The Cuckoo's Calling (Cormoran Strike #1) by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling)

After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, and creditors are calling. He has also just broken up with his longtime girlfriend and is living in his office.

Then John Bristow walks through his door with an amazing story: His sister, the legendary supermodel Lula Landry, known to her friends as the Cuckoo, famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that. The case plunges Strike into the world of multimillionaire beauties, rock-star boyfriends, and desperate designers, and it introduces him to every variety of pleasure, enticement, seduction, and delusion known to man.

You may think you know detectives, but you've never met one quite like Strike. You may think you know about the wealthy and famous, but you've never seen them under an investigation like this.

Introducing Cormoran Strike, this is the acclaimed first crime novel by J.K. Rowling, writing under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

I really enjoyed this book! It was suspenseful and kept me guessing to the very end; the characters were engaging and life-like; and, for me, the story story flowed well with no boring or slow bits.

The only part where the book lost me was the very last couple of pages, I didn't get how the final poem fit in, obviously I was just missing something.

I haven't read the Casual Vacancy, but I didn't feel like I was reading a Harry Potter book at all - if I didn't know Robert Galbraith was a pseudonym I would never have known it was J.K Rowling.

Definitely worth reading if you are a fan of murder mystery stories. 

The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin

Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. "The days are long, but the years are short," she realized. "Time is passing, and I'm not focusing enough on the things that really matter." In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project.

In this lively and compelling account of that year, Rubin carves out her place alongside the authors of bestselling memoirs such as Julie and Julia, The Year of Living Biblically, and Eat, Pray, Love. With humor and insight, she chronicles her adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier.

Rubin didn't have the option to uproot herself, nor did she really want to; instead she focused on improving her life as it was. Each month she tackled a new set of resolutions: give proofs of love, ask for help, find more fun, keep a gratitude notebook, forget about results. She immersed herself in principles set forth by all manner of experts, from Epicurus to Thoreau to Oprah to Martin Seligman to the Dalai Lama to see what worked for her—and what didn't.

Her conclusions are sometimes surprising—she finds that money can buy happiness, when spent wisely; that novelty and challenge are powerful sources of happiness; that "treating" yourself can make you feel worse; that venting bad feelings doesn't relieve them; that the very smallest of changes can make the biggest difference—and they range from the practical to the profound.

Written with charm and wit, The Happiness Project is illuminating yet entertaining, thought-provoking yet compulsively readable. Gretchen Rubin's passion for her subject jumps off the page, and reading just a few chapters of this book will inspire you to start your own happiness project.

I made the almost-fatal error of reading some other reviews before I started reading this book and I was a little wary going in to it, (I HATED Eat, Pray Love and have never felt the need to ready any other ‘self-help’ books before) so once I started and got hooked I was glad I didn’t let some of the really negative comments that I had read stop me.

Rubin is up-front from the beginning about her reasons as to why she felt the need to start a Happiness Project, and it’s something I can relate to – for me it I took it to be about becoming more grateful for what I have and appreciating the moment, rather than needing to overcome depression or a major trauma in my life, if this is what you are looking for then perhaps this isn’t the book for you as you might find it a little patronising or ‘self-absorbed’.

I found the idea interesting from the first page, and I liked Rubin’s approach – personally as someone who makes powerpoint presentations on upcoming holidays and detailed spreadsheets for everything, her list-making and Resolutions seemed like something I would be able to follow and easily stick to if I was ever going to initiate a Happiness Project of my own. Although I get that this isn’t going to work for everyone, so does Rubin, and she offers these as a guide to get you thinking about how you yourself would make it work for you and your own personality/situation.

It included LOTS of research and quotes throughout from various philosophers, psychologists and other authors. Some of the ideas in this book were really insightful and new, some so obvious it made me wonder why I’d never put too much thought in to it before, and others would plainly never work for me, again, its not a bible to follow but a tool to get you thinking about what makes you happy and how you can be more conscious to appreciate it in every day life when it is so easy to take for granted. I would have liked to see some reference links to some of the study results mentioned in here eg “having strong relationships lengthens your life more than stopping smoking”. 

I even learnt some new words from reading this book (eg I had no idea what a gewgaws was until now!), so you might need to keep a dictionary handy every now and then.

All in all its worth giving a go to see if this might be something that works for you – although there were no earth-shattering realisations for me after I finished reading it, it did definitely make me more aware of my communication with others and want to improve my overall attitude when daily life can sometimes make you blasé.

The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty

“None of us ever know all the possible courses our lives could have and maybe should have taken. It's probably just as well. Some secrets are meant to stay secret forever. Just ask Pandora.” 

My darling Cecilia, if you’re reading this, then I’ve died...

Imagine that your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret—something with the potential to destroy not just the life you built together, but the lives of others as well. Imagine, then, that you stumble across that letter while your husband is still very much alive. . . .
Cecilia Fitzpatrick has achieved it all—she’s an incredibly successful businesswoman, a pillar of her small community, and a devoted wife and mother. Her life is as orderly and spotless as her home. But that letter is about to change everything, and not just for her: Rachel and Tess barely know Cecilia—or each other—but they too are about to feel the earth-shattering repercussions of her husband’s secret.

Acclaimed author Liane Moriarty has written a gripping, thought-provoking novel about how well it is really possible to know our spouses—and, ultimately, ourselves.

This book would be a good holiday read - it was an easy lighthearted read with nothing too heavy or complicated going on, but just enough romance, mystery and drama too keep you wanting to read more.

It had three main female characters that had different stories which were pretty easy to follow, but I didn't guess the twist ending and how all the stories intertwined until the end of the book.

You will enjoy this book if you are a fan of chick-lit such as Sophie Kinsella, but not quite up to the quality of Jojo Moyes or Jodi Picoult.

Six Years by Harlan Coben

… “Amazing what we can self-rationalize when we really want something” 

Six years have passed since Jake Sanders watched Natalie, the love of his life, marry another man. Six years of hiding a broken heart by throwing himself into his career as a college professor. Six years of keeping his promise to leave Natalie alone, and six years of tortured dreams of her life with her new husband, Todd.

But six years haven't come close to extinguishing his feelings, and when Jake comes across Todd's obituary, he can't keep himself away from the funeral. There he gets the glimpse of Todd's wife he's hoping for . . . but she is not Natalie. Whoever the mourning widow is, she's been married to Todd for more than a decade, and with that fact everything Jake thought he knew about the best time of his life - a time he has never gotten over - is turned completely inside out.

As Jake searches for the truth, his picture-perfect memories of Natalie begin to unravel. Mutual friends of the couple either can't be found or don't remember Jake. No one has seen Natalie in years. Jake's search for the woman who broke his heart - and who lied to him - soon puts his very life at risk as it dawns on him that the man he has become may be based on carefully constructed fiction.

“Part of the human condition is that we all think that we are uniquely complex while everyone else is somewhat simpler to read. That is not true, of course. We all have our own dreams and hopes and wants and lust and heartaches. We all have our own brand of crazy” 

WOW! … I still am suffering from a book-hangover from this book - I literally read it all in one day and am sitting here stunned still processing everything that happened.

What I liked most about this book was that even when I was 50% of the way through, I still hadn't figured out what the "big plot twist" was going to be. Usually with thriller style books, you can can form at least an idea around what the outcome is going to be, but with this book, I was left unsure and speculating right up until the very last pages. 

There was a lot going on in this storyline, with many different characters, but it was written with a great writing style so that it was never too confusing and I wasn't left behind with a plot that moved too fast. I found it easy to read and it left my biting my nails to the very end.

Some people might find the lasting-love-without-contact-for-six-years a little far-fetched, but it is written in such a way that it makes you believe it (and those doubters are obviously unlucky enough to have never experienced it themselves in the first place then…)

I don't remember if I have read other Harlan Coben books before, but after finishing Six Years he is definitely a writer that I will be seeking out more from.

Boy: Tales of Childhood (Roald Dahl Autobiography #1) by Roald Dahl

A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul and that I am sure is why he does it.” 

In Boy, Roald Dahl recounts his days as a child growing up in England. From his years as a prankster at boarding school to his envious position as a chocolate tester for Cadbury's, Roald Dahl's boyhood was as full of excitement and the unexpected as are his world-famous, best-selling books. Packed with anecdotes -- some funny, some painful, all interesting -- this is a book that's sure to please.

This book was recommended to my by a good friend to read while I was on holidays, and I wasn't really sure what to expect when I started reading - I guess I thought it was going to be a story as to how Roald Dahl came up with the characters and stories he wrote that I grew up with. Instead I got to read about HIS fascinating early life growing up. And it honestly really is fascinating! You just don't get to experience life quite the way you got to back then - so many opportunities, and being a young child then is so different to what it is now.

Boy is easy to read and you get the gist that even early on Dahl had a wicked sense of humour. This autobiography has Dahl growing up with his family, going to boarding school, and you leave just as he gets his first job after school has finished. There are hints about his time in the war and overseas, but I know I will get the next book so I can find out all the details. 

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

 “Later, I would come to think of those first days as the time when we learned as a species that we had worried over the wrong things: the hole in the ozone layer, the melting of the ice caps, West Nile and swine flu and killer bees. But I guess it never is what you worry over that comes to pass in the end. The real catastrophes are always different—unimagined, unprepared for, unknown.” 

Luminous, haunting, unforgettable, The Age of Miracles is a stunning fiction debut by a superb new writer, a story about coming of age during extraordinary times, about people going on with their lives in an era of profound uncertainty.

On a seemingly ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, 11-year-old Julia and her family awake to discover, along with the rest of the world, that the rotation of the earth has suddenly begun to slow. The days and nights grow longer and longer, gravity is affected, the environment is thrown into disarray. Yet as she struggles to navigate an ever-shifting landscape, Julia is also coping with the normal disasters of everyday life--the fissures in her parents’ marriage, the loss of old friends, the hopeful anguish of first love, the bizarre behavior of her grandfather who, convinced of a government conspiracy, spends his days obsessively cataloging his possessions. As Julia adjusts to the new normal, the slowing inexorably continues.

With spare, graceful prose and the emotional wisdom of a born storyteller, Karen Thompson Walker has created a singular narrator in Julia, a resilient and insightful young girl, and a moving portrait of family life set against the backdrop of an utterly altered world.

From looking at the overall rating of this book I didn't really very high expectations, so maybe that is why I enjoyed it so much!

Not only did I find the storyline interesting - a doomsday coming of age from a new perspective - but I found the writing style of Walker made it so much more engaging, her words and juxtapositions easily brought to mind the images and emotions needed to get involved with the story on the page.

When you read the blurb on the back cover it doesn't sound like it, but make no mistake, this is a YA apocalyptic novel, so if that's not usually your style then you're probably not going to enjoy it for more than a few chapters. 

Although I don't think it's the main intention, this book also brings up some pretty good concerns about the environment and the lasting effects of our modern lifestyles. And when I was reading it I could't help but think about how much was a prediction of things to come, and how would we react if something similar really did happen in our lifetime. I also found really interesting how the slow death of humans was very similar to the death of the earth - we see ourselves as slightly more intelligent but in the end the truth is that we are just as susceptible to death as every other living thing on this planet. 

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

“There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.” 

Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.

A really great book, as incredibly sad as it was witty and even hopeful.

John Green nailed the teenage perspective, and I can only assume the terminally ill teenage perspective.

It's not a long book, so definitely worth the read.