Morren Aconite

The list is short this month since I did more writing than reading, and I DNFed quite a few books because I don’t have neither time nor energy to finish the books I’m not enjoying.

Strange Sally Diamond, Liz Nugent

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

One of the most messed up books I’ve read in my entire life.

We’re following our extremely odd MC who gets in trouble after she throws her father’s body away like garbage. She is baffled to learn that what she did was wrong – it’s what he told her to do after his death, after all.

Why is she like this? How did she end up living as a recluse with her elderly father? What will happen to her now that he’s gone?

The answers to all those questions are awful, disturbing, and straight-up wild. I don’t want to go into any more detail about this story, since I went in completely blind and had my mind fucked by the absolute horror of Sally’s family history.

Annotation (from Goodreads)

Sally Diamond cannot understand why what she did was so strange. She was only doing what her father told her to do, to put him out with the rubbish when he died.

Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and worried police, but also a sinister voice from a past she has no memory of. As she begins to discover the horrors of her childhood, recluse Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends, finding independence, and learning that people don’t always mean what they say.

But when messages start arriving from a stranger who knows far more about her past than she knows herself, Sally’s life will be thrown into chaos once again . . .

Thunderhead, Miranda Darling

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

‘But I am exhausted by the effort to constantly insert myself into my own life.’

A short, beautifully written novel about a woman losing her mind in a single day. It’s a great example of a well-executed stream of consciousness that is relatable, depressing, and sometimes funny.

I highly recommend this if you are feeling trapped, diminished, or directionless in your life. You’re unlikely to feel better after reading this story but you will feel seen.

Annotation (from Goodreads)

A black comedy, set in suburbia, about one woman’s struggle to be free.

When Winona Dalloway begins her day — in the peaceful early hours before her children, that ‘tiny tornado of little hands and feet’, wake up — she doesn’t know that by the end of it, everything in her world will have changed.

On the outside, Winona is a seemingly unremarkable young mother: unobtrusive, quietly going about her tasks. But within is a vivid, chaotic self, teeming with voices — a mind both wild and precise.

And meanwhile, a storm is brewing …

The Villa, Rachel Hawkins

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I wanted a breezy thriller set in Italy, and I got one. It was all vibes and lots of plot twists, very generic but awesome nonetheless.

There are two timelines connected through a picturesque villa in the Italian countryside. In the present, two best friends come to write their respective books in a relaxing and inspiring setting, but the more one of them digs into the villa’s history, the more tensions arise between her and her bestie. Bonus points for women standing their ground and supporting each other instead of fighting over puny, self-absorbed men❤️

Note: unnecessary opinion, but I need to get this off my chest – ‘Chess’ is a horrifically pretentious and the most ridiculous pseudonym I’ve encountered in years. I know it was intended to be cringey, and it was hella effective. Every time it appeared on the page, I wanted to claw my eyes out.

Annotation (from Goodreads)

As kids, Emily and Chess were inseparable. But by their 30s, their bond has been strained by the demands of their adult lives. So when Chess suggests a girls trip to Italy, Emily jumps at the chance to reconnect with her best friend.

Villa Aestas in Orvieto is a high-end holiday home now, but in 1974, it was known as Villa Rosato, and rented for the summer by a notorious rock star, Noel Gordon. In an attempt to reignite his creative spark, Noel invites up-and-coming musician, Pierce Sheldon to join him, as well as Pierce’s girlfriend, Mari, and her stepsister, Lara. But he also sets in motion a chain of events that leads to Mari writing one of the greatest horror novels of all time, Lara composing a platinum album––and ends in Pierce’s brutal murder.

As Emily digs into the villa’s complicated history, she begins to think there might be more to the story of that fateful summer in 1974. That perhaps Pierce’s murder wasn’t just a tale of sex, drugs, and rock & roll gone wrong, but that something more sinister might have occurred––and that there might be clues hidden in the now-iconic works that Mari and Lara left behind.

Yet the closer that Emily gets to the truth, the more tension she feels developing between her and Chess. As secrets from the past come to light, equally dangerous betrayals from the present also emerge––and it begins to look like the villa will claim another victim before the summer ends.

The Heiress, Rachel Hawkins

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I can’t say I liked this one just as much as ‘The Villa’, yet it was also a good read.

The MC is kind of annoying but the story was interesting enough to keep me going. I was more excited by the aspect of Ruby’s disappearance as a child, though, than about whatever was happening with Camden.

The best part of this novel for me was the way all of the threads tied together in the end even if it seemed impossible, that’s an admirable feat to pull off with a sprawling plot like this one.

Annotation (from Goodreads)

When Ruby McTavish Callahan Woodward Miller Kenmore dies, she’s not only North Carolina’s richest woman, she’s also its most notorious. The victim of a famous kidnapping as a child and a widow four times over, Ruby ruled the tiny town of Tavistock from Ashby House, her family’s estate high in the Blue Ridge mountains. In the aftermath of her death, that estate—along with a nine-figure fortune and the complicated legacy of being a McTavish—pass to her adopted son, Camden.

But to everyone’s surprise, Cam wants little to do with the house or the money—and even less to do with the surviving McTavishes. Instead, he rejects his inheritance, settling into a normal life as an English teacher in Colorado and marrying Jules, a woman just as eager to escape her own messy past.

Ten years later, Camden is a McTavish in name only, but a summons in the wake of his uncle’s death brings him and Jules back into the family fold at Ashby House. Its views are just as stunning as ever, its rooms just as elegant, but coming home reminds Cam why he was so quick to leave in the first place.

Jules, however, has other ideas, and the more she learns about Cam’s estranged family—and the twisted secrets they keep—the more determined she is for her husband to claim everything Ruby once intended for him to have.

But Ruby’s plans were always more complicated than they appeared. As Ashby House tightens its grip on Jules and Camden, questions about the infamous heiress come to light. Was there any truth to the persistent rumors following her disappearance as a girl? What really happened to those four husbands, who all died under mysterious circumstances? And why did she adopt Cam in the first place? Soon, Jules and Cam realize that an inheritance can entail far more than what’s written in a will—and that the bonds of family stretch far beyond the grave.