BOOK REVIEW: YOU DID THIS by Jamie Millen

 

Synopsis

Homicide detective Claire Wolfe transfers to the fictional town of Newburgh, Massachusetts, to solve the brutal murder of her fourteen-year-old sister, Tina, twelve years ago. Claire feels guilty for hating Tina—their mother’s favorite and a cruel, manipulative sociopath—and for failing to walk her home from school on the day of her murder. She’s also unsettled by her murky memory of that fateful day and her vindictive, alcoholic mother.

When more young girls turn up dead like her sister, and Claire suspects that Tina’s murderer is still active. An FBI team from the Behavioral Analysis Unit assists the serial killer investigation, and Claire rekindles her relationship with Special Agent Robert Cline, her high school boyfriend. A close encounter with the killer convinces Claire that her psychopathic sister faked her death and is framing Claire for the murders.

Then, new evidence ties Claire to the murders, and she becomes a lead suspect in the case. On the run and doubting her own sanity, she contemplates suicide when an elusive witness reveals a conspiracy to protect the true culprit. At great personal risk and with the help of Agent Cline, Claire confronts the killer and closes the case. She stands up to her hateful mother…only to uncover the truth behind the murders in a final shocking twist.

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MY THOUGHTS

Detective Claire Wolfe is everything and then some. 

I became engrossed in the plot of this novel from the very beginning. The thing that stood out while reading the story, was the message of not getting closure. Claire, being so haunted by her sister's murder by restarting the investigation into her death was searching for the closure not only for herself but for her family as well. 

As we all know the path to vindication is sometimes not as smooth and this  was definitely the case for Claire. The characters were all equally well written. Special Agent Robert Cline was one of my favorites. I liked also how the writer was able to get into the minds and the activities of the teenage girls to me that was also interesting. As readers we all have different points that we look for in a book and for me I always appreciate when a writer gets the sensory details right. The ending was  jaw dropping. 

This was another very good book and for lovers of mystery and detective novels, readers  would be at the edge of their seat as I was from beginning to end. 

Author Bio

Psychopaths. Stalkers. Killers. 

Jamie Millen writes about the people you hope never to meet in real life…but probably already have.

If you enjoy crime thrillers packed with nail-biting psychological suspense, unforgettable characters, and breathtaking twists, read YOU DID THIS and discover your new favorite investigator.

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MY FIRST BOOK REVIEW FOR 2022 : THE LOST APOTHECARY BY SARAH PENNER

 

THE LOST APOTHECARY BY SARAH PENNER

A female apothecary secretly dispenses poisons to liberate women from the men who have wronged them -setting three lives across centuries on a dangerous collision course.

Rule #1: The poison must never be used to harm another woman.

Rule #2: The names of the murderer and her victim must be recorded in the apothecary’s register.

One cold February evening in 1791, at the back of a dark London alley in a hidden apothecary shop, Nella awaits her newest customer. Once a respected healer, Nella now uses her knowledge for a darker purpose - selling well-disguised poisons to desperate women who would kill to be free of the men in their lives. But when her new patron turns out to be a precocious twelve-year-old named Eliza Fanning, an unexpected friendship sets in motion a string of events that jeopardizes Nella’s world and threatens to expose the many women whose names are written in her register.

In present-day London, aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell spends her tenth wedding anniversary alone, reeling from the discovery of her husband’s infidelity. When she finds an old apothecary vial near the river Thames, she can’t resist investigating, only to realize she’s found a link to the unsolved “apothecary murders” that haunted London over two centuries ago. As she deepens her search, Caroline’s life collides with Nella’s and Eliza’s in a stunning twist of fate - and not everyone will survive.

MY THOUGHTS

My year is off to a great start. This has been my first book for the year and what an excellent choice it was. This in my opinion was about life's choices and missed opportunities. 

As the book switches between the 18th and 19th centuries and the present day, we learn about the lives of three females who, in their own special way was searching for happiness.

Nella was an apothecary who mixed potions intended to poison and kill men who have wronged their partners. Motivated by events of her past, Nella's mission in life was to help women get revenge. When twelve year old Eliza Fanning, who, sent by her mistress for a poison intended to kill her husband, Nella had no clue that this meeting would connect her and Eliza and shape their future. Eliza was such a captivating character in my opinion. 

I enjoyed reading about her the most. However, I think the end of the book there was a time where I did not fully understand her motives for some of what she was doing. (When you read the book you may get what I mean).

In the present day we meet the third protagonist, Caroline. A young woman, trying to escape a turning point in her marriage, finds herself mud larking on a trip to London where upon finding a vial with a bear etched to the front. This vial leads Caroline to find a deep connection with the apothecary. This discovery impacts Caroline's trip as well as allows her to make some changes to her life. 

This author was very skillful in how she crafted these character and this book was well researched indeed I loved learning about the time period. I enjoyed it.

NEW YEAR'S GREETINGS; 2021 WRAP UP (MY YEAR IN BOOKS)

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!!

This year was a very good reading year all things considered. I wanted to do so much with Trini Girl Reads. I think I did good considering some challenges I had with getting books reviewed. Moving forward to 2022 my focus will be on just reading and enjoying doing so. As was indicated in a previous post, for the first part of the year I am focusing on authors who graciously sent me their book to review. I have had an overwhelming amount of requests for review and once time permits I will be getting to those as well as my Net galley shelf and from my personal collections.

My wish in 2022 will be to continue to read and do what I love via my blog which is to share my passion for reading with the world .

In 2021, I read sixty five books and of course there were some favourites. 

So here are my top ten books for 2021.

1. My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

2. Verity by Colleen Hoover

3. Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris

4. Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat

5. Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud

6. How to Love a Jamaican by Alexa Arthurs 

7. A Clash of Kings by George R. R. MArin

8. The Guest List by Lucy Foley

9. Midnight Library by Matt Haig

10. Homecoming by Yaa Gyasi

Other books I really liked in 2021

1. Educated by Tara Westover

2. Patsy by Nicole Dennis Benn

3. Sisters and the Plight with Boys by N.R.White

4. Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour 

5. How the One Armed Sister Sweeps her House.

6. Stay With Me Ayobami Adebayo

 

BOOK REVIEW: HOMEGOING BY YAA Gyasi

 

Synopsis 

A novel of breathtaking sweep and emotional power that traces three hundred years in Ghana and along the way also becomes a truly great American novel. Extraordinary for its exquisite language, its implacable sorrow, its soaring beauty, and for its monumental portrait of the forces that shape families and nations, Homegoing heralds the arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction.

Two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle's dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast's booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia's descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation.

Generation after generation, Yaa Gyasi's magisterial first novel sets the fate of the individual against the obliterating movements of time, delivering unforgettable characters whose lives were shaped by historical forces beyond their control. Homegoing is a tremendous reading experience, not to be missed, by an astonishingly gifted young writer.

My Thoughts 

Wow. 

My reading year ended with a bang indeed. What a fantastic piece of literature.

This book has been on my TBR for a long time but I think I picked this up at the right time. 

There are not enough words in the dictionary to explain how I felt reading this. There was pain, joy and some more pain, all the characters held my interest and I felt connected to their story. This story reminded me of a history book I used the other day with a student where it stated that, the biggest humanitarian crisis to ever plague this earth, slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Homegoing developed that point by illustrating how African people and those of the heritage have through the generations, in different parts of the world have always, as a result of slavery and the effects, continuously faced discrimination, resulting in imprisonment, loneliness and anger among other things. I look forward to reading Transcendent Kingdom next. Homegoing is a must read for everyone.