Tag Archives: Review

Review: The Broken Hearts Book Club by Lynsey James

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Broken Heart Book Club

I love books about book clubs so I couldn’t resist the chance to read The Broken Hearts Book Club!

Lucy grew up in the idyllic Luna Bay but something happened eight years ago which caused her to run away and she has never been back. She has managed to avoid all reasons to return but when her beloved Nana dies Lucy finally returns to her childhood home for the funeral. It is her intention to make this a quick visit but when her Nana’s Will is read and Lucy finds out she has been left her gorgeous Rose Cottage and her broken hearts book club, Lucy feels compelled to stick around for a while. After meeting the lovely, and very attractive new pub owner, Jake, Lucy suddenly finds even more reasons to stay in Luna Bay!

There is a mystery that runs through this book about why Lucy ran away all those years ago. Lucy refers to it many times but can never bring herself to tell anyone what she did. I’ll be honest there were a few times when I wanted to grab Lucy and just make her open up about it but it was true to her character that she was forever skirting around it – this is the girl who ran away for eight years rather than stay and face it after all. I felt sorry for her especially as some of the people in Luna Bay who were there eight years ago still made Lucy feel bad, even after so much time had passed.

Lucy is such a lovely character, her heart is in the right place and she just wants to make things right with those she’s done wrong by, and she wants to help make better the lives of the broken hearted in the book club. I love how she can’t always control her impulse to sing if she reads, or hears someone say a song lyric. I burst out laughing reading the very first page with the Joni Mitchell song incident! It’s the sort of thing that could happen to any of us and that’s what makes her so endearing.

I loved the setting of the book too; Luna Bay just felt like a real place and I’d really like to go there! I could picture the cottage, the pub, the cafe and the gorgeous sea front as I was reading.

I adored the book club! I love the idea of a book club for broken-hearted people especially the way it was for people who had suffered any kind of loss, all the members supported each other and no loss was made to feel less than any other. I enjoyed reading about the books they were reading too and hearing their thoughts on them. I’ve already read all of the book club reads apart from The Rosie Project and they’ve convinced me to give it a try!

The Broken Hearts Book Club is perfect for these colder, darker nights – it’s like a big warm comfort blanket in book form! It’s a feel-good read with a bit of depth to it. I rate this book 9 out of 10 and highly recommend it. This was the first book I’ve read by Lynsey James and I enjoyed it so much that I’ve already bought her debut novel Just the Way You Are and hope to read it very soon.

The Broken Hearts Book Club is published today and available on Amazon now!

I received this book from Carina UK via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

Review: 24 Hours by Claire Seeber

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24 Hours should really come with a warning about just how addictive it is! I started reading it this morning thinking I’d just read a couple of chapters while I drank my coffee and I ended up so engrossed that the next thing I knew I’d finished the book and it was lunch time! This is such a brilliant thriller; it’s impossible to stop once you start reading!

24 Hours is the story of Laurie Smith; she has been caught up in a fire in a hotel and believes her best friend is dead and that her daughter may well be in grave danger. She is now in a race against time to find her.

The novel is told in alternating chapters – one from the past that gradually leads up to the present day, and one from each of the 24 Hours that Laurie is frantically searching for her daughter, Polly. It’s so well written because you’d think that the chapters told over the 24 Hours would be the most intense but the chapters set leading up to this day become increasingly more unsettling and there reaches point where there is such tension in every chapter that you almost can’t breathe.

Each of the 24 Hours is brilliantly plotted, you can almost feel Laurie’s increasing tiredness and exhaustion as the hours draw on and the way she starts to question herself and what she thinks she knows because she is almost delirious with fatigue, it begins to feel like you’re in it with her and you’re as unsure as she is. It’s such good writing.

I rate this book 10 out of 10 and highly recommend it. I read a lot of psychological thrillers and this one just felt so refreshingly different to a lot of others that I’ve read of late. Go buy this, you won’t regret it!

24 Hours is published today and is available from Amazon.

I received this book from Bookouture via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Pretending to Dance by Diane Chamberlain

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Pretending to Dance is a moving novel about the damage that secrets can do. Molly is happily married to Aidan, they have a good life together but something is missing. Molly can’t have children so they are going through the process of adopting a baby, it’s something they both want but Aidan is throwing himself into the process and Molly is much more reserved and nervous. She doesn’t want to risk anyone to find out about the secrets she is keeping.

The novel then goes back to 1990 when Molly was 14. She was growing up in a tight knit family, with her extended family all living close by. Molly was a typical teenage girl, obsessed with New Kids on the Block and Jonny Depp. She was a very naive girl, having lived a sheltered life, but on meeting a new friend, Stacie, her eyes soon become open to new things, particularly boys, and her focus in life begins to change.

Molly had a very close bond with her dad, Graham, she idolised him and she helped him in his work as a pretend therapist. He was suffering from MS and Molly did everything she could to help him and to make his life happier, it’s a wonderful relationship to read about. Molly was unable to see, or perhaps didn’t want to face, the fact that her dad’s health was deteriorating. So when he died it seemed very sudden and seemed out of nowhere to her. She was utterly distraught and began to question everything she thought she knew about her family, which eventually led to her leaving them behind and starting a new life but the secrets she carries are still haunting her.

I absolutely loved this book, it is Diane Chamberlain at her best. The novel is part mystery, part coming of age, part family and domestic drama; it’s got a bit of everything and it’s brilliant, I found it near impossible to put it down.

The opening of this book hooks you in immediately when you hear Molly tell how she is not only a liar but a good liar. Straight away you want to know more about her. Is she a pathological liar? Can we trust anything she says? Or is she lying to protect someone? So many questions and you feel compelled to keep reading. Molly is actually very good at keeping secrets much more than she is a liar but there is a fine line between the two – when does a secret become a lie? This is a question I kept asking myself all through this novel because I never really saw Molly as a liar, just someone burdened with a difficult secret but because she never shared her secret, it becomes a lie of omission and she really struggled with that. The idea of whether a secret is a lie, or can become a lie runs through this book and really gives you pause for thought.

The storyline focuses a lot on Molly’s dad Graham’s MS and this was so well written. I found it very difficult to read for personal reasons but you know a story is done well when it really gets to you like that. There was clearly a lot of research done into the disease and nothing is shied away from. It was apparent to everyone, including the reader, that Graham was deteriorating but the family colluded in shielding it from Molly, which in the end leaves her feeling very left out and lost. I felt increasingly more sympathetic for everyone in this family, no one had an easy time of it. Molly’s father was trying to keep going as long as he could but was obviously suffering. Molly’s mother was still very much in love with her husband but knew she was going to have to let go very soon, and this meant she became very focused on him which left Molly feeling unloved. Molly was just a normal teenage girl who wanted everyone to be okay, she didn’t have enough life experience to know that loving someone isn’t enough to keep them alive when they’ve had enough of suffering. It made me so sad that Molly and her mother couldn’t find a way to communicate, there were so many missed chances when they could have talked and formed a better bond together. It’s so true to life though that sometimes a misunderstanding, and the keeping of secrets drives such a wedge between people that it seems like it will never be able to be mended.

I was fascinated by Graham’s job as a pretend therapist, I love how it was woven through the book along with Amalia’s interpretative dancing sessions with Molly; it all revolved around the idea of finding out who you are and if you’re not the person you want to be then pretend for a while and eventually you’ll become that person. I don’t know if pretend therapy is a real therapy or even based on a real therapy, but the idea of it seems quite wonderful. I’m going to take the idea of pretending to dance and remind myself of it on the bad days, it really is a great lesson for us all.

I rated this book 10 out of 10 and can’t recommend it highly enough. It’s a compelling read that has something for everyone, it’s a book not to be missed!

Thank you to St. Martins Press via Net Galley for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review.

This book is published today in paperback and is available on Amazon.

Review: The Lies We Tell by Meg Carter

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I can never resist a new psychological thriller so this caught my eye immediately! The premise of the book is very intriguing; two teenage girls, Jude and Kat, become best friends as teenagers and then one day, on a school trip, something happens and Kat never saw Jude again. Until, that is, twenty years later when Jude suddenly gets in touch, and her reappearance coincides with a series of increasingly strange and unsettling things that start happening to Kat and the people closest to her.

This was a very good debut novel; it had quite a few twists and turns, and moments that were very unsettling and made me feel on edge, which all good thrillers should do. I did work out quite early on who was involved with the mystery in the  present day but I was left gobsmacked by one of the twists, which totally made up for me working out the other elements.

The parts of the story set when Kat and Jude were teenagers was the most unsettling part of the book for me. There was just a real sense of something sinister lurking beneath their friendship; the tension hanging between them was radiating off the page and making me feel like I couldn’t breathe at times. There is often an unspoken rivalry between teenage friendships and Meg Carter got this perfect and heightened it further. The scenes set on the heath were really creepy, and it was written in such a great way that I couldn’t work out what had happened that day or how it had led up to the present day. It was so good!

I rate this book 8 out of 10.

The Lies We Tell is out now and available from Amazon.

I received this book from Canelo via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Six Poets: From Hardy to Larkin by Alan Bennett

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Six Poets: From Hardy to Larkin is a wonderful anthology of poetry; it’s a book that I know I will go back to time and time again. I was already a fan of Philip Larkin but I knew only little of the other five poets so it was a chance to learn more. Alan Bennett’s voice comes through as you read this anthology, his wonderful personality and enthusiasm run right through the book. It was fascinating to learn in the introduction that Bennett used to feel that ‘literature was a club of which I would never be a proper member’ and that there are still poets that he has never managed to read, and how hearing about them even now reminds him ‘how baffled one can feel in the face of books’. Immediately this is reassuring to anyone who picks this book up that they are in good hands, that this isn’t an academic book, this is a book for everyone to enjoy without needing any prior knowledge or understanding of poetry.

Alan Bennett selected over seventy poems from six poets –  Thomas Hardy, A. E. Housman, John Betjeman, W. H. Auden, Louis MacNeice and Philip Larkin for this anthology. Each poet is introduced with a brief biography, which is followed by selected poems interspersed with candid commentary. The way the book is set out, with the poets being written about in chronological order, allows the reader to easily understand how one poet was influenced or inspired by his predecessor. Some of the poems Bennett has chosen from one poet link together with poems form another in the anthology, which again makes it easy to grasp common themes and how each poet put his own stamp on a sometimes similar idea.

Bennett strikes a great balance between serious biographical information and amusing anecdotes. We learn that Larkin ordered that all his papers be destroyed after his death; that Hardy wrote a poem in tribute to the wife he treated terribly when she was alive, and then proposed to his second wife by pointing out a plot in the cemetery next to his first wife’s grave and explaining that it would be hers! Auden couldn’t bear to edit his work so he would take the best of what he’d been working on and put it together with his favourite lines saved from his other unfinished works and make it work as a single poem!

Six Poets was an utter joy to read. I thought I would enjoy the part on Larkin the most seeing as he is one of my favourite poets already but Bennett introduced the other five poets in such a way that I very much enjoyed reading about them too and feel that I have a better understanding now. It’s actually made me want to seek out more poetry, and how wonderful that is when a book can make you enthusiastic to want to find out more on a subject that has previously felt a little intimidating!

I rate this book ten out of ten and I can’t recommend this book highly enough!

Six Poets: From Hardy to Larkin is out today on Amazon.

I received this book from Yale University Press via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Dying to be Slim by Abby Beverley

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I was intrigued by the premise of this novel and couldn’t resist the chance to read it. It’s about Clara who, having been a single mum to four children for many years, turned to food for comfort. Many years later she is married to a lovely man, Jakey, who is a wonderful baker and just wants to make Clara happy by giving her everything she wants, including all the cake she desires. Clara ends up weighing 34 stone and being housebound.

Jakey and Clara have a teenage daughter together, along with Clara’s four grown up children from her previous relationship and although she doesn’t get to see them as often as she’d like she is very proud of the successful lives they have led her to believe they are living. Then one day a strange turn of events gives Clara the opportunity to step outside her body and become Starla, the thin person who has been living inside of her all these years. This leads to her discovering that all is not as she has been told. There are many shocks and surprises in store for her!

I really enjoyed this novel, it was hard to put down once I start reading. I really liked Clara and how her weight issues were handled very sensitively; it felt like quite an insight into what it’s like to be morbidly obese. I enjoyed Starla’s exploits even more though! It was such fun finding out what every member of her family was really like, how their lives were really lived and seeing how Starla/Clara reacted to, and dealt with, it all.

The ending of the novel was a surprise to me, all the way through I’d been expecting something different to happen. The epilogue tied things up so well and was the perfect ending to the novel.

I recommend this book if you’re looking for a warm, fun and heartfelt read about what it’s like to escape your own body and to see the side of people’s lives that you would never normally get to see.

I rated this book 8 out of 10.

Thanks to Troubadour Publishing Ltd and Net Galley for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Dying to be Slim is out now and is available on Amazon.

Review: Breaking Away by Anna Gavalda

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Breaking Away is a wonderful short novel about four siblings. Garance is travelling to a family wedding with her brother Simon and his wife Carine. Later in the journey, they sister Lola joins them. Once they arrive at the wedding the three siblings decide to go off to visit their brother Vincent in Tours leaving Carine behind.

This novel is ultimately a wonderful celebration of the love and friendship between siblings. Garance, Vincent, Simon and Lola have grown up together; they have shared memories and a lifelong connection. The day of the wedding they take time out to relive the youth they had together. Garance has such intense nostalgia during this day spent with her brothers and sister, she feels like she is borrowing time and wonders how many other days there will be like this. They’re all moving in different directions, which is natural for siblings to do but still such a wrench when they’ve always been so close.

Simon’s wife Carine at first seemed quite harsh on Garance and Lola but there doesn’t seem to be a specific reason for the irritation. As the novel goes on we learn more about Simon and Lola’s very close bond and it becomes apparent that Carine feels like an outsider to this strong family unit. She seems somewhat jealous of what the four share, even though she has two children with Simon and so has her own strong connections with him that will never be broken. It was lovely to hear Simon stick up for his wife later in the novel, and for him to explain to the others how much she means to him.

The part of the novel where Garance, Simon and Lola listen to a playlist that Vincent has made for them brought a lump to my throat. So many of people, including myself, must have made mix tapes for our younger siblings  It’s the shared history in all of those songs that you heard throughout your lives together, there is a bond that those outside will never quite understand or break though.

I very much enjoyed this novel, I loved how it was a meandering wander through Garance’s thoughts and feelings throughout the course of a day. And it was wonderful to see siblings so closely bonded and wanting to spend time together, I don’t think that happens enough in novels.

I rated this book 8 out of 10 and highly recommend it.

I was kindly given a copy of this book to read and review by Gallic Books via Net Galley in exchange for my honest review.

Breaking Away is out now and available from Amazon.

Review: Bright Stars by Sophie Duffy

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bright stars

Bright Stars is about four people who became friends at university and their lives become intertwined one fateful evening in 1986. The story is narrated by Cameron Sparks in the form of his journal; it takes place in the present day, and during his time at university 25 years earlier.

Cameron Sparks is 46 years old and his life is spiralling out of control. He has been suspended from his job as a Ghost Tour guide in the underground vaults in Edinburgh. He is separated from his wife and is living back at home with his dad. Then one day a letter arrives out of the blue from Christie, a Canadian girl he knew during his university days.

This takes the story back to 1986 when Cameron was an awkward, cripplingly shy teenager trying to find his way at university. He finds a friend in Christie, and then by chance also becomes friends with wannabe rock star, Tommy, and he falls head over heels in unrequited love with Bex, a feminist activist. The unlikely foursome spend their time getting drunk, listening to or making music and attempting to be activists. Then one fateful night an accident happens and it changes everything.

None of the characters in this book are particularly likeable, they all have such flaws but it makes the novel so very readable. Tommo always seems to land on his feet, trouble finds him but he manages to shake it off over and over again. Bex is very focused on her causes, like being a sab, and then when she and Tommo get together her life becomes about him. Cameron is not a bad person, he’s just easily led because he so badly wants to feel like part of the crowd but it’s often hard to like him in the early part of the novel because he appears so feeble. Christie is probably the nicest of the group but is the one we seemed to get to know the least as Cameron wasn’t as fixated on her as he was on Tommo and Bex.

No one won on the fateful night when everything changed in the lives of these four but some of them lost more than others. This novel has such a depth to it, and has been going round and round in my head since I finished reading it. I’m finding it hard to review because there is so much I want to say but I don’t want to spoil it for anyone.

This novel is really about the fine line between good and bad. About how everyone has to take responsibility for the things they do and if they don’t it will catch up with them in some form or another. There are some people who take, or are given, more than their share of blame and heartache and still spend a large part of their lives trying to come to terms with that, and perhaps punishing others rather than the ones they know who should be punished. It is ultimately a novel about how the ghosts of the past are doomed to haunt us, about how redemption never comes in the way we expect it and how karma doesn’t run an exact course.

I rated this book 9 out of 10 and highly recommend this novel.

I received this book from Legend Press on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Bright Stars is released on 1st October and is available for pre-order now from Amazon

Review: Silence is Goldfish (sampler) by Annabel Pitcher

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I completely and utterly adored Annabel’s first novel, My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece; it’s one of the few books that I have re-read as I loved it so much. I was very grateful to receive a sampler of Annabel’s third novel Silence is Goldfish as I’m eagerly awaiting publication day. It’s difficult to review a book after only reading three chapters of it but I can say that I’m definitely intrigued enough to want to buy the book as soon as it’s released, I can’t wait to read the rest of it!

Tess is a 15 year old girl who finds out that her dad is not quite who she thinks he is and this leads to her running away from home for exactly four hours and thirteen minutes. I’m already fascinated to know why a teenage girl would run away for such a short space of time in the middle of the day when no one would even realise she was missing. Yet while she was away she had visions of Missing Persons posters being put up all over the city. I’m also curious why Tess hasn’t asked her mum about what she discovered about her dad.

Tess seems to be a loner; she spends a school disco organising the chocolate for her teacher and then sits outside under a tree by herself until it’s over. She is described as being Pluto, which is the smallest planet, in fact so small not even considered a planet anymore, and this gives a great insight into how people view Tess, and how she feels about herself. We also learn that she is very overweight and conscious of the fact. It seems that Tess has a lot of things to contend with at the same time as she’s trying to find her place in the world. I now very much want to know more about Tess and her life.

All in all this three chapter sampler has left me very keen to read more and I can’t wait for Thursday!

Thanks to Hachette Children’s books on NetGalley for kindly sending me this sampler to review.

Silence is Goldfish is out on Thursday 1st October and is available for pre-order now on Amazon.

Review: Carefully Everywhere Descending by L. B. Bedford

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Audrey is a teenager from a poor family trying to make the best of her life by focusing on her education. She is very driven to get the best grades she possible can as she realises a scholarship to university is her best chance of changing her life. All is going to plan until Scarlett asks Audrey to tutor her.

The interesting thing for me in this book is that Audrey is a lesbian and it quickly becomes apparent that everyone in her life knows and is completely accepting of it. Now this is absolutely how it should be but in just about every other LGBT fiction I’ve read the main character’s homosexuality is what drives the plot. It was very refreshing to see here that it was referred to in exactly the same way as a teenage girl falling for a boy usually is.

Unfortunately, other aspects of the novel are not quite as compelling. The author repeatedly explains that Audrey’s family is poor; nothing ever happens to Audrey in this book without the author telling us yet again that she is very poor. It would have helped if there had been a bit more show, rather than tell to this aspect of the book but ultimately it feels like being banged over the head with it and it detracts from the story. I think that had this aspect of the book been just a little more subtle, if we had learned for ourselves as readers how disadvantaged Audrey was, it would have elicited a bit more sympathy rather than leaving the story a little flat and cardboard cut out-like.

I don’t want to give any spoilers but I’m really not sure what the final few chapters of the book add to the story. It didn’t enhance Audrey’s budding romance, it didn’t improve her family finances, or the way they operated as a family unit. It was just very odd.

Ultimately though, I have to absolutely applaud the author for writing a book where homosexuality is a complete normality. I’ve read quite a lot of LGBT fiction, especially YA, and there needs to be more books like this where a character’s sexuality is an aside and not the main plot for a novel. For all this novel is a little one-dimensional at times, and it does go off on a rather unnecessary tangent at the end, I would still highly recommend it to all readers who are keen to read LGBT fiction where homosexuality is not the main plot point and is really just another fact about character.

I rate this book 7 out of 10.

Carefully Everywhere Descending will be out on 1st October and is available to pre-order now from Amazon

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Review: Bulletproof by Maci Bookout

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Following my recent binge-watch of all the Teen Mom episodes I couldn’t resist buying Maci’s autobiography as she was my favourite of the girls and her story was most interesting to me.

Throughout Teen Mom, Maci always seemed like the most together of all of the girls, parenting seemed to come very naturally to her but I often wondered how much of what we saw was her keeping a protective wall around her about how she felt in certain situations. Maci never seemed to lose her cool, even when her son’s father was being incredibly rude to her. So, she intrigued me.

Bulletproof covers everything that happened to Maci throughout Teen Mom but it gives much more insight into what was going on in her head. As I suspected, she was panicking and sad many times when she appeared so calm and in control. For a fan of the show it really gives much more rounded insight into Maci’s life.

Maci talks about her previous boyfriends – her son’s father, Ryan and also Kyle, but for all they didn’t treat her all that well, she mostly sticks to an account of what happened rather than bad-mouthing them. It is very apparent that what Maci wants most of all is for her son, Bentley to have stability in his life, and that includes her wish that his father would be around more.

It was interesting to read what happened in Maci’s life between the end of season four of Teen Mom and the start of season five. I started watching season five and had no idea that Maci and Kyle had broken up, that Maci had a new long-term boyfriend or that she was pregnant again, so it was good to be able to read what happened and fill in the gaps. It’s uplifting to read just how happy Maci is in her life, she’s an inspiration to young people.

Bulletproof is mainly straightforward autobiography but Maci has included some of her poetry within the book, which was fascinating to read. It’s very apparent that Maci loved creative writing and that it helped her work through her worries. I think so many people will identify with her poems, it’d be really interesting to read more of them.

This book is a great companion piece to the Teen Mom series. There isn’t a lot of new stuff in the book that isn’t seen on screen but it complements it very well in that we get to see Maci’s thoughts and feelings that she tends to hide on screen.

I’m sure fans of MTV’s Teen Mom, and 16 and Pregnant will enjoy reading this book. I found it to be an enjoyable read and rate it 7 out of 10.

Review: Isabelle Day Refuses to Die of a Broken Heart by Jane St. Anthony

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Isabelle Day

Isabelle Day Refuses to Die of a Broken Heart is the story of a young teenage girl whose world has been turned upside down. Isabelle’s dad died and then her mum decided they would move to Minneapolis for a new start, so Isabelle has not only lost her dad but also her home, her friends and the only life she had ever known.

Isabelle and her mum now rent a small apartment from two old ladies who live in the apartment downstairs. Flora and Dora immediately want to look after Isabelle and her mum. They start checking in on Isabelle when she’s on her own and they bring food for her. Isabelle just wants to be left alone though, she doesn’t want people fussing over her.

Isabelle is in eighth grade and at an age where she doesn’t want to be different from her peers, she just wants to make friends and feel normal. Once she starts her new school two girls, Margaret and Grace, befriend her but Isabelle has a hard time realising that these two girls really do like her.

Isabelle is desperately trying to find a way to hold on to her dad even though he has never been a part of the life she has now, he will never see their new home or meet her new friends and she’ll never again be able to tell him anything that happens to her. Isabelle’s pain is tangible at times.

This is a coming of age novel which is also about coming to terms with loss; it’s about how when someone dies you don’t just lose them but who you were to them. The writing in this novel is so subtle and beautiful, yet the small statements of grief feel like a punch in the gut. The simplicity of the writing belies the intensity of the grief. There are moments in this novel that took my breath away. Isabelle, who is only a young teenage girl, realising that nothing in her life will ever be as hard as finding her father dead; it’s such a powerful and sobering moment in the novel. The heartbreak that Flora and Dora have also gone through in their lives is first told so subtly that you could almost have missed it but when you realise what they are not saying, it just makes your heart ache.

Yet even though this is a novel about a bereaved girl, it’s in no way a depressing, downbeat novel. Isabelle is like any other teenage girl – she gets up to mischief and has fun with her friends. It’s a coming of age novel, it’s about how life can throw the worst things at you and yet you can still find yourself laughing at funny things and being silly with your friends. Isabelle slowly begins to understand that life moves on and while she still feels sad that her dad isn’t there, she realises that there is still a lot of happiness to be found in the world and that she won’t die of a broken heart.

This is a short novel but one to take your time reading, the subtly of the writing means so much of what is being said could easily be missed. This isn’t a fast-paced, action packed book, it’s a beautiful and moving account of one girl’s struggle to find a new normal. This book is for everyone but particularly good for a middle grade reader to help them understand grief and loss. It’s written in a way that doesn’t ever overwhelm, it’s a realistic but also very comforting read. It’s such a wonderful book though that whatever age you are, I highly recommend reading it.

I rate this book 10 out of 10.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review but I’m sure I’ll be buying my own copy of this in the future as I know I’ll want to re-read Isabelle’s story.

Isabelle Day Refuses to Die of a Broken Heart is out now and available from Amazon

Review: Christmas at Lilac Cottage (White Cliff Bay book 1) by Holly Martin

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Lilac Cottage

I have to admit that it felt a little strange to be contemplating reading a Christmas book in September, but I opened up this book and started reading and within the first page I was lost in the story. I ended up reading the whole book in one sitting as I just couldn’t put it down!

Penny is an ice-sculptor; she loves her job, her gorgeous cottage and her lovely dog Bernard but she is lonely. She’s been hurt before so looking for love is not high on her agenda yet it is obvious she would love nothing more than to find her Mr Right. Henry and Daisy rent Penny’s annexe and after an amusing misunderstanding before Daisy arrives, they all hit it off brilliantly. The course of true love never did run smooth though, and it is very difficult for these three to form different relationships with each other leading to misunderstandings galore.

The chemistry between Henry and Penny just radiates off the page from the word go; it seems very apparent that these two simply have to get together. I can’t think of many other couples in contemporary fiction who were more suited to each other than these two!

I love the many characters in this book, they all know about Penny’s past heartache and just want her to fall in love again. The way they help her at times leads to very embarrassing but hilariously funny situations, like the time Penny went to buy a toothbrush. I actually laughed out loud at that bit!

The setting of this novel, White Cliff Bay, is described in such vivid detail that I could completely picture it and I really want to go there for a holiday. I’m so happy to discover that Holly has written a second Christmas book set in the same location and that is out very soon (30th October, I believe). I already cannot wait to be back in White Cliff Bay!

I highly recommend this book, it’s wonderful. It’s one of those books that you can curl up with on a cold day and just escape, and when you’ve finished reading you feel all content and warm and smiley.

I rated this book 10 out of 10.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, but I’m going to buy my own copy too as I want to be able to revisit White Cliff Bay again next Christmas!

Christmas at Lilac Cottage is out today and is available from Amazon

Review: #PleaseRetweet by Emily Benet

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Please Retweet

I absolutely loved this book! It’s such a fun, contemporary novel that is so apt for the social media age we now live in.

May Sparks is a social media expert; her job is to run the twitter accounts of C-list celebrities who either cannot be trusted to run their own account, or they’re completely clueless when it comes to social media. Her job sounds like it would be fun and easy, what could possibly be hard about being paid to be on twitter all day? Well, it all quickly begins to unravel for May when tweeting as these celebs starts to take over her whole life, and ultimately the lines begin to blur between her real life and the lives of the celebrities she works for. May finds she has no time for her own twitter account or her real life friends and it all begins to spiral out of her control.

May is a brilliant character who I’m sure anyone who has spent time on twitter will identify with. I think we all occasionally think in hashtags these days, or feel compelled to take photos of everything that happens to us so we can share with our followers. We can’t help but feel a flutter of excitement if we get retweeted a few times; or if a celebrity replies to us, or even better follows back!  I often found myself chuckling as I recognised some of my twitter traits in SparkyMay. I know I’m guilty of planning on just having a quick scroll through my timeline only to realise a whole afternoon has disappeared. And I’ve occasionally retweeted sappy motivational quotes! Oh, and twitter and my real life blurred in a big way when I met my husband on there and moved to the other side of the country to be with him many years ago, and it all stemmed from a certain celebrity’s short-lived book club (for real!).

I can’t think of another book that has ever made me laugh out loud as much as #PleaseRetweet did. It’s such a brilliant take on modern life and how twitter can easily take over if we let it. I’m recommending this book to everyone!

I rate this book 10 out of 10.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, I’ve now bought my own copy as I know this is a book I’ll read again.

#PleaseRetweet is out now and available from Amazon

EDIT 5th NOVEMBER 2015

Today on my blog I’ve got an interview I did with Emily Benet about the paperback release of #PleaseRetweet and we talked about all things social media. The link is here!

Review: Never Too Late by Amber Portwood

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I’ve recently been binge-watching Teen Mom on Amazon Video while recovering from illness and I couldn’t resist buying this autobiography when it appeared in an Amazon email.

Never Too Late is Amber’s story, in her own words, about what really happened behind the scenes of MTV’s Teen Mom, and gives added insight into what led up to events that were shown on screen. This book covers Amber’s difficult childhood, her battle with addiction and her struggle to overcome severe anxiety and depression.

Amber is very candid throughout this book; she doesn’t shy away from the more distressing things that have happened in her life and she accepts responsibility for the things she did wrong. It would be very hard not to have sympathy for a lot of what Amber has been through, and all credit to her for being so open in this autobiography.

Never Too Late isn’t set out like a traditional autobiography, the style is very chatty and as a result some parts are a bit repetitive, and in other parts events that have happened have just been skimmed over. The timeline of her life is a little difficult to follow in places too, but again I think that’s because of the style of writing. Amber’s story feels authentic though, it is as if Amber is talking to her readers about her life rather than it being a structured account of her life.

I’m sure this book will be enjoyed by anyone who watched MTV’s 16 and Pregnant or Teen Mom, and of course to all fans of Amber Portwood.

I rated this book 6 out of 10.

Never Too Late is out now and available from Amazon

Review: Somewhere in Between by Katie Li

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The blurb for this book states that it is inspired by works like Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, which is when I knew that I had to read this book as that is one of my favourite films. I’m fascinated by the idea of getting rid bad memories in order to move on with life, I’m not necessarily saying I think it’s a great idea but it does intrigue me.

Somewhere in Between is the story of an unlikely friendship between Magnolia and Rom. They meet at school and become friends of a sort, mainly because they are both a bit lost and feeling like they don’t quite fit in. She is a pseudo-punk and he is an underachiever gamer-geek. Together they find a portal to the in-between place. They enter and outside in the real world everything changes.

This is where the book becomes a little difficult to follow at first. It isn’t always clear exactly where the in-between place ends and reality begins. It is apparent that whenever Magnolia and Rom enter the secret portal it changes their reality in some way, but they seem unaware that this has happened and so they often appear confused about their own lives and surroundings. While in the in-between place they seem able to express themselves and share things about their lives and yet once they leave they just have very vague fuzzy memories of what happened in there. The fuzziness they experience regarding what happens in the in-between place made me think of when you have a great dream and then on waking you remember that it was great but find you can’t really remember what happened in it.

This is a surreal novel that is at its heart an exploration of the confusion felt around the in-between time in life when a person is no longer really a kid but not yet an adult. It seemed to me that Magnolia’s obsession for building up a collection of lost things means that maybe she has always been metaphorically (and perhaps literally too) between worlds and Rom is one more lost thing that she finds and wants to keep. It seems like if she could just hold on to something or someone then maybe she could be grounded and things would stay the same. There is so much in this book that is easily missed and you only see it afterwards, which makes the book itself feel like an in-between place of sorts!

I rate this book 9 out of 10 stars and highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys books that make them think, where you have to read slowly and ponder what is on the page.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book is out now on Amazon

Review: A Parcel for Anna Browne by Miranda Dickinson

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Anna Browne is a very ordinary woman living a perfectly satisfactory life, but nothing exciting ever happens to her… that is until the day that a parcel arrives at work for her. Inside she finds a beautiful gift, which becomes the first of many wonderful parcels sent to Anna by a mysterious benefactor. Each gift brings real joy to Anna and she finds herself growing in confidence and happiness. But who is sending her these gifts and why?

This novel is magical and wonderful and just perfect! It draws you in and you don’t want to let it go. Anna Browne is such a great character. She is down-to-earth, caring and kind but her life is lacking any excitement. The joy she feels on receiving each gift, and how these gifts bring her out of herself is magical – it’s like her life suddenly gets sprinkled with fairy dust, and who wouldn’t want that? Each gift brings a bit more of Anna to life, she smiles a bit more, gains confidence, feels better about herself – these are the real gifts she receives. I love how the parcels never change who Anna was, they just allowed who she always was to shine

The supporting cast of characters in this book really add to its all-round loveliness. I loved Ted the security guard, he has a conspiracy theory about everything but his heart is in the right place. Anna’s neighbour, Isadora, was so lovely too, I adored reading about their time together.

Then there were the men! The book keeps you wondering for a good while about who Anna will end up and I loved that. Ben was a man of mystery but he kept me reading as I wanted to know more about him, and I just adored Jonah – he’s the kind of man we all want in our lives (plus I really want his camper van!).

The mystery of the parcels will keep you guessing, you’ll think you have it all worked out and then more intrigue comes along. I was convinced I knew who the mystery parcel sender was at several points in the book and was proved wrong! It’s so fantastic to be kept guessing, it adds to the magic of the story.

It felt very serendipitous that I received this book when I did as it arrived at just a time when I needed a lift and Anna Browne’s story was a tonic to me. I swear this book has an effect on its readers the same way the mysterious gifts have an effect on Anna! A Parcel for Anna Browne is without a doubt Miranda’s best novel so far, I can’t recommend it highly enough!

I was sent this book to review for Net Galley but will definitely be buying my own copy when it is released on 24 September as I know this is a book I will read again and again, it is set to become one of my firm favourites.

Available for Pre-order now from Amazon

#BookReview: Explain Pain by G. Larimer Moseley and David Butler

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This book is brilliant! It’s such a shame that the kindle version has got so many one star reviews based on how difficult the book is to read on the device because the actual content of the book is absolutely worth five stars. If you or someone you know suffers from chronic pain then this book is a must read!

Explain pain is written in layman’s terms, which I was so pleased to discover as I’m not science-minded at all. The information is given in bitesize chunks and reinforced with brilliant illustrations. It explains how pain responses are produced by the brain and why you can be left in pain long after an injury has healed.

It was recommended to me by my physiotherapist after I was diagnosed with a neurological condition that means I will spend the rest of my life dealing with severe pain. It makes such a difference to your state of mind when you can read a book like this and really understand why you have pain, how pain signals occur and most importantly to learn that there are things that you can do to help yourself deal with the pain. Since reading this book I have found distraction techniques that I now try before reaching for extra painkillers, I now understand the benefit of relaxation/breathing exercises to help work through pain and am just generally finding it a little easier to live with severe pain now I understand why it’s there. Not knowing why pain hurts can be very distressing, which then makes the pain feel worse. My pain will never not be there but this book has given me such a great understanding of why the pain is there and now I am much less fearful of it, and that enables me to focus more on trying to do things rather than avoiding through fear of pain.

After reading Explain Pain I’ve been left feeling like I finally have some control back. I’m sure this will be a book that I refer back to many, many times. I cannot recommend this book highly enough to anyone who is suffering from chronic pain.

I rate this book 10/10.

This book is out now: http://amzn.to/1iMgMjN

Review: Abroad by Katie Crouch

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Grifonia is an ancient Italian city which plays host to swarms of foreign exchange students every year. Irish student Tabitha Deacon arrives wanting to immerse herself fully into Italian life and so turns down the university accommodation and quickly finds herself renting a room in a small cottage with two Italian women and an American student, Claire. Tabitha, or Taz as she prefers to be known, is very insecure and desperately wants to fit in, and so finds herself unable to resist when the cliquey Brit Four invite her to join their group. The Brit Four lead a very lavish lifestyle and Taz finds herself at increasingly decadent and dark parties. The sense of foreboding is gradually heightened as Taz gets further involved in their world.

Abroad is very loosely based around the murder of British student Meredith Kercher in 2007; Amanda Knox was convicted of the crime, but this novel focuses on the fictionalised story of before.

From the beginning of this novel the reader knows that Taz’s time in Grifonia doesn’t end well, and the tales woven through her story of young women throughout ancient Etruscan civilisations who have befallen horrible, often sacrificial fates due to their being women, gives this novel a haunted feel all the way through. The narrative style adds to this by evoking such a sense of longing and loss; it is reminiscent of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones with it’s slightly distant, dream-like quality. It just makes the reader ache for these lost young women.

This novel is wonderfully written and an utterly engrossing read, albeit discomforting at times due to it’s links to a real life case. I highly recommend this book.

 

Review: Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter

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Grief is the Thing with Feathers is the story of a grief-stricken father and his two young sons following the death of their mother. It is a deeply profound exploration of grief and one of the most beautiful and moving books I’ve read in a very long time.

The Crow enters the family’s home soon after their loss, he is drawn to the pain and despair of their grief. The crow describes himself as sentimental but actually he encompasses many personalities – he is babysitter, healer, trickster. The crow is a brilliant character because he is there to help the family through their grief but he also represents what grief is, how insidious it is and how it affects everything; how you want it to go away so you can feel better and at the same time cling to it because you don’t know what it will mean when it’s gone or how you will be without it.

This is a short novel written in part poetry, part prose; narrated by the Dad, the Boys and the Crow. They are a wonderful mix of characters and make for a novel whereby you are crying reading one page and then jolted by the humour on the next.

Compassion and beauty just radiate from this book. It is a novel to be read slowly, to be properly savoured. It is a novel to read and re-read. It is at times a challenging read but ultimately it’s a healing read, it’s completely worthwhile and I recommend it to everyone.

This book is absolutely a 10/10 star read, I’ve already pre-ordered a copy to keep in my own collection and it will be going straight on to my favourites shelf!

This book was sent to me by Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

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Grief is the Thing with Feathers is published by Faber and Faber on 15th September.

Pre-order from Amazon here: http://amzn.to/1O5S22X

Review: Fragile and Perfectly Cracked by Sophie Wyndham

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Fragile and Perfectly Cracked is a memoir of a woman’s journey through her struggle to conceive focusing a lot on her miscarriages and how they left her feeling. The book is written in such a way that at times it felt almost like a stream of conscious-style of writing, that Sophie has spilled all of her pain and emotions out onto the page. Other times there is more structure but the combination made the writing feel much more heart-felt and real.

The over-riding thing that comes across in this book is Sophie’s honesty about what she has experienced, she never shied away from sharing her pain or from sharing exactly what it is like to lose a baby – from both a physical and an emotional standpoint.

Sophie really helps the reader to understand that miscarriage can leave women feeling very real grief for the baby they have lost, even when it happened in the early stages of pregnancy, and I think this is a very important issue to raise. Too often the grief following miscarriage is swept under the carpet so Sophie’s writing feels very refreshing.

This book ultimately leaves the reader with hope as Sophie gets her happy ending. (Please note this is not a spoiler, the reader discovers this on the first page). It is good the book starts by telling the reader the ultimate outcome as it means that as heartbreaking as the book is to read a lot of the time, the reader knows while reading about such intense emotional pain that Sophie wasn’t left struggling with the emotional pain of child loss.

I would recommend this book to anyone who has suffered a miscarriage and wants to feel less alone in what she has experienced. I think it would be a good book for men to read too as it gives a real insight into what a woman goes through during miscarriage and into all the complex emotions that go with the harrowing experience.

I rate this book 4 of 5 stars.

I received this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

Fragile and Perfectly Cracked by Sophie Wyndham is out now and available here: http://amzn.to/1KarhmZ

Review: A Proper Family Holiday by Chrissie Manby

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Four generations of the Benson family go on holiday to Lanzarote for a week – what could possibly go wrong? This is an often funny, sometimes poignant and constantly entertaining read.

I bought this novel around the time it was released a year ago and it’s sat on my TBR ever since but I don’t really know why as I love Chrissie Manby’s novels. I think I was subconsciously saving it for a time when I knew I’d need a guaranteed pick-me-up of a book, and it didn’t let me down.

This novel was unputdownable for me and was the wonderful pick-me-up that I’d hoped it would be. It was chick-lit with depth to it, and I adored it. I gave it 5 stars and also added it to my favourites shelf as I’m sure it’ll be one of the few books that I will re-read in the future.

On finishing this novel I was so tempted to immediately pick up the next in the series, A Proper Family Christmas, as I really want to know what happens next. But I love a good Christmas read so I’m going to try and hold off reading it for just a few more weeks! I’m happy to see that a third book in the series is already out though and I’ll be buying that soon.

Review: Sophie Someone by Hayley Long

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I was really looking forward to reading this novel as I’ve loved the author’s previous books, so I bought this without ever reading a blurb and I’m really glad I did.

It meant my first feeling on reading the book was one of confusion as Sophie has an unusual way of telling her story, but it enhanced my enjoyment that I had no idea why she was doing this.

I’m much older than the target market for this book but it didn’t stop me finding it wonderful.

A 8/10 star read.