Done reading these books:

23. Das tiefschwarze Herz (The Ink Black Heart), Robert Galbraith, 1360 pages

24. Tokyo Zangyo, Michael Pronko, 340 pages

25. Frau Komachi empfiehlt ein Buch, Michiko Aoyama, 288 pages

26. Federkleid, Banana Yosimoto, 160 pages

27. Abschied von Hermine, Jasmin Schreiber, 288 pages

28. Eden.exe, Alice Delwin, 365 pages

29. Nur für dein Leben (I Will Find You), Harlan Coben, 432 pages

The Ink Black Heart:

6th book of the Cormoran Strike series. Edie Ledwell, co-author of the populare online series "The Ink Black Heart" is getting harrassed online by an unknown person going by the name of "Anomie". As the agency is busy, they turn her down, recommending another agency - but Edie Ledwell ends up getting killed in a graveyard.

From there, Cormoran is hired to find the true identity of Anomie - an undertaking that turns out very difficult and the murders don't stop either.

Book was okay but is mostly pretty uneventful outside of a few scenes. Weakest book of the series so far.

Tokyo Zangyo:

A top manager of a company ends up dead - falling from the rooftop of a building, the same building, the same spot, where one year ago an employee who committed suicide due to work pressure.

The company is interested in closing the case quickly but Hiroshi wants to get to the bottom of the clearly connected events.

Good book. Centering a book around japanese work culture/ethic is a great concept and done well.

Frau Komachi empfiehlt ein Buch:

5 short stories - all having one thing in common - a person is unhappy with their current life and through various circumstances ends up looking up books in the library where Miss Komachi works, recommending them books for their interests but also one additional book to lead them to a new path/hobby etc.

Good book, narrowingly avoids overstaying its welcome, as the core story plays out in a similiar fashion five times.

Federkleid:

Hotaru went through a rough ending of an eight year relationship and is returning to her home village to recover. Here, her paths cross with a man she feels like she saw before but doesn't know where.

Good book.

Abschied von Hermine:

The authors hamster, Hermine, recently died. She had hamsters die before but this time her grief was higher than expected, so she decided to look internally why that's the case.

The result is this book, detailing what happens to our bodies and cells when we die, how our mind goes through different phases of grief and how we can unintentionally try to surpress that process to how death is seen in different cultures/religions.

Great book. Having pet rats, I go through grief due to them dying on the regular and found this book helpful. Also manages to have great humour, making even the very scientific sections an enjoyable read.

Eden.exe:

Hired thief Sia lives in a Cyperpunk future. One day, she gets a mission to steal a mysterious USB stick - unknown to her, the stick holds the key to shut down all kinds of electronics and even the whole cyber structure that the city Neo-Orbis is running on. Clearly, there are powers that want to get the USB stick so Sia has to run - while also making her mind up what she wants the future of Neo-Orbis to look like.

Pretty good book.

I Will Find You:

David is in jail since four years - as he allegedly killed his three year old son one night. For all his tenure he has refused visits - he believes to be not guilty of the crime but also feels regret over not being able to save his son from whoever the reals murderer is.

When his first visitor in five years, his sister-in-law, shows him a photo, his entire world flips. The photo shows a group of people in an amusement park, and in the background - a 8-year old boy, looking just like a four years older version of his beloved, dead son, Matthew.

David has to find out if his son still lives - and for that, he needs to break out of prison.

Good action driven book.

Done reading these books:

19. Im Westen nichts neues (All Quiet on the Western Front), Erich Maria Remarque, 154 pages

20. Das Waldhaus (The Daughter), Liza Webb, 416 pages

21. China to go, Frank Sieren, 320 pages

22. Klara und die Sonne (Klara and the Sun), Kazuo Ishiguro, 352 pages

All Quiet on the Western Front:

Well known classic about the cruelty of war and how it changes anyone who witnesses the horror firsthand, leaving them with no hope. Will read the sequel too at some point.

The Daughter:

37 year old Hannah returns to her childhood home to take care of her father who has dementia. In his confused state he mistakes her for her mother, who died under mysterious circumstances when Hannah was a teenager. Her father begs her (as her mother) for forgiveness. Could he have killed her? Hannah chooses to change her outfit and haircolour, etc. to mimic the looks of her mother more, hoping that her father would reveal more by accident. However, as more of the past is revealed, multiple suspects arrise and Hannah herself gets put in danger.

Solid book.

China to go:

Contains 100 facts/chapters about Chinas culture, economy, politics and technology in a digestable form aimed at a younger audience.

Good book, giving insight in how Chinas influence has grown massively in the last decades and how it invests heavily in the future, especially in energy and electronic cars but also medicine.

Klara and the Sun:

Klara is a solar-powered AF (Artificial Friend), waiting in a store to be chosen as a companion. She observes her surroundings a lot and even for an AF, has a high level of emotional intelligence. One day, a fourteen years old girl named Josie and her mother enter the store, but they don't end up buying Klara that day but Josie promises to return soon.

Unknown to Klara is that Jodie suffers from a disease and has phases where she feals very weak. After managing to not get sold to another customer, Jodie finally returns and Klara can now become her friend.

Klara, being observant, had already assumed that Jodie is sick and that becomes more evident each day - but Klara has hope that Jodie can be healed and that she can help to make it happen.

Great book. Beginning is a bit slow but otherwise great. Like that the book doesn't overexplain stuff and lets you put together some aspects of the world that the book plays in yourself. Highly recommended.

Done reading these books:

16. Böses Blut (Troubled Blood), Robert Galbraith, 1200 pages

17. Der Report der Magd (The Handmaid's Tale), Margaret Atwood, 416 pages

18. Hinter diesen Türen (The Turn of the Key), Ruth Ware, 368 pages

Troubled Blood:

5th book of the Cormoran Strike series. This time, Cormoran gets hired to investigate and if possible, solve the cold case of Margot Bamborough, who vanished without a trail in 1947. 40 years have passed, so even finding all the witnesses is a massive undertaking - and it doesn't help that the police commissioner who worked on the case got lost in finding clues in the supernatural realm with tarot cards and other stuff.

Cormoran and his team get one year time - can they find out what happened to Margot Bamborough?

Great book. Lengthy but I was entertained throughout.

The Handmaid's Tale:

Desfred has lost all her rights - and has now only one function - bear a child for another, socially acceptable woman that can't get pregnant herself. This society formed almost in the blink of an eye, blindsighting many and even though Desfred tried to escape with her partner and daughter, they got caught - the wherabouts of both of em unknown to Desfred.

Despite the despair and lack of freedom, Desfred holds on to the last thing she has left: hope.

Great book. Reminded me a lot of 1984, has a lot of parallels to that book.

The Turn of the Key:

Rowan Caines dream job of working as a nanny for a family turns into a nightmare: the half victorian, half super modern house seems to be haunted: objects going missing, doors opening on their own, audible footsteps at night, etc. As it turns out Rowan is not the first hired nanny, as four before her quickly quit. Can she find the cause for the things that happen at this house?

Solid book. Liked the ending.

I have not read them, no.

Done reading these books:

10. Lies After Death, K. J. Dando, 300 pages

11. Paradox 2, Phillip P. Peterson, 300 pages

12. Paradox 3, Phillip P. Peterson, 328 pages

13. Der Herr der Finsternis, Sergej Lukianenko, 416 pages

14. Murder at Mallowan Hall, Colleen Cambridge, 288 pages

15. Nacht (Can't Run, Can't Hide), Yrsa Sigurdardóttir, 432 pages

Lies After Death:

Tom Crane, who works as a fixer, has lost his wife 5 years ago when she died in a car accident, caused by another driver chasing her down. Now he starts getting messages that claim that the sender knows who the killer is but can Tom trust that to be true and will he find peace at the end of the investigation?

Pretty good action driven book. Read in english.

Paradox 2 + Paradox 3:

Sequels to the book that I mentioned in my last post. Compared to the first one, the pacing has improved substantially and the presented ideas were more compelling as well. Overall a trilogy that I enjoyed for its originality.

Der Herr der Finsternis:

When the teenager Danka sees a ray of light in the middle of the night in front of his window that transforms into a talking cat, his life takes a sudden turn, when both of them walk through a dimensional door - only for the door to get shut permanently, leaving them stuck in a world where the sun doesn't shine, engulfing everything in permanent darkness. For the cat, a being of light to be able to open another door, they need to bring light back to this world.

Pretty good but not the best work by this author. The sassy talking cat is great though.

Murder at Mallowan Hall:

1930: Phyllida Bright is head of household for Mallowan Hall, the place where Agatha Christie and her husband Max Mallowan live. Phyllida loves a good crime book and is especially fond of Hercule Poiriot. Being used to literature crime doesn't prepare her from being quite shook when she discovers a murdered man in the library - but her interest in testing her own crime solving abilities must be satisfied and as it turns out, she discovers a bunch of leads.

Great book. Read this in english too, as I plan to read more english book in general. Highly recommended.

Can't Run, Can't Hide:

Iceland: When his neighbours didn't reply in some days, he decides to look after them and finds a cruel scene when he enters their house: all of them were killed with an axe, presumably days ago, only the husband is missing.

Policeman Tyr and his coworkers start to investigate, with chapters switching back between the investigation and the last harrowing days of the family.

Great book, super tense atmosphere. Highly recommended.

Done reasing these books:

7. Die Farbe von Glück, Clara Maria Bagus, 352 pages

8. Paradox, Phillip P. Peterson, 480 pages

9. Panik (Panic Attack), Jason Starr, 560 pages

Die Farbe von Glück:

A wrong choice bounds three families by fate: a judge, whose wive had two miscarriages before and can't have more children, forces a nurse to swap his sick daughter with the healthy daughter of another family. Can happiness be found in the wrong place? Does a cruel fate force being unhappy your whole life? As both daughters grow up, they enrich the families they ended up in and through fate, their pathes intertwine.

Pretty good book. The number one complain I have that the dialogue reads like passages out of a mindfulness book, which I found to be immersion breaking.

Not available in english.

Paradox:

Ed Walkers last space mission almost ends in a calamity, destroing the ISS but luckily saving all crew members. With that blunder and being 60 years old, he believes his times as astronaut are over until he gets the offer to partake in a space mission that thanks to new technology, has the edge of the solar system as destination, as three space probes got lost in that area, in nearly the same spot. The mission is not easy, as the untrained scientist David Holmes is also supposed to be part of the crew. A difficult training regime begins and there are also some power plays in the background before the ship can finally take off to their mysterious goal - what will they find at the end of the Solar system?

Pretty good. A lot of my initial complains, like the book only getting real interesting in the last 100 pages are solved by the fact that this is the first book of a trilogy, which I was unaware of and didn't suspect because of the ending. I will read those two soon.

Not available in english.

Panic Attack:

Adam Bloom is a psychologist and when two intruders enter his house, he doesn't hesitate to gun one of them down with ten gun shots, the other man escapes unseen. Bloom is surprisingly unfazed by this event and excpets to be heralded as a hero, which doesn't really happen.

Little does he know that the other intruder is planning his revenge, and that path also includes Blooms daughter and wife.

Book is okay. Despite the cruel events, it's tough to feel sympathy for any of the characters as they are basically all Class A narcissists, especially Adam Bloom.

Done reading these books:

4. Nachttod (The Night Singer), Johanna Mo, 496 pages

5. Der Unbesiegbare (The Invincible), Stanislaw Lem, 227 pages

6. Die Apollo-Morde (The Apollo Murders), Chris Hadfield, 640 pages

Nachttod:

Hanna Duncker has decided to return to Öland, Sweden, the place where she grew up. She left that place sixteen years ago, when her father comimtted a brutal murder. Now, she is working for the police herself and soon after her arrival, a teenager is found beaten up and stabbed to death.

Finding the trace of the murderer is tricky, as plenty of people hold secrets and some also still hold a grudge against Hanna, see her as merely the daughter of a murderer and are not willing to cooperate and some might go even beyond that.

Good book. The case itself is solid but I really liked the atmosphere. There are four additional books in this series, I'll read those as well.

The Invincible:

The Invincible is a remarkable spaceship, almost one of its kind - barring the Kondor, which got lost on the planet Regis III. The crew feels confident that they can find the ship and conquer the planet - but this planet holds threats that are unimaginable.

Good classic. Put that on my reading list after seeing the video game based on it coming out recently.

The Apollo Murders:

1973: A new moon mission, Apollo 18, is in its planning stages. But not only the US but also the Sowjet Union is planning a mission to the moon. Flight director Kaziemiras Zemeckis has to try his best to hold the NASA crew together and stay ahead of the Sowjet Unions mission, even more so when it seems more and more likely that one of the NASA crew members was involved with murder.

Solid book, sounded more interesting than it turned out but nicely researched book otherwise.

I would like to join, as usal I want my goal to be 12 books.

I have also finished these books:

1. BioShock: Rapture, John Shirley, 432 pages

2. Elternabend, Sebastian Fitzek, 336 pages

3. Die App, Arno Strobel, 384 pages

Would you kindly join the Reading Challenge? To celebrate the New Year, reading a Bioshock book seems like a great fit. This details the beginning stages of Rapture, how it was built and its slow downfall, including the invention of plasmids. As a big fan of the series, I greatly enjoyed this and would recommend it to anyone who likes the series, especially the first one.

Elternabend:

Sascha Nebel gets caught trying to steal a car while being stuck between people demonstrating and a woman he doesn't know trying to smash his stolen car with a baseball bat. As options for fleeing are limited, they both somehow end up in a bus with parents that are on a way to a weekend trip that is also a parents evening. Luckily - or unluckily - for them, one of the students, Hector, has parents that never attented so they can assume their identities and as you would expect, a whole bunch of weird scenarios emerge from this.

Pretty good book. Compared to previous books from the author the humour here is solid. I was not fully sold on the balancing between humour and very serious themes but overally enjoyed the book.

Die App:

Hendrik and Linda are a happy couple and they plan to marry soon. They recently moved into a new house that is controlled by a smart App - the lights, the fridge, the doors, etc. One day, after Hendrik comes back from an emergengy surgery, Linda seems to be gone without a trace.

As the police believes that Linda just went on her own as there are no signs of breaking in, Hendrik investigates on his own and it seems that there is something fishy going on with the Home Smart App, as other people have went missing in the same way as Linda recently.

Good thriller. Not available in english.

Done reading these books:

109. Eragon - Das Vermächtnis der Drachenreiter (Inheritance Series 1: Eragon), Christopher Paolini, 608 pages

110. Eragon - Der Auftrag des Ältesten (Inheritance Series 2: Eldest), Christopher Paolini, 800 pages

111. Eragon - Die Weisheit des Feuers (Inheritance Series 3: Brisingr), Christopher Paolini, 864 pages

112. Eragon - Das Erbe der Macht (Inheritance Series 4: The Vault of Souls), Christopher Paolini, 992

113. Die Gabel, die Hexe und der Wurm - Geschichten aus Alagaësia. Band 1 (The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm - Tales from Alagaësia 1), Christopher Paolini, 288 pages

114. Murtagh - Eine dunkle Bedrohung (Murtagh), Christopher Paolini, 784 pages

Inheritance Series:

Decided to re-read the books revolving around Eragon and the blue dragon Saphira to refresh my memory for the new spinoff book Murtagh. The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm - Tales from Alagaësia 1 plays inbetween, infact one of the three short stories is the foundation for the Murtagh book.

Looking back, the influence from the The Wheel of Time books, especially for the first parts of the first book is nice to notice with me having read some of those this year too.

With no spoilers, I found the new Spinoff book Murtagh great, certainly payed off to read the other books again.

As far as continuing the Reading Challenge, I am all for that. The book club seems okay but the user groups seem pretty different, vibe wise. Right now, I wouldn't feel comfortable with taking the reigns, I am doing okay now but there are still follow-up medical examinations for my lungs which will conclude by the end of February (appointments for specific things can take months). Re-reading the Eragon books was something I pushed back a few times and few times almost became never, luckily it all went well but that health scare still ponders my mind.

With that being said, no matter which thread and who takes the reigns I wish all of you a good time next year reading or generally having a good, healthy time.

Done reading these books:

103. Sonne über Gudhjem, Michael Kobr, 416 pages

104. Tokyo Traffic, Michael Pronko, 294 pages

105. Der Spion, der aus der Kälte kam (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold), John le Carré, 288 pages

106. Das Mondscheincafé (The Full Moon Coffee Shop), Mai Mochizuki, 208 pages

107 Naokos Lächeln (Norwegian Wood), Haruki Murakami, 208 pages

108. Nullnummer (Numero Zero), Umberto Eco, 240 pages

Not wrtiing summaries this time as I just got out of the hospital after almost dying from a pneumonia. I can vouch however that reading Umberto Eco books while on pain meds is even more of a trip than usual. Happy to be back and it looks like my lungs will recover fully in time, I feel already much better now.

Done reading these books:

97. Das Mädchen und der Totengräber, Oliver Pötzsch, 496 pages

98. Lacroix und die stille Nacht von Montmartre, Alex Lépic, 208 pages

99. Mind-Blown: Die 362 unglaublichsten Fakten unseres Universums (Mind = Blown: Amazing Facts About this Weird, Hilarious, Insane World), Matthew Santoro, 288 pages

100. Feinde (The Boys from Biloxi), John Grisham, 560 pages

101. Zoo city, Lauren Beukes, 352 pages

102. Warum die Waschmaschine Socken frisst...: ... und andere Rätsel des Alltags, Bernd Harder, 272 pages

Das Mädchen und der Totengräber:

Second book revolving around police inspector Leopold von Herzfeldt and gravedigger Augustin Rothmayer. This time, the corpse of an Egyptology professor is found - the corpse was turned into a mummy, indicating that the murderer has profound knowledge about that process. At the same time, young men throughout the city are stabbed to death and their genitalia removed and a zookeeper is at first glance killed by a lion - but that turns out to be a murder too. Can Leopold solve these cases, that somehow, are all connected?

Good book. Was a bit worried about some Spiderman 3 energy with so many intertwining cases but the juggling of the cases is well done.

Lacroix und die stille Nacht von Montmartre:

Third case for officer Lacroix - this time, the christmas lights from the Place du Tertre in Monmartre are stolen - what seems to be just a case of theft raises Lacroixs suspicion and the next day the big christmas tree is found cut down, only the second step in a series of escalations that keeps Lacroix chasing the perpetrator.

Good book.

Mind = Blown: Amazing Facts About this Weird, Hilarious, Insane World:

Collection of 362 weird facts, ranging from strange laws, prison outbreaks, why some gang members piss on new members, off-putting mascots and tons of other stuff.

Good book. Love weird facts.

The Boys from Biloxi:

Keith and Hugh grow up in the same city but their life paths couldn't be more different - Keith studies to become a lawyer and Hugh works for his father, the boss of the infamous Dixie Mafia. The book details of the Mafias rise to control and what Keiths father as a lawyer and later his son try to fight against them in court.

Good book. Despite the pagecount, the friendship between Keith and Hugh is not well stablished, which makes the later events feel less impactful as they should. I still enjoyed it for the believable tale of a rising mafia clan.

Zoo city:

In this world, killing someone has visible consequences, as every killer permenantly has an animal bound to them that seems to appear out of nowhere, a sort of familiar. Same apllies to Zinzi - now permenantly bound to carry a sloth with her (the sloth is the best character in the book). People that are bound to such a familiar also gain a unique ability with variying usefulness - Zinzi can see objects that people lost and find their trace. She earns most of her meager income from finding objects and its the same task that throws her into a violent chain of events.

Pretty good book. A lot of the book is kind of uneventful searching for clues but still a facinating world that could have used being more expanded upon.

Warum die Waschmaschine Socken frisst...: ... und andere Rätsel des Alltags:

Why does a washing machine consume one sock? How to the holes of cheese form? Why are sloths so slow? Why do sleeping birds not fall off trees? Why can people walk over burning coals? These and other questions are answered in this book with simple to understand but still educational answers.

Good book. Not available in english.

Done reading these books:

89. Die Gesellschaft zur Erhaltung der Kaiju-Monster (The Kaiju Preservation Society), John Scalzi, 336 pages

90. Besserwissen mit dem Besserwisser, Sebastian Klussmann, 224 pages

91. Stummer Schrei (Within the Circle), Arne Dahl, 464 pages

92. Eine kurze Geschichte von fast allem (A Short History of Nearly Everything), Bill Bryson, 816 pages

93. Fast alles, was Sie wissen müssen, Sebastian Klussmann, 256 pages

94. Fast alles, was Sie wissen müssen – Teil 2, Sebastian Klussmann, 320 pages

95. Der Taschen-Brockhaus, Ulrike Emrich, 511 pages

96. Lacroix und der Bäcker von Saint-Germain, Alex Lépic, 208 pages

The Kaiju Preservation Society:

Jamie is fired from his job in a start-up company but luckily gets offered a new job, that is only described as working for a company that takes care of animals. As the job is well paid and he is otherwise out of options, Jamie takes the offer and the care of taking animals part remains true - only that this means dinosaurs in an alternate dimension that have bio-nuclear plants inside them. Whenever one of them dies the barrier between the dimensions weakens and Jamie and the other members of the team are also responsible for making sure that no dino enters the real world.

Good book. The dialogue has heavy millenial lingo, which is low key cringe, no cap. Apart from that I enjoyed it.

Besserwissen mit dem Besserwisser + Fast alles, was Sie wissen müssen + Fast alles, was Sie wissen müssen – Teil 2:

Aside from reading, I am an avide fan of the german version of the Quiz tv show "The Chase" ("Gefragt Gejagt" in german). Those three books are by Sebastian Klussmann, one of the Chasers. The first one has basic information on how to increase knowledge and memorise things better and the other two give a good entry for gaining a good level of knowledge about art, sports, literature, geography, science, tv, history, etc.

Since I started to seek more quiz knowledge the amount of answers I can answer correctly has greatly increased and I'll continue to seek more knowledge.

Within the Circle:

The boss of a steel factory is killed with a bomb, soon after a manager of a car factory is killed by a bomb too - seemingly the actions of a radicalized climate activist. Officer Eva Nyman seems to recognize some of the words from the perpetrators letters as typical wording from her former mentor Lukas Friell, now retired and gone off the grid after his last case ended tragically. They need to find Frisell or whoever is behind these attacks fast, as a third, more devastating attack is looming.

Good book. Good balance between making the perpetrator tough to catch but making the police team still come off as competent. First of a series, will read the following as well.

A Short History of Nearly Everything:

How big is the universe? How much does Earth weigh and how can you figure that out? Only two of many questions that are answered in this book, filled with tons of knowledge in a condenced format.

Great book. Author has great talent for explaining complicated things in simple words and make it entertaining with lots of fascinating annecdotes. You can feel the joy of sharing knowledge in every sentence. Highly recommended.

Der Taschen-Brockhaus:

This is a pocked sized encylopedia, giving a good oversight for biology, techology, the history of art, chemistry and other subjects. Simplified but still educational and easy to read with tons of illustrations throughout.

Lacroix und der Bäcker von Saint-Germain:

Second case for officer Lacroix - this time, a famous baker is killed, just hours after winning a competion for making the best baguette - for two times in a row infact, something that has never happened before. As Lacroix investigates, it seems like the voting was rigged in some fashion. Will this lead to the real killer?

Good book. The series has more books (7 in total right now) and I'll read them all, as I find these very enjoyable.

Done reading these books:

80. Baumgartner, Paul Auster, 208 pages

81. Der Plan – Zwei Frauen. Ein Ziel. Ein gefährliches Spiel. (The Lies I Tell), Julie Clark, 384 pages

82. The Girl before, JP Delaney, 416 pages

83. Der Knochenwald (Near the Bone), Christina Henry, 368 pages

84. Der Gesang der Flusskrebse (Where the Crawdads Sing), Delia Owens, 464 pages

85. Das sternenlose Meer (The Starless Sea), Erin Morgenstern, 640 pages

86. Dunkle Tiefen (Guilt Trip), Elizabeth Kay, 416 pages

87. Jackaby, William Ritter, 320 pages

88. Jackaby - Die verschwundenen Knochen (Beastly Bones), William Ritter, 320 pages

Baumgartner:

Professor Baungartner is in his seventies and his heart has been broken ever since his wife died in a swimming accident ten years ago. Since then, he hasn't even gone into the room where she worked in, on her own professor work but also poems. After Baumgartner falls down the stairs and luckily only gets slightly injured, he decides to take a look at her room, leading to him recalling his past with her, how they got together, etc., slowly getting him out of a decade of isolation and built up resignation.

Good book. Paul Auster is one of my favorite authors, was saddened when he passed earlier this year.

The Lies I Tell:

Meg is an illusive person - but rumours of her year long grifting career of robbing men of their money and ruining their reputation have spread. One person who is following her trail is Kat, a journalist who suffered personally by one of Megs grift missions - and is now looking to make a big article to expose her. The chapters change between between Meg and Kats perspective and as the book goes on, Kat gets more charmed by Megs web but also gains understanding of her underlying motivations by following the few traces that Meg left of her past.

Very good book.

The Girl before:

After a tragic event, Jane needs a change - and is looking for a new place to live in. Her budget is non-existent but she applies for a weird project - a house with super strict rules, where the people live there have to live as healthily and with little as much fluff as possible. Despite the strict rules, she is happy when she gets approved to live there but she finds out that the woman that lived there before died - and looked eerily similiar to her.

Pretty good psychological thriller. Bit slow in places.

Near the Bone:

Mattie lives together with her husband William in a hut in the woods. She is never allowed to go far away from the hut, is regularly beaten and just generally abused by draconic rules. One day, a feindish cry can be heard and Mattie, ordered to get some water from the nearvy river, finds huge claw traces on the ground. William, who belives that those are from a demon is alarmed by this development - but weirdly more distressed by strangers exploring the whereabouts of the creature. What is William hiding? And can Mattie break out and also avoid the monster in the woods?

Solid book.

Where the Crawdads Sing:

Chase Andrews is found dead and even though the tides have washed away the traces, the police is sure that he got murdered, as the place where he is found is too clean - including Chase Andrews fingerprints missing from the tower he seemingly fell to his death from. The nearby villages people are clear in their judgment: the culprit must be Kya Clark, the so called "Marsh girl".

Kya Clark has fended for her own for a while, as her family one by one have left the Marsh and her behind, teaching her that humans ain't reliable - but the wild nature of the Marsh has provided her with food reliably. The chapters change between detailing Kyas past and the current investigation of the murder of Chase Andrews - culminating in a legal case where the question is : will Kya find justice?

Great book. This one has been on my reading list for a bit.

The Starless Sea:

Zachary Ezra Rawlins passed on going through a magical door back when he was a kid. That still fills him with regret and when he stumbles upon a book that tells about this event, he can't believe it, as he never talked about this with anyone, ever. Through a variety of vague bread crumbs, he catches wind of the so called library of the Starless Sea - that place he could have gotten to years ago, but now it seems like gets a second chance - but that place has its own intertwining stories to tell and it seems like the library is breaking down and some people also want to make sure that nobody gets there anymore, meaning that Zacharys life is at stake.

Decent book. Saddens me to say after I enjoyed "The Night Circus" so much but this one is firmly falling into the more style than substance category. Still decently enjoyable but I wouldn't really recommend it.

Dunkle Tiefen (Guilt Trip):

After many years, the three sisters Jess, Ella and Lydia return to the house where they grew up in and that they left after the tragic death of their youngest sister. They all believe that they were invited by one of their sisters but apparently none of them wrote the invitations - somebody forged them to gather the sisters in this place that holds all that past trauma. As expected, these old wounds haven't healed and as the truth about the events that led to their sisters death unravel, a new calamity is brooding.

Solid book. I found no trace of the english version that supposedly exists.

Jackaby + Beastly Bones:

First two books of theJackaby series. 1892: Abigail Rook, daugther of a famous archeologist, is looking for a new job and after some time stumbles upon the agency of R.F.Jackaby, a detective with the ability to see traces of unnatural beings. She gets the job and the first case is quite something, as a serial killer is on the run, killing people and slurping out blood from their corpses.

Pretty good books. There are two additional books, I'll read those next, as there is an overarching story as well.

Removed, thanks for the report.

Done reading these books:

67. Das Rad der Zeit 2 - Die Jagd beginnt (The Great Hunt), Robert Jordan, 784 pages

68. Drei Tage, zwei Frauen, ein Affe und der Sinn des Lebens, Karolien Notebaert, 168 pages

69. The Weekend Away, Miranda Smith, 280 pages

70. Das Spiel der Anderen, Carlo Feber, 416 pages

71. Seht mich an (Look at Me), Anita Brookner, 288 pages

72. Skorpion, Matt Basanisi + Gerd Schneider, 416 pages

73. Prophezeiungen für Jedermann, Nicole Gozdek, 400 pages

74. Corpus Delicti (The Method), Juli Zeh, 272 pages

75. Das Objekt, Joshua Tree, 332 pages

76. Gesichter (The Faces), Tove Ditlevsen, 160 pages

77. Hexenjäger, Max Seeck, 448 pages

78. Das Rad der Zeit 3 - Die Rückkehr des Drachen (The Dragon Reborn), Robert Jordan, 768 pages

79. Diablo: Book of Lorath, Matthew J. Kirby, 176 pages

The Great Hunt + The Dragon Reborn:

2nd and third book of the Wheel of Time series. Without many spoilers, I found book 2 to set things up too quickly for one character and the whole book overall more middling than the first. The Dragon Reborn with more emphasis on other characters was a great read, on the other side.

Drei Tage, zwei Frauen, ein Affe und der Sinn des Lebens:

Marie and her mother do some hiking in Ireland and discuss basic philospohy, how to influence your thoughts positively and the basics of meditation and mindfulness.

Solid book. The ideas here are explained well but also so basic that most readers that don't live under a rock probably heard of them already. Some of the dialogue between the mother and daughter, allegedly a loving relationship, also legit felt like AI was tasked with writing emphatic dialogue, the result being robotic in some places.

The Weekend Away:

Samanthas twin sister is dead - after seemingly killing herself, one day after sending Samantha a message that she needs her now. Samantha doesn't believe that her sister would kill herself and her suspicions rise when she finds her sisters diary, revealing secrets of her friends that she started a company with. Even though the last pages have been ripped out, there is enough left for Samantha to investigate - and the perfect opportunity arrives when she is invited to join the group of friends to spend a weekend in a lodge in the wintery mountains. She must be careful, as she believes alteast one of them to be involved with her sisters death.

Great book. Read in english.

Das Spiel der Anderen:

Malu, Sanctus and Habibi share a common belief that the global banking system is morally bankrupt (haha!) and together they plan to kidnap two people of the higher management of a bank. Their plans are ruined when on the day of the mission, their planned second victim is found dead in a burned down car - meaning that someone knew of their plans and has highjacked it for their own purposes. They still go through with the kidnapping and find themselves juggling between staying away from the police while also finding out who is behind the murder.

Solid book.

Look at Me:

Frances Hinton lives a sheltered life working for a library, that is until she meets the glorious couple Nick and Alix, a paring so divine and with no flaws, completely awing her away and she feels blessed when the couple is interested in picking her up as a friend. France hopes that some of their greatness and great social behaviour will get imprinted on her too but as her life revolves more and more around them, slowly the cracks of that perfect image she made up of them increase in number, revaling a profound feel of loneliness lingering in her soul.

Great book about loneliness.

Skorpion:

A priest is shot dead in Palermo, a pilot commits suicide in Zurich and three tons of cocaine are found in Antwerpen - three events that seem unconnected at first sight but somehow, the former banker Nauman has connections to all these cases and investigator David Keller tries everything to unravel this mess.

Mid book. Guess what behind everything is a secret agency and then another and then another and so on and so forth, That grew boring after 200 pages but that's only halfway for a thriller that is enterily too formulaic. Atleast the real backround that the events of the book are based on seem well researched.

Prophezeiungen für Jedermann:

In this world, everyone has to fulfill a prophecy that is revealed to them by the Oracle. As they are labelled as "prophecies for everyone" most of them are easy tasks like helping out some homeless people, etc. Zacharias prophecy seems easy at first too - but that quickly turns out to be more complicated and as he tries to fulfill his own prophecy, the people around the world struggle more and more with theirs and it seems like a big change is coming.

Good book. The main character is struck with bad luck constantly which makes the book a bit of a tough read. Ending seems to set things up for potential sequels but is still a worthwile conclussion to the story. Not available in english.

The Method:

Mia Holl is brought before a judge for a multitude of offenses: for loving her brother - who was proven to be guilty by undeniable facts - too much, for thinking too freely and for taking not enough care of her health in a society where maximising everyones health has become the number one rule. As she decides to stay uncooperative, she gets brought before a judge more times, further and further to be made an example of an unruly person and how such behavior is seens as society-eroding.

Decent book. Dialogue reads like a theatre play which makes everything feel a bit unnatural, which might be intented but is just making it tough to emphazise with the characters.

Das Objekt:

One day Melody Adams, who works for NASA, discovers a strange object nereby Pluto - and further inspection of the object seems to indicate that it is not a natural object as it portrays behaviour that asteroids don't. As such, a space mission to meet up with that object is planned but as Earth is going through a variety of cricises, even the space mission is getting affected by this. Can the mission succeed? And what will the team find?

Great book. Unlike many other books labelled as Hard Science, this one also manages to have a good plot without an overbearing amount of scientific details. Sadly not available in english.

The Faces:

Kopenhagen, 1968: Lisa Mundus is a succesful author and also losing her mind, believing to hear voices and seeing faces in places where they shouldn't be. After some back and fourth, she agrees to go to a mental hospital and meets an unforseen conflict: the desire of recovering versus the feeling of freedom that the madness and staying in the hospital invokes in her.

Good book. I expected a slower descent into madness but nah, main characters is crazy right off the hook. Outside of that, I enjoyed this.

Hexenjäger:

A murderer seems to draw inspirations from the books of a famous crime book author. Jessica Niemi and her team can't get a hold of the killer(s) and it seems like any evidence they find is just deliberately left at the crime scene.

Kinda bad book. Basically worse version of Requiem which I read earlier this year. Interesting sidestory but not connected to the main case, main case goes nowhere, unclear motivations and weak ending only to set up future books but with one-dimensional characters all around, I'll skip the rest.

Diablo: Book of Lorath:

Book 4 of the Diablo lore books. This one mainly focuses on artifacts, including some legendaries from the games. Overall a nice addition to the series, though a tad weaker than the first three. Got this one recently, after I heard that a fifth book will relase in October.

Removed this (person uploaded the same thing yesterday, too), thanks for the report.

Done reading these books:

58. Tintenwelt 2 - Tintenblut (Inkspell), Cornelia Funke, 732 pages

59. Tintenwelt 3 - Tintentod (Inkdeath), Cornelia Funke, 764 pages

60. Tintenwelt 4 - Die Farbe der Rache (The Color of Revenge), Cornelia Funke, 352 pages

61. Der schwarze Schmetterling (Shelter), Harlan Coben, 368 pages

62. Das dunkle Haus (Seconds Away), Harlan Coben, 400 pages

63. Das geheimnisvolle Grab (Found), Harlan Coben, 368 pages

64. Das Gleismeer (Railsea), China Mieville, 400 pages

65. Das Rad der Zeit 1 - Die Suche nach dem Auge der Welt (The Wheel of Time 1 - The Eye Of The World), Robert Jordan, 896 pages

66. The Moving Blade, Michael Pronko, 320 pages

Inkspell + Inkdeath + The Color of Revenge:

The other two books of the series plus the new book that came out recently. The new one does feature a small summary of what happenend before but just for getting reacquinted with the characters it was worth to reread them. I do think that the fourth book is overall not as good as the rest but it was pretty good and resolved one story bit that was left unfinished from Inkdeath.

Shelter + Seconds Away + Found:

Those three are all parts of the Mickey Bolitar series. Mikeys father died in a car accident and his mother became a drug addict, forcing him to move in with his uncle. To make things worse, his best friend Ashley just suddenly disappears and as he does research, he comes along claims that his father is still alive ...

Overall good crime series that is aimed at a younger audience. I found the bigger story arch that connects the books interesting but it gets resolved in a manner that feels a bit rushed but the well written side characters make up for that.

Railsea:

Sham lives in a world where everything is connected by rails, spanning high and low. Clueless what he wants to do, he becomes part of the crew of the Medes, whose captain is following her own philosophy - chasing down a huge, alabaster coloured mole that is roaming through the Railsea.

Cool book. Not my favorite book by the author but every sentence was a pleasure to read, breathing more life into a fascinating world.

The Wheel of Time 1 - The Eye Of The World:

The Wheel of Time is weaving, and even reaching the simple living young men Rand, Mat and Perrin in their small village. From one day to another, destiny is throwing them into a world of the sorceresses called Aes Sedai, Trollocs and other things beyond their comprehension.

This has been on my reading list for a bit. The start is pretty slow but I liked it - the start of the second one is even slower, as that's the book I am reading right now but it's also good. I intend to read about one of these every 1 - 2 months, as reading all of them in a row seems like a daunting task.

The Moving Blade:

An american diplomat called Bernard Mattson is killed in a gruesome fashion, cut open with a blade. As Hiroshi Shimuzi gets dragged into the case, it becomes clear that Mattson intended to publish a book and also hold a speech that critices the American naval bases - and some parties have interests that go beyond just military presence to stomp any criticism of them into dust.

Good book. Fair bit weaker than the first book due to a much worse written antagonist but still enjoyable.

Done reading these books:

46. 21 Tage, Ann-Kristin Gelder, 352 pages

47. Die Affäre (The Lover), Helene Flood, 512 pages

48. Die Erbin (Sycamore Row), John Grisham, 720 pages

49. Die Beute - Auf der Flucht mit der Mona Lisa, Dirk Husemann, 496 pages

50. STONE BLIND - Der Blick der Medusa (Stone Blind), Natalie Haynes, 384 pages

51. Die Singularitätsfalle (The Singularity Trap), Dennis E. Taylor, 496 pages

52. 50 Sätze, die das Leben leichter machen, Karin Kuschik, 320 pages

53. Der Sturm (The Survivors), Jane Harper, 396 pages

54. Inferno, Dan Brown, 688 pages

55. Der Geisterbaum (Ghost Tree), Christina Henry, 512 pages

56. Spy Coast - Die Spionin (The Spy Coast), Tess Gerritsen, 464 pages

57. Tintenwelt 1 - Tintenherz (Inkheart), Cornelia Funke, 576 pages

21 Tage:

One day Louisa recieves a freightening E-Mail, it claims that she will meet her demise in 21 days. She recieves further messages that make worrying predictions about events that will happen to her, and to make matters worse, no matter what Louisa attempts, these events all end up happening. Who is behind this attack? Why do these messages seem eerily similiar to Louisa? She has only a few weeks to solve this riddle.

Pretty good book. Not available in english.

The Lover:

Is it better to lie to the police or to your husband? When Rikkes neighbour Jørgen, who she had an affair with, is found dead in his apartment, Rikkes secret is bound to get revealed eventually. One last period of time to come clear and confess the truth to her husband Åsmund. But Reikke is afraid of the consequences - and the fact that the murderer can only be someone who lives in the apartment house, as well.

Pretty good book even though not much of a thriller. Fair warning, this one is very slow paced.

Sycamore Row:

Seth Hubbard has planned his death well: instead of further suffering from his terminal cancer, he made a new will and hanged himself and made sure that one of his workers finds him soon after. The new lone inheritor is the black housekeeper Lettie Lang.

On the same day, Jake Brigance revieves a letter that was sent by Seth Hubbard, that orders him to become the will excecutor - but Seth Hubbard was a very succesful business man and as such, the inheritance attracts all sorts of parties, including big-shot law firms.

Good book. Mostly slow paced and could have benefitted from being a bit shorter.

Die Beute - Auf der Flucht mit der Mona Lisa:

France, 1940: Colonel Pieere Delort recieves a gigantic task: evacuate over 3000 pieces of art from the Louvre before the German army gets their hands on them. At first, a big amount of trucks is planned for this undertaking but after the German invasion starts, only a handful, mostly damaged trucks are left over and Delort has to rely on his talent of making a great plan to save the art pieces, all while holding the one he cherishes the most alongside him in a briefcase, The Mona Lisa...

Great historic book. Sadly not available in english.

Stone Blind:

Medusa grows up peacefully with her two Gorgon sisters - until the dreadful day when Poseidon forces himself upon her in the temple of Athena - which angers Athena so much, that she decides to punish Medusa - from that day on, her hair is made of snakes and her gaze turns any living being into stone.

Even though the transformation and its repercussions are painful, Medusa continues her life with her sisters, until one fateful day the self proclaimed hero Perseus seeks out to hunt for her head ...

Great book. As big fan of greek mythology, cool to see the story of Medusa and Perseus told from another perspective.

The Singularity Trap:

Ivan Pritchard wants to afford a better life from himself and his wife and kids and decides to get hired as a space miner. As new crew mate of the "Mad Astra" he faces some unfriendly treatment at first. When the crew finds a meteorid with plenty of valuable minerals, Ivan comes in contact with a strange substance that replicates itself and turns his whole body into chrome, leading to him being put into quarantine and as news about this leak to earth, unrests break out because the question arrives: who made this alien material and how close could they be?

Solid book.

50 Sätze, die das Leben leichter machen:

Self Help Book with fifty sentences that supposedly make your life easier, each explained with example scenarios. Pretty standard suff but I found the chapters about decision making pretty useful and the writing style with good amounts of humour better than your average self help book that is oozing with super-serious energy.

The Survivors:

Kierans life changed forever twelve years ago, on that dreaded day when a girl got lost in the sea and his brother died due to his fault. Now, married and with a child, he returns to his childhood place and soon after a young woman is murdered - and the case seems to be connected to the events of twelve years ago.

Good book about the feeling of survivor guilt.

Inferno:

Fourth book of the Robert Langdon series. When Robert Langdon wakes up in a hospital, he can't recall anything from the last two days and finds himself, much to his surprise, in Italy. According to doctor Sienna Brooks, Langdon was working on revealing the secret of Dantes "Inferno" - but now several agencies seem to want him dead and Langdon has to try his best to stay alife and stop a catastrophic event.

Decent book. Same formula as the other books in the series.

Ghost Tree:

When two girls are found dead in the small city Smiths Hallow, the fourteen years old Laura knows that the murders will go unpunished - as the murderer of her father also didn't get caught one year ago, leaving her father with a ripped out heart right under the so called Ghost Tree. Why did her father and the girls have to die? Why are people quickly, almost magically forgetting the murders so quickly? Something is awry in Smiths Hallow and whatever is behind all of it is also reaching its claws for Laura.

Good book. First 100 pages before the supernatural aspects kick in are a bit rough but otherwise good.

The Spy Coast:

Maggie Bird is around sixty years old and a retired CIA agent enjoying her life on her small farm in Maine, taking care of her chickens. But the ripple effects of her last mission that made her decide to quit have reached her and several attempts on her life are made - meaning that Maggie and her old neighbours, also former CIA agents, have to shake off the dust and use their old tricks to find out who is behind the attacks on Maggie.

Good book.

Inkheart:

First book of the Inkheart series. One stormy night, Maggie and her father Mo, a bookbinder, get visited by a visitor called Dustfinger, who warns them that a man called Capricorn seeks them, specificially a book that is in Mos posession. But there is more to Capricorns and also Dustfingers origins - and they are tied to Maggies mother disappearing nine years ago and why Dustfinger calls Mo "Silvertongue".

Great book. I read the first three of the series some years ago and last year a new entry came out, so this seems like a good time to read the books again.

Bleached away!

Done reading these books:

40. Fairy Tale, Stephen King, 880 pages

41. Future - Die Zukunft gehört dir (The Future is Yours), Dan Frey, 432 pages

42. Brennender Hass, Fiona Limar + Leif Eklund, 392 pages

43. Das Flüstern der Nordsee, Hannah Husum, 275 pages

44. Critical Mass, Daniel Suarez, 576 pages

45. Weit über der smaragdgrünen See (Tress of the Emerald Sea), Brandon Sanderson, 544 pages

Fairy Tale:

Charlie Read doesn't have an easy life: his mother died in a cruel accident when he was seven years old and his father turned to alcohol as a result. Charlie prays that his father becomes sober and his wish is granted. His relief comes with the burden of feeling that he owes a debt and it seems like his opportunity to repay a good deed finally comes when the old neighbour Mr. Bowditch, allegedly living together with a dangerous dog, falls from a ladder and is deeply injured.

Charlie calls the ambulance and takes care of the house and Mr. Bowditchs old dog - who has long passed her dangerous days and quickly becomes a great friend for Charlie.

But Mr. Bowditch does indeed have a secret - one that alongside dangers, might hold a key to save Mr. Bowditchs dog from her old age.

Good book. I found the first third that was more rooted in reality a bit more endearing than the rest. Overall, especially for a King book, surprisingly wholesome.

The Future is Yours:

Ben Boyce and Adhi Chaudry might have struck gold, as they managed to create a pc that can read the internet from up to one year in the future - a device that they want to market out to the whole world. As testing is still going they notice that the future seems to be unchangable, as trying to save people that would die in three days for example always fails. When they also further down the road and shortly before launch read that their invention directly relates to the global internet structure seemlingly ceesing to exist, Adhi wants to cancel everything - but by now investors have taken part and Ben is bent on releasing, no matter what cost.

Good book.

Brennender Hass:

Sarahs parents got lost some time ago and her sister died under suspect circumstances. She never gave up her search for her parents and when a recent murder series seems to have connections to what happened to her sister and parents, Sarah further investigates and the killer sets her eyes on her.

Solid thriller. Not available in english.

Das Flüstern der Nordsee:

North Sea, Pellworm: on the small island a young man is killed. Chief detective Gabriel Behrens believes that the murder was committed by a serial killer that has struck in the past; killing for people within a few days. This time, Behrens believes that he and his special team can catch the culprit.

Good book. Bonus points for Behrens having a trained ferret that collects evidence.

Critical Mass:

Sequel to Delta-v which I read last year. Keeping it spoiler free, this follows up on the events of the first one and draws a picture of how future technolgical develepments could be used for improving clean energy and enabling resource gathering from outer space.

Overall good even though it's a bit uneventful at times.

Tress of the Emerald Sea:

Tress lives on a small island that is surrounded by the emerald Sea - a sea that is made out of spores that are dangerous but can be travelled on via ships. Tress lives a simple but happy life and the times she spends with her best friend Charlie bring joy to her heart, until the fateful day arrives where Charlie gets lost in one of the other oceans of this world, the Midnight Ocean and in captivity of the Witch, who is feared for her gruelness.

As such Tress sees no choice - she has to travel the Seas to save Charlie - but she gets on a pirate ship and she has to find ways to survive in that environment.

Very good book. You might like this if you like Neil Gaimans writing style because I certainly felt that vibe with this one.

Done reading these books:

30. Hildur - Die Spur im Fjord, Satu Rämö, 368 pages

31. Der Angstsammler (Patient), Jasper DeWitt, 256 pages

32. Das Ministerium der Welten - Der Riss, Luzia Pfyl, 150 pages

33. Das Ministerium der Welten - Band 2: Der Wandler, Luzia Pfyl, 136 pages

34. Das Ministerium der Welten - Band 3: Die Geister von Rungholt, Luzia Pfyl, 151 pages

35. Das Ministerium der Welten - Band 4: Katakomben, Luzia Pfyl, 129 pages

36. Die Filiale, Veit Etzold, 400 pages

37. Die dunklen Lichter der Stadt, Stefan Holtkötter, 330 pages

38. Seelenmesse (Requiem), Geir Tangen, 480 pages

39. Kalter Neid - Ein Fall für Sommer und Kampmann: Band 1, Angela Lautenschläger, 368 pages

Hildur - Die Spur im Fjord:

Westfjorden, Iceland: Hildur Rúnarsdóttir lost her two sisters when they went missing on the way home from school. Now as an adult, she works for the police. With the grim loss of her sisters still looming, she has developped a strict sport regime to keep herself fit and her mind occupied.

But the cracks are not only shown in the ice when the corpse of a killed man emerges under the piled up snow of an avalanche - as the current murder case has ties to what happened to Hilgurs sisters that fateful day years ago.

Very good book. In a short text after the end of the book the author mentions that Huldur was first sort of like an imaginary friend of hers at first and you can definitely how well fleshed out the character is.

Patient:

Parker H. is a young pychiatrist. When he starts working for a sanatorium in New England, the rumours of a patient catch his interest, a now thirty old man, only referred to as "Joe" who lives in the sanatorium since he was just six years old. Apparantly, all treatments have achieved nothing and the psychiatrists that tried treating him either went insane or even killed themselves. Obviously none of that scares Parker, as he is convinced that he can find the right treatment.

But Parker doesn't even know what waits for him and is quickly caught in Joes web.

Good spooky book.

Das Ministerium der Welten - Der Riss + Das Ministerium der Welten - Band 2: Der Wandler + Das Ministerium der Welten - Band 3: Die Geister von Rungholt + Das Ministerium der Welten - Band 4: Katakomben:

1925: The world is overrun by ghosts and monsters and the ony institution the stays in their path is the Ministry of Worlds. Melody, who works for Scotland Yard, is investigating a murder but the state of the corpse makes her realize that the case belongs the the Ministry. Their two best workers, River Fields und Norrick Lynch start working on the case but Melody decides to investigate herself - a dangerous decision.

Good series. The fourth book ends on a cliffhanger and it seems like there is not any news about a next book coming out, sadly.

Die Filiale:

Laura Jacobs works in a bank and after handling a bank robbery well by sneakily alarming the cops she is about to be promoted but at the same time her tenancy agreement for the house she lives in with her husband gets terminated, as apparently some big IT company wants to build a big facility in that area.

As Laura tries to save her house and prepare for her promotion, suddenly some shady bank account activities involving stealing big amounts of money from some of the banks clients are made by using her account - and she has to try to find ways to prove her innocence, but that turns out to be more dangerous than expected, as truly shady parties are pullling the strings in the background.

Solid book. Fairly tame for the most part despite being labelled as a thriller. Probably gonna read the two sequels.

Die dunklen Lichter der Stadt:

The young policeman Sven Maalouf can't believe his luck when he gets promoted to the murder squad - but that turns out to be a double edged sword, as he is supposed to report on any ill-doings that his co-worker Rosa Bertram commits. When she, against the wish of the police department, continues to investigate in a case that was labelled as accident, Svens conscience is put to a test, especially as the alleged accident seems to have ties to the current murder case that Sven and Rosa are supposed to work on. As such, Sven has to walk a tight balance between keeping his own job and not putting his partner in jeopardy.

Very good book. Not available in english.

Requiem:

The middle aged journalist Viljar Ravn Gudmundsson recieves a terrifying e-mail: an unknown person is proclaiming themselves to be a judge and that they will cast their judgment and kill a person for their illdoings the very next day. It could be a ruse but the unhinged nature of the text makes him send the email forward to the police. And guess what, next day a person is found dead and the murder seems be done in an amateurish way, with tons of fingerprints, etc. 

When the next person is killed and similiarities with plots from popular crime books become evident, the first impression of an amateur murderer are quickly cast aside, as the murderer seems to be always one step ahead. Can investigator Lotte Skeisvoll save the next person from the murderer?

Great book. Very bleak

Kalter Neid - Ein Fall für Sommer und Kampmann: Band 1:

Theresa Sommer, divorce lawyer, is cheesed off when her client doesn't show up in court and asks her aunt Hedwig to visit her house to pick her up. As it turns out, the client was killed the night before. Police man Kampmann struggles to find clues to find the real murderer but luckily, Hedwig has an interest in crime and does some investigating on her own.

Decent book. Surprisingly relaxed nature considering that murders happen and all that but I liked it.

Done reading these books:

26. Die lange Reise der Artemis, Kristina Günak, 324 pages

27. Spektrum, Sergej Lukianenko, 720 pages

28. Die Erfindung des Dosenöffners, Tarkan Bagci, 256 pages

29. 2086 - Sturz in die Zukunft (For us the living), Robert A. Heinlein, 328 pages

Die lange Reise der Artemis:

2123 - Milla Greenwich is the hired doctor of a spacecrew and plans to flee from the ship so that she can find a way to travel to the planet where her ill brother is getting insufficient medical care and is in danger of being given up on - and to make things more complicated, she also ends up tagging along with a DNA-modified super soldier who has his own reasons for fleeing from the spaceship.

Pretty good book. Not available in english.

Spektrum:

Martin Dugin has two passions in his life: enjoying and cooking good food and also being a private detective, travelling between worlds, using a galaxy transport system that is in the hands of the so called Warders - all they ask for travel is a good story - but they are picky and Martin has gained some level of fame from having managed to be allowed to travel so much, as his stories seem to struck a chord with the wardens.

One day, he gets the task to look after a seventeen year old girl and find out to which planet she went. He quickly figures out where she went but through tragic circumstances, the girl ends up getting killed - but rumours of here being seen later on another planet pop up and Martin gets involved with events that might throw the whole Warden transport system out of balance.

Good book. Very slow place, though.

Die Erfindung des Dosenöffners:

Timur Aslan dreams of becoming a big journalist but right now he is stuck in his small town, working for a small agency. Timur is not happy with that but it seems like a big story is right around the corner - an old lady who claims to having invented the can opener (well atleast one specific version of it). As he tries to get the full story, Timur gets confronted with the question if constantly striving for better can lead to happiness.

Good book. At first I thought it was just a short goofy book but the overall message is pretty wholesome.

For us the living:

1939: Perry Pelson gets involved in a horrible crash - and when he wakes up the year is 2086. Confronted with a completely different society that functions differently in like, all the ways, Perry needs to study how the government, the fincancial system and overall morality works in 2086 - luckily he gets help by Diana, who found him after the crash.

Still, problems arise as the world in 2086 is so different that Perry struckles to adjust and findself breaking the law.

Decent book. More of a an outlook about how a future society could look than a story but I enjoyed it.

Done reading these books:

18. 50, Hideo Yokoyama, 352 pages

19. Das Ewigkeitsprojekt, Caroline Hofstätter, 232 pages

20. Der Massai, der in Schweden noch eine Rechnung offen hatte (Sweet Sweet Revenge LTD), Jonas Jonasson, 416 pages

21. Tausendschön (Silenced), Kristina Ohlsson, 480 pages

22. Lacroix und die Toten vom Pont Neuf, Alex Lépic, 272 pages

23. Verborgen im Gletscher (The Darkness Knows), Arnaldur Indriðason, 265 pages

24. Die Menschen von A bis Z (Humans: An A-Z), Matt Haig, 192 pages

25. 1414°, Paul Bradley Carr, 400 pages

50:

Sochiro Kaji is a well respected police man of the Prefacture W, until the day the 49 year old man turns himself in, confessing the murder of his wife that suffered from Alzheimers and requested to be killed before she forgets their only son, who tragedly died to illness.

Even though the case seems clear, there is a three-day window between the murder and Sochiro Kaji turning himself in, and his testimony has holes in it that Detective Inspector Kazumasa Shiki wants to resolve - but higher-ups are eager to close the case quickly, as a policeman committing murder is already seen as a big public disgrage.

What has Sochiro Kaji done in those elusive three days and why does he seem to harbour a wish to die once he turns 50?

Great book. Not sure if this one exists in english but other books revolving around the same Prefeacture do.

Das Ewigkeitsprojekt:

Dr. Sarah Berger wakes up one day and is seemingly the last person on earth, as all houses in her neighbourhood and the nearby train station are bereft of any signs of life. Soon after she gets a message on her laptop that the company that she works for has put her, allegedly with her agreeing to it, into the so called Eternity Project - a fully immersive virtual reality, intented to be a workspace free of distractions.

But some things don't add up and Sarah needs to as herself how to break out and how much time has passed since the project started.

Pretty good book. Not available in english.

Sweet Sweet Revenge LTD:

A greedy galleryst is shocked when he finds out he has a son - and tries to get rid of him by leaving the 18 years old young man literally on his own in the desert. Due to lucky circumstances he manages to survive, become a Massai and get back to Stockholm where he teams up with Jennifer, ex-wife of the greedy galleryst and also with the founder of Sweet Sweet Revenge LTD to come up with, you guessed it, a revenge plan that revolves around forged paintings, flour suspicously placed in plastic bags and a goat, all placed in the cellar of the galleryst. But things go haywire and more weird stuff happens as a result.

Good book. Story is lass zany than The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared, which makes for a more guided storyline but some humour is lost as a result.

Silenced:

Second book revolving around Fredrika Bergman, investigative analyst. 15 years ago: A young girl gets ambushed and raped. Now, a man is killed by getting run over with a car, with the driver nowhere to be found; and a priest and his wife commit suicide - but everyone who knows them claim that it must be murder.

Both cases have very few leads but one thing becomes clear as the investigations go on - the cases are connected in some way and hide a plethora of dark secrets that have a ripple effect reaching from crimes of the past all the way to this current case that is not finished causing victims, either.

Good book. Also similiarly grim as the first book.

Lacroix und die Toten vom Pont Neuf:

Police commissioner Lacroix, by some called the "new Maigret" has just returned when a crime strikes Paris: a homeless person, a so called Clochard, has been killed in his sleep. The next night the same thing happens - and the similiarities to a case from thirty years ago are striking. Can oldschool Lacroix solve this case and the old unresolved one?

Great book. Feels more like a travel guide and french cuisine recommendation book at times but the characters are likeable and the case was compelling. There are more entries in the series that I will read later. Not available in english.

The Darkness Knows:

When a corpse emerges from a thawing glacier, Konráds interest rises. Now that he is retired from police work, he still feels bad about not being able to solve this cold case from decades ago. As such, he is doing some research on his own, taking testimonies from everyone who was a person of interest back then.

Average book. Mostly a lot of talking to several witnesses and meager payoff.

Humans: An A-Z:

Short guide for earth visitors, detailing the importance of wearing clothes, why short grass is worshipped and why peanut butter is the best food on earth.

Pretty good book intented to be read after The Humans by the same author.

1414°:

Journalist Lou McCarthy has made it her life mission to expose the dark secrets of the powerful men running Sillicon Valley. When two of the most well known tech giants kill themselves after she publishes a newspaper article that was also based on wrong information, the public blame falls onto her and she loses her job.

All she can do now is find the real killer and decide to support their cause or not.

Decent book. Ending is weak.

Done reading these books:

11. The Lies We Tell – Niemand ist ohne Schuld (The Lies We Tell), Jane Corry, 528 pages

12. Die Mitternachtsbibliothek (The Midnight Library), Matt Haig, 320 pages

13. Die erlösende Klinge (Redemption's Blade), Adrian Tchaikovsky, 416 pages

14. Der Donnerstagsmordclub oder Ein Teufel stirbt immer zuletzt (The Thursday Murder Club 4 - The Last Devil To Die), Richard Osman, 432 pages

15. Erinnerungen aus der Sackgasse (Dead-End Memories), Banana Yoshimoto, 288 pages

16. Todesglut, Cathrin Moeller, 528 pages

17. Kleine Dinge wie diese (Small Things Like These), Claire Keegan, 112 pages

The Lies We Tell:

Sarah and Tom both carry heavy baggage from their lifes before they met. Though their pasts were challenging in different ways it made both of them develop the same dream for overcoming their past: build a perfect family. Both try to make that dream come true but numerous miscarriages make this more and more unlikely and take further toll on the couple. Then, when hope is almost at zero, Sarah gets pregnant again and this time, their first and also only child, Freddy, gets born.

Through the following years, Sarah and Toms relationship is getting rockier as both continue to withhold things that happened in their respective pasts from their partner and Tom and Freddy also grow further apart. All of this escalates when Freddy, now a teeneager, comes back home late one night and proclaims that he killed a man.

Sarah takes Freddy with her and after some early struggle, manages to find a place for her and Freddy to live under the radar. But guilt is brooding for both of them and they need to ask themselves how long someone can run away from their past.

Great book. Very detailled characters with tons of backstory to explain how things turned out this way for Sarah and Tom and ultimately, Freddy.

The Midnight Library:

Nora Seed is unhappy with her life: she got fired from her job, didn't make her dream of becoming a glaciologist nor the one of making her music band a succes and to make things even worse, her beloved cat was killed in a car accident. As her despair lingers the next few days she decides to kill herself but things go wrong as she finds herself not dead but rather stuck in a place where time is halted: the Midnight Library.

The lady in charge of the library tells her how the Midnight Library works: take one book out of the shelf, it contains a life where Nora made a different life choice, Nora can enter this life and when she is truly, from the bottom of her heart happy and content with it, she can stay in that specific life. The only catch is that the Midnight Library is not quite a stable place - so Nora has an unknown amount of tries to find a life she is happy with.

And so Nora, usally rather indecisive, jumps right in and chooses her first life : one where she can continue to live with her cat.

Solid book. Basic idea is great but the formula mostly repeats in the same vein (like this aspect of the chosen life is great ... but as a tradeoff someone close to Nora is dead in this life and Nora always takes personal blame for it and bounces into the next life and the same thing happens again).

Redemption's Blade:

Ten years ago, the cruel reign of the demigod known as the Kinslayer began: a ruthless man so bent on inflicting as much cruelty as possible, that it becomes his only weakness as it creates weak spots in his otherwise perfect structure of crushing any sort of hopes of ever getting to him and so one day, Celestainee, with the help of two Yorughan, who flipped sides after being sick of the depraved depths that the Kinslayer would sink to, first cuts the Kinslayers hand of with her sword that can cut through (mostly) everything and then manages to kill him.

Now, the whole land is in ruins, weird creatures summoned by the Kinslayer from other dimensions still roam the world and everything is frigged up, basically.

This is where the story begins, as Celestainee and her comrads try to bring some light into these desolated lands.

Great book. Always wanted a story where the big baddy is gone and the surving people need to deal with the longterm consequences of trying to rebuild things.

This is the first book of the series and it drops a lot, and I mean a lot of lore on you at all times so it can be a bit of a dense read at times but I like that kind of stuff so I had a great time and look forward to the next entry.

The Thursday Murder Club 4 - The Last Devil To Die:

One year without a murder - that wish gets crushed quickly when antique dealer and old friend of the Thursday Murder Club, Kuldesh Shamar, is found dead - killed in his car with one gunshot to his head. It looks like he was involved with smuggling an object containing drugs.

Soon more and more groups set their sights on the drugs, most shrugging the death of Kuldesh to the side as collateral damage. Unacceptable for the Club - as Kaldesh was Stephens best friend. But Elizabeths husband is further falling into dementia and thus the other club members need to step up - to do right for Kaldesh and afford Stephen end Elizabeth the chance to share share the councious time they can have toghether.

Great book. As usal lots of humour but also heartwrenching parts.

Dead-End Memories:

Collection of five short stories revolving around grief, growing as a person. I overall liked this a lot, even though the very first story "House of Ghosts" was pretty boring to me but the story "Mama!", a story about a young woman revovering from almost dying from a poison attack and the story "Dead-End Memories" were great.

Todesglut:

Henry Zornik, a former police officer, has accepted to hold lectures for the "Academy of Crime", an institute aiming to prepare students to become investigators. After his first too theory-heavy lecture falling through, he changes things up and is using a cold case in the lecture : a woman dying cruesomly in a fire in the city library, her identity unknown to this day. Zornik believes that, unlike what is claimed in the case file, this was infact a murder and he gives his students a strong incentive to find clues: whoever solves the case before Zornik will pass the course witout an exam.

What seems like a fun game at first becomes serious when Zorniks caravan gets burned down and he himself gets attacked - it seems like numerous groups want the case to remain cold.

Very good book. Not available in english.

Small Things Like These:

1985, New Ross, County Wicklow in Ireland: Billy Furlong, a man in his forties, has managed to become a succesful coal merchant and has a wive and five daughters. One of his customers is the monastery which also functions as the cities laundry. For a while there have been rumours about the monastery, that the girls working there get worked to the bone, that they come from questionable backgrounds, like being abondened by their family, etc.

When he delivers coal to the monastery one day and arrives too early, he gets a glimpse of the truth and has to question himself: can one walk through life and call himself good while turning a blind eye to abuse?

Great book. For how short the story is, the atmopshere is fantastic throughout. Story is based on the real Magdalene laundries. Highly recommended.

Done reading these books:

9. Zernetzt, Anselm Rodenhausen, 382 pages

10. The Last Train, Michael Pronko, 348 pages

Zernetzt:

The new german social platform "Spannwerk" has become the most popular social platform, by far. Phillip, who works for the company wanted to take a 1 year sabbatical but gets brought back into the mold when a new stage for "Spannwerk" is getting tested: by reading and saving the thoughts (brainwaves) of everybody who partakes in the platform a new stage of connection is supposed to be end result. Shortly after taking part in some experiments as tester, Phillip has memory holes and it seems like the company hides some aspects of this new feature.

Solid book. Kind of predictable.

The Last Train:

First book of the detective Hiroshi Shimizu series. An american businessman ends up in front of a train and even though the murderer did really well by using spots that cameras don't have full acces to it becomes clear that the alleged suicide is infact a well calculated murder.

Soon the leads point to the murderer being a tall hostess - not much to go by in a city like Tokio. But Hiroshi and his collegues are entering the dark underbelly of the city to find a murderer that seems more like a phantom at times, with little to no trails left behind.

Great book. Really liked the atmosphere. Read this in english and will read the other books in the series as well.

Done reading these books:

5. Die Jury (A Time to Kill), John Grisham, 640 pages

6. Die unheimliche Bibliothek (The Strange Library), Haruki Murakami, 64 pages

7. Die Stad und ihre ungewisse Mauer (The City and Its Uncertain Walls), Haruki Murakami, 672 pages

8. JAB, Un-Su-Kim, 206 pages

A Time to Kill:

A ten years old black girl gets raped, badly beaten up and thrown out of a car - the culprits being two Rednecks, infamous in the area where hey live. Her father Carl Lee Hailey kills both of them when they arrive to do their testimonly in a planned act of vigilantism. Jake Brigance, who knows that Hailey planned the murder because he told him so before, takes up the defense case - but this case gets more and more out of control as more groups try to influence the outcome of the case and an unbiased ruling becomes more and more unlikely and with mayhem stacking up one question remains: will the end of the journey justify the path that led there?

Great, nervewrecking book. I think this is the first book by John Grisham I read.

The Strange Library:

A young boy wants to bring back two books to the library. He also wants to get some books about the tax system in the Ottoman Empire. In the process, he gets imprisoned by an old librarian, deep within the labyrinth under the library. He gets forced to read the three books about the Ottoman Empire; before he doesn't know them fully, he can't leave, the old man claims.

The sheep man, the servant of the librarian and masterful baker of doughnuts, tells the boy that in reality his head will get chopped off and his brain sucked out after a month passes. A mysterious girl, taking the same place as the sheep man, wants to help the boy escaping.

Deals with fear of loneliness, unavoidable loss and materialism. Athmosphere wise, it's similiar to Kafka's The Metamorphosis.

Re-read this as I plan to re-read most of Murakamis works in the near future, starting with the first short story I read by him. (The text above is copied from the 2017 thread).

The City and Its Uncertain Walls:

A city surrounded by walls, only accessible by those who choose to live their shadow around - that's were the True Self of the seventeen year old girl lives that the narrator has fallen in love with. Through uncertain methods, he manages to enter the village, a truly foreign world where he takes up the position of reading dreams, a daunting task, requiring the girl to tend his wounds. As the narrator has grown to love that daily unchanging routine, doubt fills his heart: once his shadow, seperated from him and kept to slowly vanish away is gone completely, he will be stuck in the village forever.

Together, they decide to flee - but the narrator changes his mind and dedides to just let his shadow escape the village - only to find himself wake up outside the village in the real world.

Without direction, his life meanders on and on but he can't forget the girl that has vanished in the real world and so he keeps dreaming about finding a way back to the village to find the True Self of the girl, still keeping care of the villages library. Once he starts working in a small library in a small village in the real world a passage to this once lost place opens up and he has to ask himself - what holds him in this world?

Great book. In some ways, it feels like a more somber re-telling of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, so I would recommend reading that first and this one at a later point.

JAB:

Collection of eight short stories:

Ranging from a student in school looking outside the window, watching the wind move leafs in a magical fashion - and getting punished for not paying atttention. As his inner frustration piles, he picks up boxing and learns the power of the Jab - a fast straight-forward punc; to a a group of bandits getting stuck in a vault and being mostly worried about boredom until they find a golden die and start gambling for the fun of it, to a fancy leather couch haunting a man so much he needs to get rid of it to regain his inner peace and other stories.

Great collection - sadly not available in english.

I would like to join! My goal is 12 books.

I finished these books so far:

1. INFINITUM - Die Ewigkeit der Sterne (To Sleep In A Sea Of Stars), Christopher Paolini, 960 pages

2. Tagebuch eines sentimentalen Killers, Luis Sepúlveda, 96 pages

3. Das Netzwerk, Markus Kompa, 224 pages

4. GIER - Wie weit würdest du gehen? (Greed), Marc Elsberg, 448 pages

To Sleep In A Sea Of Stars:

When biologist Kira Navarez is exploring the environment of a foreign planet she falls down into a cavern - and some sort of seemingly sentient spacesuit attaches to her - and lashes out against her spacecrew, killing most of them including the man who she planned to marry. Ridden with guilt, Kira is kept in an isolated tank to get experimented on but the spaceship gets wrecked and Kira finds herself with two tasks - finding a way to either control the suit or detach from it and secondly, help humanity against a variety of aliens that have entered the scene, all seemingly eager to get their hands (or tentacles) on the Xeno-spacesuit.

Book is overall decent. The action scenes did nothing for me, overall very little of the backstory on how humanity has explored space and developped as society is explained, considering the page count, although some small summary of that is added in the glossary after the book. The author also wrote about how the book was rewritten and restructured multiple times in a year-long process, as feedback from test readers ammounted to the whole thing not working.

I would say the rework was mostly a success, although the book feels repetitive at times.

Tagebuch eines sentimentalen Killers:

An aged hired gun accepts one more mission: for a six digit monetary reward, he needs to kill one more person. But the hired gun is suffering from a broken heart, as he broke up with the woman he planned to enjoy retirement with. As such, the mistakes pile up and the question of why his client wants to see the man dead send the hired gun across the globe.

Pretty good short story.

Das Netzwerk:

Ellen Strachwitz, president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, has mastered every crisis thus far but now several groups seem to plan to intervene into the next election by manipulating the press or using fake news. One such group that is allegedly involved calls itself deanon (basically german anonymous just smaller in scale) and worse than that, there also seems to be a person that tries to faccilitate a terror attack to sway public opinion.

Good political thriller.

Greed:

The economy is in shambles, world wide. Herbert Thompson, former winner of the economic Nobel prize, plans to attend a summit in Berlin, where he wants to hold a speech that proposes a solution for these economic voes - but his car gets hacked and run against a tree, killing him and heavily injuring the other passenger who also worked with him on the scientific paper.

Jan, caretaker and basically just a normal guy, sees that agents set the crashed car on fire and take documents with them - the slowly arriving police misses that key event and think that Jan is the main suspect in a possible murder.

As such Jan has no choice but to flee the scene and try to find the man whose name the dying car passenger managed to utter : Fitzroy.

Decent book. The economic theory stuff is very interesting but gets kinda lost in the action heavy, fast paced story.

Last set of books for this year:

134. Gefrorenes Herz, Line Holm & Stine Bolther, 576 pages

135. The Fourth Monkey - Geboren, um zu töten (Fourth Monkey), J. D. Barker, 576 pages

136. The Fourth Monkey - Das Mädchen im Eis (The Fifth to Die), J. D. Barker, 688 pages

137. The Fourth Monkey - Das Haus der bösen Kinder (The Sixth Wicked Child), J. D. Barker, 672 pages

138. 78° tödliche Breite, Hanne H. Kvandal, 320 pages

139. Tote Asche, Patricia Walter, 388 pages

Gefrorenes Herz:

The general secretary of the Red Cross was murdered, crucified infront of a public building, with weird symbols etched into his skin. The police is looking for clues and at the same time, historian Maria Just is researching for an exhibition about "100 unsolved murders" and finds clues that connect a double murder commited fifty years ago to the current killing of the general secretary. Can Maria Just and the police connect the dots before more murders happen?

Good book. Incorporates a good amount of social problems into the story.

Fourth Monkey + The Fifth to Die + The Sixth Wicked Child:

Complete The Fourth Monkey trilogy - for over five years, the Fourth Monkey Killer has done his killings in Chicago and the police still has no clear lead. Police Detective Sam Porter has been investigating the case for years and is returning from his hiatus when the police finds the corpse of the Fourth Monkey Killer - with his diary in his suit pocket. Seems like even after death, it seems like the killer can't rest as he has captured one more victim, kept injured somewhere and Sam Porter and his peers have to do their best to outsmart a killer that has been haunting them for the last half decade.

Great series. I would recommend reading these in one go.

78° tödliche Breite:

The retired police inspector Trond Lie travels to the norwegian city Svalbard to look after his four years old grandson Bjarne. But Tronds retirement doesn't last long, because the dog sleigh scout Frida disovers a lifeless body. As the bad weather makes it impossible for the police to arrive immediately, Trond is asked to investigate and what seemed like one murder at first seems to lead to a much bigger conspiracy.

Decent book, ending felt kinda rushed.

Tote Asche:

Kira Roth is shocked when she enters her appartment, as somebody has put the urn of her mother Maria on the kitchen table, accompied with a letter that claims that Maria was not her mother and that Kira doesn't deserve to live. When Kira calls the police, the urn and the note have vanished. When Kira goes to visit the graveyard, she sees a cross with her name and a deathdate - 5 days from today. Is Kira losing her mind or is someone playing mindgames?

Good, fast paced book.

Done reading these books:

127. Erdlicht (Earthlight), Arthur C. Clarke, 212 pages

128. Honigkuchen, Haruki Murakami, 80 pages

129. Der lange Weg zu einem kleinen zornigen Planeten (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet), Becky Chambers, 544 pages

130. Zwischen zwei Sternen (A Closed and Common Orbit), Becky Chambers, 464 pages

131. Unter uns die Nacht (Record of a Spaceborn Few), Becky Chambers, 464 pages

132. Möwenfraß, Klara Holm, 320 pages

133. Fuchsmädchen, Maria Grund, 416 pages

Earthlight:

In the future, a colony has been built on the Moon and humanity has split into two factions; the ones staying on Earth and Moon and the other group that seeks out to explore the rest of the universe. As it turns out, rare earths are rare everywhere and required for basically all advanced space travel, resulting in a constant diplomatic struggle between the space travellers and Earth.

Recently, rumours have bubbled up of rare earths existing and getting mined in secret on the Moon and the special agent Bertram Sadler is sent to find out who is leaking that intel.

Decent book. Lots of time is spent on basically describing every crevice of the Moon surface and as I am not horny for celestial bodies, I found those sections to drag on too long and disrupt the pacing.

Honigkuchen:

Junpei loves Sayoko, but she ends up marrying his best friend before Junpei can confess his love. Despite that, their daughter Sara only can sleep peacefully when she gets told stories by Junpei, particularly the ones revolving around the two bears Masakichi and Tonkichi.

As the two bears story and the book unfolds, one question lingers : can love find a way for the faint of heart?

Great short story, accompied with great illustrations by Kat Menschik.

Sadly not available in english. Next month, a longer novel by Haruki Murakami comes out and I am super excited <3

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet + A Closed and Common Orbit + Record of a Spaceborn Few:

First three novels of the books that play in the Wayfarer universe. The stories are loosely connected. The first one, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet revolves around Rosemary Harper, who was born on the martian colony and is running away from her past by trying to get hired by a spacecrew that specialises in creating wormholes for faster space travel. The crew features members from different places of the universe and are all well written with interesting backstories.

Eventually, the captain of the ship, Ashby, accepts a more risky request that will be the biggest test for the crew.

Good series, from these three I enjoyed A Closed and Common Orbit the most but all three books are nice and also have very different scenarios going on.

Möwenfraß:

Police inspector Luka Kroczek has accepted a new job in Rügen (area with small islands in Germany). Just as he tries to get used to the place, a woman is found dead, brutally murdered in a fishing hut. Who did this? As the investigation goes on, more and more suspects emerge but Luka Kroczek struggles to put all the pieces together.

Solid book.

Fuchsmädchen:

It's a cold, snowy Sunday in Sweden when the unthinkable occurs: the corpse of a young teenager girl is found. As that wouldn't be horrifying enough, the girl also happened to wear a fox mask when she died. At first the death is ruled a suicide but a day later a woman gets murdered and a photo is left at the scene of seven children all wearing animal masks - incuding a girl wearing a fox mask. As it turns out, the suicide victim is the same girl as on the photo, taken years ago in a camp run by a religious group. The only witness to one the next murders, the mute son of the murdered woman, also drew a picture of a wolf, leading police investigators Eir and Sanna to believe that one of the kids that attented the camp is behind the killings but time is ticking and the murders don't seem to stop.

Good book. Very oppressive, creepy atmosphere throughout.

Done reading these books:

122. Zu wenig Zeit zum Sterben (The Defence), Steve Cavanagh, 512 pages

123. Gegen alle Regeln (The Plea), Steve Cavanagh, 576 pages

124. Thirteen, Steve Cavanagh, 544 pages

125. Die Lügen des Horatio Harthorn, Angela Stoll, 240 pages

126. HOME – Haus der bösen Schatten (Home Before Dark), Riley Sager, 432 pages

The Defence + The Plea + Thirteen:

Are all parts of the Eddie Flynn series. Eddie Flyinn is a former con artist, now working as defense lawyer . That unlawful past does come in handy though, as the cases he gets involved with feature mafia members, ties to secret agencies and other threats. Fast paced, great cases, would especially recommend if you like the Phoenix Wright games.

Will read the other books of the series soon.

Die Lügen des Horatio Harthorn:

1899: Horatio Harthorn has a public image of being a smart business man and kind person. When he takes in his son Alan, who before that lived in the countryside with his uncle, that public image seems to clash with Alans experience, as his father shows acts of anger and seems to have developped a gambling habit. To make things worse, none of the letters that Alan writes to his best friend get answered and he finds himself secluded in this hostile envronment. Can Alan find a way to expose his fathers dark nature to the public?

Good book. Deals with themses like gaslighting and abuse. Not available in english.

Home Before Dark:

When Maggies was five years old, she and her parents hastily fled their home Braneberry Hall - a house that has a history of grim events, like the father of the previous house owners killing himself and his daughter. Maggies father claims that they fled because the house is haunted - and made some good money by writing a book about it that became a best seller.

Maggie can't recall any events of her 20 days in Braneberry Hall - and now 25 years later, after her father died due to cancer, she revisits Braneberry Hall, as her father never sold the house and Maggie inherited it - and now wants to reconcile the disconnect between the shy, scared Maggie that is portrayed in the books and how she sees herself.

As Maggie discovers more thruths about the past, the book changes between current times and chapters of the past as her fathers has written it down in his book.

Good book. Ending is a bit chaotic for my taste but otherwise I enjoyed it.

Done reading these books:

117. Bedrohung (Ultimatum), Simon Kernick, 496 pages

118. Der Freund (The Friend), Sigrid Nunez, 235 pages

119. The Book Eaters, Sunyi Dean, 304 pages

120. Herzgift (Keep Your Friends Close), Paula Daly, 384 pages

121. The Cousins, Karen M. McManus, 432 pages

Ultimatum:

8 AM in London: a bomb goes off in the city. A few minutes later, a terrorist group makes a public statement that they are behind the attack and that another, even more massive attack will happen in exactly 12 hours. At the same time, the prisoner WIlliam Garret, main culprit of a past terrorist attack, claims that he knows who is behind the current attacks - and that he is willing to talk if gets what he asks for.

Detective Mike Bolt and Tina Boyd need to move quickly to prevent calamity from striking.

Pretty good action driven book.

The Friend:

An unnamed woman is struck hard by grief, when her best friend kills himself. Soon after the third wife of her best friend asks her to take care of the huge dog, a hound, who was left behind. The dog is not only massive but also up there in age and not of the best of health. After some back and forth, the protagonist woman decides to take care of the dog, while also looking back on the friendship, their shared identity as writers and what that entails.

Good book. More of philiosphical pondering than one clear story path but I enjoyed this one.

The Book Eaters:

Devon is part of an old family clan, who are all book eaters. That means that instead of standard food the literally (haha) devour books - while also absorbing the content of the book into their brain. Some family members are born differently though as so called Mind Eaters and instead of eating books they need to slurp some brain juice - which essentially kills the victim. The only remedy is a secret medicine called Redemption, pills that shortly provide sustentance and stop the desire to eat minds.

As destiny shakes out, Devons son is such a Mind Eater and at the age of three he is supposed to be taken away from her, just as her first child. But Devon rebels and flees, hiding her identity and trying to find access to people that can produce Redemption. But the Family is on her tracks ...

Good book. I read this one in english, too.

Keep Your Friends Close:

Natty and Dean Seanwright are a happy couple and succesful owners of a well running hotel. One day, one their daugthers gets sick while being on a school trip in France. Natty flies to France, while her best friend Eve takes care of her other daughter and Sean keeps business going smoothly in the hotel.

When Natty comes back, Sean proclaims that he has fallen in love with Eve and several events lead to Natty being secluded from her family and house. Natty starts to investigate and finds out that her "friend" Eve has a history of masterfully manipulating men into giving up their fourtune for her and Natty has to dig deep to find a way to get her family back.

Pretty good book. 

The Cousins:

Threee cousins, one family and a deadly secret. Milly, Aubrey and Jonah Story have never met their grandmother Mildred Margaret Story - matriarch of the Story Empire on Gull Cove Island where she lives mostly isolated from society after she cut ties with her three children decades ago.

Suddenly however, Milly, Aubrey and Jonah get an invitation letter from Mildred, inviting them to the island for a summer job, so that they can meet for the first time. But when the cousins arrive on the island, their grandmother doesn't seem all too excited and the cousins need to work together to uravel the secrets of the Story family.

Solid book. Didn't quite catch me that much.