Book Synopsis:

1671 – London

The Civil War is over and Charles II, the ‘Merry Monarch’, is revelling in the throne of his murdered father and all the privileges and power that comes with it. Sharing the spoils is his favourite companion, the celebrated beauty, actress Nell Gwyn. Beloved of the English people, Nell has come a long way from selling oranges and a childhood in a brothel, but as her fortunes have turned, her sister Rose has taken a different path. Marriage to a feckless highwayman has left Rose in the grim Marshalsea prison and now she needs her sister’s mercy to help get her out. But Nell needs Rose too. A plot to steal the Crown Jewels has gone tragically wrong, and Nell’s future with her protector King is at risk. If Rose can’t solve the riddle of the jewels both Gwyn sisters will head straight to the Tower.

Present Day

Librarian and history enthusiast Jess Yates has hit rock bottom. With her ex behind bars for fraud, Jess needs to lay low – easier said than done with a celebrity sister. But Tavy has her uses. Her latest TV project involves renovating Fortune Hall, and she needs a house sitter while she’s jetting around the world. The opportunity is too good to miss, especially when Jess discovers that Fortune Hall has links to the infamous Nell Gwyn.

Slowly the house begins to reveal its mysteries, and secrets that have laid buried for centuries can no longer be ignored. Jess hears echoes from a tragic past and as she struggles to understand her sister, Jess feels ever closer to Rose Gwyn, the sister forgotten by history but who had the fate of her family in her hands.

Bestselling author Nicola Cornick is back with a captivating, gripping, unforgettable tale of treachery and treason, love and loyalty, perfect for fans of Barbara Erskine, Elena Collins and Christina Courtenay.

My Review:

I’m a huge fan of this author and have loved her previous books so I was so thrilled to be invited onto the blog tour for The Other Gwyn Girl, her latest book. Once again Nicola has written a fascinating, gripping read that I thoroughly enjoyed.

The book is two timelines , one following Jane in the time of Charles II and the other following Jess as she tries to unravel the mysteries of Fortune Hall. I actually liked both women and enjoyed following them throughout the book. They were actually very similar to each other and it was nice seeing them pick themselves up again after a difficult past. Jane in particular impressed me with her strength and determination not to rely on anyone else.

The author has written about real characters and real events which I always enjoy as it’s fun to learn more about a period. It was shocking to see how some people had to live and the huge difference between rich and poor. This was apparent not just on the way they lived and earned a living but also in how they were treated in the justice system with the rich able to buy pardons or other privileges whilst in prison. I hadn’t read much about Charles II either so I found it fascinating to learn more about him and his reign.

Overall, as you can probably tell, I loved this book and I’ll definitely be recommending it to others. The book has a great pace to it and there was always something happening to keep me interested. Even in the slower bits I just enjoyed hanging out with the characters or exploring the gorgeous sounding Fortune Hall, wishing I had an amazing library like they did. I did guess one of the twists early on but from talking to others I think you were meant to as it helped add to the intrigue. The ending was brilliant and I closed the book sad to leave the characters and Fortune Hall behind.

Huge thanks to Rachel from Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Boldwood for my digital copy of this book. I’ve had to buy a physical copy as I know I want to keep this book on my keep for ever shelf. If you are a fan of dual timeline, historical mysteries then I highly recommend this book.

About The Author:

Nicola Cornick is a historian and author who works as a researcher and guide for the National Trust in one of the most beautiful 17th century houses in England. She writes dual time novels that illustrate her love of history, mystery and the supernatural, and focus on women from the footnotes of history. Her books have appeared in over twenty five languages, sold over half a million copies worldwide and been described as “perfect for Outlander fans.” Nicola also gives writing and history talks, works as a consultant for TV and radio, and is a bookseller at the Wantage Bookshop.

Her new novel, ‘The Other Gwyn Girl ‘ focuses on the life of Rose Gwyn, the elder sister of Nell Gwyn, infamous mistress of King Charles II. Packed with rollicking Restoration intrigue, it tells the story of the lesser-known Gwyn girl. The Other Gwyn Girl is published by Boldwood Books on 7th March 2024 in all formats and is up for pre-order now!

Nicola loves to chat to readers about history, reading and writing.

Good morning everyone and happy Tuesday. Today on Two For Tuesday I’m featuring two books by Nancy Bilyeau.

I’m a huge fan of historical fiction and I’ve been hearing lots of great things about this author. The Orchid Hour is set in one of my favourite periods in history so I’m excited to read it soon. I also absolutely LOVE the beautiful covers on these books 😍

Huge thanks to the lovely @mrs_bookworm_5 for kindly sending these to me. Find out more about The Orchid Hour below.

Do you judge a book by it’s cover?

The Orchid Hour

There is a certain hour, in the dead of night, when the orchid’s scent can put you under a spell… New York City, 1923. Zia De Luca’s life is about to be shattered. Having lost her husband to The Great War, she lives with her son and in-laws in Little Italy and works at the public library. But when a quiet poetry lover is murdered outside the library, the police investigation focuses on Zia. After a second tragedy strikes even closer to home, Zia learns that both crimes are connected to a new speakeasy in Greenwich Village called The Orchid Hour. When the police investigation stalls, Zia decides to find her own answers. A cousin with whom she has a special bond serves as a guide to the shadow realm of the Orchid Hour, a world filled with enticements Zia has shunned up to now. She must contend with a group of players determined to find wealth and power in New York on their own terms. In this heady atmosphere, Zia begins to wonder if she too could rewrite her life’s rules. As she’s pulled in deeper and deeper, will Zia be able to bring the killers to justice before they learn her secret?

The Fugitive Colours

As Genevieve Sturbridge struggles to keep her silk design business afloat, she must face the fact that London in 1764 is very much a man’s world. Men control the arts and sciences, men control politics and law. And men definitely control women.

A Huguenot living in Spitalfields, Genevieve one day receives a surprise invitation from an important artist. Grasping at the promise of a better life, she dares to hope her luck is about to change and readies herself for an entry into the world of serious art.

She soon learns that for the portrait painters ruling over the wealthy in London society, fame and fortune are there for the taking. But such high stakes spur rivalries that darken to sabotage and blackmail-and even murder. And watching from the shadows are ruthless spies who wish harm to all of England.

Genevieve begins to suspect that her own secret past, when she was caught up in conspiracy and betrayal, has more to do with her entrée into London society than her talent. One wrong move could cost her not just her artistic dreams but the love of those she holds dear … and even her life.

About The Author:

Nancy Bilyeau, a Michigan native, has worked as an editor on the staffs of InStyle, Rolling Stone, and Good Housekeeping. Passionate about history and art, she wrote an award-winning trilogy set in Tudor England before creating a heroine, Genevieve Planché, who holds personal significance. Nancy is descended from a Huguenot settler who came to America in 1661 and draws on her fascination with French Protestant refugees when writing the character of Genevieve Planché, a Huguenot artist. Today Nancy lives in upstate New York with her husband and two children.

I’m such a big fan of Claire Douglas and I was hoping to get my hands on an early copy of her new book The Wrong Sister. You can imagine my excitement then at being offered a copy through Tandem Collective!

The Wrong Sister sounds really intriguing and I look forward to reading it soon. Huge thanks to Tandem Collective and Michael Joseph for my copy of this book.

Out 14th March 2024

Book Synopsis:

You’ve known her all your life…
Or have you?

Tasha and her older sister Alice might look alike, but they couldn’t be more different.
Tasha’s married with two children and still living in her home town near Bristol. While Alice is a high-flying scientist travelling the world with her equally successful husband.
But each would trust the other with their life.

So when Tasha and husband Aaron want a break and Alice offers to stay in their home with the kids,
Tasha knows they’re in safe hands.

But she couldn’t be more wrong.

The call from home is unexpected: Alice and her husband Kyle have been attacked.
Alice is in intensive care. Kyle is dead.

Rushing to Alice’s bedside, Tasha finds the police trying to piece events together.
She can’t think why anyone would attack her sister.
Then the note arrives, addressed to Tasha:

It was supposed to be you . . .

About The Author:

Claire Douglas is the Sunday Times number one bestselling author of eight stand alone novels: The Sisters (2015), Local Girl Missing (2016), Last Seen Alive (2017), Do Not Disturb (2018), Then She Vanishes (2019) and Just Like The Other Girls (2020). Her seventh, The Couple At No 9 (2021) was an Amazon number one bestseller, a number three Sunday Times bestseller and most recently hit number one on Germany’s Der Spiegel paperback bestsellers chart. The Girls Who Disappeared was a Richard and Judy book club pick for Autumn 2022 and was an instant number one Sunday Times bestseller. Her books have sold over a million copies in the UK and have been published worldwide.

Her most recent, THE WOMAN WHO LIED will be published on July 6th 2023.

You can find Claire on Twitter at @DougieClaire, Instagram as clairedouglasauthor, or visit her Facebook page clairedouglasauthor.

Good morning everyone and happy Mother’s Day.  My eldest made me these gorgeous flowers for mother’s day so I had to do a stack to match them.

❤️ Private Rites by Julia Armfield
💛The Psychology Of Secrets by Andrew Gold
🩵 Goodbye Birdie Greenwing by Ericka Waller
🩷Will You Care If I Die by Nicolas Lunabba
❤️The Great Divide by Christina Henriquez
💛 Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth
🩷Clean by Alia Trabucco Zerán
🩵 Fifteen Wild Decembers by Karen Powell
❤️ Frank And Red by Matt Coyne

These are all tbr but I’m hoping to get to a few of them soon as they are all books I’ve heard lots of great things about.

After an early start from three excited children I’ve been showered with lots of beautiful homemade presents and lots of cuddles.  I’m actually working today so I’m looking forward to meeting my family after work for more (secret) plans. My mum is planning on coming to the shop with coffee so I’ll get to see her too.

Are you doing anything nice for Mother’s Day?

Book Synopsis:

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.

My Review:

The God Of The Woods is an intense, dark and thrilling read that I thoroughly enjoyed. It was giving me Jane Harper vibes and as she’s one of my favourite authors I absolutely loved this book. It’s going to be a difficult book to review as I don’t want to give anything away.

There are some books you read that you finish and immediately want to start all over again. The God Of The Woods was one of those books. It gripped me from the start so that I felt drawn into the story and the lives of the characters. The story is told from multiple points of views and multiple timelines which may sound confusing but each chapter was clearly marked so it was easy to keep track of. I didn’t have a favourite timeline which is unusual for me but I found each timeline offered a different perspective and I found all of them very intriguing.

The character’s are all interesting creations and I enjoyed following them throughout the book. There were some character’s I really loved and felt a lot of sympathy for while there were others that I loved to hate as I thought they were pretty despicable. The isolated summer camp setting was very intriguing and, as someone who did a summer in an American summer camp, I enjoyed reliving some of my memories alongside the campers. The woods added a unsettling element to the story as you were never sure what they might be hiding or secrets they might reveal.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and will definitely be recommending it to others. The story is quite fast paced and there always seemed to be something happening to keep me reading. The tension slowly creeps up until it becomes almost unbearable. At one point I had to abandon the book and go for a walk as it was making me feel so edgy. There are lots of red herrings which kept me guessing as well as lots of twists that kept sending the story off in a different direction. The ending was amazing and I loved watching it all unfold. I thought I knew how the book would end but I was wrong, and very wrong.

Huge thanks to Bloomsbury and Indie Thinking for sending a copy of this book to Rossiter Books in Malvern. If you are a fan of dark, unpredictable thrillers or are a Jane Harper fan then I highly recommend this book.

About The Author:

Liz Moore is the author of four novels: The Words of Every Song, Heft, The Unseen World, and Long Bright River. A winner of the 2014 Rome Prize in Literature, she lives in Philadelphia and teaches in the MFA program in Creative Writing at Temple University.

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?