Category Archives: Book Reviews

The Woman Who Took a Chance by Fiona Gibson Book Review

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I have read most of Fiona Gibson’s books and I am a fan. Not only because we are both Scottish, but because she is a hugely talented writer who writes about women and their lives so well. Her books are relatable and fun.
To read a Fiona Gibson book is to be taken on a fantastic journey with a group of friends. The Woman Who Took a Chance is the perfect antidote to the stresses of living. They make you smile and laugh, even if there is a little sadness in there. I also love how they are about older women who are living their best lives. A sadly under-targeted market. Another great novel from Fiona Gibson.

Meet Jen. Flight attendant. Mum to a grown-up daughter. Permanently single.

Age: Fifty (gulp)

Number of children: One

Number of husbands: Zero (it’s complicated)

Number of failed first dates in the last month: Too depressing to contemplate

Number of tickets for a romantic, once-in-a-lifetime trip: Two

Number of days left to find her Mr Right to take on holiday: Quickly running out…

A heart-warming and hilarious novel that proves age is just a number and it’s never too late for a second chance. Fans of Kristen Bailey, Sophie Kinsella and Jill Mansell will be totally hooked from the very first page.

CARIADS’ CHOICE: FEBRUARY 2022 BOOK REVIEWS

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Paula Brackston’s The Little Shop of Found Things reviewed by Georgia Hill

Paula Brackston’s The Little Shop of Found Things appealed straightaway. Xanthe and her mother escape a troubled past to open an antiques shop. Xanthe is able to ‘read’ objects and a silver chatelaine reaches out to her with its story. She is compelled to travel back in time to 1605 in order to solve a cruel injustice. Paula throws a lot into the book: time travel, psychometry, antiques knowledge, ley lines, some gentle romance and a truly terrifying ghost. The depiction of the turbulent early seventeenth century is gritty and unflinching in all its misogynistic, violent glory and some parts of the book aren’t for the faint-hearted. The historical detail is superb, and the writing is richly detailed. I galloped through it. Recommended, especially if you are interested in early seventeenth century history.

 

Amanda James’ A Secret Gift reviewed by Jane Cable

Now who can resist a bit of Cornish magic? I certainly can’t but when Amanda James’ heroine, Joy, is first given the secret gift she really thinks she can. But meeting a young homeless man on the verge of suicide changes that, and begins to change Joy too.

This is a colourful book with an engaging cast of characters and a Cornwall I recognise. And as a resident of the county, that is a rare thing to find. It’s a place where real people live, and for me that gave the story a fantastic grounding, an effective counterpoint to the mystical, magical elements. But hey, this is Cornwall after all, so they could very well be real too. Read it and find out.

 

Emily Blaine’s The Bookshop of Forgotten Dreams reviewed by Angela Petch

Like eating whole bars of chocolate with whipped cream, I read this book as a kind of guilty pleasure. But how ridiculous is that attitude?

We all need love stories brimming with frisson and impossibility. And as an author, having a heroine who “thought about books every minute of the day… and talked about them just as much…”, who owns a quirky bookshop in a little town in France, and is a feisty heroine, … what’s not to like? She wraps books up as little mysteries and sells them as little temptations. I want to go to her town and buy several.

Enter the dastardly hero – a man who is a film idol, a heart throb, “the mad dog of the movies…” unstable with a fiery temper – is masterful – but a bit too much… and who is exiled to Sarah’s town by legal requirement.  Will 1 + 1 = 2??? Highly unlikely. Sarah thinks of men as “a little bit like heights. I knew they existed, and they fascinated me, but as soon as I got anywhere near them, vertigo would throw me so off balance…”.

It’s a steamy book – oo la la! I had to fan my heaving bosom several times and it’s very enjoyable. A glorious escape.

 

Georgia Hill’s On a Falling Tide reviewed by Natalie Normann

This is my first book by Georgia Hill, and it won’t be the last. I absolutely loved this book, and couldn’t put it down. It’s a dual time line story, following Lydia in 1863 and Charity in the present. The changes between the two time periods works seamlessly. The story kept surprising me. Every time I thought I had figured out what was going on, there was another twist, and I did not see the last one coming at all. That’s some seriously good writing. Highly recommend this book.

 

 

 

 

The Girl With No Soul by Morgan Owen Book Review

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I always remember how much I loved YA books when I was growing up. They meant so much to me and made me the woman I am today. On the note I can confirm that Morgan Owen is a new outstanding YA talent. The Girl With No Soul is an exciting book. It takes an original and exciting concept, a glorious love story, and amazing world building all in once exciting novel.

The writing is flowing and engaging in that way that is so hard to write but makes reading it so compulsive. I may be older than the market for this book, but I will definitely recommend it to any teens that I know. You cannot beat this book for sheer imagination, passion and excitement. I loved it. Pre-order now, it’s out in March.

Perfect for fans of Alice Broadway and Leigh Bardugo

How can you find your soul mate, when you don’t have a soul?

Iris lives in a world ruled by The Order. Inspectors police the population by keeping careful watch over people’s souls. If they shine their lanterns on you, your soul is projected for the world to see… and judge.

But Iris has a deadly secret … she is a hollow, a person with no soul. She must hide from the Order at all costs, scraping a living in the shadows.

When she’s sent to steal a ring said to hold the memory of a soul’s destruction, she is reunited with her Spark – one of the five parts that make up her own missing soul.

Now she must rely on the help of a young scholar named Evander Mountebank to track down the other four missing pieces of her soul, all the while evading The Order.

Will she be able to protect her heart as well as find her soul?

 

Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka Book Review

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The cultural obsession with serial killer’s, and the glamorisation of them has always sat uneasily with me. Add on the objectification of the victims and I start to feel angry. Women deserve better.

When I read the press release for Danya Kukafka’s book Notes on an Execution I was bowled over. A novel about a serial killer, told through the women left behind. It is a smart idea and the way she has written it is just superb. I was left in complete awe. I am not sure exactly how Danya Kukafka managed to write such a perfect book, but I will be reading it again to try and find out.

The subject is met with feminist delicacy and outstanding talent. What a combination. This is the book that women deserve. There is so much compassion in this book, and once you have read it you will not forget it. A completely triumph.

Ansel Packer is scheduled to die in twelve hours.

He knows what he’s done, and now awaits the same fate he forced on those girls, years ago. Ansel doesn’t want to die; he wants to be celebrated, understood.

But this is not his story.

As the clock ticks down, three women uncover the history of a tragedy and the long shadow it casts. Lavender, Ansel’s mother, is a seventeen-year-old girl pushed to desperation. Hazel, twin sister to his wife, is forced to watch helplessly as the relationship threatens to devour them all. And Saffy, the detective hot on his trail, is devoted to bringing bad men to justice but struggling to see her own life clearly.

This is the story of the women left behind.

Blending breathtaking suspense with astonishing empathy, Notes On An Execution presents a chilling portrait of womanhood as it unravels the familiar narrative of the American serial killer, interrogating our cultural obsession with crime stories, and asking readers to consider the false promise of looking for meaning in the minds of violent men.

 

Hive by April Doyle Book Review

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hive April Doyle

Every now and then a book comes along that feels timely, Hive is such a book. The bees are dying and the world is struggling. Food is scarce and people are desperate. Commercial bee farmer Victor Martin and research entomologist Dr Annie Abrams team up to stop people starving.

April Doyle takes a subject that is worthy and turns it into a brilliant book that is entertaining and riveting. I hated putting this book down to return to real life. I would have read it in one sitting if I could have. I want Hive to be turned into a film because what a film it would be. I did not see the ending coming, and how clever that twist is. I really loved this book. Hive is destined for classic status.

Near-future Britain.
Climate change has led to food shortages and civil unrest.
Pollinating insects are in steep decline.

Commercial bee farmer Victor Martin travels around the farms of Kent with his hives to pollinate fruit trees and crops.

Local research entomologist Dr Annie Abrams is devastated when she’s ordered to give up her captive bee colonies – her life’s work – to join forces with Victor and ensure a harvest.

But the bees are dying.

Their only hope seems to be an experimental alternative to insect pollination: robot pollinators called nanodrones. But why does the drone designer seem so familiar? And who is behind the shadowy organisation intent on sabotaging their vital work?

Can Annie and Victor win their battle to save the bees… or is it too late?

Matt Bell’s March craft book, REFUSE TO BE DONE: an accessible, practical guide to writing and revising a novel—for writers of any genre and level

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“I can’t imagine anyone setting pen to paper, or fingertips to keyboard, who won’t want to keep this book permanently close at hand.”
—Benjamin Dreyer, New York Times bestselling author of Dreyer’s English
 We all need help to be the best writer we can be. This brilliant book from Matt Bell not only does that, but it also teaches you have to be efficient, something that is a must as writing becomes a career. I loved this book and I cannot recommend it enough. I will definitely keep it close to hand. — Frost editor, Catherine Balavage.
Acclaimed author Matt Bell draws from years of writing and teaching experience to deliver an accessible, direct, and concise guide to novel-writing full of concrete tips meant to guide writers of any genre, at any stage of their career, from first to final draft.
Matt Bell | Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts | Trade Paperback Original | $15.95 US/$21.95 CAN |
ISBN: 9781641293419 | ON SALE: March 8, 2022 | Soho Press
Refuse to Be Done is intensely practical, focusing always on specific tasks, techniques, and activities for writing a novel, from the first draft all the way through final revisions. Divided into three main sections—each containing numerous subheadings and detailed items—the book is easy to use at any and every stage of the writing process, whether one is starting from scratch or already has a full draft to revise. Concrete examples from published fiction and media, as well as Matt Bell’s personal experiences, bring further meaning to the tips included, showing how they were developed and how they come to fruition in existing works.

In the first section, Bell shares a bounty of tactics to get through perhaps the most daunting stage of novel-writing: actually writing the book. Intended to push writers through the initial conception and get words on the page, this section includes strategies for process (such as how to regiment one’s writing and track progress), the writing itself (e.g. how to develop characters and determine which scenes to write next), and overcoming writer’s block.

Next, with a complete draft in hand, the second section focuses on reworking the narrative through outlining, modeling, and rewriting. This includes such tasks as fleshing out characters, scrutinizing the plot, and reshaping a manuscript into a more polished form.

The final stage captures Bell’s philosophy to “refuse to be done,” encouraging writers to stay in their novel for as long as they’re able by working through a checklist of revisions. In this layered approach, writers fully work through the text multiple times, focusing on a specific, achievable task through each pass. Whether it’s revising the prose or scrutinizing the structure of each scene, every pass brings the manuscript closer to accomplishing the writer’s ambitions and becoming the greatest it can possibly be.

Written for novices and veteran writers alike, Matt Bell’s accessible, practical guide to novel-writing offers an abundance of strategies to motivate writers and invigorate the revision process, empowering novelists of all genres to approach their work with fresh eyes and sharp new tools to produce their best work yet.

It Ends at Midnight by Harriet Tyce

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I envy authors who write books that are so perfectly written that you find it hard to put the book down, those books that you start to read and then realise you are one hundred pages in, but it feels like five minutes has passed.

I loved It Ends at Midnight with it’s flawed and messy characters. You are never quite sure who to trust so the plot keeps you on your toes. It is a thrilling novel that hold you to the very last page. Honest, open and superb.

It’s New Year’s Eve and the stage is set for a lavish party in one of Edinburgh’s best postcodes. It’s a moment for old friends to set the past to rights – and move on.

The night sky is alive with fireworks and the champagne is flowing. But the celebration fails to materialise.

Because someone at this party is going to die tonight.

Midnight approaches and the countdown begins – but it seems one of the guests doesn’t want a resolution. They want revenge.

IT ENDS AT MIDNIGHT. Coming 14th April from the Sunday Times and Kindle #1, half a million copy, bestselling author Harriet Tyce.

The Truth Will Out by Rosemary Hennigan.

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I love books set in the acting world so I was super excited to read The Truth Will Out by Rosemary Hennigan. This debut novel did not disappoint at all. The story itself is fantastic and leaves a lot of room for intrigue, but the prose is just glorious. I truly got lost in Rosemary Hennigan’s beautiful writing.
The character of Dara is pulled between the light and the dark, no one knows what is true in this mysterious novel. The plot is clever and every page is as brilliant as the last. I raced through it. A must read. Out March 17th.
Rosemary Hennigan. the truth will out
‘Maybe I’ve told that version of the story so often,
that I can’t remember the truth of it anymore.’

Dara Gaffney is fresh out of drama school when she lands the leading role in the revival of Eabha de Lacey’s hugely successful yet controversial play.

Based on the true story of the death of Cillian Butler, many claim that Eabha had an ulterior motive when she penned it. Cillian’s death remains a mystery to this day, and Eabha and her brother, Austin, the only witnesses.

As the media storm builds and the opening night draws closer, the cast find it harder and harder to separate themselves from the characters.

And as the truth of Cillian’s fate becomes clear, Dara’s loyalty to her role will be irrevocably questioned as the terrible history starts to repeat itself…