Tag Archives: suspense novels

#BookReview ‘The Threshold’ by Anita Kovacevic #suspense #mystery

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The Threshold by Anita Kovacevic is a refreshing tale, a modern-day parable, more novella than novel. In the Foreword, Kovacevic explains her inspiration for the story: one word read in one of her favourite stories, one word which was seemingly unimportant, but which inspired this story. Threshold.Anita KovacevicFrom page one, the tone is unusual. It’s almost as if you are being told a bedtime story. An elderly lady takes her dog for a walk, past the grand decaying house on the block. In a gust of wind, a piece of paper drifts to her feet. It is a letter from the man who once owned the house, but who has not been seen for years: Josephus Clarence Thibedeaux III. The letter is his will, bequeathing the house to the first person who enters the house and comes out again. Alive.
It is at this intriguing point that the story diverts, to the life story of Joseph Thibbit. Stick with it though, and you come to the climax, the television programme ‘Urban Legend’, run by media mogul Ken Scott. Into the media whirl steps nice guy Mike Simmons. Will he go into the house, and will he come out alive? Is there secret treasure inside, a monster, something magical? We see the action through the eyes of TV producer Sally Jenkins.
This is an entertaining tale about the downfall of greed, and a reality show which gets its comeuppance.

If you like this, try:-
‘The House on Cold Hill’ by Peter James
‘The Quick’ by Lauren Owen
‘Frog Music’ by Emma Donoghue

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE THRESHOLD by Anita Kovacevic via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1Gh

#BookReview ‘Disclaimer’ by Renee Knight #crime #thriller

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Catherine moves house and finds a novel which she can’t remember buying. But this is no ordinary book. It pretends to be fiction, but Catherine recognises herself as one of the characters and the story discloses a secret. “A secret she has told no-one, not even her husband and son – two people who think they know her better than anyone else.” So, Disclaimer by Renee Knight includes a novel-within-a-novel. Renee KnightThis novel explores how one secret, hidden and almost forgotten, can re-emerge 20 years later to do damage. But it is also a warning about the danger of making assumptions without all the facts. The reader makes assumptions, Catherine’s husband makes assumptions, and the writer of the novel makes assumptions.
Nothing is what it seems, in the tradition of good thrillers, and this book will make you believe first one version of the truth, and then another. Which is the real one? Is Catherine a good mother, or a bad mother?

If you like this, try:-
‘The Returned’ by Jason Mott
‘Girl Runner’ by Carrie Snyder
‘The Lightning Tree’ by Emily Woof

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview DISCLAIMER by Renee Knight http://wp.me/p5gEM4-1wI via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Returned’ by Jason Mott #suspense #mystery

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When Harold opens the door to a strange man and boy, he sees someone he knew he would never see again. “Synapses kicked on in the recesses of his brain. They crackled to life and told him who the boy was standing next to the dark-skinned stranger. But Harold was sure his brain was wrong.” On that day, the lives of Harold and his wife Lucille change as they become involved in the whirlwind which is the return of people from the dead. This is the beginning of The Returned by Jason Mott. Jason MottThere is a sense of brooding throughout this novel, starting small with the uncomfortable disbelief the elderly couple feel as their dead 8-year old son walks in the door. How can it be Jacob who died more than 40 years earlier? Is he/it an imposter? All over the world, the dead are returning. Soon the numbers become threatening, new phrases are coined: The Returned, the True Living. Communities cannot cope with the new arrivals who need feeding and housing, who bring with them old resentments, unfinished business. Not all reunions are happy. For some Returned there are no reunions. There is a dark sense of inevitability that it is all going to go wrong, as Connie Wilson says: “Everything was moving toward the coming terror. She felt it. It was inevitable now, like when the earth is dry and barren, the trees gray and brittle, the grass brown and parched – something must change.”
People look for an explanation: the Church has none. They look for a plan: the Government has none. The slow slide of disintegration is told through the eyes of the elderly couple, Harold and Lucille Hargreave, as they grapple with deep questions: what are the Returned, are they real, are they ghosts, what rights do they have? This book is at the same time a glimpse of a dystopian society, and at the same time an examination of death and grieving, of our attitudes to honour and betrayal.
The wish of a grieving person is to see the dead person just once more, but Jason Mott has created a world where people achieve that dying wish and then don’t want it. This book asks a lot of difficult questions, ones we would rather not hear.

If you like this, try:-
‘The Quick’ by Lauren Owen
‘The Threshold’ by Anita Kovacevic
‘A Sudden Light’ by Garth Stein

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE RETURNED by Jason Mott via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-Om