Have You Seen Her? - Karen Rose

Another day, another Karen Rose, this time, “Have you seen her” a killer is kidnapping sixteen year old cheerleaders, torturing and raping them and then leaving them out for super Special Agent Thatcher to find.

Meanwhile Thatcher’s son has gone from star pupil to basket case and his too good to be true teacher Dr Jenna Marshall is concerned. One meeting with Thatcher and she is madly in love despite being celibate since her fiancee died and the feeling is mutual Thatcher struggles to control himself around Jenna despite the fact that he too has been celibate since her wife ran off with another man and died on her way to the airport. I mean fancy that, two attractive, successful celibate people falling in love the first time they bloody meet? This time Rose gives much less voice to the murderer, instead preferring to tell the story through Thatcher and Jenna.

Jenna is refusing to pass the schools star Quarterback until he actually does some work and the Quarterbacks creepy papa is encouraging the rest of the team to haze her, slashing her tires, hanging dead animals in her lab and innocently cutting her breaks. Just boy stuff… crazy boy stuff.

Meanwhile the killer is fairly pissed off that nobody is recognizing him for the absolute genius he is and decides to up the ante, chopping one of his girls into pieces and scattering her around with big helpful signs pointing her out like “LEG” and “ARM”

You quickly realize that the killers main target is Jenna, his first attempt it thwarted by her two massive dogs but he’s not put off, he’s not a big fan of Thatcher either, who he rightly presumes to be an idiot. He’s spot on, my biggest pet peeve about this novel is that Thatcher is literally useless, he does nothing to solve the crime, the legwork is all done by his team and visiting Detective Davies, who almost had the killer back in Seattle but mishandled evidence meant he was set free and left to set up in Thatcher’s back yard. Like literally they never even CHECK OTHER CITIES for similar crimes until shady Davies pops up to point out how shit Thatcher is at his job.

Davies fancies a bit of Jenna too and there is a lot of unneeded tension and behavior that detracts from the interesting bits of the novel: the murders. There is also some more of Roses romantically suspenseful sex scenes which are wayyyyyyy cringier than the ones in the review below. She wrote this one before I'm Watching You so hopefully, as her novels progress there is less sex and more story.

I gave it a two, it had potential but it was nowhere near as good as I’m Watching You and again, Rose dedicated way to many pages to dodgy sex scenes and the budding romance of two people who did not belong together. The killer wasn’t a massive shock either. It hasn’t put me off her work but I’d like to read something that’s more solidly a crime novel with less of a romantic feel. 

I'm Watching You - Karen Rose

After a Picoult overdose I plucked Karen Rose off the shelf and decided to read a nice solid crime novel for a change. Kristen Mayhew is the star of this one, a public defender who takes any courtroom loss very personally, Kristen is lonely and closed off after being raped in college. Kristen however is being watched very carefully by a calculated killer who is delivering Kristen pictures and evidence of his murders, with a twist, he’s only going after criminals who escaped justice and most of them are Kristen’s own losses. He starts with a couple of sexual deviants and three gang members and escalates to killing people who haven’t been tried, but that he stills views as guilty. Handily delivering Kristen evidence of his crimes and burial sites and also offering her some interior decoration tips. He’s your average psycho vigilante.

Enter super cop, Abe Reagan, descending from a family of law enforcement he is super hunky and has eyes for only one woman, Kristen. Kristen is playing ice queen and Abe’s partner Mia is doing most of the work in trying to find the killer before he’s killed enough criminals to make a football team. Abes family adopt Kristen pretty quickly and soon she is shacked up with hunky cop and they are working out decades of issues together and sometimes trying to solve the crime. Kristen is also being targeted by gang members who are pissed to lose three of their own and think Kristen knows who is behind it and then she starts getting threats from the super creepy father of Angelo, who is a murderer who escaped justice and becomes a murderee to the super bad vigilante. You with me so far? Then there is reporter Zoe who needs a big break so she can make it to CNN and thinks a few murders will get her to the top, aswell as sleeping with literally anyone who can give her an exclusive. She has this crazy hatred of Kristen which is literally never explained.

The crime itself is really interesting, the murders, the clues, the pool of suspects keep you reading. I narrowed it down to three people and I was right on one of them.

However my only criticism is this, I went into the novel not realising Karen Rose writes “Romantic suspenseful” novels and honestly by the end of the book I was tired of the cringetastic sex scenes and clichéd conversations between hunkysupercop and Kristen.

I liked Kristen as a character though, she was pretty tough, interesting and easy to read about.

Three out of five, I loved the plot and feel of the novel but the romance was too over played and took away from Roses true talent as a crime author.

Harvesting the Heart - Jodi Picoult.

Another Picoult one, but the last one for a while I promise! Harvesting the Heart follows Paige an 18 year old who was raised by her strict Catholic father after her free spirited mother abandoned her. After having a little sex before marriage and a subsequent abortion Paige packs a bag and does a bunk on her good old dependable Dad, who has now been twice abandoned. She sets herself up far away and begins working as a waitress, offering portraits on the side of meals. Then she meets Nicholas a busy, overworked aspiring cardiac surgeon who finds Paige a refreshing change in his life of luxury provided by his parents. Quickly falling in love Nicholas and Paige decide to marry, but his parents withdraw their financial support and the couple are left to work themselves down to put Nicholas through medical school. Once he’s set himself up at a hospital and making a name for himself Paige discovers she is pregnant, but has no bond with the baby growing inside her and begins to question whether she’s even cut out for motherhood.

Baby Max arrives like the second coming of Satan’s son and does nothing but scream, cry and breastfeed poor old Paige raw until she fully gives up on doing literally anything like cooking, cleaning and washing. Tired from surgery Nicholas gets progressively meaner and when Paige accidentally lets Max get hurt she decides she’s fully had enough now and packs off to find her own Mom and discuss her very serious issues.

I mean, it’s feasible, it sounds like something that could well happen and you do have some sympathy for Paige but she goes from being easy going, caring and willing to sacrifice everything for someone else to literally just pissing off and leaving Nicholas with their son, no childcare and not the kind of job he can take a sabbatical from just as he’s on the brink of his career defining moment.

I wasn’t really bothered by Nicholas until Paige returns, then he decides that because he’s managed to keep Max alive for three months by himself (with the help of his his newly returned parents) that Paige is a useless lump who should take a hike and have no access to her son at all.

The book is really all about the issues between Nicholas and Paige and the fact that deep down, they don’t really know each other or marriage until a big hurdle like Max arrives. The ending is pretty ambiguous and I was searching for another chapter to wrap it up much more cleanly. There are other characters, Paige's first love, her Mother and Nicholas' Dad but the only one who is interesting independent of the others is Nicholas' mother. My biggest annoyance is Paige's dad who she abandons and never bothers to visit again, calling in every so often to let him know shes done something huge like get married or have a baby but not bothering to involve him in something he should be involved in. 

I gave it two stars, its readable and interesting but it’s easy to see that its Picoults second novel and whilst it’s much more evolved than Songs of the Humpback Whale it lacks the solid sparkle her later novels have and it doesn’t stand against her stronger works like Nineteen Minutes and My Sisters Keeper.

Change of Heart - Jodi Picoult

Another Jodi Picoult one, Change of Heart centers around June, twelve years ago her youngest daughter and her cop husband where murdered by a man she hired to do some home improvements, the only thing that kept her going was the baby she was carrying however, her baby is now twelve with a serious heart defect and a clock that’s quickly running down unless June can find a suitable donor.  

Enter Shay Bourne, a prisoner on death row who wants to give Claire his heart, but there’s a catch, he’s the man convicted of murdering her husband Kurt and daughter Elizabeth. Oh and Shay is no ordinary man, he’s the second coming of Christ and his prison miracles are all over the front page. His cell neighbor Lucius who is HIV positive and the only friend Shay has is enamored with Shays miracles.

Then there’s Michael, a priest, who Shay is happily spilling his guts too however Michael has a secret, he served on the jury that sentenced Shay to death and of course Maggie, an up and coming lawyer who wants to help Shay achieve his goal and raise questions about the use of the death penalty.

And it all hinges on this, Shay can’t donate his heart if he dies by lethal injection, so it’s up to Maggie to ensure he can be hung instead.

For me June was too tragic of a character, her first husband Jack died at the hands of a drunk driver, so she married the cop who gave her the bad news and he became step-daddy to Elizabeth, except then he and Elizabeth are slaughtered in Junes home and now her second daughter, the only thing that kept her going could drop dead any bloody second. I mean Christ, what sins is she paying for?

Shay is frustrating, his miracles are often random and his demeanor does make you think he’s pretty guilty and it’s tough to sympathize with him at all.

Michael is a bloody mess considering he’s a priest, lying left right and center and omitting to let Shay know that’s he responsible for the death row he’s now sitting in.

Maggie however is a serious ray of light in an otherwise bleak group of people, her desperation to raise questions about the death penalty, her self-deprecating personality and her determination to win her case help her win over the reader.

As for the twist, and here’s your big warning, major spoiler coming up, I saw it coming. I literally googled when I was about four chapters in to see if I was right about Kurt abusing Elizabeth and Shay having only killed him in anger after walking in on the abuse. It seemed really obvious and I was disappointed when Picoult wrote June as kind of glossing over it? Mentions of her having found her daughters underwear in odd places and him lingering when perhaps he shouldn’t but she didn’t really give it much thought after that and I wanted to choke her. Especially as she buried poor little Elizabeth in the arms of her abuser.

I gave it a very obvious three out of five, it was good reading, but the twist was guessable and some of the characters were unlikable despite the tragedy of the novel overall. 

Sing you Home - Jodi Picoult

Jodi Picoult is a solid writer, her books are usually intriguing and interesting and Sing you Home isn’t really an exception, told via three different perspectives, Zoe Baxter has spent many years and thousands trying to get pregnant as both she and husband Max have fertility issues, when she loses her baby in her third trimester a distraught Zoe prepares herself for another round of vitro but husband Max can’t carry on and asks for a divorce instead. As Max hits rock bottom his brother Reid and sister in law Liddy introduce him to his Pastor Clive, a man who is strongly against and protests issues like abortion, gay marriage and relationships and is infamous for his strong stances not his religious efforts.

Meanwhile Zoe connects with Vanessa and their friendship soon turns to love, Zoe and Vanessa decide to use Zoë’s remaining eggs and allow Vanessa to carry their child, however when Zoe goes to get Max’s permission he takes the advice of his pastor and sues her, intending to give her eggs to his sister in law and brother, believing that a child shouldn’t be raised in a lesbian setting.

Max is a frustrating character and for much of the book, I did want to punch him. His callous abandonment of Zoe, his blind faith in Pastor Clive, his lack of thought or feeling for Zoe, however he does pull it around and by the end, I hated him a little less. Zoe and Vanessa are well fleshed out characters that you do root for. Maxs’ brother is much the same as Max and sister in law Liddy is supposed to be a bloody angel but is often contrived and difficult to warm to.

My one criticism of the novel would probably be that it paints Christianity as a religion in a general bad light, none of the religious characters have any redeeming features and the way Zoe and Vanessa are treated is absolutely not reflective of millions of Christians, however if Picoult was intending to point out that sometimes religion does lead to conflict, especially when coupled with a modern lifestyle, she has done so without raising controversy.

I gave it three stars, it is as dependable as I have come to find Picoults’ novels to be and is a good addition to anyone working their way through her works. 

The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins

The Girl on the Train is one of those books, with a Gone Girl hype and everyone seems to be reading it. Number one of the UK book chart for a record breaking 20 weeks and selling over 3 million copies in the US alone. It’s the debut creation of British author Paula Hawkins, it centers around three female protagonists; Rachel an unemployed alcoholic still struggling with the breakdown of her marriage, to avoid admitting she’s lost her job Rachel continues the charade of travelling to London every day, staring longingly from the train window at the house she used to occupy and one down the road whose inhabitants she develops an obsession with. Megan is the inhabitant of the house Rachel fixates on, Megan is married but not happily, though her husband isn’t aware of that and is seeing a psychiatrist and having an affair. Anna is now married to Rachel's ex-husband, has a new-born baby and hates living in Rachel's old home. Especially as Rachel won’t leave her alone, constantly crashing in drunk and reminding Anna of the life her husband used to have. When Megan disappears Rachel is on edge, wondering if she should confess to everything she’s seen whilst spying on Megan, Anna is frightened that a woman she knew and who lived near has gone and all three men, Anna’s husband and Rachel's ex Tom, Megan’s husband Scott and psychiatrist Abdic have something to hide.

 Each chapter is from one of the women’s point of views and a very strong theme runs throughout them, Rachel is confused, hurt, angry and a mess. Anna is resentful, fed up, in denial and desperate to leave, Megan is chaotic, refusing to find any kind of stability in her life.

The book absolutely lives up the hype and whilst I wouldn’t give it quite the same 5 star rating as Gone Girl it isn’t too far behind, it’s a messy tangle of lives that leaves you turning until you reach the end, desperate to solve. Rachel is a frustrating character and sometimes the pure madness behind what could be relatively sane thinking drives you insane, Anna is contrived, having stolen Rachel's husband with no remorse she refuses to bear any responsibility for Rachel's current state and Megan is entitled and spoilt, however the flaws of each character make them incredibly fascinating.

It’s a solid four stars for me, riveting, uncomfortable, many of the same qualities that made Gone Girl so brilliant, absolutely looking forward to Paula Hawkins next offering.