The Hospital by Leslie Wolfe

The Hospital by Leslie Wolfe
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 2 days

Pages - 322

Publisher - Bookouture

Source - Review copy & bought one

Blurb from Goodreads

I should feel safe here. I don’t.

I thought I had it all. The loving husband I married on a beach, sand between my toes. The career I fought for. The beautiful home tucked away between pines and mountains.

But my perfect life crumbled when my husband betrayed me. And then it started. Everywhere I went, someone was following me… But no one believed me. Were they right? Was I losing my mind?

Then, one day, I wake up with a searing pain in my head, and only the sound of sirens and distant conversations to pierce my confusion.

I’ve been attacked. I’m in the hospital.

It should be reassuring. But all I can think is: I’m trapped.

I must escape. But I know I can’t trust anyone, and I’ll do whatever it takes to save myself.

You will never see the twists coming in this jaw-on-the-floor gasp-out-loud rollercoaster from the no.1 bestselling author of The Surgeon. Fans of Freida McFadden, Lisa Jewell and Shari Lapena won’t be able to put it down!



My Review

She is running, she is injured, she wakes in a hospital, unable to move, unable to see - she can talk but that is about it. She knows she was attacked and she knows she isn't safe, how can she protect herself when she doesn't know who hurt her and can't get her body to move.

So the book bounces between the main character Emma confined to a hospital bed, immobile and we hear from the bad guy, the person who committed the atrocity against Emma and they are OBSESSED! So we know Emma was assaulted and almost died and now is essentially locked in, cared for around the clock, frustrated with her lack of memory and her body's brokenness. We bounce around as she grasps for her memories, tries to get any kind of movement going and frantically find out who is after her.

I did take a bit to settle into the book as the narrator is so unreliable, she has a traumatic brain injury so we are finding out about her as she is. Things jump around a bit which I found a wee bit distracting but I think it adds strength to the character, you are meant to be unsettled and frustrated because she is and it is her story. I had suspicious/guesses galore, I was a bit like when watching an episode of Murder She Wrote lol, I have about twenty theories so one ought to stick!

Some shady characters, cheating, manipulation, frustration, health/recovery (or lack of) and processing her past as it is all coming back to her slowly as she is confined to body and bed. I would say the last quarter really came into its own so I was back and fourth on my rating. I am going for 3.5/5 (I added the .5 because the later part really was WOW, well for me anyway). This was my first by this author, it won't be my last.

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Dying For Christmas by Tamar Cohen

Dying For Christmas by Tammy Cohen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 3 days

Publisher - Black Swan

Pages - 393

Blurb from Goodreads

I am missing. Held captive by a blue-eyed stranger. To mark the twelve days of Christmas, he gives me a gift every day, each more horrible than the last. The twelfth day is getting closer. After that, there'll be no more Christmas cheer for me. No mince pies, no carols. No way out .

But I have a secret. No-one has guessed it. Will you?


My Review

Well this is a weird and creepy little tale. Jessica Gold is our main character, along with her captor and Kim the investigating officer of Jessica's disappearance. The story splits into two, the before, the immediate events prior to the kidnapping and that which follows after. When we are at the before with Jessica in captivity, it is claustrophobic in parts and the tension and fear is palpable. The after, I felt a little frustrating as I wanted things moving faster to get to what had transpired.

Jessica is hard to understand, you wonder why anyone would do as she does, however as the story evolves you get a better understanding of her character which helps try and see where she is coming from. Kim, the officer is a bit harder to understand, the whole situation with her family life and the drive for her job, when you see the cost in regards to her family I just didn't get at all.

The book captures you fairly early on and as much as parts frustrated me, I found it hard to put down. I have read Cohen before and will read her again, if you haven't read her yet this maybe isn't the one to start with, some love it, some hate it, I am in between as I did like however there were a few things that irked me so 3/5 for me this time.

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