writes characters and settings, as well as the pacing through the novel, really lends the story well to the screen.

As I've mentioned, the characters were really nicely written. I feel like the balance of letting us get to know the main characters, but also showing that there is more for us to discover about them was perfectly done. I am definitely keen to find out more about the main characters, and will be keeping an eye out for the next book in the series.

xo Bron

***
The Long Call  by Ann Cleeves
Out now from Pan Macmillan Australia
On Goodreads
Find Ann Cleeves online here

Source: Free copy provided by Pan Macmillan Australia
Format: Paperback, 384 pages
RRP: $29.99
Category: Mystery, fiction, crime
Themes: Family, mental health, disability, abuse, religion