Bonfire - Krysten Ritter Review

First of all, thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK for providing me with the ARC for this! All opinions in this review are my own. You can pre-order this on Amazon UK and it's due for release on November 9th!

I have to admit that I was skeptical going into this with Krysten Ritter being the celeb that she is, I think how good could this book be? But wow did she prove me wrong and make me feel like an idiot because I loved this!

Abby Williams left her hometown of Barrens and didn’t look back, moving to Chicago and making a career for herself as an environmental lawyer. But she’s brought back when her Law firm starts investigating Optimal Plastics which proves highly unpopular with the Barrens-Locals as Optimal has single-handedly rebuilt their town. Abby arrives back and has to deal with her father and his possible illness along with seeing all her high school friends and reliving the mystery of her missing best-friend, Kaycee. She soon realises that things really don’t see to have changed that much in Barrens despite how much people try to prove that they have.

I really enjoyed the character building in this and felt that I got to know not only Abby really well but also the side characters who help to make the story. This was a thriller / crime and so this intense character building for the main side characters just made the plot really come together when the twists were revealed and I felt like I wasn’t missing any information on the characters which would have helped with the plot outcome.

The sub-plot about Abby’s father was really well done and it didn’t feel like it was shoved in as an after-thought to try and pad the book out or to give the main character even more to deal. It was well thought out and actually added to the story and plot as a whole. There was also a love triangle involved here with two of the old boys she knew from high school and yet again this wasn’t made a focus of the book. It added more to the story but didn’t compete for attention against the main plot and yet again, it added to it which was great. The way it was concluded was also very well handled so well done Krysten Ritter!

I wouldn’t say it was a quick read, especially at the start and I know I read things near the beginning and thought ‘Why do I need to be told this?!’ only for it to make so much sense later on in the book when it all came together. But I loved that! It’s annoying when a write includes a lot of stuff that just isn’t required for character building but then isn’t needed later on in the book and is just unnecessary information. 

One of the other great things about this was that I saw some of the twists and plot devices coming but there were also a few which I didn’t see coming at all! Plus the twists that did happen seemed so believable because of the character and story development and I think they actually benefited best from the reader knowing what was coming for some of the story.

I really hope that Krysten writes another book – be it a continuation of Abby Williams and her dealing with the fall-out from the this book & more of her twisted environmental law practices or a different thriller crime book. Either way I’d definitely be picking it up and I’ve been really pleasantly surprised.  

Also that book cover is so gorgeous! It's so simple yet it works and it really is just beautiful!

Close to Home - Cara Hunter Review

First of all, I just want to mention that I received this from Penguin UK as I was a winner of the giveaway for this book on goodreads. This did not affect my views or opinions on this book and this post isn’t sponsored.

“Last night, 8-year-old Daisy Mason disappeared from her parents' summer party. No one in the quiet suburban street saw anything - or at least that's what they're saying. 


DI Adam Fawley is trying to keep an open mind. But he knows that nine times out of ten, it's someone the victim knew.

That means someone is lying.

And that Daisy's time is running out…“


This is the first book in the DI Adam Fawley series and author Cara Hunter’s debut novel. I absolutely loved this an so glad that I managed to get hold of it early! The overall pace of the book was great and I didn’t feel like I had I had to drag myself through any part of the book. The only issue I had as with the epilogue as I felt it was a bit hard to believe and far fetched BUT I still gave the book five-stars because you could probably just ignore the epilogue if I’m being honest haha!

The book has no chapters; just page breaks which, when I first took a quick flick through the book, I thought I was going to dislike – I’m a massive chapter advocate and hate it when there are long chapters that just seem to drag on so I really thought that I was going to have an issue getting through this. I had no problems though; the page breaks are obvious enough that you’re not left guessing if the story has moved on completely or just taken a break from that current situation. 

The best part of this book is the inclusion of all the twitter and facebook updates. It made it seem like it was actually modern and also really helped understand how things can escalate. There’s a part where it’s showing online hate towards the one of the suspects and how easily it escalated. And it also helped show how easily things can get leaked online by people who don’t been necessarily realising they’re doing so. I felt these social media updates added so much more to the book and I really enjoyed having them there.

I also liked how we kept up with the investigation in real time but also got some flashbacks which helped add even more to the real-time story we were following. Every time there was a development in the case we were there for it and got it follow it though; there were no higher agencies making discoveries which we get told about but not actually getting to follow; you literally get to hear about every detail. 

The character development was ok but I felt like we could have had more of an introduction to Adam, especially since he was the main character in all this. We got a bit; we know his wife’s name and that they’ve had a hard time with some issue with their child but that’s about it and I would have liked to know a bit more about him and his life. Although I really enjoyed the character development of Sharon and Barry Mason and felt that it really helped the story and it's plot line realistic. 

I thought I had a pretty good idea of who'd done it until the end few pages and the way the plot develops really helped to enforce the readers thought of who the suspect is which gave for a more interesting finish when it turns out to be not what you're expecting!

Overall, I think this was a fantastic book and I’m eagerly awaiting the sequel! Hopefully we'll get to see more of who Adam is a a character and more about what happened to his son. You can pre-order this here on amazon UK for its release in December.