Jill's Book Blog

Title: Little Secrets
Author: Anna Snoekstra
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Mira Books
Source: Goodreads Giveaway
Release Date: October 17, 2017
Rating: ★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

What happens when ambition trumps the truth?

A town reeling in the wake of tragedy

An arsonist is on the loose in Colmstock, Australia, most recently burning down the town’s courthouse and killing a young boy who was trapped inside..

An aspiring journalist desperate for a story

The clock is ticking for Rose Blakey. With nothing but rejections from newspapers piling up, her job pulling beers for cops at the local tavern isn’t nearly enough to cover rent. Rose needs a story-a big one.

Little dolls full of secrets

In the weeks after the courthouse fire, precise porcelain replicas of Colmstock’s daughters begin turning up on doorsteps, terrifying parents and testing the limits of the town’s already fractured police force.

Rose may have finally found her story. But as her articles gain traction and the boundaries of her investigation blur, Colmstock is seized by a seething paranoia. Soon, no one is safe from suspicion. And when Rose’s attention turns to the mysterious stranger living in the rooms behind the tavern, neighbor turns on neighbor and the darkest side of self-preservation is revealed.

Review:

I really liked the beginning of this story. It was so creepy when the little girls in the town started to receive dolls that looked exactly like them.

I wish the story of the dolls was more prominent. I liked that idea but it really took a backseat to everything else that was happening.

I didn’t feel a connection with any of the characters. I felt that none of them had anything positive going for them. Things just kept getting worse for everyone. Even when Rose had her articles published, she still wasn’t happy.

I expected this story to be more suspenseful. Perhaps if the setting wasn’t so depressing, it would have made the story a little brighter. Everything seemed so run down, from the town to the characters, so I didn’t have anything positive to look forward to reading.

Title: Upstairs, Downstairs
Author: Olivia Hart
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Aria
Source: NetGalley
Release Date: October 1, 2017
Rating: ★★★

Synopsis:

Secrets on your doorstep don’t stay secret for long… A romantic comedy perfect for fans of Debbie Johnson and Holly Martin.

When Daniele Bracci – a musician at Rome’s Opera Theatre arrives at his new apartment, he is surprised by the warm welcome he receives from his neighbours. Giovanna however, is more preoccupied with introducing him to her daughter Anita. But what she doesn’t know is that for the last two years, Anita has been secretly seeing someone else.

When Anita is introduced to the new tenant, she has the shock of her life – Daniele was Anita’s first love at high school. Can she come to terms with the terrible way things ended between them?

Anita isn’t the only one with something to hide… and none of these secrets go unnoticed by Pina, the apartment gossip who writes everything down in her secret diary…

Review:

This story is very fast paced. A lot happens in a short period of time. It was also fairly short, so I read it in just a few hours.

I liked the diverse backgrounds in this story. Though most of the characters are Italian, Anita’s boyfriend is Japanese. This brought different ethnic groups into the story. They would also eat at restaurants that had culturally different foods, such as Japanese or Medeterranian restaurants.

One thing that I thought could be improved was the dialogue. Sometimes the characters had a conversation that described something that they already knew. It was unrealistic, since it was only there to give information to the reader.

The voices of the characters sounded the same, so I would get confused about who was speaking in the middle of the dialogue, since they didn’t sound distinct. Also, there was a lot of thinking out loud, which were thoughts in quotation marks, so I would get that mixed up with dialogue.

I would have liked to see more diary entries from Pina. She’s a funny character, because she’s so nosy. It would have been nice to see more from her perspective.

This was an interesting story, but I think it could have been polished to be more successful.

About the Author:

Olivia Hart is a collective group of authors who met five years ago on a writing course and then could no longer do without each other’s company. They decided to write a novel that would bind them forever.

Follow Olivia

Website: http://ariafiction.com/author/olivia-hart

Available on NetGalley: http://bit.ly/2xtoDNo

Buy links:
Amazon: http://amzn.to/2fFQzV7
Kobo: http://bit.ly/2xldsqO
iBooks: http://apple.co/2xn3T8n
Google Play: http://bit.ly/2fEKqIL

Follow Aria
Website: www.ariafiction.com
Twitter: @aria_fiction
Facebook: @ariafiction
Instagram: @ariafiction