BOOKSIMO

I'm pleased to be on the blog tour for this book today with Love Books Tours. Description  Kindness is something we all have to give and we all need, regardless of status or background. The current global effort to protect our communities' most vulnerable shows how kindness spreads and that when we are kind to others it lifts our spirits. In The Kindness Journal , Jaime Thurston, founder of the charity 52 Lives, motivates and inspires readers to practice kindness as much for their own wellbeing as for the wellbeing of others. The book will help readers cultivate kindness habits, with simple exercises that make a positive impact on others and themselves, and provide a place for readers to acknowledge and remind themselves how being kind to others made them feel. Through prompts suggesting simple actions, inspirational quotes and scientifically supported facts, readers will understand the positive effect kindness has on our physical and mental health. 52 Lives is a registered cha...

I'm pleased to be on the Book Tour today with Love Books Tours. Description Imagine if we could combine dreams and reality in a world where we live forever. Oliver believes his life to be one of disappointment and failure. Haunted by the memory of a mysterious woman he encountered thirty years ago, and obsessed with finding her, he embarks on a strange journey of grief, hope, myths and legends where dreams and truth merge. This diligently written novel has been described as 'It's a Wonderful Life for the 21st Century'. Oliver is drawn into diverse worlds, from ancient rural beliefs and traditions to emerging medical science, as he and the reader are led to question the boundaries between dreams, reality and imagination. "Another Life is a beautiful and thought-provoking meditation on the meaning and purpose of life, seen through the lens of a mystery story steeped in English folklore...The book’s narrative voice and its depiction of details from the natural world a...

I'm republishing my review from July today, as part of the Book Blitz. Description A spiralling obsession. A missing wife. A terrifying secret. Will he find her before it’s too late? When Dr Jacob Boyce’s wife goes missing, the police put it down to a simple marital dispute. Jacob, however, fears something darker. Following her trail to Spain, he becomes convinced that Ella’s disappearance is tied to a mysterious painting whose hidden geometric and numerical riddles he’s been obsessively trying to solve for months. Obscure, hallucinogenic clues, and bizarre, larger-than-life characters, guide an increasingly unhinged Jacob through a nightmarish Spanish landscape to an art forger’s studio in Madrid, where he comes face-to-face with a centuries-old horror, and the terrifying, mind-bending, truth about his wife. Review I doubt you have read a book quite like this before. The title says it all really it is a "strange book" and it's all about Jacob Boyce. I admit to having...

Description An informative and entertaining look at why plants have been used in magic and what that tells us about people and plants in a post-magic world. With chapters on subjects as diverse as Witchcraft, Curses and Blessings, Divination, the Plants of Faery, Hallucinogens, Divine Plants in the Christian and Pagan traditions and a Plant Bestiary, Greg Kenicer’s book is an erudite and informative look at how and why various plants have had a role in Europe’s supernatural and magical traditions. Individual entries look at particular plants combining botanical analysis with historical examples and anecdote to explain exactly why each plant came to be used in this way. Considerations of dangers and actual efficacy cast light on how modern science is now re-examining the uses of many of the plants and how the evolution of the plants themselves has been influenced by our use of them. Whether Foxglove or Mandrake, Hawthorn or Aspen, Rowan or Oak, St. John’s Wort or Bird Cherry, Plant Magi...

  It's great to be on the Book Tour for this book today. Description If a simple change of mindset could help you improve the quality of your relationships, your work and your day-to-day life... would you try it? In  When in Doubt , the reader is encouraged to turn self-doubt into a tool that can be used to their advantage to create a better life for themselves. There are no magic tricks in this book, just a simple mindset: “when in doubt, assume you’re wrong”. The key principle behind everything this book teaches is a mindset observed in almost every great leader and entrepreneur this world has seen.  When in Doubt  offers a fresh point of view on this ancient principle, allowing people to better relate to it in today’s fast-paced and technology-centred society. Value-packed and straight-to-the-point with a sprinkle of playfulness, this short 60-page book is a great tool for any goal-oriented person with a desire for improvement. Review If you've ever lost something...

So pleased to be on the Book Tour today. Description 'The Unravelling combines sinister atmosphere with witty insight, and characters we can relate to facing the supernatural fear of our most human nightmares' - Helen Sedgwick, author of  The Comet Seekers ‘A cappuccino.’ He spoke clearly but slowly, as if he were a stranger here. ‘One shot or two?’ He gazed at me with thinly veiled contempt. ‘Oh, you only get one shot.’ For Ella Aldridge, a brilliant Classics student, life was supposed to be exciting. Thirty years on, she’s stuck in the suburbs in a boring job and a failing marriage. Even her daughter, the one she gave it all up for, seems distant. But a sinister encounter on platform three is about to change everything. Under the watchful eye of a shadowy ticket inspector and his mysterious associate, Ella finds herself spiralling into a murky underworld where portentous signs appear from nowhere, thoughts are stored on memory sticks and speeding express trains may be more th...

  Excited to be a part of the book tour for this book today. Synopsis: “For crying out loud! I can’t even cast on now.” Claire has never unravelled anything before, being a confident knitter. But now, to her dismay, everything she creates is a disaster, riddled with dropped stitches and glaring holes. It’s almost as if her hands have a mind of their own. Maybe it’s because her longest relationship to date has just ended, or perhaps it has something to do with the fact her career is on the ropes. “Don’t get frustrated with your needles! The problem lies with the knitter, not the knitting,” said Adrian, owner of Oddballs wool shop. Following his advice, in the desperate hope it will cure her woolly woes, Claire begins to turn her life around. Her grand plan involves FishTank, the online dating site. She convinces Adrian that if they sign up and find love, their problems will be solved (and she’ll have at least one area of her life sorted!). The trouble starts when he has far more luc...

I'm on the tour for this wonderful book today. Blurb Berlin 2014. The 25th anniversary of the fall of the Wall, and the city is gearing up for a celebration of unity and liberation. But, beneath the surface, are those for whom the divisions and allegiances of the past remain close to home. In her hushed and leafy corner of Berlin, Nina’s life is a comfortable, conventional one – until her younger sister Marie, a free-spirited writer, is attacked and left for dead. For Nina, Marie’s brutal demise – and that of her unborn child – tips her own carefully controlled life into a nightmare. Stonewalled by official incompetence and subterfuge, Nina begins to realise that her sister’s past and the secrets of the once-divided city are connected in unimaginable ways. As she seeks out justice for Marie, Nina becomes caught in a tangle of obsessions, lies and hidden truths that threatens to destroy her marriage, her livelihood and all that she holds dear. Review The book begins with Nina and he...

This Little Book is about being present to the wonders that exist around us At Ground Level, discovering all that we fail to see when we spend so much of our lives chasing bigger, better, faster, more, endeavouring to fly higher. Everything else seems much more desirable around us than ourselves, or our lives and loves, after a long day at the slug farm. When do we decide how to proceed with the life we have built thus far: Joy, Passion, Marriage, Divorce, Suicide, Enlightenment? Choices we have made. What if you built from a place of strength rather than always feeling diminished and unfulfilled? A life built upon the life you have, rather than the elusive life you imagine, yet fear. Build a great life in balance with your best self and your nurtured relationships. Transformation is seeing the hidden gems that truly exist in plain sight. We have all heard someone say, The grass is greener on the other side. Is it? Most of us were 4 or 5 years old when the belief structure we made with...