Purchased eBooks

Brit(ish) by Afua Hirsch

I’ve seen this book around in recent weeks and thought it sounded really interesting so when I spotted it in the Kindle Daily Deals earlier this week I bought it. I hope to get to this one soon.

Afua Hirsch is British. Her parents are British. She was raised, educated and socialised in Britain. Her partner, daughter, sister and the vast majority of her friends are British. So why is her identity and sense of belonging a subject of debate? The reason is simply because of the colour of her skin. Blending history, memoir and individual experiences, Afua Hirsch reveals the identity crisis at the heart of Britain today. Far from affecting only minority people, Britain is a nation in denial about its past and its present. We believe we are the nation of abolition, but forget we are the nation of slavery. We sit proudly at the apex of the Commonwealth, but we flinch from the legacy of the Empire. We are convinced that fairness is one of our values, but that immigration is one of our problems. Brit(ish) is the story of how and why this came to be, and an urgent call for change.

Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker

This is another book that I got from the Kindle Daily Deals this week. It’s one I’ve read really good reviews of and am keen to read soon.

Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don’s work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins—aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony—and they worked hard to play their parts. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the ten Galvin boys, one after another, were diagnosed as schizophrenic. How could all this happen to one family? What took place inside the house on Hidden Valley Road was so extraordinary that the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institute of Mental Health. Their story offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of institutionalization, lobotomy, and the schizophrenogenic mother to the search for genetic markers for the disease, always amid profound disagreements about the nature of the illness itself. And unbeknownst to the Galvins, samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research that continues today, offering paths to treatment, prediction, and even eradication of the disease for future generations.

Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby

I keep hearing great things about Samantha Irby’s writing but didn’t know which book to start with so when this book popped up in the Kindle Daily Deals I immediately bought it. I’m just in the mood to read an essay collection so I may pick this up very soon.

A new essay collection from Samantha Irby about aging, marriage, settling down with step-children in white, small-town America. Irby is turning forty, and increasingly uncomfortable in her own skin. She has left her job as a receptionist at a veterinary clinic, has published successful books and is courted by Hollywood, left Chicago, and moved into a house with a garden that requires repairs and know-how with her wife and two step-children in a small white, Republican town in Michigan where she now hosts book clubs. This is the bourgeois life of dreams. She goes on bad dates with new friends, spends weeks in Los Angeles taking meetings with “skinny, luminous peoples” while being a “cheese fry-eating slightly damp Midwest person,” “with neck pain and no cartilage in [her] knees,” and hides Entenmann’s cookies under her bed and unopened bills under her pillow.

The Girl With The Louding Voice by Abi Dare

This is another book that I keep hearing about and it sounds like such an interesting novel that I couldn’t resist buying it.

Adunni is a fourteen-year-old Nigerian girl who knows what she wants: an education. As the only daughter of a broke father, she is a valuable commodity. Removed from school and sold as a third wife to an old man, Adunni’s life amounts to this: four goats, two bags of rice, some chickens and a new TV. When unspeakable tragedy swiftly strikes in her new home, she is secretly sold as a domestic servant to a household in the wealthy enclaves of Lagos, where no one will talk about the strange disappearance of her predecessor, Rebecca. No one but Adunni… As a yielding daughter, a subservient wife, and a powerless servant, fourteen-year-old Adunni is repeatedly told that she is nothing. But Adunni won’t be silenced. She is determined to find her voice – in a whisper, in song, in broken English – until she can speak for herself, for the girls like Rebecca who came before, and for all the girls who will follow.

Review Books

The Thursday Murder Club By Richard Osman

This is one of my most anticipated reads of this year so I was thrilled to be approved to read it from NetGalley. I don’t think this will be on my TBR for very long at all!

In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved killings. But when a local property developer shows up dead, ‘The Thursday Murder Club’ find themselves in the middle of their first live case. The four friends, Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron, might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves. Can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it’s too late?

All My Lies Are True by Dorothy Koomson

This is another of my most anticipated reads for 2020 so when I spotted the audio book on NetGalley I hit that request button right away. I was delighted to be approved to read this one yesterday and it will definitely be the next book I listen to!

Verity is telling lies… And that’s why she’s about to be arrested for attempted murder. Serena has been lying for years. . . And that may have driven her daughter, Verity, to do something unthinkable… Poppy’s lies have come back to haunt her . . . So will her quest for the truth hurt everyone she loves? Everyone lies. But whose lies are going to end in tragedy? 

The Love Square by Laura Jane Williams

This is another audio book that I got from NetGalley this week. I’ve heard good things about this book and it sounds like a fun summer listen. I’m looking forward to getting to it.

She’s single. But it can still be complicated… Penny Bridge has always been unlucky in love. So she can’t believe it when she meets a remarkable new man. Followed by another. And then another… And all of them want to date her. Penny has to choose between three. But are any of them The One?

Library Books (BorrowBox App)

Long Bright River by Liz Moore

I requested this audiobook on the BorrowBox app a few weeks ago so have been eagerly awaiting my turn to listen to it. It finally downloaded this week so I’m keen to get to it. I think I’ll listen to the new Dorothy Koomson novel first and then this one.

KENSINGTON AVE, PHILADELPHIA: THE FIRST PLACE YOU GO FOR DRUGS OR SEX. THE LAST PLACE YOU WANT TO LOOK FOR YOUR SISTER. Mickey Fitzpatrick has been patrolling the 24th District for years. She knows most of the working women by name. She knows what desperation looks like and what people will do when they need a fix. She’s become used to finding overdose victims: their numbers are growing every year. But every time she sees someone sprawled out, slumped over, cold to the touch, she has to pray it’s not her sister, Kacey. When the bodies of murdered sex workers start turning up on the Ave, the Chief of Police is keen to bury the news. They’re not the kind of victims that generate a whole lot of press anyway. But Mickey is obsessed, dangerously so, with finding the perpetrator – before Kacey becomes the next victim.

Have you acquired any new books this week? I’d love to know what you got. Or have you read any of my new books and recommend I get to any of them sooner rather than later? If you’ve shared a book haul post this week then please feel free to share you link below and I’ll make sure to visit your post! 🙂