Six For Sunday – It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year! Books You Want To Give As Gifts

Hi guys! For once I’ve been organised and I’ve written today’s post in advance which is why you’re seeing it so early this morning, rather than later in the day after I’ve scrambled to pull a post together! Thank you to Steph for another great prompt!

Six for Sunday is a weekly meme hosted by the lovely Steph at ALITTLEBUTALOT. You can find a list of prompts from July to December 2019 here

Books You Want To Give As Gifts

This was a really interesting prompt for me and it took me a while to decide exactly how I wanted to tackle this. If I should just take six books I want to shout about and would happily fling into people’s hands or if I should pick some people that I know and pick out the books I’d give to them. I’ve gone with the former but I can say without doubt that Amy from Golden Books Girl would be gifted the final Murder Most Unladylike book and Charlotte from Charlotte, Somewhere would be gifted Hold Back The Tide by her queen Mel Salisbury!

So without further ado six 2019 releases I’d gift to people!

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The Girl In The Grave by Helen Phifer

When the body of a teenage runaway is found hidden inside someone else’s grave in a small-town cemetery in The Lake District, an urgent call is made to Forensic Pathologist Beth Adams. Still traumatised by a recent attempt on her own life, one look at the beautiful girl’s broken body is enough to bring Beth out of hiding for the first time since her attack. She’s the only one who can help her trusted friend, Detective Josh Walker, crack the most shocking case of his career.

Beth struggles to believe it’s a coincidence that the gravesite was scheduled to be exhumed, exposing the evidence. Does this twisted killer want to be caught?

Throwing herself into her work Beth discovers traces of material beneath the victim’s fingernails that sets the team on the killer’s trail. But this critical lead comes at a dangerous price, exposing Beth’s whereabouts and dragging her back into her attacker’s line of fire once again.

With Beth’s own life on the line, the investigation is already cracking under the pressure. Then another local girl goes missing… Can Beth stay alive long enough to catch the killer before he claims his next victim?

The Girl In The Grave is the first book in Helen Phifer’s new series. One of the things I loved most about it is the slight twist on the normal crime fiction I read as the lead character is a forensic pathologist rather than a detective. There’s also a personal story throughout the first novel which I found really intriguing! If you love your crime this is a great option!

Here’s my The Girl In The Grave Review!

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A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder by Holly Jackson

The case is closed. Five years ago, schoolgirl Andie Bell was murdered by Sal Singh. The police know he did it. Everyone in town knows he did it.

But having grown up in the same small town that was consumed by the murder, Pippa Fitz-Amobi isn’t so sure. When she chooses the case as the topic for her final year project, she starts to uncover secrets that someone in town desperately wants to stay hidden. And if the real killer is still out there, how far will they go to keep Pip from the truth?

A debut YA crime thriller as addictive as Serial and as page-turning as One of Us Is Lying.

Sometimes I feel Young Adult is almost considered a genre itself by some people, rather than a collective term to encompass a whole variety of books that happens to be marketed primarily at teenagers… The stories across YA fall into a whole variety of genres and being such a huge crime fan in general I’ve been delighted to see an increase in YA mystery and thriller novels. I fell in love with this one earlier in the year and would fully encourage everyone to pick it up ahead of the sequel coming out in 2020

If you need more convincing here’s my review!

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Blood Rites by Rachel Lynch

DI Kelly Porter is about to discover just how dark things can get in the Lake District.

When a young woman is found unclothed, unspeaking at an ancient stone circle it’s not clear if any crime has been committed. DI Kelly Porter and her team start looking into the circumstances, but the mystery girl disappears.

Soon after, a brutal murder is committed and sinister markings at the scene indicate that the killer had a message. The investigation reveals that in the beautiful Lake District there are those who believe in ancient ways, and within those circles old resentments are spilling over into terrible violence.

Kelly has all the pieces to solve the puzzle, but to put them together she must confront a figure from her past: one who nearly destroyed all that she holds dear. Will she avoid the same fate this time, or can the killer stay one step ahead of her to the bitter end?

Six books in and this crime series set in the Lake District just keeps getting better and better! Each book contains a standalone case but there is a story that runs through them all so I would probably have to gift the entire set… Although now they’re also available in paperback I may have to gift them to myself…

Here’s where to find my Blood Rites review

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Nothing To Hide by James Oswald

Suspended from duty after her last case ended in the high-profile arrest of one of Britain’s wealthiest men, DC Constance Fairchild is trying to stay away from the limelight. Fate has other ideas . . .

Coming home to her London flat, Constance stumbles across a young man, bloodied, mutilated and barely alive. She calls it in and is quickly thrown into the middle of a nationwide investigation . . . It seems that the victim is just the latest in a string of similar ritualistic attacks.

No matter that she is off-duty, no matter that there are those in the Met who would gladly see the back of her, Con can’t shake her innate determination to bring the monsters responsible for this brutality to justice.

Trouble always seems to find her, and even if she has nothing to hide, perhaps she has everything to lose . . .

I love James Oswald’s Inspector McLean series and quite routinely should about them, the tenth book is due out in 2020. However just two books into this series and I think I love Constance Fairchild just as much! There’s some lovely callbacks for McLean fans but it’s perfectly possible to enjoy these without having read those!

Interested? Here’s my Nothing To Hide review

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Rumblestar by Abi Elphinstone

‘Adventures are unpredictable and often terribly badly behaved – a bit like pickled onions if you’ve ever tried to fork one on a plate – but they have a way of unlocking people and turning them upside down so that all the astonishing things fizzing around inside them start to tumble out…’

Eleven-year-old Casper Tock hates risks, is allergic to adventures and shudders at the thought of unpredictable events. So, it comes as a nasty shock to him when he accidentally stumbles into Rumblestar, an Unmapped Kingdom full of magical beasts.

All Casper wants is to find a way home, but Rumblestar is in trouble. An evil harpy called Morg is sending her followers, the Midnights, into the kingdom to wreak havoc and pave the way for her to steal the Unmapped magic for herself. But Casper cannot turn a blind eye because the future of his own world, he discovers, is bound up with that of the Unmapped Kingdoms. 

And so, together with Utterly Thankless, a girl who hates rules and is allergic to behaving, and her miniature dragon, Arlo, Casper embarks upon an adventure full of cloud giants, storm ogres and drizzle hags. Can he, Utterly and Arlo, the unlikeliest of heroes, save the Unmapped Kingdoms and our world from the clutches of Morg and her Midnights?

2019 is the year I started picking up some Middle Grade titles and this tale of adventure from Abi Elphinstone is just magical! It was already gifted to my goddaughter earlier in the year but I would happily gift it over and over, Casper and Utterly are just such wonderful characters! Jungledrop sounds just as amazing and I cannot wait for next year!

Find my Rumblestar review here

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Jack Of Hearts (And Other Parts) by L. C. Rosen

My first time getting it in the butt was kind of weird. I think it’s going to be weird for everyone’s first time, though.

Meet Jack Rothman. He’s seventeen and loves partying, makeup and boys – sometimes all at the same time. His sex life makes him the hot topic for the high school gossip machine. But who cares? Like Jack always says, ‘it could be worse’.

He doesn’t actually expect that to come true.

But after Jack starts writing an online sex advice column, the mysterious love letters he’s been getting take a turn for the creepy. Jack’s secret admirer knows everything: where he’s hanging out, who he’s sleeping with, who his mum is dating. They claim they love Jack, but not his unashamedly queer lifestyle. They need him to curb his sexuality, or they’ll force him.

As the pressure mounts, Jack must unmask his stalker before their obsession becomes genuinely dangerous…

I thought this was a great read, the stalker aspect was freaky, and some of the adults’ reactions made me so mad. That said I think it dealt with some really important issues, and the advice column had some great advice! I thought the fact the book was open about the fact that some teenagers drink and have sex. It’s one for the older end of the teen/YA range but an important book!

Find out more about what I thought of Jack Of Hearts (And Other Parts)

They were my #SixforSunday! If you’ve taken part leave a link to your post below and I’ll be sure to check it out!

Also don’t forget to enter my Blogmas giveaway!