Poison Bed by E.C. Fremantle

Poison Bed has one of the most gorgeous and promising covers I have seen this year and when I saw it in NetGalley I couldn’t help but request it. I have started reading it not knowing anything about the slice of history it’s set in; and was immediately confused. It’s a tangled web of relationships, deceit, strategic games and I found it very messy. It was impossible to understand for me, so I opened up Wikipedia to understand what was going on.

The more I read in Wikipedia the more I was amazed. The potential of the plot was amazing- a rather scandalous part of history- but there was no introduction to the characters or to the story  and the book couldn’t escape being dialogue between pair of characters. I wish it was executed a bit differently. Unfortunately this didn’t work for me. Sad times. Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

2/5 stars

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Or shall I say, A Court of muscles and tits? This book was such a huge disappointment for me. I read Fantasy a lot in my 20ies. To be honest I want to read more Fantasy – which seems to be divided as Epic Fantasy and Young Adult novadays- but every young adult book I’ve picked so far disappointed me with simple plots, lack of logic, non-existing character development.

COTAR was introduced to me as a fairytale retelling however turned into something else. Twilight in fairy land- however didn’t come across as gripping as Twilight. Sigh! I don’t think I am going to read the rest of the series. Life is too short for the books we didn’t like.

2 stars

The Pharmacist’s Wife by Vanessa Tait

Another nice cover, and an okay read.

Pharmacist’s Wife is quite a feminist story set in Victorian Edinburgh. Our protagonist Rebecca is married to a good looking and successful Pharmacist, Alexander, and soon we learn that before they hastily married Rebecca’s heart was broken by another man, Gabe.

Rebecca doesn’t really know her husband well, and one day she finds a provocative red shoe in his study, thanks to her nosy friend Violet. She starts investigating her husband’s private affairs.

I can say this book was a real Sex Drugs and Rock’n Roll in it’s era as it goes into fetishism, drug use and abusive men, There is a promise of feminism to start but to me this failed to lead the novel as there was also unnecessary romance. It was refreshing to read a Victorian novel set in some part of Britain other than London but I failed to visualise Edinburgh, which is a shame as it is an atmospheric city. I think this novel’s weakness was mostly the lack of atmosphere as I found myself mostly stuck in Rebecca’s thoughts, so the setting didn’t materialise. Overall it was a nice story and started really promising but after 70% my interest in story declined a bit. Still finished.

I also need to say this reminded me a lot of another book called: The Blood by E.S. Thompson so if you liked either of them, you’ll like the other one.

3 stars

Have you read any of these books?