Book Review: Red Bones by Ann Cleeves

Hi! This review doesn't contain any spoilers so please read on! 

As part of my Reading Challenge, I ended up scouring the Amazon Kindle deals and buying pretty much any book that was less than £1.99 and had more than a 4 star review (which is actually ALOT of books...) to try and ramp up my chances of reading my goal of 25 books. I probably have already read that many in 2015 so far, but I only started the challenge a few months back.

I didn't really need any more books as my shelves are full with ones I've not touched since buying [please tell me you all do this too??] but seeings as I was going travelling I prefer to take my Kindle and save on some kilos of luggage.

This book is actually the last instalment of Cleeves' Shetland Quartet, I haven't read the others but I don't actually think the stories all entwine. As far as a mystery novel goes, it was pretty lacking, I didn't actually find myself that concerned or excited to find out 'who done it', I found myself more getting wrapped around the characters of Sandy, Perez & Joseph, trying to unscramble their own views and opinions of what happened.

Saying all of the above though, and quite contradictory, once I had actually found out who did it did shock me and I had to read the paragraph a couple of times to get my head around it!

I think if you're into mystery novels, or the idea of death and detective novels then this one is worth a read; its quite short so isn't going to take up all of your time reading it and isn't an awful story line.

Overall, I'd probably give it 3 stars out of 5, so very was okay... but could be better.

Have you read this? Did you think the same or total opposite to me? Please let me know!!

Iceland 2015

Iceland is such a beautiful place. Reykjavik city is nice, but the country side is just .. wow. Just a few snaps of my favourite bits. We didn't see any whales, but did spot a dolphin on one of the boat trips. We saw the Northern Lights!! But not as well as I had hoped, it was quite cloudy the day of our trip and you could only really notice that behind the clouds there was light dancing. It was good to see something, but would have been alot more magical if we'd have seen it on a clear night.

Iceland is definitely one of, if not the best holiday I've been on for opening my eyes to how beautiful the world can be. Luke and I are planning on going back during the winter time (it was quite average temperatures whilst we were there) to see it all snowy..

Book Haul

 

Reading is definitely near the top of my list of favourite things to do - I love being able to completely switch off from everything and have my mind thinking about the characters and story and nothing else.

I don't mind paying full price for books, but I tend to just impulse buy based on the cover (bad, I know) or if I like the author. I don't tend to read the 'Top Chart' books until waaaay after everyone else has, as I like to ignore the hype and not let it affect the story I'm reading. The Girl on the Train is a perfect example, whilst the hype around the book isn't quite dead, I have already read it. I can't say I was too impressed actually, or blown away, so I really don't know what all the hype was around that book. I hate it when you expect so much & the book and author come off worse for it, so I tend not to read books when they're above 50 and below in the chart.

I am signed up to a website which you can freely swap your books with other members, the only charge being the postage you pay. Usually people post 2nd Class, non recorded and just get proof of postage, so the receipt. I've swapped quite a few times now and haven't had problems at all. You basically upload the books you have that you're happy to swap, and you can either wait for people to swap with you, or if you have a particular book in mind you can search for it and request swaps with others! The website link is www.readitswapit.co.uk - it'd be great to get more readers on there! 2 of the books above were from this site, so only cost me £4.50 for both of them in postage on what I'd sent back!

I bought the other books (excluding the Marco Polo guide to Australia)from a Bargain Book Store shop in Skegness when myself and Luke were up there for our anniversary weekend - the books were 3 for £5 so I paid a mere £10 for 6 books all of which state around £7-8.99 on the covers!

I used to read the Charlaine Harris Sookie Stackhouse series but ended up getting in the middle of my exams and just forgetting! So I bought the first book to get back into them, from what I remember I really liked them.. I bought The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow purely for the cover, it's beautiful. When I review the book I'll have to show you, I did this too with Drakenfeld, it looks really medieval and interesting. I read the blurb for this and it seems a bit intense and heavy compared to what I'm used to, so probably won't be a holiday or casual read book, but still worth a go!

I bought the Marco Polo Guide to Australia as I'm going for 2 weeks next year (hopefully), my Aunt lives in South Australia near Mt. Baker so I'm sure she'll be showing me all the sights, but I'm hoping to tour the whole of Aus at some point so thought it'd be great to get an idea of what I'm doing to do!

Have you read any of these? Would you recommend any?

Let me know if you sign up to ReaditSwapit, I'll look out for your books!