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Showing posts from August, 2021

Tales from the Coffee Pot - Jim Ody

So pleased to be on the Book Tour today with Zooloosbooktours. Book Blurb For the first time, the best of Jim Ody’s published short-stories are together in one anthology, including four previously unreleased. Twelve twisted tales that touch on psychological/thriller, horror and YA, including: A detective sent to a travelling circus to find a missing boy; A guy with a mysterious trunk must meet a stranger at a motel to survive; A doll turns up and becomes a little girl’s best friend. Then things turn strange; A surprise birthday party is memorable, if only the birthday boy survives; and a group of orphans find the world is about to end… 1 The Reveal 2 A Moth in The Jar 3 The I-Scream Van 4 Teaching Tom 5 Boat Trip 6 The Trunk 7 The Day 8 A Doll Named Sasha 9 Surprise Party 10 The Orphans 11 Hide & Seek 12 Virgin Women From Outta Space Review A wonderful collection of stories for those who like their coffee dark and strong! Some of these stories have been previously published, but th

High-Rise Mystery - Sharna Jackson

  Description The detective duo everyone is dying to meet! Summer in London is hot, the hottest on record, and there's been a murder in The Tri: the high-rise home to resident know-it-alls, Nik and Norva. Who better to solve the case? Armed with curiosity, home-turf knowledge and unlimited time - until the end of the summer holidays anyway. The first whodunnit in a new mystery series by Sharna Jackson. Review Wow! Great book, these kids are so smart! I'm so far out of the demographic for this book but I saw it recommended and thought I would give it a go. I listened to it on audio. Although it is not read by the author the narrator reads with so much enthusiasm and has such fabulous voice skills that it was just wonderful. At first I thought that I had been misled and the duo were not actually going to solve a crime, merely play act. How wrong I was and I have to say I never guessed the ending either. I think this book is so inspiring for any young readers although they do get

The Ice Maiden - Jane Badrock

  I'm delighted to be on the Book Tour for this book today. Book Blurb :-  Who is Maddie? If she doesn’t find out…she’ll die. Tormented by visions of a woman’s death,  maths student Maddie’s search for answers leads her to question her own origins and puts her life in danger. Who’s trying to kill her? Why? It’s the most critical problem she’ll ever have to solve… And she’s only got three weeks. Review I found the book blurb on this one to be intriguing - and it certainly was... Maddie is 20 and a uni mathematics student. A number of tragic events occur in her life, the first being the death of her Mother. This begins a quest to find out who she really is, but also to uncover who the woman is that she keeps seeing in her dreams. Helped by a dream scientist she begins to unpick the recurring dreams, but what is a dream and what is real? The book has an enormous amount of self talk by Maddie. This initially threw me a little as I am not used to reading this amount of internal dialogue

Going South - Tom Larsen

So happy to be on the blog tour for this book today. Description  Harry wants out. The daily grind has ground him down and his dreams are fading fast. Desperate times call for desperate measures and as a last-ditch resort he fakes his own death to claim on the insurance planning to set himself up on Easy Street. Wife Lena has her doubts. Harry’s always had a hand in the hustle, but going for broke was never his style. She goes along for the ride just to see how far he’ll take it, down Mexico way, returning “widowed” and soon-to-be wealthy, waits out the weeks till they can reunite. Only Harry sounds funny on the phone. And she knows how he gets when he’s been drinking. Then there’s the irreversible nature of death to consider. Harry’s scheme is seamless but the schemer has a flaw, and instead of getting what he wants might just get what he deserves. 'Going South explores conscience and consequence with a slowly building tension . . . the reader feels like they're hanging on a f

Clothes ... - Alexandra Shulman

I'm so thrilled to be on the Blog Tour for this book today. Description In Clothes... and other things that matter, Alexandra Shulman delves into her own life to look at the emotions,  ambitions, expectations and meanings behind the way we dress.   From the bra to the bikini, the trench coat to trainers, the slip dress to the suit, she explores their meaning in women’s  lives and how our wardrobes intersect with the larger world - the career ladder, motherhood, romance, sexual identity,  ambition, failure, body image and celebrity.  By turns funny, refreshingly self-deprecating and often very moving, this startlingly honest memoir from the ex Editor of British Vogue will encourage women of all ages to consider what their own clothes mean to them, the life  they live in them and the stories they tell.  Shulman explores the person our clothes allow us to be – and sometimes the person they turn us into.  ‘The pieces I write about have been chosen because they have at some time or othe

A Beginner's Guide to Murder - Rosalind Stopps

  Description Grace, Meg and Daphne, all in their seventies, are minding their own business while enjoying a cup of tea in a café, when seventeen-year-old Nina stumbles in. She’s clearly distraught and running from someone, so the three women think nothing of hiding her when a suspicious-looking man starts asking if they’ve seen her.   Once alone, Nina tells the women a little of what she’s running from. The need to protect her is immediate, and Grace, Meg and Daphne vow to do just this. But how? They soon realise there really is only one answer: murder.   And so begins the tale of the three most unlikely murderers-in-the-making, and may hell protect anyone who underestimates them. Review Trigger warnings for:   K idnapping,  rape, physical and emotional abuse I'm always keen to read a book celebrating older people, but this just didn't do it for me.  Three ladies in their seventies are minding their own business in a coffee shop when a young girl (Nina) comes in and asks for t

About Britain - Tim Cole

  Description In 1951, the Festival of Britain commissioned a series of short guides they dubbed ‘handbooks for the explorer’. Their aim was to encourage readers to venture out beyond the capital and on to ‘the roads and the by-roads’ to see Britain as a ‘living country’. Yet these thirteen guides did more than celebrate the rural splendour of this ‘island nation’: they also made much of Britain’s industrial power and mid-century ambition – her thirst for new technologies, pride in manufacturing and passion for exciting new ways to travel by road, air and sea. Armed with these  About Britain  guides, historian Tim Cole takes to the roads to find out what has changed and what has remained the same over the 70 years since they were first published. From Oban to Torquay, Caernarfon to Cambridge, he explores the visible changes to our landscape, and the more subtle social and cultural shifts that lie beneath. In a starkly different era where travel has been transformed by the pandemic and

Yours Cheerfully - A J Pearce

  Description The Times  Top Ten Bestseller From the  Sunday Times  bestselling author of  Dear Mrs Bird  comes  Yours Cheerfully,  the charming and hilarious tonic we've all been waiting for! 'Sweet, heart-warming and uplifting . . . Absolutely lovely!' - Marian Keyes, author of  Grown Ups 'Full of wit, friendship and the uplifting knowledge that when people come together, great changes can be made' - Katie Fforde, author of  Wedding Season London, September, 1941. Following the departure of the formidable Editor, Henrietta Bird, from  Woman’s Friend  magazine, things are looking up for Emmeline Lake as she takes on the challenge of becoming a young wartime advice columnist. Her relationship with boyfriend Charles is blossoming, while Emmy’s best friend Bunty, is still reeling from the very worst of the Blitz, but bravely looking to the future. Together, the friends are determined to Make a Go of It. When the Ministry of Information calls on Britain’s women’s magaz