Author: Adele Parks

Melanie and Abigail were best friends at university. At 19, Melanie dropped out due to an unplanned pregnancy. Almost 20 years later Melanie receives a message from Abigail, now a celebrity in the US, asking to meet. Mel quickly, without thinking, invites Abi to stay with her and her family – her teenaged son, her husband and her two daughters.

As you are reading you know something bad is going to happen but I kept reading because I wanted to know what. I didn’t guess what the “something” was but once I knew I had to keep reading to find out how everything would be resolved. Not a deep book, but entertaining.

Goodreads Rating: * * * *

Author: Sharon Phennah

The best thing about the book is the title – I bought it because of the name and I wish I could pass it along to someone else because it certainly isn’t a keeper.

There are three main characters – women turning 60, 70, and 80 – with a couple of minor characters who are somewhat younger. And most of them have cats and/or dogs. The book might have rated higher had the author not given over entire chapters to the animals where they discussed their “humans”.

Goodreads Rating: * *

Author: Steffen Jacobsen

Sometimes reading about a book or an author is almost as interesting as the book itself – and this was a really good book. The author, from Denmark, is an orthopaedic surgeon. As I was finishing the book I thought perhaps there would be another one featuring the main characters; there are several others but they all come before this particular one.

One year after a terrorist attack at an amusement park in Denmark the search for the terrorists continues but with few leads. A police officer, Lene Jensen, begins to put together pieces of the puzzle. Along with an old ally, Michael Jensen, she uncovers a plot for another devastating attack. It is difficult to tell the good guys from the bad; it kept me guessing until the very last page.

Goodreads Rating: * * * *

Author: Mindy Mejia

Maya is a young speech therapist working in the psychiatric hospital where she spent some time as a patient in her teenaged years. When Lucas arrives as a patient he makes a connection to Maya and is enlisted to get him to tell her, and the police, his story. Lucas and his father disappeared into the woods ten years prior after the father is implicated in a suspected murder.

As the story was unfolding I would often think “this is unbelievable” but then the author would bring the story back into reality and carry on.

Goodreads Rating: * * * *