#BookHaul: October 2017

~ Janel (Keeper of Pages)

You know what time it is – it’s book haul time! A rather modest haul this month, compared to previous months but I won some amazing giveaways, which I’ll feature. I signed up to a 60 day Kindle Unlimited trial, so I think that curbed my hauling as some books I was going to buy were available there, whether I’ll read them before the trial is up is anybody’s guess. I also got my first auto-approve on Netgalley from Bookouture, which blew my mind (I mean come on, they published the Erika Foster series!)

Review Copies:

Cops Lie! by Leonard Love Matlick (thank you Book Publicity Services)

Cops Lie by Leonard Love Matlick

NYPD Officer Charles Griffin, a known drunk, a notorious bully, and dirty cop is involved in stealing drugs and money. When an accident with an 18 wheeler kills him, one other cop, and leaves two other cops in critical condition, Detective Tony Philadelphia, a homicide detective from the 9th precinct, is tasked with finding out what happened…

Netgalley Copies:

White Bodies by Jane Robins (thank you HQ)

White Bodies - Jane Robins

Sometimes we love too much

Callie loves Tilda. She’s her sister, after all. And she’s beautiful and successful.

Tilda loves Felix. He’s her husband. Successful and charismatic, he is also controlling, suspicious and, possibly, dangerous. Still, Tilda loves Felix.

And Callie loves Tilda. Very, very much.

So she’s determined to save her. But the cost could destroy them all…

Carnivore by Jonathan Lyon (thank you HQ)

Carnivore - Jonathan Lyon

Meet Leander: lover, fighter, liar.

He learnt a long time ago that nothing is as intoxicating as blood. But whether it’s his of someone else’s doesn’t matter any more. There’s a mysterious pain in every muscle of his body – and it’s got so bad that he’ll do anything to escape it.

Up to now, it’s been his secret. But it’s hard to remain invisible when you leave a trail of destruction everywhere you do go. So, when he comes to the attention of one of London’s most infamous criminals, Leander decides to put his appetite for violence to the ultimate test.

Let the villain win.

Lie to Me by J. T. Ellison (thank you HQ Digital)

Lie to Me by J. T. Ellison

You are going to despise me.

 I am the rot that lives in the floorboards of your house. I am the spider that scuttles away when you shine a light in the corner, ever watching, ever waiting. I am the shard of glass that slits the skin of your bare foot. I am all the bad things that happen to you.

 I steal things. I kill things. I hope you enjoy the show.’

They built a life on lies…

Sutton and Ethan Montclair seem like the perfect couple. But dark secrets hide behind closed doors. Then, one night, Sutton vanishes…

All that she leaves behind is a note telling Ethan not to look for her. As the police investigate Sutton’s disappearance, the lies the couple have been spinning for years begin to unravel.

Could Ethan have killed his wife? Did Sutton kill the child they never wanted? And will they uncover the truth before it’s too late?

The Girl from the Sugar Plantation by Sharon Maas (thank you Bookouture)

The Girl from the Sugar Plantation - Sharon Mass

1934, Georgetown.

All her life, Mary Grace has wanted to know the truth about who her parents really are. As the mixed-race daughter of two white plantation owners, her childhood has been clouded by whispered rumours, and the circumstances of her birth have been kept a closely guarded secret… 

Aunt Winnie is the only person Mary Grace can confide in. Feeling lost and lonely, her place in society uncertain, Mary Grace decides to forge her own path in the world. And she finds herself unexpectedly falling for charming and affluent Jock Campbell, a planter with revolutionary ideas.

Force of Nature by Jane Harper (thank you Little, Brown)

Force of Nature by Jane Harper.png

FIVE WENT OUT. FOUR CAME BACK…

Is Alice here? Did she make it? Is she safe? In the chaos, in the night, it was impossible to say which of the four had asked after Alice’s welfare. Later, when everything got worse, each would insist it had been them.

Five women reluctantly pick up their backpacks and start walking along the muddy track. Only four come out the other side.

The hike through the rugged landscape is meant to take the office colleagues out of their air-conditioned comfort zone and teach resilience and team building. At least that is what the corporate retreat website advertises.

Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk has a particularly keen interest in the whereabouts of the missing bushwalker. Alice Russell is the whistleblower in his latest case – and Alice knew secrets. About the company she worked for and the people she worked with.

Far from the hike encouraging teamwork, the women tell Falk a tale of suspicion, violence and disintegrating trust. And as he delves into the disappearance, it seems some dangers may run far deeper than anyone knew.

** Total Netgalley copies to read: 9

** Total review copies to read: 17

Giveaways:

The Blind by A. F. Brady (thank you @NadirasWorld)

The Blind - A.F. Brady

Every morning, psychiatrist Sam James gets up at six forty-five. She has a shower, drinks a cup of coffee, then puts on her make-up.

She ignores the empty bottles piling up by her door.

On this particular morning, Sam is informed of a new patient’s arrival at Manhattan’s most notorious institution. Reputed to be deranged and dangerous, Richard is just the kind of impossible case Sam has built her reputation on. She is certain that she is the right doctor to treat such a difficult patient.

But then Sam meets Richard. And Richard seems totally sane.

Let the mind games begin.

Fractured by Catherine McKenzie (thank you @BlackHeartReads)

Fracture - Catherine McKenzie

Welcome, neighbor!

Julie Prentice and her family move across the country to the idyllic Mount Adams district of Cincinnati, hoping to evade the stalker who’s been terrorizing them ever since the publication of her bestselling novel, The Murder Game. Since Julie doesn’t know anyone in her new town, when she meets her neighbor John Dunbar, their instant connection brings measured hope for a new beginning. But she never imagines that a simple, benign conversation with him could set her life spinning so far off course.

We know where you live…

After a series of misunderstandings, Julie and her family become the target of increasingly unsettling harassment. Has Julie’s stalker found her, or are her neighbors out to get her, too? As tension in the neighborhood rises, new friends turn into enemies, and the results are deadly.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (thank you @BlackHeartReads)

The Glass Castle - Jeannette Walls

This is a startling memoir of a successful journalist’s journey from the deserted and dusty mining towns of the American Southwest, to an antique filled apartment on Park Avenue. Jeanette Walls narrates her nomadic and adventurous childhood with her dreaming, ‘brilliant’ but alcoholic parents.

At the age of seventeen she escapes on a Greyhound bus to New York with her older sister; her younger siblings follow later. After pursuing the education and civilisation her parents sought to escape, Jeanette eventually succeeds in her quest for the ‘mundane, middle class existence’ she had always craved. In her apartment, overlooked by ‘a portrait of someone else’s ancestor’ she recounts poignant remembered images of star watching with her father, juxtaposed with recollections of irregular meals, accidents and police-car chases and reveals her complex feelings of shame, guilt, pity and pride toward her parents.

Lies She Told by Cate Holahan (thank you @readingbetweenthe__wines)

Lies She Told - Cate Holahan

The truth can be darker than fiction.

Liza Cole, a once-successful novelist whose career has seen better days, has one month to write the thriller that could land her back on the bestseller list. Meanwhile, she’s struggling to start a family, but her husband is distracted by the disappearance of his best friend, Nick. As stresses weigh her down in her professional and personal lives, Liza escapes into writing the chilling exploits of her latest heroine, Beth.

Beth, a new mother, suspects her husband is cheating on her while she’s home caring for their newborn. Angry and betrayed, she aims to catch him in the act and make him pay for shattering the illusion of their perfect life. But before she realizes what she’s doing, she’s tossing the body of her husband’s mistress into the East River.

Then, the lines between Liza’s fiction and her reality eerily blur. Nick’s body is dragged from the East River, and Liza’s husband is arrested for his murder. Before her deadline is up, Liza will have to face up to the truths about the people around her, including her own. If she doesn’t, the end of her heroine’s story could be the end of her own.

Reading Journal and £10 Amazon Gift Voucher (thank you The Book Review Cafe)

Reading Log

Butterfly Necklace and Notebook, and £10 Amazon Gift Voucher (thank you @sarahlou_writes)

Butterfly notebook and necklace.JPG

Book Swaps:

Little Sister by Isabel Ashdown (thank you I Loved Reading This)

Little Sister - Isabel Ashdown

After sixteen years apart sisters Jessica and Emily are reunited. With the past now behind them, the warmth they once shared quickly returns and before long Jess has moved into Emily’s comfortable island home. Life couldn’t be better. But when baby Daisy disappears while in Jess’s care, the perfect life Emily has so carefully built starts to fall apart.

Was Emily right to trust her sister after everything that happened before?

Hide and Seek: DI Helen Grace 6 by M. J. Arlidge (thank you I Loved Reading This)

Hide and Seek - M.. J. Arlidge

Prison is no place for a detective
Helen Grace was one of the country’s best police investigators.
Now she’s behind bars with the killers she caught.

Framed for murder
She knows there is only way out:
stay alive until her trial and somehow prove her innocence.

Locked up with a killer
But when a mutilated body is found in the cell next door,
Helen fears her days are numbered.

A murderer is on the loose.
And she must find them.
Before she’s next . . .

On Loan:

The Death House by Sarah Pinborough (on loan from Book Bum)

The Death House - Sarah Pinborough

This is an exceptional, contemporary, heart-breaking novel.

Toby’s life was perfectly normal . . . until it was unravelled by something as simple as a blood test.

Taken from his family, Toby now lives in the Death House; an out-of-time existence far from the modern world, where he, and the others who live there, are studied by Matron and her team of nurses. They’re looking for any sign of sickness. Any sign of their wards changing. Any sign that it’s time to take them to the sanatorium.

Kindle Freebie:

Games People Play by Owen Mullen

Games People Play - Owen Mullen

Thirteen-month-old Lily Hamilton is abducted from Ayr beach in Scotland while her parents are just yards away.

Three days later the distraught father turns up at private investigator Charlie Cameron’s office. Mark Hamilton believes he knows who has stolen his daughter. And why.

Against his better judgment Charlie gets involved in the case and when more bodies are discovered the awful truth dawns: there is a serial killer whose work has gone undetected for decades.

Is baby Lily the latest victim of a madman?

For Charlie it’s too late, he can’t let go.

His demons won’t let him.

** Total owned books to read: 302

And that’s October’s book haul! And what makes it so impressive is that, only after writing this post did I realise, I didn’t actually buy a single book this month – and I’m not even on a book-buying ban!

Do any of the above books take your fancy?

Did we haul any of the same books?

Published by Janel (Keeper of Pages)

Blogging about books and other bookish ramblings

37 thoughts on “#BookHaul: October 2017”

    1. Well you see, it was there on NG, and I thought it’d be rude not too! Although I probably won’t get around to reading it till the hardback comes out 😂

      I look forward to your review, it’s one of my planned Nov books and I’ve heard nothing but good things, I have super high expectations lol!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  2. Lots of great titles here! I have White Bodies, and Lies She Told to read! I recently finished Lie To Me. I need to check out the Kindle trial!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. NG has had some fab sounding books listed recently. I hope your review for Lie To Me is a glowing one bcos I’m scheduled to read it next month, lol!
      I love free trials but I always forget to cancel them, until they take a payment and I’m reminded 🙈😂

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  3. I have a copy of Cops Lie this week and also picked up Hide and Seek at the library so am looking forward to reading that. I read Lie to Me earlier this month and really enjoyed it but loved Fractured, McKenzie is one of my favourite authors.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I remember seeing quite a few reviews for Fractured and it’s one I’ve been wanting to read for ages! Everyone that’s read Lie to Me seems to have really enjoyed it, I plan to read it next month. Ooo, I’ll keep an eye out for your review of Cops Lie, I’ve heard little about it but I like the sound of it 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    1. Right, I didn’t do too badly lol. The struggle is deciding which books to buy from Amazon lol.

      I’ve seen mixed reviews for The Blind but I love the sound of it too so I’m hoping I can squeeze it in next month.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    1. I’ve been super lucky this month with giveaways! The Girl from the Sugar Plantation isn’t something I’d immediately be drawn to but it’s set in Georgetown and my dad was born there so it has that personal pull lol.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  7. These all look very interesting!
    Question, what exactly is a book haul? Sorry Novice here. Are these books you received this past month? Or are these books that you have read and need to review?
    Thanks
    Chill mom

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Yep it’s a collection of all the books I’ve received this month (bought, won, review copies, netgalley copies, etc). I do a post at the end of every month showcasing all the new books that came into my life, some bloggers do a weekly post instead of a monthly one.

      And, welcome to the blogging world. Feel free to ask any questions, although I’m by no means an expert lol

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. Thanks. I think I’m getting the hang of the blogging, but netgalley is new to me. I have started a book today, and then I will post my review here and on netgalley. Would love fo you to take a look at it and let me know what you think!
        Have a good day!

        Liked by 1 person

      3. Awesome. I enjoy your blog and look forward to seeing more book hauls. Maybe next month I will have one of my own!
        happy Blogging!

        Liked by 1 person

    1. I must admit, I was drawn in by the title and the exclamation mark giving it that extra emphasis lol. I’m rereading the Helen Grace series with my friend. We’re on book three atm but I’m looking forward to the later books as I’ll be reading them for the first time 😊

      Like

      Reply

    1. I’m excited for Force of Nature too, seeing what Falk is up to now lol.

      I love that every now and again Bloodhound Books makes some of their ebooks available for free, I’ve built quite a collection. I remember the blog tour for Games People Play so I’m glad to have a copy, it’s the same old problem though, finding the time to read it lol

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. I did! I thought they did a pretty good job of bringing it to life. Worth watching it for sure!
        There were some differences and they will jump out to you more than they did for me because I read it so long ago my memory of the details had faded a bit. I really should have reread it, but I just didn’t have time.

        Liked by 1 person

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