The Taking of Annie Thorne by C J Tudor (Audible)

This is C J Tudor’s second stand alone novel. I haven’t been reading her books in any order, but if I compare her first novel, The Chalk Man, to her fifth, The Drift, I can see the growth in her as a writer. I thought The Drift was an exceptionally well told tale. This, her, second book was on a 2-4-1 deal on Audible. Personally, I think Richard Armitage has a wonderful voice for narrating books and he can bring a dull book to life. As I was now familiar with the authors work, and knew I would enjoy the narration, I thought I would see how this early book stood up to her later works.

 

“Then . . . 

One night, Annie went missing. Disappeared from her own bed. There were searches, appeals. Everyone thought the worst. And then, miraculously, after forty-eight hours, she came back. But she couldn't, or wouldn't, say what had happened to her. 
 
Something happened to my sister. I can't explain what. I just know that when she came back, she wasn't the same. She wasn't my Annie. 
 
I didn't want to admit, even to myself, that sometimes I was scared to death of my own little sister. 
 
Now. . . 
 
The email arrived in my inbox two months ago. I almost deleted it straight away, but then I clicked OPEN: 
 
I know what happened to your sister. It's happening again . . .” 

 

The Taking of Annie Thorne is a dark and disturbing thriller in which the plot takes place in both the present and twenty-five years earlier, via a series of flashbacks taking the reader to a specific night in young Annie Thorne’s life. In a bid to ramp up the tension, C.J Tudor has tried to give this book a supernatural edge to increase the atmosphere and the fear of the unknown.

 

Throughout the tale, Joe Thorne, Annies elder brother, is our unreliable narrator. He receives an anonymous email telling him that the same thing that happened to his sister is starting to happen again. Shaken by this message, Joe returns home to Arnhill to take on a teaching position at his former school. He is a gambler and alcoholic, and he hopes if he moves back home, he can find out what happened in his past and escape from his current problems. What he doesn’t realise is that you can’t escape your addictions, when you owe people money, they’ll track you down to recoup it.

#31. Includes A Personal Phobia – The Narrator by K L Slater (Audible)

Given how many books I've listened to on Audible, I thought it would be interesting listening to a book about a voice-over actor who was narrating an audio book. 

I enjoy psychological thrillers, and I wasn't sure how this book would fit into my 2024 challenge. It wasn't long before I realised that it would fit perfectly into the phobia bracket. I don't have many phobia's. I dislike snakes, but I can just about cope with them and I've held a tarantula, so that's arachnophobia out of the window, but the idea of being kidnapped and waking up with no idea of where you are, or what will happen to you, is a horror that would make the bravest person question themselves. 

Despite this being the 19th book written by K L Slater, I’ve not read any of her previous work before, so this is my entry for #31 - which includes my personal phobia of being trapped in the dark.

 

“What if the chance of a perfect life… put your daughter in grave danger?

Being a single mother is tough, but I’d do anything for my little girl Scarlet. I’d given up on my career as a voice actor when the call came, but suddenly I was the new narrator for a secret book from bestselling author Philippa Roberts, who has been missing for eight months. It was a lifeline for me and my daughter.

I hated that it meant leaving Scarlet with my ex in his perfect new home with his perfect new girlfriend. But I knew it was the right thing to do.

But as I start reading Philippa’s new novel, I start to wonder if it’s no coincidence that I’ve been chosen to narrate it. There’s something hidden in the pages of this book, I’m sure of it. Some clue to Philippa’s disappearance. And I don’t feel safe. I think I’m being watched. My room has been searched.

And then my ex’s girlfriend calls in tears and everything starts to click together. If I don’t find answers fast, I’ll lose more than my second chance. I’ll lose my daughter.”

 

Voice actor Eve Hewitt's career and life has hit an undeniable rut. She is divorced from her husband and has a 5 year old daughter called Scarlet. Scarlet and Eve have moved back home to live with Eve's mother. With Scarlet having problems at school and Eve having problems finding any work, she feels like a complete failure; that is, until she gets a call asking her to record the last instalment of a series of best-selling books by author Philippa Roberts. Eve has recorded all of the previous Jane Tower detective novels, but little does she know that by agreeing to record this latest novel, she will be playing the detective in real life too.

Ten months ago, Philippa was last seen en-route to an awards ceremony. No ransom demands were ever made after she suddenly vanished, and both police and media interest in the disappearance has diminished. Her editor, agent and publisher no longer show signs of  concern about their missing author, but they are delighted when Philippa's wife announces she has stumbled across a final unpublished manuscript. Eve is delighted to finally have some paying work, but that delight quickly changes to apprehension as she realises that she will have to leave her daughter with either her mother, or her ex-husband, whilst she moves to London to do the recording. When she receives an email attachment of the book, Eve notices that the main character in the Jane Tower novels has changed her persona from the previous books which she thinks is a little strange. When she arrives at the recording studio, Eve is handed a fresh copy of the book to read from, but the anomalies she noticed have been amended. Eve becomes concerned when she is told to delete the emailed copy of the book. Why is the publisher being so secretive? What really happened to Philippa and why is she the only person to worry about what might have occurred?

#29. Published In A Year Of The Dragon – Ten Seconds by Robert Gold (Audible)

2024 is the year of the Wood Dragon according to the Chinese zodiac. This meant that there were numerous novels to choose from in this year’s releases (let alone books from previous years of the dragon!) 

As I’ve been completing this challenge, I’ve been switching books from their initial category into a more suitable one and several of my #29 choices have ended up elsewhere. 

I noticed that Gold’s latest Ben Harper novel had been released on Audible, and as I’d read Eleven Liars earlier in the year, I decided I would listen to Ten Seconds whilst the earlier storyline was still in my memory. I couldn’t find another category to house this book, so it has ended up as my year of the dragon book choice.

“After a tense birthday celebration in Haddley, journalist Ben Harper watches his boss, Madeline, get into the car that has come to collect her. He walks home, never imagining that by the next morning, Madeline will be missing.

To find Madeline, Ben will have to return to the now infamous murder case that made her journalism career over a decade ago. A case which, Ben quickly discovers, was never as simple as it seemed.

But time is of the essence, and soon it's not just Madeline's life on the line . . .”

For me, one of the joys of listening to these novels is that they are easy to follow. I don’t want very complicated storylines for an Audible book because I want to be focused on my surroundings whilst walking, or I don’t want to be concentrating so hard on the book that I chop my finger off whilst cooking. This third novel in the series is about an hour shorter than the previous one, so it made for a quick easy listen and introduced us to plenty of characters, old and new, in another multi-layered tale.

In the previous storylines of this Ben Harper series, each case he has worked on has had a personal connection to him. In the earlier books we have visited the family history of the main character Ben and then we learnt about detective Dani Cash, his romantic “lead.” In this book we delve into the past of Ben’s boss Madeline Wilson. She now finds herself in grave danger thanks to her past investigations into crime and corruption when she was a young reporter. (It seems that if you know Ben Harper you should always keep your doors and windows locked and run if he ever asks for help!)

#23. The Other Book With The Similar Plot – Murder on Lake Garda by Tom Hindle (Paperback)

As mentioned in the previous blog, this book was my friend’s holiday read which she passed to me once she’d finished with it.

I was already reading two books that I had taken with me, but one of them was a nice hardback I didn’t want ruining with sea and sand, so this seemed a perfect book to pop to the beach with. 

I wasn’t filled with much confidence as her assessment of the book was basically ‘it’s okay for a holiday read.’ By her tone, I surmised it’d be a quick easy read that wouldn’t give the old grey cells too much of a problem. Sadly, I was right, the new Agatha Christie this was not!

“One happy couple.

Two divided families.

A wedding party to die for.

 

On the private island of Castello Fiore - surrounded by the glittering waters of Lake Garda - the illustrious Heywood family gathers for a wedding to remember.

 

But as the ceremony begins, a blood-curdling scream brings the celebrations to a violent halt.

 

With the guests trapped on the island as they await the police, old secrets come to light and family rivalries threaten to explode.

 

Everyone is desperate to know . . .

 

Who is the killer?

 

And can they be found before they strike again?”

 

So, what is my issue with this book that I didn’t have with ‘The Guest List’? Well for starters I worked out who had been murdered after the first two pages…even though we hadn’t been told who had died (in two pages you haven’t been told much to be honest!) Secondly, we go back in time to two days before the murder, just so people’s back stories can be laid out before us. As soon as one of the characters said their name wasn’t short for anything, I thought, oh I imagine it is, and I wondered what the other variations of that name were, so as I ploughed on reading, I realised which one it was. The author has tried to incorporate alternate narratives to add to the tension and possibly sow seeds of doubt, but for me, the red herrings in the book turned out to be more of a pink-footed goose chase… and I’m not talking Fuchsia Pink here, more of a Blossom or Baby Pink. At least the ending made sense, if predictable, so not all was bad. In honesty, I kept reading because it was part of the challenge and to see whether my assumptions were correct. Just call me Jane Marple!

As a beach read goes, it was enjoyable enough and the setting I was in enhanced the experience. I might have been in Montenegro, but I was sat on a beach with a mountain range looming up before me, which reminded me so much of my holiday by Lake Garda several years ago. Coincidentally, I stayed in Malcesine where this book is set, and I have visited the castle where the wedding took place. The castle is actually on the mainland, but it does house a museum and a wedding was in full-swing  when we visited; the happy couple having their photos taken in the most idyllic surroundings.

#18. An Apostrophe In The Title – Don’t Close Your Eyes by P A Cunliffe (Kindle)

Every month I receive a list of books from Amazon Prime First Reads UK and I look through to find what I think is the best choice in a list of titles, where the blurb doesn’t interest me and it’s written by someone I’ve never heard of. I tend to download a title because it’s free. It will go onto my Kindle App and often get forgotten about, but at least I know if I get stuck somewhere, there’s a book sitting on my ‘phone that I can read. Sometimes the book is as bad as I feared, other times I find a gem of a book; mostly the book is fine, but I probably wouldn’t buy it. This is one reason why I am enjoying this challenge; I am getting through some titles I doubt I would normally read. A book with an apostrophe should be easy to find, but there are very few on my bookshelf, and those that I have, I’ve already read, so, I’ve scrolled through my Kindle and I’ve found a debut novel from an author whose book I picked out in June 2023!

“One missing person. Ten sleepless nights. Whatever happens, don't close your eyes...

Catherine is frantic. It's her husband Simon's turn to take their son to nursery and he's nowhere to be seen. He promised he'd be here. So, where is he? And why isn't he taking her calls?

Her worst fears are soon realised when the police arrive at her door to tell her that Simon is missing, presumed dead. Refusing to accept that he's gone, Catherine spends her days retracing his last steps, and her nights searching the streets in desperation.

She will not rest, she will not sleep, until she's put her family back together.

The days merge into one, and things quickly unravel. Then comes another knock at the door. This time, a young woman. A stranger. Who tells Catherine she doesn't know her husband at all. That their whole life is a lie.

Catherine needs to know the truth. She needs to find Simon more than ever.

The body can't survive for more than 10 days without sleep. Will Catherine find her husband and uncover the truth, before it's too late?”

 

This is an interesting, albeit predictable book, and you will need to be able to suspend your disbelief to get through it all! It was one of those perfect quick read books you can get through in a wet weekend without too much trouble.

The book is told from various points of view and Easter eggs are drip fed through the story allowing the clues to build up so you can second guess the ending. There are also excerpts of a recording that is “played” in between the main chapters until it suddenly twigs in your head what’s going on and who it is in the recording.

The book starts with a newspaper clipping from September 2018, in which a jogger pushes a woman in front of a double-decker London bus. The woman was specifically targeted but survives; the jogger gets away, but there is a police appeal for anyone who might recognise the man in the CCTV footage.

November 2022, Catherine has been woken up by her son and she is exasperated. She is due to meet her friend for a full day of treats; a lie-in, brunch with her friend, followed by visiting an art exhibition. This is a day she has been looking forward to, but her husband is no-where to be found and it is his turn to take their son to nursery. Catherine can’t understand where he is, she has tried calling his ‘phone but he doesn’t answer. He had left a message on her phone in the early hours, so she assumes he has been out all-night drinking with work colleagues. She hurries to get her son Charlie ready for nursery, but as she opens the door to leave the house she is met by the police who inform her that Simon’s body has been found in a burnt out car.

#14. A Grieving Character – Eleven Liars by Robert Gold (Audible)

In 2020, as part of Hatchette publishers “secret reader” scheme, I received an advance copy of Robert’s book, “Twelve Secrets.” I enjoyed the book, so when I saw the second book in the Ben Harper series titled “Eleven Liars” pop up on Audible, I thought I would listen and see how the storyline had progressed.

 

“Journalist Ben Harper is on his way home when he sees the flames in the churchyard. The derelict community centre is on fire. And somebody is trapped inside.

With Ben's help the person escapes, only to flee the scene before they can be identified. Now the small town of Haddley is abuzz with rumours. Was this an accident, or arson?

Then a skeleton is found in the burnt-out foundations.

And when the identity of the victim is revealed, Ben is confronted with a crime that is terrifyingly close to home. As he uncovers a web of deceit and destruction that goes back decades, Ben quickly learns that in this small town, everybody has something to hide.”

 

This book starts pretty much from where the last one left off. Whilst it isn’t strictly necessary to read the first book in the series, I would recommend it, mainly because it helps to understand who the characters are, how their relationships fit together, and what issues have affected them in the first book. That said, the plot of the book is straightforward enough to follow, in chronological order, and Gold adds bit of information from the earlier novel, so you can quickly pick up on the back story without it hindering the rest of the plot.

The action starts immediately when investigative journalist Ben Harper takes a shortcut home  through the local cemetery and saves the life of a man who is trapped in a burning building. Despite Ben’s heroics, the man flees the scene before Ben can recognise him. The next day a skeleton is found in the ruins of the burnt-out building. No-one claims to know the identity of the body, or how it ended up in the foundations of the church’s community centre.

#13. An Academic Thriller – Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton (Paperback)

This is the second Rosamund Lupton novel I managed to sneak into this challenge and it was easy to see why it was chosen as ‘Book of the Year’ by The Times, The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Stylist, Red and Good Housekeeping.

 

“In rural Somerset in the middle of a blizzard, the unthinkable happens: a school is under siege. Pupils and teachers barricade themselves into classrooms, the library, the theatre. The headmaster lies wounded in the library, unable to help his trapped students and staff. Outside, a police psychiatrist must identify the gunmen, while parents gather desperate for news. In three intense hours, all must find the courage to stand up to evil and save the people they love.”

 

Three hours is 180 minutes or 10,800 seconds…it’s not that long a time, unless you are being held hostage. If you’re anxiously waiting for help to come, it can seem an inordinately long amount of time.

Tick Tock, Tick Tock…the amount of suspense that can be derived just from the thought of a clock ticking down. Will help come? Will the children be safe? Will the police fail in those last minutes? Whatever happens, we know that it will all be over in three hours. This is a book you can’t put down; you can’t leave the children in the school to their fate without knowing the outcome.

School shootings and stabbings are the horrific news headlines no-one wants to see, yet here, between these safe pages, you are invested in this cat and mouse game between police and gunmen, entering the psyche of the person at large. Why on earth would they want to target innocent children, children that have been dropped off at a place of safety, children who should spend the day knowing that in a few hours they’ll be back at home watching TV or texting their friends.

This is a story built on a parent’s worst nightmare, you are going to be with them every step of the way until you know whether their child is safe or not. Three hours is not a long time at all, and I certainly needed a bit longer than that to devour this book but devour it I did over a wet and windy weekend.

#4. Lowercase Letters On The Spine – The Quality of Silence by Rosamund Lupton (Paperback)

I remember reading "Sister" by Rosamund Lupton in about 2010/2011 and being haunted by the ending; it was proper hairs on the arm tingling good. So good in fact, I immediately bought the next novel "Afterwards"…and then Lupton didn’t publish anything for a couple of years. Somehow, I missed this book when it was released in 2015 and it was only when I was searching through my bookcase and I spotted her two previous novels that I thought I would do a quick online search. I realised that two further books had been written, this one and one called "Three Hours." I bought them both and decided they would be shoehorned into this challenge because I was so excited to read them!

 

“On 24 November Yasmin and her ten-year-old daughter Ruby set off on a journey across Northern Alaska. They're searching for Ruby's father, missing in the arctic wilderness.

More isolated with each frozen mile they cover, they travel deeper into an endless night. And Ruby, deaf since birth, must brave the darkness where sight cannot guide her.

She won't abandon her father. But winter has tightened its grip, and there is somebody out there who wants to stop them.

Somebody tracking them through the dark.”

 

I genuinely could not put this book down. There really is something engaging about Lupton’s writing that engulfs you with a curiosity to know more from the moment you pick the book up. Just before chapter 1 starts, Ruby introduces herself. "My name is a shape not a sound. I am a thumb and fingers, not a tongue and lips. I am ten fingers raised old - I am a girl made of letters R-u-b-y And this is my voice." Immediately I was compelled to think about how different the world must be to a deaf person. This simple statement transported me into the world of how a deaf 10-year-old girl viewed things and I wanted to know more about her.

Ruby does not want to speak with her voice, however much her mother tries to encourage her. Instead, she prefers to use her voice-generating laptop, or to use her hands to sign her words. She understands others who use sign language, or if they articulate properly, she can read their lips. This means that in the dark, Ruby is effectively deaf and mute. Something to consider as the central characters move further and further north in the constant darkness of an Alaskan winter.

#2. Bibliosmia – A Smelly Book – The Burning Girls by C. J. Tudor (Audible)

 

There’s something about the smell of books that’s really appealing – especially those old fusty leather-bound volumes in second-hand book shops. Whilst I love the smell of old books, and there’s a plethora of them in the bookcase to pick from, I didn’t want to take this challenge too literally. Instead of reading a book that smells, I’ve chosen a book where a certain smell forms part of the story line. 

“500 years ago: eight martyrs burned

30 years ago: two teenagers vanished

Two months ago: a vicar died mysteriously

 

Welcome to Chapel Croft.

 

For Rev Jack Brooks and teenage daughter Flo it's a fresh start. New job, new home. But in a close-knit community old superstitions and a mistrust of outsiders mean treading carefully.

 

Yet right away Jack has more frightening concerns.

 

Why did no one say the last vicar killed himself? Why is Flo plagued by visions of burning girls? And who is sending them threatening messages?

 

Old ghosts with scores to settle can never rest. And Jack is standing in their way . . .”

After a scandal in Nottingham made the Revered Jack Brooks headline news, it was deemed appropriate to move Jack and daughter Flo to a new rural parish in Sussex where they could enjoy the anonymity of life until things quietened down. Flo like any typical fifteen-year-old is not happy at having to move away from the bright lights of the city and all her friends to the rural parish of Chapel Croft, a back water where nothing happens and there is nothing to do.

#1. Locked-Room Mystery – Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney (Audible)

 

I love physical books, so it is disappointing that my first “read” is actually a book I listened to! Over the last couple of years I have become an audio book convert; I still prefer sitting down with a paperback, but Audible makes for a solid walking companion, especially on those dull days when you really need to do your steps for the day!

From Sheridan Le Fanu and Edgar Allen Poe to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, the locked-room mystery, or “impossible crime” mystery has enthralled readers and continues to do so. The reader is confronted with a conundrum and sufficient clues with which to solve a murder. What seems impossible can be answered by a rational explanation, but only if you can keep your wits about you. 

“Isolated on their private island in Cornwall, the Darker family have come together for the first time in over a decade. When the tide comes in, they'll be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours. When the tide goes back out, nothing will ever be the same again. Nothing – because one of the family is a killer . . .

As the leaves of autumn fall, Daisy Darker arrives at her grandmother’s house for eightieth birthday celebrations. Seaglass, the Darker’s ancestral home, is a crumbling Cornish house perched upon its own tiny private island.

Every member of the family has their secrets. Nana, alone for so long. Daisy's absent father, Frank. Her cold-hearted mother, Nancy. Her siblings, Rose and Lily, and her niece, Trixie, full of questions and without a father of her own. Daisy has never had an easy relationship with her family, but some secrets are much darker than others. This will be a gathering that some of them won't remember.”

 

Reading the blurb, I was excited to read this novel. If you’re a fan of Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None” this book will resonate with you as there are many similarities that scream “Agatha Christie.” It’s not just the Cornish Island setting and the fact that events take place during a dark, stormy night, but the fact that there is a poem used as an epigraph weaving throughout the course of the novel.