51) Martin Edwards - The Arsenic Labyrinth
52) Sarah Waters - The Paying Guests
53) Martin Edwards - The Serpent Pool
54) Chrissie Manby - Getting Over Mr Right

31) Christmas on Primrose Hill by Karen Swan

5.Dead tomorrow
6.Dead like you
7.Dead mans grip - Peter James

Has anybody read all the Roy grace books so far? If so, has Roy and sandy come face to face in any of them yet? It's driving me mad lol.

23/ The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan

Horror

I'm not sure how the writing was split between the two authors but I suspect the idea was from Del Toro and the actual donkey work of writing it was Hogan.

I enjoyed this a lot - it's fast paced with decent characterisation. The plot has multiple viewpoints which gradually come together. The gradual realisation that something is wrong is conveyed reasonably well. It also has a strong sense of place - anyone who has been to New York will recognise many of the places featured.

However it's let down by being the first in a trilogy so doesn't really have a satisfying climax - everything is left open ended (and a group of new characters being introduced in the last 10 pages to ram home that it's "to be continued"). Would it really have been that hard to have a decent resolution to at least some of the story with a just a few dangling threads to be picked up later?
Another niggle for me is that some parts of the plot are very clearly inspired by Salem's Lot (one scene is almost a direct lift and some of the other elements are too close to be coincidence).

That said it is still a good read and a decent attempt to bring some blood and nastiness back to vampire stories after all that Twilight nonsense.

Couldn't spoil it but lets just say Peter James drags it out far too long IMHO

55) Susan Lewis - No Place to Hide
56) Mandy Baggot - Knowing me Knowing you

10. The French House - Nick Alexander
6/10 - I didn't enjoy this as much as the first book in the series - CC now has a boyfriend who has inherited a house in France which needs major renovations - the first part of the book was quite good but the second half got a bit far fetched with Victor's aunt's quest to oust CC and it also got a bit soppy! The best character was Mark, CC's gay best friend.

I am not doing well with this separate challenge - I now have 178 books and I have deleted the 10 I have read

I don't have a kindle but the books I've read and not rehomed are now a precarious tower block on my bedside table, at least you don't risk getting a broken foot from a kindle

9. Hunger by Michael Grant- perked up at the end so I may get the 3rd one out of the library.

9) The Hotel on Mulberry Bay by Melissa Hill

6) Eyes of Prey by John Sandford

2. The City of Ember (Book of Ember #1) by Jeanne DuPrau – Lina and Doon live in Ember, a city where the lights periodically go out. Over the hundreds of years the city has existed, the lights and all other resources have become increasingly scarce, and now everyone fears that one day when the lights go out, they just won’t come back on. Lina and Doon decide to try to save their home. I loved the book! I’ve heard bad things about the other books in the series, but I’m curious to see what happens next and I’ll probably read them.

24/ A Metropolitan Murder by Lee Jackson

Supposedly a murder mystery set around the the London Underground in the 1860s.
Unfortunately the underground is merely the setting for the murder and the mystery just plods on before the detective miraculously solves it based on no evidence whatsoever.

The author has clearly done loads of research about life in Victorian London and is determined to include it all no matter how irrelevant which means that for me the story never really engages.

32) Dream a little Dream by Giovanna Fletcher

It is so hard to not buy books!
I am trying to be more discerning but it doesn't really work

57) Emma Hannigan - The Secrets We Share
58) Chrissie Manby The Christmas List
59) Laura Elliot - Fragile Lies

12) The Book of Souls by James Oswald

7.5/10

Second Inspector McLean novel.

An improvement on the first despite an entirely guessable ending and obvious bad guy. Enjoyable.

33) Raven Black by Ann Cleeves

25/ Slave To The Rhythm by Liz Jones

Biography of Prince.

This was written back in 1998 so is obviously out of date but is a decent read covering his career up til the release of Emancipation with lots of quotes from various people and even some input from the man himself.
It's a fairly balanced book - the author obviously likes Prince but is still critical of some of his decisions. The book skips over his early years and pretty much focuses on his career.
The main criticism I would have is that it starts chronologically but then starts leaping about so it feels a bit disjointed in places.

I somehow seem to have reached a third of my target already.

I don't know if I'm just on a roll or I've chosen books that have been easy for me to read.

If I continue like this I may have to increase my target (unless I get stuck on a tedious one for months again).

15. Dead Man's Grip by Peter James.
A road traffic fatality leads to revenge killings. I particularly enjoyed this one.

34) White Nights by Ann Cleeves

10. A Long Walk Home by Jude Tebbutt.

The true account of a woman taken by Somali pirates.

9)The Listerdale Mystery - Agatha Christie 5/10

26/ Icarus by Russell Andrews

Enjoyable and complex thriller (although I did manage to guess who was behind it all about a hundred pages before it was revealed in the book).

The main negative is that it there is a large part of the middle section that drags as the main character spends a lot of time meeting people but not really advancing the plot.
It doesn't help that the person who was killed is such a d!ck that it's difficult not to think he deserved what he got.