Hello! Happy Saturday! October is flying by in a blink of an eye … again! I think I say that with every month now! Where’s the pause button?!
On to books – where there is never enough time for all the books we want to read! Another decent week here of bookish action! Managed to finish 4 books, bought myself 2 books (very fast delivery from www.hive.co.uk and free delivery!), 1 book in the post to review and just 1 new NG addition!
Here’s my look back..
BOOKS FINISHED
UNDERNEATH THE CHRISTMAS TREE by HEIDI SWAIN – 5 STARS
THE VIEW FROM FEDERAL TWIST by JAMES GOLDEN – 5 STARS
THE HANDBOOK FOR HIGHLY SENSITIVE PEOPLE by MEL COLLINS(audiobook) – 5 STARS
THE BORROW A BOOKSHOP HOLIDAY by KILEY DUNBAR – 5 STARS
BOOKHAUL
Starting at Netgalley..
A TERRIBLE KINDNESS by JO BROWNING WROE
publication date – January 2022
Tonight nineteen-year-old William Lavery is dressed for success, his first black-tie do. It’s the Midlands Chapter of the Institute of Embalmers Ladies’ Night Dinner Dance, and William is taking Gloria in her sequined evening gown. He can barely believe his luck. But as the guests sip their drinks and smoke their post-dinner cigarettes a telegram delivers news of a tragedy. An event so terrible it will shake the nation.
It is October 1966 and a landslide at a coal mine has buried a school: Aberfan. William decides he must act, so he stands and volunteers to attend. It will be his first job, and will be – although he’s yet to know it – a choice that threatens to sacrifice his own happiness. His work that night will force him to think about the little boy he was, and the losses he has worked so hard to bury. But compassion can have surprising consequences, because – as William discovers – giving so much to others can sometimes help us heal ourselves.
And I treated myself to these two…..
PIRANESI by SUSANNA CLARKE
Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.
There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known
THE HAUNTING SEASON by Various
Winter, with its unsettling blend of the cosy and the sinister, has long been a popular time for gathering by the bright flame of a candle, or the warm crackling of a fire, and swapping stories of ghosts and strange happenings.
Now eight bestselling, award-winning authors – master storytellers of the sinister and the macabre – bring this time-honoured tradition to vivid life in a spellbinding collection of new and original haunted tales.
From a bustling Covent Garden Christmas market to the frosty moors of Yorkshire, from a country estate with a dreadful secret, to a London mansion where a beautiful girl lies frozen in death, these are stories to make your hair stand on end, send shivers down your spine and to serve as your indispensable companion to the long nights of winter.
So curl up, light a candle, and fall under the spell of The Haunting Season . . .
Featuring new and original tales from:
Bridget Collins
Sunday Times bestselling author of The Binding
Imogen Hermes Gowar
Sunday Times bestselling author of The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock
Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Sunday Times bestselling author of The Mercies
Andrew Michael Hurley
Sunday Times bestselling author of The Loney
Jess Kidd
International award-winning author of Things in Jars
Elizabeth Macneal
Sunday Times bestselling author of The Doll Factory
Natasha Pulley
Sunday Times bestselling author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street
Laura Purcell
Award-winning author of The Silent Companions
And received this to review….
BLACK CAKE by CHARMAINE WILKERSON
publication date – February 2022

‘We can’t go to the island, Bryon. We don’t really know what we’re getting into . . .’
Eleanor Bennett won’t let her own death get in the way of the truth. So when her estranged children – Byron and Benny – reunite for her funeral in California, they discover a puzzling inheritance.
First, a voice recording in which everything Byron and Benny ever knew about their family is upended. Their mother narrates a tumultuous story about a headstrong young woman who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder, a story which cuts right to the heart of the rift that’s separated Byron and Benny.
Second, a traditional Caribbean black cake made from a family recipe with a long history that Eleanor hopes will heal the wounds of the past. Can Byron and Benny fulfil their mother’s final request to ‘share the black cake when the time is right’?
Will Eleanor’s revelations bring them back together or leave them feeling more lost than ever?
________
**Soon to be a major drama series for Hulu by Orpah Winfrey, Aaron Kaplan and Marissa Jo Cerar**
CURRENTLY READING
Ooooh loving the look of The Haunting Season what a gorgeous cover! xx
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doesn’t take much to lure us into a book does it?! LOL! I didn’t even read the blurb! Just saw the cover and bought haha! xx
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Hope you enjoy it! xx
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Great haul! My copy of The Haunting Season is on its way, it looks and sounds amazing. Can’t wait to read Under the Whispering Door, I’m trying to lower my expectations cos they’re much too high 😂
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Thank you! Hope you enjoy The Haunting Season too! That cover is just perfect isn’t it! Ooh I’m the same with Whispering Door… please don’t let us down haha!! x
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