Laura

Lisa Hall blew me away last year with her debut novel ‘Between Me and You', it was quite simply one of those books that never leaves you because it made you question your preconceived judgements and caused you to stop and ask yourself how you could have missed that twist the whole way through the book. I literally couldn't wait to read Tell Me No Lies and I had huge expectations of it because of my enjoyment of Lisa's first novel.

This book begins with Steph and her husband Mark moving into their new home in London with their little boy Henry. We are aware that there are issues with their marriage and that the move constitutes a new start for them all. Steph is pregnant with their second child and it quickly becomes apparent that she was unwell with severe post-natal depression after the birth of Henry and is worried that the same problems may occur this time around. Mark is a television producer who works away from home for much of the time and so Steph finds herself settling into their new home and neighbourhood almost entirely alone and she soon begins receiving strange gifts left on the porch of their new home which begin to remind her of incidents in her past. She's scared and unsettled and with no one to turn to.

Steph begins to make friends with Laurence, the attractive and enigmatic man across the street and also with Lila her next door neighbour. Both become Steph's people to lean on when Mark isn't at home and their friendships grow quickly and soon she is relying on them more and more. The strange things are still happening and now as well as gifts left on her doorstep she finds things going missing and a sensation that someone has been in her home. She confides in Lila more and more and begins to accept more and more help from the neighbour next door whilst she withdraws from Laurence after she finds her attraction to him growing. Steph finds herself becoming more and more paranoid, confused and suspicious of people. Event from her past are resurfacing and suddenly the psychiatrist she's been seeing is making her feel crazy as he dismises her fears.

This book was a little of a slow starter but when I got into it I found the chapters slipping away as I became more and more pulled into the strange things that were happening to Steph and as I tried to find out who was responsible. I was fairly sure that all the coincidences could be easily explained and to be honest I do not think that Lisa Hall was trying to create a mystery where we couldn't guess from fairly early on who was responsible. Instead the focus was on the increasing instability that was created in the psyche of Steph as the incidents became more severe and as people began to question her sanity and truthfulness.

Steph is a really likeable lead character, she is open and friendly, she's trying her best to settle in a new place and is trying to raise her child almost single handedly. You want to root for her, you want people to take her seriously because you are seeing things from her perspective and so you know she's being geniune and this isn't just something in her head.

Where I struggled more was the character of her husband Mark who from my perspective wasn't the most supportive spouse. He is revealed at the start of the book as having recently been adulterous in the marriage and so explains the reason for why the family have moved home and despite promising his wife a new start he's soon off for work again to the far reaches of the world leaving his pregnant and fragile wife behind. He is literally missing for much of the book, leaving Steph to pick up all the slack and when she does confide in him about what's happening he is suspicious of her and intead of supporting her refers her back to her therapist. He literally refuses to believe his wife and whilst there is no conrete proof that doesn't mean that he didn't drive me crazy. He should have surely when things reached the extremes at the end of the book have been questioning whether perhap all the very extreme things could be linked to more than just his wife's potential psychosis.

My only other real gripe with the book was I literally finished the last chapter and turned the page expecting more and there was literally nothing.......I mean it was so unlikely a place to end I just couldn't imagine there wasn't another chapter or two. It had pulled me in so much that I wanted a resolution, I wanted more. I wanted justice and instead it leaves us screaming at the utter emptiness. I was worried, I am still thinking about the way that everything is left in the air. I couldn't fathom how we could have come to the end with 2 people knowing exactly what was happening and yet still the other side won. This shouldn't happen surely?

There was never going to be any following ‘Between You and Me' for sheer shock and awe endings, that book was one of the few I've ever read which made that happen and maybe people who were wishing the author would achieve the same again had set their expectations unrealistically. I found this to be a very well written novel, it's characters were indelibly human and therefore open to flaws and acts of deception and extreme dishonesty and cruelty. I also find it a little bit of a compliment that I got to the end and was still craving more, sometimes with novels you get to the end and are counting chapters because sometimes it's all being dragged out just a little too long whereas here I could have easily read several more.

I would recommend this novel, however if you have read Between You And Me just prepare yourself that the format and ending is not as earth shattering.

It's taken me some time to work my way though The Turning Point by Freya North and as I write my review I'm still not quite sure how I feel about the book. From the reviews I'd seen I'd anticipated a really heartfelt tragic story, people had contrasted it to Jojo Moyes' amazing tearjerker ‘Me Before You' and said they'd been just as moved to tears by the story North has written of two strangers Frankie & Scott who meet by chance in London and fall in love.

Frankie is a well written heroine, living in Norfolk with her two children Sam & Annabel she's a writer and single mum who is trying to get used to living away from the hustle and bustle of the city. She's a little lonely and struggling from writers block and just hoping she can break the block before the money from her previous book runs out. When she meets Scott in a hotel in London she is immediately drawn to this gentle musician from British Columbia, Canada and they instantly begin a relationship founded on their shared experiences of raising children alone and working in creative pursuits. The long distance relationship that follows is a difficult one to forge with their different commitments as Scott's daughter Jenna who suffers from severe epilepsy and Frankie's two children take precedence over their ability to be together.

Perhaps because I'd read people talk about this book as a tear jerker I'd suspected there was something less straight forward to come and I was therefore less surprised when it did. In some ways I'd wished I hadn't known as perhaps then I'd have felt more buoyantly optimistic for Scott & Frankie throughout the rest of the book.

I've been reading North's novels for a number of years, going back to the early novels Cat & Polly and I've almost grown up with them as she's moved from tales of loveless singletons to this tale of someone looking to find a second chance at love. My thoughts on this book though were that whilst the storyline was all there there was something lacking in the substance. I never really felt I got below the surface of Frankie's feelings, she never seemed to quite let her guard down enough to let me in. Scott as a male character seemed more open and accessible than Frankie, his easy style and character made his feelings clearer, he seemed less complicated and more open.

This was a book I kept picking up and reading a little then finding a little too easy to put down again, there was not enough momentum or drama driving it forward. It was a nice tale of a couple finding love but it wasn't a stand out story for me. Much of the book meandered its way along without much momentum. I wish there had been a few more twists and turns along the way to drive me through the book. It wasn't one I'll look back on and remember above others in the similar genre with similar stories. It ticked all the boxes but I wanted more, I wanted more emotion, more drama, more twists ad turns.

HBO are about to launch a brand new, star-studded miniseries later in February based on this book by Liane Moriarty. Starring such big Hollywood names as Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman and Shailene Woodley it is clear that the budget for its adaptation to the small screen hasn't been insignificant. For a show to attract such a myriad of stars as it has there must be something significantly strong in the book for it to have found such attention.

The last book I read by Moriarty was some years ago now and was The Husband's Secret, I remember it as being an okay read but it didn't blow me away and so this book has been on my e-reader pretty much since it's release and it was only my incessant need not to let the series begin without my having read the content upon which it is based that pushed it to the top of my list.

Based in a small, highly affluent seaside suburb in Melbourne, Australia it follows the lives of three women. Madeline is a mother of 3, happily married to her second husband she is preparing for her youngest daughter beginning to start Kindergarten. Making the whole transition worse is the fact her ex-husband's child with his new wife is going to be in the same class and there's just nothing Madeline hates more than the hippy-dippy lifestyle of the woman was replaced with. Also, we have wealthy and beautiful Celeste, mother of twins and wife of a successful businessman is also preparing to send her boys to school however it's clear that behind the veneer of Celeste's perfect life is a secret that she keeps from everyone around her.

Finally, we have Jane, a young single mother who has just moved to the area and has to transition her little boy into the school along with mothers and children she doesn't know. On the first day of school, Ziggy is accused of bullying another child and she finds herself ostracised by the other mums and judgements made about her parenting. Jane though hides a secret also about the father she has never told Ziggy about and it scares her that perhaps the things her little boy is accused of could be true.

From the very outset of the book, we are aware that there has been a murder committed at a trivia night held to raise funds for the school. The book is written through the moths and weeks leading up to the crime and each chapter has interspersed snippets from police interviews with different members of the school community after the crime. From these, we are given tantalising glimpses of what happens but never the full picture as each person has their own perceptions of the evening's events based on whom they have aligned themselves with in the bullying furore.

The book really pulls you on through the chapters, the mixture of chapters being told from each different lead characters perspectives means we get to share each of their stories and their friendship from each angle. The characters are well written and maybe because I know who is going to be playing each role in the series I could really see them clearly in my mind and you can see the actresses chosen really bringing their role to the screen perfectly. The police interview snippets are a really clever writing tool because it lets us see that no two people ever view the same situation in the same way and that what we observe from afar is not always the truth behind people's actions. We also learn that bullying and cliques and name calling are something that we don't leave behind in the school playground, even as adults people use these to give themselves power and status and the parallels between the adult's worlds and those of their children is profound.

I did manage to guess one of the big reveals at the end of the book from around half way however it didn't spoil the ending as I couldn't have foreseen the murder itself and the way in which it took place. The book really did keep you guessing about that right up until the moment itself as there were various ways it could have played out. The fallout from the crime was handled very well and brought together characters that we hadn't anticipated would find affinity with one another and taught us that absolutely everyone has secrets they don't wish to share in life and sometimes it's the things we don't share that are the most powerful things about us.

I am now literally on the edge of my seat waiting for the television adaptation, I have a feeling it's going to be a huge hit for HBO and for people who have not read the book they will fall in love with it as there is glamour and friendship and enough backstabbing to bring the screen to life. I know that now I will be watching with a clear indicator of what the ending will be but I still cannot wait to relive Madeline, Celeste and Jane's journeys on screen.

So for a little light summer reading and to fill the days till I can dive into the new Robert Galbraith novel, I decided to spend some time with the fourth and latest instalment of Alexandra Brown's Carrington's Department Store Series - Ice Creams at Carrington's.

I know summer is the time for a little light reading on the beach and lazy days but I really struggled with this book. We are reunited with all our favourite Carrington's characters from the series, heroine Georgie and her boyfriend, and owner of Carrington's, Tom along with her best friends Sam and Eddie.

It should have been a joy, as the story is based around Georgie trying to arrange the Mulberry on Sea summer regatta but instead I became disillusioned as our heroine appeared to drift further away from her down to earth roots and become somewhat of a want to be ‘it girl'. No more are the stories focused around our hard working heroine working in her beloved department store, instead she was attending parties on yachts which had me visualising scenes from Revenge with Georgie in the Emily Thorne role. If not on yachts she was being flow across the world to hoi polloi “Sex & the City” style with her best friend Eddie.

I became even more disheartened that Brown's characters seemed to be becoming more and more stereotypical, her best friend Sam's descent into motherhood blues whilst her other friend Eddie seemed to be nothing more than a poster boy for what narrow minded people view gay men as. He grated on my nerves throughout. It also was the shameless use of words such as ‘emosh' instead of emotional or ‘amazeballs', I mean really what age are your target audience 14?

All this capped off with the interviews at the end of the book staged with her fictional characters - they aren't real people!

Disappointed and let down, think it's devastating that what started as such a lovely personal series is drifting into a stereotypical chick lit novel which seems to think the way to boost readership is to have our heroine whisked off to a more glamorous life. My question would be that whilst Georgie seems to be getting all she want is it at the readers expense.

Clearly the next book has already been planned, I just pray it returns the lovely Georgie to a more down to earth scenario focused on her lovely little department store.

With a 5 hour train journey to and from Scotland and London to fill I had to pick my reading material with care so I took along the newest paperback by Cathy Kelly. I thoroughly enjoyed this latest installment by the irish authoress and liked the way that it brought together the 3 experiences of adultery that the main characters lived through.I particularly liked the way it linked the story of Grandmother and Grandaughter and how through flashbacks it told the similarity of their stories, taking through to a poignant ending which sees the grandmother pass away.A cracking read - another fantastic Cathy Kelly novel and well worth the moneyComment Comment Permalink

This book has such a strange title that it immediately intrigued me as a reader, then I saw some reviews from Booktube that said it was a good read so when I saw it as a new release in my local library I decided I definitely would give it a try. It was a short, quick read but a satisfying one for me this month.

Set in Alaska in the 1970's it's the story of 4 different teens whose lives collide due to the cultures and limitations of their world. Ruth lives with her strict Catholic gran and her little sister Lilly. Her mother left them years before after her father died in a plane crash and now she longs for a way to exert her independence but finds it difficult in her small town with a grandmother who believes in living a humble and quiet life. From nearby we have Dora, the child of the towns violent criminal drunk she has left her family home and moved in with her friend Dumpling and her parents. She just longs for a home she feels safe in and a promise she won't have to go home again to her violent family.

Alongside these two stories we also have Alyce, a talented dancer who has been offered the chance to audition for college scholarships in dance but she doesn't know how to tell her fisherman father that she cannot help him during the fishing season because she thinks he won't manage alone. Finally, we have Hank and his two brothers who are trying to run away from their mother and her new boyfriend to begin a life of their own. They just want to be together.

Told from the perspectives of each teen this book was both heartwarming and heartbreaking in equal measure. It really highlights the isolation of living somewhere like Alaska where there are huge disparities between those who have and those who do not. There is a blending of many cultures and traditions which lead to different pockets of community and ways of life but I loved learning about how they all blend and how the young people come together to support one another no matter which they belong to.

In this short book, we cover the span of a year in the community and the way in which the lives of all 4 lead characters change forever as they each seek a future that will take them outside the small world they have become used to and bring them together in a way they could never have expected.

A 3 star read for me with this one, it may have been short but it was very impactful but I felt I could have done with more to flesh out parts of the story and another hundred or so pages might have allowed this.

When I was young I always loved the fairy tale Aladdin because the setting of the Far Eastern world seemed so exotic and colourful and full of life. I loved the Disney adaptation and think that to this day it remains one of my favourite Disney musicals of all time. To find a book set in this wonderful fairy tale setting is exciting and to then find it is loosely based on the tales of Scheherezade's A Thousand And One Nights is even more so.

The Wrath And The Dawn is the first book in Renee Ahdieh's Wrath & The Dawn duology and follows Shaharzad, a 16-year-old girl who chooses to marry the King. Under normal circumstances, this would be every young girl's dream but this King has been taking a new bride every night and his brides always meet the same fate, killed as the dawn rises the day after their marriage. Shahrazad's best friend Shiva is one of the brides that Khalid has killed and Shazi marries him for one reason, to kill him and gain her revenge for the death of her friend.

Shazi begins to realise that this King whom everyone hates is hiding a secret, the real reason why he is killing these young women and as she begins to get to know him she finds herself doing the unthinkable and falling in love with the man she had set out to kill. There begins a love that encompasses them both but which could put their whole kingdom in jeopardy.

This book was just wonderful right from the outset. There are lots of new words and descriptions for the old Eastern weapons and dress but once you become familiar with them you are transported to this beautiful world full of spice and colour and beauty. Ahdieh manages to bring this to life and really pulls you into the atmosphere of the novel and it feels like true escapism. If I put the book down I couldn't wait to get back to it so I could enjoy being in that world for a while instead of Scotland in what has been a cold, wet, windy summer.

We meet a wonderful cast of characters, Jalal the cousin of Khalid and Captain of his Guard, Despina the handmaiden of Shazi who is initially sent to spy on her but who becomes her close friend and confidante. Tariq, the childhood friend and love of Shazi who sets out to rescue her from the palace the fate that has befallen all the other brides of the Caliph. Ahdieh spins a wonderful tale, we know that Khalid hides a secret but we aren't given this too early on in the novel so this means that the relationship built between Shazi and Khalid feels built upon their real feelings for each other despite the uncertainty Shazi faces about her future.

The ending leaves things wide open as we don't arrive at a neat conclusion but instead we have a cliffhanger that will lead us into book 2, The Rose & The Dagger which I cannot wait to read. I find duologies are often really nice as 2 books is a good number that means you get to spend a good long time with characters that you love without having to commit to lots and lots of novels. I am excited to add this to my completed duology list of 2017.

This is absolutely one of my 5 star reads this month as it's a book that was entierly different in setting from lots of books available and a unique take on old fairy tales.

Very occasionally a book comes along that makes you stop and truly put life on hold whilst you escape into a world that isn't your own for a while and when that book ends it leaves you feeling both empty and more fulfilled than you could imagine. The Last Days of Rabbit Hayes is one of those very very special books that will stay with me for a very long time to come.

It is a story of forty year old Mia ‘Rabbit' Hayes as she enters a hospice preparing to die from the cancer she's been trying to fight for the last few years. This book is not really Rabbit's story at heart, instead it's about her mother Molly, her father Jack, her siblings Grace and Davey and Juliet, Rabbit's 12 year old daughter. That is what makes this story so beautiful, it's the story of a family trying to cope with something that they aren't ready to face. It's about the hope they exhibit and how they manage as it begins to fade, it's about how no matter what our beliefs are family is what binds us together.

Chapters are told from different family members throughout this book, often flashing back to their teenage years and focusing on Rabbit's love affair with her brothers bandmate Johnny we are welcomed into this warm, lively and strong Irish family. McPartlin has written a book where the relationships explored in this book are each intertwined not by lots of action or significant events but by the simple every day actions of being a family.

I cried buckets at this book, but just when I'd have tears falling in the next moment the wonderful characters would do something that would make me laugh and then I'd be right back in the emotion crying again. I couldn't put it down, I just wanted to experience the journey this family were going on and whilst it was dreadfully sad it was also incredibly uplifting.

Books of this calibre are rare, this was so incredibly special and moving. It's as good if not better than Jojo Moyes' Me Before You. It will be a book that I'll recommend time and time again because I believe Rabbit Hayes has something to teach us all which is sometimes just being ordinary is what makes us extraordinary.

Oh Allegiant, how you've frustrated me these past few days. That feeling of not knowing whether to throw you at the wall (thought I'd better not as my kindle would break) or embrace your twisted sentiment.

In advance of delving into Ali Condie's Matched trilogy I thought I would finish the Divergent series first and was hoping it's conclusion would be more satisfying than the conclusion of The Hunger Games which diluted it's enjoyment book by book. I'd already become concerned when the second book in Roth's series, Insurgent, proved less satisfying than the first. I prayed that the third would redeem itself.

We commence immediately after the conclusion of book 2 where the factionless and their leader Evelyn have taken control of the city. Suddenly the factions are in danger and it appears one dictator has been swapped for another, so a group come together and form the Allegiant, with a view to reinstating the factions.

From here I became frustrated as the book seemed to them become a never ending round of people trying to usurp one leader for another, then for another and another. We take a journey outwith the city Tris and Tobias call home and they travel to a world where it seems more of the same is on the cards.

The characters seem to stall a little in this book, their dialogue seems less mature than that of the earlier books and their relationship scenes seem childlike and immature. That said however the ending that Roth have them still had me choked with tears and I liked how she left a real message at the end of the book, concluding it really nicely with a message for life.

I'd like to say I loved this book, I didn't, but neither could I say I entirely hated it either. It was a difficult one, I had to force my way through it at points then suddenly there would be a little spark of genius and I'd read intently for a chapter then that spark would fade. It has been a challenging read, not entirely in enjoyable but I'm glad Roth has concluded the series and won't be trying to dredge another book from her increasingly tired story.

I had loved Steena Holmes previous 2 novels, Finding Emma and Emma's Secret. They were full of great characters and I especially loved the relationship between Emmy and her grandfather Jack. I therefore dove at The Memory Child desperate for more of the same from Holmes.

The book opens with Diane and her newborn daughter Grace who, in the absence of her husband Brian, is living with her nanny and ex nurse Nina. We join them on Diane's first day back at work in her high powered job only one month after the birth of her daughter. Immediately there are sinister undertones such as the mysterious pills Nina keeps dishing out to Diane, the disinterest she has for her charge and the noteable absence of any communication from Diane's husband Brian. Underpinning all this foreboding is the story of Diane's mother who whilst suffering from post partum psychosis took the life of her baby and herself and Diane's fear the same thing might be happening to her.

This dark undertone continues throughout the whole book and builds us up to the big reveal near the last 10%. This would have been a great reveal if I hadn't already figured out the big plot twist about 5 chapters earlier and so was just biding my time. I felt the element of surprise had been ruined and I also felt the ending was a little rushed from the point the plot was revealed.

I feel deeply with this book that what was set out to be a story of post partum psychosis actually missed a huge opportunity to tell that story. Instead, and this is difficult to detail without ruining the book for those who haven't read, the events which happened to Diane become the explanation more than being a tale of post partum psychosis. I loved the way the book was written from the perspective of Diane in the present time and flashbacks from her husbands perspective throughout the pregnancy. however to achieve a book which really told the emotional side of post partum psychosis we needed chapters from the perspective of Charlie, Diane's sister, as she observes Diane's life or we needed to have flashbacks to Diane's mother's story. Instead we are focused on the big plot twist and lose lots of the real emotion along the way. It is an opportunity missed and I actually feel that had the author avoided the big dramatic plot twist and focused on the tale of a mother, husband and child an altogether stronger story may have emerged.

This is not to say I didn't enjoy the story, I was pulled along and found it engaging and entertaining. I wouldn't say it was badly written just perhaps trying to be all things to all people. I would absolutely read her next novel based upon her earlier work.

The premise for this book sounded wonderful and I coveted it for a long time on my Amazon wish list, I checked the price faithfully for months until I eventually bought it as I was so very intrigued by this tale of a love triangle between a cavalry soldier, an English heiress and the Empress of Austria.

Right from the outset I floundered with this book, maybe my lack of Hungarian royal knowledge hindered me as for the first 6 chapters or so every time they talked about the Empress Elizabeth I kept thinking “that's nice but when is the lead character Sisi that they talk about on the book description going to appear”. It took 6 chapters before they reconciled that Elizabeth was Sisi and I eventually got into the swing of things.

Or did I? You see that was the problem with this book for me, it just never really got off the starting blocks. It was all so very superficial. Aside from the character of Charlotte Baird all of the other characters were intrinsically unlikeable. Snobby, obsessed with social position and oh so many drawing room conversations made them so difficult to warm to.

Also, I know author was trying to convey Sisi's great beauty but I swear if I read about her hair any tiny waist one more time I was going to throw my kindle at the wall. It was such a bland and uninspired book, devoid of any depth of emotion.

Aside from a few hunts, a grand national and lots of emotional angst not much actually happened in all the pages. I wanted to give up on so many occasions but plodded on praying it might redeem itself. It never did and by the end I just didn't care what happened.

Very dissapointing and not one of recommend unless you like your reads with little depth.

So it is coming on Christmas now and it's time to indulge in some of the amazing books releases for the festive season. Karen Swan is an author I read last year at this time and fell in love with her lovely, emotional and romantic novels centred around the Xmas season.

This years Xmas releases was therefore an essential and the first indulgent read of the Xmas season. It is the story of party girl Clem who lives life to the full, never tying herself down and never committing to anyone or anything. When a drunken mistake puts her brothers exclusive business in jeopardy she finds herself trying to make a change and make amends.

Much of this book is not actually based around the festive season, we begin and end there much in the way we did with Swan's earlier novel Christmas at Tiffany's. Instead we are transported to rural Italy where Clem is forced to relive the most painful summer of her life. The book clearly indicates something very painful happened to her here but it leaves us guessing for much of the book.

The characters are all wonderfully written and lend depth and emotion to the book. The scenic descriptions of Portofino are lovely and pull you into the atmosphere you can imagine Clem gets from being there. It is a beautiful story and one that whilst not hitting my Xmas buttons did leave me overwhelmingly emotional and shedding a tear or two.

Perhaps a shame it will be categorised as a Xmas read when it's so much more than that and if you bought it hoping for tales of kisses under the mistletoe you might be left wanting but I don't think it should spoil the story that lies at it's heart

This month I feel like I've gone on such a wonderful journey through the world of Cassandra Clare's Shadowhunters and her Infernal Devices Trilogy, I've been what I would term a transient reader for the past year and have struggled to read sometimes one book a month but somehow in May I have managed to read this entire trilogy and a few other books besides. The other books were there as fillers to stop me from reading The Infernal Devices books back to back but my desperation to return to Clare's world meant I found myself devouring those books quickly too lest it takes me too long away from the world of Jem, Tessa and Will.

I had tried to begin The Mortal Instruments, the companion series to these books, and each time I had stalled. I just couldn't build that picture in my mind of the world Clare was building but now I can see it as clearly as day. I feel it's been fundamental for me to read this series, essentially the prequel to The Mortal Instruments books in order to be able to fully prepare myself to go back and delve into the modern world setting of the other books. I think I needed to have that gothic, historical setting and wonderful love stories to make me fall in love with the Shadowhunter world and to build the family background of all the characters that I will meet as I move into The Mortal Instruments.

And what a story this was, from the opening chapters it is full of a wonderful mix of adventure and suspense and emotion and love. It picks up immediately after the end of Clockwork Prince where we find that Will Herrondale's sister Cecily has arrived at The Institute and is training now to be a Shadowhunter. We are still trying to track down the mysterious Magister and his army of clockwork automatons and to piece together how Tessa forms such an integral part of his plans. We also are still questioning how Tessa has the ability to shapeshift when both of her parents were apparently mundane's. All of the characters we've come to love are there and it's like coming home to family, you feel like part of the Institute and care about each and every single one of them. From Bridget the cook and her somewhat annoying if not insightful singing to Charlotte, head of the institute who is now pregnant with her first child.

Alongside all of the adventure of this book, the story is fundamentally about the one story we are all desperate to know the end of, the love between Jem, Will and Tessa. When we left them Tessa was engaged to marry Jem but his health is failing and unbeknown to him his best friend and parabatai Will is also in love with his fiancee. For the first time in any love triangle, I was so desperately rooting for them all. Jem and Will are so intricately a part of each other and such wonderfully written characters that you want to be able for Tessa to love them both. This book had me wrung out emotionally throughout, there were so many moments of wonderful writing where Clare would move their story forward but also take great care not to rush past the difficult emotions that were going on within. At times there is humour and light moments to lift us from the darkness and this balance is a very special thing.

We do reach a wonderful and very satisfying conclusion at the end of the book, one I certainly didn't see coming. In fact, throughout this book, there were so many moments where Clare would so utterly surprise you with how the story changed and moved that I found myself catching my breath and in sheer joy or amazement. Those surprises you don't see coming make this an amazing end to her wonderful Infernal Devices series. Coming away from them I feel like I've made a whole group of new friends, not real friends but as a book lover, I'm sure you know that feeling that the people you read about when written well leap so off the page that they feel as real to you as can be. I am still utterly enraptured by Magnus Bane, I don't know what it is about him that makes Clare write him so vividly that each time he is on the page he totally consumes it, he is so utterly three dimensional you feel you could reach out and touch him. I want to learn so much more about how each of the families of Shadowhunters will move forward in The Mortal Instruments. I want to see how their children's children and great grandchildren will reflect the characters of their ancestors.

These books have been such a wonderful experience to read this past month. Someone said to me recently that if you are in a reading slump maybe it's not the reading that's the problem but what you are reading. Never has a truer word been spoken. To break away from my usual genre's and to enter a world unfamiliar has paid me such dividends and rejuvenated me so much that I feel more enthusiastic about reading than I have in such a long time. For that, Cassandra Clare, I thank you.

Dorothy Koomson is an author well known for her ability to produce a novel crafted around the secrets that can bring our lives crashing down often with devastating circumstances. Her latest novel ‘The Flavours of Love' promised the same. The blurb on the book gives a strong promise of a story where a woman's husband has been murdered and her daughter confesses something about his death which coincides with letters arriving from his killer.

The book starts in a rocketing fashion when Saffron is asked to attend a meeting at her fourteen year old daughters school whereby she is told her daughter is pregnant. The book then settles unto building up the story really nicely. The reader is brought quickly up to speed with the story that Saffron's husband Joel was murdered 18 months previously and the murderer was never caught. This is all tied into the mystery of how her daughter Phoebe got pregnant and by whom.

It was one of those books that gripped instantly one minute I was 1% in and the next I'd barely caught breath and I was 25% of the way through and I just wanted to know more. It felt like there was a huge secret within that needed to be resolved and I wanted to know what it was. If only that had been true.....

I struggled a little with this book because I just could not understand why Saffron would make the choices she did regards her husband's killer. I don't want to spoil the book for others but it just didn't make sense to me how she could do that even for the sake of protecting a child which she wasn't even really needing to worry about. There was so much procrastination and too little action for me. I'd have had the whole thing done and dusted much much sooner.

I found the story of her daughters pregnancy better written and more likely to ring true in real life and this did help to redeem the book. And believe me it was very well written and nicely brought together but it was all a little frustrating for me as I wanted to shake the main character by the shoulders and tell her to stop wallowing in her own pain and start doing something.

Frustrating book.

So after reading and enjoying E Lockhart's We Were Liars I decided I'd stick with the Young Adult genre and try another of 2014's best reviewed books Don't Look Back. Another mystery style and with a much talked about twist at the end I hoped for something of the same quality as We Were Liars.

Armentrout's book starts with teen Sammy being found wandering around near the forest at her parents sumer home, she's clearly been in an accident her memory is gone and worst of all her best friend Cassie is still missing. We quickly learn Sammy is from a very wealthy old money family, she's the centre of her schools social stratosphere and she is the ultimate mean girl.

Which is where my boredom kicked up a notch, suddenly her loss of memory has her turning her life around, suddenly she's being super nice to everyone and falling in love with the poor boy who used to be her best friend, all interspersed with flash back's to what happened before Cassie disappeared. It was a book full of so many cliché's it became laughable. Now I know I'm not the books target audience in that I'm not a young teen living through this very situation in high school but I just cannot believe that teens could possibly not also feel the potential of this book has been dumbed down a bit by the obligatory plot lines that made it feel a bit formulaic.

The big reveal at the end of the book wasn't a big shock, reading between the lines throughout you could spot the guilty party from approximately a third of the way through. And knowing what I guessed part way through would have raised all kinds of questions that any competent police force would have investigated ages before and unless the detective was worse than useless could have pieced it all together.

I was disappointed by this book, I was literally so bored by the end I flicked through the big revelation which isn't good is it? I truly couldn't understand the hype it had received and probably wouldn't be rushing to read another book by this author.

So regular readers of my reviews will know how much I raved about the first Cormoran Strike novel by Robert Galbraith, or as we now all are aware J K Rowling. I was literally champing at the bit to get started on The Silkworm and so by 9am on publication day I had dove in.

I loved the clever narrative of the first Strike novel, the weaving of a story from the interrogation of the major players. In this second book in the series we have more of the same, the key characters are introduced through observations or recollections and then we meet them one by one throughout the book. This is still a very clever writing style as again reflective of the old fashioned writing of Agatha Christie.

There is a little more gore in this book. It has more discussion of the science of murder than in book one. This was necessary due to the fact this book clearly felt with a murder whereas book one was based around a suicide and one that happened prior to the book starting.

I didn't find the story in this book flowed so easily as the previous novel, this I found was down to the characters. I can hand on heart state that I found almost no redeeming qualities in any of them. They were hands down the most unsavoury, unscrupled and downright unlikeable group. This meant that it was difficult to want to spend time with them reading about them. It was a slower read, the characters were at times so similar in characters and nastiness that I had to keep checking who was whom.

The two main players, Cormoran and Robin are still excellent central characters and hold the story together well. They play excellently off each other and make great reading. Strike is still a somewhat man of mystery on which further Galbraith novels can be hung.

I could only give 4 stars due to the slower pull of it and it's storyline. It was difficult to find empathy for the murder victim who is portrayed as a sexual deviant with a penchant for the obscure and a thirst for revenge. It made for less sympathetic reading than that of supermodel Lula Landry.

Rowling has penned what will doubtless be one of THE beach reads of the year. It will be talked about many times over and deservedly so. I am keen to spend more time with her enigmatic detective and his assistant in novel number 3

Jenny Colgan has become something of a master at what she does, creating little community based books around fledgling business headed by young, love torn women searching for peace and happiness in their lives. We've had the Cupcake Cafe, Rosie Hopkins Sweetshop, a Paris Chocolatiers and now Polly with her Little Beach Street Bakery.

It is not the main heroine nor the possibility of romance which make Colgan's books so special, it is instead the surrounding cast of characters she brings to each book, building not just singular stories but ones which have strong atmosphere and a sense of real community and camaraderie.

In this novel we meet Polly, who facing bankruptcy with her boyfriend Chris decides to uproot herself to a tiny Cornish fishing village where she rents a rickety tumbledown old bakery. Before she knows it her bread is healing her wounds and integrating her into the little fishing community. With all the fishermen, her little puffin Neil and a strange American beekeeper called Huckle it's not long before I was completely hooked on this book.

The way in which Colgan wove in the stories about the dangers of fishing and the worries the families of those who risk their lives fishing face was lovely and gave another perspective to the story and mixing in the eccentric billionaire who lives nearby meant there was never a dull moment in this book.

I truly hope this is not the last we see of Polly, I hope her little bakery is given another novel in the same way as we've been allowed to revisit the Cupcake Cafe and Rosie Hopkins. I'd truly love to read more about Polly, her puffin, Mrs Manse and the little community Polly helped to build.

This book is one of the most beautiful stories I have ever read. It is perhaps one of the most unusual but wonderfully crafted tales that will remain with me for some time to come. It is perhaps one of the easiest 5-star ratings I have given in some time and will absolutely be one of the books I recommend to people moving forward.

This book reminded me of watching movies like Big Fish and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, tales that may contain strange and fascinating characters who live outwith the norms of society but who at heart are just normal people with wonderful stories to share. This book is the story of young Ava Lavender, a girl who was born with wings. Through her life, people are scared, awed and fascinated by her. Is she girl, bird or angel? Either way, this is Ava's story and not just her story but the story of all the women in her family from her great-grandmother who leaves France in 1914 to live in Manhattan with her husband through to her grandmother and her strange collection of siblings to Viviane the mother of Ava and her love affair with the boy in her town that will give her the strange children who will change her life.

This book just sucked me in whole. The writing is so beautiful, it is clear that the world is not quite as we know it. There are strands of reality mixed with the magical and fantastical. The way that all of the characters from the Roux family continue to pop in and out of the narrative until we fall in love with them all so much it feels a real wrench when you finish this book.

I could see this book so clearly in my mind. The writing just evoked the whole town where Ava and her family live so well. The strange and unusual people who live in the small town are all so unique and as the story moves along they become so intrinsically a part of this story that the community forms such a heartwarming place for our story to unfold. The way they all pull together when Ava and her family need them and help them heal is just wonderful.

This book has to be made into a movie, that this story should not be made available to the wider world would be a crime. I can see this clearly on the big screen and it is a story that needs to be told. Absolutely this is the one book I badly want to see adapted.

Definitely one of my top reads of this year and a new favourite book for me.

This has sneaked in as my first read of 2017 but really it was one I started a few weeks before the end of the year but with all the crazy preparations for xmas with 4 children, all the nativity plays, Christmas parties along with an unexpected bout of Chicken Pox for my youngest it took me somewhat longer that normal to work my way through this, my second Jenny Colgan read of the festive season.

It has been a year or so now since I read the first book in this series and so it took me some time to get back into the story of Rosie Hopkins and the little sweet shop she runs in the tiny village of Lipton with her boyfriend Stephen and the care of her elderly aunt Lilian. Time has moved on a little since the end of the first book and now Stephen and Rosie are living together in her Great Aunt's cottage and Lilian has moved into a residential home where she and her old nemesis Ida Delia spend their days plaguing the life out of each other and all the other residents as their old battle over a shared love continues through the years.

Rosie and Stephen are pottering along quite nicely with Rosie running the family business, a tiny little sweet shop that Lilian's family have owned in the village for generations, whilst Stephen is about to start a new career as a Primary School teacher in the village school. Christmas is approaching and all seems calm until suddenly everything turns upside down at once and family announce they are flying in from Australia, an accident causes a major disruption in the village and a setback to Rosie's blossoming romance and a strange new elderly visitor to the village kindles a story that will cause Lilian to realise that perhaps love has one final twist for her also.

Colgan has become the master at these tales, the little quirky villages full of quirky characters with a strong heroine struggling to launch her fledgling business and juggle a blossoming romance at the same time. Simply interchange the heroine and the location of the business to make several successful franchises in the past few years. Be it a bakery, sweet shop or cupcake cafe they have all been phenomenally successful for Colgan and have all enjoyed the development of the characters over several books. Perhaps especially because I had just enjoyed Christmas at the Little Beach Street Bakery I found myself drawing comparisons even more so between it and Christmas at Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop. Maybe I should have allowed myself a little more grace between the two to fully appreciate them in their own right.

I didn't find myself flying through this book, desperate to get back to it's story. For me it sort of meandered it's way through with some dramas to keep us reading but without any major surprises along the way. All turned out in the end as I anticipated it would on Page 1, with a happy heroine who has saved the day in the village and got her man whilst enjoying a happy snowy Christmas with all she loved. All the twists and turns along the way were leading us to the conclusion we were destined for all along and I wouldn't have expected Colgan to deliver anything different. She does warm and fuzzy books designed to deliver exactly that feel good factor.

It won't stand out on it's own if I reflect back on it in a years time, I doubt I will be able to separate it from the Christmas counterparts of the other series' Colgan has written but I won't declare that it didn't do what it said on the tin, spread a little Christmas cheer within a world where sometimes that is all too lacking.

This Pulitzer prize winning novel by Anthony Doerr has been hugely popular over the past few years and has been on my TBR for some time now. From what I knew about this book I had high hopes that this story of a blind girl in Nazi-occupied France during World War II would be something that would be deeply moving and highly enjoyable.

There are some really great things about this book. Firstly our two main characters are both hugely likeable and tell us very different stories about life on different sides of the war. Firstly we follow Marie-Laure who has been blind from an early age, with her father the head of security at the Natural History Museum in Paris they find themselves fleeing Paris when it is occupied by the German's. On the other side, we follow Werner, a German orphan with an aptitude for radios who finds himself saught by Hitler Youth because of his skills and thrown into a world he finds difficult to reconcile himself with. Whilst the main story is told from their point of view Doerrr gives us some really wonderful and well fleshed out side characters such as Marie-Laure's Uncle Etienne and Werner's friend from school Frederik. They are characters you sympathise with and want to succeed. Being a World War II story the risk for everyone is always high and this means emotionally you are engaged and fearful for them throughout. Mainly we alternate back and forth between chapters from Marie-Laure's and Werner's perspectives throughout the timeline of the war. The chapters are very short, generally, only a few pages and this means you tend to fly through the narrative quite quickly and find yourself engaged very early on in the story.

For me though, there was something just not quite there with this book. I think it was the fact that for 85% of this book our two main characters sit in complete isolation to one another. Their stories are independent and don't really intertwine. We are hopeful that they will intercept at some point but we are not sure about when they will and whether the meeting will be a positive one for all involved. I felt a little bit unmoved when they did meet, it was all over a little too quickly and didn't provide that gut-wrenching emotion I wanted to have after investing so much in the rest of the book. I wanted it to be epic, this is a Pulitzer prize winner after all, it must be amazing. Right? It just wasn't. It was only just okay. It was like waiting throughout the whole book for a pay off you just knew must be coming and then finding yourself shortchanged.

This book had huge promise, it had a brilliant historical landscape with which to work and at times Doerr makes magnificent use of this to tell very moving stories about life during the war for both those who were occupied and the German boys who found themselves thrust into war. I just needed his characters to meet a little sooner and for their meeting to have the same emotional pull as the rest of the book. For that reason, I'm only giving this one 3 out of 5 stars. It was a good book but I thought I'd rave about it after and to be honest, it was only okay for me.

I'd taken a little break in my journey through the Throne of Glass novels, having read Heir of Fire back last year I just hadn't felt myself drawn back to the story. I am aware though that May is creeping ever closer with a new release in the Court of Thorns and Roses Series and with another Throne of Glass novel set for release in September I felt it was time to get back on track and complete the series to date so I am all ready for the release dates of Sarah's new novels in 2018.

The first thing I love about this installment of the series is we are beginning to see Celaena's two worlds collide. She has returned from the Fae world of Book 3 and is now accepting her responsibilities as Queen of Terassen, the action has returned to the city of Adarlan where the first two books took place and she is determined to kill the King who destroyed her home and has been using magic to destroy and conquer the worlds around him.

By taking the action back to Adarlan we have much more interaction between all the characters whose relationships we invested in so deeply in Books 1 and 2, Chaol is back and he and Celaena have unresolved issues they need to work through. When the Fae and human world's start working together, though it all starts getting interesting and blends all the different people together for a common cause which is very satisfying as a reader.

I also love that this book allows us to resolve some of the real conflicts we've had going on since book one. Celaena is back to put an end to the King of Adarlan and she's not going to stop till she achieves it. This is not the only fight she's here to settle though and this is great as we see her face off against the King of the Assassins who trained her and who's shadowy figure has been hovering on the edges of the story since the first chapters four books ago. This book really sees Celaena using everything she's learned and all the allies she's made along the way to help her achieve justice for the people of Adarlan and to allow her to free magic.

In the last book I found the witch Manon and her Blackbeak clan interesting but didn't see how they were fitting in with the story but in this book we spend more time with them and start to see how they are also being manipulated in a way to help the King of Adarlan achieve his dark and dangerous goals. We meet a new character, a witch who has links to Celaena's past and this is a great mystery for us to take forward into Empire of Storms.

I really enjoyed this installment, I liked having conclusions to parts of the story that had been ongoing, I like that it raised questions over whether the evil that had been holding the land was, in fact, all it appeared to be or whether even darker forces are at work. I am thrilled with the development of Celaena's character and the introduction of new allies for her to work with moving forward. I am really excited for Book 5 now as will hopefully see Celaena eventually start moving towards claiming her birthright as Queen of Terrassen.

A great read, absolutely worth of 5 stars and has definitely refreshed my enthusiasm of the series.

I've had a bit of a week of it this week and so I needed to read something that would engage me and immerse me in the story. I hoped that Before We Met would do just that.

The story of Hannah, a newly-wed who goes to collect her entrepreneur husband from the airport only for him not to arrive. This is the blurb the book advertised and it sounded exciting and engaging and the first 20% of the book was very engaging and I flew through it. It built the story up nicely and built the tension. We are given lots of questions about Hannah's marriage to Mark. Why has he lied about where he is? Why a second mortgage on his expensive townhouse without telling her?

It was a great start to the book, Hannah is instantly likeable and it has a good pull to lead you into the story, I did feel it began to dip a little in the middle and redeemed itself at the end. It's not a standout book, it's similar to a many books out there at the moment and I'm not sure it will stand out to me in 6 months time.

There was also a little bit of an abrupt ending whereby the tiny little epilogue didn't seem to adequately cover everything I'd have liked, it became a little clinical and lacked emotional tying up of loose ends.the conclusion to the mystery was good and very well written but the follow through seemed rushed.

All in all a good book, it did exactly what I wanted it to this week and engaged me fully and took my mind off a worrying time. It was easy to read and a good story written well.

Keep Quiet was the first book I've read by Lisa Scottoline. I nearly didn't read it after seeing some pretty unflattering reviews online but the story it promised was intriguing enough that I thought it was worth a try.

This was the story of financial planner, Jake, a happily married and middle aged suburbanite who picked his son up from the cinema one Friday evening and allowed his son, Ryan, to drive his car. The result is their involvement in hitting a jogger out running and then choosing to flee the scene in order to protect Ryan from a potential DUI charge and jail time.

This book was really gripping, the way in which father and son try to cover their tracks, dealing with both the practicalities and emotions of their actions. Suddenly a father and son who have shared a troubles relationship are bonded by their shared guilt.

The cover information for this book focuses on the hit and run but the story was much darker than I expected and wove a more intricate story than it suggested. It was edge of the seat stuff. I found that as the book went on and Jake began to find his world spiralling out of control the links between characters became much more intriguing and it was truly a really engaging read.

It didn't lead in the direction I assumed it would but that wasn't detrimental and I would definitely read another book by the author. If you too have read some of the lukewarm reviews then take heart it isn't a bad book. It isn't the best I've ever read and I wouldn't rave about it but it was enjoyable and a great break away from the norm.

I made no secret of the fact I loved Book 1 in this series, A Court of Thorns & Roses and so I knew I wouldn't be able to hold off on reading this, the sequel, for too long. I had heard so many amazing things about this particular book in the series that I knew that where the first had blown me away this one would offer an extra something special that would take the story and characters to the next level.

Following on a few months after the end of A Court of Thorns & Roses, we return to the Spring Court where newly created High Fae, Feyre is preparing to marry her true love Tamlin but is struggling to cope with the events of book 1 that occurred Under The Mountain and she is also feeling suffocated by Tamlin's overprotectiveness and is chaffing against the increasing control he is exerting over her. She also is waiting to find out if the High Lord of the Night Court, Rhysand, will ever call upon her to honour the bargain they made where she would spend one week per month with him in the night court.

Firstly, let's talk about Tamlin. I think we all loved him in the first book, he was kind and considerate and seemed the perfect gentleman to Feyre yet in this book he seems to have undergone a character transplant and is now controlling and secretive and content to have Feyre play the role of his wife but not to do anything else. This took me a bit of getting used to as it was such a different perspective to the Tamlin we'd loved. He went from being the hero to the villain in only a few chapters and kind of left my head spinning. Of course, this character transition allows us to move him aside for the arrival of the real hero of the hour, Rhysand, the enigmatic and slightly dangerous Lord of the Night Court.

Rhysand was great even in the first book, a little darker than in this book but there was always something about him that shone off the page. Let's not forget he was the one person to back Feyre to be able to succeed in her first trial and did have her back, even if it was in a slightly dark fashion. In this book, he comes front and centre and boy does his arrival totally take away any lingering feelings we may have for poor Tamlin. When he whisks Feyre off to his home it is with kindness and consideration that he does so and from there, his little actions towards her get more and more endearing.

This book introduced a whole raft of new characters that also help to expand the world from Book 1 and take us to a totally different area of the Faire realm as we meet Mor, Azriel, Cassian and all of Rhysands closest confidantes. The relationships between them all are wonderful to read about and each character brings something to the story that makes you feel they are worthwhile characters to invest in. I also love that we return to the mortal realm and Feyre's family and I am really keen to see how they will feature in the third and final chapter of this book.

The plot is great, this book clearly is setting up for a final showdown in the last book in the series and we are left with a suitably intriguing cliffhanger which is heartbreaking and yet exciting. We have now so many people we care about in these stories that we need to bring all of their individual strands to a conclusion and I cannot wait to see how Sarah J. Maas does this in A Court of Wings & Ruin.

What I love most about Sarah J. Maas's writing is that she is wonderful at creating the Faere world, she adds so many beautiful and whimsical aspects to it that you really do feel transported as a reader. She uses such great descriptive language when writing and it pulls you in and means you lose yourself completely whilst reading. It's a very special series and I literally cannot wait to delve into the third and final novel in the trilogy.

So with a Jane Green book you tend to know what to expect. It will generally be a tale of middle class New England suburbia with a late 30 to early 40 something heroine experiencing a family crisis. This has been the format of her previous few novels and Tempting Fate delivers more of the same.

In this tale we meet Gabby, an early 40 something doctors wife with 2 teenage girls who seems to live in domestic contentment, the only blot on her horizon is her husband's vasectomy which has robbed her of her longed for 3rd child. She is sure in her marriage and content so when she meets younger man Matt at a bar she doesn't see the warning signs that things may be getting out of control and that she may be getting into a relationship that will jeopardise everything she holds dear.

I've read a few reviews of this book that say they found Gabby unlikeable and narcissistic however I think that the readership Jane Green writes for will perhaps, like me, be in that age group with growing families and fully understand that sense of feeling a little more dowdy and less visible to the opposite sex than you once were. It is therefore with this in mind that I found her to be well written, no matter what way Jane Green wrote the story our heroine's actions are despicable and hurtful to all around her. It is the ongoing story beyond this point which humanises her and brings the story beyond the initial action.

The writing of the relationship between Gabby and her best friend Claire is very insightful and highlights the divisions that can occur when marriages breakdown. Often you don't just divorce your spouse you divorce some friends also.

The only reason I couldn't give the book 5 stats was related to the ending of the book, I just couldn't really envision the cosy family gathering Green writes about actually coming to pass. With the kind of fracture Gabby's actions had caused I could have seen this happening 5 years down the line, not within months of the event.

Again Green continues to deliver excellent writing, emotive stories and aspirational lifestyles. I always savour her books and can't wait for her next novel ‘Saving Grace'