Good morning everyone I hope you all had a good weekend. I thought I’d do a little reading update today!
❤️Last: One Of The Good Guys by Araminta Hall
I really enjoyed this gripping thriller, though it did initially take me a while to get into it. Review coming later this week.
🧡Now: The Psychology Of Secrets My Adventures With Murderers, Cults And Influencers by Andrew Gold
I picked this proof up from work yesterday and I’m finding it absolutely fascinating. Out 11th April 2024
💛Now: In Memory Of Us by Jacqueline Roy
I’m also reading this for the Random Things Tour. I’m only a few chapters in but enjoying it so far. Review coming on Friday!
💚Next: The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritsen
I’m a huge fan of Tess Gerritsen so I’m really looking forward to reading this one next. I’m reading this for another blog tour and I’ll post my review for this next Monday.
Today is my day off and I’m planning on going for a walk as part of my new fitness regime. I’m currently listening to Argylle by Elly Conway and I’m hoping to listen to it as I walk. I’m a bit in the fence about it so far so we’ll see how it goes.
Good morning everyone and happy Sunday! It’s been a bit of a bumper week for book post which is very exciting.
Here are some of the fantastic books I’ve received this week:
❤️ Human Acts by Han Kang 🧡Strong Female Characters by Fern Brady 💛The List Of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey 💚Song Of The Huntress by Lucy Holland * 💙The Escape Room by L.D Smithson* 🩵 Where There Was Fire by John Manuel Arias * 💜 Enlightenment by Sarah Perry * 🩷The Fox Wife by Yangsze *
The books with stars next to them have been kindly gifted to me by publisher’s. They all sound really good and I can’t wait to read them soon. The List Of Suspicious Things was lent to me by my lovely neighbour @somethingbyjane and @acottageofbooks kindly shared her giveaway prize of a copy of Enlightenment with me.
The other two are books I’ve bought, Human Act is part of my #24countriesin2024 challenge and was recommended to me by a colleague. It’s based on a real life event but he described it as brutal which makes me slightly nervous. Strong Female Characters is a book I’ve been hearing lots about at work as loads of my colleagues have loved it.
Huge thanks to all the tagged publishers for my copies of these books it’s really appreciated.
Have you bought/ received any new books this week?
Iris arrives in the city of dreams, intent on restarting her culinary career, and leaving her recent heartache behind.
Wandering the streets at a famous food festival, Iris feels like she’s living in a movie. Then she stumbles upon a gelateria that looks strangely familiar. Inside, she meets Gio: a perfect leading man with an irresistible smile – and a crisis of his own.
As fate would have it, Iris is the one person with the answer to his problem. She just can’t tell him that . . .
So, can Iris finally let go of the past – and let herself fall in love?
My Review:
I’m a huge fan of this author so I was very excited to learn that she had a new book out. I thought A Winter In New York was a heartwarming, romantic and emotional read with some amazing characters that I couldn’t help falling in love with.
Firstly I have always loved New York as it’s one of my favourite cities so I naturally also love books that are set there. This book was no exception and I loved being able to explore the city alongside the characters. One of the things I most enjoyed about this book is that it not set in the normal tourist destinations (apart from Katz dinner) but instead is set off the beaten track which I think gives the book a more of an authentic feel to it.
The character’s in this book were absolutely fantastic creations that I warmed too instantly and loved following throughout the book. It was lovely seeing Iris recover from her past experiences to find her place in a new city with the help of her best friend Bobby and the wonderful Belotti family. I found myself wishing that I knew all the characters personally as they all seemed such lovely, fun people to be around. The Belotti family were my favourite characters and I loved the descriptions of all their family gatherings which were so heartwarming. My favourite parts of the books were when they were all hanging out together .
Overall, as you can probably tell, I loved this book and will be recommending it to everyone. The book had a great pace to it and there always seemed to be something happening to keep me reading. The story is told mainly from Iris’s point of view but there are flashbacks to her mother’s story which is central to the plot. I was initially a bit dubious about a book involving ice cream in winter but it totally works and made me crave ice cream for pudding, much to my kids amusement. The ending was brilliant and I closed the book with a happy sigh though sad that I had to leave the character’s behind. I’m really hoping there is a sequel as I would love to know what happens next!
About The Author:
Josie Silver is a writer of love stories.
Her debut novel One Day in December was a Sunday Times & NY Times bestseller and has been translated into more than twenty-five languages.
Josie lives in the midlands with her husband, their sons, and an ever changing cast of animals.
Good morning everyone and happy Saturday. One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to listen to more audiobooks so this challenge instantly appealed.
The challenge is hosted by @caffeinatedreviewer and has multiple levels to choose from. I’ve been brave and gone with Stenographer aiming to read 10-15 audiobooks this year.
I’m currently listening to Argylle by Elly Conway which I’m really enjoying and then I’m thinking of listening to My Friends by Hisham Matar.
Do you listen to audiobooks? Any recommendations?
Argylle by Elly Conway
One Russian magnate’s dream of restoring a nation to greatness has set in motion a chain of events which will take the world to the brink of chaos. Only Frances Coffey, the CIA’s most legendary spymaster, can prevent it. But to do so, she needs someone special.
Enter Argylle. His life came to a crashing halt as a teenager. Since then he has been treading water, building barriers between himself and the world. Until one moment of compassion and brilliance will bring him to the attention of the most powerful woman in the secret world.
Coffey knows all about Argylle’s dark past. She knows it haunts him. But she also knows it may give him the skills to join the team going up against one of the most powerful men in the world. His crash course in espionage will take him from the jungles of Thailand to the boulevards of Monaco, from the monasteries of Mount Athos to a forgotten cavern buried deep in the mountains.
It is a deathly rollercoaster ride that will either make him – or break him…
My Friends by Hisham Matar
An intensely moving novel about three friends living in political exile and the emotional homeland that deep friendships can provide – from the Booker-shortlisted, Pulitzer prize-winning author of THE RETURN
Khaled and Mustafa meet at university in Edinburgh: two Libyan eighteen-year-olds expecting to return home after their studies. In a moment of recklessness and courage, they travel to London to join a demonstration in front of the Libyan embassy. When government officials open fire on protestors in broad daylight, both friends are wounded, and their lives forever changed.
Over the years that follow, Khaled, Mustafa and their friend Hosam, a writer, are bound together by their shared history. If friendship is a space to inhabit, theirs becomes small and inhospitable when a revolution in Libya forces them to choose between the lives they have created in London and the lives they left behind.
Good afternoon everyone I was lucky enough to receive a copy of The Sleeping Beauties by Lucy Ashe today. I absolutely loved Clara & Olivia by this author so I’m very excited to read this one soon as it looks fantastic.
Huge thanks to @oneworldpublications and @randomthingstours for my copy of this book.
Out 15th February 2024 the same day the Random Things Your kicks off!
Book Synopsis:
An unputdownable tale of obsession, jealousy and heartache against the backdrop of WW2
May 1945 and at long last, Rosamund Caradon is feeling optimistic. As she returns the last few evacuees to London from her Devonshire manor, she vows to protect dance-obsessed daughter Jasmine from further peril.
But a chance meeting with a Sadler’s Wells ballet dancer changes everything.
When the beautiful, elusive Briar Woods bursts into Rosamund’s train carriage, it’s clear her sights are set on the immediately captivated Jasmine. And Rosamund cannot shake the eerie feeling this accidental encounter is not what it seems.
For Briar may be far away from the pointe shoes and greasepaint of the Sleeping Beauty ballet that is so much a part of her, but her performance for Rosamund might just be her most successful yet.
This, Briar feels, is a show for a mother and daughter. A dance that could turn deadly…
About The Author:
LUCY ASHE is the author of CLARA & OLIVIA (Magpie, Oneworld publications, UK)/ THE DANCE OF THE DOLLS (Union Square & Co, US)
CLARA & OLIVIA is out now in the UK. It was published as THE DANCE OF THE DOLLS in the US in September 2023.
Lucy trained at The Royal Ballet School for eight years, first as a Junior Associate and then at White Lodge. She has a Diploma in Dance Teaching with the British Ballet Organisation.
She studied English Literature at St Hugh’s College, Oxford, while continuing to dance and perform. After graduation, she obtained a PGCE teaching qualification and became an English teacher.
Her poetry and short stories have been published in a number of literary journals and she was shortlisted for the 2020 Impress Prize for New Writers. She also reviews theatre, in particular ballet, writing for the website Playstosee.com.
Lucy’s second novel, THE SLEEPING BEAUTIES, will be published in 2024.
Good morning everyone and happy Friday! It’s almost the weekend whoop!
One of my New Year’s resolutions was to be more organised and try to keep a reading journal. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while so with the extra Christmas money I earned I thought I’d treat myself to this beautiful journal from Martha Brook London.
I absolutely love it, especially the beautiful colours and the fact it has a cloth bound cover! I have a thing about books with cloth bound covers 😍 .
There is a reading tracker in picture form which I think is a great idea (swipe to see picture). I don’t think you’re meant to write the book names but I thought it would be good to keep a visual of them all in one place. There are two pages for each book you’ve read which gives you lots of room to write notes about the book. There’s even a section for quotes which I think will get lots of use
Best of all? There are lots of blank pages at the back to make lists! I’ve used some of these to write all my book challenges in so everything is in one place.
I’m determined to keep going with it as I think it will be a great record to have and I’m hoping to take it into work so I have notes on the books I’ve loved to hand when providing customers with recommendations.
Huge thanks to the lovely @acottageofbooks for the recommendation!
Good morning everyone I thought I’d do another One Book Leads To Another feature today. I read Maurice And Maralyn last year and absolutely loved it. I’ve always been drawn to real life survival stories and their story was a very special one.
I’ve been hearing lots of great things about The Wager and I’m looking forward to diving into another shipwreck story soon. This one is historical and about an event I don’t know anything about which I always enjoy.
Maurice And Maralyn is out 29th February 2024 and if you’d like to read my review you can find it on my blog.
Do you like real life survival stories? Which ones have you read?
Maurice And Maralyn by Sophie Elmhirst
What begins as an eccentric English love story turns into one of the most dramatic adventures ever recorded…
Maurice and Maralyn couldn’t be more different. He is as cautious and awkward as she is charismatic and forceful. It seems an unlikely romance, but it works.
Bored of 1970s suburban life, Maralyn has an idea: sell the house, build a boat, leave England — and its oil crisis, industrial strikes and inflation — forever. It is hard work, turning dreams into reality, but finally they set sail for New Zealand. Then, halfway there, their beloved boat is struck by a whale. It sinks within an hour, and the pair are cast adrift in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
On their tiny raft, over the course of days, then months, their love is put to the test. When Maurice begins to withdraw into himself, it falls upon Maralyn to keep them both alive. Their pet turtle helps, as does devising menus for fantasy dinners and dreaming of their next voyage.
Filled with danger, spirit and tenderness, this is a book about human connection and the human condition; about how we survive — not just at sea, but in life.
The Wager by David Grann
On 28th January 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty’s ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon, the Wager was wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia. The crew, marooned for months and facing starvation, built the flimsy craft and sailed for more than a hundred days, traversing 2,500 miles of storm-wracked seas. They were greeted as heroes.
Then, six months later, another, even more decrepit, craft landed on the coast of Chile. This boat contained just three castaways and they had a very different story to tell. The thirty sailors who landed in Brazil were not heroes – they were mutineers. The first group responded with counter-charges of their own, of a tyrannical and murderous captain and his henchmen. While stranded on the island the crew had fallen into anarchy, with warring factions fighting for dominion over the barren wilderness. As accusations of treachery and murder flew, the Admiralty convened a court martial to determine who was telling the truth. The stakes were life-and-death—for whomever the court found guilty could hang.
The Japanese bestseller: a tale of love, new beginnings, and the comfort that can be found between the pages of a good book.
When twenty-five-year-old Takako’s boyfriend reveals he’s marrying someone else, she reluctantly accepts her eccentric uncle Satoru’s offer to live rent-free in the tiny room above his shop.
Hidden in Jimbocho, Tokyo, the Morisaki Bookshop is a booklover’s paradise. On a quiet corner in an old wooden building, the shop is filled with hundreds of second-hand books. It is Satoru’s pride and joy, and he has devoted his life to the bookshop since his wife left him five years earlier.
Hoping to nurse her broken heart in peace, Takako is surprised to encounter new worlds within the stacks of books lining the shop.
And as summer fades to autumn, Satoru and Takako discover they have more in common than they first thought. The Morisaki bookshop has something to teach them both about life, love, and the healing power of books.
Quirky, beautifully written, and movingly profound, Days at the Morisaki Bookshop will appeal to readers of Before The Coffee Gets Cold, The Cat Who Saved Books, and anyone who has had to recover from a broken heart.
My Review:
Days At The Morisaki Bookshop is a cosy, light-hearted read that is perfect for book lovers.
Firstly I loved the setting in the book which has made me all the more determined to visit Japan one day. The idea that there is a whole district just for second hand bookstores appealed to my bookish heart and made me run to google to see pictures of it for myself. The book also allows the reader to explore some of the Japanese mountains alongside the characters which sounded really beautiful too. I found it fascinating to learn more about Japanese culture, especially their use of shrines for praying and their ritual of bowing to each other when they meet.
The character’s are all interesting creations that I enjoyed following throughout the book. I’m not sure I ever really warmed to the main character Takako sadly, though I did feel sorry for her and the situation she suddenly finds herself in. She just seemed a bit standoffish at times and quite opinionated about other people. My favourite character was her uncle who I warmed to instantly with his wonderful attitude to life and the lovely advice that he gives to Takoko when she is at her lowest.
I thought the book had a steady pace to it and I soon found myself emerged into the bookshop world. The author has truly written a book to appeal to any book lover and it was wonderful to watch Tatoko rediscover her love of reading. It was great to follow her in her search for new authors and to see her new joy of reading slowly heal her. Part of me does wish the book had just been set in the bookshop as I would have been happy just hanging out there and learning more about the fantastic community that surrounds the bookshop but then I wouldn’t have got to explore more of Japan.
I chose this for the Rossiter book club read last month and I do recommend it as a book club read as I think there is lots to discuss.
About The Author:
Satoshi Yagisawa was born in Chiba, Japan, in 1977. Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, his debut novel, was originally published in 2009 and won the Chiyoda Literature Prize.
Good afternoon I was lucky enough to receive a copy of The Life Brief by Bonnie Wan recently. Like everyone else probably I want to start the new year with a fresh, positive start so this book really appealed to me.
I’m hoping to read the book a chapter at the time over this month and I look forward to trying to implement some of the advice into my life.
Huge thanks to Milly from Transworld for sending me a copy of this book.
Out 18th January 2024.
Book Synopsis:
We all have moments when we doubt the path we’re on. So ask yourself: what do you really, really want? And how can you make that happen?
Making meaning out of messiness, The Life Brief distils the practice of brand strategy into its simplest, clearest, and most effective form to help you realign your path with your dreams – personally, professionally, culturally and spiritually.
World-leading strategist Bonnie Wan first encourages you to Get Messy, with ways to cut through limiting beliefs and false assumptions about what’s possible. Then her guidance to Get Clear offers prompts for finding clarity around what you truly, deeply want. And finally, Get Active catapults you into the steps to making those desires a reality.
This blueprint has already been transformative for thousands of other people, and now we can all learn how to break through the clutter, identifying the fears and beliefs holding us back, and create a life that is wholly our own.
You cannot have it all, but you can have all that matters.
About The Author:
Bonnie is a Partner and Head of Brand Strategy at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, one of Fast Company’s 2021 Most Innovative Companies In The World. As a career brand strategist she has been celebrated as an Ad Age Leading Woman for 2023 and 2022’s Chief Strategy Officer of the Year. She has spent the last three decades helping brand titans get clear about their essence so they can grow and innovate from that place of clarity and purpose.
In 2010, during a crisis of meaning, she wrote a creative brief for her life and The Life Brief was born. Her resulting Life Brief not only saved her marriage but kicked off a decade of personal and professional adventure, paved with unexpected twists and unimaginable gifts.
Today, Bonnie teaches others how to get clear, get creative, and get courageous about living without regret through her keynote talks, workshops, and retreats, including SXSW, Jane Goodall’s Global Hope Summit, and Gwyneth Paltrow’s “In Goop Health.” She continues to share The Life Brief with companies and communities such as Accenture, Apple, Bain Consulting, Change.org, Google, Omnicom, Weiden & Kennedy, Womentum, and more.
When she’s not leading and teaching strategy, or declaring her next Life Brief, you’ll find her with her husband, four kids, and Charlie the dog, adventuring in nature and sleeping under the stars.
Good morning everyone! Today on Two For Tuesday I’m featuring two books from Rebecca Ross.
Firstly I must admit I’ve done it again and bought the sequel before I’ve even read the first book in the series- but I’m confident I’m going to love this fantastic sounding series. I’m hoping to finally read Divine Rivals this month then Ruthless Vows the month after.
Have you read any books in this series?
Divine Rivals
NO GOD NO CREATURE NO WAR CAN COME BETWEEN THEM
The latest from the number one SUNDAY TIMES bestseller Rebecca Ross
When two young rival journalists find love through a magical connection, their fate depends on their facing the depths of hell … together.
After centuries of sleep, the gods are warring again …
All eighteen-year-old Iris Winnow wants to do is hold her family together. With a brother on the frontline forced to fight on behalf of the Gods now missing from the frontline and a mother drowning her sorrows, Iris’s best bet is winning the columnist promotion at the Oath Gazette.
But when Iris’s letters to her brother fall into the wrong hands – that of the handsome but cold Roman Kitt, her rival at the paper – an unlikely magical connection forms.
Ruthless Vows
Two weeks have passed since Iris returned home bruised and heartbroken from the front, but the war is far from over.
Roman is missing, lost behind enemy lines, with no memory of his past, or Iris. Hoping his memories return, he begins to write again – but this time for the enemy.
When a strange letter arrives through his wardrobe door, he strikes up a correspondence with a penpal who seems at once mysterious… and strangely familiar.
As their connection deepens, the two of them will risk their very hearts and futures to change the tides of the war.
About The Author:
Rebecca Ross is the #1 New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author of fantasy books for teens and adults.
She has written multiple highly acclaimed duologies, including LETTERS OF ENCHANTMENT, ELEMENTS OF CADENCE, and THE QUEEN’S RISING as well as two standalone novels: DREAMS LIE BENEATH and SISTERS OF SWORD & SONG.
When not writing, she can be found in her garden where she plants wildflowers and story ideas. She resides in Northeast Georgia with her husband and her dog.
Over The Rainbow Blog 