Normal by Graeme Cameron

Normal by Graeme Cameron
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 2 days

Pages - 304

Publisher - MIRA

Blurb from Goodreads

He lives in your community, in a nice house with a well-tended garden. He shops in your grocery store, bumping shoulders with you as you pass him and apologizing with a smile. He drives beside you on the highway, politely waving to let you into the lane ahead of him.

What you don't know is that he has an elaborate cage built into a secret basement under his garage. And the food that he's carefully shopping for is to feed a young woman he's holding there against her will--one in a string of many, unaware of the fate that awaits her.

This is how it's been for a long time. It's normal...and it works. Perfectly.

Then he meets the checkout girl from the 24-hour grocery. And now the plan, the hunts, the room...the others. He doesn't need any of them anymore. He needs only her. One small problem--he still has someone trapped in his garage.

Discovering his humanity couldn't have come at a worse time.



My Review

Our main character is just your average chap, living within your community, in a nice house and looks after his garden. He is polite but not intrusive, you don't feel threatened by him at all he is so nondescript. However, you should be threatened, within that lovely normal house and well tended garden is a concealed cage, underneath the garage. Those who see it will never get to tell as our main character is a controlled mix somewhere between a psychopath and a sociopath. He is the perfect predator, he acts as he needs to, blends in to the normal, giving off an nonthreatening vibe and then he pounces! This is his normal, he hunts, he kills, he blends in and is aloof, his life is all about the hunt and kill. Until he comes across a girl in a supermarket checkout, something about her stops him in his tracks and suddenly he wants to be in her company & not to kill or eat her. As he starts to get to know Rachel and discover his humanity, he finds himself becoming "normal" however, his previous captive, Erica, is still alive in his basement and causing him to ask almost as many questions of himself as Rachel is.

This is a bizarre, freaky, chilling tale. We know virtually nothing about our main character except he is something between Hannibal Lecture and Dexter Morgan. I think this works well because he could be just about anyone, we have no actual name or description so the reader could picture him to be literally anyone. This works well in one way however it also leaves so many questions, if he has no job how does he afford everything, where is your usual nosy neighbour who spots this single chap with no job or set schedule. He kills for pleasure, his life evolves around the selection, hunt and murder. He is focused and never left any traces for the police, however, since kidnapping Erica, everything has changed. He doesn't bump her off immediately like so many before her, he goes home with a girl called Annie and strikes up a "friendship" with her, Rachel enthralls him and all this knocks him off his game. He comes under the notice of the police, he is questioning everything and his life is completely turned on its head. As a cold blooded killed, sometimes cannibal everything goes well, however once he starts to normalize thats when things start to go pear shaped for him.

I think the idea is fresh and it is interesting to get behind the mind of a killer, to see him transform from a single focused individual with only one objective, to becoming one who starts to see humans as more than sport. You need to suspend belief as some of it is a tad out there and I had a lot of questions left, however its a well written book that will draw you in. I most certainly would read this author again and maybe he will write more on the characters from this tale in their own right. 3/5 for me this time, thanks so much to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review and introducing me to a new author. You can get your hands on a copy of this from 31st of March, 2015 onwards from all good retailers.

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Review - The Darkening Hour by Penny Hancock

The Darkening Hour by Penny Hancock
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 6 days

Publisher - Simon & Schuster

pages - 402

Blurb from Goodreads

Meet Theodora
And Mona
Two women, from completely different walks of life, forced by circumstances to live together under one roof.
Both women are at their wits' end, scared of losing the one thing that's most precious to them. So when tensions boil over, who will go to the most extreme lengths to survive?
Will it be Theodora, finally breaking under the pressure?
Or Mona, desperate to find a way out?
In a tale of modern day slavery and paranoia, two women tell their sides of the story.
Who do you trust?


My Review

When I read the blurb, I thought it was about two workers living together, perhaps forced into some kind of labour. However the story is quite different. Theodora is caring for her father who has dementia with little help from the family. She is trying to keep her full time career with her own local show, look after her son who has just came back to live with her after some issues and a brush with the law. Her husband gets her Mona, a live in carer to help look after her father with all of his care and the story centers around this and the relationship between the two.

Mona has left behind her sick mother and little girl, in her own country and with a secret agenda, she is looking for her husband although portrays herself as a widow. She has to juggle the increasing demands of her employer as well as trying to find her husband, in this strange country, with limited means to do so.

Mona is trapped and at the mercy of Theodora's increasing demands. It is a story of slavery and abuse, care, devotion and also a bit of a psychological thriller as you see the increasingly bizarre behavior and decline of one of the characters. The chapters alternate between Theodora and Mona so you can see the different view points on the same situations which works really well.

I think this story could have been fantastic and some of it is very well done, however, it took a while to build up. Some of the behavior I felt was too incredulous, there is a lot of questions left unanswered which I absolutely hate. My opinions of the two women changed quite a bit in the first few chapters and I didn't like either of them, as it went on I found myself feeling for Mona and total disgust for Theodora. It will be interesting to see how they were received by other readers. For the most part this book has had high praise and great ratings so I would definitely recommend it to people, for me though there was more I disliked that I actually liked. 2/5 for me this time, first time reading this author and despite not loving this book, I would read her again.

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Review - Still Missing by Chevy Stevens

Still Missing by Chevy Stevens
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Time Taken To Read - 3 days

Blurb From Amazon

On the day she was abducted, Annie O’Sullivan, a 32-year-old realtor, had three goals—sell a house, forget about a recent argument with her mother, and be on time for dinner with her ever-patient boyfriend. The open house is slow, but when her last visitor pulls up in a van as she's about to leave, Annie thinks it just might be her lucky day after all.

Interwoven with the story of the year Annie spent as the captive of a psychopath in a remote mountain cabin, which unfolds through sessions with her psychiatrist, is a second narrative recounting events following her escape—her struggle to piece her shattered life back together and the ongoing police investigation into the identity of her captor.

My Review

Annie Sullivan is your ordinary working girl, family arguments, a job she loves and a nice boyfriend. Thinking she is just about to sell another house and celebrate with her boyfriend, fate plays a terrifying card and everything Annie knew is now gone. Kidnapped, alone, scared and everything is about to get a whole lot worse - Annie is trapped with nowhere to run and no answers as to why she is suddenly in Hell on earth.

I loved the first 3 quarters of this book, and I mean loved - I was totally hooked! The book is written in sessions (like a diary form) to her "shrink", going from before the kidnap, to present day, to just after the kidnap. The story is written so well it grips you from the start and you hold your breath and even forget to breath out during some of it as you get so drawn in.

However in the last quarter things that happen just were a little to unrealistic (coming from a zombie/horror lover I realize how contradictory this sounds) but it did ruin it for me a fair bit. Also the conclusion and wrap up, I had some issues swallowing that too - it still makes for a good read and worth picking up, I am sure some people will love it but for me I was a tad disappointed considering how fantastic it started out. The author catches the psychological side of it perfectly and when I couldn't continue reading (life getting in the way), I did find myself thinking what is going to happen next. I would definitely read this author again and for a first book she has done a great job, I just wish the last part had stayed as good as the first 3 quarters, 3/5 for me.

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