Picking up a new Chrissie Manby book is like meeting up with a really good friend that you haven’t seen for ages. You know pretty much all of their best stories but its still an absolute pleasure. Kathy Courage is in Italy for her boyfriend’s brother’s wedding. Neil is being his usual ebullient and rather…
Tag: Family
Book Review: The Daughter – Michelle Frances ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Kate never really had a plan for her life but getting pregnant at 15 really was off the scale. It meant that she had to drop out of school in order to support her beloved daughter Becky. Working several jobs she was able to keep food on the table and to encourage Becky to keep…
Book Review: The Things We Left Unsaid – Emma Kennedy ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
What a year for Rachel. Six weeks after her dad’s death it is her wedding day. When she is jilted by her fiance at the altar she has no option but to move back into the family home with her mother Eleanor. They have had a difficult relationship with Rachel feeling that she has always…
Book Review: The Family Upstairs – Lisa Jewell ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’m really lucky in that I often get sent books to review several months before their publication date. I’m usually pretty good and add them to my reading schedule and plan to read them just before the launch date. When The Family Upstairs arrived on my kindle three months early I managed to restrain myself…
Book Review: The Strange Journey of Alice Pendelbury – Marc Levy ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Marc Levy is the most read French author alive today with nineteen novels to his name so it is a little surprising that this is the first time his books have crossed my path. On paper it really isn’t my kind of book. A winding story set in the years immediately following the second world…
Book Review: The Night Raven (Crow Investigations Book 1) – Sarah Painter ****
The only trouble with getting an early review copy of a new book is that you’ve got an even longer wait till book 2 arrives! I’ve been a fan of Sarah Painter for some time now. Her stories are always a little bit quirky and have a thread of the supernatural running through them. This…
Book Reviews: One Thousand Stars And You – Isabelle Broom *****
I love a good book cover and shamelessly I will admit that it is often the difference between picking up a book in the store or not. This latest book from Isabelle Broom has the most gorgeous cover art and it captured me right from the start. Alice lives with Richard. She has a job…
Book Review: The Plus One – Sophia Money-Coutts ***
The debut novel from a London journalist, The Plus One is a bit like eating candy floss when you know that you should be eating salad. It is a romp very much in the style of an early Jilly Cooper novel updated for the noughties. Polly works for a society magazine called Posh. (Think Heat…
Book Review: Do Not Disturb – Claire Douglas ****
As I waved my neighbours off to their holiday in Wales this morning it struck me that if you paid attention to this years crime fiction you would never set foot in the place. Far too dangerous! First off there was Mark Edwards’ The Retreat (check out my review on that one too) and now…
Book Review: Future Popes of Ireland – Darragh Martin ****
I do have a fondness for stories set in Eighties Ireland. A reminder of a pretty idyllic childhood. This story opens with the visit of Pope John Paul II to Ireland in 1979. A vast gathering of Mammies and their various offspring in Phoenix Park looking for that Papal blessing. Now that there has been…
Book Review: How to be Famous – Caitlin Moran *****
Over the past year I’ve been half expecting a big scandal to emerge in the music industry given the tales of sordid sexism and exploitation that have emerged from the film and television industries. Moran’s book “How to be Famous” addresses many of these themes. Described as semi-autobiographical fiction it is set in cocaine fuelled…
Book Review: The Date – Louise Jensen ****
Recently separated from her husband, Ali has been persuaded by her friends to sign up to a dating app. On Saturday night she had her first date. Its now Sunday morning. Waking up alone in the house that she shares with a friend Ali knows that something is terribly wrong. She is hurt, she can’t…
