Rainbow Skies

Rainbow Readers

I’ve always been a book lover. As a child I was never without a book to hand and if I happened to be somewhere and finished it without a new book ready, I would simply turn to the front and start reading it all over again!

Work life, family life and just general life limited my reading for many years but I am now back and enjoying discovering new genres and new titles.

I am a member of a lovely book group where the cakes and company are just as important as the stories themselves! We indulge ourselves, share our book choices and have some lively discussion and debate as to what we think. We all agree that it is a good way of investigating new authors and different genres to ones we would naturally gravitate towards and although we don’t necessarily enjoy all of the books, we enjoy hearing what each of us thought.

This section will introduce you to some of the books I have been reading either independently or through my book club. Some of them I will have loved, some of them a little less so, but they are suggestions for you to make up your own mind. Please feel free to let me know your thoughts or to suggest a book choice of your own.

First to Die

by James Patterson

Although he is a prolific writer, I have not read a James Patterson book before and had no idea what to expect.

‘First to Die,’ is the introductory book in his ‘Women’s Murder Club’ series, the first of rather a lot! I think there are 25 books in the series, so if you like this one, it should keep you going for quite some time!

The storyline centres on Lindsay Boxer, a homicide inspector with the San Francisco Police Department. It begins with Lindsay standing on her balcony holding a gun to her head. She is tired, sad and depressed and as we find out fairly early on, suffering from a deadly blood disease which is not only zapping her of strength but could ultimately end her life.

She is told of a brutal murder that has taken place. David and Melanie Brandt have just got married and have been murdered in their hotel bedroom. It is brutal. There are no obvious clues. Their wedding rings are missing. And the bride’s body has been defiled. ( Here I will place a warning – some of the scenes are very graphic and quite unpleasant to read. If you find this kind of subject matter difficult then please avoid this book.) Hit with the brutality of this murder, a young couple struck down on what should have been the happiest day of their lives whilst also dealing with her doctor’s diagnosis, Lindsay is struggling. She bumps into Cindy Thomas, a reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle who has just been promoted to working on the crime desk and is caught at a vulnerable moment. Cindy has somehow managed to blag her way not only into the hotel, but close enough for her to actually see the murder victims and she seizes her chance when she meets Lindsay to hand over her business card.

With so little to go on and a new partner to work with, Lindsay turns to her friend Claire Washburn, a medical examiner for support. As the story progresses they join forces with reporter Cindy and form the Women’s Murder Club discussing their ideas and theories in their desire to find the sadistic killer. They are later joined by Jill Bernhardt an assistant DA. They are a crime solving group but also a great support network to each other, becoming closer as they discuss and try to solve the murders.

A second couple, Michael and Becky De George disappear on their honeymoon and are later found murdered. Again, the woman’s body has been defiled and humiliated. A third couple, James and Kathy are killed during their wedding reception. The murders become known as ‘The Honeymoon Murders’ and are believed to be connected but how? Why are their wedding rings missing? Are they trophies for the killer? How are the couples chosen? And just who is the Bride and Groom killer?

Lindsay is tough and determined but struggling as so few clues have been left.

In time, we learn that there are links to a well-known author, a huge public figure. If they target him, they run a huge risk of humiliating the entire force. He is known to treat his partners badly but he has strong alibis.

This is a fast-paced book. Written mostly from Lindsay’s point of view, but with sections written by the killer, it has lots of short chapters which is apparently a trademark of Patterson. It keeps the reader hooked and wanting to discover more. As such I found this a quick read. It was also quick as there were so many twists and turns, I was desperate to discover the truth behind the murders and how they would be resolved. And I had absolutely no idea!

Along the way, we learn more about Lindsay’s character, her growing attraction to her new partner Chris Raleigh and the strong bond between the four main female characters. This makes her character more believable and relatable.

The ending when it comes is a shocker! One of the tag lines is ‘Everything they thought they knew turned on its head,’ and that is certainly what happened to me, one of those Wow moments when I physically gasped at what was happening. That doesn’t happen often.

If you like thrillers, crime dramas and can cope with graphic descriptions of a sexual nature, then you will probably enjoy this book. It keeps you guessing right to the end, but the ending when it comes is sudden and explosive!

Enjoy but don't have nightmares!

The Lighthouse Witches

by CJ Cooke

Liv Stay and her three daughters arrive very late one night (and somewhat in haste) on a remote Scottish Island. They are to stay in the Bothy, an old stone building situated by a disused lighthouse with a long mysterious history. Liv has been commissioned to paint a mural on the inside of the deserted lighthouse by its mysterious owner.

Many years previously, the brutal murder of many innocent local women took place here and since then strange, unexplained events have occurred. Denounced as witches by their families, friends and neighbours, the women had been imprisoned in a stone cellar beneath the lighthouse floor, before being burnt at the stake. As the flames rose, so did their voices, cursing the island and its inhabitants as they were engulfed.

Since then, mysterious events have occurred – children disappearing and returning months later with no memory of where they have been or what happened to them, and with mysterious numbers branded on their bodies. But have the local children really returned or are they wildlings – sinister beings that take on the characteristics and appearance of the missing children? Who are they? What do they want? And can they be eradicated before their evil takes over? (Liv soon discovers that this can only be done by the parent taking their child/wildling to the forest, tying them to the burned witch trees and stabbing them).

Liv has her own problems and worries to deal with and doesn’t believe in such nonsense – she is here to do a job and work out her future. But then Sapphie, her eldest daughter, disappears. After an argument with her mother, Sapphie has run away, aiming to teach her mother a lesson. One minute she is hiding out in a deserted cabin, the next she is gone and whilst out looking for her, Liv suffers the devastating disappearance of Clover, her youngest daughter too. What has happened to them? Where have they gone? Why is she being punished so cruelly?

There is only Luna left and when we meet her much later in life, with no knowledge of what happened to her mother or her sisters, we find out that she has a vague memory of being tied to a tree in the forest, by her mother. Tiny fragments of her previous life return but we are never quite sure what has happened or if she is remembering correctly and Luna hasn’t seen her mother or two sisters since. Luna doesn’t understand what has happened in the missing part of her life, but then, out of the blue, she gets news that her sister Clover has been found! Twenty years have passed, but miraculously the authorities are convinced it is her. Arriving at the hospital to meet her now adult sister, Luna is confronted with a young girl. She has the same face, the same mannerisms and the same smile as her missing sister, but terrifyingly, she is also the same age Clover was when she disappeared!

So what did happen all those years ago? How has her sister not aged in the past twenty years? What happened to Liv and Sapphie? And why does Luna herself, have strange numbers branded on the back of her leg?

I’ve found this quite a creepy book in parts but totally fascinating too. The setting of the dark deserted lighthouse, the crashing waves and tales of witchcraft are very atmospheric – capturing the darkness of the remote island and the history of witchcraft that was prevalent at the time, causing hysteria in small communities.

There are plenty of twists and turns to keep you on edge, so maybe not a book to be reading in the dead of night! It’s an interesting concept and not one I had read about before and I had no idea of the ending until it happened, so I didn’t find the storyline predictable at all.

This was another of my telephone library box finds and not one I would normally choose, but I was fascinated by it and the fact that I have completed it quite quickly is testament to how much I enjoyed it.

So if you are looking for something a bit different, a bit sinister and a bit scary, this one might be for you!