Laura

I am actually a little breathless having finished this book, it's taken my breath away and I'm feeling that awful grief you get when you have finished a book that is really special and you know your time with the characters has come to an end. I had heard wonderful things about Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys but I really had not expected to fall in love with this book quite as hard as I did.

The first thing that struck me about this book is that it is based on fact and actual events that occurred at the end of the second world war. Being naturally inquisitive I went and found out more about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, a German transport ship that was transporting German military and refugees in the Baltic Sea when it was struck by torpedoes from a Russian submarine causing the loss of around 9,400 lives. This makes it the biggest maritime disaster of all time and yet I know that so few people have heard of this and now having read this story I find it even more heartbreaking.

The story is told in really short chapters. Each is only a page or two long so the story drives forward really quickly and in bursts that whilst initially giving us only snippets about our characters does help to add to the mystery about their backgrounds. We have four main characters who narrate the book, each of them has a different secret they are hiding and they are all seeking the same thing, escape from their past and a new future with the promise of reuniting with loved ones they have lost or a fresh start. As their stories intertwine we learn more about the tragedies each have faced, the difficult choices war has forced upon them and the horrors they have seen along the way.

Of our narrators 3 of the 4 are wonderful characters, the fourth is a complex and difficult one to like but his voice is equally important as he brings us the voice of the German Nazi machine as it begins to fall apart and the unhinged beliefs of the Fuhrer and how they have infiltrated the German people. We may not like him but his voice provides the context that brings the books dark undertones even more to the fore.

The stories in this book are gritty and heartbreaking. Of the Young Adult novels I've read about World War II this alongside The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas are probably two of the most emotional and touching. Not to say that others are not but the subject matter is difficult to read, it includes some very adult themes and doesn't hold back during the storytelling about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff.

I read this book in a day, I could not put it down. Once I had understood each of the characters back stories I was rooting for them, I fell in love with the surrounding characters and the character of the Shoe Poet will remain with me for a long time to come. The quote he makes on deck of the ship just before it is hit is beautiful as he tells Florian “Just when you think this was has taken everything you loved, you meet someone and realise that somehow you still have more to give” This was so poignant from an elderly man talking about the loss of his wife and how a young orphan boy gave him the strength to go on. It was such a beautiful moment in a book filled with much darkness.

It is a book I didn't have to think about what rating it deserved, from the moment I picked it up till I finished it I was drawn in, it engaged me fully and it made me fall in love with it. Absolutely inspiring writing and I cannot wait to try more books from Ruta Sepetys.

Those of you who follow my reviews closely will know that I fell in love with Sabaa Tahir's wonderful An Ember In The Ashes just a few short weeks ago. I hadn't expected to love it as much as I did and it just so happened that my wonderful library had both books available and both were sitting on my TBR pile at home so it made sense to delve straight back into the series and read A Torch Against The Night just a few weeks after I finished the first in the series. This meant I'll be ready to dive straight into the next book in the series, A Reaper At The Gates, when it is released in a few weeks time. (I cannot tell you how much the anticipation for that is killing me right now!)

A Torch Against the Night is a direct continuation of Elias and Laia's story from An Ember In The Ashes, picking up just moments after the ending of the first books narrative and keeping the action and intensity levels high from the very first lines of Chapter 1. Our duo is trying to escape Briarcliff, the training school for soldiers of the Empire, so they can get to Laia's brother who is being held in Kauf prison. They have made a promise to each other to get there and escape the tyranny of the world in which they live and to try and make a difference to the future they foresee.

Told in alternating chapters again we have narrative from both Elias and Laia's perspectives as we had in An Ember In The Ashes so that feels really familiar and is sure to please fans of the series. What we have added into the mix here is the point of view from Helene, Elias's best friend and now Blood Shrike of the Empire who is charged with hunting down Elias and Laia and bringing them back to the Empire for execution. This makes a really interesting addition as she was such a strong character in the first book and now she is facing a real dilemma as she has to fulfill her role as the Emperors head killing soldier and assassin but the person she is being asked to hunt is someone she cares for deeply and whose motives she is beginning to understand. Her chapters are perhaps the highlight of this book.

In Elias and Laia's chapters we are following their journey to Kauf, the adversities they are facing along the way, the people who are helping them and the growing relationship they have together. In Helen's we get the broader perspective, she is giving us the backstory about what's happening in the Empire, the shifting political world and the regime of the new Emperor Marcus whose unhinged personality means she walks a knifes edge which very quickly begins to threaten her own family and drives her to do things she never thought she would have to. Whilst there is lots going on for Elias and Laia it's with Helene that I felt the most character development. We see her beginning to question her blind loyalty to the Empire, watch her begin to understand the choices Elias has made and yet still not be able to break free of the regime which has her doing it's bidding. Her chapters are a joy.

The ending of this book was a really interesting one because it's left us in a situation I was not anticipating where we are not quite sure how things are going to play out in A Reaper At The Gates. We have all the players now on the stage (or page) and lots of storylines to play out. I am excited to see what's in store for Helene as we move forward and how Laia and Elias are now going to be able to try and stop the political dictatorship that threatens their world.

Cannot wait to read book 3 in a few weeks time, I have a feeling it's going to be a wild ride.

I have been desperately trying to get to this book for a while, I have pretty much marathon-ed The Mortal Instruments over the past 3 months because there have been so many wonderful reviews about this, the first book in Cassandra Clare's Dark Artifices trilogy. At times during The Mortal Instruments I would struggle a little and falter but the fact that I knew that due to spoiler reasons I had to finish the series before picking up Lady Midnight kept me focused and kept me moving forward.

Eventually I was able to dive into this book and it is a very substantial book at 646 pages which means it's not the the faint hearted reader. It is one you need to commit yourself to and even more so because it is full of new characters and places that we haven't encountered in the Shadowhunter world before so it takes a little time to find your bearings and get used to the new setting of Los Angeles and the different members of the Blackthorn family.

We met the Blackthorns and their friend Emma Carstairs in City of Heavenly Fire and it is to them we return in Lady Midnight. It is 5 years after the end of City of Heavenly Fire and we are in the Los Angeles institute where they live under the guardianship of Arthur Blackthorn, or so it would appear. Instead, realistically, the institute is being run by Julian Blackthorn who at the tender age of 17 is trying to raise his 4 siblings alone and stop anyone in Idris from finding out about the mental illness which has plagued his uncle for years. He is scared that if anyone finds out he and his siblings will be separated and he will be torn apart from his parabatai Emma.

Emma is still trying to come to term with the death of her parents 5 years before and when she finds out that murders have been occurring in Los Angeles which bear an uncanny resemblance to their deaths she now feels they are proof that something other than Sebastian Morgernstern was responsible for their deaths and so she begins investigating even though it will involve dealing with the Fae who are now outcasts from the Downworlder accords.

This book was good in the fact that it didn't have to establish the Shadowhunter world to it's readers, Clare doesn't waste time laying out her world but instead makes the assumption that readers will be fairly familiar with everything. Instead we focus upon learning about our new heroes and heroines and their relationships with each other. Despite the fact we have a whole new cast doesn't mean that Clare is forgetting about the characters she had us so cleverly fall in love with such as Magnus, Alec, Simon,Izzy and Jace and Clary. They all pop up in this book either directly or through references from other people and we are brought up to date with what has been happening in their lives in the last 5 years. I'm sure if I'd read Tales from The Shadowhunter Academy and The Bane Chronicles at this stage they would have covered what I'd missed but instead this book made me even more excited to get on and read those also.

I really loved the family dynamic in this book, the way they all fit together in their own crazy ways. I especially loved Ty, who Clare has written as a character who is very clearly on the Asperger's/Autistic spectrum. He is wonderfully complex and yet really vulnerable and the different ways in which his big brother Julian adapts Shadowhunter life to take account of the things he finds uncomfortable or unsettling and allows him to focus his gifts was a really nice aspect of this book and made him one of my favourite characters.

One thing I found strange about this book is that I kept waiting for the action to kick in and suddenly I realised I was on about chapter 20 of 27 and it hadn't ever really taken it to a new level, instead it kind of meandered on with a bit of a slow burn, building the suspense slowly and drawing us in bit by bit till we've read the nearly the whole book before we realise it. I am happy to say that we have left enough loose ends to draw us towards Lord of Shadows in the very near future.

The book also does a very clever thing where it takes us to nearly the end before uncovering a very big twist via two very beloved characters from The Infernal Devices, Jem and Tessa. It pulls us back to the wonderful characters and old Shadowhunters we've loved from that series also and links together all 3 series nicely. It means that we can follow them all into the next book and gives us a great incentive to keep reading.

I really enjoyed Lady Midnight, perhaps not as much as I'd anticipated, if I'm honest I expected a tiny little bit more, hence my 4 star review. I liked it much more than some of the latter books in Mortal Instruments and found Emma and Julian much less annoying that Clary and Jace were at times. They are stronger characters to read about and much less teen angst ridden than their predecessors. That doesn't mean that at points they don't verge on the edge of tipping into that territory but the mystery around what would happen if they broke the law and admitted they are falling in love, the one thing forbidden by law for parabatai to do means that we are rooting for them, forbidden love is one of those tropes we all love.

I am excited to start Lord of Shadows soon and am really pleased to eventually be almost up to date with the Shadowhunter world.

I must be honest I was a little skeptical about this book, let's be honest the reviews are not exactly glowing and I very nearly switched to reading Libba Bray's The Diviners instead but something made me persevere. I'm not now quite sure what that something was after I've completed the book, maybe it was a promise of a great ending I wouldn't see coming.

This book has some elements that I can see readers would find a little trashy and tropey. We have the rich and exclusive Grace siblings, they are wealthy and beautiful and the centre of the school's gossip mill especially since people think they are witches. Enter River, the new kid in town, who is trying to throw herself into the eye line of the three Grace siblings so she can get to know more about whether all the rumours of their witchcraft is true.

One of the things I struggled most with in this book is that I didn't particularly like the main character, River. She was quite whiney and just didn't have any particular characteristics to recommend her. She just kept kind of hanging around the Grace's, creeping in and out of their house and trying to play it cool. I found her difficult to read from the perspective of and the whole hint dropping about her huge ‘secret' she was hiding just didn't add much to the story.

Taking this alongside the fact that the Grace siblings were not that likable either. As the book progressed they became less and less so and your sympathy for them wained a lot. Their blind dedication to each other regardless of the rights or wrongs of a situation made the narrative quite narrow and it meant I lacked emotional connection with many of their points of view.

I made it through this book and sometimes I'd find myself quite enjoying the characters and the journey I thought we might be going on but then the story almost began to shut itself down. I think there were storylines we didn't follow that could have been further explored and some characters were under utilised. It became a story too narrowly focused on the Grace siblings and River whereas some further context from other parties may have helped us engage more with the story on a different level.

I know The Curses is due for release at some point in the future and I may have a little bit of curiosity to see what happens next but I'm not sure I could read it unless there is some widening of the story arc to bring more depth to the story.

I have never been a fan of short stories or short story collections, I tend to want to get behind characters and stay with them for the long haul, I've never really loved the short snappy stories where you are just getting used to all the different people when it suddenly is at an end. I'd heard really good things though about Summer Days and Summer Nights, a collection of 12 Love Stories by some of today's best Young Adult authors and all themed around Summer that I felt I had to give it a try.

This book contains stories by such well known authors as Libba Bray, Cassandra Clare, Leigh Bardugo and Jennifer E. Smith. Some of these authors I've read books by recently and other's I have plans to delve into their books in the very near future and so I felt that the calibre of writing was high enough that we could anticipate some great stories along the way.

All of the stories are generally in a contemporary setting but some have a more paranormal or fantastical setting to them than others. Some are very much just a contemporary short love story with the theme of summer central to them whereas others are more clever in their twist on the theme of love. Along the way we meet some great characters and as I sit here reflecting back on this book, as I finished it just over a week ago, I find them coming back to me piece by piece and I'm smiling fondly as I remember the stories.

I don't think I'm a convert to the short story genre, I still find them harder to invest in but what I did enjoy was the ability to read lots of different themes and characters over the period of a few days and to keep feeling I was trying something new each time I started a new story.

I gave this 3 stars but I think fans of the short story may find it deserves more than that but for me it was a little bit of a filler between two books to give me something different but I'm not sure if in a year I'll remember any of the stories specifically.

As we approach the release date for the movie adaptation of Jojo Moyes book ‘Me Before You' I took time a week or so ago to watch the trailer of the film and was immediately reminded of the sadness, joy and overall greatness of the story of Will and Louisa who fall in love in unusual and very difficult circumstances. It comes at a time where Moyes is also releasing this book to the world, ‘After You' the story of how Louisa is coping after the assisted suicide of her love Will.

It was always going to be difficult to trump the original story, after all we did fall in love with Will Traynor alongside Louisa and cried with her when he ended his life in a Swiss Dignitas clinic. It was such an iconic love story that they have achieved the status shared by famous book couples like Darcy and Elizabeth, Bridget Jones and Mark Darcy, Heathcliff and Cathy. For our generation we had Louisa and Will and no matter how Moyes wrote her sequel there was going to be as big a hole in which her readers hearts as her main character was living through. The absence of Will was palpable, you could feel it from beginning to end.

The opening of the book finds Louisa involved in a fairly major accident herself and she meets a paramedic called Sam. As a result of her family questioning whether her accident was in fact a result of her grief she also begins attending a grief support group. With a dead end job and few friends Lou feels she is letting Will down because she promised him that she would live a full life.

The most interesting aspect of the book for me though was the arrival of 17 year old Lily in Lou's life and the announcement that she is Will's daughter. For me this story was the most heartfelt part as Lou tries to introduce Lily to her grandparents and learning as she goes the trials of parenting a teen with a host of problems and parents who seem to have disowned her. The blossoming friendship between Lily and Lou is for me the only parts where I became so drawn in that my mind wasn't wandering a little.

The story was about 50% amazing and 50% chic lit filling, I wanted Lou to do something monumental and to find true happiness, instead I felt the story set itself up for possibly another book in a series, the story didn't feel complete. Lou seems to be off on a grand adventure and I suspect we may get to join her but I ask myself if some of this books characters didn't come along for the ride would I miss them and Lily aside I'd have to be honest and say I wouldn't. I felt Lou has yet to find the same depth of emotional connection as she had with Will.

I haven't been surprised to read mixed reviews on this book as I suspect like me many people just didn't connect emotionally with it as much as they did with its predecessor, no tears this time, I'll need to save them for the cinema when I go to watch the movie of Me Before You.

Okay so let's get this straight if I start a book I nearly always finish it unless it is so awful I can't. I am not an Austen snob and did not expect this book to be anything other than a chick lit look at Austen and a girl obsessed by the fantasy that is Colin Firth as Darcy.

This is the story of Jane who is left a stay at a Jane Austen themed resort by her Great Aunt. There she is promised life a la Austen with perhaps a chance to meet her own Darcy.

I expected Lost in Austen - humour and high jinx amid the empire line dresses and fancy balls. Instead I got a very very tedious book. I found it full of one dimensional characters and so much description about the surroundings that any plot development is nil. By half way through I literally just didn't care about any of the characters. It was a bit confusing to be honest who everyone was and who worked at the Austen resort and who was visitors.

I didn't like our heroine as she seemed a bit spineless and soppy and I couldn't find enough pull in the story to make me want to come back and read it. Instead of a book fizzing with witty dialogue and passion heightened by a heroine falling in love without the ability to have great physical intimacy we get a potentially great storyline squandered.

I think I could see where Hale was going was the plot, trying to mimic the standoffish ways of Darcy through Nobley and a late blooming of romance between he and Jane but I got to 60% of the way through and I became so bored of skimming pages waiting for any kind of drama that I had to admit defeat and give up which is so very very rare for me.

I may try to come back to this in the future when I have a fresh pair of eyes for it but right now I have so many great titles awaiting me that I am not committed enough to this plot at the half way mark to continue which is disappointing.

I have been a massive fan of the movie Labyrinth since my teenage years (way too many years ago for my liking) and so when I heard about Wintersong by S Jae-Jones and its story about Liesel who travels to the underworld to rescue her sister who has been captured by the Goblin King to be his bride it evoked so many memories of this marvellous movie that I absolutely had to read it.

Set in historical Europe we are introduced to Liesel, daughter of an innkeeper who lives with her musical parents and her sister and brother. Liesel is a plain girl but a talented musician but she has always stood in her sibling's shadows are her sister Kathe is beautiful and her brother Josef is a violin prodigy. She will be the one who will be left behind to care for her parents and keep the inn running when they go off to follow their dreams and her own ambitions as a composer are sure to come to nothing. She loves her family but feels overshadowed and ignored.

From childhood her grandmother Constanze has told her tales of the Goblin King who seeks young women to steal away to the underworld to be his bride. Liesel has always held faith with her Grandmother's superstitions and remembers playing in the woods with a young man when she was a child who she was sure was the magical Goblin King. When her sister Kathe goes missing she finds out she's been taken to the Underworld, home of the Goblin King, where he intends to make her his bride. Liesel must follow her sister and rescue her before it's too late but the magical Underworld will be full of challenges she's never dreamed of.

This story is an unusual one, we often read stories of the Fae but in this case, it is a slightly darker story with Goblins and their wickedness focused upon and their tendency to trick and perplex us into believing things that are not true. I fell in love with the mysterious Goblin King in this story, his character is written cleverly so that we are drawn into his mysterious world and trust that deep within there is good in his soul. We are never given any clear resolutions as to who he is or his entire story but as this is the first in a duology I am hoping this might be explored more in the second book in the series.

Liesel is an interesting main character. As opposed to other books where our heroine is written as being ‘plain' but really they are startlingly beautiful, Liesel is in fact exactly what she is initially described as, an ordinary girl but one whose talents and compassion and soul mean her character is beautiful and we are pulled into the story of the Goblin King being captivated by her soul rather than her outward beauty. Her appeal ebbed and flowed through the story. At times I loved reading her point of view and at others I found she dragged a little and became a little tedious.

There is some wonderful storytelling in this book, the descriptive passages about the Underworld, the Goblin Ball and the surroundings through which Kathe and Liesel travel are immersive and draw you in. At times the character interaction can lag and at times I'd need to focus and keep pressing onward to the next chapter but it was overall a rewarding and good reading experience.

I will definitely be reading Shadowsong, the second in the series, if only because there are lots of untied ends from this book and I want more time with the enigmatic Goblin King. I want to know his story, I want to know more about the bride that returned to the world above and find out if what I suspect may be true. This book was good, and if I'm being really critical I'd give it a 3.5 stars out of 5 as I feel it was good but there is room for improvement in the second book.

It was always going to be difficult to find a book to follow Harry Potter & the Cursed Child, I wanted something that would have a strong story that would be engaging and yet also not an overly long ‘epic' marathon of a book. It needed to match up to the pace of the Potter play. I spotted This Is Where It Ends in a bookshop recently and reading the blurb on the back it immediately pulled in my attention.

10:00 a.m. The principal of Opportunity High School finishes her speech, welcoming the entire student body to a new semester and encouraging them to excel and achieve.

10:02 a.m. The students get up to leave the auditorium for their next class.

10:03 a.m. The auditorium doors won't open.

10:05 a.m. Someone starts shooting.

I have very recently read another book about a school shooting, Steena Holmes' ‘Stillwater Rising' which I gave a moderate review to as it didn't live up to the standard of Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes, the book I've always felt made me think most deeply about such horrific events as these books seek to portray. I was keen to see how Marieke Nijkamp approached the subject matter.

Firstly this book isn't written for the adult audience but instead is aimed at a Young Adult and teen age group and where Holme's was focused upon the effects of school shootings on the adults left behind Nijkamp takes us into the heart of the event itself, inside the school through the eyes of four of the people involved as the shooting takes place. We see events through the eyes of people within the auditorium with the shooter including his sister and also two teens within the school grounds but away from the actual events as they desperately try to do what they can to help their friends and family inside the auditorium.

It is non stop action throughout, the chapters are short and snappy and within each chapter Nijkamp switches to different perspectives of different characters as they all recount their actions, emotions and observations of the events of the shooting that unfold that day. As a result it was very difficult to put this book down. You just want to know what is going to happen next, we have flashbacks interspersed into characters observations that help to flesh out the reasons why perhaps the shooter may be carrying out such a callous execution of his friends, classmates and teachers. I found it hard to stop reading, and although this isn't a hugely long book at less than 200 pages it felt like I was flying through it.

I've seen various reviews of this book, some of the more negative reviews I've seen have criticised the book for not taking time to explore the mind and reasoning of the shooter Ty, we are never granted any dialogue from his perspective. Instead he is always a third party character, observed by the other's in the book. Never do we get to break down properly what could have motivated him. Instead the reasons are reduced to him being abused by his father and the loss of his mother in a car accident. Some people have said this angered them and meant they were upset by this simplified approach. I can see their perspective and agree I would have liked even as part of the epilogue to have had a chapter from Ty's voice, talking about the message he intended to leave people as a result of the shooting, a letter found retrospectively or anything to have given this book a more rounded perspective. That is the reason why I've given only 4 and not 5 stars to this book.

It sits quite well within it's Young Adult genre and as an adult I loved it and didn't find it sugar coated the events however as a parent I'd be wary of allowing children too young to read it.

I enjoyed this book significantly more than Holmes' interpretation of the difficult subject of school shootings but on reflection I'd still say that Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult was the one that really allowed us to view the subject from all angles and left me unsettled for days after by the uncomfortable moral questions she raised about bullying, teen cliques and parenting. She covered it all. Nijkamp has done an amazing job of looking at the fear, drama and immediate responses during a shooting and it would definitely be a book I'd recommend to others as a strong book to read if you enjoyed Nineteen Minutes.

I kicked off my July reading this month with the third book in the A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J Maas. I've read this series quite quickly over the past month or so and it was my first experience of this author but I'd heard such great things that it drew me to this series and I am so glad that I did.

This third book in the series will be the final one Maas writes from the perspective of Feyre and her mate Rhysand, we are anticipating more books in the world Maas has built but they will be focusing upon different characters from the world and so this book was where Maas had to really bring together all the threads of Feyre and Rhysand's stories and make sure she also laid the groundwork for the book that is to follow.

This means that we pick up in this book immediately after the end of Book 2, with Feyre returning to The Spring Court with Tamlin having been torn apart from her mate Rhysand. Feyre is playing double agent though and has pretended she never felt anything for Rhys and is now going with Tamlin for the sole purpose of trying to infiltrate his court and find out all she can about their alliance with Hybern and the King of Hybern's plans to attack the human realm. This return to the Spring Court was a great opening to this book, it allows us to connect with those characters we fell in love with in Book 1, Lucien and Alis and to allow us to re-examine the relationship with Tamlin and see just how dysfunctional it could have been.

The subterfuge Feyre undertakes to cause disharmony in the Spring court is a wonderful opening to the book, the wiles she uses to make Tamlin trust her while sowing the seeds of doubt in the minds of those close to him about his actions are brilliant. Feyre has reached the point in this book where she is strong and sure of herself, she has learned much about the strength of her powers and is willing to use them to ensure she protects the human world and to get back to the night court and Rhysand.

There is so so much that happens in this book, at nearly 760 pages and each one full of so much action it would take a long long review to break down each and every plot point and would also spoil for readers who haven't delved in yet, however, there are a few areas I feel worthy of discussion at this point.

Firstly is the way in which this world and it's characters have expanded over the course of the three books. When I think back to A Court of Thorns and Roses I now realise how small the world Maas painted was compared to where we finish at the end of A Court of Wings and Ruin. Throughout the books she has added to the world piece by piece and book by book until at the end of this series we have met such a rich cast that the world feels truly three dimensional. This is one of the things I have loved most about this series, Maas never makes any character feel short-changed from their time on the page. She takes the time to develop them all enough, to give them light and shade and a back story that we feel engaged in them, we like or dislike them enough that we truly care about their fate. This is really exciting because as we move away from Feyre and Rhysand in this series there are so many possibilities of who we could focus upon next that it is going to be so exciting to find out who Maas may choose. Will she follow Feyre's sisters and their mates? Will she follow the story of Myriam and Drakon, who's story was only hinted at near the end of this book? Will she explore Lucien's backstory and his uncovering of his heritage? Each and every option sounds amazing and this is because of the way Maas builds her characters and weaves them in so that you never feel overwhelmed or confused about who is who but she almost without you noticing builds a whole world fo you to lose yourself in.

The second thing about this book was the way in which the action unfolded, I found this book had a really strong start, it immediately was back into the story with no stopping to fill in any backstory just moving the story along. I did find a little dip around 100 pages in and I'm not sure if that was down to me and I had a little struggle for 50 pages or so then suddenly I was back the moment and I could not put this down. My husband took my children out for the day on their school holidays and I got some precious alone time and for the 4 hours they were away I read this solidly getting through 250-300 pages. When my daughter came home she asked me how I could read that long without getting bored and I said to her that this book had had me shouting out loud at it's pages. Punching the air in joy and at it's ending crying my eyes out. It took me through so many emotions that it left me feeling drained by the end. There were such wonderful high moments and then heartbreaking moments that Maas had been building to over the course of all the books. Characters we had only touched on had their moment in the spotlight and left us loving them in ways we never thought they would evoke from us.

Finally, I am going to be sad not to follow Feyre and Rhysand in the next book, I love them and their relationship. They have become one of my all time favourite couples in any books I've read because of the way in which they support each other without question through all they do. The way they each are happy to let them be their own individual people with thoughts and decisions of their own whilst they are absolutely devoted to one another. We are given a small and unusual glimpse of what is to come in their future in this book and that was one of the most touching moments for me. I would dearly love to touch on them from time to time as the series moves on but whoever Maas focuses upon next has a huge legacy to live up to in this couple. They have been a joy to follow and I know I am not alone in having them very high on my favourite literary couples list.

I am delighted I have discovered Sarah J. Maas as an author and will be taking time over the months ahead to delve into her Throne of Glass series also, although I have a couple of other series I'd like to complete and try first. I now fully understand why so many readers were excited about this series and can say these books absolutely do live up to the hype they have received.

To be very honest the description of The Book Thief didn't grip me initially, the story of a young girl hiding a Jew in the basement of her adopted parents home whilst having her story narrated by death all sounded a little maudlin.

Then I watched the trailer for the movie adaptation and was intrigued enough that I decided that in my usual fashion I needed to read the book before watching the movie. It was on my to do list but wasn't pressing until I read Prisoner of Night and Fog and realised that whilst it showed what was happening inside the Nazi party prior to the war it would be nice to read about what was happening outwith in the streets of Germany during the war.

I have to be honest the first few chapters were a little unusual, death makes for a strange narrative character and he jumped around a fair bit not making much sense. However as we moved forward and we travelled with Leisel, our Book Thief of the title, to her new foster family the book became truly engaging.

It was full of really well crafted characters, not least those of her foster parents Hans and Rosa. Rather than a couple with a child forced upon them we find genuine warmth and affection for Leisel. Their beliefs are refreshing in that they don't sit comfortably alongside those of Hitler's Germany. A promise made during World War I brings a Jewish refugee to their door and there begins a dangerous time for them all.

It isn't just the story of Leisel and her friend Max whom we follow. We also fall in love with all the other colourful characters of Himmel Street. Rudy, Leisel's school friend and partner in crime. The mayors wife who gives Liesel access to her library of books. The strange lady who owns the local shop. It is a wonderful blend of stories all told in a great book.

As with any book of this time period it isn't one without great sorrow or sense of danger. Perhaps that is why Death made such a fitting narrator as it is made clear throughout that his work was never so in demand as during those terrible years of world was II.

It is a beautiful book and was a brilliant book to read after having read Prisoner of Night and Fog as it truly did move from the glamour and nievety of Hitler's Germany pre-war to the brutality, fear and sense of impending doom of the war years.

It is truly deserving of all the accolades this book has received and is a joy to read

I am utterly in love with this series! If I wasn't hooked after reading Traitor's Blade late last year Knight's Shadow has stolen my heart completely. I am in awe of the wonderful storytelling in these books and right about now I'm wishing that I could do nothing more in this world than become a Greatcoat.

Yes, less than a month after I finished Traitor's Blade I delved back into Sebastien de Castell's wonderful Greatcoats series about the adventures of musketeer-esque friends Falcio, Kest and Brasti as they travel their country trying to put into action the promises gained from them by their now dead King. Picking up immediately after the ending of Book 1 we are immediately back into the story of the 3 brave soldiers trying to now put the dead King's daughter on the throne and save their country and put an end to the inequalities in their land. They know they will need to try and overcome the scheming and dangerous Duke's in their land and fight to do so whilst still being regarded as traitors.

Initially, it took me a few chapters to get back into the swing of things, to refresh my memory of what had happened in the explosive exploits of Book 1 but once I had cleared things up it and the action started to pick up this book was absolutely non-stop. If we thought there was political intrigue in Traitor's Blade well Knight's Shadow takes it to a whole new level. Someone is murdering the Duke's of Tristia and their families and Falcio, Kest and Brasti find themselves with the finger pointing at them. Who is trying to start a civil war and why? We travel Tristia with our Greatcoats as they try to stop the assassinations before they occur and find out just who is behind it.

Our circle of Greatcoats grows in this book, we add more allies to the little band of 3 giving us more context in which to view our heroes and the way they interact. The other thing I loved about Castell's writing in this book is the way in which he brings smaller characters from Book 1 and enhances their story for us. He doesn't simply say that the villain is all bad, he gives us more context and light and shade so we can see the complexities of their situation and how they can be redeemable. Also how he can take a small character and allow them to shine and be the hero, meaning someone who has perhaps been featured a small amount across both books leaves you feeling welled up and emotional when their story plays out.

Castell makes no compromises when it comes to outlining the more gruesome parts of this book, he doesn't shy away from violence and yet he never makes you feel uncomfortable with the amount or nature of it. There's lots of swordfights and battles in this book to give us plenty of departures and moments for our heroes to shine but for me, the star part is the wonderful political manoeuvring that Falcio manages throughout. This is my all time favourite thing to read, the careful managing of the different players on the board, the tiny moves that are made to move everyone to the position in which you want them. Castell's series is proving a master at this and for that reason, I am one of it's biggest fans.

I absolutely cannot wait to read the last 2 books in this quartet and already have them on my shelf ready to pick up in the weeks ahead and it says something that already I'm worried I'm going to miss my 3 Greatcoats when I'm done and am wishing that maybe he might release a fifth?

As I sit and think about how to put into words my feelings about this book I am still somewhat stunned by it, having just read the final pages. I am trying to think about the last time a book left me feeling quite so emotional and quite so bereft now I have finished it. It's hard to imagine that I only picked it up 24 hours ago and yet it has left such an indelible mark upon me that it may be one of the best books I've ever read.

The winner of The Carnegie Medal One by Sarah Crossan was somewhat of a revelation to me when I picked it up last night. I had picked it up in my local library having heard nothing about it and glancing at the blurb on the back had established it was a story of conjoined twins and their lives together. Finding it in the teen section I had expected a contemporary light-hearted read so you can imagine my initial surprise when I opened the pages to find that the book is written entirely in free verse. I have never read a book written in this style before and I initially wasn't sure whether it would detract from my enjoyment of the story or if I'd struggle to immerse myself.

I found very quickly that this was not the case, yes the pages are generally very short, although it came in at 434 pages I literally flew through it, I read it in a day but I wasn't sitting consistently reading so I reckon you could do it in just a few hours. The style of writing is engaging and draws you in, it isn't rhyming prose but the way it is written is carefully structured to draw out the important parts of the story and to allow you to focus in on certain phrases and emotions making it a powerful and impactful read.

The story is that of Grace and Tippi, conjoined twins who are about to start high school for the first time. Told from Grace's perspective we learn about their life together, the way that the world views them, the challenges they face and the most important thing of all - how they are two people with two different personalities and beliefs, not just one. Their story of beginning school for the first time and the way this makes them feel is heartfelt and this along with the story of the struggles their family face just to keep them cared for medically and the impact this has had upon each member is heartbreaking. It is the ongoing struggle the girls face to lead normal teenage lives that build the foundation of the book and their strength together that hits home.

The girls are clearly beginning to struggle medically and are scared to think about what this might mean for their future and this book takes us on that journey with them. All the time you root for these girls, you want them to be happy because as they say in the book being conjoined twins isn't the worst thing in the world. Surely there are many worse things that could happen to a person than being joined to the person they love most in the whole world?

I cannot recommend this book highly enough, I know I'm going to bore everyone for the next year or so recommending this one as one of those very special books that will remain with me forever. I am so very glad I didn't allow it's format to sway me not to read it. I am so pleased that I took the time to delve into the world of Grace and that her story has been recognised by so many as worthy of recognition. Sarah Crossan has delivered a very clever, touching and inspiring book. I'd give it more stars than 5 if I could.

I was captivated by The Little Beach Street Bakery when it was released last year. Following on from the successful method of releasing mini series of books like Rosie Hopkins Sweet Shop and the Cupcake Cafe, Jenny Colgan has decided this year to revisit Polly in Mount Polbearn and the quaint little bakery we all fell in love with last year.

Often when books form part of a series people week say it's okay if you've not read the first one, in this case I'd say it's probably better if you had add it tends to delve straight in where we left Polly at the end of book one and its tears straight on with all the characters so you might feel a little out of the loop if you haven't read book one.

If you have read book one then you'll feel right at home as Polly, her boyfriend Huckle and her puffin Neil live out their idyllic life on a tiny Cornish island as Polly runs the local bakery. Trouble is on the horizon though as the owner of the bakery passes away and Polly finds it under new ownership who have very different views on what makes a good bakery.

It's got the same charm as the first book and I loved the first half of the book but I have to admit to finding the latter half less engaging. It was very reminiscent of book one, almost too much so and some of the story felt a little bit samey. I hate saying that about a Jenny Colgan book but in this case I felt there was something missing to drive the story onward.

It seemed to almost have too much going on and many of the story threads I wanted to explore seemed to stop short so we could follow ones we already had in the first book. I wanted to spend more time on Nan the Van and Polly's business venture and less on other aspects.

It's a nice easy going read and leaves a warm fuzzy feeling as Colgan's books often do and if you liked book one I'm sure you'll find lots to enjoy it's purely that I felt her other series' have been better as sets than this one had turned out.

I've been continuing to challenge myself by reading new authors and different genres over the past few months and the Six of Crows duology has been raved about by so many people that I literally couldn't help but delve into this wonderful book by Leigh Bardugo.

Set in the Grisha world this book has the same setting as the Shadow & Bone series and I wasn't sure if the fact I hadn't read this earlier trilogy would mean I couldn't delve into Six of Crows with the same understanding. To reassure any readers with similar reservations I can confirm that in no way did my not having read Shadow & Bone reduce my understanding of the world of Six of Crows.

Six of Crows is a wonderful novel about a group of six misfits who are hired to conduct a heist into an unbreakable island and rescue a political prisoner. A mix of unusual characters from different walks of life they are pulled together by Kaz Brekker, gang mastermind, and together they must travel across their country to another realm where if they can rescue a scientist, held prisoner they will be paid a huge sum beyond their dreams.

Immediately when I began this book I loved the setting, it has a feel of old fashioned Netherlands, the language and speech patterns the characters use reflects this and it sets the atmosphere wonderfully. It also begins with a slight Gangs of New York vibe also, as gangs in the barrel battle to hold the position of top dog. Kaz Brekker is a misfit, a boy with a tangled past and a score to settle and to do this he needs to raise as much money to help him so when the offer to lead this heist comes up he can't say no. Kaz is the best at what he does, he's a criminal mastermind and with the help of his chosen assailants, he is sure they can pull off the impossible.

This book was wonderful, it was told from all the multiple points of view of the different gang members. We have lots of back stories to learn and Bardugo does a wonderful job of outlining these throughout the book and before we know what's happening we care deeply about each of them and the threads between them and their loyalties have grown and they make wonderful heroes to read about.

This book is full of excitement and action and it moves along at a wonderful pace. The plan the gang is following is held back from us and we only learn as it unfolds and this makes it wonderfully mysterious and keeps you reading chapter after chapter so quickly your head will spin. This is a substantial book and yet I read it really quickly. We are left with an unresolved ending and we are clearly going to resolve this in book 2, Crooked Kingdom and so I now cannot wait to move on and read this.

A really strong book and one I would highly recommend.

Cecelia Ahern has been a firm favourite in my author list for years, in fact one of the best chic lit books of our generation (P.S. I Love You) was penned by this wonderful Irish author. This is her first foray into young adult fiction and it also is a move away from a standard romance format to one that fits more into the dystopian fiction that has become so hugely popular with teens in the last few years.

As with some of the more popular dystopian series of recent years we have a strong female central character, Celestine. We also have a society which due to corruption has chosen to impliment strong rules and regulations for it's citizens, in the case of Ahern's Flawed it is that society will make an example of anyone found to make a decision that is deemed immoral or not in line with decent society. This can be anything from bad business decisions to aiding a family member with assisted suicide. In this case people found guilty of being Flawed are deemed to be lesser citizens and they therefore have to live life with a different set of rules around jobs they can hold, how and where they can socialise and children they bear.

Celestine is a popular girl, dating the son of the ruler of the flawed court. She has great prospects for her future and is deemed to be almost perfect by those she knows. One day she makes a mistake which will change her life forever and see her faced with the prospect of living life as one of the ‘Flawed'.

The first in a series this book contains all the checklist formula required for books in this genre, we have the fiesty good looking heroine, two potential suitors who fall into distinctly two categories (the good boy and the one from the other side of the tracks), a bad guy we can all hate who is in charge of the system and a society beginning to question the rules under which it lives. Ahern has ticked all the boxes and you cannot fail to draw parallels between this series and The Hunger Games and The Divergent series.

I really enjoyed the book, perhaps more than I believed I would initially. I liked the way in which Celestine's crime was written. It was an ideal example of how corrupt the society in which she lived actually was. I liked some of the characters that weren't featured that much in the book, especially Celestine's grandfather, who I believe should play a larger role moving forward in the series as it would appear he has much to share. The family around Celestine was also well constructed, especially her mother and it was nice to see how she changed throughout the book.

In relation to the piece of evidence Celestine is seeking throughout the book, I have a sneaking suspicion I know exactly where it is and I'm sure I'm not alone, surely we aren't as readers so much smarter than the lead character? I did find this frustrating and kept silently shouting at the book, “You haven't looked there yet!” Unless there's a major plot twist it would appear to be clear where it's gone.

I'm definitely going to read the second book in this series, I just hope that unlike Hunger Games and Divergent that it doesn't become too embroiled in the breakdown of society through mass fighting, I'd have to say I like it when people win through words not through action and at times I felt the latter books in the other series could be let down by this and it would be nice to see this series break the mould.

I think it's important to mention upfront that sci-fi novels are absolutely not my thing. I am all about romance, people's stories and relationships. These are the things that drive me through a book and engage me. It was therefore with some surprise that I found myself absolutely desperate to delve into Illuminae, a book that falls very firmly into the sci-fi category and not only that but I absolutely loved it. It lived up to every single amazing review I'd seen of it.

This book is such departure from any other book I've ever read. Instead of being written as a straighforward narrative, filled with chapters we have a book full of email conversations, surveillance reports, interviews and printouts from the memory of an enormous Artificial Intelligence computer called AIDAN. and despite it's very hefty size (it is a BIG book) I flew through it in 4 days. I could not put it down, when I wasn't reading it I was thinking about it. I was lucky enough to not only have the e-book to digest but also the audiobook and I'd switch between them both and sometimes listen to both in conjunction as the audiobook is done with a whole cast of different narrators playing the different roles in the book and it brought it to life so beautifully. I used this method at the beginning of the book and it really helped to draw me in.

The story is set in the year 2575 where a small outlying ‘settlement' in space is attacked by a major company called Bei-Tech who are apparently doing this because their is illegal mining going on. Huge numbers of the residents of Kerenza perish in the attack but some surivors flee into space aboard 3 spacecrafts, the Copernicus, the Hypatia and the Alexander but they are pursued by an enemy ship, the Lincoln who seem intent on their destruction. They must travel across space to a ‘jump station' where they will be able to escape but their ship is damaged and the AI, AIDAN, is developing a mind of it's own and they have a journey of almost a year ahead of them and with each day the enemy ships get closer. To add to all their dilemas there is a virus spreading onboard the Copernicus which is rendering it's victims mindlessly violent to the point of murder and there is no way of stopping it's mutation.

The story focuses upon 2 surviving teens, Kady and Ezra, from Kerenza who are travelling on board two separate spaceships, the Hypatia and the Alexander. Boyfriend and girlfriend until the day of the attack they begin communicating with each other via the ships comms and they begin to realise that things are being hidden from them by the crew about the attack on Kerenza and about how dire their position really is. Ezra is recruited as a pilot on board the Alexander whilst Kady, a computer genius, begins hacking into the ships on board computers to locate information about what is being hidden from them.

The book was non-stop action the whole way through. I initially worried about how much detail we could really gain from the writing style and would it almost be emotionless but instead it is rich with emotion and full of wonderful detail about life on board the spacecrafts. There are so many twists and turns that for the first time in a long time this book actually had me shouting out loud “NO WAY did that just happen.” Just when you thought it was settling down and you could catch your breath then another twist would come and you'd be right off again on that journey with Ezra and Kady and thinking “this book is amazing”

This books forms part of a trilogy of novels known as The Illuminae Files and I am absolutely going to read the second novel Gemina which is already available and will be in the queue for book 3, Obsidio, when it is released in 2018. As we moved towards the end of Illuminae I began to wonder how on earth we were going to have a second book as the serious peril people were in would mean a whole new cast of characters. I am really keen to see where the author's are going to take the remainder of the series.

I couldn't recommend this book highly enough, if like me sci-fi really isn't your bag then please do not let that put you off. This was one of the most engaging and unique books I have ever read and I imagine it will remain with for a long time to come.

This year I've tried hard to really focus on completing series when I've started them. I've so far managed to blitz through around 6 sets this year and I was keen to complete The Wrath & The Dawn duology by Renee Ahdieh as well. Having really enjoyed the first book I was really keen to see how they would continue the wonderful Arabian story in The Rose & The Dagger.

The second book picks up very quickly after the end of The Wrath & The Dawn with Khalid trying to rebuild his broken city of Rey and Shazi having been taken to safety by Tariq to a settlement in the desert where she has been reunited with her sister and father. Tariq is still working with his uncle and the head of the desert tribes to try and overthrow Shazi's husband who is still greatly misunderstood for killing his brides each night after their weddings. Shazi has been the only one to survive and Tariq is disappointed that his true love has fallen in love with another.

I found the first 100 pages of this book a little slow to get going, the chapters would flit between Khalid and Shaharzad and we really miss them being together and the sparks that would fly when they were. The initial chapters though are forgotten once the action does get going. We have so much going on, lots of new characters and romances and relationships and some really jaw-dropping OMG moments that keep you glued. Once the action was underway I flew through the last chapters, scared to take my eyes off the page in case I missed anything. There is magic, betrayal, true love, grief and loss and it makes for a wonderful end to this duology.

Again the atmosphere of the world Ahdieh builds jumps off the page in spades. Whilst there are lots of unfamiliar words for the different clothes, weapons and cultural references to the Arabian world in which this book is set it doesn't detract from the enjoyment. Instead, it brings a really exotic flavour and a world in which I could spend all day.

I couldn't recommend this book, or the duology as a whole any higher. It's been a really fun journey and because these books have quite a different setting I have a feeling they will linger with me for some time to come.

I have been searching for a book to topple Jay Kristoff's Nevernight from my favourite book of the year slot since I read it earlier in 2018, somehow nothing ever really came close...until I read the sequel.

And did it surprise me? Absolutely not. This is a series that seems destined to swallow me up whole and it has absolutely the most fierce, badass heroine of any book I've read and the breathtaking twists and turns we take on the journey of Mia Corvere is a ride I'm not quite willing to get off yet. In fact, I am now counting down the days till the release of Darkdawn later this month.

The opening of Godsgrave is definitely one that leaves us with plenty of questions as we find Mia captured by Slave Traders and on her way to be sold at market. How did we go from her being admitted into the Red Church of Assassins to being sold as a slave? The first section of this book allows us to flit between Mia's adventures in the months leading up to these events whilst also allowing us to follow her travels in the present. One thing is for sure Mia is back and she's as crazy as ever and she in turns had me laughing out loud and equally breaking my heart for her on this journey we take.

As with Nevernight there is the return of many of our favourite characters from the Red Church and Mia's past, some alliances we do not expect and a whole new cast of amazing characters to fall in love with. We learn more about Mia's family and their past and some shocking secrets that are revealed in the closing chapters that we really didn't anticipate. Set in a world that very much echoes Gladiator games in the Roman Empire we watch Mia fight for her life over and over throughout this book and the friends she makes along the way and the joy it brings me as a reader just haven't been matched by any other fantasy series this year, or ever.

Echoing the writing style of Nevernight we have lots of footnotes throughout expanding for us readers the world in which Kristoff's characters reside and a history of the world for those who long to immerse themselves in it. Often these are witty and sarcastic and full of parables and tales of warning to us readers. They add so much sass and attitude to the narrative and I personally love them. They are not as prevalent as they were in Nevernight but there is still more than enough for those who love them to get their fill.

So, 20 days till Darkdawn is released, I held off waiting to read Godsgrave until my library obtained a copy of the book, I don't know if I'm going to have the patience if they wait as long next time around. I have a feeling I may be delving into Darkdawn in August if only to answer all those questions in my head about just what is going to happen to all my favourite characters and whether justice will ever truly be served.

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas and that time of year when it's lovely to delve into a festive read full of romance, snow and sparkles. The cover for Amanda Prowse's christmas novel ‘Christmas for One' was so inviting and beautiful it was the book I chose to be my first festive read this holiday season.

The story is that of single mum Meg and her son Lucas as they begin to prepare for the festive season. Meg has always had high expectations of Christmas but after many years spent being passed from foster family to foster family her reality had never quite matched up.

Working alongside sisters Pru and Milly in their Patisserie she finds herself headed to New York to help launch their new store. Whilst there she meets and falls in love with architect Ed and begins to believe there may be a possibility of a happy future for them all.

This book is nothing new, it's story won't give anything you've not already read in another several holiday books. That said the characters are endearing and the setting lovely. Meg is very sweet and you do root for her to find her happy ending.

Only a very few issues I had with this book were firstly that from a mother who had felt the seperation from own family at Christmas so keenly I didn't buy that she would have been comfortable not being with her son on Christmas Day itself. Secondly I found the ending a little bit rushed. It jumped quite dramatically by a year and teases us with what's happened but doesn't really pad it out enough which I found frustrating as the percentage count on my kindle read 69% when I got to the end. I was therefore expecting at least another thirdish of the book to conclude everything and instead it all kind of ground to a halt.

A nice Christmas read and a good start to my holiday reads but I have a feeling it won't be my best this year.

I always get really excited when there is a new Jane Green book released, I have become used to having a shiny new story from one of my favourite authors on my bookstand ready just in time for summer reading and this year didn't disappoint with the release of The Sunshine Sisters in June.

This book is, like all Green's books, a tale of family. It begins with an actress Ronni Sunshine preparing to end her own life due to illness. She is frail and in pain and has been storing painkillers and despite the reservations of her three daughters she has made her decision and she wants to choose how she leaves her life.

From this point the book goes back in time and follows the lives of Ronni's 3 daughters Nell, Meredith and Lizzy. We follow the girls from their childhood with their famous B-list actress mother and learn quickly that their relationship with her is strained. Their mother is narcissistic and focused so much on her own career she fails often to pay attention to her children. She criticises them and her personality overshadows them and over the years she drives them away and sows seeds of disharmony between them. Nell, a single mother, chooses to run a farm near to her mother but is lonely and finds it difficult to form relationships. Meredith has moved to London and struggles with her self-image and is planning to marry a man she doesn't love. Meanwhile, Lizzy, the youngest, is a celebrity chef who is cheating on her husband and is a risk taker who spends little time considering other people.

This book is about the journey the girls go through as they are called home by their mother for her to share news of her illness and about how they each have to face the demons of their relationship with Ronni. Ronni wants nothing more than to reunite her girls before she passes away and that is the fundamental story of this book, the desire of a mother to bring her girls together to support each other in a way she never did.

I read this book so quickly, I literally did it in under 2 days and I loved every single second of it. I though each of the characters brought something different to the story and the way their points of view were told was really engaging. Nell was strong and capable on the outside but scared of carrying the huge burden of her farm alone and lacking anyone to share her troubles with who would be there for just her. Meredith was the gentlest of the 3, second guessing herself all the time, scarred by a mother who always told her she wasn't good enough and settling for a man who showed her the slightest bit of attention she was my favourite of the sisters and I longed for her to be happy and find acceptance.

Lizzy was the most complex of the 3, she was ballsy and most like her mother with a confidence in herself the other two sisters lacked. She had a different relationship with her mother and has forged a similar career where she is in the public eye and as a result she is repeating many of her mother's mistakes. She was the one it was hardest to like but the one who Ronni had to all appearances the most loving relationship with but she was inherently a good person.

The emotion in this book was outstanding, Ronni is a character we want to hate. She's portrayed as a pretty awful mother and yet in this book we learn that there are things about our parents we will never know until it's too late. I also loved the quote from this book that I think bears relevance to all of our lives.....

“It doesn't matter how many years go by, how grown up we think we are, how much we presume we have changed or evolved, when we are back in our childhood homes, we become exactly who we have always been”

That is the crux of this story that although we may move away and grow we will at some point come home and when we do family will be the only people who shared that experience with you of growing up in your home and only there and with those people can you make your peace with yourself and with those you love.

Another incredible and touching novel this is Jane Green at her absolute best, it's just an incredible book and absolutely one of my favourite reads this year, it deserves every one of it's five stars.

I have never made any secret of the high regard in which I hold the writing of Jane Green, I have always stood by my view that her books have grown as the author has and that her books have reflected the different stages she herself has moved through in life. I think the only book I haven't outright raved about was Summer Secrets and so I was really keen to delve into her newest novel Falling to get my fix of new material as soon as it was released.

This is a lovely story of Emma who moves from her big city life as a banker to Westport, Connecticut where she begins renting a beach house from single father Dominic who lives next door with his six year old son Jesse. Emma has a talent for interior design and immediately begins transforming her new home with a little help from her landlord and as they spend more time together they begin to form a friendship which promises to grow into something more.

I found an article when I was reading this book about Jane Green and the fact that she herself fell for her landlord after her first husband left her to care for their children alone and she found herself a divorced single parent building a new life for herself in a new place. This keep resonating with me through the early parts of this book, that in so many ways Green was giving us a little secret glimpse into her own world and in many ways the character of Emma resonates so much with what we know of the author herself. The love of small town living and interior design and a wonderful love of cooking and family and a budding relationship with a man who is also your landlord.

This book spoke to me on one particular level that I felt was very special and that is the aspect where as she and Dominic, her landlord, become romantically involved she finds herself also becoming an important feature in the life of his young son, Jesse. This particular story resonated with me because I also have been in that situation myself. When my husband and I met 16 years ago he also was a single dad, living alone with a young son and they had as close a relationship as Jane Green speaks about between the father and son in her book.

Managing to come into a tight little unit of two boys bonded together by blood is not an easy feat. You walk a fine line between girlfriend, mother and outsider. There are times when other couples would be doing purely couple things that you instead find yourself sharing your partner with this little person and suddenly you go from single life to family days out and doing the school run. Green writes about this beautifully and is excellent at painting the emotional strain this can put upon a budding relationship. I was so very lucky in that I never ever remember my future stepson being unkind or difficult about my being there with him and his dad but I know that he so very easily could have struggled with this and acted out in the ways Jesse does in the book.

I also found that in this book we move back towards the writing I love so much from Jane Green where she blends flawlessly the different relationships in Emma's life. Her difficult relationship with her mother who she sees as a bit of a social climbing wannabe and her similarity to her father who is instead a little introverted. I particularly loved the conversation Emma has with her father about whether an extrovert and introvert can ever be happy together and how he responds by explaining that they need each other to bring balance to life and how if he didn't have his extrovert wife he would never ever leave the house. I could empathise with that as it reminded me of my husband and I and the struggle we sometimes have where I am happy not to leave our home for days on end whilst he gets fidgety if made to stay home for more than a day.

I read some reviews that gave a very poor review of this book and I am honestly perplexed by them. Some said that the story was a little slow moving but instead of being slow moving I found it a refreshing change that we had moved back to focus being on the emotional journey of Green's characters.

I do not want to give away any spoilers on this book but would only say that the ending in particular was beautiful. The difficult situation that Emma finds herself in with suddenly being unable to remain a part of a relationship that has become so very important to her due to circumstances she could never have foreseen really was a wonderful thing to discuss. To recognise the position that so many people will have found themselves in and with no legal rights to call upon Green writes sensitively and with great insight into a topic I've not seen discussed in many books before.

I loved this book, I know I will be recommending it this summer as it is all the things I love about this author's writing. It's set in a wonderful, idyllic setting that feels peaceful and special, has wonderful characters who are easily likeable and far more than one dimensional and a story which demonstrates that this is an author with a great deal of life experience and important journeys to share. Now to find things to read to fill the time till Green's next wonderful release.

Ben Elton books have never really appealed to me - I remember trying one many years ago loosely based on the Big Brother concept and it failed to grip me, I was therefore surprised by the urgent need I had to read Time and Time Again, his latest novel, after reading its dust jacket in my local Sainsbury's store.

It immediately intrigued me as the story talks about what would happen if you had one chance to go back and change history, which single event would you alter to make the world a better place. The story's hero has exactly that chance when he travels back to June 1914 just weeks before the events that would trigger the outbreak of World War I.

The story begins in 2024 where Army captain Hugh Stanton is asked to visit his old Cambridge history professor, having recently lost his wife and children he is alone and grieving and unprepared for the task his old friend will ask of him.

The story jumps back and forth a bit at the start between Hugh in Constantinople in 1914 and his preparation for his journey in 2024 and it is immediately gripping and engaging. We are led carefully to the point where through great writing we understand Hugh's mission and the events he must stop in order to change the world.

I must be honest I am not brilliant at World War I history or the politics which caused it and I felt I learned a great deal from reading this book as it drove me to the Internet to correlate the fiction I was reading with the facts and I genuinely feel I came away more informed and aware than when I began. The countries and places the book takes us to are really atmospheric and painted in beautiful writing by Elton, Turkey, Berlin, London, the Orient Express in its hey day.

There were brilliant thought provoking moments as well that made me really think like when Hugh meets a young Irish suffragette just after completing the first part of his mission. He tells her he is sure the vote for women will happen soon but he realises that the driver for the rise in support for women's votes is the very war he has potentially just stopped. Suddenly as a reader my mind began spinning, how would this affect women the world over, just how big an impact can one small act have.

It is a wonderful book, I have read some reviews saying Stephen King wrote a similar book and did so better but having not had that to contrast against I can't say I felt disappointed or at all like this book was lacking. It has also been compared to Life After Life by Kate Atkinson but I felt it was more about the personal journey of the main character whereas Elton had written more about the impact upon humanity as a whole.

I loved the ending, it was brilliant the way it twisted and suddenly made clear that assumptions I'd made as a reader from the books outset were actually untrue and it was a much more complex ending than I'd anticipated. It was an intelligent and clever ending and left me unable to quite get this book out of my head.

One of the books that appealed to me from the shelf and didn't let me down once I delved in it was hugely satisfying and enjoyable.

This book seemed to be prominent on bookshelves over the last year, it's presence always hovering and intriguing me as this author's debut seemed to have gripped so many other readers I decided it was worth a try.

The opening of the book immediately takes us into the story as the opening chapter walks us through the hit and run that kills young 6 year old Jacob whilst his mother walks him home from school. The driver fleeing the scene is shocking and the heart wrenching grief of his mother means we are instantly engaged in the characters and the resolution of the crime which has left this innocent young boy dead.

From there we are led into alternating chapters between the police officers investigating the incident and trying to piece together what happened and that of Jenna, who having lost her son is fleeing her grief and running away to a small Welsh village to escape her past. It is clear the police are having no luck finding the perpetrator of the crime and we follow them over the course of a year as they seek to find new leads whilst the victim's mother has fled her home seeking to forget the incident.

Many of the reviews I read of this book spoke of amazing twists in the tale approximately half way through and said it's story ‘blew them away', maybe I was reading a different book as from the outset I had pretty much gathered what this major ‘twist' was going to be and also how this arc in the story was going to then be played out.

The character of Jenna is written really well and I can understand why people become so engaged in her story of grief and distress. As a character I really liked her and was invested in her seeing justice, I wanted her to be able to see the person who killed her child brought to justice. I liked the small Welsh village she escaped to and the people she met there and how they all closed ranks around her and helped her start again.

For me I could only give this book 3 stars because whilst I enjoyed it there wasn't the same sense of suspense I'd been led to believe the book would give me. It didn't take me somewhere I wasn't expecting to go. The clues were there in the chapters if you read closely enough you would guess where the story was headed and I wish the secrets had been guarded a little more closely so as to hit me more unexpectedly.

The other reason I only gave a 3 star review was the ending of the book and the revelation of the true story and reasons for the hit and run had one aspect that left me feeling the author had tried one twist too far. There was a link between victim and driver that didn't need to be there, it didn't make it feel real for me.

I'm trying very hard in this review not to give away anything more about the story of this book than is absolutely necessary because whilst there were aspects I didn't enjoy there was much to like about the book and it is worth reading if you've enjoyed thrillers such as The Girl on The Train or Gone Girl.

I've heard only great things about Sarah Dessen's books and Saint Anything was the first one that crossed my radar a few months ago now and I knew immediately when I read the synopsis that I would be adding it to my To Be Read pile, if not only in part because the cover art for this book is absolutely beautiful.

A contemporary story this is a beautiful story with its roots very much in the importance of family and friendship. Sydney is a high school junior when her brother Peyton is sent to prison for a DUI accident which leaves another young teen in a wheelchair. A culmination of a long series of criminal misdemeanors and drug issues means that Sydney has no illusions about her brother's culpability but her parents still seem to be blinded to their golden child's faults. Struggling to escape the shadow her brother casts over their lives Sydney moves to a new school and there meets Layla, Mac and their close family who run a local pizza restaurant and their friendship and welcoming home suddenly offer a safe haven that Syndey is badly in need of.

This book is so heartwarming, it is a character focused book in which we truly fall in love with the people we meet throughout. Sydney is a great character, she is intelligent and hard working and clearly struggling to feel noticed within a household where the entire attention of her parents has been focused on her wayward brother. She is clearly having to be self-sufficient and struggling with the presence of her brother's creepy best friend who keeps hanging around their home.

When she meets Layla and her family you instantly fall in love with them. The unquestioning way Layla accepts her family's troubles and the warmth she offers Sydney mean they are impossible to dislike. The joy of this book is the absolute focus that Dessen puts into building a story about the importance of a strong support network and the people you choose to surround yourselves with. Friends, family and those you love. For Sydney, this has been missing and it's wonderful to follow her journey from loneliness and isolation to feeling part of a family.

For the first book I've read by Sarah Dessen I was blown away, I loved it. I read it in just under 2 days and literally could not wait to keep reading it. Chapters flew by as I just wanted to lose myself in this book. I couldn't recommend it highly enough. I will absolutely be reading more books by this author in the weeks and months ahead. I know in the UK that Sarah Dessen is perhaps a little less well known alongside other Young Adult writers but from having read this book I truly fail to understand why.