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Hang On - Anniki Sommerville

Description Praise for Anniki: ‘Makes me feel like I’m not the only one.’ Cherry Healey Kate is not in a meaningful relationship. The last loving bond Kate had was with mother, who died a year ago. Now Kate dreams of being a parent herself, and pouring all of her love into the tiny bundle of happiness that will her love unconditionally in return. Except without any partner to provide her with sperm, Kate takes matters into her own hands and decides upon a series of random encounters to get what she wants. No one thinks this is a good idea; not her best friend, or her boss at the bookshop where she works ― not even June, one of her elderly customers. Because what they can see, and what Kate can’t, is that it isn’t a baby that she needs at all ― it’s something else entirely… Review At times this was a hard read, with a central character who has mental health issues. I admit when I read that Kate worked in a bookshop, I thought I was going to love this book. Unfortunately Kate has fal

Dial A for Aunties - Jesse Sutanto

Description Your family would kill to see you happy ‘Whip-smart, original and so funny. I found it impossible to put down and lost count of the number of times I laughed out loud’ Beth O’Leary, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Switch ‘ARE YOU…DEAD?’ OH MY GOD. I THINK HE IS. When Meddy Chan accidentally kills her blind date, she turns to her aunties for help. Their meddling set her up on the date so they kind of owe her. WELL, THAT DIDN’T QUITE GO TO PLAN. Although hiding this goddamn dead body is going to be harder than they thought especially when her family’s wedding business has THE biggest wedding of the year happening right now. IT’S PRETTY BAD TIMING REALLY. It turns out the wedding venue just happens to be managed by Meddy’s ex, aka the one who got away. It’s the worst time to see him again, or…is it? Can Meddy finally find love and make her overbearing family happy? Review This book had me laughing out loud - so funny and clever. Meddy Chan has an Indo/Chinese he

Don't Ask - Paul Carroll

I'm so pleased to be on the Blog Tour for this book today. Description A DNA ancestry test opens up a Pandora’s Box of secrets. When Elsa Watson uses a DNA ancestry test kit out of idle curiosity, she little imagines the devastating consequences she is about to unleash. Two families become reluctantly entwined as inconvenient truths and long suppressed memories resurface. A whodunnit with a difference, Don’t Ask visits the glam rock Seventies, Britpop, Operation Yewtree and #metoo within its alternating past and present chapter structure. Don’t Ask explores the true meaning of family and the wisdom of raking up the past. Thinking of taking an ancestry test? Be careful what you wish for. Review Even before I began to read the book I was attracted to the fabulous artwork on the cover, it really made me want to pick up the book. This is such a contemporary storyline based upon the use of a DNA ancestry test kit. To describe the action as opening a Pandora's box is just

Our House - Louise Candlish

Description On a bright morning in the London suburbs, a family moves into the house they’ve just bought on Trinity Avenue. Nothing strange about that. Except it's your house. And you didn’t sell it. 'If 2018 brings a better book than Our House I will eat my hat. Addictive, twisty and oh so terrifyingly possible’ Clare Mackintosh, author of I See You ‘Property-porn looks set to become a staple of crime fiction and Our House is an excellent example of this burgeoning subgenre. Husband and wife pass the narrative baton between them in this masterfully plotted, compulsive page-turner' Laura Wilson, Guardian 'Whip-smart, knowing and brilliantly plotted' India Knight 'Taps deep into the British obsession with property' Metro ‘I loved the wonderful hook of Our House , which plays with our modern obsession with property - and the vulnerability that exposes. Louise Candlish is a great writer; she inhaled me into her nightmarish world where everythi

Ask Again, Yes - Mary Beth Keane

Description 'A powerful and moving novel of family, trauma, and the defining moments in people's lives from a writer of extraordinary depth, feeling and wit. Readers will love this book, as I did' Meg Wolitzer, bestselling author of The Female Persuasion and The Wife _____________ A gripping and compassionate family drama set between neighbours in suburban New York Gillam, upstate New York: a town of ordinary, big-lawned suburban houses. The Gleesons have recently moved there and soon welcome the Stanhopes as their new neighbours. Lonely Lena Gleeson wants a friend but Anne Stanhope - cold, elegant, unstable - wants to be left alone. It's left to their children - Lena's youngest, Kate, and Anne's only child, Peter - to find their way to one another. To form a friendship whose resilience and love will be almost broken by the fault line dividing both families, and by the terrible tragedy that will engulf them all. A tragedy whose true origins only become clear

The Dictionary of Lost Words - Pip Williams

Description Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, Esme spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, a garden shed in Oxford where her father and a team of lexicographers are gathering words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Esme's place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day, she sees a slip containing the word bondmaid flutter to the floor, unclaimed. Esme seizes the word and hides it in an old wooden trunk that belongs to her friend, Lizzie, a young servant in the big house. Esme begins to collect other words from the Scriptorium that are misplaced, discarded or have been neglected by the dictionary men. They help her make sense of the world. Over time, Esme realises that some words are considered more important than others, and that words and meanings related to women's experiences often go unrecorded. She begins to collect words for another dictionary: The Dictionary of Lost Words. Set when the women's s