I have rekindled my love of reading! For a long time I just couldn’t get back into any book, thankfully though I got stuck into Ten Thousand Stitches and although it is a rehash of an old fairy tale (Cinderella) it gave me the bug back!
A little run down and how I rate each book is coming but I want to say right now that I am a huge ‘read a book by its cover’ reader! Sorry but if you have a pretty cover you are more than likely going to end up on my shelf! Plus all of my books seem to have a witchy, dark vibe or are set spanning decades. I hate reading first person but I am currently half way through Luckenbooth (which is first person) and actually enjoying it – go figure!
Ten Thousand Stitches
Faerie godfathers are supposed to help young ladies find love. Unfortunately, no one told Lord Blackthorn that.
Effie has most inconveniently fallen in love with the dashing Mr Benedict Ashbrooke. There’s only one problem; Effie is a housemaid, and a housemaid cannot marry a gentleman. It seems that Effie is out of luck until she stumbles into the faerie realm of Lord Blackthorn, who is only too eager to help Effie win Mr Ashbrooke’s heart. All he asks in return is that Effie sew ten thousand stitches onto his favourite jacket.
Effie has heard rumours about what happens to those who accept help from faeries, but life as a maid at Hartfield is so awful that she is willing to risk even her immortal soul for a chance at something better. Now, she has one hundred days – and ten thousand stitches – to make Mr Ashbrooke fall in love and propose. . . if Lord Blackthorn doesn’t wreck things by accident, that is.
The Twisted Ones
When Mouse’s dad asks her to clean out her dead grandmother’s house, she says yes. After all, how bad could it be?
Answer: pretty bad. Grandma was a hoarder, and her house is stuffed with useless rubbish. That would be horrific enough, but there’s more – Mouse stumbles across her step-grandfather’s journal, which at first seems to be filled with nonsensical rants… until Mouse encounters some of the terrifying things he described for herself.
Alone in the woods with her dog, Mouse finds herself face to face with a series of impossible terrors – because sometimes the things that go bump in the night are real, and they’re looking for you. And if she doesn’t face them head on, she might not survive to tell the tale.
The Last House On Needless Street
This is the story of a murderer. A stolen child. Revenge. This is the story of Ted, who lives with his young daughter Lauren and his cat Olivia in an ordinary house at the end of an ordinary street.
All these things are true. And yet some of them are lies. An unspeakable secret binds the family together, and when a new neighbour moves in next door, the truth may destroy them all. Because there’s something buried in the dark forest at the end of Needless Street. But it’s not what you think…
The Maidens
YOU ARE INVITED TO JOIN THE MAIDENS.
The Maidens are Cambridge University’s most exclusive society, whose members are selected by the charismatic professor of Greek tragedy, Edward Fosca.
A SECRETIVE SET OF THE BRIGHTEST, MOST CAPTIVATING STUDENTS.
When one of the Maidens is murdered, grieving young therapist Mariana Andros is drawn back to the idyllic campus where she was once herself a student.
THE GROUP FROM WHICH EACH VICTIM WILL BE CHOSEN.
Because beneath the university’s ancient traditions and beauty is a web of secrets, jealousy and lies. And when the killer threatens the person she loves most, Mariana will give anything to stop them – even her own life…
The Cloisters
Ann Stilwell arrives in New York City, hoping to spend her summer working at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, she is assigned to The Cloisters, a gothic museum and garden renowned for its medieval and Renaissance collections.
There she is drawn into a small circle of charismatic but enigmatic researchers, each with their own secrets and desires, including the museum’s curator, Patrick Roland, who is convinced that the history of Tarot holds the key to unlocking contemporary fortune telling.
Relieved to have left her troubled past behind and eager for the approval of her new colleagues, Ann is only too happy to indulge some of Patrick’s more outlandish theories. But when Ann discovers a mysterious, once-thought lost deck of 15th-century Italian tarot cards she suddenly finds herself at the centre of a dangerous game of power, toxic friendship and ambition.
And as the game being played within the Cloisters spirals out of control, Ann must decide whether she is truly able to defy the cards and shape her own future . . .
Luckenbooth
1910, Edinburgh. Jessie, the devil’s daughter, arrives on the doorstep of an imposing tenement building and knocks on a freshly painted wooden door. She has been sent by her father to bear a child for a wealthy couple, but, when things go wrong, she places a curse on the building and all who live there – and it lasts a century.
Caught in the crossfire are the residents of 10 Luckenbooth Close, and they all have their own stories to tell. While the world outside is changing, inside, the curse creeps up all nine floors and through each door. Soon, the building’s longest kept secret – the truth of what happened to Jessie – will finally be heard.
I honestly didn’t realise how many books begin with THE until I came to type them all out. This was in no way intentional – I just looked at the pretty covers!
Have you read any of these? What did you think? Should we start a book club? Shall we see how many we can read each month? Shall we try to get through all the To Read pile? Do I sound excitable?
Damn right I am – onto the next book!
