I’ve read two books this week by much loved and established authors – Sinead Moriarty’s Mad About You and Catherine Alliott’s My Husband Next Door – that (I’ll be honest) didn’t entirely delight me. Now this is a situation I haven’t come across before since I’ve been a blogger. If the books had been my… Read More »
I was totally blown away by Tina Seskis’ One Step Too Far, full of twists and turns, looping backwards and forwards in time. I have to say that I enjoyed this one even more. Friends had told me about the cast of characters and difficulties keeping track – and maybe it did help that I… Read More »
I have a reading rule I almost always follow – if a book hasn’t grabbed me by page 50, give up and move on. This book came perilously close to falling foul of that rule – I was reading and really not understanding the links between the distinctly separate story lines, with characters I kept… Read More »
Tasmina Perry – I so loved her earlier books, and her latest book was always a must for summer sunbed reading. I loved Daddy’s Girls – and then Gold Diggers, Guilty Pleasures and Original Sin. If you spot any of them on your holiday bookshelves, I guarantee a total escapist and unputdownable read. But something’s… Read More »
In an undisguised attempt to catch up on my review backlog, what follows are some shorter reviews of some excellent books I’ve read recently. For that, my apologies to the authors and publishers – it’s not that I loved your books any less, just that I’d like to be in a position to do justice… Read More »
I must admit that this book lay unread on my bedside table for quite a long time. From the reviews I’d read, I knew it dealt with the subject of surrogacy: I did enjoy The Two Week Wait by Sarah Rayner, which helped me understand the pain of childless couples, but having spent most of… Read More »
A deft meditation on loss that plays out levels of consequence on both personal and international stages. Mott allows the magic of his story to unearth a full range of feelings about grief and connection. – Aimee Bender, New York Times bestselling author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake Mott brings a singularly eloquent voice… Read More »
I’ve recently returned from a Baltic cruise on P&O’s Arcadia– a wonderful holiday, with the highlight being the two days we spent in St Petersburg. The Peterhof Palace, the Hermitage and Winter Palace, the Catherine Palace at Tsarskoye Selo – these are all settings that have all featured in so many of the books I’ve… Read More »
I was reflecting the other night on what it was that made a book a five-star read for me. When reviewing on Goodreads and Amazon, I’ve given five stars to a quite large number of books ranging from almost everything in the Choc Lit catalogue, quite a few recent psychological thrillers and some young adult… Read More »
In any list of my favourite-books-ever, there will always be a place for Matt Haig’s The Last Family In England. I loved that book, talked about it until people glazed over, lent out my copy (and bought a second so no-one lost out), bought copies for friends, quoted from it, and never looked at a… Read More »