This month’s theme is, ‘can you keep a secret?’ Each of the novels for April center around secrets. One of them is a mystery in the conventional sense, but the rest are novels where secrets drive the story in other ways. There is something delicious about a good secret and as a reader, I find it so compelling to try to unravel them. I hope some of these secrets appeal to you and you find something in this month’s line up to read along with me.
April 6, 2019: Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
I’ve never read any novels by Taylor Jenkins Reid and I wasn’t too sure about this one – it’s set in the 1970s and follows a rock band as they make music and go on tour. No one knows why the group split after their last show in Chicago in 1979 at the height of their popularity but the secret is revealed over the course of the novel. I was on the fence about reading this one, but a new friend gave it the thumbs up so I decided to put it on the list for this month and happily borrowed her copy.
April 13, 2019: A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny
Penny is a Canadian novelist and A Rule Against Murder is part of her Three Pines series (I think there are fourteen of them now). All of the novels are set in Quebec and I love them for the sense of atmosphere Penny creates and the cast of quirky characters that populate her fictional world of Three Pines. You don’t need to read the series in order, each mystery can stand alone although there are over-arching plots. In this one, family secrets lead to murder at a isolated Manior and Chief Inspector Gamache must solve the case.
April 20, 2019: The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick
I’m a sucker for a book about books, which is what first led me to pick up Patrick’s latest novel. If you are a book nerd like me, how is this for a story line? The main character is Martha Storm, an awkward but kindhearted librarian. One day, a mysterious book of fairy tales arrives on her doorstep and the dedication is written by her grandmother, Zelda, who died mysteriously years before. Martha comes to believe her grandmother may still be alive and starts to follow the clues that ultimately reveal family secrets.
April 27, 2019: The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
At the end of the ball, Evelyn Hardcastle is murdered. But it doesn’t look like a murder, so the murderer doesn’t get caught. Until Aiden, one of the guests at the party, can solve the murder the day will repeat itself, over and over again and Evelyn will be killed each night. I really like it when authors take a genre you think you know and push its boundaries. This is Turton’s debut and I am really excited to see how this story unfolds.
Little Ms Word Smith 