Review: The Striker - Book #1 Gods of the Game Series - Ana Huang - October 2024 I'll be honest with you Ana Huang and I have had quite the complicated relationship. Her books have been a bit of a mixed bag for me over the years, landing anywhere from absolute favourites to DNFs (did-not-finishes, for those not deep in the bookish rabbit hole). So when I packed my bags for our Readers Retreat in Taupō last week, I finally decided it was time to give The Striker a proper chance. It had been sitting on my shelf since release, quietly judging me every time I walked past. You know that feeling. We've all been there. And oh my goodness  how did it take me this long? I'm so glad I finally cracked the spine on this one, because The Striker completely won me over. At its heart, it's a football romance and when I say football, I do mean soccer, just so we're all on the same page! Our hero, Asher Donovan, is an absolute dreamboat of a soccer champion who has just switched ...

Review: Remain - Nicholas Sparks and M. Night Shyamalan - October 2025 I'll admit it when I heard Nicholas Sparks and M. Night Shyamalan were collaborating on a book, my inner teenage self did a little happy dance. I grew up devouring Sparks' tearjerkers (yes, I ugly-cried through A Walk to Remember), and I'm absolutely obsessed with Shyamalan's deliciously twisted films. The idea of combining Sparks' emotional gut-punches with Shyamalan's mind-bending reveals? Sounds great right,  Or so I thought. Remain had so much potential, but ultimately landed somewhere in the middle for me a solid, average read that never quite reached the heights I'd hoped for. The story opens with Tate watching his sister Sylvia die, but not before she does something completely bizarre: she breathes into his mouth. Gross? Yes. Weird? Absolutely. But this is how Tate inherits the ability to see ghosts, which naturally sends him spiraling into a mental breakdown. After some time in ...

Review: You Are Fatally Invited - Ande Pliego - February 2025 As someone who devours locked room mysteries like they're going out of style, I practically squealed when I spotted "You Are Fatally Invited" on the Whitcoulls website. The premise hit every single one of my reading sweet spots: a mysterious host gathering unsuspecting guests for revenge, an isolated setting with no escape, and the delicious meta-twist of thriller authors becoming victims of their own fictional murders. Sometimes the book gods smile down on us readers, and this felt like one of those moments. Ande Pliego has crafted something wickedly clever here. Six thriller authors receive invitations to an exclusive writers' retreat hosted by the enigmatic J.R. Alastor—a reclusive author whose identity remains shrouded in mystery. What begins as a dream opportunity quickly morphs into a nightmare as our literary protagonists realize they haven't been gathered for inspiration, but for retribution. E...

Review: The Housemaid Is Watching - Book #3 The Housemaid Series - Freida McFadden - June 2024 A couple of years ago I first discovered Freida McFadden with her books The Locked Door and The Gift. As a thriller fan , I found myself enjoying them and now I have read the majority of her backlist. The Housemaid is Watching is the third book in the Housemaid series featuring Millie and Enzo. The pair met in the first book and then they went their separate ways and reunited at the end of the second book. Now in the third book, the pair we discover have been married for 12 years and have two children Ava and Nico. The family have moved into a beautiful house and neighbourhood , but of course Millie knows to be wary of neighbours and especially the wealthy as her experience has taught her. What happens though when the next door neighbour Jonathan ends up murdered and the cops are narrowing their suspect pool to one person aka Enzo. Who is Enzo protecting as he confesses ? Has one of their ch...

Review: All Rhodes Lead Here - Mariana Zapata - April 2021 This book and others from this author have been on my TBR bookshelf for a while and I kept putting it off as readers had talked about how Mariana Zapata was the Queen of slow-burn romance and more often books that are all about slow-burn are the other sort of slow - slow paced and boring as nothing happens. However, that was not the case in All Rhodes Lead Here by Mariana Zapata, as this book seemed to hold its own as though the romance was slow-burn and didn't happen till near the end of the book, the storyline was good enough that it carried most of the book. The book starts with our female MC finally standing up for herself and breaking free of the bonds she had for the past fourteen years. She has packed up, booked an Air BNB, and headed back to her hometown in the mountains of Colorado. When Aurora arrives, she discovers things aren't quite as they seem as the owner of the house doesn't know anything about her ...

Review: Crimson River - Book #5 The Edens Series - Devney Perry - June 2023 I had been looking forward to this one possibly the most since Indigo Ridge as I knew it had more of a romantic suspense feel to it. Crimson River is Lyla Eden's story and it starts innocently with Eloise begging her to take a day of self-care, for Lyla this means grabbing her hiking gear and following her favorite trail. However, this will be one hiking trip she will never forget as it almost ends in death for her. While Lyla is hiking, she stumbles upon a man hunting and he spots her and freaks, instead of running he starts to strangle her and then stops before she dies.  It turns out that the mystery man has a name - Cormac Gallagher and he is someone who has been on the run for the past four years as his wife and two of his children were found murdered - the oldest child- a body was never found. Enter Vance Sutter - he is a cop from the same town Cormac lives and has been tracking him down and following...

Review: Garnet Flats - Book #3 The Edens Series - Devney Perry - July 2022 I was in two minds about this book as I have enjoyed the first two books and Book #2 Juniper Hill is still my favorite so far in the series, but I felt that Talia's story was a bit of a letdown, and also her character frustrated me. Looking at all the siblings, Talia even though she is a twin to Lyla ended up with the qualities of acting as a hardarse and she is a bit of a doormat personality with an I am Miss Independent - Hear Me Roar. Her character frustrated me in this book as it was like, stop acting like a spoiled brat and also get over yourself at the same time. It wasn't just her that frustrated me as Foster Madden - I loved his character but the reason he married Talia's friend and was with her for seven years - it screamed weakminded to me and it was like all the characters in this particular book didn't want to step on anyone's toes and cause conflict or make waves - even the side ...