Bogormen

Title: The Devil and the Dark Water
Author: Stuart Turton
Genre: Suspense
Rating: 4.5/5
# pages: 576
Date read: May, 2024

It's 1634 and Samuel Pipps, the world's greatest detective, is being transported from the Dutch East Indies to Amsterdam, where he is set to face trial for a crime that no one dares speak of.

But no sooner is the ship out to sea than devilry begins to blight the voyage. Strange symbols appear on the sails. A figure stalks the decks. Livestock are slaughtered. Passengers are plagued with ominous threats, promising them three unholy miracles. First: an impossible pursuit. Second: an impossible theft.

Then: an impossible murder.

With Pipps imprisoned in the depths of the ship, can his loyal bodyguard, Arent Hayes solve the mystery before the ship descends into anarchy?


Yet another 4.5 star book by Stuart Turton! So far I've loved everything I've read by him and am really impressed at how effortlessly he switches between settings and atmospheres.

There are a LOT of details to keep straight, and a lot of random asides that suddenly become plot points 3 chapters later, so I'm glad I read it as quickly as I did, as it wouldn't have taken much to forget . As it was, I had to refer back to the passenger list quite frequently during the first half of the book, until I got everybody sorted in my head.

Fortunately, I like detective novels with a lot of details, as it keeps me thinking that I might be able to solve the mystery myself alongside the detective, so I enjoyed all the puzzles and the twists and turns the novel took along the way.

Title: This Poison Heart (The Poison Heart #1)
Author: Kalynn Bayron
Genre: Fantasy, YA
Rating: 3/5
# pages: 363
Date read: May, 2024

Briseis has a gift: she can grow plants from tiny seeds to rich blooms with a single touch.

When Briseis's aunt dies and wills her a dilapidated estate in rural New York, Bri and her parents decide to leave Brooklyn behind for the summer. Hopefully there, surrounded by plants and flowers, Bri will finally learn to control her gift. But their new home is sinister in ways they could never have imagined--it comes with a specific set of instructions, an old-school apothecary, and a walled garden filled with the deadliest botanicals in the world that can only be entered by those who share Bri's unique family lineage.

When strangers begin to arrive on their doorstep, asking for tinctures and elixirs, Bri learns she has a surprising talent for creating them. One of the visitors is Marie, a mysterious young woman who Bri befriends, only to find that Marie is keeping dark secrets about the history of the estate and its surrounding community. There is more to Bri's sudden inheritance than she could have imagined, and she is determined to uncover it ... until a nefarious group comes after her in search of a rare and dangerous immortality elixir. Up against a centuries-old curse and the deadliest plant on earth, Bri must harness her gift to protect herself and her family.


Warning: this book ends with a HUGE cliffhanger! And the annoying thing is that it really didn't need to. Kalynn Bayron could easily have paved the way for a sequel without leaving the reader without an ending, but once I had 20 pages left I realized there was NO way they could wrap up everything in such short time :-( So that definitely subtracted a star or two.

But up until then I loved it. I really enjoyed reading how Briseis grew and learned more about herself - even if there were constantly more questions than answers. The answers we did get came organically, and I was eager to learn more. There were lots of twists and turns I hadn't guessed ahead of time, but which worked within the scope of the book.

And I guess that was the problem - there were SO many twists and turns that Ms. Bayron couldn't get everything sorted by the end of the book, and chose to save the answers for the sequel, leaving an - IMO at least - much too open ending.

Title: The Last Murder at the End of the World
Author: Stuart Turton
Genre: Dystopian, Suspense
Rating: 4.5/5
# pages: 330
Date read: May 2024

Solve the murder to save what's left of the world.

Outside the island there is nothing: the world was destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched.

On the island: it is idyllic. One hundred and twenty-two villagers and three scientists, living in peaceful harmony. The villagers are content to fish, farm and feast, to obey their nightly curfew, to do what they're told by the scientists.

Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. And then they learn that the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay. If the murder isn't solved within 107 hours, the fog will smother the island—and everyone on it.

But the security system has also wiped everyone's memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer—and they don't even know it.

And the clock is ticking.


I really liked it, but it didn't blow me away the way "The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle" did.

It was a fascinating concept though, and I got more and more intrigued as the chapters went by and I felt like I had more questions than answers. Every time I thought I had figured out what was going on, some new twist occurred and I was left trying to puzzle it all out again.

At the end of the day, I think the mystery was more interesting than its solution, but it was a feasible solution and not too far fetched, so the book ended up really working for me, and I'm amazed that an author can write two books as different in style and yet both complete page-turners!

I'll have to pick up his third book now, and see if that can live up to the others.