Samantha Smith is the most unlikely heroine. She’s the younger of two sisters but while Cleo is vivacious and outgoing Sam is a lover of routine, of old black and white movies and is happiest with her nose buried in a book. Her life revolves her job as box office […]
This week our American cousins celebrate Thanksgiving and with the accompanying Black Friday shopping spree thus begins the official start of the Christmas season. And so dear friends it would be utterly remiss of me if I didn’t have the perfect Christmas book for your enjoyment. Ignore the queues in […]
Painter has created a wonderful supernaturally infused underworld in London that rivals Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series. Here the central character is Lydia Crow, heir apparent to one of the four magical family dynasties. Working as a private detective from the family cafe she tries to stay clear of the […]
If you’ve ever had nightmare neighbours you can sympathise with the residents of Lowland Way. It’s a pretty well to do street in an area of South London that has become gentrified. Waitrose shoppers aspiring to send their well heeled offspring to good schools and to have the best start […]
You might remember Jessie Burton as the author of the phenomenally successful 2014 book The Miniaturist. It has been a long wait for this, her third book, but one that was well worth it. The story begins in London in 1980. On Hampstead Heath a young woman called Elise Morceau […]
I’ve reviewed Adele Parks a few times on here before and unlike other writers she always seems to go for something a bit different. A bit quirky and unexpected. This is a story of a family, a life lived with secrets. Daisy is married to Simon. He is an unacknowledged […]
I started reading – and really enjoying – Zoë Folbigg’s new book The Postcard, quickly realised it was a sequel and went out and downloaded her first book. I’m not quite sure how it managed to pass me by when it came out in 2017 as it is exactly the […]
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 […]
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 […]
Book two in Painter’s Crow Investigations series sees Lydia Crow picking up where we left off at the end of The Night Raven. Living above her uncle’s cafe in London, Lydia is desperately trying to forge her own path with her fledgling private investigations firm. Largely spying on cheating spouses […]
