Good afternoon everyone I’m on the blog tour for Race To Novus by R. A. Clarke today.

I’m a huge fan of Science Fiction books as it’s fun seeing what worlds the authors have made from their imagination so this book really appeals to me. I sadly didn’t have time to read it for this tour but I hope to pick it up soon.

Huge thanks to Rachel from Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me onto the blog tour.

Find out more about the book below.

Book Synopsis:

A daughter’s last chance at redemption on an alien planet. A sweeping secret that could not only end her dreams, but her life as well.

Finn Rucker boards the starship to seek a fresh start as part of a colonizing effort on Joya. The race, sponsored by Governus, yields free land and startup funds for the lucky winners. The number of entrants guarantees someone is going to lose and Finn is determined that she and her bionic horse, Herc, are among the winners.

Racing through uncharted jungle to the settlement of Novus, Finn and her fellow racers soon discover that not everything is as it seems – and Governus withheld information from the contestants. Strange beasts attack the racers, mechanical equipment begins to fail, and the very air seems out to get them.

When all seems lost, a mysterious people arrive and help the racers, revealing the depth of Governus’ deception. Finn will have to keep her pulse pistols close and her new friends closer – but not too close – as they all race to survive the jungle.

You will love this mashup of Hidalgo and James Cameron’s Avatar as Finn navigates the guilt of her past, the promise of a future, and the imminent dangers of her present.

About The Author:

R.A. Clarke is a former police officer turned stay-at-home-mom living in Portage la Prairie, MB with two busy boys, a sport-aholic husband, and a couple of quirky dogs. She maintains her sanity by guzzling copious amounts of coffee and diving into fantastic worlds of her own creation.

Rachael loves fulfilling dreams and seeking new inspirations. As an artist, community theatre actor, and writer, her creativity never sleeps. She’s currently working on a little bit of a lot… which includes writing a YA fantasy novel, a sci-fi adventure novel, and writing/illustrating picture books (under the name Rachael Clarke). If you have kids, feel free to check out her children’s chapter book, The Big Ol’ Bike, just released in November, 2020.

You can follow R.A.’s writing adventures and read her multi-genre short fiction on her website: http://www.rachaelclarkewrites.com.

Other social media:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/raclarkewrites/

Instagram: @rachaelclarkewrites

Twitter: @raclarkewrites

Book Synopsis:

Lois Saunders thought that marrying the right man would finally cure her loneliness. But as picture-perfect as her husband is, she is suffocating in their loveless marriage. In 1951, though, unhappiness is hardly grounds for divorce – except in Reno, Nevada.

At the Golden Yarrow, the most respectable of Reno’s ‘divorce ranches’ Lois finds herself living with half a dozen other would-be divorcees, all in Reno for the six weeks’ residency that is the state’s only divorce requirement. They spend their days riding horses and their nights flirting with cowboys, and it’s as wild and fun as Lake Forest, Illinois, was prim and stifling. But it isn’t until Greer Lange arrives that Lois’s world truly cracks open . . .

Gorgeous, beguiling, and completely indifferent to societal convention, Greer is unlike anyone Lois has ever met – and she sees something in Lois that no one else ever has. Under her influence, Lois begins to push against the limits that have always restrained her. But how much can she really trust her mysterious new friend? And how far will she go to forge her independence, on her own terms?

Set in the glamorous, dizzying world of 1950s Reno, THE DIVORCEES is a dark, riveting page-turner and a dazzling exploration of female friendship, desire, and freedom.

My Review:

The Divorcées is a book I’d been hearing lots of good things about so I was very excited to start reading it. It was a different book to what I was expecting but in a good way as I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

I thought the author did a great job of bringing the 1950’s to life and I enjoyed learning more about the period through the characters. I had never heard of the divorce ranches before so I found it fascinating to learn more about them. It was interesting to follow the woman through their time at the ranch and to discover more about society’s attitude towards the divorcées. It’s quite shocking to realise how little rights women had at this time still and how they were beholden to men, having to answer to either their father or their husband.

I thought that all the characters were fantastic creations and I enjoyed getting to know them throughout the group. It was very interesting to see the dynamics of the group and how they shifted when Greer arrived. The relationship that develops between Greer and Lois was especially fascinating to follow , with the reader never quite sure what direction it was going to take. I found myself feeling quite sorry for Lois as the awkward outsider of the group as I watched her slowly being drawn into Greer’s influence. I found myself wishing she had someone to guide her though I don’t think she’d have actually listened to anyone as she so wanted to be included in the group.

Overall, as you can probably tell, I really enjoyed this book and I will definitely be recommending it to others. It isn’t a fast paced book but it is very well written and I quickly felt drawn into the story. The tension in the book slowly creeps up as we discover more about Greer and the sense that the characters are heading towards a disaster made the book quite gripping to read on places. I found myself simultaneously wanting to read more but also not sure I wanted to find out what would happen next!

This is the author’s debut novel and I’m very excited to read more from her in the future.

Huge thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me onto the blog tour and to the publishers for my copy of this book.

About The Author:

Rowan Beaird is a fiction writer whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, and The Common, among others. She is the recipient of the Ploughshares Emerging Writer Award, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart. She has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and StoryStudio, and she currently works at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her first novel, The Divorcées, will be published by Flatiron Books in spring of 2024.

Good morning everyone it’s my birthday today so I thought it was a perfect opportunity for a meet the book blogger post! So here’s a little bit about me:

❤️My name is Joanna but a lot of people call me Jo or JoJo .

🧡I’ve been married for 14 years and have three kids aged 11, 8 and 6. I’m also an angel mum to a little boy called Christopher who came early at 24 weeks and sadly died at a few hours old.

💛I work as a book seller for Rossiter books which I absolutely love .  I’ve worked there for just under a year as it was my interview for the job a year ago tomorrow. I really enjoy talking about books with the customers and recommending my favourite books to them.

💚I’ve been a huge reader since I was small.  My dad was a huge reader and I have fond memories of him sitting at the kitchen table or in the conservatory reading.  My mum loves reading now too and I love sharing books with her

💙I read a huge variety of books and often say if the blurb intrigues me I’ll read it.  My favourite genres are historical fiction, fantasy and crime.

💜I help run the bookclub for Rossiter books which I really enjoyed as it’s fun sharing the books I’ve loved with others.  I’ve made some great friends there which is really nice and we’re all going out for a curry together on Saturday which I’m looking forward to.

🤍I started my book blog 9 years ago after encouragement from the lovely @thebookreviewcafe and Instagram a few years ago ( properly I actually joined at the same time as blogging bit never really used it). I’m still enjoying it and I’ve made some great bookish friends.

🩶 I don’t have many hobbies apart from reading apart from watching music on Twitch though I’m hoping to start walking more to help my high blood pressure and I’m starting Zumba again this Friday which I used to love pre kids.

I’m having a quiet morning with a few friends coming over to share some cake and then we’re going to my mum’s tonight for a meal which I’m looking forward to.

Good morning everyone and happy Tuesday. I hope you had a great Easter. Today on Two For Tuesday I’m featuring two books by Emily Henry.

I’ve heard lots of great things about her books but I haven’t actually managed to read anything by her yet- despite having Book Lovers on my shelf for ages. I’m excited to read Funny Story soon as it sounds really good.

I’m back to work again today after four fun filled family days and I’m guessing it’s going to be a busy one as we’ve had no deliveries over the weekend. I’m then hoping to come back and read some more of my fantastic book before heading back out for my book club tonight which is always great fun.

Funny Story is out on the 23rd April 2024. Find out more about the book below ⬇️

What are you currently reading?

Funny Story by Emily Henry

A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author Emily Henry

Daphne always loved the way Peter told their story.

That is until it became the prologue to his actual love story with his childhood bestie, Petra.

Which is how Daphne ends up rooming with her total opposite and the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles.

As expected, it’s not a match made in heaven – that is until one night, while tossing back tequilas, they form a plan.

And if it involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their adventures together, well, who could blame them?

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex . . . right?

Book Lovers by Emily Henry

One holiday. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn’t see coming…

Nora is a cut-throat literary agent at the top of her game. Her whole life is books.

Charlie is an editor with a gift for creating bestsellers. And he’s Nora’s work nemesis.

Nora has been through enough break-ups to know she’s the one men date before finding their happy-ever-after. To prevent another dating dud, Nora’s sister has persuaded her to swap her city desk for a month’s holiday in Sunshine Falls.

It’s a small town straight out of a romance novel, but instead of meeting sexy lumberjacks, handsome doctors or cute bartenders, Nora keeps bumping into…Charlie.

She’s no heroine. He’s no hero. So can they take a page out of an entirely different book?

Brimming with witty banter, characters you can’t help but fall for and off-the-charts chemistry, BOOK LOVERS is Emily Henry’s best novel yet.

About The Author:

Emily Henry is the #1 New York Times and #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of Happy Place, Book Lovers, People We Meet on Vacation, and Beach Read. She studied creative writing at Hope College, and now spends most of her time in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the part of Kentucky just beneath it. Find her on Instagram @EmilyHenryWrites.

Good evening everyone I hope you’ve had a great Easter weekend! I have a book spotlight on my blog today for The Instrumentalist by Harriet Constable.

This is one of my most anticipated reads for this year and I’m very excited to read it soon. I love historical fiction, especially if it features real life historical figures that I hadn’t heard of before so this book sounds right up my street.

Huge thanks to Bloomsbury for sending me a copy of this book.

Out 15th August 2024!

Is this book on your radar?

Book Synopsis:

Venice. 1704. In this city of glittering splendour, desperation and destitution are never far away. At the Ospedale della Pietà, abandoned orphan girls are posted every day through a tiny gap in the wall.

Anna Maria is just one of the three hundred girls growing up within the Pietà’s walls – but she already knows she is different. Obsessive and gifted, she is on a mission to become Venice’s greatest violinist and composer, and in her remarkable world of colour and sound, it seems like nothing will stop her.

But the odds are stacked against an orphan girl – so when the maestro selects her as his star pupil, Anna Maria knows she must do everything in her power to please this difficult, brilliant man. But as Anna Maria’s star rises, threatening to eclipse that of her mentor, the dream she has so single-mindedly pursued is thrown into peril.

From the jewelled palaces of Venice to its mud-licked canals, this is a story of one woman’s irrepressible ambition and rise to the top, of loss and triumph, and of who we choose to remember and those who lie forgotten.

About The Author:

Harriet Constable is a writer and filmmaker based in London. Her debut novel, The Instrumentalist, will publish globally in August 2024. Her work has featured in The New York Times, The Economist and on the BBC.

Portrait by Sophie Davidson.

Good morning everyone and happy Easter Sunday. I hope you’re having a great weekend so far.

I’ve been seeing a lot of Mini Egg stacks so I thought I’d join in with a Creme Egg stack as I’ve been addicted to this chocolate over the last few weeks! (Especially as Waitrose near my work has had them on special offer 2 for £3).

💜The Trade Off by Sadie Jones
💜The Museum Of Failures by Thrity Umrigar
💜The Hunter by Tana French
💛Big Swiss by Jen Beagin
💛 Butter by Asako Yuzuki
❤️The Beast Of Paris by Stef Penney
❤️The King’s Mother by Annie Garthwaite
❤️ Leave No Trace by Jo Callaghan

All of these are tbr apart from Leave No Trace which I’m currently reading and really enjoying.

Today my husband is taking the kids out for a walk so I can have a bit of a lie in and then we’re going to my mum’s for an Easter Egg hunt. We’re then watching a film together before having a yummy roast.

What is your favourite chocolate?

Good morning everyone! We all have those amazing five Star reads that stay with us and that we wish we could experience for the first time again.

These are mine:

❤️ Isaac And The Egg by Bobby Palmer
🧡In Memoriam by Alice Winn
💛 Godkiller by Hannah Kaner
💚The Last Murder At The End Of The World by Stuart Turton
💙The God Of The Woods by Liz Moore

I absolutely loved all of these books and highly recommend them. They are books I often recommend at the bookshop I work on and I’ve set Isaac and In Memoriam as bookclub reads.

What book do you wish you could read for the first time again?

Isaac And The Egg by Bobby Palmer

Heartbreaking and heart-stealing, this modern-day fable is an unforgettable novel about sorrow, joy, friendship and love.

It is early. A young man stands on a bridge and lets out a heart-wrenching scream. From deep in the woods, something screams back.

It sounds improbable. But this is how Isaac meets the egg.

The two are unlikely companions. But their chance encounter will transform Isaac’s life in ways he cannot yet imagine.

Maybe he will finally understand why he went there that morning. Maybe he will find a way to tell the truth.

Sometimes, to get out of the woods, you have to go into them.

In Memoriam by Alice Winn

It was only because Gaunt knew he might die, that he could be so reckless as to kiss him.

In 1914, war feels far away to Henry Gaunt and Sidney Ellwood. They’re too young to enlist, and anyway, Gaunt is fighting his own private battle – an all-consuming infatuation with the dreamy, poetic Ellwood – not having a clue that his best friend is in love with him, always has been.

When Gaunt’s mother asks him to enlist in the British army to protect the family from anti-German attacks, he signs up immediately, relieved to escape his overwhelming feelings. But Ellwood and their classmates soon follow him into the horrors of trenches. Though Ellwood and Gaunt find fleeting moments of solace in one another, their friends are dying in front of them, and at any moment they could be next.

An epic tale of the devastating tragedies of war and the forbidden romance that blooms in its grip, In Memoriam is a breathtaking debut.

Godkiller by Hannah Kaner

You are not welcome here, godkiller

Kissen’s family were killed by zealots of a fire god. Now, she makes a living killing gods, and enjoys it. That is until she finds a god she cannot kill: Skedi, a god of white lies, has somehow bound himself to a young noble, and they are both on the run from unknown assassins.

Joined by a disillusioned knight on a secret quest, they must travel to the ruined city of Blenraden, where the last of the wild gods reside, to each beg a favour.

Pursued by demons, and in the midst of burgeoning civil war, they will all face a reckoning – something is rotting at the heart of their world, and only they can be the ones to stop it.

The Last Murder At The End Of The World by Stuart Turton

Outside the island there is nothing: the world destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched. On the island: it is idyllic. 122 villagers and 3 scientists, living in peaceful harmony. The villagers are content to fish, farm and feast, to obey their nightly curfew, to do what they’re told by the scientists.

Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. And they learn the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay.

If the murder isn’t solved within 107 hours, the fog will smother the island – and everyone on it.

But the security system has also wiped everyone’s memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer – and they don’t even know it.

The God Of The Woods by Liz Moore

From the author of LONG BRIGHT RIVER, a Barack Obama Pick and a New York Times bestseller, comes a once-in-a-generation story; a novel you’ll never forget.

Some said it was tragic, what happened to the Van Laars.

Some said the Van Laars deserved it. That they never even thanked the searchers who stayed out for five nights in the freezing forest trying to help find their missing son.

Some said there was a reason it took the family so long to call for help. That they knew what happened to the boy.

Now, fifteen years later, the daughter the family had in their grief has gone missing in the same wilderness as her brother. Some say the two disappearances aren’t connected.

Some say they are.

Good morning everyone and happy Easter weekend if you celebrate. I was stuck for what to post today until my eldest son suggested spelling out Easter in books and helped choose the books for the stack. I think I have a future bookinstagrammer in the making!

🐥EVERY Move You Make by C. L. Taylor
🐇A Demon’s Guide To Wooing A Witch by Sarah Hawley
🐣 SOME Like It Cold by Elle McNicoll
🐰THE House Of Broken Bricks by Fiona Williams
🐥 EDITH Holler by Edward Carey
🐇 RUNNING Close To The Wind by Alexandra Rowland

All of these are tbr but I’m hoping to read some of them soon.

I’m now off for four days over the Easter weekend and I’m looking forward to spending some time with the family as I haven’t seen them much this week as I’ve been working. I’m looking forward to a few days of watching family films, reading and lots of chocolate!

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

What are your Easter weekend plans?