Thanks for the Memories by Cecelia Ahern

 

Synopsis :

How can you know someone you’ve never met?

Joyce Conway remembers things she shouldn't. She knows about tiny cobbled streets in Paris, which she has never visited. And every night she dreams about an unknown little girl with blonde hair.

Justin Hitchcock is divorced, lonely and restless. He arrives in Dublin to give a lecture on art and meets an attractive doctor, who persuades him to donate blood. It's the first thing to come straight from his heart in a long time.

When Joyce leaves hospital after a terrible accident, with her life and her marriage in pieces, she moves back in with her elderly father. All the while, a strong sense of déjà vu is overwhelming her and she can't figure out why … 

This is what I say :

Cecelia Ahern delivers when it comes to interesting and unexpected whimsical plot.  Thanks for the Memories is no difference.  There's something magical in what she wrote and I meant that literally and figuratively.  That's her magic formula I think, to take something ordinary like blood donation (in this case) and something simple like missing socks in A Place Called Here and turn it into something magical through her writing.

Joyce and Justin never really met except for a short while  in the har saloon but the story is about them and they only met like towards the end of the story.  I can't say I really like the plot.  I would have like it better if he know how she felt and what she went through instead of just her knowing how he felt and what he went through.  I also didn't like it when he didn't turn up for the opera and went to the dinner date instead.  I didn't like it when he told her off on the phone and left her feeling sad (even though he made up for it.).

It's not my favourite title out of Cecelia's titles that I have read over the years but it's not the worst either.

The Ice Child by Camilla Lackberg

 

Synopsis :

SEE NO EVIL
It’s January in the peaceful seaside resort of Fjällbacka. A semi-naked girl wanders through the woods in freezing cold weather. When she finally reaches the road, a car comes out of nowhere. It doesn’t manage to stop.

HEAR NO EVIL
The victim, a girl who went missing four months ago, has been subjected to unimaginably brutal treatment – and Detective Patrik Hedström suspects this is just the start.

SPEAK NO EVIL
The police soon discover that three other girls are missing from nearby towns, but there are no fresh leads. And when Patrik’s wife stumbles across a link to an old murder case, the detective is forced to see his investigation in a whole new light. 

This is what I say :

First of all, it wasn't really a young child that was described in sypnosis above and as shown in the cover image.  It was a girl, a teenage girl and the title The Ice Child...I have a feeling it wasn't referring to her but to the child of years ago.

That musing aside, I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Ice Child.  I read it over the weekend when I was quarantined at home awaiting the result of a family member who came in contact with a covid positive person.  Thank God the family member was cleared of covid and while it was a stressful weekend, it was good to direct the tension into the book.

This is the 9th installment in the series of Erika and Patrik, wife's a nosy writer and husband's a police investigator extraordinaire and as both are good in getting cases solved.  This happened months after the incidents of Buried Angels .

Camilla Lackberg is just amazing in her plot development and I think this is a winner too.  She is just so good in lacing all characters and different plots together and then at the end of the book, even right up to the last chapter, she would throw a whammy that causes one to recoil back in surprise and in the book, she did just that when we are least expecting it.  

I thoroughly enjoyed The Ice Child.  Next is The Girl In The Woods.  Let me take a breather and be back with that review soon.

In the meantime, stay safe.

Buried Angels by Camilla Lackberg

 

Synopsis :

Easter, 1974. A family vanishes without a trace from the island of Valö outside of Fjällbacka. The dinner table has been exquisitely set, but everyone except the one year-old daughter Ebba is gone. Are they victims of a crime or have they voluntarily disappeared?

Years later Ebba returns to the island and the old summer camp where her father ruled a boarding school with an iron hand. She and her husband Marten have recently lost their three year-old son, and in an attempt to overcome their grief they have decided to renovate the house and open a B&B.

They've barely settled in before they are subjected to an attempt of arson. And when they begin to remove the floor boards in the dining room, they find dried blood underneath ... 

This is what I say :

First of all, just to be clear, there's another title for this book which is The Angelmaker's Wife.  Also readers must be aware that the author is Swedish and this title was originally written in Swedish and subsequently translated to English.  Also, Although this is an independent title/story, it is the eighth book in the universe of Erica and Patrik.  As such, there's no so much character development to some of the main characters in the books especially friends, families and colleagues of Erica and Patrik as their background story would have been told over the other seven earlier titles.

I last read the earlier titles was when I kinda marathon over the titles over a few months about two years ago.  They were physical paper-bag version which I have since passed them onto a friend who also enjoys what Camilla writes.

I read Buried Angels and the subsequent titles The Ice Child as an e-book through my mobile devises.  I read Buried Angels over the weekend and took me about four days to finish all the chapters.  Camilla just gets better and better and while The Lost Boy will be my favourite title, Buried Angels is not far behind.  

As usual, Camilla surprised me plot and while certain storyline was quite easy to guess, especially on who 'G' was, the other storyline was quite unexpected.  I was quite exasperate with Erica as she can be over zealous in her curiosity and put herself and others in danger.  

All in all, it was a great re-introduction back to the work produced by Camilla Lackburg.