Laura

I haven't indulged as much as I normally would this Christmas in festive themed books, I've read a couple but have struggled to find that Christmas vibe. I wanted to give just one more a chance this year and for that I returned to my most trusted and respected author for Christmas books, Karen Swan and her 2014 release Christmas In The Snow.

To be very fair this book was a bit of a slow burner to begin with. We begin the book in 1951 with a flashback to a woman being trapped in a hut during an avalanche but it takes some time for this to return to the story. Instead we switch to present day and the lives of Isobel and Allegra, two very different sisters. Isobel is a married mother of a young baby, content in her domesticity whilst Allegra trades hedge funds worth billions of dollars, literally living in her office and trying to fit into a world driven by men.

Snow spends a lot of time focusing on Allegra and the latest deal she is trying to secure with Chinese businessman,Yong and along the way her Canadian colleague Sam Kemp comes in and using his connections to the Yong family tries to steal the deal. All this is played out against a growing attraction between Allegra and Sam, but Allegra as always puts business first.

We are given small snippets of information though about a body which has been discovered in the Swiss Alps, of a woman who disappeared in 1951 whom the police believe is Allegra and Isobel's Grandmother, Valentina. With their mother in the grip of Alzheimer's they cannot ask the burning questions as to how this woman can possibly be their grandmother when they buried her 20 years before.

Armed only with an old wooden advent calendar and lots of questions the sisters head to the Swiss Alps to find out more and deal with the burial of their grandmothers remains. Whilst there they find themselves running into Sam Kemp and his friends, one of whom is the son of the businessman Allegra so wanted to capture as a client.

From there we are invited into a story which is, as Swan always seems to achieve, glamorous and touching at the same time. It is a beautiful setting for a Christmas novel. The intrigue of Allegra's career and business deal plays out alongside the mystery of her grandmother's death and both seem very separate entities but Swan manages to tie them back together beautifully.

Swan has a very rare gift of managing to always bring a real sense of sparkle and warmth to her books. The settings are always beautiful and her characters warm and likeable.

It is a joy each year to delve into her Christmas books and yet never are they twee or predictable. It's a very special writer that can do that year on year.

Very occasionally a book comes along that makes you drop everything and just immerse yourself in it wholeheartedly in its story, taking you into a cocoon of the world in which it is set. It's been a little while since I had a book that captured me so completely that I literally lost a whole day to it, never moving from my reading chair until I'd absorbed every last bit of it. The Shadow Of What Was Lost is the only book that in 2019 has so far grabbed my attention so singly.

This is an amazing debut novel by James Islington, an epic fantasy that forms the first in the Licanius Trilogy. Initially it doesn't give you much information, you put yourself wholly in the hands of the author as he spins the tale of Davian and his best friend Wirr who are told that because of Davian's special powers as an Augur he should flee his school and make a perilous journey to find those who can help him understand his powers. As he and Wirr head out on their strange quest their friend Asha wakes up at the school to find everyone has been murdered and that her own magical powers are to be removed from her by the very person who sent Davian and Wirr on their quest.

This is a hugely complex novel, there's a whole magic system of Gifted people who can use magic called Essence but are restricted in how they can use it by tenants that mean they are unable to use it to harm any non-gifted people even in self-defence. Alongside this we learn about Agur's who in the past were able to see visions of the future but their visions stopped being reliable and they were all slaughtered and they are now seen as the enemy. We also learn of a boundary behind which the evil of the world is being held but in which cracks are now being found forewarning that the great evil trapped their thousands of years before could be about to escape.

Much of this information is relayed through multiple viewpoints including Wirr, Davian, Asha and a stranger Davian and Wirr meet whose memories have been lost called Caeden. There's also a little bit of time jumping going on in this book which means we have information that is coming back to us from the past and potentially the future meaning we are drip fed lots and lots of information about what could be about to happen of has happened which make us question everyone and everything around our characters.

This means it's a greatly complex fantasy novel but there are so many twists and turns and information about the world that mean you are literally hanging on the edge of every single word. There is great political maneuvering going on as the city from which Wirr and Davian are from fight to defeat a mysterious army known as the Blind, where the King seems unwilling to use the gifts available to him through magic to help him defeat the oncoming threat.

I fell in love with this story wholeheartedly, the characters are ones you really fall in love with, you are behind them 100% and even although there are some questions around their potential future actions you want them to be good guys. There is some real cliff-hangers at the end that ensure you are fully invested in Book 2 of the series and it is one I will absolutely be picking up in the very near future, maybe not too soon though as Book 3 hasn't been released yet and is due to be in December of this year so I don't want to read Book 2 too quickly and then spend the rest of this year just anticipating the release of the end of the series.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough to those who love high fantasy and are fans of the Nevernight series of Brandon Sandersons' Cosmere. I have started Mistborn this year and whilst I've loved it I have to say that The Shadow of What Was Lost has eclipsed it so far as my favourite book of 2019 so far.

My husband set himself a challenge for my Christmas this year, to buy me a book that I hadn't read or owned and that I would love and enjoy. This was easier said than done, I read so extensively that he fully admitted he truly didn't know a comprehensive list of those I'd read over the years and those I already owned so he went and did some online research at books that were regarded highly and crossed his fingers and hoped for the best.

Whilst he was doing his research I was watching Reagan from Peruse Project talking about her favourite fantasy series' of all time and was intrigued by her love for the Tearling trilogy and so I'd already decided to add them to my TBR list but you can imagine my joy when on Christmas morning I opened my gift to find my husband had bought me The Queen of the Tearling, the first in Erika Johansens's Tearling trilogy. It was as if he'd read my mind. Huge brownie points for picking both one I'd not already read or owned and that I had already decided I couldn't wait to read.

And I loved it! This book was my favourite book I've read so far this year. The story of Kelsea, a girl who has been raised by foster parents her whole life out in the countryside till one day a group of Queen's guards arrives to take her back to New London, the Tearling capital. Kelsea is no ordinary girl, she is the heir to the Tearling throne and she has now come of age and is able to claim her birthright. The only problem is that she has many enemies who would rather she didn't survive long enough to sit upon the throne and she knows little of the world she will soon rule. Can she survive and become the ruler that the country needs?

The first thing that I loved about this book was the characters. Johansen writes such colourful and rich characters in this novel. The personalities she creates for them she accompanies with wonderful backstories that have led them to this point in their lives and for those whom she wishes to remain more remove she gives us glimpses of their mystery and allows us to pray she will at some point in the trilogy explore these so we can gain the answers we seek. There are so many amazing people I fell in love with in the story, The Mace was a wonderfully strong and compassionate friend to Kelsea and I loved the mysterious Fetch who always seemed to be there when she needed him. Pen, her guard and friend and even the villains of the piece like The Regent and Arlen Thorne. Each of them seemed larger than life and you want to read more about them, in a 440-page book it wasn't enough. I cannot wait to rejoin them in book 2 of this series.

The second highlight of this book was the setting. The Tearling world is clearly one that is fairly primitive, they have mastered simple skills such as building, woodwork and farming but it has a fairly old world feel yet we are given glimpses of a time before this book called The Crossing where travellers from America and the ‘old world' fled their homes and travelled by sea to this new world where Tearling resides. This ‘old world' is clearly our world because they talk about e-books and computers and drug problems and in the Queen's library they talk of popular fiction of today such as the 7 volumes of Rowling and The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. This gave it such a fascinating feel that although this world is clearly a future one it is one where people have returned to a time when technology and progress have been reversed and we have taken a step back some several hundred years.

Finally, the politics of this world was so engaging. The deep divide between the rich and poor of the Tearling, the way the Regent has lived in wealth and fed the wealth of the nobles whilst the poor struggle to survive is something we often in books but accompanied by the intrigue of the Shipments and the relationship with it's stronger neighbour Mortmense and it's looming ruler The Red Queen was such a great setting for this novel. Kelsea's struggle to try and right these wrongs, whilst battling against those who have no desire for things to change was what kept my pages turning again and again. The fact that we still have much to learn in the coming books about how we arrived at this situation and why The Red Queen needed Tearling slaves so badly and how Kelsea will manage to fix the political inequalities means that Johansen has left us plenty to wonder about and bring us back.

I find it no surprise that this book has had film rights purchased for it by the team responsible for Harry Potter, I am only disappointed that nothing has been done with them thus far. I read this book at a really busy time for my family where I could only find ocassional points to pick it up but I was longing to read it all the time. I was getting frustrated when I knew I couldn't sit down and progress with it. If I'd been under normal weekly task loads I'd have read this much quicker. I absolutely will be reading the two companion novels soon as this was a wonderful fantasy novel set in a wonderful world with some of the best characters I've read about in some time.

I had heard a lot of people raving about the Lady Janies series by Cynthia Hand, Brodie Ashton and Jodi Meadows and because of my love for the Tudor era and the fact that in my teens I fell in love with the movie Lady Jane starring Helena Bonham Carter and Cary Elwes I knew I had to read this book.

Touted as a historical fiction novel with a twist I wasn't quite sure how I was going to get on with this book telling the story of Lady Jane Grey who upon the death of King Edward, son of Henry VIII finds herself on the throne where she reigns for nine days before being ousted by Queen Mary Tudor who has her executed for treason. I had always loved the story as I'd seen it painted as a love story between a young bookish and innocent Jane Grey who is married off to the wild son of Lord Dudley the right hand of the King and despite not knowing each other they fall in love through the circumstances in which they find themselves and their desire to make England a better place. The tragedy in their story has always been that as their love grows and they find themselves trying to be just rulers they are torn apart as they face execution.

When I started this book I immediately had an issue with it. I don't think that Young Adult genre means you need to mollycoddle or dumb down your subject matter for your readers. Therefore I was disappointed that instead of calling a spade a spade and talking about the huge unrest between Catholics and Protestants at the time of the novel we instead are offered an alternative history where it's between Verity's (Catholic's) and Edian's (Protestants). Edian's are a human who can transform into an animal form. Jane's husband Gifford is an Edian and tranforms each day into a horse in the novel. I found this whole plotline a distraction, it drew away from the actual historical story that was trying to be told and instead made it seem, for me, overly fantastical.

I love fantasy as a genre but in this case, I found it faintly ridiculous and it took one of my favourite and most fascinating historical figures and glossed over all the important stuff instead making it a little too fluffy for me. I love the story of Jane Grey because it's about the love story between Jane and Gifford Dudley and I didn't really feel that the author's got to the heart of this. The other overwhelmingly wonderful thing about the movie version of Jane Grey is how she fought to try and make a change in the country even when she was only on the throne for such a short time. She had a strong sense of justice and wanted more equality for people, a proper currency that was for everyman and this could have been a powerful and moving story in the novel if we had not been so focused upon the animal/humans changing form storyline.

I have to be honest and say I didn't love this one, I sort of skimmed the last 10 chapters because by that point I really didn't care about the characters as much as I had thought I would when I started. I could only give this a 3 out of 5 stars because for me a wonderful story was glossed over and a huge opportunity missed to tell a story of a girl who fought for change in a time when women had little power and the love that helped her to rule a country, even if it was only for 9 days.

This book has become the one that everyone seems to be talking about right now, the thriller which has been hailed as the next Gone Girl and Before I Go To Sleep.

It's story is an interesting one as we are told that Rachel spends her days travelling back and forth on the train and in doing so she people watches from the windows, taking particular interest in the home of a couple she calls Jason and Jess. She watches their house from the train each day and has made up imaginary lives for them.

Rachel though is a complicated character, something the book cover doesn't outline. She's an alcoholic and is still obsessed with her ex-husband and his new wife Anna whom she phones continually and has on occasion harassed. She's unstable and her obsession with Jess and Jason may well come from the fact they live a few doors away from the home her ex and his wife reside in and the home that was her marital home, bought in happier times.

Written from the perspective of Rachel, Megan (Jess) and Anna this book develops at quite a pace and when Rachel wakes one Sunday morning hungover, hurt and with no memory of the night before it develops a dark undertone. She's grappling with something she saw from the train, her blank spot in her memory and the fact everyone sees her as nothing more than a drunk.

The book doesn't blow anyone away with its twists and turns, I found I had figured out the big plot reveal quite early on. It didn't totally surprise me. That being said it did offer plenty of options for whom the bad guy could be.

It was written exceedingly well and whilst none of the female characters was without her own unique issues they were all endearing. Rachel especially incited sympathy as her story progressed and we began to understand her issues and from where they came.

For a debut novel it is brilliant, it was gripping and deserves the talk its receiving. It holds its own against those other thrillers which dominated the book charts last year. It will be talked about a great deal more in the months ahead I'm sure.

Lisa Jewel has been one of my favourite authors for many years now, she displays an amazing ability (shared by Jane Green) of having had her books continue to grow and change as I've matured, moving from lighthearted tales of new romance to tales of families and middle life woes.

Nowhere has this been more evident than in her latest novel, The Third Wife, the tale of Maya the quiet schoolteacher who out of nowhere walks in front of a bus leaving behind her husband Adrian and his extended family of two ex - wives and 5 stepchildren. This is a complex but very modern story which is becoming more familiar, patchwork families who are thrown together as a result of fractured homes and new marriages. The heart of this tale is whether the harmonious, united front the family displays is actually real or whether when someone leaves they can ever truly do so without hurting those they left behind.

I found this a slow starter of a book, a little bit of time is required before we begin to understand what the story is going to be about, initially the tale of Maya's grieving husband appearing to wish for a new relationship made him a little difficult to sympathise with. I found part one of the book was a little wide spread across the characters, but only because there are a lot of people we need to get to know before the story can truly ramp up.

From Part 2 onwards though it became a wonderfully engaging story of how much hurt can be caused by those who are supposed to love us, how much distress Maya was put through as a result of being the third wife and the childless wife. How her own happiness becomes secondary to the other wives and children in whose world she had to slot.

Lisa Jewell writes as always with a great sense of emotional intelligence and a true understanding of family dynamics, writing through the voices of characters ranging from ages 5 upwards to late 40 ‘s. She keeps us guessing throughout this book as to who had the biggest reasons to resent Maya, giving us a real sense of who else Maya might have shared her secrets with and her state of mind. It is such a satisfying book though that it becomes less a tale of who did what than a chance for a family to understand that no one is infallible and we all make mistakes.

Absolutely one of the best books I've read this year, it's like spending time with an old friend when I curl up with a new Lisa Jewell book and this didn't disappoint.

So this month it was my ambition to read the Six of Crows duology by Leigh Bardugo and having read Six of Crows earlier in July I moved onto Crooked Kingdom and was excited to continue the stories of Kaz, Inej, Matthias, Jesper, Waylan and Nina the gang of misfits who managed to break into the unbreakable Ice Palace to rescue a Sui boy a secret so dangerous it could change the world.

Crooked Kingdom picks up immediately after the end of Six of Crows with our characters having just arrived back in Ketterdam and been double crossed by Waylan's mercher father who has reneged on his payment for the job they did on his behalf. Inej has been captured by him and is being held until Kaz hands over the boy he broke out of the Ice Palace.

Now after Six of Crows we know what to expect, we can look forward to lots of double crossing and criminal genius from Kaz and his associates as they come up with another elaborate plan that will allow them to gain their revenge on the evil Van Eck and get the payment they have all staked their futures on. This book did not disappoint and from very early on we are cheering as Kaz makes his first genius move of the book in order to recover his friend and wraith Inej.

I loved the multiple points of view in this book, as with Six of Crows the different chapters allowed us to continue to explore the individual stories of all the characters and to develop our love for them that began in Book 1. For me my favourite character remains Kaz because of the different complex emotions he keeps bubbling just below his surface. The wonderful way he just does the unexpected and always comes out on top and his management of the people around him.

The relationship I loved most was Jesper and Waylan, from the first book when they were just discovering each others criminal skills and jokingly having Jesper drive Waylan crazy it has become one of the gems where they will do anything for each other, Jesper is helping Waylan to adjust to the fact he is now wearing the face of Sui escaped prisoner Kuwei and the ongoing rejection and double crossing from his father Van Eck. Jesper in this book reveals more about his background with the arrival of his father in Ketterdam and now Waylan is helping him to reveal the truth about his present criminal activities to his father. Their growing closeness and eventual unbreakable bond was beautiful to read about.

This whole duology was so exciting, the way the story arced across both books and took so many crazy twists and turns, the breathtaking moments of suspense and then the literally arm pumping punching the air times when the gang came through were just amazing. It is a series I will look back on very fondly and would highly recommend anyone to read.

This book seems to be one of the most talked about in the Young Adult genre at the moment, a new series that seems to have it's readers hooked and begging for more. With whispers about this book being adapted for the big screen it begged the question ‘Just what is so special about Red Queen and it's sequels that has everyone so excited?'

Immediately when I began reading there were parallells to other books in this genre that have become hugely popular in the last few years. There's threads of The Hunger Games with a story of a poor people being overseen by the rich and powerful who live in better cities and who force those lesser mortals to live a life of hard work and poverty. There's bits of Keira Cass' Selection series with stories of a girls going through a contest in order to gain the hand in marriage of the eligible prince and finally Victoria Roth's Divergent series is mixed in there with different people having different strengths or powers they can use that make them special. This book is a real mix of lots of other concepts that have been hugely successful and initially this made me a little concerned, was this going to be just a copy of those with nothing special to recommend it?

The first thing that Aveyard does is establish really strong lead characters, her heroine Mare Barrow is in her own right a wonderful creation. She's all you would expect from the heroine of a Dystopian novel, she's independent, strong, resourceful, highly moral with strong family bonds and values and she's brave and fearless. Her story is that she has grown up in one of the ‘Red' villages, where people live hand to mouth trying whilst the ‘Silvers' live a life of wealth and luxury and power. The difference between Reds and Silvers being the colour of the blood they bleed. Silver's have special powers that make them strong, such as the ability to control minds, or control fire or water or to heal.

For Red's the only life they have to look forward to is either finding a lowly apprenticeship or being sent to fight as cannon fodder for the Silver's in a war that has raged for years. Mare has already lost her 3 brother's to front line of the war and is destined for the same fate when she meets a stranger in her village one evening. Suddenly the following day she's catapulted into the world of the Silver's where her destiny will be forever changed. She will join a rebellion that seeks to overthrow the status quo and give birth to a world where Red's will rise again with the rights that they deserve.

There is literally so much that happens within this book it's difficult to digest it all even now I've finished. What I loved about the book is that we are drawn back and forth between who we trust and who we don't. There are so many twists and turns in the plot that it kept pulling me back. And that is the strength of the book, the character writing, because we genuinely don't know who is on Mare's side and who is not. In the words of the book itself ‘Anyone can betray anyone'.

I can imagine this book being adapted to a big screen movie because many of the scenes within in are lavish and glamorous and full of wonderful backdrops and with great crowd scenes, these along with epic battles and lots of action will make this a surefire hit on the big screen. It also leaves us with a cliffhanger ending, we are clear the story has much further to go and we are firmly with Mare on her journey. I know reading reviews that many people had to wait to read the second book in the series and I am fortunate that because I'm coming to this book a little later I don't have that dilema. Book 3 in the series is scheduled for next year and there are novella's that go along with the story available also.

I know that the book has received equal criticism for it's similarities to other books based on Dystopian fantasies and I can completely understand why some people found this turned them off from this book however I felt that it was strongly enough crafted. I didn't find myself struggling to pick the book up, in fact I was continually drawn back to the action and the romance and the unfolding story and that in itself is a very good sign. I guess my only concern would be I remember reading many first books in similar series' and thinking how magnificent they are only for the momentum to fade as the series progressed, my real question now is can the subsequent books in Aveyard's series live up to the quality of Red Queen?

It's been a little while since I read the first Jack Reacher novel and after reading quite a few ‘girly' books I decided I'd have a bit of a change and try something a little grittier.

I found the book burst out of the starters gate getting immediately into lots of action with the kidnapping of FBI agent Holly Johnson and the innocent passerby Jack Reacher who gets embroiled in her seizure. The only problem is Reacher is no innocent passerby he's a highly trained military police man with nothing to lose. The start of this book was engaging as we follow Jack and Holly as they are transported across the country to an unknown location. We are given glimpses into their intended destination through cryptic chapters and we are also given glimpses into the FBI hunt for them. It's all high octane action and I was engrossed very quickly in the story.

From approximately half way through though it began to dip a little for me. After the big reveal of who was doing the kidnapping and why I just couldn't love it so much. It went from having an espionage feel to being very military and cultish. The action became a bit samey, I lost count of how many times Reacher escaped and was recaptured. I just began to find the group responsible a little unorganized and unbelievable.

It was all a bit confusing, too many FBI agents who might be rogue and not enough dialogue. By the time I got to Chapter 30 something I just wanted it to be over already. I didn't care how. I was skimming pages galore and praying for Reacher to just shoot them all already.

This was a great start let down by poor execution.

After a little break from Patterson I returned to Women's Murder Club with 9th Judgement. I've been stifling a little with the last few books I've read, for some reason my concentration hasn't been great.

From the moment I started Patterson's 9th Murder Club book I was hooked and finished it in under 48 hours. It was a brilliant and fast paced instalment reminiscent of the early ones in the series.

A serial killer is on the loose killing mothers and their young babies and caught in the middle is Lindsay Boxer. Tied alongside this story is that of a jewel thief targeting rich couples in San Francisco. Both stories equally intriguing and in this book nicely brought together.

The chapters seemed to fly past and it was nice this time not to have the obligatory court case running alongside the storyline and for focus to be on Boxer.

It is great to read Patterson as he's so fast paced as a writer and The Murder Club has been a joy to curl up with again.

Whenever I hear people talk about the books by Victoria Schwab or V.E. Schwab as she sometimes uses they always have really great things to say. Whilst I am intending on reading many more of her series the one that piqued my attention the most is her Shades of Magic trilogy and this is why I chose to make my first V.E. Schwab novel A Darker Shade of Magic.

Having heard other people talk about this book I'd managed to gather that it was a story of different versions of London, each with different levels of magic within them. Our lead character Kell comes from Red London, where magic exists and is utilised for good. We also have Grey London, effectively the London we all know where magic has disappeared and is mostly unknown. Also, there exists White London where magic is king and it is dark and threatening and used to control. We also learn there once existed Black London where magic became so powerful it destroyed the city and led to it being shut off from the other London's and to the other London's becoming shut off from each other. Before the closing of the doors people could move freely between the different London's but now only special people known as Antari can do so and our main character Kell is one such Antari who carries messages from the different rulers of each London to ensure that things remain peaceful.

The first thing I loved about this book is the journey we go on in this book learning about each of the different variations of world that exist, each defined by the level of magic within it and how that magic has shaped the politics, wealth and customs surrounding it. Through Kell's eyes we delve into the different rulers and their agendas from the Mad King George III in Grey London to the sinister and evil twins who rule over White London with their controlling magic. Each of the different variations reflects its colour and it makes it an exciting journey for us a readers to experience the worlds as they unfold and how they connect to one another.

The second thing about this novel is the wonderful characters we meet along our journey. Kell, the magic Antari of Red London who travels on behalf of his King and Queen to the other realms delivering their political messages is a wonderful master of ceremonies and clearly is a believer in using his magic gifts for good. He is, however, an avid collector of objects from the different worlds he visits and although he knows he is not supposed to carry objects between the realms he does so and this leads to the grand adventure Schwab takes us on in this novel.

I loved Lila, the ragamuffin orphan Kell meets in Grey London who joins him on his adventure across the realms. Her wonderful carefree personality and search for adventure make her a great sidekick to Kell and I have a feeling there is much more of her story we have yet to learn as the following 2 books progress.

I have heard that this book is very much a world builder, it sets the scene for the following two books that then blow the whole cross realms world wide open. I am therefore delighted to think what joys await me as I move into books 2 and 3. I loved Red London best and I cannot wait to return and find out what new adventures await Kell and Lila in the rest of this series.

Marian Keyes has always remained one of my favourite authors, her lovely homely books about big energetic Irish families are always humorous and engaging and have very often had me laughing out loud. I was therefore full of high expectations for her latest novel “The Woman Who Stole My Life”.

From the outset this book was intriguing, we are introduced to our heroine Stella Sweeney, a forty something mum of two who has just returned to Ireland from America where she's gone from being a successful author to a person struggling to manage her teenage son and adjusting back to a smaller less exciting life than that she had in America.

Woven throughout the first part of the book are flashbacks to a few years previously when Stella contacted a potentially fatal disease which left her paralysed and unable to move or speak and stuck in intensive care. These parts of the book chart her growing relationship with her neurologist Mannix who communicates with her in a way only they can manage.

Keyes books have always been full of interesting characters, if I had one criticism of this book it would have been that there were almost too many of them. It's a book of two halves with the first firmly being about Stella's illness intertwined with her present day struggles to settle back into life in Ireland. Just as I'd gotten myself firmly into the setting of this the book seemed to take us somewhere different switching to Stella's time in America following the publication of her book. A different cast was introduced and the story just seemed to shift.

I struggled a little with this disjointed approach and by about 60% of the way through I was struggling a little. I wasn't as invested in Stella as I should have been. I even would go so far as to say I found her a tiny bit annoying. I found her a bit too flaky and I almost stopped rooting for her. When it came to the end of the book I didn't feel I'd gone on enough of a journey with her. I'd started out really feeling sorry for her during her illness but slowly the book meandered through plot twists that didn't engage me enough.

Am I disappointed by this book? If I'm honest, yes a little bit. It just seemed to lack structure. It had bits that didn't seem to add anything to the characters or plot (e.g. the whole project karma thing). It was a nice read with flashes of brilliance but I'd come to expect better from Keyes.

I have been avidly consuming the Women's Murder Club novels for the past month or so - loving my first experience of crime writing and Patterson's authoring.

With this book we find Lyndsey Boxer chasing down a gunman who has killed 5 people on board a San Francisco Ferry. Pair this with another storyline of missing children and it makes for another standard Women's Murder Club outing. They are following the same format as the previous few books - 2 story lines intertwined.

I however found this one slightly less satisfying than the other books - the story lines and suspects didn't grip me quite so much and it lacked menace. The other girls seem to feature rarely and it seemed a bit too formulaic for me. Hoping 7 will be back on form as i have been enjoying these...

After a month or so of sticking mainly to Young Adult fiction, I felt the need to read a “grown-up” book and one of the most frequently talked about books online was The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, a book full of emotion and guaranteed to make you cry was the vibe that people game me about this story and it sounded like just what I was looking for.

Set in France during the Nazi occupation of the Second World War we follow two sisters, Vianne and Isabelle and their two different experiences during this time. Vianne lives just outside of a small village with her daughter Sophie and husband Antoine who is called away to fight for France and upon their surrender is captured as a Prisoner of War. Her younger sister Isabelle is a willful 17-year-old who has been expelled from countless boarding schools and is sent to live with her sister during the war by their father who has had little contact with his daughters since the death of his wife many years before.

The first thing I loved about this book was the way that we followed the two sisters throughout the years of the war, from the early years when hope was high and people believed it wouldn't go on too long and that human kind would never be so cruel as to allow the kinds of torture the Nazi's would inflict upon people. From their different perspectives, it's a really insightful book as we see the two sides to the story. Isabelle's strong beliefs and outspoken nature mean she struggles to be complacent with the changes to French life when the German's arrive and take over. She is insolent and headstrong and this leaves her sister fearing she will do something to place them all in danger.

Vianne, on the other hand, is trying to comply where she can, to keep her head down and raise no attention to herself and her daughter. When a German officer begins living in her home she struggles with reconciling the image of the harsh Nazi officer with the sometimes gentle and kind man she meets. People begin to question if she is too close to her lodger and she feels it hard to judge what is acceptable to take for her survival and what to be classed as collaborating.

From these point of view of these two different women we follow the resistance movement during the war, the defiant and dangerous acts that were undertaken to help allied pilots who became stranded in France and also the risks taken to help protect Jewish children from the prisoner of war camps. The tearing apart of families and the loss of friends and the sense of community.

I love that we see two different extremes of the German officer, it was nice to not have them all painted as intrinsically evil but instead to look at the internal struggles many suffered as the German campaign to eradicate Jewish people grew as the war went on. Whilst many reveled in the power it brought them others just wanted to go home to their families as much as the French women longed for their men to come home.

This book was beautifully written, it was such a wonderful story of sisterhood, family, motherhood and the things we will do to survive. A really moving piece and at times, as promised, a tear-jerker. I now understand why it is given such wonderful reviews and is regarded so highly. It was my first Kristin Hannah novel but I am sure after this it will not be my last.

This was my first foray into the world of Penny Vincenzi and I thoughts as it had such good reviews I'd give this a try.

It was a long read and I seemed to be at it for ages. The story of Sylvia Lytton and her husband Oliver and their journey from in love newlyweds, to young parents of beautiful children then through the devastation the first world war wreaks upon their business and family lives.

It was a great read, full of good characters - the only criticism I had was some of the characters were a bit one dimensional - at points with some of the less desirable characters you could almost hear the villainous music in the background of the scene and cries of “he's behind you!” but if you can bear with this the narrative is good even if the story mirrors many that have gone before.

I'm going to give the second in the trilogy a go so if that is testament then I'd say yes I enjoyed it

So I've been ploughing my way through James Patterson's Murder Club series very quickly, having never read one of his novels before I read the first in the series.

4th of July was a slower book, but in 5th Horseman he is back on form and this book has much more of the mystery of the earlier novels and goes back to sharing the story more evenly across all the lead characters rather than focusing purely on Lyndsey Boxer.

A great story of mysterious deaths in a hospital, some truly touching cases outlined and nicely interwoven alongside another storyline of dead rape victims found in unusual circumstances. Gripping and tightly written I find on my Kindle that one minute I'm 5% in and the next it's 50% and it feels like I've not caught my breath. Looking forward to Book 6

I was so very excited to begin reading David Nicholls follow up to his acclaimed novel One Day, and so delved into Us having read nothing but glowing reviews and having experienced the joy of the authors other works.

The story of this book is really quite a clever, if not uncommon one. Married couple Douglas and Connie are getting ready to wave their son, Albie, off to university after his summer holidays. One night Connie wakes Douglas up and announces that once Albie has gone she is thinking about leaving him. She will still be accompanying him and Albie on their “grand tour” of Europe that summer but after that will most likely be leaving.

Hurt and confused Douglas decides to try his best to spend the summer winning over his wife and trying to build bridges with his teenage son, who seems to have little time for his father.

The book is written entirely from Douglas' perspective and we are allowed glimpses back through he and Connie's relationship from their meeting to their marriage and subsequent parenthood. It is immediately apparent that they are very much in the “opposites attract” camp as Douglas is a biochemist and his wife an artist. We also learn Albie is very much his mother's son with an artistic temperament and a desire to study photography.

Douglas is quite a sensible, staid and conventional man, he subscribes to traditional parenting discipline techniques and has high academic expectations of his son, this has led to years of disagreements with his son and wife and his feeling left out.

I found myself sympathising with Douglas, I actually found him the most likeable character in the book. He endlessly tries his best to fit into the artistic world his family inhabits but always seems to miss the mark, applying fact finding techniques to his art history knowledge which annoys his wife and son who just want to “appreciate” the art. His constant trying to manage all the details of the tour, hotel bookings and excursions are met with veiled insults and rolled eyes and I felt genuinely sorry for him.

As the trip goes on and Albie meets a busker and decides, after an argument with his father, to go off on his own things deteriorate and Connie goes home. At this point I really began to get annoyed. I found Albie actually needed a little bit of firm parenting and felt Connie should have been trying to support her husband not leaving him to feel responsible for all that happened on the trip.

In his style of trying to mend fences we follow Douglas as he chases through Europe after his son, with a desperate attempt to make amends and reassure his son of his love and pride in him.

What bothered me about Nicholls book was the unlikeability of the wife and son in the book. I know I've read reviews where people said they struggled to identify with Douglas but for me it was the artistic two I wanted to shake. They seemed so wrapped up in their own little twosome that they failed to see Douglas anymore as a person in his own right. Their joint interests somehow had to overrule Douglas at every turn.

I actually began to think perhaps the best thing to happen to Douglas would be for him to stop chasing his son around Europe, throw his mobile away and go off and have some time doing just what he wanted and see how long it was before his wife and son bothered to seek him out.

I liked this book but I wouldn't say I loved it. I didn't find it as engaging as One Day and by half way through I was getting a bit bored and kept wanting it to pick up the pace. I'm not convinced it is the huge literary sensation it's being hailed as and have read better books about similar topics. I'm sure it will sell in droves based on the publicity but I felt a little underwhelmed.

I've always been a real fan of Karen Swan's wonderfully atmospheric Christmas novels but haven't before tried any of her other novels. I chose “The Summer Without You” hoping for as much of a summer vibe as she gives to her Christmas based stories to get me in the summer mood.

The first I noticed was the sheer length of this book, it's a hefty 420 pages well beyond other books within this genre. It's a book clearly packing lots of story in, and this proved to be the case if sometimes to it's detriment.

The story of Rowena, a self employed photographer whose boyfriend Matt chooses to run off for 6 months to Asia, putting their relationship on pause rather than proposing leads us through a chance encounter to a house share in the exclusive Hamptons where Ro hopes to spend time doing the photography she loves and counting the days till her boyfriend comes home and she can pick up her life again.

With her lively housemates Hump, Greg and Bobbi she is soon drawn into the exclusive and wealthy Hamptons lifestyles. She meets town councillor and campaigner Florence who is trying to save the sand dunes which are being massively erroded by winter storms and which are needed to protect the properties along the shoreline. Florence though is receiving expensive gifts from a stranger and there's talk in town about the $3 million black hole in the council budgets and Ro doesn't want to believe her friend is guilty of wrongdoing.

There is also her new age yoga teacher friend Melody and her powerful older husband Brooke. They seem to be uber rich and although they are unwilling to share information about precisely what his job is. There is much of this book given over to strange attacks on Ro and Florence, even to the extent of a murder of an entirely useless character. There is a huge conspiracy thing going on that I found a little bit of a sideline that wasn't necessary. I truly kept skipping bits because it all seemed a bit of a surplus story that started well but got a bit melodramatic for my tastes.

The true heart of this book and the story that deserved to remain front and centre was the story of Tedd, the man Ro meets the moment she steps out of the can in the Hamptons. Shocked when he demands she deletes photographs she has taken of her two children, even to the point he threatens to destroy her camera she is shocked when later he asks her to take on a commission doing what he seemed so upset by. her photographing his two young children.

As Ro goes through home videos of Tedd's children she begins to question why their mother is no longer in their lives, why the perfect dream family has grown apart. She grows chose to Tedd but remains wary of him suspecting him of being less than upfront with her friend Florence. She is drawn to the two children and aware of her growing feelings for their father. Her fiance is on the other side of the world and she wants to believe he will propose when he comes home but what if it's not what she wants.

This is the true heart of the book, or should have been, but there was so much other padding put in it got lost at times. Had we dropped 50 pages and focused purely on this relationship it would have been a much better book. It would have felt more like I'd have established an emotional connection with its true story rather than it being sandwiched between bits that didn't matter so much.

The authors real fault was trying to capture the wealthy Hampton lifestyles when a story of a summer on a beautiful beach in a lovely town spent with a damaged family would have said so much more

Waiting for a new Kate Morton book is always a combination of excitement about what awaits and frustration that it's not coming quickly enough. The magical ability she has to write wonderful novels steeped in mystery that blend the past and the present have made her one of the most highly regarded authors today.

The Lake House was so very well worth the wait and absolutely what I needed to pull back my love of reading after a dry spell where I couldn't find anything engaging. From it's opening chapter in 1930's Cornwall where someone is burying something deep in the woods we are left in no doubt that Morton is sowing the seeds for another wonderful mystery.

The other wonderful thing Morton does is link her stories to the places they occurred using the house as almost a character in the story. In this case the house is Loeanneth the home of the Edevane family, it's magnificent grounds hold so significant a part in this book that it's wonderful to have Morton provide such wonderful flowing descriptions of it and you long to be able to be there having such a clear picture painted for you.

Morton's story revolves around the unsolved disappearance of a young baby Theo Edevane from Loeanneth in 1933, found missing from his nursery the night after a large party he was never found nor any answer reached as to who took him and why.

This was perhaps the most gripping book I've read in many years, the characters are many and shift between Cornwall in the present day and Loeanneth in the 1930's and back to the time of the first world war. Each and every character plays their part in the story and each hold their own secrets about what may or may not have happened to Baby Theo. In present day we follow detective Sadie Sparrow as she, whilst on forced sabbatical from the met, investigates the case after stumbling across Loeanneth.

There were so many times in this book I thought I had it all figured out, I'd have a neat and tidy culprit and explanation only to have it shift away by another discovery in the next chapter. It was driving me crazy and the result was just a compulsion to keep reading and reading till I figured it out.

The ending was outstanding and so well crafted as not to have it glaringly obvious early in the book, it creeps up on you as a reader and is eminently satisfying. It was truly wonderful book as a result of outstanding writing throughout and Morton's ability to release information at just the right times to drive her narrative forward with pace and atmosphere.

A standout book for me, it is one of the best books I've read in a very long time and I could not recommended it more highly.

I have never made secret of the fact I'm a huge fan of the Shopaholic series of books by Sophie Kinsella, I even named it my favourite book series in my 30 day book challenge. I've always found the lead character Becky to be a little misguided but always intrinsically good and with the interests of those she loves foremost in her thoughts.

In this seventh installment in the series we begin with Becky planning a move to Los Angeles with husband Luke and toddler daughter Minnie. Her husband Luke has been offered the opportunity to work with Hollywood actress Sage Seymour and suddenly Becky visions herself schmoozing with A listers and being a stylist to the stars.

That truly is the crux of this book, Becky and her incessant need to be famous, lots of the old characters are back such as best friends Suze and Danny and her aloof mother in law Elinor but fundamentally this is about Becky trying to blag her way into the world of Hollywood Styling.

As I stated earlier what always made the other books work was Becky's underlying goodness. Her misadventures were always righted by her heart of gold. Unfortunately in this book her heart of gold seemed to have lost somewhere along the way. Instead she comes across as entirely brainless, a very inattentive mother, completely self involved friend and uncaring wife. Surely the thing about writing about one character in various books is that they progress, grow and mature as they learn from the series' adventures. Sophie Kinsella seems to have taken Becky backwards in maturity, she is someone who is supposed to be a loving wife and mother yet she spends the whole book flitting from film sets to stars houses and running around worrying about what classes she can take at her ridiculously expensive spa. It made her quite unlikeable in this book and my empathy levels dropped as a result. I just kept thinking who the heck was caring for her daughter whilst she swanned around L.A.

This book has no comparison to the earlier books in the series, it wasn't about Becky Bloomwood the harmless, hapless Shopaholic getting out of scrapes but being a good friend. Instead she was Becky Brandon, self obsessed wannabe who ignored her friends and family for a cheap 5 minutes of fame and whilst that would have washed were she a young singleton it just grates when she's meant to be a grown adult.

Clearly the cliffhanger at the end and the last page stating “Becky will be Back” means that another book is in the planing but I'm not sure, if it's like this one, I'd be rushing to read it. I would also urge Sophie Kinsella to now consider if it's time to retire her Shopaholic after the next book if she isn't able to grow the character in new directions without losing the soul of what made her so loveable in the first place.

There are 3 well-known stories with which I've always been fascinated since childhood, Robin Hood, King Arthur and the knights of Camelot and The Three Musketeers. When I came across someone recommending Sebastian de Castell's Greatcoats series and likening it to Dumas' The Three Musketeers I was immediately on board because let's face it anything that can bring us close to the joy of the tales of adventure of Athos, Porthos & Aramis is worth a try.

Castell's story tells us of a band of justices who worked for the King traveling his land meting out justice and ensuring fair treatment of its citizens, the Greatcoats. Unfortunately, however, the King has been overthrown by the Duke's of his Kingdom and executed and the Greatcoats have been disbanded and because they did nothing to save their King are branded traitors. They now travel the country taking work where they can find it, providing security to rich patrons who sometimes don't pay them. We follow 3 Greatcoats in this story Falcio, Brasti and Kest who find themselves blamed for the death of their employer and follow their journey to try and fulfil the dying wishes of their King Paelis who has entrusted them all with quests upon his death.

From Page 2 of this book it is evident that the camaraderie and wit that I wanted between my three heroes was going to be there in abundance as they discuss whether or not their employer is engaging in carnal activities beyond the door they wait for him outside. From there we just fall in love with their relationship with each other and the three different personalities they bring to the story. Falcio leads the book as the Greatcoat known as First Cantor and the one who leads us through his backstory and his journey to becoming a Greatcoat but we have Kest his childhood friend on hand with words of wisdom and a calming influence and Brasti is the lighter-hearted comic relief with an eye for the ladies.

Part of a now 4 book series Traitors Blade is clearly laying out the ground for the books that will follow and therefore Falcio's outlining of his journey to becoming a Greatcoat and how he met Paelis, the boy who became his King and founded the Greatcoats with him helps us to understand the political landscape on which we stand and the characters around us. We learn about the plot by the Duke's to try and place a new person on the throne, one who they can control and we meet this contender in Book 1 and this is again where this book is pulling us in and committing us to the series as a whole. This book, therefore, has lots of information to impart and scene setting to do but this is not at the expense of action and plenty of sword fights.

Yes, like our beloved 3 Musketeers this book is full of duels and battles that are magnificent to read about. We have Falcio and Kest who are both masters of swordplay and Brasti who is a legend with the bow and the way in which they fight tactically with each other makes for amazing scenes in the book and keeps you gripped from start to finish. It is joyful and so reflective of Dumas' classic and it has been some time since we've had a book that really encapsulates that atmosphere.

I devoured this book in a few days, it kept me glued because there was so much going on throughout. I fell in love with Falcio, Kest and Brasti but strangely came away with my favourite character being the strange and mysterious Tailor who kept popping up in all kinds of strange places with information from the past and a quirky personality that brought such joy and light relief. I really cannot recommend this book enough, I am so excited I still have 3 books to read in this series and am absolutley on board for more of the adventures that Sebastian De Castell gave us in this book.

I have been trying to make a concerted effort to really focus on some series of books that I've chosen to read this past month, choosing to almost binge read them rather than leaving them for a while between books and suffer that dreaded reader problem of forgetting what happened in the last book. I was really proud to finish the entire Infernal Devices series and I also started this wonderful series by Jenny Han, the To All The Boys I've Loved Before trilogy.

I really enjoyed the first book in this series and you can find my review on the site by clicking the link below.

http://www.mummylovesbooks.com/a-great-summer-contemporary-read-about-first-love-and-family/

The first book in the series ended with a bit of a cliffhanger as Lara Jean found her relationship with Peter looked to be hitting troubled waters and we learned that despite their romance having been an act, Lara Jean had fallen hard for the handsome boy she'd spent so much time with over the previous few months. This second book picks up immediately after the end of book one and begins with one of Lara Jean's famous letters to the boys she loves, in this case, Peter. She has fallen hard for him and loves the way he has time for her younger sister and how he has helped her get over her crush on her sister's ex-boyfriend.

This book is not set to be smooth sailing however as we follow Lara Jean's attempts to save her romance we have several hurdles along the way. There's an online video scandal to survive, the constant presence of Peter's ex-girlfriend Genevive who seems set on ensuring Lara Jean will never be the one to win Peter's heart and, also, we have the reappearance of an old crush to whom Lara Jean sent one of her famous letters, John Ambrose McLaren who it seems has some long held feelings for our favourite heroine. But as they say, the path of true love never did run smooth.

I liked this book, it was great to spend more time with all the characters we were introduced to in book one and it was enhanced through the introduction of some great new ones like John and Stormy, the feisty and fun pensioner whom Lara Jean meets at the care home she works in. There are lots of twists and turns along the road and some great romantic moments to give you that nice warm fuzzy feeling. I am loving the ongoing relationship between Lara Jean and her younger sister Kitty which is one of the really strong standout points in the book as Lara Jean always takes the time to listen and be there for her and Kitty is such a lively and fun character.

The only drawbacks I found in this book is that I wanted Lara Jean to be stronger this time around, I felt she should have dealt more forcefully with the whole Genevive and Peter situation. She seemed to stand back and let it happen around her for a while whereas I think she could have been more direct in asking questions of them both which would have saved lots of confusion. Maybe because I'm reading this from an adult perspective is why I felt this way but it did frustrate me at times and I was finding myself thinking “I am so over this possessive ex-thing”. I also really, really liked John Ambrose McLaren. I found him really really sweet to Lara Jean. He was so attentive to her and everything she needed from him he did. They shared such great moments in the book that I wanted more of him. I wanted Lara Jean to stop worrying about Peter and focus on the boy who was there clearly in love with her and pulling out all the stops to make her happy.

I am interested to see where book 3, the final book in the trilogy, will take this story as it moves towards its conclusion. I'm sad as I saw it in the bookshop last week and it doesn't look as substantial as the first two books so I'm hoping it won't short change me but I will definitely be reading it really soon as this series is great fun, a really nice contemporary read and great for summer.

I am still aiming to work through this series by the end of this year and so although it is not that long since I finished Crown of Midnight I delved immediately straight back in and read Heir of Fire. This may be driven in part by the fact that Tower of Dawn was sitting in my library the other day and I picked it up and so now I need to get through the rest of the series so I can read that before someone else requests it and I need to give it back. No pressure then!

The first thing I noticed about Heir of Fire is that from the outset we are very clearly not in Adarlan anymore, no Celeana has flown over the proverbial rainbow and is now in Wendelyn where she has been tasked with killing the King and his heir so that the evil King of Adarlan can continue his domination of the world. When we find her in Wendelyn though it is clear things are not going according to plan because firstly the Prince seems to be a thoroughly good guy and she really doesn't want to kill him or his father and secondly because she is trying to be incognito and is trying to survive by gambling and is now generally drinking herself into a daily stupor.

From the moment the mysterious Rowan enters the picture though it is clear that this book is going to explore a great deal about Celeana's Fae ancestry, her powers that she must learn to use and what happened to her parents and how she did become the deadly assassin that allowed her to be King's Champion. Rowan is a great new character. Related by blood to Celeana through her Fae mothers side he is sworn to serve her aunt Maeve and is charged with helping Celeana to learn to harness her gifts and to prove she is worthy of her aunt sharing with her the way to destroy the mysterious Wyrdkeys and therefore destroy the central source of the King of Adarlan's powers.

Whilst we have lots of flashback episodes to life in Adarlan and we keep learning about what Chaol and Dorian are up to whilst Celeana is away much of this book takes place in the home of the demi-Fae, Mistborn. There is a whole new cast of wonderful characters to meet and who will help Celeana to learn about her history and to go on that voyage of self-discovery that she needs to in order to learn to use her Fae gifts. In much the way that Throne of Glass was a worldbuilding introduction to the series, I get the feeling that this book is again about building the expansion of the world and placing our players onto the chess board for what is to come in the books ahead.

Therefore much of the book is focused upon Mistborn with Celeana, Adarlan with Chaol and Dorian and finally the view from the Blackwitch, Manon, who tells of how they have been recruited to lead the King of Adarlan's aerial forces and the journey they go on to find their mounts and settle the hierarchy of which clan of witches will lead the charge. Manon is another great addition to the story and she is clearly loyal to her Blackwitch clan but she is independent and good at seeing the wider picture and I am confident she could be a strong player as the story moves forward.

There are so many unanswered questions at the end of this book. We have Rowan and Celeana's relationship, they clearly have a strong bond as Fae but we have had the mating bond mentioned in this story and it could hint that this bond is there but just yet to snap into place. I know many people who really champion this romance and I can understand why but there is still a little bit of me waiting to see how things progress in the next book. The way we left Chaol and Dorian is also really exciting as they are both at a point where there stories are ready to take an entierly new turn in the next book.

When I look back at Book 1 it's clear that we started out with only a glimpse of the eventual story Maas wants to tell. Each and every book expands her world and gives it more texture and more layers that we can delve into. In much the way as the Court of Thorns & Roses series did we are finding new characters to fall in love with and visitng new places and this makes it an ongoing exciting series to read as you never feel you've quite glimpsed the edges of Maas huge imagination, there is always more to see and that's why I find her such an exciting author to read.

Only a 4 out of 5 stars for this one purely because the world building did at times mean plot development could slow for a chapter or so but this was compensated for in part by the historic information we gained about the world before Throne of Glass and Celeana's parents world.

This book intrigued me before I'd even bought it and it's description kept on pulling me back until eventually I did click buy. It promised the story of a moondial that would show you the future and this sparked in me a reminder of a book and tv show I'd loved many years before.

It is a very well crafted book, telling the story of Holly it begins on the day she is to give birth to her baby Libby and as she prepares to die in childbirth a future she had already seen thanks to a moondial in her garden. The book then spins back 18 months to the start of Holly's story and the beginning of her experiences with the moondial struggles she goes through in reaching her decision to go ahead with a pregnancy she knows she will not survive.

I loved the whole concept of this book, perhaps because of my memories of a childhood book I can't quite remember with a similar theme but this was a lovely concept for a book and very original. I couldn't quite believe how quickly I was going through it and almost didn't want it to be coming to an end. There is such lovely symbolism through the book in the ways the author draws in lots of symbols of motherhood in Holly's life through her sculpture and her relationship with neighbour Jocelyn.

The ending is well written and will leave you feeling that the characters have reached their intended conclusion but it is a sad read. We know early on that Holly is destined to die or give up having a child forever so death is a certainty in the books ending. There were so many ways I tried to convince myself this could be avoided but the author follows through her story beautifully.

I haven't read this authors work before but I loved her writing style, it pulled me in and made me want to keep reading and so I will be investigating her other work but I would thoroughly recommend this as a read and am now off to try and remember the name of that long forgotten book of my youth and the CBBC show that accompanied it....

I'd been desperate to read the concluding chapter in Keira Cass' trilogy ‘The Selection'. The dystopian story of a society where people are branded into castes or classes and forced to remain in that forever I has fallen in love with the fairy tale story of how America Singer is entered into a competition where the prize is to win the hand in marriage of Prince Maxon.

Books 1 & 2 had been largely about the growing relationship between America & Maxon, the competition and it's entrants and a little bit about the civil unrest growing in the fictional land of Illea. In the concluding book we know that Maxon must make his choice of wife and we pray his choice will be America - or do we? We still have America's childhood friend and first love Aspen in the background.

This book has so many similarities between recent young adult series it's scary. The fractured, segregated unhappy population forced to watch a public competition a la Hunger Games. The two heroes forcing us to wonder whom America will choose is very Twilight, Team Maxon v's Team Aspen mirroring Meyers books. It has all the things we loved about those books.

The final book in the series didn't waste any time in getting started, it dove straight in with no plot recaps, immediate action and it took me a chapter or too to reacquaint myself with who was whom and where we had left the action. Once if caught back up though I immediately became aware that in this book the focus would be equally on the civil unrest outside the palace as much as it would on the competition for Prince Maxon. As a result it meant we got to see a little more out with the palace walls and began to question the existing status of the country more as the book progressed.

I have a definite sense this series had run it's course, there is no way we could have got more books from the concept, there's only so many balls and functions that America could attend in pursuit of her prince and those secret trysts were getting ‘Old'. So much of this series has been about the lavish life in the palace but it was losing it's readership appeal and it's appropriate the series concluded. I also feel that that the ending of the book was lovely but I felt that Cass could have gotten another hundred pages or so from her characters. The events which shaped the books conclusion seemed to be shoehorned into a chapter, maybe 2 (they're short chapters) and I believe more drama and suspense could have been wrung from the events to give a less floaty and flimsy feel. It was all a little too quickly and neatly handled with no real grit about it.

All in all I've enjoyed my time with America and it was a great, if not original, concept. The books stand together as a great series for young girls and I'd recommend them to young adult readers who like their dystopian books with a large spoonful of sugar.