You make a cup of tea. Check the news. Open the front door.
On your doorstep is a box.
Inside the box is the exact number of years you have left to live.
The same box appears on every doorstep across the world.
Do you open yours?
My Review:
The Measure is an original, thought provoking and emotional read which I think would make a great book club read.
The story follows 8 characters that all receive boxes with strings of different lengths in them that are meant to show how long their lives will be. I found this scenario instantly intriguing and I was quickly drawn into the story. All the characters were great creations who I enjoyed getting to know. Most of the characters were likeable and I really felt for them as they tried to deal with their feelings after receiving their box.
This book cleverly deals with some tough subjects like prejudice, religion and politics as we see how society deals with the after affect of the boxes. It was quite poignant to see the treatment towards the so called short stringers and how they are initially ostracised by society.
Overall I loved this book and will definitely be recommending it to others. The book had a great pace to it and was quickly very addictive. It’s a book that has stayed with me long after I’ve finished reading. I think this would make a great book club read as I feel there would be lots to discuss.
Huge thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Bloomsbury for my copy of this book. Highly recommended!
About The Author:
Nikki Erlick’s writing has appeared on the websites of New York Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, Newsweek, Cosmopolitan and The Huffington Post. She graduated Harvard University summa cum laude and is a former editor of The Harvard Crimson. She earned a master’s degree in Global Thought from Columbia University. The Measure is her debut novel.
Will the coming war divide them . . . ?For as long as she can remember Peggy O’Shea has been expected to work at the family dairy, look after her younger siblings, and eventually marry cow-keeper Martin Gallagher. And that’s the way it has predictably gone, apart from one glorious summer when at the age of eight she meets handsome Anthony Giardano.But there’s bad blood between the Irish O’Sheas and the Italian Giardanos, so perhaps for the sake of both of their families, it’s a good thing when Anthony suddenly disappears.Ten years later at the start of the war, Peggy bumps into Anthony again. But as they begin to rekindle their friendship, Italy joins forces with Germany and Liverpool turns on its Italian residents overnight, making any relationship between Peggy and Anthony impossible . . .The Girl From Liverpool is a gritty World War Two historical saga from Elizabeth Morton, acclaimed author of Angel of Liverpool.
The Girl From Liverpool is available in all formats now. You can purchase your copy by using the links below.
I’m a huge fan of saga’s so I jumped at the chance to be on the blog tour for The Girl From Liverpool, especially as Elizabeth was a new author for me. The story follows Peggy and Anthony from 1930 and continues throughout the second world war.
One of the things I most enjoy about saga’s is that I feel they tell the stories of people’s everyday life experiences and I always manage to learn something new. This book was no exception and I enjoyed learning more about how Italian and German citizens were treated in the UK. I also didn’t realise that people in the cities tried to keep pigs and found it hilarious to read about their attempts in this book.
Peggy and Anthony were fantastic main characters who I enjoyed following throughout the book. They just seemed made for each other and I loved the way they came out of themselves when it was just the two of them. Martin on the other hand was a nasty piece of work and I couldn’t work out why the lovely Peggy was with him. I was very invested in their story and I wanted to keep reading to see how it all ended for them.
Overall I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more from this author in future. The book was well written and had a great flow to it as there was also something happening to keep my interest. I think I went through every emotion whilst reading as there were some sad, shocking moments but also some funny or heartwarming ones which was really nice and stopped the story becoming too sad. The Liverpudlian humour was evident throughout the book too and I loved the banter between the characters. I enjoyed spending time with the two families and hope there will be a sequel soon.
Huge thanks to Chloe from Pan Macmillan for inviting me onto the blog tour and for my copy of this book.
About The Author:
Elizabeth Morton was born in Liverpool and worked as an actress. She is known for playing Madeline Basset in Jeeves and Wooster and Lucinda in the Liverpool sitcom, Watching. As well as TV, she has also worked in theatre and film. She trained at Guildhall School of Drama and as a writer, with The Royal Court Young Writers’ Group. She is an award-winning short-story writer and has also written drama for TV, film and theatre. In her formative years at convent school, she spent her weekends playing the piano accordion in Northern Working Men’s Clubs. She lives with her husband – the actor Peter Davison – in Middlesex and is the author of A Liverpool Girl and A Last Dance in Liverpool.
You can’t spell Dream Man without DRAMA.As a PA to famous New York playwright Juliette, Winnie has spent the last seven years behind the scenes fetching coffee, soothing egos and buying birthday presents.Putting her own career plans on hold to (once again) cater to Juliette’s every whim, Winnie reluctantly agrees to accompany her boss on a trip across the pond to work on London’s West End.There, she meets Juliette’s dashing nephew Liam (hello, hot accent!). With a standing-ovation-worthy smile, Winnie can’t help crushing on him. Hard.When Juliette notices her assistant is distracted, she forbids Winnie from seeing Liam, making sneaking around backstage even more thrilling . . .Dream job. Dream man. We’re totally Here for the Drama.
Here For The Drama is available in ebook and paperback now. You can purchase your copy using the links below.
My Review:
I thought this was a charming, sexy and hilarious read that helped cheer me up during a stressful time.
The characters were really great creations that I fell in love with over the course of the book. Winnie was a fantastic main character who very confidential but also wonderfully quirky which made her really endearing. Liam and her seemed like a great match for each other! Their interaction and banter were a joy to read about. I was completely behind them and kept hoping there would be a happy ending for them.
I’ve always been completely fascinated by the theatre and the stage, especially as I’ve not got the nerve to act myself. I therefore found the scenes in the theatre absolutely fascinating. It was very interesting to learn more about what goes on behind the scenes and what is involved in putting on a production.
As you can probably tell I loved this book and look forward to reading more from this author in the future. The sweet romance that develops between Liam and Winnie was addictive and there were some some surprising twists took me by surprise.
Huge thanks to Tracy Fenton for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Zaffre for my copy of this book.
Kate Bromley lives in New York City with her husband, son, and her somewhat excessive collection of romance novels (it’s not hoarding if it’s books, right?). She was a preschool teacher for seven years and is now focusing full-time on combining her two great passions – writing swoon-worthy love stories and making people laugh.
Scarlett‘s aunt lived – and was brutally murdered – in the apartment upstairs. But Scarlett is determined that life should return to some kind of normal, even if that means living with just a ceiling between her and the scene of such a devastating crime. After all, this is her home. She’s safe here. Isn’t she?
Dee is busy balancing her job as a funeral director with organizing an event to mark the disappearance of her best friend, ten years ago. So she’s got enough on her plate without worrying about the threatening messages that are appearing on her company’s Facebook page.
When Scarlett approaches Dee about planning her aunt’s funeral, an unexpected link between them emerges. Together, the two women could uncover secrets that have long been buried. Even while someone wants to stop them digging . . .
The Apartment Upstairs is available in ebook and hardback now. You can purchase your copy using the links below.
I’ve enjoyed all of Lesley Kara’s previous books so I was very much looking forward to reading this one. Once again the author has written an intriguing, twisty read which I thoroughly enjoyed.
The story alternates between Scarlett who’s aunt is found murdered in her flat upstairs and Dee who runs the local funeral home who’s enlisted by Scarlett to arrange her aunt’s funeral. I really liked both characters and enjoyed following them throughout the book. They both seemed very real and I felt each helped provide an interesting angle to the book which helped make it unique. I enjoyed watching their relationship grow and to follow their ups and downs as the mystery unfolds.
The books starts slowly but soon picks up and becomes very intriguing. I thought this would be a murder mystery but it quickly became apparent the story is going in a completely different direction. There were lots of twists and misdirection that kept the story very exciting. The suspense in the book slowly builds until it becomes almost unbearable. I found myself sneaking into the kitchen to read or staying up too late to try and read just a little bit more!
Huge thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Transworld for my copy of this book via netgalley.
About The Author:
Lesley Kara is the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Rumour, Who Did You Tell? and The Dare. The Rumour was the highest selling crime fiction debut of 2019 in the UK, and a Kindle No.1 bestseller. Lesley is an alumna of the Faber Academy ‘Writing a Novel’ course. She lives in Suffolk.
Another incredible domestic thriller from the Sunday Times Number One bestselling author of sensational books like Both Of You…
One last client
A week at a beautiful chateau in the south of France – it should be a straightforward final job for Dora. She’s a smart, stunning and discreet escort and Daniel has paid for her services before. This time, all she has to do is convince the assembled guests that she is his girlfriend. Dora is used to playing roles and being whatever men want her to be. It’s all about putting on a front.
One last chance
It will be a last, luxurious look at how the other half lives, before Dora turns her back on the escort world and all its dangers. She has found someone she loves and trusts. With him, she can escape the life she’s trapped in. But when Dora arrives at the chateau, it quickly becomes obvious that nothing is what it seems…
One last secret
Dora finds herself face to face with a man she has never forgotten, the one man who really knows her. And as old secrets surface, it becomes terrifyingly apparent that one last secret could cost Dora her life…
From the Sunday Times Number One bestseller Adele Parks comes a blisteringly provocative novel about power, sex, money and revenge.
My Review:
Adele Parks is one of my favourite authors so a new book from her is always hugely exciting. One Last Secret is another gripping, absorbing and twisty read which I thoroughly enjoyed.
The story unfolds at a great pace and I soon found myself unable to put the book down. The tension and suspense slowly builds until it becomes almost palpable. There were lots of twists and turns which helped keep me on my toes! I can normally guess where a story is going but I wasn’t able to in this story which I really enjoyed.
Huge thanks to HQ Stories for my copy of this book and for inviting me onto the blog tour.
About The Author:
Adele Parks was born in Teesside, North East England. Her first novel, Playing Away, was published in 2000, and since then she’s had seventeen international bestsellers, translated into twenty-six languages. She’s been an ambassador for The Reading Agency and a judge for the Costa Book Awards, and is a keen supporter of The National Literary Trust. She’s lived in Italy, Botswana and London and is now settled in Guildford, Surrey, with her husband, son and cat.
What if the key to your present lies in the past?London, 1939On the eve of the Second World War, Canadian Maggie Wyndham defies her family and stays in England to do her bit for the war effort. Torn between two countries, two men and living a life of lies working for the Special Operations Executive (SOE), Maggie’s RAF sweetheart locket is part of who she is…and who she isn’t.San Francisco, 2019Over twenty years after Maggie’s death, her daughter Millie and granddaughter Willow take a DNA test that’s supposed to be a bit of fun but instead yields unexpected results. Willow has always treasured her grandmother’s sweetheart locket, both family heirloom and a symbol of her grandparents’ love story. But now she doesn’t know what to believe. She embarks on a search for the truth, one she doesn’t know will reveal far more about herself…A gripping and heart-breaking dual timeline novel about love, loss and buried secrets, The Sweetheart Locket is perfect for fans of Lorna Cook, Rachel Hore and Suzanne Kelman.
The Sweetheart Locket was a beautifully written, heartwarming and emotional read that I’ll definitely be recommending to others.
The story follows Willow in the present day and her grandmother Maggie during WW2. I did prefer the war timeline slightly more as it provided me with a new perspective of woman’s roles during the war which I found very interesting. I loved reading about Maggie’s war time experiences and her interactions with her fab group of friends.
Willow’s story was also very interesting and I enjoyed following her journey as she tries to discover more about her family history. There are a lot of similarities between Maggie and Willow’s stories which I thought was clever. Both woman grow a lot during their journeys which I loved, especially seeing how much stronger and independent the two become.
Overall I absolutely loved this book and can’t wait to read more from this author. The story unfolds at a good pace and I was soon fully absorbed in the story. WW2 is one of my favourite eras to read about and I always enjoy finding new areas that I haven’t explored yet. The daily sacrifices ordinary people made are awe-inspiring to read about and always bring a lump to my throat. This is a book that I’ve continued to think about long after reading.
Huge thanks to Rachel from Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Orion for my copy of this book.
About The Author:
Now based in Canada, Jen Gilroy is a full-time writer. She lived in England for many years and worked in marketing communications and academic editing. She is a dual British/Canadian citizen with a postgraduate degree in geography (with a focus on British cultural studies and social history) from University College London.
Good morning everyone! Today I’m pleased to finally share my review of Lucie Yi Is Not Romantic as part of the Random Things Blog Tour.
Huge apologies for lack of posts lately I have been in hospital for the last week. I went to a routine check at the opticians and discovered I had swollen optic nerves. This lead to a hospital appointment the next day, being admitted for lots of tests and being diagnosed with Intercranial Hypertension. It was quite a scary experience as it can be caused by other conditions like tumours but thankfully it’s just lifestyle with me so I’ll be making a few changes and hopefully I’ll be able to get it back under control.
Anyway enough about me and back to my review!
Book Synopsis:
Lucie Yi has tried love – it didn’t work.
She’s decided that finding Mr Right is a myth, and that finding Mr Right-enough-to-have-children-with is the next best option. So when she meets easy-going Collin Read on a platonic co-parenting website, it finally feels like she has found her version of happily ever after.
With pressure mounting on all sides and her perfect plan unravelling, Lucie has to decide how much she’s willing to sacrifice for a chance at happiness – and maybe, just maybe, love.
Lucy Yi Is Not Romantic is a sweet, funny and clever read that would be great for reading in the sun this summer.
Firstly I loved Lucy and enjoyed following her throughout the book. She’s a very strong, determined lady and I liked that she didn’t follow the normal rules. I did find her slightly annoying at times but I actually grew to like this side of her and ended up finding this an endearing character flaw.
There are lots of fantastic supporting characters in this book that help show how loved and supported everyone is. The two main male characters were interesting creations and but must admit I didn’t particularly warm to either of them.
It was particularly interesting to learn more about Asian Culture as I didn’t know much about it before. The expectations of family are always hard to meet and I felt Lucie managed that really well, despite deciding some very modern methods to start a family. I enjoyed all the cultural references too as they helped make the situation seem more real.
Overall I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more from this author. I liked how the author takes some difficult subjects and manages to discuss them in a sensitive manner which I thought was very clever. There’s lots of intrigue in the book and I was never sure which way the story was going so had to keep reading to find out.
Huge thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Harper Collins for my copy of this book.
About The Author:
Lauren Ho is a reformed legal counsel who writes funny stories. Hailing from Malaysia, she lived in the United Kingdom, France and Luxembourg before moving with her family to Singapore. Her first novel, Last Tang Standing was an international bestseller.
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of JoJo Recommends. Today I’m featuring Chris Miller and his new song The One For Me.
Chris is a singer songwriter from Australian who I first discovered on twitch. His streams are always great fun to be on and never fail to help lift my spirits as Chris has a wicked sense of humour. He’s a dad of three and his kids sometimes make guest appearances on his streams which are always very heartwarming to watch.
He’s currently taking part in bit fest on twitch where viewers can donate to make Chris do fun challenges including singing with marshmallows in his mouth to mashing two songs together which he always does amazingly.
If you would like to follow Chris on twitch or social media you can do so by following the links below.
The One For Me is Chris’s latest single and possibly my favourite from him, though it’s hard to choose! It’s one of those songs that sent a shiver down my spine when I first listened to it as I knew instantly that I liked it. Chris’s music is available on all of the streaming platforms and you can listen via his link tree below. I’ve included the music videos for The One For Me and Roadtrip To Mars below.
Jojo Recommends is now featured on the fantastic Island Vibing Presents twitch stream which is hugely exciting. I’m getting loads more confident with filming myself. I recently featured Chris on there and you can watch the feature via the link below.
Good afternoon everyone I’m on a special blog tour today to celebrate the short list for the Wolfson History Prize today. As part of the tour I have an extract from God An Anatomy to share with you.
God An Anatomy is available in all formats now. You can get your copy using the links below.
‘Rivetingly fresh and stunning’ – Sunday Times’One of the most remarkable historians and communicators working today’ – Dan Snow
Three thousand years ago, in the Southwest Asian lands we now call Israel and Palestine, a group of people worshipped a complex pantheon of deities, led by a father god called El. El had seventy children, who were gods in their own right. One of them was a minor storm deity, known as Yahweh. Yahweh had a body, a wife, offspring and colleagues. He fought monsters and mortals. He gorged on food and wine, wrote books, and took walks and naps. But he would become something far larger and far more abstract: the God of the great monotheistic religions.
But as Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou reveals, God’s cultural DNA stretches back centuries before the Bible was written, and persists in the tics and twitches of our own society, whether we are believers or not. The Bible has shaped our ideas about God and religion, but also our cultural preferences about human existence and experience; our concept of life and death; our attitude to sex and gender; our habits of eating and drinking; our understanding of history. Examining God’s body, from his head to his hands, feet and genitals, she shows how the Western idea of God developed. She explores the places and artefacts that shaped our view of this singular God and the ancient religions and societies of the biblical world. And in doing so she analyses not only the origins of our oldest monotheistic religions, but also the origins of Western culture.
Beautifully written, passionately argued and frequently controversial, God: An Anatomy is cultural history on a grand scale.
Extract:
Introduction: Dissecting The Divine
In June 2018, news platforms across much of the world published a photograph of God. ‘Does THIS photograph show the true face of God?’ shouted one click- bait headline. ‘Science reveals the face of God and it looks like Elon Musk’, teased another. Others, including NBC’s website, were rather less sensationalist in their headlines: ‘The face of God is in the eye of the beholder’. The photograph in question showed a fuzzy black- and-white image of a middle- aged, beardless Caucasian male, with a soft, rounded face and just a hint of a smile (fig. 1). The image was produced by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who showed a demographically representative sample of US Christians a series of computer- generated faces embodying certain cultural stereotypes of emotional, ethical, social and spiritual values, and asked them to select those faces perceived to best reflect their mental image of God. Some of the faces were androgynous in appearance, while some were more feminine, and some more masculine. All the faces were grey, like a black- and- white photocopy, but some were lighter skinned and some were darker skinned. Some faces were expressive, some were seemingly blank. But each face was a canvas onto which the experiment’s
participants were free to project their own assumptions. The results were averaged out and used to create God’s e- fit. Unsurprisingly, the study revealed that in the US, God is made in the image of a white American man.
Fig. 1. The face of God, as imagined by a representative sample of US Christians in a recent study. The fuzzy quality of this computer-generated image reflects the composite process of the experiment. The study concluded that those surveyed envisaged God as similar to themselves in terms of physical appearance, age and race.
Psychologists and social anthropologists have long understood that
a very heavy dose of cognitive bias underlies the construction of the divine in human societies. But while modern studies like those conducted at Chapel Hill can tell us something of the psychological and social processes underlying this tendency, this is hardly news. Over two and a half thousand years ago, in the late sixth or early fifth century bce, the Greek intellectual and adventurer Xenophanes of Colophon had already arrived at a similar conclusion: ‘If cattle and horses or lions had hands, or were able to draw with their hands and do the works that men can do, horses would draw the forms of the gods like horses, and cattle like cattle, and they would make their bodies such as they each had themselves’. For Xenophanes, the human tendency to make gods in our own image was as much about local cultural preferences as overarching, lofty ideals, as the diversity of deities in his world attested: ‘The Ethiopians say that their gods are broad- nosed and dark- skinned, the Thracians that theirs have blue eyes and red hair’. As far as Xenophanes was concerned, the widespread assumption that the gods had bodies like those of their worshippers was inextricably linked to the notion that deities behaved very much like humans – and this was deeply problematic, for it inevitably cheapened the moral nature of the divine. Proof could be found in the Greek myths themselves: ‘Homer and Hesiod have attributed to the gods everything that leads to blame and abuse among men – stealing, committing adultery, and deceiving each other’, Xenophanes complained. It was an objection rooted in his philosophically driven insistence that a god was inherently and necessarily a being ‘in no way like mortals either in body or thought’.2 Similar ideas were soon championed by other Greek thinkers, most notably Plato (c. 429– 347 bce), his student Aristotle (c. 384– 322 bce) and subsequent generations of their elitist, learned adherents in the Graeco- Roman world, who theorized that the divine power ultimately undergirding the universe and everything in it was necessarily without a body – an incorporeal, invisible, abstract principle, force or intellect, wholly beyond and distinct from the material world. Not that these rarefied views made much of an impact on the religious lives of ordinary folk. Whether they were schooled in philosophy or not, and no matter the deities they worshipped, most people living in the Graeco- Roman world continued to envisage their gods as corporeal beings with bodies shaped like their own – much as they always had. But towards the close of the first millennium bce, and into the early centuries of the Common Era, these erudite philosophical ideas would gradually come to shape the thinking of certain Jewish and Christian intellectuals, so that they began to re- imagine their deity in increasingly incorporeal, immaterial terms, drawing ever- sharper distinctions between the heavenly and the earthly, the divine and the human, and the spiritual and the bodily. It is the broadly Platonic notion of the otherness and unlikeness of the divine to anything in or beyond the universe that has shaped the more formal theological constructions of God in the Western religious imagination. And yet these constructions are built on a conceptual framework very much at odds with the Bible itself, for in these ancient texts, God is presented in startlingly anthropomorphic ways. This is a deity with a body.
About The Author:
Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou studied theology at Oxford and is currently Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter. The author of a number of academic works, she also presented the BBC 2 documentary series The Bible’s Buried Secrets. She regularly appears on BBC1’s The Big Questions and Sunday Morning Live, and has appeared on several Radio 4 shows, including Woman’s Hour, The Infinite Monkey Cage and The Museum of Curiosity. She writes for The Guardian, The Mail on Sunday, and the Times Literary Supplement, and has spoken about the Bible, religion, and atheism at numerous public events, including the Cheltenham Science Festival, the World Humanist Congress, and Conway Hall’s annual London Thinks festival. Her contribution (on the same subject as the book) to Dan Snow’s History Hits podcast is currently its most popular ever episode.
One year ago, Leah’s twenty-one-year-old niece, Amy, mysteriously drowned near her family-owned luxury resort on the shores of Lake Garda.
Now, returning to Italy for the first time since Amy’s death, Leah is shocked to find her family seem to have erased all reminders of Amy. Despite the murky circumstances, they insist her death was an accident but Leah knows she must look deeper if she is to uncover the truth.
Meanwhile, in Derby, university counsellor Joanna is recovering from a surprising break-up when she is swept off her feet by a handsome bartender. But after she invites him into her home, Joanna is forced to accept that she doesn’t know him as well as she thought.
What follows is a propulsive game of cat-and mouse as both women begin to realise that appearances can be deceptive – and that the darkest secrets often lie closest to home.
My Review:
The other guest is a fascinating, gripping mystery thriller that I really enjoyed.
The story is told in two different time lines which are seemingly unconnected and I found both of them as interesting as each other. The author slowly reveals the connection between the two which I thought was very clever. The connection was very surprising and quite shocking which I always enjoy.
The setting in Italy was vividly described and I felt like I was actually there watching everything unfold. There were times when I felt I could actually feel the heat the author describes. I especially liked the way the author uses the holiday village setting in the plot which made the story seem very plausible.
The book starts of slow as the author sets the scene but I felt there was always enough happening to keep my interest. About half way through the pace picks up and becomes very difficult to put down. I warmed to the characters quickly and found myself wanting to keep reading so I could find out what happens to them. The ending was brilliant and I think I read the last quarter of the book without stopping as it was so gripping.
Huge thanks to Ollie from Hodder and Stoughton for inviting me onto the blog tour and for my copy of this book.
About The Author:
Helen Cooper is from Derby. She has taught English and Academic Writing in both Further and Higher Education and was Head of Learning Enhancement at the University of Birmingham. She has a MA in Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University and has been published in Writers’ Forum, Mslexia, the Bath Short Story Prize Anthology (2014) and the Leicester Writes Short Story Prize Anthology (2018). The Downstairs Neighbour was her first novel – her second, The Other Guest publishes in 2022.
Over The Rainbow Blog 