JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

Stone Town by Margaret Hickey

With its gold-rush history long in the past, Stone Town has seen better days. And it’s now in the headlines for all the wrong reasons . . .

When three teenagers stumble upon a body in dense bushland one rainy Friday night, Senior Sergeant Mark Ariti’s hopes for a quiet posting in his old home town are shattered. The victim is Aidan Sleeth, a property developer, whose controversial plan to buy up local land means few are surprised he ended up dead.

However, his gruesome murder is overshadowed by a mystery consuming the entire nation: the disappearance of Detective Sergeant Natalie Whitsed.

Natalie had been investigating the celebrity wife of crime boss Tony ‘The Hook’ Scopelliti when she vanished. What did she uncover? Has it cost her her life? And why are the two Homicide detectives, sent from the city to run the Sleeth case, so obsessed with Natalie’s fate?

Following a late-night call from his former boss, Mark is sure of one thing: he’s now in the middle of a deadly game . . .

Margaret Hickey’s latest rural crime offering Stone Town reintroduces us to Senior Sergeant Mark Ariti, investigating the apparent murder of local property developer Aidan Sleeth in the secluded Stone Town, and the simultaneous kidnapping of Detective Sergeant Natalie Whitsed. It isn’t until Natalie’s car is located near Aidan’s residence that Mark starts to suspect the two crimes may be connected.

Once again, Margaret brings us an intriguing rural crime drama, navigating two crimes simultaneously and with ease. Interspersed throughout the book are italicised chapters written from Natalie’s perspective, designed to make sure that plotline doesn’t get lost amid the search for Aidan’s killer.

“Luke told them the story in a sad drawl: how he’d known Aidan from when he moved to Booralama from Warrnambool in Victoria two years ago. Followed a girl, she broke up with him, went off with some Fitter and Turner from Nhill. He got a job at Aidan’s real estate office in town, started playing footy for the seconds, liked the town, liked the job, liked Aidan well enough. Stayed.”

Mark’s past definitely had more real estate in Cutters End, but there isn’t as much of a need for his backstory in this one. With one murder victim and one missing police officer, there is enough material to fill the chapters and keep the reader turning the pages.

Stone Town manages the delicate balance between prose and dialogue – the dialogue is realistic, believable and authentic, and the prose quite descriptive and generous, particularly during chapter openings.

Themes explored in the book include family, community and service. There is quite clever foreshadowing in the opening couple of chapters, and the suspect pool is large enough to keep the reader guessing – I certainly didn’t correctly guess Aidan’s murderer.

“He didn’t run on Sundays. That was the weekly treat he granted himself, but still, he wished he could sleep in a little longer. The day would be stormy. Already, he could see the dark clouds gathering across the grey sky, wind whipping the tops of the gums in his yard. More rain was predicted. Flood warnings in place.”

This is another novel from Hickey with a strong small-town noir setting – Stone Town used to be an old gold mining town, which plays a role in the disappearance of Natalie Whitsed. Hickey writes setting with ease, capturing the vast, open landscape and that helpless feeling that a missing person could stay lost forever.

My only small gripe with the book was that some of the dialogue towards the end of the book – in the scenes where Mark confronted the perpetrator – felt a little caricature and over-the-top. Straight out of a movie scene and so on the page it didn’t quite feel natural.

“In the background, Mark could see that John had risen from his weed killing and was poking at something in the corner of the garden bed with his shoe. A tiny round thing was squirming in the dirt.”

Taut, gritty and pacey, Margaret Hickey’s Stone Town is recommended for readers of crime, mystery and thriller. Like most of the titles in this genre, you don’t need to read previous stories with this detective just to understand the present one. Readership skews 30+

Thank you to the publishing company for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Stone Town
Margaret Hickey
July 2022
Penguin Random House Publishers

Lying Beside You by Michael Robotham

Twenty years ago, Cyrus Haven’s family was murdered. Only he and his brother survived. Cyrus because he hid. Elias because he was the killer.

Now Elias is being released from a secure psychiatric hospital and Cyrus, a forensic psychologist, must decide if he can forgive the man who destroyed his childhood.

As he prepares for the homecoming, Cyrus is called to a crime scene in Nottingham. A man is dead and his daughter, Maya, is missing. Then a second woman is abducted . . . The only witness is Evie Cormac, a troubled teenager with an incredible gift: she can tell when you are lying.

Both missing women have dark secrets that Cyrus must unravel to find them – and he and Evie know better than anybody how the past can come back to haunt you . . .

The next psychological thriller from Michael Robotham, Lying Beside You centres around two missing woman, an attack on a third woman years earlier, and the secret that binds all three victims together.

Regular readers of Michael Robotham will recognise forensic psychologist Cyrus Haven from two of his earlier works – in this latest iteration, Cyrus’ brother is being released from psychiatric hospital and the troubled young adult living with him is the only witness to the abduction of a drunk woman outside of a bar. Over the course of the novel, the case of two missing women will intersect with a seemingly ‘solved’ crime from years earlier.

“I hate arguing with Cyrus. I hate that he’s older than me and that he thinks he knows everything. I hate how he picks me up on my grammar and my vocabulary, like when I say literally when I mean figuratively (whatever the fuck that means). I hate how he laughs at me, but not in a cruel way.”

Whilst this is the third appearance of Cyrus Haven, readers need not have read the first two books to follow this plot. Written in first person and moving between Cyrus and Evie’s perspectives, Robotham’s writing is stripped and almost methodical – no unnecessary prose or dialogue, only containing the elements needed to keep the reader turning the page.

Lying Beside You explores the complex relationship between Cyrus and his brother Elias – Cyrus’ line of work means that he is able to separate Elias from what he did all those years earlier, but that doesn’t mean he can necessarily forgive him, or feel uneasy leaving him alone.

Crime and thriller readers will be pleased with this offering – the pacing quickens, there are multiple mysteries to maintain a reader’s attention, and Robotham weaves them together seamlessly with an explosive conclusion.

“As I walk to my car in the hospital parking area, the air seems saturated with oxygen, making the colours brighter and my senses sharper. I lean back in the driver’s seat of my Fiat and feel my heart beating in my chest. Elias is being allowed out on day release. He expects to come home. The next step will be overnight stays.”

Admittedly, it did feel like there were two separate elements to this plot that didn’t necessarily gel with each other – the central mystery surrounding the two women, and the release of Cyrus’ brother.

The latter storyline felt a bit underdeveloped and quite lost within the overarching story. Elias is on the periphery of the story, not making enough of an impact to give the reader a lasting impression. I kept waiting for something to happen, but nothing in the plot really eventuated and so I’m wondering if this is merely setting something in motion for the next book that features Cyrus Haven?

“Half an hour later, I hear the door open and keys hitting the side table. Boots are kicked off. Mail is checked. An envelope is torn open. Cyrus appears in the kitchen. He looks at the bench, which is covered in flour, caster sugar and cocoa powder.”

Pacey, engaging and original, Lying Beside You is recommended for readers of crime, thriller and mystery. A great present for Father’s Day, readership skews 25+

Thank you to the publishing company for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Lying Beside You
Michael Robotham
July 2022
Hachette Book Publishers Australia

Something Wilder by Christina Lauren

Lily has never forgotten the man that got away . . . but she certainly hasn’t forgiven him either!

As the daughter of a notorious treasure hunter, Lily makes ends meet using her father’s coveted hand-drawn maps, guiding tourists on fake treasure hunts through the canyons of Utah. When the man she once loved walks back into her life with a motley crew of friends, ready to hit the trails, Lily can’t believe her eyes. Frankly, she’d like to take him out into the wilderness – and leave him there.

Leo wants nothing more than to reconnect with his first and only love. Unfortunately, Lily is all business: it’s never going to happen. But when the trip goes horribly and hilariously wrong, the group wonders if maybe the legend of the hidden treasure wasn’t a gimmick after all. Alone under the stars in the isolated and dangerous mazes of the Canyonlands, Leo and Lily must decide whether they’ll risk their lives, and their hearts, on the adventure of a lifetime . . .

Set in the Utah wilderness, Christina Lauren’s Something Wilder brings two former lovers back together as they hunt long-lost treasure in the middle of remote desert.

In the prologue we meet 19-year-old Lily, painfully in love with her boyfriend Leo and set to take over her treasure-hunting father’s ranch. But then Leo leaves, her father sells the ranch and leaves her in financial ruin, and Lily is forced to chase alternate dreams. Now, ten years later, Lily is leading treasure hunting expeditions for tourists where she runs into Leo again.

“Leo felt like he’d slept crammed in a box, but despite the interminable travel for whatever Wild West adventures might lie ahead, Bradley looked entirely untouched. For a man wearing leather driving shoes and a cashmere sweater, he was surprisingly game for the great outdoors.”

The authors do well to keep tension building and the stakes raised – not every character is who they seem, and soon the treasure hunt claims a life. Lily and Leo are soon racing through the Utah wilderness trying to uncover the lost treasure before others do.

Lily’s connection with her late father Duke Wilder is a strong point in the novel – she feels she owes him this last adventure, and hopefully by discovering the treasure she’ll be able to buy back the ranch that she loves so much. Lily’s relationship with her late father is one of the strengths of the novel, and something I connected with a lot more than the relationship between her and Leo.

In saying that, the connection between Lily and Leo will please romance readers, as the two are forced to work together when their treasure hunt turns deadly. They will be forced to confront what happened ten years earlier, as the two come to realise the mistakes they made when their former relationship ended. Whilst their connection isn’t perhaps as strong as other romance novels, there is a lot of passion there that will draw a romance reader in.

“She hadn’t been kidding. The heat of the day had sapped the riders of any remaining enthusiasm by the time they finally reached camp. Ace’s shadow stretched long across the ground, distorted by pinon pine and scraggly patches of juniper that thrived there in the arid soil.”

The nature of the book did seem to jump around a bit, and it ended up being a story I wasn’t quite expecting after assessing the cover and blurb on the jacket. What started as a romance ended up being a high-stakes thriller through the wilderness, which soon took over as the main plot point. Overall, the structure of the novel felt a bit jarring.

Additionally, there were some elements of the book that felt forced and caricature. In particular, the character of Terry, whose dialogue didn’t read naturally and whose actions seemed stereotypical.

“Leo had never wished he could fly, but he did just then. There was something about the canyon that made him want to explore, to swoop from the top of one red rock pillar to another and down into the literal maze of intersecting slots. It was both exquisite and sinister.”

Recommended for readers of romance fiction and adventurous rom-coms. Readership skews female, 25+

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Something Wilder
Christina Lauren
May 2022
Hachette Book Publishers

League of Liars by Astrid Scholte

Ever since his mother was killed in a freak edem-based crime, seventeen-year-old Cayder Broduck has had one goal: to have illegal users of extradimensional magic brought to justice. Cayder dreams of becoming a prosecutor and, when he secretly accepts an apprenticeship under the city’s best public defender, he plans to learn every legal trick he can to one day dismantle defence arguments. Then he’ll finally be able to make sure justice is served.

But when he meets all three criminals he is to defend, he finds they are teenagers, like him, and their stories are … complicated, like his. As their cases unfold, Cayder must race to separate the truth from the lies and uncover what really happened the night his mother died

From the bestselling author of Four Dead Queens comes a heart-pounding mystery rife with secrets and danger, where nothing is as it seems…

Astrid Scholte’s third novel League of Liars is fantasy YA fiction, a thriller that races against the clock as we work to save four teenagers imprisoned for murder and the illegal use of magic.

The author’s strengths lie in crafting clever, addictive plots. She navigates multiple characters with unique backstories and voices, so the reader doesn’t get confused between chapters. I find her world-building to be intriguing and expansive, and the stakes consistently high. Characters struggle with secrets and loyalties, but over the course of the novel they come together to overcome the oppressing force.

“I didn’t want to cross the threshold; I hated the feeling of being lost within my own home. Homes were supposed to be full of love and laughter, not empty hallways and closed doors. My mother’s presence lingered within the walls…”

League of Liars is the first novel is a prospected trilogy, and this first foray into the series leaves enough left unsaid that readers will crave more. A lot of this book takes place in the one setting — prison — so I’m looking forward to travelling beyond this in the second book and discovering more about this world Astrid has crafted. I also look forward to finding out more about the magic system, because it wasn’t overly described in this book and I’m certain there’s more to come.

It’s always interesting to centre a YA fantasy around a group of morally ambiguous criminals, and when you embed a prison break into that story it’s clear you’ve got a story that young readers will love. Pacing is consistent and fast, with stakes only growing higher during each chapter.

League of Liars will please reluctant teenage readers, but also seasoned YA fantasy readers looking for the next tale to devour.

“A spark of fury burned within me. She knew the risks of going to Ferrington. She knew she was breaking the law. Now we would both pay the consequences. I felt like something had struck me in the back and lodged within my ribs.”

At times, I found the writing in need of tightening. There was a lot of telling rather than showing — emotions are described a lot, rather than letting actions and dialogue convey the character’s emotion.

I also felt that Cayder’s dialogue was a little over-dramatic and over-the-top during heightened moments, particularly revelations or moments or surprise or betrayal. Conversations where he’s trying to extract information out of someone else descended into desperate shouting and it made him feel one-dimensional. Stronger characterisation is awarded to Jey and Leta.

“Out on the horizon, a black streak cleaved the sky in two. Like a static bolt of lightning, but where light should be, darkness reigned. Known as the veil, it was the source of edem and many kids’ nightmares. A fissure between our world and another, allowing time-altering magic to seep through.”

Recommended for fans of young adult fantasy fiction; League of Liars reminds me of Shadow and Bone and Six of Crows, which should give an indication of audience. Readership skews female, 12+

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

League of Liars
Astrid Scholte
March 2022
Allen & Unwin Book Publishers

The Trivia Night by Ali Lowe

From the outside the parents of the kindergarten class at Darley Heights primary school seem to have it all. Living in the wealthy Sydney suburbs, it’s a community where everyone knows each other – and secrets don’t stay secret for long.

The big date in the calendar is the school’s annual fundraising trivia night, but when the evening gets raucously out of hand, talk turns to partner-swapping. Initially scandalised, it’s not long before a group of parents make a reckless one-night-only pact.

But in the harsh light of day, those involved must face the fallout of their behaviour. As they begin to navigate the shady aftermath of their wild night, the truth threatens to rip their perfect lives apart – and revenge turns fatal.

Ali Lowe’s debut novel The Trivia Night centres around one booze-filled night where a group of married adults decide to partner-swap. Married but fractured, each couple has something to overcome in the wake of the disastrous trivia night.

The novel explores perfection, identity and relationships. It’s about how we see ourselves, how we wish others saw us, and the complexities surrounding adult friendships. The Trivia Night is guilty-pleasure book club fiction — each chapter leads well into the perspective that follows, keeping the reader engaged and moving through the plot with quickened pace.

“Back in the hall with Alice, I was suddenly aware of my empty hands. I needed a drink. Anything would do. I picked up a half-drunk glass of punch from a chair beside the photo booth, complete with a fuchsia lipstick print on the rim, and downed it.”

At its core, The Trivia Night is about relationships and marriage. One couple have been trying so hard to fall pregnant it’s practically a chore now. Another couple are still reeling from the sudden departure from their child’s previous school, and one mother is drinking an alarming amount of alcohol. When these four couples are seated together at a trivia night, it triggers a series of events that force them to each look at their relationship and decide, what do they really want out of their marriage?

The novel very easily slots into the commercial book club category — the events of the story are salacious, sordid and scandalous. But there are many layers to this book and its characters that readers will relate to. Some of these characters are trying so hard to pretend they’re happy, they’re disastrously miserable. Some of these relationships may appear strong at first, but it doesn’t take long to see the cracks. Young parents will recognise the setting of the book as well as the sorts of parents you might meet at the school gate.

“Did she want to destroy me so much that she would do something like that? I must have been wearing a mask of terror, because Alice read it perfectly, as she often did by virtue of the length of our friendship.”

Ali Lowe does spend considerable time setting up each of the characters and their circumstances. Admittedly, it’s not until about halfway through the book that the trivia night actually kicks off, which does feel considerably delayed.

Perhaps there was more room to delve into the aftermath of the trivia night, because there were eight adults present on that night and I felt there wasn’t enough real estate in the latter end of the book to realistically delve into all that occurred. Additionally, the death that’s teased in the blurb definitely appears too late in the novel, almost like an afterthought. The death could’ve been teased throughout the novel from very early on, reeling the reader in with each delicate clue.

Despite this, one of Ali’s strengths is capturing the setting as well the gossipy nature of its residents. From posh households to fast-moving rumours, parents will be able to relate to this setting with ease.

“Let me say at this juncture that Pete was never much of a romantic, so I wasn’t surprised. Neither of us were particularly demonstrative beyond the odd hug and a handhold. We didn’t need to be. We’ve always been pretty secure in our relationship.”

Recommended for readers of commercial domestic fiction — scandalous tales of marriage and sex. The perfect beach read or airport purchase. Readership skews female, 30+

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Trivia Night
Ali Lowe
March 2022
Hachette Book Publishers