Criminally Good Book Club – Coming January 2017!

Okay, so I’ve got some very exciting news to share with you guys today – I’ve started a book club and it’s criminally good (see what I did there, if you didn’t, you cannot join the book club as we read crime, mystery and thriller books and that was detective skills 101 and you just failed!) I feel like you all know me and my humour by now, but in case you don’t, I must state, that was a joke, everybody’s welcome! Now, I’m pretty certain you all know how a book club works, or at least have a basic understanding but should you not, or should you be curious as to how this one is going to work, continue reading…

Where are we: you can find us on Instagram at criminallygoodbookclub

The book: Each month four books will be selected, for the first 2 weeks of the month you can vote for the book you’d like to read. The book with the most votes becomes the following month’s criminal read. As we’re starting in January, voting will open tomorrow (and close on the 12^th Dec) to decide January’s book choice, giving everyone enough time to add it to their Christmas wish list. I’m going to give you lucky readers a look at the four books available before the votes open (there has to be some perks to following my blog, right?! Although, due to how well this book club has been received, I am feeling the pressure of this early reveal.)

We’re all reading: …and sharing pictures of what we’re reading to bookstagram. Hashtag all your book club pictures with #cgbookclub so other members can find you. A few will also be featured on the “official” book club account.

The Discussion: 3 days before the end of every month the discussion post will go up and we start talking books!

It’s as simple as that. Now what happens if you’ve read all 4 books suggested? You go away and find another book club – that was another joke! You can still join the discussion at the end of the month and if enough people have read all the books, I may introduce a 5^th book especially for you guys, but it’ll be rare, so rare it’s best not to create extra work for me and just re-read the chosen book. My sarcasm appears to be in overdrive today – if you have read all the books, then we’ll cross that hurdle when we come to it (*cough* buddy read with someone else who has read all the books *cough*). As you can see I’m such an accommodating host, so it’s lucky I have two super amazing co-hosts: Ashley @ BOOKS in PARADISE and Tara @ Spinatale Reviews

I know why you’re all really here and still reading, so here they are, the four possibilities upon which all your book club hopes and dreams rest!

The Top Four Picks for January

TRUST NO ONE by Paul Cleave

A famous crime writer struggles to differentiate between his own reality and the frightening plot lines he’s created for the page. Jerry Grey is known to most of the world by his crime writing pseudonym, Henry Cutter a name that has been keeping readers at the edge of their seats for more than a decade. Recently diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers at the age of forty-nine, Jerry’s crime writing days are coming to an end. His twelve books tell stories of brutal murders committed by bad men, of a world out of balance, of victims finding the darkest forms of justice. As his dementia begins to break down the wall between his life and the lives of the characters he has created, Jerry confesses his worst secret: The stories are real. He knows this because he committed the crimes. Those close to him, including the nurses at the care home where he now lives, insist that it is all in his head, that his memory is being toyed with and manipulated by his unfortunate disease. But if that were true, then why are so many bad things happening? Why are people dying?

LOCAL GIRL MISSING by Claire Douglas

Twenty years ago
21-year-old Sophie Collier vanishes one night.
She leaves nothing behind but a trainer on the old pier –
and a hole in the heart of her best friend Francesca.

Now
A body’s been found.
And Francesca’s drawn back to the seaside town she’s tried to forget.
Perhaps the truth of what happened to Sophie will finally come out.
Yet Francesca is beginning to wish she hadn’t returned.

Everywhere she turns are ghosts from her past.
The same old faces and familiar haunts of her youth.
But if someone knows what really happened to Sophie that night then now’s the time to find out – isn’t it? Except sometimes discovering the truth can cost you everything you hold dear – your family, your sanity and even your life . . .

PENDULUM by Adam Hamdy

You wake. Confused. Disorientated.
A noose is round your neck.
You are bound, standing on a chair.
All you can focus on is the man in the mask tightening the rope.
You are about to die.
John Wallace has no idea why he has been targeted. No idea who his attacker is. No idea how he will prevent the inevitable.
Then the pendulum of fate swings in his favour.
He has one chance to escape, find the truth and halt his destruction.
The momentum is in his favour for now.
But with a killer on his tail, everything can change with one swing of this deadly pendulum…

You have one chance. Run.

THE KILLER INSIDE ME by Jim Thompson

Lou Ford is the deputy sheriff of a small town in Texas.  The worst thing most people can say against him is that he’s a little slow and a little boring.  But, then, most people don’t know about the sickness–the sickness that almost got Lou put away when he was younger.  The sickness that is about to surface again.

An underground classic since its publication in 1952, The Killer Inside Me is the book that made Jim Thompson’s name synonymous with the roman noir.

And there we have it, one of these four books will be our first ever book club read. Be sure to follow the Instagram page, voting opens tomorrow and will run until the 12th December.

I hope you all join in! Lets read and discuss some criminally good books!