Ruby Robinson drifts through life stacking shelves at the library, quiet, solitary, invisible.

However, in real life there are more things to be afraid of, A difficult read and one I did not enjoy.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book. Unfortunately it’s not the book for me. DNF @ 14%.

Ruby works as a librarian and the library is basically everything she currently has in her life. She gets obsessed with working in the archive and sorting through century-old photographs and journals as well as with observing her colleague named Martha, who has an affair with a married man. That is pretty much all that happens in the first part of the book; it relies heavily on the characters, descriptive writing style and the atmosphere of the microcosmos that is the library.

Unfortunately, I didn't feel any connection whatsoever to Ruby, although the first part was told in first person. The writing style made her feel very distant and detached (also weird not in a good way), and although the second part, in which we learn about Ruby's past, may serve as an explanation for that, it's just not something I enjoy in books, especially when there is little plot to distract me from the fact that I don't care about the main character or any other characters.

The second part is told in third person and it basically turns into a domestic thriller that wasn't very thrilling - it felt quite formulaic and frustrating instead. Similarly, as in the first part, there were some subplots that weren't interesting and didn't seem to have much significance for the story either. Although the pace picked up a little bit near the end, the ending felt pretty far-fetched and I still didn't care about the main character very much.

Overall, I can see why some people might enjoy this book but I was not one of them. The only things I somewhat enjoyed were the library setting and maybe Ruby's perseverance but there were too many things that I didn't click with: the writing style, the characterization, the plot itself and even the structure. The incredibly slow pacing made it even harder to get through so unfortunately, my reading experience with this book was not a pleasant one.

*thank you to Netgalley, Ipso Books and Helen Slavin for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

1 star.

I couldn't get through this. I tried. I got to 34% and just couldn't keep going. It was so slow. Too slow really. I really really wanted to like this one as it was set in a library! That sounds like a perfect 5 stars right there. I get that this was probably ment to be a slow storyline but it just dragged and there were parts that I didn't particularly care to read about. So unfortunately this one is not for me. I wish it had been. My 1 star is because it was a DNF/Did not finish.

Meet Ruby Robinson, a librarian and self confessed people watcher. The quite unobtrusive woman that no one really notices, but she notices them and when you blend into the background it is surprising what you see and hear. So it is Ruby that notices her coworker Martha is having relationship problems. She can see the tail tale signs that things are wrong, very wrong. She knows the signs and excuses of domestic violence but how far dare she become involved in Martha’s relationship at the cost to herself? Because Ruby has a secret of her own, one that she desperately wants to remain exactly that – a secret! With the arrival of the police at the library Ruby’s past catches up with her, shattering her quiet life and secrets are revealed.

The book is set in a library which being a book geek I absolutely loved! Set in two parts, present day and Ruby’s past it is certainly a rollercoaster of a ride, packed full of suspense and emotions, one that will surprise you and ultimately delight you!

For me it was Ruby’s past that made this book for me, she is a great protagonist who’s inner dialogues were so realistic that I could hear myself saying and thinking the same things, I swear her voice became and sounded like my own at times, and if nothing else, Ruby is certainly not a quitter.

This book deals with an emotional theme that is portrayed perfectly and handled with care. The setting of the book is fairly unique to this genre which is great, the characters are all well fleshed out, personable and relatable. It may not be the fastest paced book to begin with but the second half of the book makes it completely worth it. This is the first book I have read by this author and after reading this one I will definitely keep an eye out for in the future.

The Stopping Place was published back in Jan 2018 so i am a bit late in discovering it but i am glad that I did. You can grab a copy now and it is even available at the moment to read for free with Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited!
Thank you to the author Helen Slavin, publishers Agora Books and NetGalley for my copy of this book in exchange for an honest and independent review.

This book is one of those rarer finds where you’d enjoy reading it the second time rather than first. It also specialises in being unique. My interest in this book sped up after halfway through, when the story was actually on Ruby’s past. Helen Slavin showed us what shaped Ruby’s personality into what it is at the moment. The author’s voice is different to others I’ve read, yet strangely familiar. Some of Ruby’s monologues go exactly how mine does sometimes, especially when I’m emotional. At these times, it’s unnerving to read my thoughts written by a stranger.

The stopping place by Helen slavin.
Ruby Robinson drifts through life stacking shelves at the library, quiet, solitary, invisible. 
Invisibility lends itself to collecting secrets, though, and Ruby has always valued the importance of knowledge. She watches the world go by from her place amongst the shelves. The bored students, the domestic dramas, and her colleague Martha- vivacious, wild, enchanting.
Drawn in by Martha’s light, Ruby finds herself watching, observing… which is why she notices the cracks in Martha’s shiny new relationship before anyone else.
Forced to intervene, Ruby is drawn out of the shadows, but all actions have consequences, particularly someone with a past she’d rather forget.
Ruby spends her days among books. She should have known that every story has a history and that secrets don’t stay hidden for long… 
Good read although it was slow I did read it. 4*.

This book is split into two parts, the first set in the current day and the second goes back in time.
Whilst I do not want to say too much more as I don’t want to post a spoiler, I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the second part of the book.
However, I found it a bit of a struggle to maintain my enthusiasm for the first part.
I would highly recommend to readers that one does so as the second half makes it all worthwhile.
Thanks to NetGalley for a Kindle copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

A book set in a library? Oh yes, try and stop me! The rest of the synopsis really caught my eye too. Unusual, thrilling, exciting. A compelling plot with intriguing characters. As it progresses we see the very worst that humanity has to offer. The dark atmospherics ratchet up the tension yet further. Main character Ruby is a loner whose only social interaction is at work and who immerses herself in the past to avoid thinking about the here and now. That changes when she is visited by the police while working at the library one day.

Slavin structures the novel in such a way that it falls into two distinct halves. The first section builds the tension and continues to add different threads to the mystery and the second is where everything unravels until Ruby is in extreme danger. Despite the overwhelming struggle Ruby has she does not quit. There were so many questions to be answered and as the truth emerges you get those answers.

Emotionally challenging and featuring sensitive themes that the author deals with admirably, The Stopping Place is a great read that is deeper than other thrillers out there with a unique, impactful storyline with fantastic use of observational humour.

I would like to thank Helen Slavin, Ipso Books and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I couldn't get into this book. It started slowly and stayed slow and just wasn't quite there for me, unfortunately.

Really enjoyed this! Took a while to get into, but couldn't put it down when the story picked up!

To be completely honest, I had not read the blurb properly when I picked up this book. Quite frankly, it had me at the word “library”. I was expecting a sweet little tale about a town library, and the interwoven lives of the people who passed through there, either to work, or to use the facilities. To a certain extent, this is what I got, but I also got a lot more than I bargained for. From the outset, it is clear that there is more to Ruby than meets the eye, and her actions leave you wondering about her past. As the story unfolds, all becomes clear, but I was still didn’t see the ending coming!
I really enjoyed discovering Lady Breck and Mary-Ann’s story as Ruby worked her way through the archives, but I would have loved to have seen more of the details of this in the book.

Ruby is isolated and dissatisfied with her life. Her only real social interaction is at work. However, most of her colleagues at the library have problems of their own, and Ruby likes to detach herself from the others, sitting in the staff room on a chair by the window, looking out across the park opposite. The working environment is a microcosm of society, reflecting many of it's ills, and Ruby appears to want to distance herself from that world. Indeed, given the opportunity, she spends most of her days independently in the archive, immersing herself in the minutia of the everyday lives of the people who inhabited the local manor, Kite House, during the culminating years of the nineteenth century. It's a welcome relief. Here she can escape from the workplace undercurrents of aberrant husbands and the machinations of illicit love affairs. It's also a release from the uncomfortable knowledge that a pervert prowls the town, seeking unattended washing lines decorated with bunting of woman's underwear.
As the plot progresses we are given a view of humanity's underbelly as seen through Ruby's eyes. The narrative drawing the reader into Ruby's world with well-rounded characters and expertly crafted atmospherics of place. However, all the while there is a pervading suspicion that Ruby is guarding a distasteful secret herself. It's an uneasy equilibrium, and when a police detective visits the library one day and starts asking questions, Ruby is toppled from her precarious pedestal.
Helen Slavin has divided her novel into two distinct halves, and it is a very effective way in which to tell Ruby's story. The first section builds to create a multi-threaded mystery which, in itself, is the consequence of the frightening tale that unfolds over the passage of the second-half. Gradually you'll begin to realise the immense danger of Ruby's situation. And as the tension ratchets up, and blackness engulfs Ruby's past, you'll struggle alongside her, willing her to resist the overwhelming sense of the futility of resisting.
Carefully avoiding titillation and sensationalism, the author’s unique approach gives fresh insight into sensitive themes that will be familiar to many readers. This definitely isn’t an all-is-wonderful, sunshine and blue-sky novel.
If you like an emotionally challenging book, I definitely recommend it.

Stepping out of my comfort zone once again with 'The Stopping Place' by Helen Slavin. Having not read (or heard of) Helen Slavin and her books, I was intrigued to see what awaited me beyond the front cover of 'The Stopping Place'. Seeing as I'm not really one for reading blurbs, I went into this book 'blind' so to speak, my decision based on the cover of the book and the title alone. 

What peaked my interest at the start of the book was how the storyline was set in a library. As nerdish as people may think, you cannot beat a book which is set in a library if you're a bookworm. End of. There really is no better setting. However, when the storyline seemed to point in the direction of invisibility for the main character, I knew straight away that 'The Stepping Place' was a different style of book to what I'm used to. I continued reading as I didn't want to give up purely on the basis of the storyline being 'different', that wouldn't have been fair on the author at all.

The main character, Ruby,  seemed to play all of her cards close to her chest and, weirdly enough, I actually found myself becoming more and more intrigued by Ruby's personality as well as the traits which were being kept hidden. What was Ruby hiding?

As the story went on, it became clear exactly what Ruby's life was all about and whilst the author did write the story well, I have to admit that I spent a lot of time waiting for the 'Big Bang' part of the book to happen. And it didn't.

There is a lot about 'The Stopping Place' which made me stop and listen, especially the way in which the author produced the storyline itself. Whilst this book didn't blow me away, I can still appreciate the thought behind it, including the historic features which Ruby came into contact with.

Very different.

Thanks IpsoBooks.

I really enjoyed this book. Excellent storyline and great main characters. I would recommend this book.

Too slow for me, I only got about 1/4 of the way through the book.

One thing can be said for certain about this book, Ruby, the main character, is not a quitter! Overall, this was a fantastic book that told a very compelling story. There were so many questions that needed answers and as you read along the truth began to emerge. The only thing I can add as a criticism is that the writing was a bit overdone at times. I could read the sentence a few times and still not quite understand what the author was saying. Other than that small negative, the story was unique and it was fast paced. The questions I had were all answered by the end of the book.. Kudos to Ms. Slavin for an interesting read and for creating a heroine that she should be proud of.

Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for the chance to read and review.

Helen Slavin’s The Stopping Place is a horror novel, at least for women readers. It isn’t terrifying at first. The first part of the novel is unsettling, sure, especially as protagonist Ruby starts to become a vigilante for women who have problems with men who don’t listen to the word “no.” But when the second part, in which Ruby reveals where she came from and why she is so profoundly afraid of men, that The Stopping Place turns into a story so chilling that I had a hard time getting through it. Thankfully, the ending (not to say too much) delivers justice for Ruby and other women victimized by men.

When we meet Ruby, she is a library assistant in an unknown British city. (I only know this book is somewhere in the UK because of the vocabulary. Ruby is awfully fond of the word “claggy.”) She lives alone. She does not cultivate friendships. Instead, she watches people. In her role as voyeur, Ruby watches her coworker Martha’s relationship begin to turn violent. It’s clear she doesn’t want to engage, but Ruby masters her fear to fight back on the behalf of other women in her circumscribed world. Her successes, however, mean that her ex-husband tracks her down.

In the second part of the book, Ruby finally reveals her story. This part, I’ll say again, is very hard to read. Imagine trigger warning stickers all over the place for domestic violence, sexual violence, and emotional abuse. The second part probably goes on too long, if I’m honest. And yet, some of it is very necessary showing the emotional life of women involved with controlling, violent men. These abusive men are reasonable at first. They’re sexy, too. But, the longer the relationship goes, the reasonableness turns into a pot of emotional boiling water: little things are dismissed, larger things are explained away, and the biggest things must be coped with because the abused person has no way out.

The best part of The Stopping Place is the ending. During the first part, when Ruby-as-librarian digitizes and catalogs the papers of a Victorian photographer and searches for a missing laundress from the photographer’s estate, I didn’t see how any of it added to Ruby’s story. It was interesting, but it wasn’t until the end that I finally twigged to this subplot’s purpose. When it hit me, I saw how The Stopping Place is, over and over, a story of women pushed into uncomfortable or dangerous positions by powerful men (physically or otherwise) and hit their breaking point.

In spite of the difficulty in reading about physical and emotional abuse, I liked this book. I’m a big fan of a book about extrajudicial justice anyway, especially when the vigilante is a woman. I also enjoyed Ruby’s strange, new life and the way she gets little revenges on people who wrong her. The Stopping Place is a challenge, but I found it very much worthwhile.

I received a free copy of this book from the publishers via NetGalley for review consideration. It will be released 12 November 2017.

The Stopping Place was a heart-stopping read. Terrifying, intriguing, suspenseful and well written. I cheered out loud for Ruby and her friends

I loved this book! Ruby works at a library, where she carefully observes both patrons and staff, making astute observations about all those she encounters. She spends most of her life looking from the outside in, not that she feels badly about that, but when her fellow librarian, Martha, starts a new relationship, Ruby finds herself getting involved. Something isn’t right with Martha’s new life, and when Ruby steps up to intervene, she discovers that she can no longer hide behind the wall of books she’s built around her heart. I want Ruby to work with me at my library! Funny, snarky, and scary smart, she’s the kind of heroine readers will love