Book Review / Haunting Adeline & Hunting Adeline by HD Carlton (Cat and Mouse Series Duology)

This book was previously banned on Amazon due to the trigger warning. Please read many reviews or go to the author's website.

The Manipulator

I can manipulate the emotions of anyone who lets me.
I will make you hurt, make you cry, make you laugh and sigh.
But my words don't affect him. Especially not when I plead for him to leave.
He's always there, watching and waiting.
And I can never look away.
Not when I want him to come closer.


The Shadow

I didn't mean to fall in love.
But now that I have, I can't stay away.
I'm mesmerized by her smile, by her eyes, and the way she moves.
The way she undresses...
I'll keep watching and waiting. Until I can make her mine.
And once she is, I'll never let her go.
Not even when she begs me to.

Published:  12th August 2021 

Publisher:  Halley Carlton

Goodreads :  Click Here

Series or Stand-Alone:  Stand-Alone

Source:  Bought

Genres:     Dark, Thriller, Fantasy, Horror and Mystery

Pages:  583 pages (book 1) and 649 pages (book 2)

MY REVIEW

What I liked about this story...  Although the topics covered in this duology are very dark and hard hitting I just could not stop reading.  These books are definately an eye opener for many different reasons.  I'll be honest, I would not normally read books like these that are quite this spicy and not really reading much into these books before picking them up to read I didn't know what I was getting into, so there were a few scenes in the first book that I skipped over.

What I didn't like about this story...  More the first book than the second, but these were very uncomfortable reads due to the subject nature that were at times a bit too much for me to read.

Would I recommend...  I would go into this book with your eyes wide open to the sensitive subject matter which can be found in other reviews in the Goodreads link above or the author website here - https://hdcarlton.com/library/.  That aside, the thriller aspect of these books was really very good and addicting to read.  

 

Waiting on Wednesday / The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins

 

Waiting on Wednesday was a weekly memo that is hosted by Breaking the Spine Blog that I really enjoyed blogging about in the post, so I thought I would bring it back!  Below is this week's pick!

 

 

The spellbinding new novel from the internationally bestselling author of The Girl on the Train.

An isolated Scottish island, accessible to the mainland only twelve hours a day. A famous (some might say infamous) artist whose notoriously unfaithful husband disappeared after visiting her twenty years ago. A present-day discovery that intimately connects three people and unveils a web of secrets and lies.

A masterful and propulsive novel that asks searing questions of ambition, power, gender and perception, The Blue Hour recalls the very best of Shirley Jackson and Patricia Highsmith and cements Hawkins’s place among the very best of our most nuanced, powerful and stylish storytellers.

 

 

Expected Publication:  29th October 2024

Publisher:   Doubleday

Goodreads Link:   Click Here

Series or Stand Alone:   Stand Alone

Genres:   Mystery and Thriller

Book Review / One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware

 

Harkening to Agatha Christie’s classic And Then There Were None, this high-tension and ingenious thriller follows five couples trapped on a storm-swept island as a killer stalks among them—from Ruth Ware, the New York Times bestselling author who “is turning out to be as ingenious and indefatigable as the Queen of Crime” (The Washington Post).

Lyla is in a bit of a rut. Her post-doctoral research has fizzled out, she’s pretty sure they won’t extend her contract, and things with her boyfriend, Nico, an aspiring actor, aren’t going great. When the opportunity arises for Nico to join the cast of a new reality TV show, The Perfect Couple, she decides to try out with him. A whirlwind audition process later, Lyla find herself whisked off to a tropical paradise with Nico, boating through the Indian Ocean towards Ever After Island, where the two of them will compete against four other couples—Bayer and Angel, Dan and Santana, Joel and Romi, and Conor and Zana—in order to win a cash prize.

But not long after they arrive on the deserted island, things start to go wrong. After the first challenge leaves everyone rattled and angry, an overnight storm takes matters from bad to worse. Cut off from the mainland by miles of ocean, deprived of their phones, and unable to contact the crew that brought them there, the group must band together for survival. As tensions run high and fresh water runs low, Lyla finds that this game show is all too real—and the stakes are life or death.

A fast-paced, spellbinding thriller rife with intrigue and characters that feel so true to life, this novel proves yet again that Ruth Ware is the queen of psychological suspense.

Published:       21st May 2024

Publisher:       Simon & Schuster UK

Goodreads :      Click Here  

Series or Stand-Alone:  Stand-Alone

Source:          Bought

Genres:         Thriller, Mystery and Suspense

Pages:           416 pages, Hardcover 

MY REVIEW

What I liked about this story...  Notwithstanding what I say below, I did enjoy reading this novel.  What I liked the best was the characters.  There were some good, some bad and some plain awful.  They were all meant to be how they were meant to be and I liked to see how they all interacted and reacted to both each other and the situation.  

What I didn't like about this story...  There were really no surprises in this story for me.  I had pretty much guessed all of them.  I would have loved to have had a few surprises that I hadn't guessed, but that's not the case with this one.  Yes I did enjoy the writing and characters but the plot I didn't feel for quite so much.  

Would I recommend...  Honestly, if you were wanting to pick up a Ruth Ware I would go with a different novel of hers first so you get a feel for her writing and style so you can appreciate that in this novel.