Book review: Sweet Lamb of Heaven

Pardon the formatting:  If I hadn't already put so much work into Blogger, I'd probably find a different blogging site.  It isn't saving any of my formatting.  

Title: Sweet Lamb of Heaven
Author: Lydia Millett
Rating: 2 stars

Summary:  This novel is a Anna's account of how she escaped her cold and unfaithful husband Ned with her daughter.  Ned comes back in her life when he decides to run for office.  And so begins his manipulation.  Can Anna trust the other guests that are staying at the Maine hotel with her?

Review:  This book started out so promising.  A woman and her daughter escape her sociopath husband to live a quiet life in a Maine motel.  But then s*** got weird and not in a good way.  Here’s a list of my grievances.  *Spoiler alert* The point of this blog is to spare you from bad books, right?  However, be forewarned that this gives things away so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

1. The voice: Anna used to hear a voice but it went away with the birth of her daughter.  This voice spoke in tongues.  She discovers that everybody in the motel has heard a voice/music/sound of some kind at some point (sometimes it’s an animal’s voice?) but it’s never clearly explained where this voice came from and why Anna’s the only one that the voice stopped for.

1. The motel: How did she end up at a place where eveyrbody’s heard the voice?  This wasn’t clearly explained.

1. Ned’s mind control: What?  This part was weird too.  And he was maybe a robot?  Or an image?  By then I had stopped caring.

1. The money: Anna doesn’t work and while she doesn’t live in luxury, she claims she saved enough from her pre-child career to live off of for years?  I never buy this story (pun intended).

 Time to write: 7:05

Book review: Apple Tree Yard

Title: Apple Tree Yard
Author: Louise Doughty
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Summary: Yvonne Carmichael is a renowned geneticist and happily married mother of two.  She meets Mark Costley in the hallway of the House of Parliament and begins an affair (yes, it is that random).  Then Yvonne gets raped and in a random act of chivalry, Mark kills the guy.  Then they get caught and go on trial.

Review:  The inside of this jacket says, "...Apple Tree Yard is a psychological thriller that calls to mind Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl even as it stakes out its own chilling territory."  I know the publisher is trying to sell books, but this melodrama makes me roll my eyes.  I'm usually able to forget these sensational statements, but in this event, it stuck with me.  Also, even though I remember reading that full sentence, I sort of trailed off at the mention of Gone Girl.  I loved Gone Girl and I kept waiting for the twist.  This book is no Gone Girl and the comparison to Gone Girl sort of ruined it for me.

The book was...fine.  Here are some of the issues I had with it:

1. The guy was clearly bad news.  He was vague about his job and all contact was on his terms.  
2. Hiding the affair after the murder was a terrible idea.  See #1.  If the two of you are on trial for murder and he asks you to hide the affair, it doesn't occur to you that he will use this against you?
3. Because of items 1 and 2, it made zero sense that he would kill the guy that raped Yvonne.  
4. I kept waiting for the plot twist.  When was it going to be revealed that Yvonne was actually behind the whole thing? 

Maybe I missed something?  But I don't think so.  Would I have liked it better if I could get around the Gone Girl comparison?  Probably not.