The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)
by Suzanne Collins

Surprisingly i thoroughly enjoyed this, it was superbly well written, and the characters were well thought out and most believable, I lived through every pain and emotion along the way. Brilliant.

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that will weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

Murder and the Golden Goblet by Any Myers

Murder and the Golden Goblet
by Amy Myers

I found this book very confusing, i found it slow and disjointed and didn't relate to the characters they seemed shallow and unreal to me somehow

The latest in the Marsh & Daughter mystery series - Who was Lance Venyon? Curiosity over a memorial plaque in an old Kentish church sets wheelchair-bound ex-cop Peter Marsh and his daughter Georgia on a long and dangerous trail that will lead them not only into the world of art fakes in 1950s Paris, but further back still to the legends of King Arthur, Sir Gawain and their connections with Dover Castle . . .

The Armada Boy by Kate Ellis

The Armada Boy: Wesley Peterson Book 2
by Kate Ellis

Once again Kate Ellis got me enthralled in a wonderful storyline with wonderful characters.

Fifty years after D Day, a group of American veterans has returned to the small Devonshire town of Bereton where, in 1944, they prepared for Normandy, amazed the local children with gifts of candy and comics, and courted the local maidens. When one of the old soldiers, Norman Openheim, is found stabbed to death in the ruins of the same chapel where the GIs and the village girls once held their wartime trysts, Detective Sergeant Wesley Peterson finds his investigative attention torn between the past and the present. There is no shortage of suspects. Dorinda, Openheim's widow, is acting anything but bereaved in the company of tall, handsome Todd Weringer; a trio of post-adolescent urban urchins (Dog, Rat, and Snot) has been harassing the local merchants at knifepoint; and Norman's romance of 50 years ago produced a son with a criminal record and, just maybe, a lifetime of resentment built up against the father he never knew. More intriguing to Peterson and archaeologist Neil Watson are the parallels that exist between this murder and the murder of a sailor from the Spanish Armada in 1588. Hatred, jealousy, and revenge have cast 400-year-old shadows, and Peterson must untangle a skein of accusations, resentments, and family alliances that stretch back through the centuries. 

The Old Contemptibles by Martha Grimes

The Old Contemptibles (Richard Jury Mysteries 11)
by Martha Grimes (Goodreads Author)

confused.com, i got so totally confused with the storyline and didn't relate to the characters, another one bites the dust:)

A passionate affair comes to a crashing halt when Richard Jury's lover is found dead. And since Jury is himself a suspect, he must send Melrose Plant to her family's Lake District home, where secrets that rise to the surface threaten to pull the contentious clan under.

A vengeful Longing by R N Morris

A Vengeful Longing (Porfiry Petrovich, #2)
by R.N. Morris

I did not get on with this book, it was very long winded and slow moving, i did not relate to the characters, in the end i felt it was not improving and gave up on it.

Hailed with glowing reviews , R. N. Morris's The Gentle Axe borrowed Porfiry Petrovich of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment to create a wholly new, hauntingly authentic novel of suspense. A Vengeful Longing, Petrovich's next outing, is even more engrossing. As the laconic investigator follows a trail that begins innocently with a box of chocolates, he is drawn deep into St. Petersburg's squalid heart. Aided by Morris's effortless prose, readers are immersed in the stifling world of nineteenth-century tsarist Russia and treated to an unforgettable rendering of a brutal time and place that will ensnare every fan of sophisticated historical fiction

Death and the Cornish Fiddler by Deryn Lake

Death and the Cornish Fiddler (John Rawlings, #11)
by Deryn Lake

I don't usually read set in this era, anything pre Victorian, i do not usually choose to read, so was sceptical, however, i was attracted by the cover and the title, and the synopsis, if you chose to ignore the era, so thought give it a go.

I was pleasantly surprised, it was a pleasant read, very descriptive of the era, and i enjoyed reading about the characters and the storyline was also very good.

The spring of 1765 brings a welcome sense of recovery to the recently widowed Apothecary John Rawlings, but his tentative peace of mind does not last for long: a young child disappears in strange circumstances at the Hellstone Floral Dance and a seemingly omnipresent blind musician is never far away. While this mysterious figure intrigues Rawlings, the case of the missing child alarms him; he feels he must do all in his powers to attempt to rescue the young life.Packed full of colorful historical detail, Death and the Cornish Fiddler is the eleventh book in the highly acclaimed John Rawlings series - a new masterpiece from the queen of Georgian fiction.

The Mesmerists Apprentice by Lee Jackson

The Mesmerist's Apprentice (Sarah Tanner, #2)
by Lee Jackson, L.M. Jackson

What a wonderful writer, just like 'A most dangerous woman' it bought Victorian London alive, the sights and smells seemed so real. The characters believable and likeable. And the story itself had me on the edge of my seat during all the twists and turns. Fantastic Book.

When the enigmatic Sarah Tanner re-opens her Dining and Coffee Rooms soon after a disastrous fire, the gossips of Leather Lane grudgingly admit she has “the luck of the devil.” Yet when a local butcher is falsely accused of a heinous offence — selling horsemeat — it seems her luck has run out. Drawn into an evermore dangerous series of confrontations with a gang of youths who seem determined to put an innocent man out of business, Sarah Tanner’s own livelihood looks set for ruin into the bargain.But what links the persecution of a humble butcher with a certain Dr. Stead — a leading practitioner of the strange art of mesmerism — and a desperate plea from Sarah’s former lover, the aristocrat Arthur De Salle? As Sarah Tanner investigates, she increasingly fears that the mesmerist, patronized by the highest society, is a charlatan and his latest patient, the unwitting victim of a grotesque fraud.
To preserve a family’s honour, Sarah sets out upon a trail of suicide, murder, deception and deceit stretching from the alleys of Leather Lane to the drawing rooms of Mayfair.