Stacking The Shelves [9] April 8th

Stacking The Shelves is hosted at Tynga’s Reviews and is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

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Hello, ladies and gents! I hope your weekend has started well.

During the past week I managed to add five lovely titles to my list. I am really looking forward to several of them.

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Edelweiss ARC

Elle
by Philippe Djian

Elle is a psychological thriller that recounts thirty days in the life of its heroine Michèle—powerfully portrayed by Isabelle Huppert in Paul Verhoeven’s award-winning film—where memory, sex, and death collide at every page.

A few weeks before Christmas, Michèle picks herself up from her living room floor. She has been raped. She has almost no recollection of her attacker but she senses his presence—he is never far away—and this uncanny feeling triggers a whirlwind of events and memories. She begins to fear she is losing her grip on a life already complicated by a demanding job, an ex-husband with a new girlfriend, a jealous lover, and a son trapped in a relationship with his girlfriend pregnant by another man.

Hardened by the consequences of her father’s violent past, Michèle—in her fifties, fiercely independent and unsentimental—refuses to be reduced to a victim. When her rapist begins taunting her with messages, she takes measures to protect herself until she discovers his identity…

Through the bitingly sarcastic and unflinchingly realist voice of its heroine, Elle paints a striking portrait of one woman’s experience that challenges our notions of masculinity and femininity, weakness and strength.

Sadly I missed this at the movies but not so bad because Edelweiss granted me the opportunity to read and review this book. I am very excited to read about such a strong-willed main character from a different culture.

Netgalley ARC

The Fear
by Rae Louise

Fear is all in the mind …

But Mia’s nightmares become a reality when she and her troubled sister, Jamie, inherit their deceased uncle’s house and experience phenomena that extends way beyond a typical haunting. Only Mia’s infant daughter is aware of the sinister presence of a man that roams freely about the house, but it’s Jamie who has become the subject of the entity’s torment.

No one’s secrets stay buried for long, and the psychological abuse that the family are forced to endure soon turns physical, with the demon’s attachment to Jamie taking on a sexually violent nature. When the evil spreads beyond the boundaries of the house and wreaks chaos in the lives of those closest to Mia, she knows that she must uncover the house’s past, along with the identity of its ghostly inhabitant, in order to sever his hold on anyone who enters.

I need a bit of horror to balance things every now and then and this sounds juicy!

The Teacher’s Secret
by Suzanne Leal

It’s a new school year, and Terry Pritchard, assistant principal at Brindle Public School, is glad to be back. He loves all the kids but has a soft spot for the students who are struggling and vulnerable.

By the end of the term, however, Terry finds himself forced into an early retirement, which is as shocking to the school community as it is devastating to him.

Nina Foreman, still reeling from her recent separation and complications at her previous school, jumps at the chance to transfer to Brindle Public and take over Terry’s class. There she is confronted by a group of resentful and disruptive students who hold her responsible for the abrupt departure of their much loved teacher.

Set in a small coastal community, The Teacher’s Secret is a story of scandal, gossip and dislocation, and the search for grace and dignity in the midst of dishonour and humiliation.

This sounds like a great character-driven novel and I cannot wait to dig my nails in!

When I Wake Up
by Jessica Jarlvi

A breathtaking, heart-pounding, dark debut, sure to delight fans of The Girl on the Train and Before I Go To Sleep.

‘Why won’t Mummy wake up?’

When Anna, a much-loved teacher and mother of two, is left savagely beaten and in a coma, a police investigation is launched. News of the attack sends shock waves through her family and their small Swedish community. Anna seems to have had no enemies, so who wanted her dead?

As loved-ones wait anxiously by her bedside, her husband Erik is determined to get to the bottom of the attack, and soon begins uncovering his wife’s secret life, and a small town riven with desire, betrayal and jealousy.

As the list of suspects grows longer, it soon becomes clear that only one person can reveal the truth, and she’s lying silent in a hospital bed…

This sounds like an interesting psychological thriller where nothing is what it seems. It will feel good to go back to a comfortable genre.

Don’t Wake Up
by Liz Lawler

Alex Taylor wakes up tied to an operating table.

The man who stands over her isn’t a doctor.

The offer he makes her is utterly unspeakable.

But when Alex re-awakens, she’s unharmed – and no one believes her horrifying story. Ostracised by her colleagues, her family and her partner, she begins to wonder if she really is losing her mind.

And then she meets the next victim.

Now this is a really well written blurb. I immediately want to know what happened to Alex and how it caused the events that followed. Can’t wait to get my hands on this.

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And that’s it for this week!

Have you read any of these or do you plan to?

Are you excited about reading any particular books you got this week?

Please comment below and if you have a STS post please post it in comments.