Ashley Bell by Dean Koontz

What a treat! Thank you Jonathan Ball Publishers for this review copy!

It has been years since I've read a Dean Kootz novel. They are take me back to my teen years where I devoured every Koontz and King novel I could lay my hands on!

It took me awhile to get into as I've been hooked on several non fiction reads. (See   A Mother's Reckoning and Black Flags). 

Enter Bibi Blair, young and talented with so much to offer life. Devastatingly she is suddenly diagnosed with a rare form brain cancer and is given a short while to live. 

Admirably, she insists she will beat it and miraculously, she does-in a day-and here is where this story begins.

With doses of standard Koontz ingredients: golden Labrador, mystery, mayhem and spookiness this novel is everything you expect as a fan. 

Do not read if you are expecting something different. 

A Mother's Reckoning by Sue Klebold

I don't often read non fiction. The publisher recommended this book and Black Flags, the book on ISIS (review to follow) and I was riveted from the introduction right till the last word.

It was a harrowing story told through the heartache, loss and love of a mother, which I believe to have been a cathartic  experience for Sue Klebold. 

Understandably, she questioned her parenting, her inability to see behind the facade her son, Dylan, constructed. 

She openly discusses mental health and it's possible forms of expression. 

Her account of the days and months after the shooting are accurately recaptured (with the aid of her constant journaling at that time."

A must read!