Good morning everyone I was tagged by @always_need_more_books a while ago to take part in the Last Book Challenge.

❤️ Last Book I Bought

I’m trying not to buy too many books atm as I’m trying to read through the books I have. However I’m on the blog tour for The Other Gwyn Girl by @nicolacornick next week and as my kindle is on the blink I decided to buy myself a copy. I loved her previous book The Winter Garden so I’m very excited to start this at the weekend.

🧡Last Book I Borrowed

I’m lucky enough to live over the road from a fellow book lover (and book blogger) @somethingbyjane and we regularly swap books with each other. She was kind enough to lend me her copy of The List Of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey which I’ve heard great things about.

💛Last Book I Was Gifted

I never receive books as presents as most of my friends think I have too many books so I’m counting Finding Sophie by Imran Mahmood which was recently gifted to me by a publisher.

💚Last Book I DNF’d

I don’t tend to DNF books much as I’m quite an eclectic reader and read a bit of everything. If anything I tend to just put them aside to read them again at a later date. I did this with Lessons In Chemistry but want to try it again soon as everyone keeps saying it’s great.

💙Last Book I Started

I’m so close to finishing my current read The God Of The Wood which I’ve really enjoyed. I’m hoping to start Small Hours later today and catch up on my buddy read which has been on the back burner due to kids being ill. I’m also hoping to start The Night In Question soon as I’m going to an event for it next Friday.

💜Last Books I Gave Five Stars

I’ve been lucky and I’ve had a few five Star reads recently. The most recent was The Which Way Tree by Elizabeth Crook (pictured) but I also gave dice stars to The Women by Kristin Hannah and The Wartime Bookclub by Kate Thompson which I couldn’t add into the picture as my mum has them.

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

What was your last five star read?

Eek I absolutely loved this author’s last book so I’m so excited to receive a copy of Private Rites. I’m always intrigued by books that have a dystopian feel to it so this sounds right up my street.

Huge thanks to Indie Thinking and 4th Estate Books for sending this to me it’s really appreciated.

Out 11th June 2024.

Find out more about the book below ⬇️

Book Synopsis:

The bestselling author of Our Wives Under the Sea returns with a stunning, unsettling novel following three sisters navigating queer love and faith at the end of the world.

There’s no way to bury a body in earth which is flooded

It is a fact consigned to history along with almost everything else

It’s been raining for a long time now, for so long that the lands have reshaped themselves. Old places have been lost. Arcane rituals and religions have crept back into practice.

Sisters Isla, Irene and Agnes have not spoken in some time when their estranged father dies. A famous architect revered for making the new world navigable, he had long cut himself off from public life. They find themselves uncertain of how to grieve his passing when everything around them seems to be ending anyway.

As the sisters come together to clear the grand glass house that is the pinnacle of his legacy, they begin to sense that the magnetic influence of their father lives on through it. Something sinister seems to be unfolding, something related to their mother’s long-ago disappearance and the strangers who have always been unusually interested in their lives. Soon, it becomes clear that the sisters have been chosen for a very particular purpose, one with shattering implications for their family and their imperilled world.

About The Author:

Julia Armfield is a fiction writer, living in London with her girlfriend who is fine and their cat who is garbage.

Her work has been published in Granta, The White Review and Best British Short Stories 2019 and 2021. In 2019, she was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award. She was longlisted for the Deborah Rogers Award 2018, and won the White Review Short Story Prize 2018 and a Pushcart Prize in 2020. She is the author of salt slow, a collection of short stories, which was longlisted for the Polari Prize 2020 and the Edge Hill Prize 2020. Her debut novel, Our Wives Under The Sea, was shortlisted for the Foyles Fiction Book of the Year Award 2022 and won the Polari Prize 2023.

Good morning everyone and happy Thursday.  Here are some of the neglected thrillers on my tbr list:

❤️A Quiet Contagion by Jane Jesmond
🧡The Traitors by C A Lynch
💛Zero Kill by M K Hill
💚Death Flight by Sarah Sultoon
💙The Confession Room by Lia Middleton
🩵Five Survive by Holly Jackson
💜 Twenty Seven Minutes by Ashley Tate
🩷Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak
🤍Lost And Never Found by Simon Mason
🩶The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell

There’s some of my favourite authors in this pile and a few I’ve heard great things about so I’m hoping to get to them soon.

My youngest isn’t very well ATM so my reading schedule has gone completely out the window this week.  He’s very clingy and when I get a chance to read I’m so tired I fall asleep after a few pages.

See any favourites in this stack?

Good evening everyone I was lucky enough to receive a copy of The King’s Mother by Annie Garthwaite yesterday. I was a huge fan of her first book Cecily so I am very excited to read this book soon, especially as it’s set in one of my favourite periods of history.

Huge thanks to @vikingbooksuk for sending a copy to Rossiter Books!

Out 11 July 2024.

Find out more about the book below ⬇️

What’s your favourite period of history?

Book Synopsis:

1461. Through blood and battle Edward has gained England’s throne – king by right and conquest – eighteen years old and unstoppable. Cecily has piloted his rise to power and stands at his shoulder now, first to claim the title King’s Mother.

But to win a throne is not to keep it and war is come again. As brother betrays brother, and trusted cousins turn treacherous, other mothers rise up to fight for other sons. Cecily must focus her will to defeat every challenge. Wherever they come from. Whatever the cost.

For there can be only one King, and only one King’s Mother.

From the Wars of the Roses to the dawn of the Tudor age, this is a story of mothers and sons; of maternal ferocity and female ambition – of all they can build and all they can destroy.

About The Author:

Annie Garthwaite grew up in a working-class community in the northeast of England. She studied English at the University of Wales before embarking on a thirty-year international business career working with multi-national companies and eventually establishing her own communications consultancy. In 2017 she studied for an MA in Creative Writing at Warwick University and, during two years of study, wrote her debut novel Cecily which was published by Penguin in 2021.

Cecily was named a ‘top pick’ by The Times and Sunday Times and a ‘Best Book of 2021’ by independent bookshops and Waterstones.

Annie’s second novel, The King’s Mother, will be published by Penguin on 11July 2024.

Good morning everyone and happy Wednesday! I hope you are having a good week so far. I thought I’d post my Spell The Month Challenge for March today.

M- Martyr
A- The ACTOR
R- Remember Remember
C- COUNTING Lost Stars
H- House Of Shades

All of these are tbr put I’m hoping to get to a few of them soon.

In other news I arranged my first author visit for the Rossiter book club last night which went really well. We had the lovely Liz Hyder come talk to us and her book The Illusions which was our book club read for March. It was absolutely fascinating to learn more about the early illusionists and the real life people who influenced her characters. All the members loved it and there were a lot of fantastic questions asked too. Huge thanks to all our lovely book club members for a great evening and to Liz for coming to talk to us!

Do you like going to author events?

Good morning everyone today on Two For Tuesday I’m featuring two books by Juan Gomez -Jurado.

I love discovering new crime thrillers, especially if they are slightly different to other books I’ve read. This series instantly appealed to me as I always love books that feature a strong, female lead and I was a big fan of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo too.

Huge thanks to the lovely Chloe from Pan Macmillan for sending these books to me.

Red Queen is out now, Black Wolf will be published on the 14th March 2024.

Red Queen by Juan Gomez -Jurado

You’ve never met anyone like her . . .

Antonia Scott is special. Very special. She is not a policewoman or a lawyer. She has never wielded a weapon or carried a badge, and yet, she has solved dozens of crimes.

But it’s been awhile since Antonia left her attic in Madrid. The things she has lost are much more important to her than the things awaiting her outside.

She also doesn’t receive visitors. That’s why she really, really doesn’t like it when she hears unknown footsteps coming up the stairs.

Whoever it is, Antonia is sure that they are coming to look for her.

And she likes that even less.

Black Wolf by Juan Gomez -Jurado

The highly anticipated sequel to Juan Gómez-Jurado’s number 1 international bestseller, Red Queen, featuring Antonia Scott, the most compelling and original detective since Lisbeth Salander. Translated by Nick Caistor and Lorenza Garcia.

Antonia Scott is the lynchpin of the Red Queen project, created to work behind the scenes to solve the most dark, devious and dangerous crimes.

In southern Spain, in the Costa del Sol, a key mafia figure is found brutally murdered in his villa, his pregnant wife, Lola Moreno, barely escapes an attempt to kill her and is on the run. An unusual shipping container arrives from St Petersburg in Spain with the corpses of nine women.

Now Antonia, with the help of her protector, Jon Gutierrez, must track down the missing Lola. But they aren’t the only ones – a dangerous hitman, known as the Black Wolf, is also on her trail. And Antonia Scott, still plagued by her personal demons, must outwit, out-manoeuvre, and, ultimately, face this terrible, mysterious killer.

About The Author:

Juan Gómez-Jurado (1977 Madrid, Spain) is the #1International bestselling author of the thriller RED QUEEN, soon a major Prime Video Show. In 2020, Juan celebrated the mark of 10 million readers worldwide.

Book Synopsis:

Eight contestants. One killer. Can you find the traitor?

Everything is a clue.
Bonnie arrives on a remote sea fort off the coast of England to take part in a mysterious reality TV show. Competing against seven strangers, she must solve a series of puzzles to win the prize money, but this is no game – and the consequences of failure are deadly.

No one leaves.
Under scrutiny from the watching public, the contestants quickly turn on one another. Who will sacrifice the most for wealth and fame? And why can’t Bonnie shake the creeping sense that they are not alone?

The only way out is to win.
When the first contestant is found dead, Bonnie begins to understand the dark truth at the heart of this twisted competition: there’s a killer inside the fort, and anyone could be next. If Bonnie wants to escape, she needs to win…

Are you ready to play?

My Review:

The Escape Room is a dark, gripping read that was surprisingly thought provoking.

I used to love reality shows in my younger days (I don’t get much time to watch any these days) so this book instantly appealed to me, especially it’s comparison to The Traitors TV show which I’ve been hearing a lot about. I was immediately drawn into the story and the dangerous situation the characters find themselves in. It quickly becomes apparent to the reader that not everything is as it seems from the isolated setting of an abandoned sea fort to the increasingly dangerous challenges the group are set. The sense of unpredictability helped increase the tension in the book making the book hard to put down as I wanted to see how everything would end up.

The book is told mainly from the point of view of Bonnie a she negotiates being a contestant on the show with flashbacks to the contestant interviews when they applied for the show and an podcast interview with Bonnie about her experiences on the show. I didn’t particularly warm to any of the characters on the show as they all had flaws which made them very unlikable and I often found their attitudes toward each other weren’t very nice at all. The only slight exception to this was Bonnie who on one hand annoyed me as she seemed the most worried about how the viewers would be viewing her but on the other showed lots of courage in dangerous situations and seemed to actually care about her fellow contestants.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and will definitely be recommending it to others. I thought the book was incredibly gripping and the tension in the book never really let off making it very hard to put the book down. There were lots of twists that took me by surprise and just seemed to keep coming. Just when I thought everything had been revealed there would be another twist that sent the story in a completely different direction. I found parts of the story quite thought provoking as it has definitely made me think more about reality shows not just how far they could go but how much audiences would be willing to accept before turning off. It also shines the light on social media and how harming it can be on other people. I’ve never been particularly interested in Escape Rooms and now, after reading this book, I’m definitely never trying one.

Huge thanks to Chloe Rose from Transworld for inviting me onto the blog tour and for my copy of this book. If you are looking for a gripping thriller with a difference then I highly recommend this book.

About The Author:

L.D.Smithson is a psychologist from Yorkshire who has published a series of Crime Thriller Novels under a different name. THE ESCAPE ROOM is her debut stand alone novel.

Good afternoon everyone I hope you’re having a good Sunday. I picked this interesting looking proof up at work today. I love memoirs that include travel and food so this book instantly appealed to me.

Huge thanks to the publisher for sending to the bookshop.

Out 23rd May 2024.

Book Synopsis:

A gorgeous, evocative memoir of family, food and migration.

As a child, Or Rosenboim’s knowledge of her family history was based on the food her grandmothers cooked for her – round kneidlach balls in hot chicken broth, cinnamon-scented noodle kugel, stuffed vine leaves, herby green rice with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and aubergine in tomato sauce. She knew that her family had a complex past but it was only reading her grandmothers’ recipe books after they both died that she began to explore that past for the first time.

The result is a vivid chronicle of displacement and escape, retracing the complex network of journeys her family took from Samarkand and Riga to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in search of safety and a better life, punctuated by the food they ate and cooked along the way. Today, though, these journeys, and this long tradition of migration, would now be almost impossible.

A beguiling mixture of history, memoir, travel and food, Air and Love is also a fresh and deeply human retelling of some of the major stories of the twentieth century.

About The Author:

I am Associate Professor in Contemporary History at Alma Mater Studiorum, the University of Bologna.

I hold a PhD in Politics and International Relations from the University of Cambridge, M.St in Global and Imperial History from the University of Oxford, UK, and BA (summa cum laude) in Modern History from the University of Bologna, Italy.

Before joining the University of Bologna I was Senior Lecturer and Director of the Centre for Modern History at City, University of London. Previously, I was Junior Research Fellow at Queens’ College, Cambridge, and Teaching Associate at the Centre for Gender Studies, University of Cambridge.

I held visiting studentships and fellowships at the European University Institute, Florence, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Chicago, Sciences Po, Paris and LUISS, Rome.

My research examines the twentieth century ideas about world order, globalism and migration.

I’ve published on geopolitics, cosmopolitanism, federalism and democracy theory in Britain, Europe and the United States. I am also interested in the relationship between intellectual history and international theory. Recently, I’ve been writing on Italian international and geopolitical thought in the  the twentieth century.

Good afternoon everyone I hope you’re having a good Saturday.

I was lucky enough to receive a copy of the fabulous looking book this week. A historical thriller set in Florence sounds right up my street!

Huge thanks to Katya from Little Brown for sending.

Out 6th August 2024.

Book Synopsis:

Welcome to Florence, 1517, a world of intrigue and opulence, murder and betrayal.
Sharp-witted conwoman Rosa Cellini arrives in the city the same day that the Medici Pope, Leo X, returns to take up the reins of power. This is not a coincidence. The new Pope is extorting a mountain of indulgence money from the people of Florence to bolster his power and standing, and Rosa has a plan to take it back.

To pull off the Renaissance’s greatest robbery, she’ll recruit a team of highly skilled misfits: Sarra the tinkerer, Khalid the fighter, and Giacomo, the irrepressible master of disguise. But as the authorities draw closer and the Medici’s noose pulls tighter around the land, old secrets resurface and tensions in the group start to flare. What began as a robbery could be the key to saving the city itself – if Rosa and company don’t destroy each other first.

Get ready for an absolute swashbuckling riot, beginning with a ‘mud’ pie to the Pope’s face, and ending with a climactic heist that would give Danny Ocean a run for his money. Bursting with action, Medici Heist is your next un-put-downable obsession.

About The Author:

Caitlin Schneiderhan is a TV writer and novelist, whose work can be seen on Netflix’s hit show Stranger Things. She hatched from a cocoon of Terry Pratchett novels when she was thirteen years old, and her love of fun, genre-focused storytelling runs deep. Hailing from Silver Spring, Maryland, Schneiderhan now resides in Los Angeles. She still has a full shelf of Terry Pratchett paperbacks.

Good morning everyone and happy Saturday.  I was tagged by the lovely @nothing.beats.a.good.book to share some book titles which could work as pet names.

❤️DIVA
🧡 BUTTER
💛The House Of DUDLEY
💚The BEAR & The Nightingale
💙BIG SWISS
🩵I, Mona LISA
💜 TEDDY
💟 DARLING Girls
🩷The HUNTER
💞 PIGLET
🤍QUINT
🩶 Black WOLF
🖤Once A MONSTER

We really want a dog and when I asked my kids what they’d call their dog they said Pumpkin and Charlie both of which I couldn’t find…

Today my youngest two are going out for clubs and my eldest has a friend coming over.  I’m planning to hide upstairs and read my book as I haven’t got much reading done this week.

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

What are your Saturday plans?