When Lions Roar by Karen Gruber

 

When Lions Roar is a mixed bag of a book. We start off in Maggie’s story which is a horrific tale of spousal abuse and alcoholism and the shining light that is her daughter Hannah. When her husband is transferred and they have to uproot their lives and move to South Africa, Maggie is terrified. Her days become a numb blur of alcohol and the same things happening over and over until one day she wakes up to find her daughter missing. With their current location being in the bush, anything could have happened to her. Maggie sits at a crossroads now to decide whether she is incapable of carrying on once she realises what her life has become, or whether she is strong enough to pick up the pieces and make herself whole again.
On the other side, we have a fable-type story from the wildlife’s perspective and it’s a tale as old as time itself: love, greed, deception, and courage. And forefront to this story is The Golden Creature – one who will right the wrongs and bring about peace and unity once more. Little did they know that the human Hannah would be the one they needed.
Will Hannah help them end the tyranny lurking around every corner? And will Maggie ever see Hannah again?

It was very strange to read both tales as it honestly seemed as though they were two completely different stories side by side. Both tugged at my heartstrings in different ways and yet the deep thread running through both was the feeling of having reached rock bottom and not knowing whether or not the courage was there to rise up and carry on. Interspersed were snippets of possible new beginnings, people helping others for the sheer sake of helping, and different cultures experiencing the same basic relationship issues and how they chose to deal with them.

There were a few questions like what really happened to Hannah while missing and why her husband reacted as he did at the end, but the telling of each was simple and true.

While not the most riveting book ever written, and with characters not quite achieving being fleshed out fully, its quiet moral and teachings of resilience resound.

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

 

Alicia Berenson has not uttered a word since she allegedly killed her husband. That has to mean she is guilty, right? Who wouldn’t defend themselves if they were innocent? But why would she do it? She is a successful painter married to an also successful fashion photographer and by all accounts they seemed happy and in love.

Theo Faber, a psychotherapist, has decided to make it his life’s mission to get her to talk. But to do this he needs to get a position at the institute she is in and somehow make her trust him enough to open up. After being accepted at the Grove, Theo starts to do his own investigations into what happened and finds something out that he thinks the police might have missed. She may have been stalked just before the murder.

So… I was pulled in by the hype and the promise of a blow-your-mind thriller. It started off well and got me thinking, but then it got to the point where stopping to think or question something made me annoyed because it pulled me out of the reading. And it was happening far too often.

You have the story told via Alicia’s diary entries (very odd entries as she records conversations word for word and in direct speech, and even when she thinks her house is being broken into, she is still filling in her diary) and Theo’s experiences. This supposedly adds to the teaser on the way to the twist but so much doesn’t actually align.

Then in the story you have psychiatrists changing meds randomly without a withdrawal process, no real policies and procedures regarding patient care, dodgy medication sales that barely get attention, mental disorders being called illnesses, and medical staff calling patients “bitches” and “crazy”.

There are loads of little sub-plots meant to direct you in certain ways but they become irritating when they don’t get finished. And then simple things like “action sequences” where someone gets hit over the head with a baseball bat and suffers no injuries or someone gets injected with enough meds to drop a rhino but still finishes managing to write an incriminating document. Just no.

I did not like the stereotyping throughout, not only of appearances, but also personality traits.

I do love a good psychological thriller and this was definitely not one of those. Closer to the middle the answer is obvious and I found the tie in connection to the painting very, very thin. The reason she was silent is just not believable and when you turn the last page you are left wanting.

The Marvelous Misfits of Westminster by Andrea Hahnfeld

 

Irving is a dog who hunts shadows. And the prophecy about where and when to find them lies in the pattern on the body of one who has escaped from flames. Sounds a bit odd, right? It gets odder.

Clement has been asked to judge a dog show at Westminster once again. He never thought he’d get another chance after a previous infamous decision. This time, apparently, he is meant to judge the Best in Show and how Irving even made it into the competition he’ll never know. After meeting Irving’s human parents, Clement has the very foundation of his understanding rocked, when he learns what has to be done to save someone he loved. This could change his life and hers forever, so can he suspend disbelief enough to trust in a process that has been working in secret for hundreds of years?

Who doesn’t need a quick story about a hero dog? The premise sounded intriguing but I will admit that I was a little confused after reading the first page. Nonetheless I pushed on with high hopes, and I was hugely rewarded. In fact, when I finished it, I felt a little in awe, as so much could be read into the deeper meaning of the shadows that needed to be killed. The characters were described beautifully and I could picture exactly how the Hunts as well as Irving looked. The idea behind the help that is offered and how it gets shared throughout the years is really clever. I will probably never look at a dog in the same way again!

For me, and it might not worry others but it interrupts my flow of reading horribly, the inconsistency between straight and curly apostrophes was annoying. A very minor detail in an otherwise beautifully crafted book.

Suitable for all ages, The Misfits of Westminster ticks boxes for comedy, drama, mystery, and definitely covers all the feels!

 

Thanks to Reedsy Discovery for the opportunity to review the book.

Gnomads by Steve Dean

 

Darren is your typical teenager. With one eye on becoming the next famous rock guitarist in the form of Dazz “The Axe Man” Wild, and the other on a certain young lady named Paige, all he has to do is get through high school and somehow survive his annoying family. Forced to go to a car boot sale, Darren is doing his best to hide from his embarrassing mum and aunt when he stumbles upon Paige at a stall, and in a rush to hide his uneasiness, he buys an eagle pendant. Happy with his purchase and floating on cloud nine, Darren heads off home knowing that Paige has noticed him. However, as Darren loses himself in practising his music but with his family irritating him, his one wish is to be anywhere else. And since his new eagle pendant is magic, it obliges!

 

Darren wakes up in a world completely removed from his own and surrounded by five small, odd-looking people. It turns out he has been transported to a time in the past where trolls, dragons, and gnomes are commonplace! Darren befriends the upbeat group of gnomes who have a band and call themselves the Gnomads. As he joins in on their adventures on how to promote their band, Darren is caught up in trying to find a way back to his timeline, not get eaten by trolls, and teach the band members to play the same song at the same time. It’s going to take a strength he didn’t know he had. Is he ready for all of that?

 

This is a fun book for children roughly ages 9–12 and is a feel-good story about perseverance and digging deep to find out what you are really capable of. Darren’s journey often mirrors our own in life, where we have to go through something in order to find out what we really want and to learn the value of hard work. A very good message in this book is about staying positive and that helping others often leads to help for you.

 

I did find the pacing a little slow, as often the same kind of scene was repeated. There were a few proofing errors, but nothing jarring. The humour kept the book upbeat and the writing style was easy to read. I certainly enjoyed Darren’s journey and his engaging story.

 

Thanks to Reedsy Discovery for the opportunity to review the book.