Review: Helen Grace Series Books 2-5 by M.J. Arlidge

Helen Grace Series 2-5 by M. J. Arlidge

Recently, I got a copy of Hide and Seek from First to Read. I had 45 days to read the book.  Even though it was part of a series, I thought I would be able to read it as a standalone, but after a few pages, I knew that I had to read the rest of the series so that I would know what in the world was going on.  I read the first book a couple of years ago and I really enjoyed it, but hadn't kept up with the series.  So, I decided to binge read the entire series to get caught up.  Only problem that was by the time I realized I had to read the whole series, I only had 16 days left to read 5 books.  Needless to say, I didn't reach the goal, but I thoroughly enjoyed the binge.  Below are the reviews for the four books I did finish.  Helen Grace is a woman I have relished in getting to know.  I can't wait to read more of this series.  It has become one of my favorite along with The Women's Murder Club Series by James Patterson.

Pop Goes the Weasel  -- Helen Grace #3
***4 Stars***
DI Helen Grace has another case that is proving to be very difficult to solve.  Men in Southampton are being murdered and having their hearts cut out.  Who would do something so gruesome?  A prostitute who wants payback.  Getting to the bottom of this mystery will not be easy, especially with all the obstacles, twists and turns that get in the way.  But DI Grace and her team are determined to bring the killer to justice.

This book had me on the edge of my seat the entire time.  It was so good and I was so determined to finish it and find out what happened, I was reading at stoplights to and from work.

Imagine receiving a package at home or work and inside is a heart.  A real, live(well not live)human heart, cut out of someone's body and delivered to your doorstep.  Can you imagine what type of person could do such a thing?  Would your first thought be that some crazy man pulled off this stunt?  You would be wrong.  MJ Arlidge is writing about a female serial killer in this book and he does a great job with it. 

A prostitute is killing her johns that are married.  And when you find out the reason why, your jaw will hit the floor.  I wasn't sure if I wanted her to be caught or not.  With so many twists to this story, it's hard to decide who to root for. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the opportunity to read and review this book.


 The Doll's House -- Helen Grace #3
***4 Stars***
Ruby Sprackling has gone missing.  Had this been a few months ago, her family probably wouldn't have thought twice about it.   But, they had recently reconciled and Ruby was supposed to move back home.  At the same time, DI Helen Grace and her team are investigating the death of a body found on the beach.  Are these two incidents connected?  When more bodies turn up on the beach, all of which look very similar to Ruby Sprackling, the search intensifies.  Will they be able to find Ruby before it's too late?

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the opportunity to read and review this book. 

When starting this book, I was hooked from the start.  M.J. Arlidge does a good job of grabbing you right from the beginning.  Fasten your safety belts because it's going to be a wild ride.  Hunting serial killers is DI Grace's forte, but this case is just as complicated as the others.  Just when you think they've made a break in the case, something comes along to push them back to the starting line.  And finding Ruby is very important.  The girls on the beach showed signs of starvation and a complete lack of Vitamin D.  Ruby's life is on the brink and the longer it takes to find her, the farther the chances that she will be found alive.  Finding the killer's motivation will help DI Grace and her team to find Ruby and her captor and prevent this from happening to anyone again. 


Liar, Liar -- Helen Grace #4
***3 stars***
There are three buildings on fire in Southampton.  A home and two businesses.  The next night, the same thing happens again.  There is no apparent connection between any of these fires, so who is setting them and why?  DI Helen Grace and her team have their work cut out for them.  Not only are homes and businesses being lost, but lives are as well.  Are the people being killed the target, or just a casualty of the fire?  We have to find the culprit soon before the whole city is up in flames.

For me, this book wasn't as good as the previous book in this series have been.

In this book, Helen has a new boss, a new "man" in her life, and her career is going well.  With all these changes, its difficult to see how things could go wrong now.  But as these cases do, the clues lead to the wrong person initially and more fires happen while the police try to find out who could be doing these terrible things.

You will be surprised at the end at who the suspect or suspects are. ;


Little Boy Blue -- Helen Grace #5
***4.5 stars***

People from Helen Grace's personal life are turning up dead. But this is a part of her life that she never wanted anyone to see. Will they make a connection between her and they victims? Will she be able to find the killer before her secrets are exposed? Hang on to your hats because this book takes you on quite a journey and leaves you hanging off a cliff at the end.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This is the 5th book in the Helen Grace series, and I think this one was the best. I think getting to see such a personal side to Helen, made this book more enjoyable, as well as trying to figure out who was doing this. At first it seemed like an interesting coincidence, but as time goes on, you can see she is being framed for these murders. Each moment you think she has the person responsible in custody, we only find out that she was wrong.

This book will leave your heart racing and almost stop at the end. It was an intense book and I can't wait to read book 6.


Overall this series was really good.  I can't wait to read more.  Book six Hide and Seek is now available  And it looks like there is a book in between Little Boy Blue and Hide and Seek and there will be a book 7.


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Review--Wreck and Order by Hannah Tennant-Moore

Wreck and Order by Hannah Tennant-Moore
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Elsie is a wreck just as the title of the book suggests. She is living mostly off of her father's money with some little jobs to hold her over. She's seeing a guy who barely respects her and she doesn't really seem to have found her direction in life. Taking trips overseas to Paris and Sri Lanka improves on her recklessness, but once she's back in the states, it's hard to control old habits. Will Elsie find her place in this world before she destroys her life?

At the beginning of the book, I could relate to Elsie on some level. During my early 20's I was pretty reckless with my own life doing things that now I can look back and see weren't the best decisions. Those things have made me into the person I am today, but who would I of been without those experiences. Who is Elsie without her crazy alcohol induced, drug addicted boyfriend, Jared? Who is she without Suriya, her Sri Lankan "sister" and without her parents who continue to support her financially even if it's not the best thing for her

I was so looking forward to this book. I first discovered it through Penguin's First To Read Program, but at the time I had some difficulty downloading it to my Kindle I had the opportunity to borrow it from the library, but I was not as thrilled with the overall story as I was hoping to be from the description. To me Elsie seemed like she was going in circles instead of moving forward in her life. Continuing to make the same choices sh know are not good for her, not learning from her mistakes, or maybe she does learn from them but doesn't implement these changes into her life. I rated it three stars, but it's more of 2.5 for me. It started off strong, but the ending left something to be desired.


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Review-Don't Fail Me Now by Una LaMarche

Don't Fail Me Now by Una LaMarche
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Michelle Devereaux in a police department with her younger siblings Cass and Denny waiting with a social worker for their aunt to pick them up.  Their mother has been arrested.  Unfortunately, this is not the first time this has happened.  Her mother has been in jail several times and she hasn't seen her father in several years.  When Michelle finds out that her father is dying in California and may have something for her, she sets out on a journey that will hopefully end in a windfall for her and her siblings.

This was a great YA Novel.  A book about love, family and adventure.  Michelle and her siblings are black kids from Baltimore, Maryland.  Michelle knows that she and Cass have a half-sister, Leah, that is white, and that is about all the know about her.  Until she shows up with her step-brother at Michelle's job with information about their father.  With this new information and the current state of affairs, Michelle decides now is a good a time as any to drive across the country to see her father before he is no longer there.

Five kids, in an old station wagon are heading across the country without any of their parents being aware.  They have very little money and barely more than the clothes on their back, but they are determined to find Buck Devereaux and collect whatever it is he has for them.

Their adventure is not without some complications.  Will they make the journey successfully?  Will these siblings, Michelle, Cass, and Leah be able to build a relationship? Will they reunite with the father they barely know? How will this trip change their lives for the future?

One of the things that drew me to this book where the characters.  They were characters I could relate to, when I was that age and the kids are all from Maryland where I live.  Plus, who doesn't love a good road trip.  All of these factors made this an excellent book and something I would recommend to young adults from mixed racial backgrounds and diverse family dynamics.

**I received this book from the FirstToRead program through Penguin Books in exchange for an honest review.**


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Review-The Gates of Evangeline by Hester Young

The Gates of Evangeline by Hester Young
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Charlotte Cates has started having dreams about young children now that her son has passed away.  She is not sure what these dreams mean, but when they start to come to fruition, she sees that she may have a gift she may not really want.  Sent to Louisiana to write a book about the abduction of young Gabriel Deveau, she believes she knows what has happened to him from one of her dreams.  Will she be able to find out what happened to this boy?  What other dreams will she have before she gets the answers she is looking for?

I started this book and at first I couldn't get into it.  I put it down for a couple of weeks and then picked it back up.  I'm so glad that I did.  While some parts of this book were a little bit predictable, this was an overall good read.  I was invested in the story and I was desperate to know what was going to happen to Charlotte, or Charlie as she likes to be called.

After the death of her own child, she was lost and unsure about how to continue her life.  She wasn't really into her job and then came the opportunity arose for her to write about something, she thought she had first hand knowledge about.  Leaving her home in Connecticut to live at Evangeline, the estate where Gabriel went missing, she uncovers a lot about the Deveau family that she never knew was possible.

At 75% I literally felt my heart begin to race. And it was difficult to put the book down from then on.  Highly recommended.

**I received a copy of this book from FirstToRead, through Penguin Publishers in exchange for my review.**


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Review--The Underwriting by Michelle Miller

The Underwriting by Michelle Miller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hook is the hottest new dating app.  It's location based and as long as two users match each other they can "hook" up in a matter of minutes.
Jost Hart, Hook's creator, believes it's time to follow in the steps of Facebook and other apps and take his public.  He enlist Todd Kent with L.Cecil to help with the IPO.  Todd barely knows Josh, having just met him briefly at a strip club months before, but is grateful for the opportunity seeing the potential in the app since he is one of it's users.

Kelly Jacobsen is also a Hook user, one of about 500 million.  She has just accepted a position at L.Cecil after interning there over the summer.  Now, back at Stanford, she reaches out to Tara Taylor, her mentor during the internship, letting her know of the decision.  Tara is very excited for Kelly, this along with being named as part of the IPO team for Hook is really making her week.  But after making this decision and spending a night out with friends, the next day, Kelly is found dead, with a drug overdose as the explanation.  Her friends and family are baffled by this as this is something she would never do.

The death of a young co-ed and the introduction of a new company going public.  Could these events be related in any way?  Could Hook somehow be involved with Kelly's untimely demise?  As the buzz for the IPO grows so does the speculation of the security of the app and it's users.

With so many changes happening so quickly, what will be the outcome?  This book is filled with sex, lies, and billions of dollars, never a great combination when dealing with murder!

When first reading this book I was shocked at the number of different characters introduced so quickly.  The book was fast paced from the start.  ou meet the team of L.Cecil bankers in charge of the underwriting.  From the guy at the top, to the little-a analyst who is crunching all of the numbers.  You meet the guys in Silicon Valley from the creator of the app, to the engineers, that help to keep it running.

Everyone has their own agenda in this deal.  To be bigger, better, and more powerful than before.  And with billions of dollars on the table, the deal would do just that.  This was an intriguing book, that thoroughly kept my attention.  After reading one night I had very vivid dream about the book.  I was sitting at the table with everyone, trying to make the deal work.  It was a bit crazy for me.  There are parts of this book that leave you with your mouth hanging open as you can't believe what you just read.
**I received an uncorrected advanced proof of this book from FirstToRead in exchange for my honest review.**

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