Author: Katherine Winfield
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Length of book: 436 pages
Price: 16.99 (USD)

**I received a Kindle copy of this book for free from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review**

Review: A book with more than 400 pages, ‘Belle Grove’ is an intertwinement of characters. The story moves to each new page with support of detailed insights, flashbacks and emotions of each of those characters and how they all are trying to come to terms with their life stories. Each woman is a protagonist of her own story. Libby, with her clairvoyant abilities, returns in ‘Belle Grove’ and sets out to unravel the two murder mysteries existing in different centuries.

Kendall, a beautiful woman from the 80s, is found dead, possibly murdered, many years ago without any trace of why a happy woman full of zeal would give up on life so easily.

Then there is Sonia in the present, a fashionable and aristocratic woman, famous for her notoriety and from a big city is murdered under mysterious circumstances.

The question at the table of Corsica book club is who murdered these women and why?

Was it Julie Seevers? A store owner trying to mend her crumbling marriage who was present at one of the crime scenes.
Was it Will? Julie’s husband and a cop with apparently close relations with Sonia.
Or was it Michael? Sonia’s jealous husband, a man with a mysterious past involving Kendall and an inexplicable knack to be a perfectionist.
Could it be the Laverty brothers? Fred Laverty, with his socially weird mannerism or Colin Laverty, with a unique connection to Kendall along with hatred for his townspeople.
Or could it be Tabatha a.k.a. Tabs? An introverted teenager with a miserable past trying to find the reason her mother, Kendall, apparently killed herself. Did the quiet Tabs drive herself to murder Sonia due to her obsessive and possessive nature towards finding out about her dad and the extreme need to belong to a family?

Libby, the inquisitive, sharp-minded and clairvoyant woman with a talent for playing detective, finds herself in yet another double-murder mystery. With her own past coming back to haunt her, she takes the help of her spiritual guru, Tassie, to untwist the knots of Kendall’s death and the latest murder at Belle Grove.

Will she be able to find the killer before another innocent is murdered? Will she be able to come to terms with her past to save her and the life of her friends from shattering? Will she be able to help the spirit of Kendall in finding the truth and letting Kendall’s spirit go into the light with ease?

Belle Grove is a murder mystery with a horror element that requires the reader’s patience before they can find the truth about a spirit from the past and a notorious woman from the present.

From Goodreads:

Eddie Stover, private investigator, lives in a world where artificial humans, LifeMates, serve consumers as a purchasable commodity. When Stover takes a wandering daughter case, the search for the missing woman plunges him into a world of hijacked LifeMates, a spider-worshiping cult, psychedelic milk, and a realization that he cannot escape the choice that love forces him to make.

I couldn’t get into this story. The plot and terminology were a bit confusing and I guess I just wasn’t in the mood for a futuristic tale. I may give this another go at a later date.

• Plot | Story- Pet Sematary is undoubtedly one of Stephen King's finest works. I tend to be speechless when it comes to writing a review for his books so forgive me if I write less than necessary, because, nothing that can be said will ever be really enough to praise this book. The story takes you very slowly through the life happenings of Louis Creed and his family. Story progresses subtly and ever so slowly. You start to feel a very strong connection building between you and all the characters. You start liking each and everyone and everything seems good, but slowly you start to get a feeling that something is going to happen... something very wrong. And then it happens! You start to feel sad... very, very sad and right then something else happens that make you feel something more than normal sadness, a feeling of darkness that comes with death! Then comes a point where you just can't take anymore and you stop reading it. But within a day or two you feel a strange pull and you start reading again! That's when you find out that there's more creepy stuff going to happen, and happen, yes, it does! You can't stop yourself from reading, you push yourself to read and get done with this book ASAP and then something happens in the end that leaves you sleepless for nights. 

No, it's not a scary story, but it's a really dark story that plays tricks with your mind and makes your skin crawl! It's a Stephen King's story.

• Characters- The characterization is Stephen-King-perfect. All the characters are so full of life that one can never really get them off one's mind. The character-connect was built very slowly and steadily yet very, very strongly. Each and every character has the potential to make you smile as well as cry.
• Romance- None! But a hall loads of love!
• Writing- Abso-fuc***g-lutely brilliant writing. You'll loose yourself in the writing so much so that you'll loose all sense of time and space while reading this book. As usual, the writing is simple and easily understandable, full of sarcastic remarks which are really good and hell loads of irony which will leave make you think a lot.
• Beginning- Slow-paced and subtle. As King's reader, the easy and happy flow of the book in the starting pages kept the anticipating part of the mind on high alert!
• Ending- Couldn't have been any better. Left me sleepless for days!
• Cover Art- I loved the cover of the edition I read (see above), but otherwise some editions look very old, creepy  and even immature!
• Blurb- The blurb definitely managed to be transparent enough to pique the reader's curiosity and at the same time without giving much away!

Note: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Positives

The Mine is the best time-travel book I’ve read in a really, really long time! It’s a brilliantly written book and the strong and realistic characterization will definitely blow your mind. Joel Smith, the lead, is such a gentleman and is just so adorable that I really can’t praise enough. You can feel the connection, with Joel, develop over quite a few pages but once he time-travels and starts his new life, you’ll start understanding him better and better with every page you turn. Joel is my new favourite time-travelling character. He is everything a stud, time-travelling brilliant and smart guy should be. He handles the fact, that he has indeed walked into a time-machine and come 59 years before his time, pretty well and starts acting accordingly.
Among the other characters, Ginny really stands out. She is this amazing women whom you really idealize and start respecting instantly. John has left a lot of big authors far behind in the race when it comes to character building (atleast for me!)
The plot is amazing and develops slowly in a very subtle way. It ends beautifully and leaves you craving for more and more. From the historical point of view, as far as I know, John has paid very close attention to the details which is highly commendable.

Negatives

None!

Conclusion

The Mine is a beautifully written book and definitely a must read. I’d recommend it to everyone, particularly the fans of Time-Travel, Science-Fiction, Adventure and Historical-Romance. Trust me, you really don’t wanna miss out on a wonderful book like this one!

You can also read this review at The Reading Bud