Hello! Happy Saturday!! Spring is springing up all over the place and I’m beginning to feel daunted by the jobs I need to do in the garden, now it’s a little warmer!!
So it’s a good time to distract myself with books and that’s what I’ve been doing again this week, so have managed to finish 5 books this week! I’ve also avoided Netgalley and just had 1 new addition to my bookshelves thanks to Goldsboro and their monthly book selection!
The latest pick from the Goldsboro Book monthly subscription…
THE HEROINES by LAURA SHEPPERSON
In Athens, crowds flock to witness the most shocking trial of the ancient world, which is about to shake the city to its very foundations . . .
A scandalous accusation has ruptured the royal family in Athens.
On the one side: Theseus – king, hero, liberator of the people and slayer of the Minotaur – and his stepson, the pious Hippolytus.
On the other, Phaedra – queen of Athens, princess of Crete, daughter of an adulteress and sister of a monster.
The men of Athens are gathering to determine the truth. But the women know truth is a slippery thing. There are two sides to every story, and theirs has gone unheard.
Hello all! Happy Saturday! And the sun keeps on shining!! I’m trying not to complain about the heat…. BUT a few clouds would be nice haha! My ice lolly supply in the freezer is disappearing fast! On to books, and it’s been a more normal reading week for me with 3 books finished! And i’ve been fairly restrained on the bookhaul front – just 1 from Netgalley, a lovely book for review, and 2 books from Goldsboro that I treated myself to! Here’s my look back..
HOPE AND HAPPINESS IN BLUEBELL WOOD by ALI McNAMARA
out July 2021
Welcome to Bluebell Wood where the sun shines, the locals are kind and there’s something more than a little bit magical about the place.
Ava loves city life but when something happens to make her feel unsafe, she retreats to the calm and quiet of Bluebell Wood. The once high-flying Ava now locks herself away in her fairy-tale cottage, only leaving to explore the trails of the nearby woods or to potter in the garden with her dog, Merlin.
When Ava begins to feed the wild birds that flock to her bird table, they start leaving her trinkets of appreciation in return. The gifts seem innocent at first, but they soon take on a deeper meaning.
It isn’t until Ava meets Callum, the handsome parish priest, that she can’t help but wonder if the birds might have been trying to get her out of the house all along. But will their curious behaviour help to heal Ava, and transform her and Callum into the lovebirds they clearly long to be? And then the lovely folk at LITTLE TOLLER sent me this beauty for review…
WHERE? by SIMON MORETON
In 2017, Simon Moreton’s father fell suddenly ill and died. His death sent the author back to his childhood home in rural Shropshire trying to process his grief by revisiting his family’s time as transplants to the countryside. In a memoir that that combines prose, illustration, photos, archival texts, and more, WHERE? weaves a gentle story that slips and slides in time and geography, creating connections across geographies, histories, families, times, and circumstance all to answer the question – ‘where are you from?’
And then from Goldsboro I got these two…
DEAD GROUND by M.W.CRAVEN
Detective Sergeant Washington Poe is in court, fighting eviction from his beloved and isolated croft, when he is summoned to a backstreet brothel in Carlisle where a man has been beaten to death with a baseball bat. Poe is confused – he hunts serial killers and this appears to be a straightforward murder-by-pimp – but his attendance was requested personally, by the kind of people who prefer to remain in the shadows.
As Poe and the socially awkward programmer Tilly Bradshaw delve deeper into the case, they are faced with seemingly unanswerable questions: despite being heavily vetted for a high-profile job, why does nothing in the victim’s background check out? Why was a small ornament left at the murder scene – and why did someone on the investigation team steal it? And what is the connection to a flawlessly executed bank heist three years earlier, a heist where nothing was taken…
THE GIRL WHO DIED by RAGNAR JONASSON
‘Teacher wanted on the edge of the world…’
Una is struggling to deal with her father’s sudden, tragic suicide. She spends her nights drinking alone in Reykjavik, stricken with thoughts that she might one day follow in his footsteps.
So when she sees an advert seeking a teacher for two girls in the tiny village of Skálar – population of ten – on the storm-battered north coast of the island, she sees it as a chance to escape.
But once she arrives, Una quickly realises nothing in city life has prepared her for this. The villagers are unfriendly. The weather is bleak. And, from the creaky attic bedroom of the old house where she’s living, she’s convinced she hears the ghostly sound of singing.
Una worries that she’s losing her mind. And then, just before Christmas, there’s a murder…
Hello! And Farewell to October! Time to start writing those bookish wish lists to Santa – if you’ve been good enough this year of course!! I think we all definitely deserve extra bookish gifts this year…..
And it’s been a good bookish week for me with 5 books finished this week! Back on track again! I bet it doesn’t last! So I rewarded myself with a visit to Netgalley and 3 new approvals, treated myself to 3 books from Goldsboro Books and received a book for review! So yay for books!!
Dark and brimming with suspense, an atmospheric Victorian chiller set in brooding County Durham for fans of Stacey Halls and Laura Purcell
1871. An age of discovery and progress. But for the Wainwright family, residents of the gloomy Teesbank Hall in County Durham the secrets of the past continue to overshadow their lives.
Harriet would not have taken the job of governess in such a remote place unless she wanted to hide from something or someone. Her charge is Eleanor, the daughter of the house, a fiercely bright eighteen-year-old, tortured by demons and feared by relations and staff alike. But it soon becomes apparent that Harriet is not there to teach Eleanor, but rather to monitor her erratic and dangerous behaviour – to spy on her.
Worn down by Eleanor’s unpredictable hostility, Harriet soon finds herself embroiled in Eleanor’s obsession – the Wainwright’s dark, tragic history. As family secrets are unearthed, Harriet’s own begin to haunt her and she becomes convinced that ghosts from the past are determined to reveal her shameful story.
For Harriet, like Eleanor, is plagued by deception and untruths.
A NET FOR SMALL FISHES by LUCY JAGO
publication date – February 2021
Based on the true scandal that rocked the court of James I, A Net for Small Fishes is the most gripping novel you’ll read this year: an exhilarating dive into the pitch-dark waters of the Jacobean court
Frances Howard has beauty and a powerful family – and is the most unhappy creature in the world.
Anne Turner has wit and talent – but no stage on which to display them. Little stands between her and the abyss of destitution.
When these two very different women meet in the strangest of circumstances, a powerful friendship is sparked. Frankie sweeps Anne into a world of splendour that exceeds all she imagined: a Court whose foreign king is a stranger to his own subjects; where ancient families fight for power, and where the sovereign’s favourite may rise and rise – so long as he remains in favour.
With the marriage of their talents, Anne and Frankie enter this extravagant, savage hunting ground, seeking a little happiness for themselves. But as they gain notice, they also gain enemies; what began as a search for love and safety leads to desperate acts that could cost them everything.
THE ABSOLUTE BOOK by ELIZABETH KNOX
publication date – February 2021
Taryn Cornick believes her sister Bea was deliberately run down and killed. She believes it so hard she allows a man called the Muleskinner to exact the justice Bea was denied. An eye for an eye.
Which is when Taryn’s problems really begin.
Because the police suspect Taryn’s involvement in the death.
Worse, others have their eyes on Taryn – those in a faraway place who know what Taryn’s family have been carefully hiding in their vast library. The Absolute Book.
They want it – and they want Taryn to help find it.
For the lives of those in more than one world depend upon it…
And then I treated myself to some lovely books from GOLDSBORO BOOKS…
THE DEVIL AND THE DARK WATER by STUART TURTON
A murder on the high seas. A detective duo. A demon who may or may not exist.
It’s 1634 and Samuel Pipps, the world’s greatest detective, is being transported to Amsterdam to be executed for a crime he may, or may not, have committed. Travelling with him is his loyal bodyguard, Arent Hayes, who is determined to prove his friend innocent.
But no sooner are they out to sea than devilry begins to blight the voyage. A twice-dead leper stalks the decks. Strange symbols appear on the sails. Livestock is slaughtered.
And then three passengers are marked for death, including Samuel.
Could a demon be responsible for their misfortunes?
With Pipps imprisoned, only Arent can solve a mystery that connects every passenger onboard. A mystery that stretches back into their past and now threatens to sink the ship, killing everybody on board.
THE ORDER OF THE PURE MOON REFLECTED IN WATER by ZEN CHO
Zen Cho returns with a found family wuxia fantasy that combines the vibrancy of old school martial arts movies with characters drawn from the margins of history.
A bandit walks into a coffeehouse, and it all goes downhill from there. Guet Imm, a young votary of the Order of the Pure Moon, joins up with an eclectic group of thieves (whether they like it or not) in order to protect a sacred object, and finds herself in a far more complicated situation than she could have ever imagined.
PEOPLE OF ABANDONED CHARACTER by CLARE WHITFIELD
Marry in haste . . . Murder at leisure?
London, 1888: Susannah rushes into marriage to a young and wealthy surgeon. After a passionate honeymoon, she returns home with her new husband wrapped around her little finger. But then everything changes.
Thomas’s behavior becomes increasingly volatile and violent. He stays out all night, returning home bloodied and full of secrets. The gentle caresses she enjoyed on her wedding night are now just a honeyed memory.
When the first woman is murdered in Whitechapel, Susannah’s interest is piqued. But as she follows the reports of the ongoing hunt for the killer, her mind takes her down the darkest path imaginable. Every time Thomas stays out late, another victim is found dead.
Is it coincidence? Or is her husband the man they call Jack the Ripper?
THE TREASURE IN THE TOWER by ROB KEELEY
copy from author for review
A school trip to historic Deanchester becomes more exciting when Jess and her friends discover the city hides a secret treasure. Local historian Dr Joseph Pyrite left a series of clues scattered around Deanchester’s landmarks, which Jess, Mason and Kessie are determined to solve. But they only have three days. And they have competition. A series of increasingly cunning tricks awaits Jess and her party as they try to beat Perdita and Thomas to the treasure.
hello! apologies for the radio silence on the blog front this week! I’ve hit the wall on the reviewing front! So now I need to play catch up -and I’m not looking forward to that one little bit!
But it was also my birthday this past week, so I’m 21 again and there were lots of lovely bookish gifts and cake for me to enjoy, and I may share another post with the bookish gifts and the results of my book voucher spending spree soon!
On the reading front it’s been quiet this past week! Suffering a little bit of a book hangover from one amazing book, but still managed to finish 4 books this week. Just one new addition from NetGalley and also some lovely bookpost for a blog tour, and ones I NEEDED to treat myself to!! Here’s a look back!
Such a fascinating period of history brought to life so well. A royal soap opera!
BOOKHAUL
Staring with Netgalley..
THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH by STEPHANIE BUTLAND
Published by Bonnier Zaffre – Out July 2019
1968.
Veronica Moon, a junior photographer on a local paper in an Essex town, is frustrated. She never gets good assignments, and no one takes her seriously. And then she visits the picket line at Dagenham Ford Factory. At the front line of the fight for equal pay for women workers she meets Leonie – a privileged, angry activist, ahead of her time and prepared to fight for equality with everything she has. Veronica is captivated. She breaks off her engagement and moves to London with Leonie to begin a game-changing career and an intoxicating friendship.
Fifty years later and Leonie is gone. Veronica is a recluse with a crippling degenerative disease. For a while she was heralded as a pioneer, leading the charge for women everywhere. But her career was shockingly and abruptly ended by one of the most famous photographs of the twentieth century. It is a photograph she took of her best friend’s death.
Now, as that controversial picture hangs as the centrepiece of a new feminist exhibition curated by Leonie’s niece, long-repressed memories of Veronica’s extraordinary life and tumultuous, passionate and – at times toxic – friendship begin to stir.
It’s time to break her silence and step back into the light. And she will no longer hide from the truth about that dark time . . .
THE GARDEN OF LOST AND FOUND by HARRIET EVANS
Got this signed edition from Bert’s Books which came beautifully wrapped too!
Nightingale House, 1919. Liddy Horner discovers her husband, the world-famous artist Sir Edward Horner, burning his best-known painting The Garden of Lost and Found days before his sudden death.
Nightingale House was the Horner family’s beloved home – a gem of design created to inspire happiness – and it was here Ned painted ‘The Garden of Lost and Found’, capturing his children on a perfect day, playing in the rambling Eden he and Liddy made for them.
One magical moment. Before it all came tumbling down…
When Ned and Liddy’s great-granddaughter Juliet is sent the key to Nightingale House, she opens the door onto a forgotten world. The house holds its mysteries close but she is in search of answers. For who would choose to destroy what they love most? Whether Ned’s masterpiece – or, in Juliet’s case, her own children’s happiness.
Something shattered this corner of paradise. But what?
FROM THE WRECK by JANE RAWSON
Have heard many good things about this so treated myself to a signed edition from Goldsboro Books
From the Wreck tells the remarkable story of George Hills, who survived the sinking of the steamship Admella off the South Australian coast in 1859. Haunted by his memories and the disappearance of a fellow survivor, George’s fractured life is intertwined with that of a woman from another dimension, seeking refuge on Earth. This is a novel imbued with beauty and feeling, filled both with existential loneliness and a deep awareness that all life is interdependent.
TAKE ME TO THE EDGE by KATYA BOIRAND – for Blog Tour next month
Five words of your choice provoke a chain of creation.
Seven years ago in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, I sat beside a friend, staring out at the horizon on the flat calm waters. I turned to my friend and asked her for five words of her choice. This time I would openly invite inspiration into my work and allow myself to be guided by her impulses. A chain of creation was born as a poem was written using her words.
The joy that poem had brought about struck me as something I could spread further than just my close circle of friends. I began to ask everyone I met for their five words of choice, in gallery spaces or just in passing.
A GOOD ENOUGH MOTHER by BEV THOMAS
The April book of the month from Goldsboro Books in a gorgeous case!
The hardest lies to spot are the ones we tell ourselves. Dr Ruth Hartland rises to difficult tasks. She is the director of a highly respected trauma therapy unit. She is confident, capable and excellent at her job. Today she is preoccupied by her son Tom’s disappearance. So when a new patient arrives at the unit – a young man who looks shockingly like Tom – she is floored. As a therapist, Ruth knows exactly what she should do in the best interests of her client, but as a mother she makes a very different choice – a decision that will have profound consequences.
By the international bestselling author of The Piano Tuner, a sweeping and unforgettable love story of a young doctor and nurse at a remote field hospital in the First World War.
Vienna, 1914. Lucius is a twenty-two-year-old medical student when World War I explodes across Europe. Enraptured by romantic tales of battlefield surgery, he enlists, expecting a position at a well-organized field hospital. But when he arrives, at a commandeered church tucked away high in a remote valley of the Carpathian Mountains, he finds a freezing outpost ravaged by typhus. The other doctors have fled, and only a single, mysterious nurse named Sister Margarete remains.
But Lucius has never lifted a surgeon’s scalpel. And as the war rages across the winter landscape, he finds himself falling in love with the woman from whom he must learn a brutal, makeshift medicine. Then one day, an unconscious soldier is brought in from the snow, his uniform stuffed with strange drawings. He seems beyond rescue, until Lucius makes a fateful decision that will change the lives of doctor, patient, and nurse forever.
From the gilded ballrooms of Imperial Vienna to the frozen forests of the Eastern Front; from hardscrabble operating rooms to battlefields thundering with Cossack cavalry, The Winter Soldier is the story of war and medicine, of family, of finding love in the sweeping tides of history, and finally, of the mistakes we make, and the precious opportunities to atone.
Wow!! This was a truly epic and captivating read and I’m extremely grateful to Goldsboro Books for selecting this as their October Book of the Month as this may have been a book I wouldn’t have picked up otherwise.
This is a beautiful but brutal story following Lucius, a young medical student during World War I, and dealing with the most horrific sights whilst fearing for his own safety and that of the medical team at the field hospital he finds himself stationed at. And this is where he meets Margarete, the nurse who steadies the ship and runs everything with military precision. He is totally overwhelmed when he first arrives as to what faces him, but Margarete gives him advice. assistance and confidence and soon he doesn’t have time to think about what he’s doing and just gets on with things. He still has his own ideals though of how he wants to treat patients and we get to see the consequences of that during his time here.
They spend so much time together it’s obvious that they grow closer, but they soon find themselves miles apart with the ever changing events of war,nut he never gives up hope of seeing her again and does all he can to track her down.
This story pulls no punches in its’ descriptions of injuries and the harshness of conditions that many had to live with. It isn’t for the squeamish but it just brings home how tough it was for everyone living during that time – the squalor, the effect on their mental health, and how bonds were formed in such extraordinary circumstances.
A truly stunning story and one I highly recommend you pick up and read!!
Books and Me! 
