Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

The story begins with a house fire in the affluent suburb of Shaker Heights. The house belongs to Bill and Elena Richardson and their four teenagers. The youngest child, Izzy, is supected of starting the fire. The Richardson's own an apartment that they rent to a photographer and her daughter. The book explores the tangled relationships between the two families that culminate in the fire. It is a story about motherhood, what it means to be a mother and what lengths mothers will go to to protect their children.

It's a beautifully written book. It's not fast paced but there's enough going on to make it a page turner. There are a broad range of interesting characters and the author provides some great insights into photography and motherhood. This passgae really resonated with me "to a parent, your child wasn't just a person: your child was a place, a kind of Narnia, a vast eternal place where the present you were living and the past you remembered and the future you longed for all existed at once... And each time you left it, each time your child passed out of your sight, you feared you might never be able to return to that place again."

Come back for me by Heidi Perks

I really enjoyed this book. It begins on a stormy night in 1993. A family of 5, the Harveys, flee their home on the  small island of Evergreen (off the Dorset coast). The story then moves to the present day, when a body is found buried on the island at the bottom of the Harvey's garden. Stella Harvey is the youngest member of the family. She was 11 when her family fled and is now a counsellor in her thirties. Stella wants to find out why her family left the island she loved so suddenly, if their leaving is connected to the body, and why they moved there in the first place. Stella goes back to the island to try to reconnect with the people she hasn't seen in 25 years, against the wishes of her older sister Bonnie who hated the island and doesn't want to return.

The book is a page-turner. There are a lot of interesting and troubbled characters and I really wanted to find out what had happened. It's a crime novel but the investigation takes a back seat to the personal questions Stella is trying to answer.

The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas

The book tells the story of Starr Carter, a 16 year old black girl who lives in a poor nieghbourhood but goes to an expensive private school. She witnesses a white police officer shoot her unarmed black friend.

This is an important book and I learned a lot from it, particularly about gang culture. I enjoyed the story but my two complaints were firstly, I felt it could have been 100 pages shorter, and secondly I found the white characters to be a bit flat. They reminded me of characters from Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, Beverley Hills 90210 etc. Wikipedia describes the book as 'young adult' fiction. I'd assumed it was aimed at adults. I gave it 4 stars but it probably deserves 5 judged as young adult fiction.

The Scholar by Dervla McTiernan

This book is the second in the Detective Cormac Reilly series. It's definitely better then the first. A girl is killed in a hit and run outside the lab where Cormac's girlfriend Emma works. Emma finds the body and calls him. The series reminds me of Robert Galbraith's (aka J. K. Rowling) Cormoran Strike books. They got better with each book and hopefully this series will too. There were some unexpected twists but it didn't have me on the edge of my seat. I have to admit, I find the unpronounceable Irish names a bit annoying (Aisling, Aoife, Eoghan).

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!