Book Review: Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth

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Mad Mabel  by Sally Hepworth  is a domestic thriller about the youngest person convicted of murder in Australia, Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick. Now 81 years old, Elsie is living on Kenny Lane and has been for the past sixty years. When a mother named Roxanne moves into Mabel's neighborhood with her seven year old daughter, an unlikely friendship forms between Elsie and the seven year old child named Persephone. As Elsie's secrets come to light, her world comes crashing down.  Having read quite a few novels by Sally Hepworth, I requested an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of Mad Mabel  without reading the synopsis of the story. I was thrilled when NetGalley and St. Martin's Press approved my request. The expected publication date of the book is April 21, 2026. Not knowing anything about the storyline before I started reading Mad Mabel  made the story much more interesting to me as I had no preconceived ideas. The tale was told from Mabel's perspective in alternating timeli...
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Book Review: Leave The World Behind by Rumaan Alam

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Leave The World Behind by Rumaan Alam is a fiction book where Amanda and Clay rent a vacation home in a rural area of New York for them to spend some quality time with their two children for a week. Everything is going well until they receive a knock at the door late one night. It's the owners of the house, and they're there because of a blackout in New York City. Without cell phone service and the cable and internet out, Amanda and Clay don't know what to believe and if they can trust the couple on the doorstep of the rental.

I bought this on impulse because I liked the cover and the synopsis. However, once I started reading Leave The World Behind, I wasn't too sure if I was going to like it or not. Although the book is very well written, I didn't especially care for the style of writing, and certain scenes in the book seemed very clinical when it shouldn't have been. 

Because I don't care for the style of writing, the book seemed much longer than two hundred forty-one pages, and it seemed to take forever to get to the meat of the story. Once it did, the story was more interesting and held my attention a bit more. When I finally finished Leave The World Behind, I was extremely disappointed in the ending or lack thereof. There are so many unanswered questions. I really wanted to like this book but could only give it three out of five stars.

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