The Gauguin Connection - Estelle Ryan

Again I now know why I love detective and mystery novels along with a little bit of a twist :) This is one in a series of 5 now I think!! and I am currently in the process of reading the rest as it is something that I have never ever read before ... and that means that it is a feat of ingenuity!!

The Gauguin Connection - Estelle Ryan

Genevieve Leonard is a body language analysts who looks into art fraud for an art insurance company! She has a form of high functioning autism and spent most of her childhood trying to be 'normal' which is why she now studies body language! She is one of the leading experts in her field of study but she enjoys her quiet and ordered life!

Until Colin drops into her life by climbing through the roof of her house ... and then nothing is the same again!

Eventually after a lot of arguing between French companies and lots of fake paintings and forgeries and investigation they find out what is happening with these paintings!

It is veryyy good!! And as I say there are more in the series also to get your teeth into!! SO it is very good and worth a read for definite!!

I am reading the next ones now :)

See you soon!
Thanks for reading :)
Leanne :) x

Want to Play? - P J Tracey

Now you have to know something about me .... the one thing that I love along with historical fiction is crime fiction! Any form of crime fiction and I am in my element! The scarier the better which is why I gravitate towards James Patterson, Karin Slaughter and Karen Rose. Now if you have never read anything from any of these authors I highly suggest that you do as they will introduce you to the fabulous world of the crime novel!!! SO I thought I would have a break from everything and lose myself in a crime novel and I chose ...

Want to Play? - P J Tracey

Now I have to admit that I did quite struggle with this book and you do have to preserve and if you do you will finally reap the rewards!

So basically a team of cyber geniuses come up with a computer game that they believe will make them a hell of a lot of money! This is based on a serial killer ... you are following a serial killer and trying to solve the crime! They release some of the game play onto a website in order to drum up some excitement for their game and convince people to play the game!

However unfortunately as usual in a novel like this you find that there is someone out there that is playing the game for real ... the first few murders that happen in the game happen in real life for these people. They realise and go to the police for help! And in this time the police do background checks into the people involved in the creation of the game and they cannot find anything!!!

Then another murder happens miles away from all of these and what seems to be completely unrelated but finally and this is why you have to persevere with this book everything does finally come together!! And the ending ... just read it and find out for yourself :)

The book isn't written in an amazing way buttttt it is very good in the end and you will enjoy and again you can then progess onto more as there are more of these books in a series now! However I don't think that I will be reading another one for a while!!

Thanks for reading! And take a look at my other posts!!
See you soon!!
Leanne :) x

Little Lies - Lianne Moriarty

SOoo I haven't posted in a longgg time but I have still been reading away every time I could get chance!!! Everything has been so hectic!! My beauty business has taken off and third year of uni has come with a vengeance! So finding time to read has been massively important to me as  reading is one way that I actually relax ..... Now to the book in question!!

After reading The Husband's Secret by Lianne Moriarty I can well and truly say I fell in love with her and would have gladly devoured anything by her again ... so I bought ....

Little Lies - Lianne Moriarty

The fact that Lianne and myself share a name means nothing, except she's obviously awesome! And to be honest it can be said that I had inflated notions of her writing after reading The Husbands Secret as that was just AMAZING. And lets just say I was not disappointed!

You start this book at the end and work your way back to it to find out what actually happened! The book starts at the end as someone is dead! You don't know who is dead or whether  they died naturally or were killed or anything!! Anything could have happened for all we know!!!! This Is such a good technique for writing because now I have to carry on reading in order to find out what happened!!

SO Jane moves to a quite suburban town with her son ... it isn't long before she is taken under the wings of Madeline and Celeste ... all the women are at crossroads in their lives and need help from each other. The local school where all the womens children go is a hive of drama and activity which results in Jane, Celeste and Madeline being pushed further and further to the outskirts of what is acceptable at the school!

Many things happen in between but everything is leading up to the big event and this happens at a Audrey Hepburn and Elvis party organised by the PTA!

The Writing of this book is amazing ... at the end of every chapter you are brought back ot the police questioning the people at and surrounding the party, which gives an extra dimension to the book itself and the narrative.

I literally cannot recommend this book enough and the rest of Moriarty's writing ... for anyone who enjoys a drama, chick lit or a bit of mystery and twists! Lots of twists!!!

Have a look at it as I know that you will be as hooked as I was and read it all in one sitting just like I did!!!


Have fun :)
See you soon!!!
Leanne :) x

The Best Thing that Never Happened to Me - Laura Tait and Jimmy Rice

After reading loads of things this weekend that have been hard work I decided the lure of the chick lit had me and I couldn't get rid of it no matter what I tried picking up to read!!  As much as I love an unhappy ending every once in a while I don't mind something with a happy ending and that's what I hoped this would be!

The Best Thing That Never Happened To Me - Laura Tait and Jimmy Rice.

So I started this book yesterday evening and finished it this morning, while I curled up in bed for 3 hours!! Yes I am indulging myself before I go back to University!!

Holly and Alex were best friends from the age of 11 when Holly moved to the small Yorkshire town and had no one! They forged a strong friendship that as they got older turned to love .. but they never acted on it for one reason or another .. usually a fault on both sides that could have easily been rectified (as is with all love stories, even Romeo and Juliet) and I have to admit I get pretty annoyed at these bits even in Romeo and Juliet. And Holly moves to London to go to University while Alex stays at home with his recently widowed Dad. Finally however many years later ... Alex decides to move to London when his Dad sells the family house in favour of a barge! Alex gets a teaching job and moves not without being given Holly's email address. In the meantime, Holly has a steady PA job and she is banging her boss (to put it crudely) which is not where she imagined her life to be! Her and Alex meet up and find it is just like old times and they sink back into their friendship .. however AGAIN and annoyingly ... everything else gets in the way of their love blossoming. etc etc etc ..... just like every other love story!!! Blaaaaahh :)

But I have to admit I did enjoy the way the book was structured as each chapter comes from each of the lovebirds! So you can understand that this was much more frustrating for me ... as you know how both of the characters are feeling but you see the same event and situation from both sides of the fence which again is such an interesting concept! I can truly say that for a quick Asda buy, because it had a pretty cover, It was okay and I would recommend to anyone who likes and easy read!

Back to my normal books now for a bit before I need something like this :)


See you soon :)
Leanne x

Shutter Island - Dennis Lehane

I always say that when a book is turned iinto a film it loses some of its magic! Which is what is going to happen with one of my favourite books 'Before I Go To Sleep' which is due out in the cinemas soon! One piece of advice read the book first!! Well this is what happened with this book ... I have not watched the film as I have not read the book and I am not in the habit of doing these things backwards, as watching the film always influences the book!! BUt again another piece of advice .. before succumbing to Leonardo DiCaprio and the film of Shutter Island ... do venture to read the book first as it has so much more to it!!
Shutter Island - Dennis Lehane


I hope everyone realises how hard this is for me as one slip of the finger and we don't have Shutter island but we have Shitter Island! The former is definitely more appealing even after reading the book!!
SO Shutter Island is an Island that contains an institute for the most dangerous criminally insane patients (or prisoners). Teddy is a US Marshal and is sent to the island to investigate the fact that one of the prisoners has managed to go missing! She cant have gone far ... as the institute is in the middle of the sea, miles away from anywhere else, it is surrounded by high walls and barbed wire, not to mention the armed guards on all the gates and every building. So how does one woman get past all of this? That's what Teddy is there to find out! He is assigned a partner to go with him to get to the bottom of everything. But when they arrive they find that the staff are not willing to tell them anything they don't already know and they find they are hitting brick walls constantly! That is until Teddy finds someone in that prison/hospital (depends on your outlook on life) that changed his life forever and then Teddy's ulterior motive starts to come to the surface!! And that's when everything begins to change. Chuck goes missing and after that Teddy's life will never be the same again!

Again this is the kind of book that I absolutely loveeeee ... it does not have  a definitive ending and it does not make sense in any way shape or form for the majority of it. And the whole time I was reading I didn't have a clue what was going to happen next! Obviously this is spoiled if you have already seen the film ... so it loses its magic (see I told you!!!) but the book is amazing. It makes you think about it the whole time but it doesn't let you go ... I was counting down the hours to go until I could finish work to go home and read it! And that time could not come quick enough!! I finally finished it after a really late night and very sore eyes but it was so worth it!!

As you can tell I cannot leave  abook alone when I have started it! Which means I go a long time not reading anything and then suddenly I read loads at once when I have some spare time!! SO I am keeping up to the time limits really but its like little sprints that I am doing before building myself up for the rest of the marathon.

Let me know what you think, especially if you have seen the film but not read the book!!

See you soon :)
Leanne x

The Gallows Curse - Karen Maitland

If you don't know me ... you should know ... I LOVE books that are unhappy! An unhappy, unresolved ending is one thing that I LOVE more than anything in a book. But its pretty difficult to find these now, as soooo many authors like to finish their books with a definitive ending. This is why I like Michel Faber as his The Crimson Petal and the White ends unresolved and this is why Maitland is one of my new favourite authors!

The Gallows Curse - Karen Maitland

Sooo ... The Gallows Curse is a book that I have had sitting looking at me for a longgg time! So I finally decided to give it a go and I am so glad that I did!!

Set in the middle ages (again my favourite period without a doubt) the prologue gives you the tale of a cunning woman (a witch nowadays) who is burned at the stake for killing a noble mans wife. She leaves behind a mandrake with her daughter. Jump forward in time and a young girl Elena is pulled out of her work and into the Lord's house. She is to serve as a waiting maid for the Mistress of  the house, Lady Anne. She eats from a wooden chest, which actually contains the Lord's dead body ... she eats bread and salt ... and from this moment on Elena has taken all of the dead man's sins into herself, and they will be carried with her forever! However she is pregnant at this time with Athan's baby. She is overjoyed as is he, but when she gets bad dreams about killing the baby, she does not want it. After the baby is born she gives her away to a cunning woman to look after! But in the village she is accused of killing this child and is sentenced to be hanged by the new Lord of the Manor. However is escapes and is sent into Norwich to live in anonymity in a brothel (of all places) from here on in her life is one long spiral of chaos and she finally ends her story walking away with NOTHING actually resolved!!

The book does draw you in to the story and the times, it makes you feel for the characters and also hate the characters. Elena is the one that you instantly feel for when her made up life suddenly takes a turn for the worse. But she is the one to blame for doing that to herself!! However Elena always seems to play the victim instead of trying to do anything about her situation and you sometimes do feel like screaming get a grip love and do something about it,  instead of sittiing back and waiting for it to happen!!



The way that Karen Maitland has written the book is by far my favourite thing though. Interspersed throughout the novel in between each chapter is also the story of the Mandrake's Handbook, which gives you common plants, animals etc and what they are used for and how they should work in the right hands! Which makes me smile as I love things like this in the middle of books, it breaks up all the boring bits. However it is one of those books that is well written so it is easy to read and easy to take in!!! I spent a couple of days solid reading this book as at the moment im just useless at putting down and picking up and still knowing what im reading. I also managed to class it as 'research' for my dissertation as it is written in the time of King John just after my Richards crusade. Therefore I didn't feel as guilty when I was reading it!!
Overall it is a  very good book and I am looking forward to reading more from Maitland!


See you Soon :)
Leanne x

The Fire Gospel - Michel Faber

So I have just had a look and found  that I am actually 3 weeks ahead of myself, which makes me feel so much happier!!!! I am getting there an documenting all of these books here is helping me to keep to a schedule :)


The Fire Gospel - Michel Faber

If you don't know who Michel Faber is, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!! Michel Faber is the bestselling author who's biggest novel was The Crimson Petal and the White (which by the way is another novel that everyone should read at least once in their lives!!) Now The Fire Gospel is one of the books that makes up the myth series! The myth series is where a group of well known writers take up a pen and rewrite a well known story!! Here Michel Faber writes about a Fifth Gospel being found in Iraq. This fifth Gospel is written by Malchius and was written just after he had met Jesus. He was there when Jesus was betrayed and he was there when Jesus was on the Cross (which is more than can be said for the other Gospels!!)

This book documents the finding of the Gospel, the translation, publication and aftermath of what happens. As can be expected the publication of such a book can change the way the world think as Malchius shows Jesus to have been no better than an average human being. When Jesus is on the cross - according to Malchus - he begs to be released, he wets himself and he loses control of his bowel! This gospel shows Jesus to be no better than any man that walked the Earth! Which is Earth shattering for many Christians all around the world. So when the book goes on sale and on tour the writer is threatened with guns etc ... until he is kidnapped! His kidnappers are very soulful and deep.

It is a very well written book from one of my favourite authors of all time! I really cant fault the book other than it is very short and didn't take me very long to read at all!! Definitley get it! And have a go with the other myth books! I have Philip Pullman - The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. I cant wait :)


See you soon :)
Leanne x