It Should Have Been You

It all starts with a post on social media. Susan copies the post with her comments and sends the message to her sisters. Except she inadvertently posts the message to the local community WhatsApp group. Then the comments begin!  It Should Have Been You by Irish author, Andrea Mara, is a fast moving account of events that occur in a small community as people react to the content - or part of the content - of Susan's message. 

Susan has a new baby and is slowly adapting to motherhood. The avalanche of events, including death threats, that occur after posting the message cause her to doubt her relationships with family and friends. Her world appears to be collapsing around her especially when a woman with the same street address as her home, but in another town with the same name, is murdered. The story is revealed in two time frames by a variety of characters. It is a story of misunderstandings, betrayal, teenage angst, insecurity of new mothers in their ability to be a good mother as well as family dynamics.

The novel contains a large number of characters involved with the events in the plot or with opinions as to what is happening and who is at fault. It is not long before it is discovered that in this quiet town there are many undercurrents just waiting to erupt.

What happened to Nina?

If you want to read a novel that you cannot put down then you could try What happened to Nina? by Dervla McTiernan.

The author has set this story in Vermont USA. Nina and Simon have had a close relationship for many years though it has recently been tested as Simon has been away at college while Nina has stayed home to work with her mother running the family hotel. Back home on holidays Simon convinces Nina to spend time with him at a property owned by his family. They both enjoy climbing and take the opportunity to explore the many trails and crags in the area. But the tensions between the two young people increase. Then Simon returns home without Nina.

The reader gradually learns part of the story through the eyes and actions of Nina and Simon's parents, Nina's sister, Grace, and Matthew who is the detective investigating Nina's disappearance. Nina's mother and her husband have struggled to create successful businesses from scratch but they are not wealthy. Simon, on the other hand, comes from a wealthy and privileged family who will do anything to protect their son from accusations of wrong doing.

Social media plays an important role in the story, initially as Nina's mother uses it to organise a search for her daughter. Simon's parents arrange for associates to use social media to post anonymous posts against members of Nina's family which are quickly taken up by conspiracy theorists.

Tension builds as the world of Nina's family begins to collapse under public scrutiny. The police and Nina's family are sure that they know what happened to Nina. The challenge is how to prove it. An excellent book that I had to keep reading to the end.

Winner of the 2025 Australian Book Industry Award for fiction.

The Ink Black Heart

The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith (J K Rowling) is number 6 in the Cormoran Strike series. Although this is a very readable crime novel, at more than 1000 pages is is a little long and is cumbersome to read, especially when attempting to read the book in bed. However it is worth perservering.

When Robin Ellacott is visited in the detective agency office by the creator of an online cartoon who is convinced that someone is out to kill her, Robin decides that the agency is not at that time able to take on the case. Several days later later Robin learns that Edie Ledwell had been murdered in the grounds of Highgate Cemetery. As Edie had mentioned that a person named Anomie had been harassing her, Robin and fellow private investigator, Cormoran Strike, decide to discover the identity of this possible killer.

Edie Ledwell and Josh Blay had created a cartoon, Ink Black Heart, published on YouTube. After several episodes, an online game relating to the cartoon was created by two fans. The cartoon and the game soon had an active, and ever growing,  fanbase. Initially the fans discussed the characters and plotlines of Ink Black Heart but then online trolls infiltrated the online discussion and the tone of many of the comments became threatening.

Robin and Cormoran and their team are working on a number of other cases, however they manage to reorganise the schedule for this case, especially when the agency becomes a target of members of a right wing group that has infiltrated the fan forums. Much of the investigation involves exploring posts on social media to try and locate any relevant information. Throughout the book the author includes pages of text representing text from forums, Twitter and other social media sites.

Much of the book is about social media and the way that a few people can create a forum of hate. During the week that I read the book there was a report about social media attacks on one episode of a television show that a few people decided that they did not like. An article in the newspaper yesterday was about fans attacking J K Rowling on a site where a game based on the Harry Potter franchise was about to be released. When I checked the Good Reads website today - a site for members of the public to write reviews of books - there were many negative posts about J K Rowling posted by people who have not read the book. As one of the reviewers noted it is ironic that all these people attacking JK Rowling online are demonstrating the online vitriol which is a key element of the plot.

Back to the book: Much of the plot is a continuation of the personal challenges faced by Cormoran and Robin as they reflect on their private, as opposed to professional, lives. It is also a study of the development of the working partnership between the two main characters. All in all this was an enjoyable, but over long, book to read.