The Longest Race by Ed Ayres Book Review

I was lucky enough to be asked to read this book for review.  It is not a book that I would normally read as I understood it first to be just a book about running when I received it (and I am definitely not a runner).  Once I got started into it, I realised that Ed Ayres had so much more to tell.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion - Book Review

I came across this funny romantic comedy by Graeme Simsion as he is one of my class mates in my writing and editing course.  First off I have to say I am incredibly surprised that he needs to be in a novel class as he is obviously a great writer.  This novel was written just last year and already is number one in the Independent Booksellers list!  I am ever so much in awe...

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn Book Review

This story had me enthralled from the moment I started to read it.  Gillian tells this thriller in two unreliable voices; Nick and Amy.  Nick and Amy are a young married couple who seem on the surface to love each other just an any other young couple.  Amy has gone missing much to Nick’s worry.  We hear from Amy through her diary entries that go back to before they met.  Nick goes to exhaustive lengths to find his wife who it seems is unable to be found, dead or alive.  We, as the reader are slowly let into Amy’s world in amongst Nick’s real time dilemma. 

Gillian has brilliantly crafted the characters in the novel.  I very much enjoyed Nick and Amy as well as Amy’s parents and Nick’s sister. Gillian has a wonderful twist to the story and then twists again.  She kept me on the edge, unable to put the book down.  A real pleasure to read.   I found it a very hard book to put down so much so that I was kept up until 2am reading on the last night of it.  Wonderful.  Another great bookclub book.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner Book Review

The walls around are made of metal…and move.  Surrounding this is a maze that no-one has made their way out of alive.  This is the world that James Dashner has set up in The Maze Runner.  Thomas, the main protagonist, arrives in a lift into this world with his memory wiped.  He finds this world only has teens, like him, and there is a hierarchy here that he needs to learn about.  Thomas has seeds of memory that he can’t shake – or form.  Some of the people here are very suspicious of him and he wonders about what his past may have been.  He feels compelled to run through the maze, a known very dangerous thing to do as people have died out there.  Another person arrives into this maze world and everyone is in shock as this time it is a girl; there have never been girls arrive before.  Fear and suspicion run rife. 

This is a brilliantly written book that hooked me in the whole way.  The characters are well developed with a very well planned plot.  The story runs at a fast pace with the reader left begging for more.  I am looking forward to reading the next one – The Scorch Trials.