The Ice Beneath Her - Camilla Grebe Review

"A young woman is found beheaded in an infamous business tycoon's marble-lined hallway.
The businessman, scandal-ridden CEO of the retail chain Clothes & More, is missing without a trace.
But who is the dead woman? And who is the brutal killer who wielded the machete?
Rewind two months earlier to meet Emma Bohman, a sales assistant for Clothes & More, whose life is turned upside down by a chance encounter with Jesper Orre. Insisting that their love affair is kept secret, he shakes Emma's world a second time when he suddenly leaves her with no explanation.

As frightening things begin to happen to Emma, she suspects Jesper is responsible.
But why does he want to hurt her? And how far would he go to silence his secret lover?"

This was different to any crime book I’ve read so far. It’s told from three perspectives – Hanne who is the ‘profiler’ called in this for case and is suffering from early onset dementia, Peter who is one of the lead detectives in the case and also Emma who is clearly somehow linked to the murder but you’re not 100% sure at the start.

A young woman is found beheaded in the rich businessman Jesper Orre’s apartment and he’ also missing. No-one knows who the dead girl is or where Jesper Orre is. The plot was definitely intriguing and best of all, realistic. There wasn't any evidence which seemed to appear out of no-where or from some miracle break through, everything was done at a pace which was representative and believable.

It was interesting to get a full backstory for all the characters and although at first, I was little bit confused and felt that is was slow starting, this depth really helped add to the overall story. I wasn’t sure where it was heading but, maybe two-thirds of the way through it started to click into place what had happened with the murder and who was involved and it was interesting in seeing the story play out.

I only gave this three stars because I really struggled at first to stay interested in the story - partly because of the content of the first few chapters which struggled to keep me interested as it seemed a bit confusing as to how it all played together and why did I need to know about Peter’s entire life story? Yes this added more to the story as the book went on but I can’t just ignore the fact that I considered DNFing this book; I also felt like way that book was written felt different and really didn’t help with the first few chapters and keeping me interested. I just didn’t feel as hooked on this story as I have been for other books and I only really wanted to sit down and really read this book in the last few chapters. 

Despite this, it wasn’t a bad book and as I’ve mentioned it had a good realistic plot point it just didn’t grab me or have anything that made it a memorable book for me – it was simply OK.

 

Burned Promises - Willow Winters Review

This is currently free on Amazon UK for Kindle!

This was my first book by Willow Winters; it’s told in a dual POV with Emma and Derek and is a second chance romance. Emma first walked away from Derek 5 years ago as he was into bad things and she knew that he wouldn’t change. Flash forward to the present where Emma is staying at her sister’s house whilst on holiday from University and Derek & Emma’s paths cross again. 

It had a good premise and the story showed the struggle between choosing sexual attraction and possibly love against morality and good judgement. Derek hasn’t changed much and is still the bad boy he was before and has just increased in the ranks and is now managing the drug business he was involved in before. He refused to tell Emma anything about what he was doing which I personally found really annoying! She’s an adult now and I understand wanting to protect her by not letting her know too much about what he did but he literally told her nothing despite her continually asking and claiming to love her. He got incredibly angry at times and I just felt like it was unnecessary and I would have run a mile at that point; especially since she’d although broke things of before because of his business ventures. I did enjoy the sub-plot about Derek’s mum having cancer and although I saw the plot twist coming, I did enjoy the execution of it. 

I have no problems with domineering men BUT there a difference between being domineering in a good way and then just taking it too far and I hated how it was done in this book. I highlighted a part in the book that says “I want her, so I’m taking her. It’s that simple.” NO! You don’t get to just bloody take her! There were comments like that scattered through the book and it really annoyed me. Unless she’s said otherwise you can’t just take when you want and do what you want. However, there is a great scene in this book where Emma gets high and then starts doing sexual things with Derek; he stops and carries her to bed and doesn’t even undress her which was great and could have obviously gone a very different way.

Overall I gave it 2 stars; it was an OK read but nothing impressive and I had issue with some of the writing.  

With a Twist - Staci Hart Review

This is currently free to download on Amazon UK for kindle!

This is a standalone contemporary romance, told in dual POV.

I had high hopes for this because it had so many good ratings on good reads but unfortunately it was just Ok for me! There wasn’t really anything bad about this but there just wasn’t anything that made it great for me, although I don’t know why!  Like I said I don’t really have any problem with the book, something just didn’t click for me. I didn’t rush to pick it an carry on it was just meh.

It’s a friends to lovers romance and to be honest I did think the way that this progressed was well done and also the reasons for why they weren’t together before now was also well written and believable – It’s annoying is FTL romances when they literally just realise out of no-where “omg I’m in love with my bestest friend X” with no rhyme or reason. 

As mentioned above, it is told in the dual POV; from Lily and Weston. Lily is a ballerina who has had a crush on one of her dance-mates for as long as she can remember and is finally getting to act on it and Weston is a teaching assistant who has been best friends with Lily since she moved into the same apartment block and hasn’t yet found “The One”. 

I feel it important to mention that both characters are sleeping with other people at the start of this book so if that’s something you dislike then it is probably best to stay away from this book.  

I’m honestly struggling to find much to put about this – I think ultimately I just didn’t click and connect with the characters which made it difficult for me to care much about what happened despite the storyline being carried out well.

This is a standalone book but it is in the “Bad Habits” series which contains two other books which tell the stories of the other characters which we were introduced to us in With A Twist:

• Chaser - This tells the story of Cooper and Maggie who is Weston’s sister and moved to New York. She moved in with Lily and their other room mate, Rose, nearer the end of With a Twist.

• Last Call – This tells the story of Trick and Rose, who from this book we find used to be together but then Trick dumped Rose despite the fact that it’s obvious in With a Twist he still likes her.

I’m not really sure if I’m going to carry on and read the other books; like I’ve said I didn’t really connect with any of the other characters so I don’t feel like I’m really that interested in finding out what happens with them!