Summer Reads – The Closer I Get

Books to be swept away with this summer…

There are SO MANY great books around at the moment and so I’d like to share a few that I think are particularly exciting. I’m not going to plop them all together in one post but give each the opportunity to shine in it’s own right…

Hold on to your hats… here are my summer 2019 recommendations. (Don’t forget to check back through my July post for further summer reading recommendations)

The Closer I Get by Paul Burston

Adult Fiction

Here’s the synopsis:
Tom is a successful author, but he’s struggling to finish his novel. His main distraction is an online admirer, Evie, who simply won’t leave him alone.
Evie is smart, well read and unstable; she lives with her father and her social-media friendships are not only her escape, but everything she has.
When she’s hit with a restraining order, her world is turned upside down, and Tom is free to live his life again, to concentrate on writing.
But things aren’t really adding up. For Tom is distracted but also addicted to his online relationships, and when they take a darker, more menacing turn, he feels powerless to change things. Because maybe he needs Evie more than he’s letting on.
A compulsive, disturbingly relevant, twisty and powerful psychological thriller, The Closer I Get is also a searing commentary on the fragility and insincerity of online relationships, and the danger that can lurk just one `like’ away…

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Now, I know I have only posted my review for this quite recently (do have a read of it here) but it really is a super novel and I so wanted to include it in my summer recommendations.
The Closer I Get was published in July and is available in paperback, eBook and on Audiobook. Visit the Orenda website here for more information but it should be available in any good bookshop.

Paperback ISBN: 9781912374779

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Read it already? Please feel free to let us know what you think by leaving a comment below.

Happy reading and I hope you have a fabulous summer!

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Good Samaritans by Will Carver

Two women have been murdered. Some time apart but it’s undoubtedly the same killer, yet nothing ties them together.

Seth is an insomniac. He feels frustrated, lonely and spends his nights drinking coffee and talking to strangers on the phone.

Maeve is his wife. She drinks too much and spends her nights alone in the marital bed listening to the murmurs of her husband as he talks and waiting for him to make yet another mistake so that he’ll need her again.

Hadley is depressed. She’s tried killing herself and still thinks about it constantly until one night she decides to call the Samaritans. Finally she finds someone she can talk to, someone who understands. At least that what she thinks…

Wowser, this is one that will stay with me for some time. Brutal, thrilling with no holds barred, this is an extraordinary novel; gradually building pace so you’re literally unable to put the book down until you arrive breathlessly at the end. It is somewhat disturbing right from the start but I found myself unable to look away. The characters are brilliantly constructed and each view point gradually adds to the story until the puzzle is complete.

This is the first novel I have read by Will Carver and I absolutely love his writing style. His short, punchy chapters are brilliant, each told from a different viewpoint. Great characterisation and a knack for picking up on the minute details of ordinary life, make this an extraordinary piece of crime fiction. He highlights society, the use of social media, the monotony of life when lived through technology; the things we miss and the sheer loneliness that we feel despite being surrounded by people, either in reality or virtually. The way we constantly suffer an overflow of information; it messes with our minds causing insomnia, depression and pushes us to spend our lives judging people, shutting out those ones that are close and yet never really knowing what is going on beneath the surface. Always comparing and never satisfied with our own reality.

‘….And he was sick of the way social media had made people less sociable and how the great art of conversation had seemingly been lost somewhere between your latest faux-bragging status and your next hashtag.’

I’m not sure that I particularly warmed to any of the characters but each one held me spellbound as I tried to work out how the dead women fitted in to their stories… and if another was about to join them. Who was the killer? There are clues dropped along the way but my mind kept changing as I explored every possibility. The end didn’t disappoint and already I’m flicking back through to look over the clues.

Good Samaritans is quite hard hitting. There are elements that we can all relate to – some of the references to Facebook certainly made me think and there were many parts that I found quite shocking and yet unable to stop reading. This is not a read for the easily shocked so be aware there are some hard-hitting scenes but oh my it’s good. I, for one, could not put it down.

One crossed wire, three dead bodies and six bottles of bleach

Seth Beauman can’t sleep. He stays up late, calling strangers from his
phonebook, hoping to make a connection, while his wife, Maeve, sleeps
upstairs. A crossed wire finds a suicidal Hadley Serf on the phone to Seth, thinking she is talking to The Samaritans. But a seemingly harmless, late-night hobby turns into something more for Seth and for Hadley, and soon their late-night talks are turning into day-time meet-ups. And then this dysfunctional love story turns into something altogether darker, when Seth brings Hadley home…

And someone is watching…

Dark, sexy, dangerous and wildly readable, Good Samaritans marks the
scorching return of one of crime fiction’s most exceptional voices.

About the author

Will Carver is the international bestselling author of the JanuaryDavid series (Arrow). He spent his early years in Germany, but returned to the UK at age 11, when his sporting career took off. He turned down a professional rugby contract to study theatre and
television at King Alfred’s, Winchester, where he set up a successful theatre company.

He currently runs his own fitness and nutrition company, while working on his next thriller. He lives in Reading with his two children.

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Thank you so much to Anne Cater for my review copy and for inviting me to take part in this blog tour with #RandomThingsTours This is another awesome novel from the good people at Orenda Books.

Coldwater by Samuel Parker – sinister and dark, this is a thrilling read.

The Vigilantes behind him are nothing compared to the enemy within.

Having forfeited his youth to the state prison system, Michael moved back to the still vacant house of his parents in a town with one stoplight.  A town that hated him.  Had always hated him.  And was ready to pick up where the prison system had left off.

Now he’s on the run from men who’ve tried to kill him once; but Michael is more than an ex-con.  A powerful, sinister force skulks within him, threatening and destructive.  What – and who – it will destroy next is the only real question.

From the bold voice that brought readers down with ‘Purgatory Road’ comes a new pulse-pounding, spine-rattling tale of vengeance and justice.

There is something rather delicious about a good thriller.  The kind of thriller that sweeps you up in the story, pushing you on to the next chapter, making you turn page after thrilling page. With Coldwater  Samuel Parker has created such a story.  From the first page this was absolutely gripping.  I was completely enthralled.

THE DAY WAS BORN IN DARKNESS

Michael opened his eyes and saw nothing.

Blackness.

The motes in his eyes drifted across the void.

His mouth was sealed with what felt like tape.  Michael tried to lift himself and felt the hard knock of wood against his forehead.  A light sprinkle of sand fell on his face, but he was blind to its source, he could only feel it as it dusted his lashes, scratching at his pupils.  He raised his head slowly again until he felt the board press against his skin.  He lay back down.  His shoulders ached, his back.  He tried to move his hands up to his eyes to rub the grit out of them but found they were bound together.  He stated breathing faster, nostrils flaring in the dark.

He was as a newborn cast out into the vacuum of space.  He could feel his heart beat faster as his mind raced to keep up with this discovery of himself.  Michael could feel his nerves begin to fire in all his limbs as electric panic coursed through his body.  He lifted his head again and hit the boards, a few inches above him.

And so it begins…

There is a sinister force running throughout this novel and there were many times that I questioned who was actually the monster.  The level of hate towards Michael, a man who had served his time in prison,  a prison in which he had been sent to as child and emerged a man.  Yet we would be led to believe that he is evil, damaged and a danger to all those he comes in contact with.  Even Michael himself who longs only to be accepted, to be left alone,  knows that he will never be able to live a normal life.  And yet he wants to live.  He still has hope.  So he runs from his pursuers, the vigilantes who have taken it upon themselves to rid their small town of this man who they believe does not deserve a second chance. Yet their very actions bring them closer to becoming the monster they are trying to destroy.

Michael is an incredibly complex character.  He has so much going against him and although his crime was heinous, I did begin to feel a certain amount of empathy towards him.  This novel is a wonderful metaphor for the effects of crime on those who commit it, their victims and anyone who has to deal with the aftermath. Once Michael committed the fateful act, the evil awoke within him and infiltrated everyone and everything he came into contact with.

It gave me much to think about but in essence this is a wonderful novel that was thrilling to read.  I’m so delighted to have discovered Samuel Parker and I look forward to reading more from this exciting author.

Thank you so much to Rhoda Hardie for the review copy – you said I would love it and I absolutely did!

You can purchase a copy of Coldwater from Amazon. or any good bookshop.  The ISBN number for the paperback edition is: 978-0800727345 but it is also available in Hardback and on eBook.

Coldwater was published by Revell part of the Baker Publishing Group.

 

If you’d like to read more about Samuel Parker then please do visit his website here.