It’s Camilla’s first day back at work, her daughter’s first day at nursery.
But husband Luke is nowhere to be seen. The only trace of him is an unfinished note. Camilla tries to put it out of her mind; there must be a rational explanation.
At work, there are welcomes back, and too many distractions.

Then it starts.

Breaking news: there’s a hostage situation developing in London.
The police arrive: Luke is caught up in it.

But he isn’t a hostage. Luke – doting father, successful writer, enthusiastic runner and eternal optimist – is the gunman.

What Camilla does next is crucial. Because only she knows what the note he left behind says, and the clues it might hold . . .

Famous Last Words is published on the 31st January 2025.

My Review:

Wow! What an amazing thriller this was. I sped through this in a couple of days as I was so enjoying it and couldn’t put it down.

The story is told from the point of view of Luke’s wife Camilla, Niall the hostage negotiator and later one of a pair of mysterious brothers who are watching Cam. I actually liked both of these points of view as it was fun to see events from both sides. Camilla’s tended to be more emotional as it followed her trying to cope in the aftermath of events while Niall’s followed the police investigation into everything that happened.

I quickly found myself drawn into the story and into the horrendous situation Cam and Niall find themselves in. Luke had no criminal past and this hostage situation is very out of character for him. I enjoyed finding out more about the unique situation and discovering what had actually happened. I had lots of ideas about what had been going on and I actually thought I’d guessed it quite early in the book but they all proved to be wrong. The story had lots of twists and sudden reveals to it which kept me guessing which I always love, with the story getting more complex as the book goes on. I couldn’t put the book down and found myself trying to sneak away from the kids so I could read a few more pages.

The ending was brilliant and seemed realistic as if it could actually happen. I especially liked that the author keeps the story going for a little bit after the resolution so the reader can find out what happens next.

Huge thanks to Phoebe our Penguin rep and Michael J Books for sending me a copy of this book. If you are after a fantastic, tense and gripping thriller then I highly recommend this one. It was honestly one of the best thrillers I’ve read!

About The Author:

Gillian McAllister is the New York Times bestselling author of Reese’s Book Club Pick Wrong Place Wrong Time, Just Another Missing Person, Everything but the Truth, The Choice, The Good Sister, The Evidence Against You, How to Disappear, and the Richard & Judy Book Club pick That Night. She graduated with an English degree before working as a lawyer. She lives in Birmingham, England, where she now writes full-time. She is also the creator and co-host of the popular Honest Authors podcast.

Good morning everyone and Happy New Year! It’s that time of year to make resolutions so I thought I’d share some of my bookish resolutions with you.

🥰 Reading What I Feel Like

I’ve really enjoyed just reading what I fancy this year and want to continue feeling unrestricted next year. I’m going to continue not doing any blog tours and I’m going to try and not be restrained by publishing dates too as it can sometimes stress me out.

🎧More Audiobooks

2024 was the year I discovered audiobooks and I’ve loved listening to stories whilst walking or doing the housework. I haven’t got to as many as I hoped as sometimes I like just walking with my thoughts. I’m hoping to get out and exercise more next year so I’ll hopefully have more opportunities to listen. My favourite audiobook was The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier as I loved hearing the Italian as it’s meant to be pronounced.

✍🏻 Attending More Events

I’ve been lucky enough to attend some fabulous events last year and I’m hoping to continue this year. Rossiter Books have some amazing events coming up and I’ve booked to see Natalie Haynes in March too. I’m hoping to make it to Hay On Wye and Cheltenham festivals this year too – I’ll be brave and go on my own if needed!

📚 Bookclub

I’ve had a wonderful year attending the bookclub I run for Rossiter Books this year. Not only have we read some great books together but I feel like I’ve made some lovely friends as well. We’ve even gone to the theatre together which was really nice as we got to know each other better. Here’s to more bookish fun next year!

📔Book Journal

I was lucky enough to get this fabulous book journal from my sister for Christmas and I’m determined to fill all of it in this time. It only has 32 entries so I’ll probably need another one for my birthday but they come in lots of pretty colours so it’s a great excuse to get another one.

🛍️More Bookseller Fun

I’ve had a great year working as a bookseller last year and I was lucky enough to be involved in lots of fun events. I’m looking forward to another year of bookish fun next year.

What are your bookish resolutions?

Good morning everyone and happy Tuesday. These are my last three reads of 2025.

❤️ Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall (5 stars)
🧡 Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister (5 stars)
💛Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao (currently reading)

My last book kept changing as Broken Country and Famous Last Words was so good that I read them much quicker than expected. I reviewed Broken Country on here yesterday so do go check it out if you’re interested and I’ll be posting my review of Famous Last Words on Thursday. I highly recommend all of these as they’re all fantastic reads!

I’m working this morning which should be fun and then I’m meeting everyone for some fun this afternoon. My in-laws are down and there was talk about going out for food tonight which could be interesting as we haven’t booked anything. We’re then having an evening of board games and the kids want a disco which will be a lovely way to bring in 2025.

Happy New Year to all of my friends on here. Thanks so much for all the love and support this year it’s really appreciated. 2025 looks like it’s going to be a great bookish year!

What are your New Year’s plans?

Book Synopsis:

Beth was seventeen when she first met Gabriel. Over that heady, intense summer, he made her think and feel and see differently. She thought it was the start of her great love story. When Gabriel left to become the person his mother expected him to be, she was broken.

It was Frank who picked up the pieces and together they built a home very different from the one she’d imagined with Gabriel. Watching her husband and son, she remembered feeling so sure that, after everything, this was the life she was supposed to be leading.

But when Gabriel comes back, all Beth’s certainty about who she is and what she wants crumbles. Even after ten years, their connection is instant. She knows it’s wrong and she knows people could get hurt. But how can she resist a second chance at first love?

A love story with the pulse of a thriller, Broken Country is a heart-pounding novel of impossible choices and devastating consequences.

Broken Country is out on the 4th March 2025.

My Review:

Broken Country is a gripping, emotional love story that I’ve been unable to stop thinking about since I read it. It’s going to be a hard book to review as I want to do it justice but at the same time not give anything away.

Firstly I thought that the author has created some wonderful characters who I warmed to instantly and enjoyed following throughout the book. It was lovely to learn more about them, the lives they lead and the different relationships they have with each other. Unusually for me I didn’t have a favourite character as they were all so likeable which I loved as it meant I could just sink into the book and enjoy the story.

The book is told from multiple timelines some detailing events from when Beth and Gabriel first met, one set in the present time and one following a trial which lets the reader know that something awful happened. I loved all three timelines and enjoyed slowly piecing together what has gone on throughout the course of the book.

I found the book incredibly gripping and I soon found myself drawn into the book and into the lives of the characters. The author does a great job of giving the reader a fly on the wall glimpse of everything that happens and slowly letting the story unfold so you can understand more about what happens next. The tension in the book slowly increases as the book continues and becomes so gripping I couldn’t put it down. There were lots of twists that made me gasp and helped keep me in suspense until the end which I always love. The ending was brilliant! One of the best and most emotional endings I’ve ever read. I was absolutely sobbing at the end which never happens.

Huge thanks to Ellie from John Murray Press for sending me a copy of this book. Believe the hype people this book deserves to be huge!

About The Author:

Clare Leslie Hall is a novelist and journalist who lives in the wilds of Dorset, England, with her family. Under the name Clare Empson, she published two domestic noir thrillers, Him and Mine, that were published in the UK and Germany. She has always loved The Go Between by LP Hartley and Broken Country is a nod to it, featuring a forbidden love affair with catastrophic repercussions. Broken Country is her US debut.

Good morning everyone I hope you had a great Christmas. Here are some of the fabulous Christmas presents I received this year.

The two books I bought with vouchers I received at work and the reading journal I received from my lovely sister. I’m very excited to read the two books as I’ve been hearing lots of great things about them and I can’t wait to start my new reading journal. There’s only 32 entries so I’ll either just put my favourite reads in there or I’ll ask for another one for my birthday. There’s a blue one which might be nice.

I’m back to work today which should be fun as we’ll hopefully have people coming in to spend their Christmas vouchers. I’m then taking the boys for a haircut – always stressful as my youngest doesn’t like the clippers. We’re then going to see my mum as my aunty and uncle are over which will be lovely as I haven’t seen them this Christmas time.

Did you get any bookish Christmas presents?

Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton

Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and snoozed in your house for hours on end. This happened to me.

When lockdown led busy professional Chloe to leave the city and return to the countryside of her childhood, she never expected to find herself custodian of a newly born hare. Yet when she finds the creature, endangered, alone and no bigger than her palm, she is compelled to give it a chance at survival.

Raising Hare chronicles their journey together and the challenges of caring for the leveret and preparing for its return to the wild. We witness an extraordinary relationship between human and animal, rekindling our sense of awe towards nature and wildlife. This improbable bond of trust serves to remind us that the most remarkable experiences, inspiring the most hope, often arise when we least expect them.

Shy Creatures by Clare Chambers

In all failed relationships there is a point that passes unnoticed at the time, which can later be identified as the beginning of the decline. For Helen it was the weekend that the Hidden Man came to Westbury Park.

Croydon, 1964. Helen Hansford is in her thirties and an art therapist in a psychiatric hospital where she has been having a long love affair with Gil: a charismatic, married doctor.

One spring afternoon they receive a call about a disturbance from a derelict house not far from Helen’s home. A thirty-seven-year-old man called William Tapping, with a beard down to his waist, has been discovered along with his elderly aunt. It is clear he has been shut up in the house for decades, but when it emerges that William is a talented artist, Helen is determined to discover his story.

Shy Creatures is a life-affirming novel about all the different ways we can be confined, how ordinary lives are built of delicate layers of experience, the joy of freedom and the transformative power of kindness.

Happy Christmas Everyone!

I just wanted to say a huge thank you for all the support this year. I feel like I’ve made some really lovely friends and I’ve been enjoying posting on here.

To my fellow bookstagrammers thanks for all the likes, comments, tags and shares I’ve really appreciated them all.

Huge thanks to all the lovely publicists/ publishers for all the proofs and blog tour invites I’m so grateful!

I’m signing off until the 27th now so Happy Christmas everyone I hope you have a great time. Here’s to more friendship and bookish fun in the future.

In case you missed it below are my favourite books of 2024 in case you’re looking for some last minute gift recommendations.

What books are you hoping to receive this Christmas?

Book Synopsis:

When Ashley Smith – a bright-eyed but lonely American studying in London – is invited to spend Christmas with her classmate’s family at their Cotswolds manor house, it seems like a perfect country idyll.

And for Ashley – who records it all in her diary – there’s the added romantic potential of her friend’s twin brother, Adam, who she thinks could be her wildest dream come true.

But is there something strange about the old house, both stately and rundown? What could the motives of the mysterious Chapman family be? And what holiday horrors might be lying in wait?

My Review:

The Christmas Guest is a gripping murder mystery perfect for reading at this time of year.

Firstly I loved the cosy, country house setting in this book which is just the type of place to spend a family Christmas in. I loved the descriptions of the huge family house, with extensive grounds and a pub just round the corner full of delicious sounding food. The characters were all wonderful creations that I enjoyed following throughout the book even though I didn’t find any of them very likeable. Ashley was my favourite out of them though and I found myself feeling quite sorry for her at times though her neediness did get on my nerves at times and I wish I could tell her to stop.

I thought the book had a great pace to it and I quickly found myself drawn into the book. For a short book it really packs a lot in with lots of very intriguing things happening that ensured I kept reading. The story is told in two halves with a twist in the middle that I didn’t see coming which I thought was cleverly done. The ending was interesting and I liked seeing how everything played out. Although this is billed as a Christmas read it didn’t seem overly festive and I actually think you could pick this up anytime if year.

If you’re looking for a last minute socking filler I really recommend this one!

About The Author:

Peter Swanson is the author of nine novels, including The Kind Worth Killing, winner of the New England Society Book Award, and finalist for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, and Her Every Fear, an NPR book of the year. His books have been translated into 30 languages, and his stories, poetry, and features have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Atlantic Monthly, Measure, The Guardian, The Strand Magazine, and Yankee Magazine.

A graduate of Trinity College, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Emerson College, he lives on the North Shore of Massachusetts with his wife and cat.

Book Synopsis:

There is nothing like it. The way the world gets real quiet when a gator’s nearby…And then the water, suddenly boiling as that black head surfaces and the ancient reptile erupts into the air hissing like a devil…The way the crack of the rifle seems to come from deep inside Cutter. The way she feels it in her throat; she knows she’s a good killer – and yet. She is stalling…’

The Labasques aren’t like other families. Living in a shack out in the swamps, they scrape a living hunting down alligators and other animals just to get by. To the good people of Jacknife, Louisiana, they are trouble-makers, outcasts, the kind of people you wouldn’t want living on your doorstep. So when Cutter Labasque is found face down in the muddy swamp, no one seems to care, not even her two rough-cut brothers. The only person who questions the official verdict of suicide is Cutter’s childhood friend, Loyal May, who has just returned home to care for her ageing mother. Loyal left town at the age of 18, having betrayed Cutter. Now there may be no way to find forgiveness, but there may be restitution…

Out 24th April 2025

My Review:

Our Last Wild Days is a gripping, twisty and thought provoking read which I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.

The book is set in a small backwater town that borders a swamp and I found it fascinating to explore alongside the characters. It’s definitely a town that’s down on its luck with a feeling of neglect to most of the buildings and a sense of hopelessness at the lack of opportunities there. The author does a great job in creating the small town dynamic where everyone seems to know each other and there seems to be an unofficial hierarchy for its residence. There was a wild, unpredictable air to the town which helped create an intriguing atmosphere and helped create some tension as I wasn’t sure what would happen next.

I loved the huge variety of characters the author has created and enjoyed following them throughout the book. There were some characters I loved, some I loved to hate and some who my opinion of them changed whilst reading. Sasha and Loyal were definitely my two favourite characters. Both outcasts for being different and struggling with personal problems of their own, it was lovely to see them grow closer as they work as a team. The book is told mainly in the present but with flashbacks to the past and Loyal’s friendship with Cutter which were heartwarming to read about. Loyal really lives up to her name by showing great loyalty to her friend and I loved how she tries to honour her memory through little gestures. The scene with the lilies actually made me laugh out loud.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and will be recommending it to everyone when it comes out. I thought the book had a great pace to it and I quickly found it very hard to put down as there always seemed to be something happening to ensure I kept reading. The gradual reveal of what had been going on in the town and the swamp was brilliantly done as I wasn’t able to guess what was happening until right before it was revealed which I always love. There are some scenes about drug use that might not be to everyone’s taste but I thought just added to the dangerous, unpredictable atmosphere the author has created. The ending was brilliant and I actually felt very sad when I finished it as I didn’t want to leave Loyal and Sasha behind.

Huge thanks to the lovely Alison from Doubleday for sending me a copy of this book. I highly recommend this book and strongly suggest you put it in your April reading pile.

About The Author:

Anna Bailey is a Sunday Times bestselling author from Gloucestershire. Their debut novel, Tall Bones, inspired by their experiences living in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, was nominated for the Theakstons Crime Novel of the Year and Goldsboro Glass Bell awards, as well as the Prix Nouvelles Voix du Polar. Their short stories, based on their travels through rural America, have been dramatised for BBC Radio 4, including ‘Long Way to Come For a Sip of Water’, which was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award. They live in Bordeaux with their wife.

Good morning everyone and happy Saturday. I was tagged by the lovely @nothing.beats.a.good.book to take part in a Christmassy Cluedo Challenge. I did the normal challenge earlier this year but couldn’t resist doing it with a Christmassy twist!

Who – Miss Beeton
When – Midnight
Where – The Christmas Tree Farm
With- The Summer Guests (who might hate Christmas?)
Why – The Voices

All of these are tbr apart from The Christmas Tree Farm which I highly recommend.

I’m off today and I have a few more presents to wrap and I need to try to clean up the house a bit for Christmas though it’s possibly too early with three kids as the likelihood of them messing it up again is probably quite high. We’re then going to my mum’s for an early Christmas celebration as she’s off to my sister’s this year. We call it ‘Missmass’ and I’m really looking forward to it as it’s going to be a special night.

I’ve tagged a few people on Instagram who might want to join in the Christmassy Cluedo Challenge but, as always, no pressure.

What are your Saturday plans?

Good evening everyone I hope you’ve had a lovely day. I was so excited to be offered a copy of this beautiful hardback proof of The Woman In The Wallpaper by Lora Jones. Check out those endpapers! So pretty 😍

It sounds absolutely brilliant, just my type of book and I’m very excited to read it soon. I’ve already been hearing some great things from my fellow book bloggers so I’m so looking forward to it.

The Woman In The Wallpaper is published on the 20th February 2025 and you can swipe to read the synopsis.

Huge thanks to Lucie Little Brown for sending this to me.

Book Synopsis:

Paris, 1789. The Oberst Factory, which crafts exquisite wallpaper for the most fashionable French homes, is a place shrouded in mystery. Most enigmatic is the woman pictured in each of its prints, rumoured to be the late Mrs Oberst, who died in peculiar circumstances.

When sisters Lara and Sofi arrive there for work, they quickly form a friendship with Josef Oberst, the motherless heir to the factory. Whilst Sofi’s political fervour intensifies, Lara is disturbed by the uncanny way her life appears mirrored in the wallpaper. Meanwhile Hortense, Josef’s spoilt aristocratic wife, is similarly unnerved by the scenes that line the walls of her new home. With the mobs growing ever more violent, is she in danger of meeting the same untimely end as the last Mrs Oberst?

As revolution blazes across France, the lives of Sofi, Lara and Hortense are set to collide in unimaginable and irrevocable ways. Can they change what lies ahead, or are some patterns destined to be repeated?

About The Author:

After studying English Literature at the University of Durham, Lora began her career working in the TV industry in London, reading scripts for ITV’s Drama Department, and writing factual programme content and comedy material for the BBC, Channel 4 and others. She also spent over a decade assisting professional TV and stage magicians, and gathering up their secrets.

Lora now lives amongst the rugged hills of North Wales where she is currently rewilding an 18th century sheep farm. In her spare time she paints wildlife and sells her work in aid of wildlife conservation charities.

Passionate about creating and writing original stories, The Woman in the Wallpaper is Lora’s first novel. She is also the co-creator/host of The Magician’s Wife podcast.