SUNBURN by Laura Lippman

Sunburn by Laura Lippman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After reading a great book the other day, I wanted to get stuck into another story, so I went through my Paperwhite... and started reading this one yesterday.

When Polly walks out on her husband and daughter during their summer vacation, she ends up in Belleville, Delaware. And inside a tavern, she crosses paths with the alluring Adam. Both are apparently passing through on their way to better places, but the secrets they hide bring them together. And will probably tear them apart...

Well, this book turned out to be quite interesting. It's well written and there are secrets buried within secrets that lead to an unexpected conclusion. There's also a great cast of grey characters that prove good people can do bad things, and bad people can do good things.

It all starts with a seemingly average woman, Polly, sitting in a bar after leaving her family because she wants to be free before her husband leaves her. But it doesn't take long to realise that there's a lot more to her story. Then there's the man, Adam, watching and assessing her every move because he seems to be interested in her. Yet, he has ulterior motives too.

I liked the way this unravelled. Told mostly in the POV of Polly and Adam, there are also several other POVs peppered throughout that provide clues that help round out the overall mystery. And these definitely help the reader figure out exactly what's going on with Polly.

Cool book, glad I read it.


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THE NIGHT GUEST by Hildur Knútsdóttir

The Night Guest by Hildur Knútsdóttir
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've been busy working on writing, revision, edits, and a whole bunch of other stuff. But this week I wanted to get stuck into a bit of reading, and started with this novella.

Iðunn is desperately trying to find out what's going on with her. She's always tired, wakes up with bruises and knows there's something wrong. But doctors can't help her and won't even take her seriously. Until her life starts to unravel when she figures out she's leaving the house at night. While she's supposed to be sleeping...

Well, this is quite the creepy tale.

It's also full of snappy chapters that flow so well into each other that I found it hard to put my Paperwhite down. Seriously, I read this in one sitting that took a few hours.

There's a lot I enjoyed about this story. The writing style. The mystery. The narrator that's so confused she takes the reader along for the ride. The many breadcrumbs the author lays out in the narrative. The social commentary about how women are ignored, or are expected to behave, how so many are practically invisible. How shitty men hide in plain sight with their 'good intentions' on show but secretly hide obsessive, controlling agendas.

Yeah, it's all there and works really well in the context of what happens to Iðunn's life. She's trapped in a cycle she can't escape while awake, which I think says a lot about how things turn out.

I also love the ending. Some might call it ambiguous, and while that might be true, I think the answers are there if you pay attention. Not to mention that leaving the conclusion open for interpretation is very cool.

Loved it!!


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Busy Week Full of Words

Hey! How are you today? I hope you're well and finding some happiness and fun during the shittiest timeline ever. 🙄

Every single morning there's a new stupid and cruel thing happening. It's awful to watch. I wish people had paid proper attention and saw exactly what we did. But hate means more to some people than anything else. It's a shame.

See the lovely demon girl above? That's Destiny. She's the main character in my upcoming novel from Brigids Gate Press. Why am I talking about her? Well, I spent this week revisiting her story during an intense round of edits, which I completed early this morning.

It was nice to catch up with Destiny, Kenan, and all the other occultish characters. It's a stand-alone cozy/urban fantasy novel about a demon who is hired by a nun to find an angel. 

You know, Hellboy x Constantine. 😁

Oh, just a quick note about the graphic I posted here. I made this on a website called Picrew several years ago. Picrew is a doll maker website where human artists upload their art and users can make cute versions of themselves. Or as I like to do, my characters. This isn't AI. You all know how I feel about AI. I despise gen AI and don't use it for absolutely anything. Personally, I don't understand people's dependency on it, but that's a different story.

I just wanted to make it clear that the graphic I made isn't AI slop. It's from a cool doll maker website I've been using for years.

Anyway, let's get on with the rest of the post. LOL.

As I mentioned above, I spent all week working on edits. It's been a while since I last read this novel, so I paid special attention to everything. Really happy with the result and I'll keep you updated on the cover, release date, etc.

Although I spent most of my time editing, I also squeezed a bit of writing into the week because my two vampire boys are loud and demanded I keep telling their story. I added another 2k words, which brings the total to 5,600. Yeah, this one's going to be a much longer one.

I didn't get a chance to continue my Kallax organising, but my bookshelves are a WIP, so that's okay.

Well, that's about it for now. I'm kinda mentally and physically exhausted right now, so having a three-day weekend is going to be great. Yeah, my husband is taking Monday off because the 7th is my birthday. 😊

Have an awesome weekend!!

Sorting, Sorting & More Sorting

Hi! How are you today? Even though the world is currently a bizarre mess, I hope you're able to find good vibes and happiness to make your days better.

I swear this timeline is the most ridiculous timeslip ever. It's like people had a chance to turn their backs on evil fucks, and instead decided to vote them in to screw everything up for the rest of us. Don't get me started on the anger I have for the ones responsible for a lot of what's going on at the moment.

Better not to fall down that rabbit hole.

So, my knee is almost fully healed. No more open wounds/scratches, and the irritation the constant band-aid wearing caused is almost gone too. It's still a bit messy to look at, but I don't care about that.

My husband went back to work this week (😢) and on Monday, I completed the final read-thru of the three stories I added to my Paperwhite the other day. All three are under 2k, so that's why it didn't take long to read each one and fix the final tweaks/changes. Didn't find too many things this time, but they're all finalised now.

As I've mentioned before, I'm having a lot of fun writing these stories set during different time periods, and featuring a variety of secondary characters. Another thing that I love about this world is how the ideas and characters are challenging me to write all sorts of different styles. Whatever suits the character/s.

I actually started another story midweek, but I'm taking my time with it. This one is going to be a bit longer. It's up to 3k so far, and nowhere near done. I'll keep writing until this guy's tale is out of my head. This is a tricky character because he's quite an asshole. Either way, I'm having a cool time visualising everything because the idea came to me in such a visual way that it keeps playing inside my head like a movie.

Asides from the above, I spent ALL week organising the two Kallax bookshelves we bought/built last weekend. The problem is that it's not a matter of just adding books and walking away. Nope. I had to go through every single bookshelf in the house, as well as the random piles I have everywhere.

It's a LOT of books, but I'm having a great time finding some titles I didn't remember I had! 😳

Asides from the books, I also have to go through the cute toys/figurines. Not to mention my stationery, because I'm trying to put things in easily-accessible places. I'm tired of never having a sticky note, notepad or pen available when I need it even though I have hundreds of all of them. LOL.

It's mentally and physically exhausting. Carrying books from one room to another and back again, while also packing Drönas full of stuff, is super tiring. My arms hurt as much as my legs. I mean, I'm still going for long daily walks, so yeah. SO TIRED. But you know what? It's definitely worth it. I'm so happy to have more places to display my books and cute things.

Unfortunately, going through all my books means that I've found some with foxing. It's so disappointing because I keep them in nice, clean shelves. And a bunch of them are from my Stephen King collection. 😫

Plus, once I find this, I get rid of the book. From what I read, it's not contagious, but I just can't keep them next to other crisp books.

That's what I've been doing lately. It turned out to be a very busy week! I packed as much writing/sorting/organising into every minute as I could. Great progress but still not fully done.

Only thing I didn't have time for was reading.

Well, have an awesome weekend!!