My August 2020 TBR #bookblogger

Already??! Well done to all of us for making it this far!!  The rest of the year has got to better, hasn’t it???!!

But hopefully August will bring long sunny days, and that will hopefully help me on my quest to reduce the book mountain TBR that has spiralled out of control again! There’s a couple of Blog Tour reads for me this month, along with wanting to get my 20 Books of Summer challenge done and dusted – I’m halfway through so need to pick up the pace!.  Plus there’s always the Netgalley shelf that needs serious action so August needs to be a very busy reading month for me!! 

Here’s some of the titles I’m hoping to get to!

ANYONE FOR EDMUND? by SIMON EDGE  – Blog Tour book

They dug up his bones. They didn’t know he had a mind of his own…

Under tennis courts in the ruins of a great abbey, archaeologists find the remains of St Edmund, once venerated as England’s patron saint, but lost for half a millennium.

Culture Secretary Marina Spencer, adored by those who have never met her, scents an opportunity. She promotes Edmund as a new patron saint for the United Kingdom, playing up his Scottish, Welsh and Irish credentials. Unfortunately these are pure fiction, invented by Mark Price, her downtrodden aide, in a moment of panic.

The only person who can see through the deception is Mark’s cousin Hannah, a member of the dig team. Will she blow the whistle or help him out? And what of St Edmund himself, watching through the prism of a very different age?

Splicing ancient and modern as he did in The Hopkins Conundrum and A Right Royal Face-Off, Simon Edge pokes fun at Westminster culture and celebrates the cult of a medieval saint in another beguiling and utterly original comedy.

THE BIRD IN THE BAMBOO CAGE by HAZEL GAYNOR

Blog Tour

When war imprisons them, only kindness will free them…

China, 1941. Elspeth Kent has fled an unhappy life in England for a teaching post at a missionary school in northern China. But when Japan declares war on the Allies and occupies the school, security and home comforts are replaced by privation, uncertainty and fear.
For ten-year-old Nancy Plummer and her school friends, now separated from their parents indefinitely, Miss Kent’s new Girl Guide patrol provides a precious reminder of home in a land where they are now the enemy.

Elspeth and her fellow teachers, and Nancy and her friends, need courage, friendship and fortitude as they pray for liberation. But worse is to come. Removed from the school, they face even greater uncertainty and danger at a Japanese internment camp, where cruelty and punishment reign. 

Inspired by true events, this is an unforgettable read about a remarkable community faced with unimaginable hardship, and the life-changing bonds formed in a distant corner of a terrible war.

HERE AND NOW by SANTA MONTEFIORE

Netgalley

From internationally bestselling author Santa Montefiore—a touching and bittersweet intergenerational story about family and the power of memory.

Meet Marigold and Dennis, two happily married empty-nesters in their late sixties. They should be enjoying their golden years in the idyllic English village where they live. But when their two grown daughters, Daisy and Suze, move back into the family home, both mother and father must learn how to deal with the upheaval.

Meanwhile, as Daisy and Suze soak in the familiar comforts of home, they soon discover that their mother isn’t quite the same woman she was a few years ago. Sure, she is still kind-hearted and always willing to help, but something about their mom is different, and it’s becoming harder and harder for the family to ignore. For the first time in their lives, Dennis and his daughters find themselves caring for Marigold rather than the other way around.

Here and Now is a gorgeously evocative novel brimming with characters who are so recognizable they’ll walk right off the page and into your heart. This is a novel about what it means to grow up and to grow wise, and how the new generation learns to carry family memories and hope into the future.

SISTERS by DAISY JOHNSON

Netgalley

The electrifying new novel from the Man Booker-shortlisted author of Everything Under

After a serious case of school bullying becomes too much to bear, sisters July and September move across the country with their mother to a long-abandoned family home.

In their new and unsettling surroundings, July finds that the deep bond she has always had with September – a closeness that not even their mother is allowed to penetrate – is starting to change in ways she cannot entirely understand.

Inside the house the tension among the three women builds, while outside the sisters meet a boy who tests the limits of their shared experiences.

With its roots in psychological horror, Sisters is a taut, powerful and deeply moving account of sibling love that cements Daisy Johnson’s place as one of the most inventive and exciting young writers at work today.

THE TRIALS OF KOLI by M.R.CAREY

review copy

The Trials of Koli is the second novel in M R. Carey’s breathtakingly original Rampart trilogy, set in a strange and deadly world of our own making.

Beyond the walls of Koli’s small village lies a fearsome landscape filled with choker trees, vicious beasts and shunned men. As an exile, Koli’s been forced to journey out into this mysterious, hostile world. But he heard a story, once. A story about lost London, and the mysterious tech of the Old Times that may still be there. If Koli can find it, there may still be a way for him to redeem himself – by saving what’s left of humankind.

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Wishing you all a happy August!!

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My July TBR #bookblogger

Christmas gets ever nearer!!!!! 🤣  Let’s hope the world is a happier, freer place by then anyway!!

But it’s July, so that means another set of books need to be sorted out for my reading pleasure!  And the month ahead for me brings a few more Blog Tours, yet more Netgalley releases and a couple of new releases I’m eager to get to!! Let’s hope I can squeeze them all in!!

CLOUDS OF LOVE AND WAR by RACHEL BILLINGTON – Blog Tour

publication date – 12th July 2020

Occasionally panoramic, more often intimate, in Clouds of Love and War author Rachel Billington balances a detailed and highly researched picture of the life of a Second World War Spitfire pilot with the travails and ambitions of a young woman too often on her own. The result is both a gripping story of war and a sensitive story of love, a love that struggles to survive. Eddie and Eva meet on the eve of the Second World War. Eddie only wants to be a flyer, to find escape in the clouds from his own complicated family. However, the Battle of Britain makes a pilot’s life a dangerous way to flee reality. Eva has her own passionate longing: to become a painter. When Eva’s Jewish mother disappears to Germany, she is left alone with her elderly father. Both Eddie and Eva come of age at a time that teaches them that happiness is always fleeting, but there are things worth living or dying for. Through the connecting stories of these young people and their wider families, and against a background of southern county airfields, London, Oxford, Dorset and France, Rachel Billington brings the world of war time England, now eighty years in the past, back to life.

MISS GRAHAM’S COLD WAR COOKBOOK by CELIA REES – Blog Tour

A striking historical novel about an ordinary young British woman sent to uncover a network of spies and war criminals in post-war Germany that will appeal to fans of The Huntress and Transcription.

World War II has just ended, and Britain has established the Control Commission for Germany, which oversees their zone of occupation. The Control Commission hires British civilians to work in Germany, rebuild the shattered nation and prosecute war crimes. Somewhat aimless, bored with her job as a provincial schoolteacher, and unwilling to live with her stuffy genteel parents any longer, twentysomething Edith Graham applies for a job with the Commission—but is instead recruited by the OSS. To them, Edith is perfect spy material…single, ordinary-looking, with a college degree in German. And there’s another thing—the OSS knows that Edith’s brother went to Oxford with one of their most hunted war criminals, Count Kurt von Stabenow, who Edith remembers all too well from before the war.

Intrigued by the challenge, Edith heads to Germany armed with a convincing cover story: she’s an unassuming schoolteacher sent to help resurrect German primary schools. To send information back to her OSS handlers in London, Edith has crafted the perfect alter ego, cookbook author Stella Snelling, who writes a popular magazine cookery column that embeds crucial intelligence within the recipes she collects. But occupied Germany is awash with other spies, collaborators, and opportunists, and as she’s pulled into their world, Edith soon discovers that no one is what they seem to be. The closer she gets to uncovering von Stabenow’s whereabouts—and the network of German civilians who still support him—the greater the danger. 

With a unique, compelling premise, Miss Graham’s Cold War Cookbook is a beautifully crafted and gripping novel about daring, betrayal, and female friendship.

LILY’S SECRET by KIRSTY FERRY

publication date – 7th July

‘There’s nothing logical about Pencradoc!’
Aspiring actress Cordelia Beaumont is fed up of spending summer in the city. So, when the opportunity presents itself, she jumps straight on a train to pay a visit to Pencradoc – the beautiful Cornish estate where her friend Merryn works. 
But far from the relaxing break Cordy imagined, she soon finds herself immersed in the glamorous yet mysterious world of Victorian theatre sensation, Lily Valentine. Lily was once a guest at Pencradoc and, with the help of visiting artist Matt Harker, Cordy comes to discover that the actress left far more than memories at the old house. She also left a scandalous secret … 

THE SHADOW FRIEND by ALEX NORTH

publication date – 9th July 2020

If it had happened to you, you would have run away too.

Twenty-five years ago, Paul’s friend Charlie Crabtree brutally killed their classmate – and then vanished without a trace.

Paul’s never forgiven himself for his part in what happened. He’s never gone back home.

Until his elderly mother has a fall. It’s finally time to stop running.

It’s not long before things start to go wrong. His mother claims there’s someone in the house. Paul realises someone is following him. And, in a town many miles away, a copycat killer has struck.

Which makes him wonder – what really happened to Charlie the day of the murder?

And can anyone stop it happening again?

FEATHERTIDE by BETH CARTWRIGHT

publication date – 30th July 2020

A girl.

A secret.

A life-changing journey.

Born covered in the feathers of a bird, and kept hidden in a crumbling house full of secrets, Marea has always known she was different, but never known why. And so to find answers, she goes in search of the father she has never met.

The hunt leads her to the City of Murmurs, a place of mermaids and mystery, where jars of swirling mist are carried through the streets by the broken-hearted.

And Marea will never forget what she learns there

Feathertide is an enchanting, magical novel perfect for fans of Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus and Katherine Arden’s The Bear and the Nightingale.

IN THE TIME OF FOXES by JO LENNAN

publication date – 23rd July 2020

‘A fox could be a shape-shifter, a spirit being. It could appear in human form if this suited its purposes; it could come and go as it pleased, play tricks, lead men astray.’

A film director in Hackney with a fox problem in her garden; an escapee from a cult in Japan; a Sydney café-owner rekindling an old flame; an English tutor who gets too close to an oligarch; a journalist on Mars, face-to-face with his fate.

The world has taught these men and women to live off their wits. They know how to play smart, but what happens when they need to be wise?

In the Time of Foxes is both compellingly readable and deeply insightful about the times in which we live, each narrative a compressed novel. With an exhilarating span of people and places, woven together by the most mercurial of animals, it shows the short story collection at its most entertaining and rewarding, and introduces Jo Lennan as a captivating new storyteller.

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Just a few to keep me going! And I’m sure there’ll be more to catch my eye along the way! What are you hoping to read this month?!

HAPPY READING!!

My September TBR #bookblogger

That came round quick didn’t it?! And with a new month, there’s a new pile of books I need to turn my attention to – a few for blog tours, a few to get them off my Netgalley shelves and the others just because the mood is grabbing me to read them!!

So here’s a look at some of the books I’m hoping to get to this month….click on the title for a link to the GoodReads page for more info….

THE TEN THOUSAND DOORS OF JANUARY by ALIX E.HARROW

for the blog tour

FUCK YEAH, VIDEO GAMES by DANIEL HARDCASTLE

for the blog tour

ESCAPE TO GIDDYWELL GRANGE by KIM NASH

from Netgalley

THE CONFESSION by JESSIE BURTON

from netgalley

BEFORE THE COFFEE GETS COLD by TOSHIKAZU KAWAGUCHI

netgalley

BONE CHINA by LAURA PURCELL

netgalley

THE SECRET TO HAPPINESS by JESSICA REDLAND

netgalley

LEONARD AND HUNGRY PAUL by RONAN HESSION

bought a copy and keep hearing such wonderful things!

THE NIGHTJAR by DEBORAH HEWITT

received a copy for review

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Should be possible! If I remain focussed and resist temptation placed in my way…..😉 Any special books on your TBR this month!

My Bookish Weekly Wrap Up – 2nd March 2019

Hello! A new month is here and I’m already exhausted!  If anyone has seen my get up and go then could you please kindly return it – I need it ASAP!

It’s been a fairly quiet week on the bookish front! Managed to finish 4 books this week – one of which was The Ruin of Kings which was over 500 pages so that’s probably what took away my energy! It’s been a quiet week on Netgalley too with just 1 new arrival, and it was quiet on the bookpost front too, until this morning when 2 new arrivals showed up ahead of Blog Tours! Time to rearrange the bookshelves again!

So here’s my look back at the week just gone!

BOOKS READ

The Truth about Love and Dogs by Lilly Bartlett  – 4 stars

If you love crazy dogs and romance, this is the book for you! Really enjoyed it! full review to follow

 It’s My Birthday by Hannah Pearl – 4 stars

Another really enjoyable read – full review to follow!

The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons – 4 stars

An epic fantasy tale and the start of a very promising new series! Can’t wait for more!

Paul O’Grady’s Country Life by Paul O’Grady – 5 stars #LibaryLoveChallenge

Loved this book! Wonderful tales from Paul about his life in the country and the animals he cares for

BOOKHAUL

The Daughters of Ironbridge by Mollie Watson (Rebecca Mascull) – from Netgalley

Publication Date – 18th April 2019

1830s Shropshire. Anny Woodvine’s family has worked at the ironworks for as long as she can remember. The brightest child in her road and the first in her family to learn to read, Anny has big dreams. So, when she is asked to run messages for the King family, she grabs the opportunity with both hands.Margaret King is surrounded by privilege and wealth. But behind closed doors, nothing is what it seems. When Anny arrives, Margaret finds her first ally and friend. Together they plan to change their lives.But as disaster looms over the ironworks, Margaret and Anny find themselves surrounded by secrets and betrayal. Can they hold true to each other and overcome their fate? Or are they destined to repeat the mistakes of the past?

The Ladies’ Paradise by Emile Zola – bought from Alma Books Book Club

Encapsulating in luxurious detail the phenomenon of consumer society − obsessed with image, fashion and instant gratification − The Ladies’ Paradise vividly depicts the workings of a new commercial entity, the department store. The novel centres around the story of Denise, a young shopgirl from the provinces, and Octave Mouret, the dashing young director of a shopping emporium, who find themselves torn between the conflicting forces of love, loyalty and ambition.

Set in the heart of the city, Zola’s novel – the eleventh in his Rougon-Macquart series – evokes the giddy pace of Paris’s transition into a modern city and the changes in sexual attitudes and class relations taking place during the second half of the nineteenth century.

THE STRAWBERRY THIEF by JOANNE HARRIS – proof copy ahead of Blog Tour

Publication date – 4th April 2019

The compelling new novel from the author of the bestselling Chocolat.

Vianne Rocher has settled down. Lansquenet-sous-Tannes, the place that once rejected her, has finally become her home. With Rosette, her ‘special’ child, she runs her chocolate shop in the square, talks to her friends on the river, is part of the community. Even Reynaud, the priest, has become a friend.

But when old Narcisse, the florist, dies, leaving a parcel of land to Rosette and a written confession to Reynaud, the life of the sleepy village is once more thrown into disarray. The arrival of Narcisse’s relatives, the departure of an old friend and the opening of a mysterious new shop in the place of the florist’s across the square – one that mirrors the chocolaterie, and has a strange appeal of its own – all seem to herald some kind of change: a confrontation, a turbulence – even, perhaps, a murder…

THE WILD REMEDY by EMMA MITCHELL – proof copy ahead of Blog Tour

Emma Mitchell has suffered with depression – or as she calls it, ‘the grey slug’ – for twenty-five years. In 2003, she moved from the city to the edge of the Cambridgeshire Fens and began to take walks in the countryside around her new home, photographing, collecting and drawing as she went. Each walk lifted her mood, proving to be as medicinal as any talking therapy or pharmaceutical.
In Emma’s hand-illustrated diary, she takes us with her as she follows the paths and trails around her cottage and further afield, sharing her nature finds and tracking the lives of local flora and fauna over the course of a year. Reflecting on how these encounters impact her mood, Emma’s moving and candid account of her own struggles is a powerful testament to how reconnecting with nature may offer some answers to today’s mental health epidemic. While charting her own seasonal highs and lows, she also explains the science behind such changes, calling on new research into such areas as forest bathing and the ways in which our bodies and minds respond to plants and wildlife when we venture outdoors.
Written with Emma’s characteristic wit and frankness, and filled with her beautiful drawings, paintings and photography, this is a truly unique book for anyone who has ever felt drawn to nature and wondered about its influence over us

CURRENTLY READING

The Silver Road by Stina Jackson via The Pigeonhole

Three years ago, Lelle’s daughter went missing in a remote part of Northern Sweden. Lelle has spent the intervening summers driving the Silver Road under the midnight sun, frantically searching for his lost daughter, for himself and for redemption.

Meanwhile, seventeen-year-old Meja arrives in town hoping for a fresh start. She is the same age as Lelle’s daughter was – a girl on the brink of adulthood. But for Meja, there are dangers to be found in this isolated place.

As autumn’s darkness slowly creeps in, Lelle and Meja’s lives are intertwined in ways, both haunting and tragic, that they could never have imagined.

IN A SUMMER SEASON by Elizabeth Taylor

In a Summer Season is one of Elizabeth Taylor’s finest novels in which, in a moving and powerful climax, she reveals love to be the thing it is: beautiful, often funny, and sometimes tragic.

‘You taste of rain’, he said, kissing her. ‘People say I married her for her money’, he thought contentedly, and for the moment was full of the self-respect that loving her had given him.

Kate Heron is a wealthy, charming widow who marries, much to the disapproval of friends and neighbours, a man ten years her junior: the attractive, feckless Dermot. Then comes the return of Kate’s old friend Charles – intelligent, kind and now widowed, with his beautiful young daughter. Kate watches happily as their two families are drawn together, finding his presence reassuringly familiar, but slowly she becomes aware of subtle undercurrents that begin to disturb the calm surface of their friendship. Before long, even she cannot ignore the gathering storm . . .

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I hope your bookish week has been a productive one!   I’m off now to spend the afternoon sulking about football results (I’m a Southend United fan and we’re losing!) and hopefully getting another book off the TBR mountain!

HAPPY READING!!

My Bookish Weekly Wrap Up – Week 46 2018

Hello fellow book squirrels!!  I hope you are well!  Struggling to shake off a cold here and seem to be eating a ridiculous amount of comfort food in the hope that it will help me…..I cling to the hope that one day chocolate will cure everything!! 🐷

I hope your bookish weeks have been productive! Pretty happy with mine – there has been 4 books finished, a little visit to NetGalley, some bookish purchases and some lovely Blog Tour Bookpost so I hope you enjoy this little look back at my week!

BOOKS FINISHED – click on book titles for GoodReads review links!

Read, and  listened, to some extraordinary books this week! It’s not making choosing my favourite books of the year any easier….

The Museum of Modern Love by Heather Rose – 5 stars

Listened to the audio version of this on the BorrowBox app from my library – stunning!

The Coming of the Spirits by Rob Keeley – 5 stars

A superb finale to an extremely enjoyable series for children

Flames by Robbie Arnott  – 5 stars

A stunning and mesmerizing read!

The Lonely City by Olivia Laing  – 4 stars

Fascinating non fiction book about the lonely world we find ourselves living in.

BOOKHAUL

Netgalley is proving very difficult to stay away from at the moment….. 3 newbies to the shelves for me!

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

Published by Harper Collins

Publication Date – January 2019

For fans of Ruth Ware and Tana French, a shivery, atmospheric, page-turning novel of psychological suspense in the tradition of Agatha Christie, in which a group of old college friends are snowed in at a hunting lodge . . . and murder and mayhem ensue.
All of them are friends. One of them is a killer.
During the languid days of the Christmas break, a group of thirtysomething friends from Oxford meet to welcome in the New Year together, a tradition they began as students ten years ago. For this vacation, they’ve chosen an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands—the perfect place to get away and unwind by themselves.
They arrive on December 30th, just before a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world.
Two days later, on New Year’s Day, one of them is dead.
The trip began innocently enough: admiring the stunning if foreboding scenery, champagne in front of a crackling fire, and reminiscences about the past. But after a decade, the weight of secret resentments has grown too heavy for the group’s tenuous nostalgia to bear. Amid the boisterous revelry of New Year’s Eve, the cord holding them together snaps.
Now one of them is dead . . . and another of them did it.
Keep your friends close, the old adage goes. But just how close is too close?

Something To Tell You by Lucy Diamond

Published by Pan Macmillan

Publication Date – January 2019

When Frankie stumbles upon an unopened letter from her late mother, she’s delighted to have one last message from her . . . until she reads the contents and discovers the truth about her birth. Brimming with questions, she travels to York to seek further answers from the Mortimer family, but her appearance sends shockwaves through them all.

Meanwhile, Robyn Mortimer has problems of her own. Her husband John has become distant, and a chance remark from a friend leads Robyn to wonder exactly what he’s not been saying. Dare she find out more?

As for Bunny, she fell head over heels in love with Dave Mortimer when she first arrived in town, but now it seems her past is catching up with her. She can’t help wondering if he’ll still feel the same way about her if he discovers who she really is – and what she did.

As secrets tumble out and loyalties are tested, the Mortimers have to face up to some difficult decisions. With love, betrayal and dramatic revelations in the mix, this is one summer they’ll never forget.

We Must Be Brave by Frances Liardet

Published by 4th Estate Books

Publication Date – February 2019

A woman; a war; a child that changed everything. 
Spanning the sweep of the twentieth century, We Must Be Brave is a luminous and profoundly moving novel about the people we rescue and the ways in which they rescue us back.

“She was fast asleep on the back seat of the bus. Curled up, thumb in mouth. Four, maybe five years old. 

I turned around. The last few passengers were shuffling away from me down the aisle to the doors. ‘Whose is this child?’ I called. 

Nobody looked back.”

December, 1940. As German bombs fall on Southampton, the city’s residents flee to the surrounding villages. In Upton village, amid the chaos, newly-married Ellen Parr finds a girl sleeping, unclaimed at the back of an empty bus. Little Pamela, it seems, is entirely alone.

Ellen has always believed she does not want children, but when she takes Pamela into her home the child cracks open the past Ellen thought she had escaped and the future she and her husband Selwyn had dreamed for themselves. As the war rages on, love grows where it was least expected, surprising them all. But with the end of the fighting comes the realization that Pamela was never theirs to keep

BOOKPOST – for upcoming Blog Tours!

Blood & Sugar by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

Blood & Sugar is the thrilling debut historical crime novel from Laura Shepherd-Robinson.

June, 1781. An unidentified body hangs upon a hook at Deptford Dock – horribly tortured and branded with a slaver’s mark.

Some days later, Captain Harry Corsham – a war hero embarking upon a promising parliamentary career – is visited by the sister of an old friend. Her brother, passionate abolitionist Tad Archer, had been about to expose a secret that he believed could cause irreparable damage to the British slaving industry. He’d said people were trying to kill him, and now he is missing . . .

To discover what happened to Tad, Harry is forced to pick up the threads of his friend’s investigation, delving into the heart of the conspiracy Tad had unearthed. His investigation will threaten his political prospects, his family’s happiness, and force a reckoning with his past, risking the revelation of secrets that have the power to destroy him.

And that is only if he can survive the mortal dangers awaiting him in Deptford…

The Lights of Time by Paul Ian Cross

Would you sacrifice your future to save your past? 

Engella Rhys is alone, adrift and on the run. Pursued by a secret agency, known only as the Hunters, she must stay ahead to stay alive. 

As she travels through space-time using dangerously experimental technology, she only has one wish: to be reunited with her lost parents. After a close shave with a Hunter on the streets of New Shanghai, Engella escapes to find herself on a deserted beach. When she meets a kind stranger, who offers her food and shelter, Engella feels safe and protected for the first time in years. 

But who is this woman? And why did their paths cross at the most convenient of times? 

Engella soon discovers their lives are intertwined in more ways than she could ever imagine.

The latest Book of the Month from the wonderful Goldsboro Books is The Chestnut Man by Soren Sveistrup!

The police make a terrible discovery in a suburb of Copenhagen. A young woman has been killed and dumped at a playground. One of her hands has been cut off, and above her hangs a small doll made of chestnuts.

Young detective Naia Thulin is assigned the case. Her partner is Mark Hess, a burned-out investigator who’s just been kicked out of Europol’s headquarters in The Hague. They soon discover a mysterious piece of evidence on the chestnut man – evidence connecting it to a girl who went missing a year earlier and is presumed dead, the daughter of politician Rosa Hartung. A man confessed to her murder, and the case is long since solved.

Soon afterwards, another woman is found murdered, along with another chestnut man. Thulin and Hess suspect that there’s a connection between the Hartung case, the murdered women and a killer who is spreading fear throughout the country. But what is it?

Thulin and Hess are racing against the clock, because it’s clear that the murderer is on a mission that is far from over . . .

TINMAN by Sarah Winman

Found this in a charity shop and have heard nothing but good things so I HAD to get it!

This is almost a love story.

Ellis and Michael are twelve when they first become friends, and for a long time it is just the two of them, cycling the streets of Oxford, teaching themselves how to swim, discovering poetry, and dodging the fists of an overbearing father. And then one day this closest of friendships grows into something more.

But then we fast forward a decade or so, to find that Ellis is married to Annie, and Michael is nowhere in sight. Which leads to the question, what happened in the years between?

This is almost a love story. But it’s not as simple as that.

CURRENTLY READING

click on title for GoodReads link

The Little Snake by A.L.Kennedy  – library book

A Book of Silence by Sara Maitland – nonfiction November

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I hope you’ve been well behaved on the book front this week?!  Read any of these? Or have I tempted you to try any out?! Hope so!

HAPPY READING!

My Bookish Weekly Wrap Up – Week 32 2018 #bookblogger #bookhaul

Happy Saturday to you all!And relax! Well I hope you’re getting to relax a little anyway! Bit of gardening has been on my ‘to do’ list so far today, so now that’s done the sofa has taken me hostage!! So time to put my captive status to good use and catch up with my bookish week!

And it’s been another goodie! There have been some shorter books/graphic novels read this week so that helped me finish 7 books this week!  And then 5 have been added to my bookshelves, along with 2 audiobooks that I downloaded from the library via Borrowbox last night!  It’s fatal just browsing isn’t it?!

So here’s a quick look at what I’ve finished – way behind on reviews oops! – what’s new, and what I’m now reading! Click on the title for the GoodReads link for more info!

BOOKS FINISHED

Paper Girls Vol 1 by Brian Vaughan – 3 stars

Fun and feisty graphic novel. I’ll be reading more soon hopefully!

The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh  – 4 stars

Slow start, but worth sticking with! Dark and hypnotic!

Summer at Hollyhock House by Cathy Bussey  – 3 stars

Little predictable but a quick, easy book to read!

The Amber Maze by Christopher Bowden  – 3 stars

Read this ahead of the Blog Tour next month, and enjoyed this historical ‘noir fiction’

Ladders to Heaven by Mike Shanahan – 5 stars

Another Blog Tour read, and I never knew Figs were so blooming interesting! Loved this and learnt so much!

The End We Start From by Megan Hunter  – 4 stars

A stunning little book! Bought in a charity shop this week for £1. Only 126 pages but packs a punch with its’ unusual style.

Evie’s Little Black Book by Hannah Pearl – 4 stars

Out on Tuesday, and a fabulously fun read!

BOOK HAUL

First to the audio books that I borrowed from the Borrowbox Library app!

Folk by Zoe Gilbert

Every year they gather, while the girls shoot their arrows and the boys hunt them out. The air is riddled with spiteful shadows – the wounds and fears and furies of a village year.

On a remote and unforgiving island lies a village unlike any other: Neverness. A girl is snatched by a water bull and dragged to its lair, a babe is born with a wing for an arm and children ask their fortunes of an oracle ox. While the villagers live out their own tales, enchantment always lurks, blighting and blessing in equal measure.

Folk is a dark and sinuous debut circling the lives of one generation. In this world far from our time and place, the stories of the islanders interweave and overlap, their own folklore twisting fates and changing lives. 

The Unforgotten by Laura Powell

It’s 1956 and fifteen-year-old Betty Broadbent has never left the Cornish fishing village of St Steele or ventured far beyond the walls of the boarding house run by her erratic mother. But when the London press pack descends to report on a series of gruesome murders of young women, Betty’s world changes. In particular she is transfixed by mysterious and aloof reporter, Mr Gallagher. As the death toll rises, an unlikely friendship blossoms between Betty and Gallagher. But as their bond deepens, they find themselves entangled with the murders and each is forced to make a devastating choice, one that will shape their own lives – and the life of an innocent man – forever.

Had to treat myself to some bargain Persephone Books this week from the fab Ninja BookBox BookShop

The Blank Wall by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

A suburban matron, harassed by wartime domestic problems – her husband is overseas – finds herself implicated in the murder of her young daughter’s extremely unattractive beau. This novel is about maternal love and about the heroine’s relationship with those around her, especially her children and her maid.

The Runaway by Elizabeth Anna Hart

This 1872 novel by a mid-Victorian poet and novelist is about a girl named Clarice, living with her widowed father and her governess ‘in a charming home at a convenient (railway) distance from the city.’ One day she finds a girl of her own age hiding in the shrubbery. She is Olga and ‘there is no question that she is the liveliest child character in English fiction’ said the Observer in 1936

The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett

First published in 1901, The Making of a Marchioness follows thirty-something Emily who lives alone, humbly and happily, in a tiny apartment and on a meager income. She is the one that everyone counts on but no one goes out of their way to accommodate. This Cinderella-like story remains a much-loved favorite among many.
This book is followed by a sequel, The Methods of Lady Walderhurst. Later, the two novels were combined into Emily Fox-Seton.

Resin by Ane Riel

A signed first edition from Goldsboro Books – I needed a treat!

 

Liv died when she was just six years old. At least, that’s what the authorities think.

Her father knew he was the only one who could keep her safe in this world. So one evening he left the isolated house his little family called home, he pushed their boat out to sea and watched it ruin on the rocks. Then he walked the long way into town to report his only child missing.

But behind the boxes and the baskets crowding her Dad’s workshop, Liv was hiding. This way her Dad had said, she’d never have to go to school; this way, she’d never have to leave her parents.

This way, Liv would be safe.

CURRENTLY READING

Paris by the Book by Liam Callanan

The Angel’s Mark by S.W.Perry

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And another week is all wrapped up! Now to be good and try and catch up with reviews!!  Have you read any of these books? Always love to hear your throughts!!

HAPPY READING!!