Good morning everyone I’ve managed to break my book buying ban and buy a few books this week!
⭐ Homecoming by Kate Morton ⭐ Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld ⭐ In Memoriam by Alice Winn ⭐ Begars Abbey by V. L. Valentine ⭐ The Book-Lover’s Retreat by Heidi Swain
I’m a huge Kate Morton fan and have her to thank for getting me out of a few reading slumps. Ive had Homecoming on pre-order since I heard about it and can’t wait to read it.
Romantic Comedy & In Memoriam are books I’ve been hearing lots about on here so decided to use my birthday vouchers on them. Begars Abbey I’ve wanted to read for ages. It sounds just my kind of book and I’m excited to finally get a copy.
Finally I’ve always loved Heidi Swain ‘s books so had to get a copy of her latest book, especially as it features book lovers. Her books are always amazing and I’m looking forward to reading this soon.
Germany, 1938. ‘No,’ she cries out as she falls to the floor, fear clutching desperately at her chest, ‘They can’t have taken him, they can’t have taken my husband.’ As her tear-filled eyes dart wildly around the empty room, she realises she has no one to turn to. She is his only hope. But how can she possibly save him?
When shy, beautiful Edith first met Jewish-born Julius it was love at first sight. Julius swept her off her feet, whisking her from humble beginnings into the sparkling society and glittering ballrooms of Berlin’s powerful elite. It felt like all her dreams had come true.
But her perfect world begins to crack with rumblings of the Nazi party growing in power and influence. Every day there are new laws to strip Jews of their money and their freedom. And there are even more frightening rumours, of horrifying camps, and people disappearing in the night…
Then when Edith’s own brother Joseph enlists as an SS officer, and her whole family turn their backs on them, she knows that it is only a matter of time before they come for her husband. She pleads with Julius that their only chance is to run away and start again. Who cares about worldly possessions if they can still be together, their lives intact? But despite everything, he refuses to believe he is in danger.
Then one terrible night, the sounds of cries and breaking glass ring out across the city as the Nazis wreak their destruction. Edith’s worst fears have been realised— Julius has been taken.
For so long, Edith has led a sheltered life, secluded from the real world. But the only way to save her beloved husband is to defy the Nazis and put herself in grave danger. Can she draw on every bit of strength she has to fight for love and save him… or is she already too late?
A totally devastating, powerful, and ultimately uplifting story, perfect for fans of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, My Name is Eva and Sold on a Monday.
My Review:
The First Spark Of Fire is an emotional, compelling and gripping read which I really enjoyed.
The story follows Edith and Helga from the early 1920’s to 1938. They are two very different women, from different backgrounds and I enjoyed following them throughout the story. It was very interesting to see how the economic situation and the rise of Hitler affected them differently.
I found it fascinating to learn more about life in Germany between the wars and how Hitler gained popularity. This was a subject that I knew little about before reading so I enjoyed discovering more about this period. It was especially interesting to learn more about the treatment of the Jews and how families could be targeted for having any Jewish connection no matter how small.
Overall I really enjoyed this book and I’m looking forward to reading more from this promising series. I felt fully transported to Germany, able to feel the fear and trepidation of the characters as if it was happening to me. Having the benefit of hindsight the reader is able to understand what is going to happen and I think this increases the tension in the book as we learn about the increasingly difficult rules the Jewish population have to follow. I found myself reading faster as the book went on as I cared about the characters and what would happen to them.
Huge thanks to Sarah for inviting me onto the blog tour and to Bookouture for my copy of this book via Netgalley.
About The Author:
USA Today Bestselling author of historical fiction.
Marion Kummerow was born and raised in Germany, before she set out to “discover the world” and lived in various countries. In 1999 she returned to Germany and settled down in Munich where she’s now living with her family.
Inspired by the true story about her grandparents, who belonged to the German resistance and fought against the Nazi regime, she started writing historical fiction, set during World War II. Her books are filled with raw emotions, fierce loyalty and resilience. She loves to put her characters through the mangle, making them reach deep within to find the strength to face moral dilemma, take difficult decisions or fight for what is right. And she never forgets to include humor and undying love in her books, because ultimately love is what makes the world go round.
You might be paranoid, but that doesn’t mean they’re not watching you.
Adam lives a picture-perfect life: happy marriage, two young children, and a flourishing career as a doctor. But Adam also lives with a secret. Hospital CCTV, strangers’ mobile phones, city traffic cameras – he is convinced that they are all watching him, recording his every move. All because of something terrible that happened at a drunken party when he was a medical student.
Only two other people knew what happened that night. Two people he’s long left behind. Until one of them, Clio – Adam’s great unrequited love – turns up on his doorstep, and reignites a sinister pact twenty-four years in the making…
No Place to Hide is a spellbinding tale of psychological suspense, weaving together the dark web, murder, and blackmail…
My Review:
No Place To Hide is a tense, gripping read which is one of the best psychological thrillers I’ve read this year. It’s going to be a hard book to review as I really don’t want to give anything away.
The story is told in two timelines, one following Dr. Adam who is married with kids in the present day and the other flashing back to Adam as an aspiring actor in his Cambridge University days. The two storylines compliment each other nicely with lots of subtle clues or hints about what might be going on. I especially liked the Cambridge setting in the past timeline as I felt it had a dark academia feeling to it and I loved all the fantastic descriptions of Cambridge which has made me want to go their soon.
I felt immediately drawn into the story and intrigued about why Adam was so paranoid someone was watching him. The story unfolds at a great pace with the tension slowly building up until it becomes almost unbearable. I read this book over a couple of days as I found this book so hard to put down as I desperately wanted to find out what was going on. The twist at the end was utterly brilliant and very unexpected. I had lots of different theories but ultimately wasn’t able to guess which I always love. If you’re a thriller fan I highly recommend this book.
Huge thanks to Sophie for inviting me onto the blog tour and to the publisher for my copy of this book.
About The Author:
Jon Stock, writing under the name J.S.Monroe, is the author of five psychological thrillers, including the international bestseller, Find Me. Under his own name, he has written five spy novels, one of which, Dead Spy Running, was optioned by Warner Bros. He is currently the Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at Mansfield College, Oxford.
I treat myself to a Locked Library Subscription every month and I always look forward to seeing which book I’m going to get. I haven’t read anything by this author before but one of my good friends is a huge fan of his so I’m looking forward to reading this book really soon.
This book is just beautiful inside and out! The end papers are gorgeous and I absolutely love the spredges 🥰.
One of the characters lives in a library, which fictional library would you like to live in?
Book Synopsis:
All books, no matter their binding, will fall to dust. The stories they carry may last longer. They might outlive the paper, the library, even the language in which they were first written.
The greatest story can reach the stars . . .
This is the start of an incredible new journey from the internationally bestselling author of Prince of Thorns, in which, though the pen may be mightier than the sword, blood will be spilled and cities burned…
Evar has lived his whole life trapped within a vast library, older than empires and larger than cities.
Livira has spent hers in a tiny settlement out on the Dust where nightmares stalk and no one goes.
The world has never noticed them.
That’s about to change.
As their stories spiral around each other, across worlds and time, each will unlock vast secrets about the world and themselves. This is a tale of truth and lies and hearts, and the blurring of one into another.
About The Author:
Mark Lawrence is married with four children, one of whom is severely disabled. His day job is as a research scientist focused on various rather intractable problems in the field of artificial intelligence. He has held secret level clearance with both US and UK governments. At one point he was qualified to say ‘this isn’t rocket science … oh wait, it actually is’.Between work and caring for his disabled child, Mark spends his time writing, playing computer games, tending an allotment, brewing beer, and avoiding DIY.
Almost losing her life in a bomb blast while serving in the Women’s Volunteer Service has made Ann Gilby take stock of what’s really important – her family.
With daughter Sheila back home, and Joy still working munitions at the Cadbury factory and engaged to her soldier sweetheart, home life feels more settled too. Ann has even come to an uneasy truce with her husband, Len, despite her recent discovery of his infidelity and the fact that he has fathered a child with another woman.
But what Ann has not reckoned with is, Marianne, Len’s other woman, turning up on her doorstep – a woman with a mysterious past.
Only Ann has secrets of her own and one day soon she knows she will have to tell her youngest child, Martin, who his father really is . . .
From Annie Murray, the bestselling author of Chocolate Girls, The Bells of Bournville Green and Secrets of the Chocolate Girls, Wartime for the Chocolate Girls is a gritty family saga about love, war and chocolate . . .
My Review:
I’m a huge fan of this author so you can imagine my excitement when I was invited onto the blog tour for Wartime For The Chocolate Girls. Once again the author has written an interesting, heartwarming read that I really enjoyed.
Birmingham is only an hour away from where I live and I’ve actually visited Cadbury World on multiple occasions so I found it fascinating to learn more about what the factory was like in wartime. It was interesting to learn more about factory life and the extra problems the workers faced due to it being wartime. The author doesn’t just feature factory life though, the reader also learns a little bit about the local history and what life was like for everyone in England’s second biggest city.
The three main characters were wonderful creations who I enjoyed following throughout the book. I loved that they were all so different to each other and how they all brought something different to the story. I found myself wishing I could be part of their group, able to join in with all the banter. My favourite character was Evie as I thought she was really kind to take David in. It was so lovely watching their relationship grow over the years and seeing how they both helped each other.
Overall I really enjoyed this book and can’t wait to read more from this author in future. I felt immediately drawn into the story and into the lives of the three main characters, as if I was actually there watching everything unfold. The story had a great pace to it and there always seemed to be something happening to keep my interest. I especially liked that the story was set over a longer time period so the reader can see what happens to the characters after the war.
This is actually the fourth book in the series but can easily be read as a standalone, like I’ve done, as anything that you need to know is explained. I will definitely be going back and reading the other books in the series.
Huge thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me onto the blog tour and to the publisher for my copy of this book.
About The Author:
Annie Murray was born in Berkshire and read English at St John’s College, Oxford. Her first ‘Birmingham’ novel, Birmingham Rose, hit The Times bestseller list when it was published in 1995. She has subsequently written many other successful novels, including The Bells of Bournville Green, sequel to the bestselling Chocolate Girls, Sisters of Gold and Black Country Orphan. Annie has four children and lives just south of Oxford. She also writes as Abi Oliver.
Good morning everyone I was tagged by the lovely Joanne from Portobello Book Blog to spell out April in book titles.
⭐A – Agatha Christie by Lucy Worsley ⭐P – Peach Blossom Spring by Melissa Fu ⭐R – Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt ⭐I – The IT Girl by Ruth Ware ⭐L – Lady MacBethad by Isabelle Schuler
This was harder than I thought as I couldn’t find a title starting with ‘I’ so had to cheat a little bit. It was also difficult to get the book titles lined up the right way…
These are all books I still need to read but want to read soon as I keep hearing lots about them.
Good afternoon everyone I’m excited to be in the Tandem Read-along for this fabulous sounding book. I’ve always been a huge fan of Greek Mythology so this book sounds right up my street.
What’s your favourite Greek Mythology re-telling?
Book Synopsis:
Spring and summer are my mother’s time, autumn and winter are my husband’s. What is left for me?
Persephone spends six months of the year under the ground with her husband, king of the dead, and six months on earth with her mother, goddess of the harvest. It has been this way for nine thousand years, since the deal was struck. But when she resurfaces this spring, something is different. Rains lash the land, crops grow out of season or not at all, there are people trying to build a road through the woods, and her mother does not seem able to stop them. The natural world is changing rapidly and even the gods have lost control.
While Demeter tries to regain her powers and fend off her daughter’s husband, who wants to drag his queen back underground for good, Persephone finally gets a taste of freedom, joining a group of protestors. Used to blinking up at the world from below, as she looks down on the earth for the very first time from the treetops with activist Snow, Persephone realises that there are choices she can make for herself. But what will these choices mean for her mother, her husband, and for the new shoots of life inside her?
No Season but the Summer takes a classic myth and turns it on its head, asking what will happen when our oldest stories fail us, when all the rules have changed. It is, above all, a book about choice.
About The Author:
Matilda Leyser read English Literature at King’s College, London and then ran away to join the circus. She trained as an aerialist, working up a rope, collaborating with dance and theatre companies, making her own work, and performing in diverse venues, including the National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, and the Royal Opera House. After ten years in the air, she decided to come down to earth and take up the far more dangerous act of writing on the ground. She has two children, and is the founder and director of an international movement for creative mothers and carers called M/Others Who Make:
Good morning everyone! I was lucky enough to receive some great book post last week.
⭐ Confidence by Denise Mina ⭐ The Forgotten Garden by Sharon Gosling ⭐ The Maiden by Kate Foster ⭐ The Expectant Detectives by Kat Ailes ⭐ The Woman On The Bridge by Sheila O’Flanagan
I’m a huge fan of Sharon Gosling, Denise Mina and Sheila O’Flanagan so I’m excited to read those. The Maiden sounds amazing and I’ve heard good things from my fellow book friends about it. The Expectant Detectives sounds like a really fun read, similar to the Richard Osman series which I really enjoyed.
Huge thanks to all the publishers/ tour organisers for sending me a copy of these books- it’s really appreciated.
Any of these books on your radar?
Confidence by Denise Mina
A MISSING FILMMAKER. A STOLEN ANTIQUE. SOMEONE WILL KILL TO STOP THEM BEING FOUND…
‘Denise Mina is crime-writing royalty’ Val McDermid, author of A Place of Execution
When filmmaker, Lisa Lee goes missing, alongside a priceless Roman silver casket, there is no doubt the two are linked together.
The day after her vanishing, the casket is listed for auction in Paris with a reserve price of fifty million euros.
On a thrilling chase across Europe to discover what happened to Lisa, journalists Anna and Fin are caught up in a world of international art smuggling, billionaire con artists and religious zealotry.
The Forgotten Garden by Sharon Gosling
A novel of second chances and blossoming communities from the author of The Lighthouse Bookshop.
Budding landscape architect Luisa MacGregor is stuck in a rut – she hates her boss, she lives with her sister, and she is still mourning the loss of her husband many years ago. So when she is given the opportunity to take on a parcel of land in a deprived area, she sees the chance to build a garden that can make the area bloom.
Arriving in the rundown seaside town of Collaton on the north-west coast of Cumbria, she realises that her work is going to be cut out for her. But, along with Cas, a local PE teacher, and Harper, a teen whose life has taken a wrong turn, she is determined to get the garden up and running.
So when the community comes together and the garden starts to grow, she feels her luck might have changed. Can she grow good things on this rocky ground? And might love blossom along the way…?
The Maiden by Kate Foster
Inspired by a real-life case and winner of the Bloody Scotland Pitch Perfect Award, Kate Foster’s The Maiden is a remarkable story with a feminist revisionist twist, giving a voice to women otherwise silenced by history.
“In the end, it did not matter what I said at my trial. No one believed me.”
Edinburgh, October 1679. Lady Christian is arrested and charged with the murder of her lover, James Forrester. News of her imprisonment and subsequent trial is splashed across the broadsides, with headlines that leave little room for doubt: Adulteress. Whore. Murderess.
Only a year before, Lady Christian was newly married, leading a life of privilege and respectability. So, what led her to risk everything for an affair? And does that make her guilty of murder? She wasn’t the only woman in Forrester’s life, and certainly not the only one who might have had cause to wish him dead . . .
The Expectant Detectives by Kat Ailes
For Alice and her partner Joe, moving to the sleepy Cotswold village of Penton is a chance to embrace country life and prepare for the birth of their unexpected first child. He can take up woodwork; maybe she’ll learn to make jam. But the rural idyll they’d hoped for doesn’t quite pan out when a dead body is discovered at their local antenatal class and they find themselves suspects in a murder investigation.
With a cloud of suspicion hanging over the heads of the whole group, Alice sets out to solve the mystery and clear her name, with the help of her troublesome dog, Helen. However, there are more secrets and tensions in the heart of Penton than first meet the eye. Between the discovery of a shady commune up in the woods, the unearthing of a mysterious death years earlier and the near-tragic poisoning of Helen, Alice is soon in way over her head.
CAN YOU SOLVE THE MOTHER OF ALL MURDERS?
The Woman On The Bridge by Sheila O’Flanagan
Dublin. The 1920s. As war tears Ireland apart, two young people are caught up in events that will bring love, tragedy – and the hardest of choices.
In a country fighting for freedom, it’s hard to live a normal life. Winnie O’Leary supports the cause, but she doesn’t go looking for trouble. Then rebel Joseph Burke steps into her workplace. Winnie is furious with him about a broken window. She’s not interested in romance. But love comes when you least expect it.
Joseph’s family shelter fugitives and smuggle weapons. Joseph would never ask Winnie to join the fight; but his mother and sisters demand commitment. Will Winnie choose Joseph, and put her own loved ones in deadly danger? Or wait for a time of peace that may never come?
Ireland’s tumultuous independence struggle is the backdrop for an unforgettable story of courage and heartbreak, in which heroes are made of ordinary people. Inspired by the story of Sheila O’Flanagan’s grandmother, The Woman on the Bridge is the unmissable, compulsive new novel from a bestselling author.
A captivating and lyrical journey into our ancestral past, through what and how we eat.
Mo Wilde made a quiet but radical pledge: to live only off free, foraged food for an entire year. In a world disconnected from its roots, eating wild food is both culinary and healing, social and political. Ultimately, it is an act of love and community. Using her expert knowledge of botany and mycology, Mo follows the seasons to find nutritious food from hundreds of species of plants, fungi and seaweeds, and in the process learns not just how to survive, but how to thrive. Nourishing her body and mind deepens her connection with the earth – a connection that we have become estranged from but which we all, deep down, hunger for.
This hunger is about much more than food. It is about accepting and understanding our place in a natural network that is both staggeringly complex and beautifully simple. THE WILDERNESS CURE is a diary of a wild experiment; a timely and inspiring memoir which explores a deeper relationship between humans and nature, and reminds us of the important lost lessons from our past.
My Review:
The Wilderness Cure is a fascinating and thought provoking read about a subject I knew little about before reading this book.
Firstly I have always loved the idea of foraging but had no idea of the vast amount of edible plants and fungi there were in this country. A life time of being told to be careful of touching things I didn’t know in the woods made me a bit fearful of attempting foraging at first, though I soon discovered it was very enjoyable. The children and I had fun trying to find ingredients in our local woods which we made into a very decent soup. It was amazing to see what we had available in our local woods and how plants I had walked past on countless occasions were actually edible.
The author includes a bit of history about the food our ancestors in the stone age ate which I found very interesting. It was fascinating to discover the different foods they ate then and how we eat a much smaller variety now then they did back then. I enjoyed learning about when foods I take for granted as being available year round, are actually in season and discovering what food originated in the UK.
This is a book that is probably better to dip in and out of rather then trying to read in one go as there is a lot of information to absorb. I do wish there had been some pictures of some of the plants the author was discussing as I did spend a lot of time trying to Google them on my phone to check I was picking the right things. The author is an expert in her field which made for very interesting reading but I wonder how easy it would be for a normal person without her knowledge to do this experiment.
Overall I did enjoy this book and will be recommending it to others as it has taught me a lot. I often discover edible plants on my walks now that I previously wouldn’t have recognised and my kids are keen to try and make more things out of food they have collected from our woods.
Huge thanks to The Tandem Collective for letting me join in the read-along with my own copy of this book.
About The Author:
Monica ‘Mo’ Wilde is the author of The Wilderness Cure: Ancient Wisdom in a Modern World. Winner of The John Avery Award for “original and adventurous writing” in the 2022 André Simon Food and Drink Book Awards. Mo is a forager, research herbalist, author and ethnobotanist. She has been teaching foraging since 2005 but has had a lifelong passion for plants.
Mo has a Masters degree in herbal medicine, is a Fellow of the Linnean Society, a member of the Association of Foragers, a member of the British Mycological Society and a member of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS). Monica Wilde lives in Scotland in a self-built eco house, encouraging medicinal and foraging species to thrive in a wild, teaching garden. She also teaches and lectures on wild foods, plants, fungi and algae.
Good morning everyone! It was my birthday last week and I was lucky enough to receive some book vouchers from my lovely sister. This was quite an event as I never get books off my family as they say I have too many already.
I bought these two books as they sound really fascinating and I’ve been hearing lots of good things about them from my book friends. I’m excited to read them both soon.
What was the last book you bought?
The Dress Diary Of Mrs Anne Sykes by Kate Strasdin
‘The story of a singular woman… Kate Strasdin’s forensic detective work has finally let Mrs Sykes – and her book – speak again’ JUDITH FLANDERS
In 1838, a young woman was given a diary on her wedding day. Collecting snippets of fabric from a range of garments she carefully annotated each one, creating a unique record of her life and times. Her name was Mrs Anne Sykes.
Nearly two hundred years later, the diary fell into the hands of Kate Strasdin, a fashion historian and museum curator. Strasdin spent the next six years unravelling the secrets contained within the album’s pages.
Piece by piece, she charts Anne’s journey from the mills of Lancashire to the port of Singapore before tracing her return to England in later years. Fragments of cloth become windows into Victorian life: pirates in Borneo, the complicated etiquette of mourning, poisonous dyes, the British Empire in full swing, rioting over working conditions and the terrible human cost of Britain’s cotton industry.
This is life writing that celebrates ordinary people: the hidden figures, the participants in everyday life. Through the evidence of waistcoats, ball gowns and mourning outfits, Strasdin lays bare the whole of human experience in the most intimate of mediums: the clothes we choose to wear.
When The Dust Settles by Lucy Easthope
Lucy is a world-leading authority on recovering from disaster. She holds governments to account, supports survivors and helps communities to rebuild. She has been at the centre of the most seismic events of the last few decades, advising on everything from the 2004 tsunami and the 7/7 bombings to the Grenfell fire and the war in Ukraine. Lucy’s job is to pick up the pieces and get us ready for what comes next.
Lucy takes us behind the police tape to scenes of chaos, and into government briefing rooms where confusion can reign. She also looks back at the many losses and loves of her life and career, and tells us how we can all build back after disaster.
When the Dust Settles lifts us up, showing that humanity, hope and humour can – and must – be found on the darkest days.
Over The Rainbow Blog 