My Annihilation by Fuminori Nakamura

Publisher: Soho Crime
Publication Date:
13/01/2022
Length: 257 pages
Genre:
Japanese Fiction | Translated Fiction | Psychological Horror | Mystery | Thriller

CW: n/a

Blackwells.co.uk

What transforms a person into a killer? Can it be something as small as a suggestion?

Turn this page, and you may forfeit your entire life.

With My Annihilation, Fuminori Nakamura, master of literary noir, has constructed a puzzle box of a narrative in the form of a confessional diary that implicates its reader in a heinous crime.

Delving relentlessly into the darkest corners of human consciousness, My Annihilation interrogates the unspeakable thoughts all humans share that can be monstrous when brought to life, revealing with disturbing honesty the psychological motives of a killer.

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The Woman in the Purple Skirt by Natsuko Imamura

Firstly, a huge thank you to Faber & Faber and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Publisher: Faber & Faber
Publication Date:
03/06/2021
Length: 224 pages
Genre:
Translated Fiction | Japanese Fiction | Thriller

CW: mentions of stalking, mentions of abuse

Blackwells.co.uk

The Woman in the Purple Skirt is being watched. Someone is following her, always perched just out of sight, monitoring which buses she takes; what she eats; whom she speaks to. But this invisible observer isn’t a stalker – it’s much more complicated than that.

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The Nesting by C.J. Cooke

Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication Date:
15/10/2020
Length: 416 pages
Genre:
Gothic Horror | Thriller | European folklore

CW: domestic abuse, self harm, suicide

Blackwells.co.uk

Architect Tom Faraday is determined to finish the high-concept, environmentally friendly home he’s building in Norway – in the same place where he lost his wife, Aurelia, to suicide. It was their dream house, and he wants to honor her with it.

Lexi Ellis takes a job as his nanny and immediately falls in love with his two young daughters, especially Gaia. But something feels off in the isolated house nestled in the forest along the fjord. Lexi sees mysterious muddy footprints inside the home. Aurelia’s diary appears in Lexi’s room one day. And Gaia keeps telling her about seeing the terrifying Sad Lady…

Soon Lexi suspects that Aurelia didn’t kill herself and that they are all in danger from something far more sinister lurking around them.

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Out by Natsuo Kirino

Publisher: Vintage Classics
Publication Date:
03/10/2019 (original publication: 15/07/1997)
Length: 528 pages
Genre:
Translated Fiction | Japanese Fiction | Thriller

CW: sexual assault, domestic abuse, murder, body horror, graphic depictions of violence

Blackwells.co.uk

Natsuo Kirino’s novel tells a story of random violence in the staid Tokyo suburbs, as a young mother who works a night shift making boxed lunches brutally strangles her deadbeat husband and then seeks the help of her co-workers to dispose of the body and cover up her crime.

The ringleader of this cover-up, Masako Katori, emerges as the emotional heart of Out and as one of the shrewdest, most clear-eyed creations in recent fiction. Masako’s own search for a way out of the straitjacket of a dead-end life leads her, too, to take drastic action.

The complex yet riveting narrative seamlessly combines a convincing glimpse into the grimy world of Japan’s yakuza with a brilliant portrayal of the psychology of a violent crime and the ensuing game of cat-and-mouse between seasoned detectives and a group of determined but inexperienced criminals. Kirino has mastered a Thelma and Louise kind of graveyard humor that illuminates her stunning evocation of the pressures and prejudices that drive women to extreme deeds and the friendship that bolsters them in the aftermath.

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Blog Tour – Cabin Fever by Alex Dahl

Welcome to my stop on the Cabin Fever blog tour! Huge thanks to Midas PR and Head of Zeus for giving me the opportunity to take part in this! I was provided a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.

Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication Date:
08/07/2021
Length: 400 pages
Genre:
Thriller | Scandinavian Thriller

CW: drug use, suicide ideation, suicide, graphic depictions of death, attempted sexual assault, references to domestic violence

Blackwells.co.uk

You are her therapist.
Kristina is a successful therapist in central Oslo. She spends her days helping clients navigate their lives with a cool professionalism that has got her to the top.

She is your client.
But when her client Leah, a successful novelist, arrives at her office clearly distressed, begging Kristina to come to her remote cabin in the woods, she feels the balance begin to slip.

But out here in the woods.
When Leah fails to turn up to her next two sessions, Kristina reluctantly heads out into the wilderness to find her.

Nothing is as it seems.
Alone and isolated, Kristina finds Leah’s unfinished manuscript, and as she reads she realises the main character is terrifyingly familiar…

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Blog Tour – Love and Theft by Stan Parish

Welcome to my stop on the Love and Theft blog tour! Huge thank you to Faber & Faber for giving me the opportunity to take part in this! I was provided a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.

Publisher: Faber & Faber
Publication Date:
06/05/2021
Length: 233 pages
Genre:
Mystery | Thriller | Romance

CW: drug use

Blackwells.co.uk

What price would you put on a second chance?

When Alex Cassidy and Diane Alison meet by chance at a party in Princeton, New Jersey, there are instant sparks. Both are single parents living in wealthy suburbia, independent, highly competent and seemingly settled in their lives. She runs a successful catering business. He’s part of a crew that robs banks, casinos and jewellery stores around the world. Neither realises initially that their lives have overlapped before, or that their shared history and burgeoning relationship will come to threaten everything they love. As Alex prepares for one final, daunting job, he discovers that he’s not the only one with secrets – and that both of them are playing for the highest stakes imaginable.

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