Tag Archives: Catherine Balavage

Just My Luck by Adele Parks | Book Review

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Just My Luck, Adele Parks, extract , review

I have loved Adele Parks’ books for years now. Which is handy, as she writes one a year and has done for the past twenty years. Impressive.
Just My luck is another triumph. It has a great premise which is beautifully executed. We have all dreamt of winning the lottery. This book explores what happens when people become rich beyond their wildest dreams. It may be a novel, but it is a cautionary tale that money does not buy happiness. I loved the characters, even the ones I was loving to hate. The twists at the end are hugely satisfying. I find Adele Parks is an expert at picking up on the beautiful details of life, as she is at finding the complexities of the human character. Just My luck is the perfect escapist novel that will leave you hooked until the very last page.

It’s the stuff dreams are made of – a lottery win so big, it changes everything.

For fifteen years, Lexi and Jake have played the same six numbers with their friends, the Pearsons and the Heathcotes. Over dinner parties, fish & chip suppers and summer barbecues, they’ve discussed the important stuff – the kids, marriages, jobs and houses – and they’ve laughed off their disappointment when they failed to win anything more than a tenner.

But then, one Saturday night, the unthinkable happens. There’s a rift in the group. Someone doesn’t tell the truth. And soon after, six numbers come up which change everything forever.

Lexi and Jake have a ticket worth £18 million. And their friends are determined to claim a share of it.

Sunday Times Number One bestseller Adele Parks returns with a riveting look at the dark side of wealth in this gripping take on friendship, money and betrayal, and good luck gone bad…

Just My Luck is available here.

Easy Ways To Cook Vegetables. How to Get Your 5-a-Day.

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Getting our 5-a-day is hard. Or at least, I have often found it so. It is easy to grab a piece of fruit but eating vegetables requires more effort. At least that is what it feels like sometimes. Since lockdown it has been harder to get some foods. We have had a weekly delivery of fruit and veg. There are a number of companies that do this.

It has set a challenge to use everything up as I refuse to have food waste. This has always been the case but even more so now. I will be sharing tips on the coming weeks but here is what I am doing at the moment.

Every few days I make a a huge salad or a traybake of roasted vegetables. This does as a lunch for a few days and also a side for supper. It is very easy to do. Sure there is a lot of chopping, and my children are usually trying to get my attention, but because you only have to do it every three days it is not that bad.

Salad potatoes can be boiled for 15 minutes. I add rosemary or parsley to them.
potatoes with herbs, cooking vegetables, how to cook potatoes,

Cauliflower can be boiled in 15 minutes. Carrots take 5 minutes. I add as many herbs and spices to the various vegetables as possible. A lot of  fruit and veg boxes come with a bag of fresh herbs. You might also have some in your cupboard. Five spice anyone?

Aubergine can be roasted for 20 minutes in the oven. I tend to add olive oil and salt and pepper. It tastes delicious. You can also pan fry it. Beetroot is great baked in the oven for 45 minutes. You can even bake it whole. Add olive oil and wrap in foil. I tend to cook things at 180. The roast vegetables can be added to the salad and vice versa. I love adding fruit to veg. Oranges go great with aubergine. It is a lot of work cooking and, lets be honest, tedious, but when you make a lot you only have to do it every three days. That is for a family of four.

Eating raw food is great and retains nutrients. I find raw cabbage tastes amazing and has a satisfying texture. I have a large Mason Cash baking bowl which I make a huge salad in. There was one week where we did not get a fruit and veg box and my husband and I really noticed the difference to our health. A plant based diet is the easiest way to great health.

In the evenings and weekends I write in the kitchen while my husband looks after the kids. I am right near the fridge which is not good, but instead of snacking on unhealthy foods I just dip into my huge bowl of salad. Try it, put all of your favourite fruit and veg in a big bowl and pick at it when you are hungry. It will change your life and your health.

Please share any cooking tips or recipes with me. Lots of love and stay safe, Catherine xx.

 

 

Stay Up with Hugo Best Book Review

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staying up with Hugo Best, Erin Somers, book review, book reviews

Some books are entertainment and some are a hard read. Stay Up with Hugo Best is a bit of both. It can be an uncomfortable,  read, but it is an important one. I feel like this is a real book which picks up on so much nuance. It is a rich tapestry of the complexities of the gender war.The relationship between men and women is complex, and the relationship between powerful men and younger women is complex and ripe for abuse.

Metoo has created a new world but it is not necessarily a better one. Abuse and inappropriate behaviour still happens. People make bad choices all of the time.Sometimes the people making the bad choices are woman. 

Stay Up with Hugo Best is a brave book and Erin Somers has taken her own path in writing it. It is a brilliant exploration of the entertainment industry and the powerful men within it. This book will resonate with many. A great read. 

The novel is an exploration of the power and influence in the entertainment industry in the #MeToo age and a meditation on desire, both realized and unrealized. Through these themes Somers has created in Stay Up with Hugo Best a wonderfully witty, wise and deliciously melancholy narrative.

Stay Up with Hugo Best charts the long weekend a late night talk show host and a young staffer spend together after the show’s cancellation. The weekend is tense, and uncomfortable and the characters so magnificently honest, as the two sardonic souls find themselves connecting.

When Somers finished a creative writing program in her late 20s, she did not know how to proceed. She was uselessly spinning her wheels. This seemed to her something a lot of her peers were going through too—the structures by which one builds a life seemed to have crumbled. ‘I thought this was an interesting time of life to explore, and an interesting predicament: how to succeed as a young woman in a creative field still dominated unfortunately by men. What compromises would I be willing to make if given the opportunity.’ From these initial reflections came her inspiration to write Stay Up with Hugo Best.

Stay Up With Hugo Best is available here.

 

Coronavirus Is Tough On All of Us But Together We Will Pull Through

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Hey, how are you doing? Not great? I do not blame you. These are scary times. Every day is seems unbelievable that our lives have changed so much, and that so many have lost their lives. The NHS workers, delivery drivers, bin men and grocery workers are our new heroes. It is a new world and frivolous things do not mean much in a world like this.

I am seeing a lot of stuff on social media and in the press about how staying at home is easy so I just want to write this, not for any idiots who are going out and not listening to the Government guidelines, but for the rest of us: none of this is easy. It is okay to not be okay.

What is going on at the moment is horrendous and there is so much we do not know. If you are struggling then do not feel bad. I read a story about a 43-year-old woman who had what she thought was a cold and a fever for two days. Her husband called an ambulance when she collapsed. She died before the paramedics even arrived and her husband was in shock. They had a 13-year-old son.

A lot of people are dying every day and there are mass graves in New York. Pregnant women are having a tough time and some women who wanted to get pregnant say they have lost their last chance. This is all scary and unknown.

So many people have lost jobs and money. Millions of people have gone hungry. People are worried about the roof over their heads and the future. There is so much suffering at the moment. It is impossible to not be affected by this. So we must all go forward together because never before have we been more in this together. This is not easy but we have each other and we can all do whatever we can to put goodness and positivity into the world.

Get in touch with us if you want to talk or share your story. If you want to learn more about the Pandemic, or Pandemics in general, then I recommend Pandemic, the documentary series on Netflix, Pandemic: Covid-19 on NowTv.com and the movie Contagion which is also on Netflix.com.

 

The Dilemma By B. A. Paris Book Review

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B. A. Paris

The Dilemma is a book that stays with you. The characters are so rich and the premise of the novel is so breathtaking. I would label The Dilemma is a psychological thriller albeit one in the domestic setting of family. After all, is that not where the most complex things are? I dare you to put this novel down. I raced through it, my heart in my mouth. It is beautiful, sad and vivid. Perfect.

It’s Livia’s 40th birthday and she’s having the party of a lifetime to make up for the wedding she never had. Everyone she loves will be there except her daughter Marnie, who’s studying abroad. But although Livia loves Marnie, she’s secretly glad she won’t be at the party. She needs to tell Adam something about their daughter but she’s waiting until the party is over so they can have this last happy time together.

Adam wants everything to be perfect for Livia so he’s secretly arranged for Marnie to come home and surprise her on her birthday. During the day, he hears some terrible news. He needs to tell Livia, because how can the party go on? But she’s so happy, so excited – and the guests are about to arrive.

The Dilemma – how far would you go to give someone you love a last few hours of happiness?

One day that will change a family forever, The Dilemma is the breath-taking, heart-breaking new novel from the million-copy-selling, Sunday Times bestseller, B A Paris

The Dilemma is available here.

Need Some Uplit? Books To Bring Joy

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I think it is fair to say we could all do with some cheering up at the moment. So here are some books to bring some joy. THE PATH TO THE SEA by Liz Fenwick (5th March) – A beautifully evocative tale of the secrets held by the Cornish coast for three sisters, full of mystery and feel-good romance, by ‘Queen of the contemporary Cornish novel’ Liz Fenwick.

FAMILY FOR BEGINNERS by Sarah Morgan (2nd April)- A compelling, escapist family drama about Flora and her attempt at fitting in with Jack’s family whilst living in the shadow of his perfect immortalised wife, from international bestseller and Sunday Times bestselling author, Sarah Morgan.

WHAT HAPPENS NOW by Sophia Money-Coutts (16th April) – the saucy laugh-out-loud poolside read by mistress of the romp-com Sophia Money-Coutts, about swiping right, weeing on a stick, and dating the aristocracy, not necessarily in that order.

WE JUST CLICKED by Anna Bell (16th April in eBook and Audio) – A fabulously funny, feel-good novel that will make you laugh until you cry, for anyone who’s ever presented a perfectly-filtered life online to hide the unglamorous reality, perfect for fans of Sophia Kinsella and Laura Jane Williams.

THE SUMMER VILLA by Melissa Hill (14th May) – An enthralling feel-good romance set in a rambling stone villa on the Amalfi Coast – a story of friendships rekindled and of secrets buried in the past re-surfacing under the Italian sun, by international best-selling author Melissa Hill.

THE EXTRAORDINARY HOPE OF DAWN BRIGHTSIDE by Jessica Ryn (28th May) – Based on debut novelist Jessica Ryn’s experience as a homelessness resettlement worker, The Extraordinary Hope of Dawn Brightside is a quirky, hopeful commercial piece of fiction with book club appeal, focusing on Dawn Elisabeth Brightside and her fight for saving St Jude’s Hostel for the Homeless, her own personal light in the darkness.

Things I am Doing During The Coronavirus COVID-19 Pandemic

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coronavirus, COVID-19, staying sane, healthy, self isolation, social distancing, 2020 has brought the super scary coronavirus, official name COVID-19, to our lives. We live in uncertain times and I think we are all feeling anxious. Social distancing is essential at the moment but has an impact on our mental health. Ditto for self isolation. Well, as I saw on Facebook, our grandparents were asked to go to war. All we have to do it read and watch Netflix.

I have young children so hunkering down and binging on Netflix is sadly not an option for me. But I am doing the following things for myself.

Learning a language everyday. I do Duolingo which is amazing and free as well as Babble.

Reading. I am lucky to get sent a lot of books. I even got sent one from one of my favourite authors, Adele Parks, today. I read when my children let me or when they have gone to bed.

Staying active. We are lucky to have a garden but there is also a lot of stairs in our house. Cleaning and tidying are good but it is important to do actual exercise. The NHS recommends 150 minutes a week.

Keeping in touch with my friends and family via WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter and FaceTime. I am lucky as a self-employed freelancer that I am used to not having a lot of people around me. I do miss it though!

Switching off. Sometimes I just put my phone away and turn the TV off. The constantly rising numbers and scare stories can be too much.

Eating as healthily as possible. Food is medicine. There are few greater truths in life.

I also watch TV or try to watch a film. It is good to keep my mind of things.

After my surgery last year and then getting a life-threatening illness (pneumonia and pleurisy. In both lungs because I like to go all out, clearly) I appreciate the small things in life. Sometimes I am in the garden or even just having a shower and I realise how much of a miracle life is. There is beauty everywhere.

For my children.

I am making sure I take them out into the garden. We play football usually but my daughter also loves bubbles. I read them a lot of books and they do a lot of writing too. I am trying to work on their development as much as possible with various toys and games. I have two under four so they are still at a crucial stage in their development.

My daughter is too young to know what is happening and my son is not worried. I am thankful for this. I shower them with kisses and cuddles every day.

You Don’t Have to Love Your Body, Just Don’t Hate it.

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pregnant, woman, pregnant woman, Catherine Balavage

Me when I was pregnant with my son.

It is fair to say that at some point most of us have had a complicated relationship with our body. Women in particular get a rough ride. The media constantly tells us we are not tall enough, thin enough or tanned enough. Yes, the body positive movement has happened, but it is being sold to us by the same people who made us feel crap about our bodies for decades, and do not get me started on how their tagline is usually about ‘real’ women. It is so condescending. There are no fake women. Airbrushing women within an inch of their lives, while those women were already over five foot ten and a size eight, does not make these women an ideal that ‘real’ women no longer have to aspire to because you are woke now.

The beauty industry is still trying to sell us cellulite creams. In 2019 I was still seeing articles on how to get rid of cellulite. It is truly shocking. Babies have cellulite, children have cellulite, even men have cellulite, but for some reason only women are told that it is somehow not normal and we have to spend our time and energy getting rid of it. God forbid we work on our brains instead of our thighs.

P.S: dimples are cute.

Yes, I rant a bit but I have my reasons. As a teenager I thought my body looked awful. All I saw was flaws. Now I am in my thirties and I think it truly is amazing. There are parts I am not keen on, the bits of fat that accumulate around my C section scar and are hard to shift, for example, but I refuse to hate it. My body has made two beautiful children and been through two very different births: one emergency C section and one VBAC. It has been pregnant four times but only has two children and it has endured two traumatic surgeries.

The last few years I have been the fittest I have ever been in between my pregnancies. I am at my lowest weight in ten years and I am proud when I manage to make healthy choices, and gentle on myself when I do not. It makes me sad when I think about how long it took me to love my body on my good days, and not hate it on my bad ones. When I was a teenager I was ill with glandular fever. I was bedridden for years and it took a lot of time to get healthy again. My education was affected and it is only now I am managing to find the time to rectify that. You would think it that was an important lesson but I spent my twenties working fourteen hour days, going to parties and over-exercising. Turns out you can not exist on canapés and champagne alone. My main food groups were pasta and cereal. It is embarrassing to think about now that I try to make sure I have at least five-a-day and that I do not exert my body to much.

What I am trying to say is that your body is amazing. YOU are amazing, and while you do not have to love every part of your body, do not hate it. It is a miracle.