Allegra in Three Parts by Suzanne Daniel

This a book about second wave feminism that my fourth wave friends will enjoy! It's set in Sydney in the 1970s. Eleven-year-old Allegra lives with her grandmother Matlide and next door to her grandmother Joy. Matilde is a strict, tight lipped, holocaust survivor and Joy is a free spirited women's libber. They both love Allegra but they hate each other.

I put the book down at midnight with 25 pages to go, not becuase I didn't want to know what happens but becuase I wanted to slow down and enjoy the ending. The writing is fabulous. It reminded me of Tabitha Bird's a Lifetime of Impossible Days in places, but without the time travel. It's not quite Liane Moriarty, but I can see Reese Witherspoon bagging the film rights.

Good Girl Bad Girl by Michael Robotham

This is the first book I've read by this author. It's classic crime fiction; well-written and well-researched, with complex characters and a good story line. It tells the story of psychologist Cyrus Haven, who is helping investigate the murder of a young figure skater, and Evie Cormac, a teenager who has been kept hidden in a secret room in a house where a murder has recently taken place. Evie has an unusual gift - she is able to tell when someone is lying.

I would have given the book five stars, but I didn't realise that it is the first in a series, so while most questions were answered a few things about Evie remained hidden. This left me a little disappointed at the end.

Nothing Ventured by Jeffrey Archer

This is the first book in a new series. It tells the story of a young detective William Warwick. Warwick is the detective from the novels written by Harry Clifton, the main character in Archer's previous series the Clifton Chronicles.

I preferred this book to the first book in the Clifton series. It reminded me of the first Cormoran Strike book (J K Rowling's detective series). Warwick investigates four different crimes. While none of them are particularly clever, the four strands makes for a good read.

I don't plan to buy the next book in the series but I'm sure others will enjoy them. They're an easy read but I find the characters a bit flat. Warwick, like Harry Clifton, lacks flaws!

Don't Believe It by Charlie Donlea

Lots of reviewers say that Donlea gets better with each book. I made the mistake of reading his latest one before I read this one, so it's good, but it's not as good as The Woman in Darkness.

The book follow Sidney Ryan, an investigative documentary maker, as she revisits the case of notorious killer Grace Sebold. Grace has been in prison in St Lucia for ten years, for killing her fiance Julian Crist the night he was about to propose to her. 

The story is easy to follow and there are some great plot twists. The characters are interesting and there's a lot of detail in the forensics and in how documentaries are made. I devoured the last 150 pages in one sitting; however, I'll wait for Donlea's next book rather than reading another earlier one.

Coming Home from Breast Cancerville by Liz Van Vliet

This book is a must-read for anyone who has experienced breast cancer or knows someone who has. On the one hand it's an easy read, Liz's writing is engaging and at times laugh-out-loud funny, on the other, it's a difficult read. A lesson for me was that empathy comes at a price (I now know stuff about cancer I kind of wish I didn't). Liz is brutally honest about the impact breast cancer has had on her life and the lives of her husband and three girls.

Using her childhood road trips with parents and four siblings in a VW Kombi van as a metaphor, Liz explains the three stages of her journey: treatment highway, recovery highway and survivor highway. She talks about the impact on her physical health, on her mental health, on her marriage, on her family and on her finances and career. It took her a long time to realise her journey was not going to be a round-trip. She has gradually come to accept, and even embrace, the fact that she will never be the same person she was before the breast cancer.

If there's one thing I think people should take away from the book, it's the need for free ongoing counselling not just for the patient but also for their immediate family. It had never occured to me that people who survive cancer might suffer from PTSD as a result of their experience, or that their whole family might.

If you want to reach out to someone who has been diagnosed with breast cancer I suggest you buy this book, read it yourself and then send them a copy.

The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan

In 1993, Detective Cormac Reilly is called to a remote house in Ireland. He finds a young girl Maude, and her five-year-old brother Jack alone with the body of their mother who has died from a heroin overdose. The story moves forward 20 years, and Jack commits suicide after his pregnant partner Aisling tells him she doesn't want to keep their baby. Detective Reilly has recently moved back to Gallway and is called on to reopen the original case and consider whether Maude may have killed her mother. Aisling and Maude work together to find out what really happened to Jack.

It was a good story but I never really connected with any of the characters. Jack disappeared from the story too quickly for me to become attached to him. Aisling is a trainee doctor. She rushes straight back to work after Jack dies, and sees no reason to change her mind about keeping the baby. The new job is a step down for Cormac and he has to deal with the politics of coming in as a high flyer and getting on with the job without getting anyone's back up. He has a partner but we don't hear much about her and none of the other police officers were particularly interesting. This is the first book in a series of Cormac Reilly novels. I read it because I wanted to read the second one, but now I'm not sure I want to.

The Woman in Darkness by Charlie Donlea

This was a great read. I finished it and immediately ordered another by the same author. The story flicks between the present day, where forensic reconstructionist Rory Moore has recently lost her lawyer father, and 1979, where housewife Angela Miller is trying to work out who is responsble for a spate of local murders. Rory discovers that her father represented the serial killer Angela was tracking, and he is about to be released from prison. The first pages are quite dark. They are from the serial killer's perspective and show the delight he gets from killing. 

I enjoyed both the main characters. Rory is on the autism spectrum and repairs china dolls as a way of focusing her mind and controlling her OCD. Angela is dealing with mental health issues. Both are smart and different. The book has some great plot twists and is just a really clever story.