Review - Missing Pieces - Tim Weaver (2025 #17)

Missing Pieces by Tim Weaver
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Rebekah Murphy knows too much . . .

She knows she's alone on an abandoned island with a killer on her trail.
She knows that to get home, she must live to understand why this is happening.
She knows someone tried to kill her for a secret.

What she doesn't know is what that secret is . . .

Detective Frank Travis doesn't know enough . . .

He doesn't know where to find Louise Mason.
He doesn't know how and why she vanished into thin air three months ago.
He doesn't know the identity of the man last seen talking to her.

What he does know is that he retires in one week - and if he doesn't find out where Louise went, no one will . . .

What neither Rebekah nor Detective Travis realize is that each holds a missing piece from the same puzzle - and it will cost them everything to finally solve it . . .

I enjoyed the previous book I'd read by this author (I am missing) but I found this one a little confusing - it moves between present and past a lot. The explanation of what led up to Rebekah being stranded on an island was a bit underwhelming for me. It also didn't ring true that there hadn't been much of an effort made to find her.

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Review - Hold My Girl - Charlene Carr (2025 #16)

Hold My Girl by Charlene Carr
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For fans of Jodi Picoult, Kate Hewitt and Ashley Audrain, a heart-wrenching novel about two women whose eggs are switched during IVF

Katherine is a woman full of obsessions. Everything clean, everything perfect, all the time. After seven years of trying—and failing—to conceive, she finally gives birth to Rose, her IVF miracle child. But she’s afraid that Rose may not be her daughter; her pale skin doesn’t match Katherine’s own.

Tess never got her happy ending. She took on IVF alongside Katherine and a group of hopeful mothers, but her daughter, Hanna, was stillborn. After a series of poor choices, she’s divorced, broke and stuck in a job that’s below her skill set.

Ten months later, Katherine and Tess get a call from the fertility clinic that reveals shocking news: the two women’s eggs were switched. While Katherine’s perfect life beings to crumble around her, for Tess it’s the glimmer of hope she needs to get her life back on track. But it will take a custody battle to decide who deserves to be Rose’s mother, a battle that will push both women to the brink.

With themes of racial identity, loss and betrayal, this emotional novel centred around a difficult moral question beautifully explores the complexities of motherhood.

I'm on the fence on this book. Parts were good but there was a lot of repetition in places and the main characters were too extreme at times. Certainly a difficult subject to write about and the court process didn't feel like it had been adequately researched to me.

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#SoCS - 15/3/25 - Crackle

The stream of consciousness prompt is given to us by Linda each week and all the details of how this works can be found here.

Today's prompt is "Crackle".

Well I'm sure many participants will have thought of the cereal "Snap Crackle and Pop" otherwise known as Rice Crispies.  Sorry but if you're expecting some originality then this is not the place to come.

I was going to check to see when Rice Crispies became a thing but that would rather defeat the aim of SoCS so I didn't.  However I did check how many cereal products are now available in my local supermarket.  194.  Yep I counted them.

Of course not I checked on the app.  The choice now is mind boggling.  I didn't stop to see how many of them were chocolate based but I'm sure there are plenty to keep a chocaholic like me happy.  I have 2 different varieties in my cupboard as I write.  For the Grandkids I hasten to add.  

My breakfast of choice these days is usually some variety of eggs with bacon, occasionally baked beans, mushrooms or if Hubby (who is the main cook in the house) decides to prepare an omelette it will often be a surprise.  He likes to throw in green things.  Not my first choice of food at breakfast but, as he nearly always makes it I'm not going to be picky.

Doesn't usually crackle though, although sometimes he will put oil in the pan and get distracted and then the smoke alarm starts going.  Thanks goodness for the smoke alarm - I'm sure he would have burned the house down by now without it.

We don't often get a sizzle either because we have an air fryer which takes care of the bacon and other things like sausages if we have them.  Yep I do like a full English breakfast - but I'll pass on the black pudding thank you.  (I would eat it if put on the plate.)

Sorry if I'm making you all hungry.  I haven't had my breakfast yet this morning but Hubby has just surfaced so it should arrive soon.  I hope so anyway.  

P.S. he's doing hash browns this morning!

Friday's Fave Five - 13/3/25

Well I'm sticking with Spring flowers even though it was very cold again today and Hubby insisted that the rain we had today (Thursday) was more like sleet.  But there are still good things to look back on during the week and then shared at Susanne's site here.

1)  A fun time with our Daughter, DIL and grandkids Nathan and Ella on Saturday - we went bowling and then to a cafe near them for lunch.

It's a long time since I've been bowling and this was reflected in my score lol.  It was a bit hard for Ella (although she had a guide rack and bumpers) but Nathan enjoyed it.  It was a bit noisy even though there wasn't that many people there, certainly not when we arrived anyway but the game itself can be noisy and there were lots of arcade style games & machines there with lots of noises and flashing lights.  A very stimulating experience lol.

Lunch was nice though.  I opted for a jacket potato with tuna and it was huge.

2)  Sunday we spent quite a bit of time helping them clear out their shed.  It's a job we've been meaning to do for ages but it involved taking stuff from the shed at the bottom of the garden and then through the house so we needed a dry day.  We made several trips to the local recycling centre.  It was hard work, and thankfully spiders don't worry me but it was satisfying to get it cleared and swept out so that they can start to use it properly.  Of course the grandchildren wanted attention too so we were there for several hours.

3)  A clean oven.  I must confess my oven was long overdue a thorough clean.  It took a lot of cleaning supplies and elbow grease and, while it's not perfect, it looks so much better.

4)  Daffodils!

I love having them in the house.  I have some on my kitchen window sill and the others are in the living room.  The whole lot were quite cheap in the local supermarket.  They're in full bloom now but hopefully will last for another few days at least.

5)  Book bargains.  Someone on a local Facebook group was getting rid of a lot of paperbacks at just 50p each.  I'd picked out 8 that I thought I'd like and arranged to go and collect them.  I'm trying not to buy books this year but that will now have to be trying not to buy NEW books this year.  It was clear the woman selling them has similar reading tastes to me as she had a lot of books I'd already read but I did get 6 from her (the other 2 I'd picked had already been taken) and one of them has been slotted into a prompt for the reading challenge.  The others have been added to the TBR pile.

Have a good weekend all.