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OutsmartYourShelf
Shiver | Allie Reynolds
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Pickpick

Keep your friends close & your frenemies closer.....

Milla receives an invite to a reunion at a ski resort in the French Alps. She doesn't really want to go but the invite is from Curtis, the man she has held a torch for all these years. She's surprised to hear from him after 10 years especially around the anniversary of his sister's disappearance at the same resort, but she can't pass up the chance to see if he has any feelings for her too.

OutsmartYourShelf When she arrives, four other members of the group are there (Brent, Curtis, Dale, & Heather) but otherwise the resort is deserted & the cable cars take them to the top & then shut down. Milla assumes that Curtis has organised an exclusive break for them all but when their phones disappear & there's no staff anywhere, she realises something is wrong.

16h
OutsmartYourShelf It turns out that each of them received an email invite from someone pretending to be another one of the group. Now they are stuck & when an icebreaker game turns menacing, they begin to wonder who really invited them & what game they are really playing.

The isolated location is one of my favourite reading tropes especially based around holiday resorts or theme parks. There was a great sense of creeping menace with not knowing who to trust -
16h
OutsmartYourShelf I mean, is Milla telling us the whole truth? The narrative is split into dual timelines: present-day & 10 years ago just before Curtis's sister, Saskia, disappeared. Tense & gripping, it was a tiny bit too overplayed in parts. 3.75🌟

Full Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3788632197
Read 6th-7th June 2025

#ReadAway2025 @Andrew65 @DieAReader @GHABI4ROSES
16h
DieAReader 🥳🎉 14h
15 likes4 comments
review
OutsmartYourShelf
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Pickpick

I vaguely remember the repeats of 'Happy Days' but I was much more interested in spin-off 'Mork & Mindy' (shazbot!) in which the much-missed Robin Williams was absolutely hilarious. I digress, so anyway this is the autobiography of Henry Winkler, best known as 'The Fonz' (Ayyy) in Happy Days.

Winkler has been in a lot more than just 'Happy Days', not things that I have tended to watch in the main but I remember him in 'Scream'. (Continued)

OutsmartYourShelf Outside of his acting career, it was touching to see his realisation that he had lived with undiagnosed severe dyslexia for many years & that he has used this to write a series of children's books where the main character also has difficulties.

Winkler seems a nice guy from reading this, humble & genuinely interested in others. It was a nice, gentle read with lots of humour. 4🌟
2d
DieAReader 🎉Wonderful! 2d
29 likes3 comments
review
OutsmartYourShelf
Closer Than You Think | Darren OSullivan
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Mehso-so

Ten years ago Claire Moore narrowly escaped being the eighth victim of the Black-Out Killer, a serial killer who gained entry by cutting all power to the victims' homes & then killing couples by burning down their homes with them locked inside. Claire's husband, Owen, was killed & Claire has been struggling with grief, survivor's guilt & PTSD ever since, (continued)

OutsmartYourShelf but has gradually been able to rebuild her life & is tentatively starting out with a new relationship.

Having thought that the Black-Out Killer had died in prison, Claire is horrified when a new victim is killed with the same MO. Is it a copycat or has the Black-Out Killer evaded justice all this time & is he back to finish what he started with Claire?
2d
OutsmartYourShelf This was OK until the ending - WTF was that? After building up to a final confrontation between Claire & the Killer, it just leaves everything up in air with no resolution. I felt like frisbeeing the book straight out of the window. Minus a star for that so 3⭐

TWs: domestic abuse, murder, injury detail, sexual content, animal cruelty/death.

Full Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4191286413
Read 2nd-4th Jun 2025
2d
DieAReader 🥳🥳🥳 2d
27 likes4 comments
review
OutsmartYourShelf
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Pickpick

How do you steal an archive? One file at a time.

This is the story of a quiet, introverted archivist who had access to the most heavily guarded files in the world. Vasili Mitrokhin had started out as a communist party believer until he was transferred into the archives of the KGB. What he read there angered him to such an extent that he decided to copy the files, one by one, in his own shorthand code to be rewritten in his own time at home.

OutsmartYourShelf This work goes on for decades until one day, an old man presents himself at the British Embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania & says that he has important information for them. Pages & pages of information about Soviet secret services & the infiltration of Western countries by sleeper agents known as Illegals, including names & codenames of double agents - all dutifully copied by Mitrokhin. 4d
OutsmartYourShelf What turned him into a dissident, a spy, & a traitor was a love for his country & hatred of the dark forces that were now running it.

A fascinating & informative look at the post-Stalin Soviet Union & the rule of the Chekists - we even get an introduction to a young Putin. Although it sometimes veered into academically dry territory, the author always managed to re-engage my interest,
4d
OutsmartYourShelf especially with the workings of the (sometimes seemingly inept) British MI6. A well-researched, accessibly written account. 4🌟

My thanks to #NetGalley & publishers, 4th Estate/Williams Collins, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

Full Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7617428178
Read 1st-6th Jun 2025

#ReadAway2025 @Andrew65 @DieAReader @GHABI4ROSES
4d
DieAReader 😏Fascinating! 4d
28 likes4 comments
review
OutsmartYourShelf
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Pickpick

Emily was in a coma for 4 months following an accident & to aid her recovery somewhere quiet, she agrees to move from London to 'Larkin Lodge', a house on the Devon moors. She hopes that this will give her marriage to husband Freddie a fresh start, but when they arrive, far from the pretty country home on the website, the house is shrouded in mist & inside the house is either unbearably hot or achingly cold.

OutsmartYourShelf As strange things start to happen especially on the top floor in the empty suite, Emily becomes convinced that the house is haunted, but as the occurrences only happen when she is alone, Freddie thinks she is seeing things due to her meds. When four of her friends come to visit they drunkenly decide to use Emily's old Ouija board & it spells out the message 'Find it, find it.' Find what? And why is Freddie acting so oddly? 5d
OutsmartYourShelf My reading experience with this author has been a bit hit & miss, but this one is definitely a hit! It kept my attention from the start & the twists were excellent. I loved the short chapters which kept things moving, & those half dozen or so chapters from the raven's point of view are poignant. I really enjoyed this one & I recommend readers go into this one knowing as little as possible about the plot. 4.5🌟
5d
OutsmartYourShelf My thanks to #NetGalley & publishers, Orion Publishing Group, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

Full Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7463735725
Read 1st-2nd Jun 2025

#ReadAway2025 @Andrew65 @DieAReader @GHABI4ROSES
5d
DieAReader 🥳Fabulous!! 5d
32 likes4 comments
review
OutsmartYourShelf
The Party | Natasha Preston
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Mehso-so

A group of friends decide to have a secret party weekend in a remote castle owned by the parents of one of the teens. Undergoing development, the castle has limited electricity & heating & no-one will know they are there. Soon after they arrive a storm rages & only 10 of them manage to make it to the site. The weather traps them inside & their mobiles go missing on the first evening so they can't call for help, (continued)

OutsmartYourShelf & as one by one they begin to meet with fatal 'accidents', friend Bessie & Kash realise they are trapped with friends that they don't know as well as they thought.

The covers, settings, & synopses of the books by this author suck me in every time, & every time the characters are too underdeveloped for the reader to care about what happens to them. In this one there was also a lot of wandering about with a killer on the loose -
6d
OutsmartYourShelf the group would decide to stay together (safety in numbers) & then one of them would suddenly take off meaning the rest of them would split up to find them. Rinse & repeat. Entertaining enough to finish reading it but I wouldn't pick it up again. 3⭐

Full Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7221169259
Read 2nd-4th Jun 2025

#ReadAway2025 @Andrew65 @DieAReader @GHABI4ROSES
6d
DieAReader 🎉👋🏻 #Next 5d
29 likes3 comments
review
OutsmartYourShelf
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Pickpick

Theories about the identity of Jack the Ripper are legion & a plethora of suspects have been proposed over the decades, but is there a suspect who has been overlooked all this time? Charles Lechmere (aka Cross) was a carman who was on the way to work in the early hours when he discovered the body of the first canonical Ripper victim, Mary Ann Nichols. (continued)

OutsmartYourShelf Lechmere, along with another witness who happened along the way shortly after, alerted a police officer on his beat nearby & gave evidence at the inquest, but the fact he gave an incorrect name & that the timings were fuzzy was never picked up on. Could the Ripper have been in-situ at the first murder & hidden in plain sight all along?

1w
OutsmartYourShelf First of all this is a intriguing theory & the book is written in a very accessible way for those not familiar with the murders. It gives brief synopses of the five canonical victims, considers other possible victims, & either excludes or rules in the usual suspects. All this takes up 80% of the book, & Lechmere is not really discussed in any detail until almost the end. This could be because there is scant information about his life apart from 1w
OutsmartYourShelf the usual birth/marriage/death, but it just seems strange that the subject of the book would only appear in, at most, 20% of the book. It is very readable though & the theory is worth considering. 3.75🌟

My thanks to #NetGalley & publishers, Pen & Sword, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

Full Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7538881075
Read 22nd - 25th May 2025

#ReadAway2025 @Andrew65 @DieAReader @GHABI4ROSES
1w
DieAReader 💖💖💖 1w
23 likes4 comments
review
OutsmartYourShelf
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Pickpick

The Zodiac Killer, who committed his serial killings in the late 1960s in the San Francisco area, has never been caught. Over the decades, many suspects have been posited but in June 1999, Mike Rodelli followed a hunch & found evidence that suggested a suspect that had never been fully considered before. This book sets out Rodelli's 20-year quest to prove that this man was the Zodiac Killer. (continued)

OutsmartYourShelf I've heard of the Zodiac Killer through films & TV (like Criminal Minds) but never read a book about them until now. Rodelli argues a convincing case - sure, some of the evidence could be argued away as coincidence, but not all of it. It was fascinating to see the evidence laid out & how each point connected to the suspect. Not least of which was a photograph of the suspect which does look very like the sketches of the Zodiac. 1w
OutsmartYourShelf I agree that the Zodiac was most definitely not a sexual sadist. There is no sexual element in the killings & it was about power & control - thumbing his nose at the authorities & getting away with it. I did find it a little heavy-going at times, there seemed to be some repetition & an irritating habit in the early chapters of mentioning something & then saying it would be dealt with later on. 1w
OutsmartYourShelf Overall though it was an interesting read & I think the author may be on to something here. Pity we'll probably never know for sure. 3.5🌟

My thanks to #NetGalley & publishers, Indigo River Publishing, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

Full Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4145541068
Read 29th-31st May 2025

#ReadAway2025 @Andrew65 @DieAReader @GHABI4ROSES
1w
DieAReader 🥳🥳🥳 1w
25 likes4 comments
review
OutsmartYourShelf
The Prison Healer | Lynette Noni
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Pickpick

I was absolutely glued to the start of this book & the premise was intriguing, unfortunately it suffered from the tendency to prioritise romantic relationships over the Trials which made the middle section drag a bit. The ending almost made up for it though, I was surprised by that extra twist, & that doesn't happen often. I was 50-50 on carrying on but the ending caught my attention again, so I probably will read the next one. 3.75🌟

TheSpineView Great job!🤩📖📚 2w
DieAReader 🎉🎉🎉 2w
Tove_Reads Ah, these books are a bit challenging, but good that you‘ll continue. 2w
31 likes4 comments