Seven Days of Us - Francesca Hornak

Description

The utterly brilliant, life-affirming Christmas story for fans of One Day. 

It's Christmas, and the Birch family is gathering for the first time in years.

Emma is elated at having everybody under one roof, but her oldest child, Olivia, is only home because she has nowhere else to go. She's just returned from treating an epidemic abroad and must stay in quarantine for a week - and so, too should her family.

For the next seven days, no one can leave the house and no one can enter.

It doesn't sound too hard. But a week with your nearest and dearest can feel like an eternity, especially when they're all harbouring secrets.

One of whom is about to come knocking at their door...

Review

After a slow start this book really reeled me in. To begin with I had no empathy with any of the characters and I felt like it was going to be a little cliched almost a farce, with all the ends being brought together in their seemingly inevitable fate. 

However, all that changed when the first of the cliches didn't come true, in fact all the little red herrings that had been running in my brain didn't play out in the book at all. I began to like the characters, getting to know them and becoming invested in what was going to happen to everyone. I did have to suspend a little disbelief that Olivia would be allowed to quarantine at home, even if it is in deepest remote Norfolk. Especially as the strictness of the quarantine seemed to wane very quickly.  

My perception of this book did change as I read it. I was expecting a little bit of a domestic cosy drama, but it was actually so much more than that. I did gasp a few times and raise my eyebrows - always the sign of a good story line.

So many secrets in this book. Some from the people themselves as they reconcile who they've become, with who they thought they were. Although it is set at Christmas I was fine reading it out of season. The Christmas element is not that strong, it's mainly a vehicle for the quarantine backstory which brings everyone together and it being easier to be separate from the world at that time of year.

I'm giving this book 4 out of 5 stars. My thanks to netgalley for the ARC.

Queenie - Candice Carty-Williams

Description

Queenie Jenkins can't cut a break. Well, apart from one from her long-term boyfriend, Tom. That's definitely just a break, though. Definitely not a breakup. 

Stuck between a boss who doesn't seem to see her and a family who don't seem to listen (if it's not Jesus or water rates, they're not interested) and trying to fit in two worlds that don't really understand her, it's no wonder she's struggling.

She was named to be queen of everything. So why is she finding it so hard to rule her own life?

A darkly comic and bitingly subversive take on modern life, Queenie will have you nodding in recognition, crying in solidarity and rooting for this unforgettable character every step of the way.

Perfect for fans of Dolly Alderton, Bryony Gordon and Dawn O'Porter and anyone who loved Fleabag and Dear White People.

Review

I opted for the audio book for this one - what a fantastic reader. Just loved the accents and the patois which I fear would not have sounded one tenth as good in my own head!

In my opinion this is a novel for our time. It's being compared to Bridget Jones, but I would go out on a limb and say it compares slightly more to Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe for it's cultural significance and zeitgeist.

Queenie is a 25 year old black woman who has recently split from her white boyfriend leading her down a promiscuous path of one night stands. (you will need to be a little broad minded). A miscarriage, a career she is in danger of loosing and continually picking the wrong type of "guy" make her a vulnerable character. Her support group of friends has a group chat called "the Corgis" - just hilarious. Her friend Kyazike telling the rest of the uneducated group to refer to the urban dictionary to understand what she is saying.

This story had me entranced and at times yelling advice whilst cringing for Queenie as life slings everything it has at her. Until she at last she finds her voice.

This was from my own personal shelf. I'm giving this book five out of five stars.

Everything We Left Behind - Kerry Lonsdale

Description

An Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestseller.

From the bestselling author of Everything We Keep comes the highly anticipated sequel. Told from one man’s two perspectives, Everything We Left Behind effortlessly blends suspense, mystery, and romance in an exploration of loss, resilience, and the compelling need to protect the ones we love at all cost.

Two months before his wedding, financial executive James Donato chased his trade-laundering brother Phil to Mexico, only to be lost at sea and presumed dead. Six and a half years later, he emerges from a dissociative fugue state to find he’s been living in Oaxaca as artist Carlos Dominguez, widower and father of two sons, with his sister-in-law Natalya Hayes, a retired professional surfer, helping to keep his life afloat. But his fiancée, Aimee Tierney, the love of his life, has moved on. She’s married and has a child of her own.

Devastated, James and his sons return to California. But Phil is scheduled for release from prison, and he’s determined to find James, who witnessed something in Mexico that could land Phil back in confinement. Under mounting family pressure, James flees with his sons to Kauai, seeking refuge with Natalya. As James begins to unravel the mystery of his fractured identity, danger is never far behind, and Natalya may be the only person he can trust.

Review

I reviewed the first in this series here and I was keen for the sequel. However, I have been a little disappointed with it.

It was good to find out the story from the other side. In the first book we follow Aimee as she eventually tracks down James who is living as Carlos. In this book we get to find out the story from the perspective of Carlos.

The first half of the book I thought was very protracted, I understand there has to be some overlap with the first book but I felt like it laboured the point. I did wonder if this would have been better just added onto the end of the first book. I kept with it and then the twists and turns began and I was glad I had stuck with it. 

It certainly raised a lot of questions in my mind, especially around the children who know James as Carlos and now have a completely new Daddy!

You do need to read the first book before reading this one. For me this one was a little more romantic than the first, far too much for my taste. It also flipped back and forth so much that if I put it down and picked it up again I got confused as to which timeline I was in.

If you read the first book then for completeness you probably want to read this and find the full story. However, the end is left with another glimpse of more to come and there is a third book........

I'm giving this book 3 out of 5 stars. My thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

I am I am I am - Maggie O'Farrell

Description

I AM, I AM, I AM is a memoir with a difference - the unputdownable story of an extraordinary woman's life in near-death experiences. Insightful, inspirational, gorgeously written, it is a book to be read at a sitting, a story you finish newly conscious of life's fragility, determined to make every heartbeat count.

A childhood illness she was not expected to survive. A teenage yearning to escape that nearly ended in disaster. A terrifying encounter on a remote path. A mismanaged labour in an understaffed hospital. Shocking, electric, unforgettable, this is the extraordinary memoir from Costa Novel-Award winner and Sunday Times bestselling author Maggie O'Farrell. It is a book to make you question yourself. What would you do if your life was in danger, and what would you stand to lose?

Review

I decided to get the audio version of this book, as I have so many books to read already. I'm so glad I did, as the lady reading the book has the most lovely annunciation and the way she reads just brought it to life, more than if I had read it from the pages myself. I've never read any of O'Farrell's fiction, and only wanted to read this as someone had described part of it to me, and I just knew I wanted to read it. I now want to read her fiction too. The seventeen chapters are all about brushes with death that the author has experienced. They are set within other anecdotes and that brings them to life as well a softening some of them. Others are very raw - especially the one about her daughter at the end. O'Farrell could have moaned about so many of the things that happened in her life, especially the many times it seems the health professionals let her down. Instead she poured it onto the page and it doesn't come across as a moan but as a rich open wound for others to experience and learn from. This was a title from my personal shelf.

The Woman in the White Kimono - Ana Johns

Description

Japan, 1957. Seventeen-year-old Naoko Nakamura’s prearranged marriage secures her family’s status in their traditional Japanese community. However, Naoko has fallen for an American sailor and to marry him would bring great shame upon her entire family. When it’s learned Naoko carries the sailor’s child, she’s cast out in disgrace and forced to make unimaginable choices with consequences that will ripple across generations. 

America, present day. Tori Kovač, caring for her dying father, finds a letter containing a shocking revelation. Setting out to learn the truth, Tori’s journey leads her to a remote seaside village in Japan where she must confront the demons of the past to pave a way for redemption. 

Inspired by true stories, The Woman in the White Kimono illuminates a searing portrait of one woman torn between her culture and her heart, and another woman on a journey to discover the true meaning of home.

I'm so pleased to be a part of the blog tour for this book today.

Review

The story is set across two timelines - 1957 Japan and present day America. I found it easy to know which timeline I was in thanks to the headings, but also the two timelines had a very different and distinct feel to them. The Japan timeline was soft and gentle with at times an ethereal quality. While the present day USA felt more frenetic. It was almost as if two different people had written them with the characters voice so unique to each timeline.

I've been to Japan and was really looking forward to being transported back there by this book, and it didn't disappoint. I love time travel books and although this strictly isn't one I felt like I had travelled back to the Japan of 1957 in reading this story. I began to feel like I really was there, I could see it all so clearly in my minds eye.

In the book we meet Naoko who is living in Japan in 1957 and Tori who is living in the USA in the present day. We hear Naoko's story and interwoven into it is Tori, who is trying to reconcile the Father she thought she knew, with the information he's suddenly revealed about his life as he is dying. As the book progressed I really began to root for Naoko. I felt her pain, bewilderment and anticipation at freedom. This was thanks to the atmospheric writing which is also so very beautiful. But not so flowery as to lose the story line. 

Through this book I have discovered another side to Japan that I did not know existed. Many of the prejudices in the 1950s Western world were mirrored in Japan including the thoughts around mixed marriages and their ensuing children, also the children born out of wedlock. This is dealt with very sensitively and the details throughout the book show how well researched the book is. The book is a work of fiction but the author used real events and stories from her own Father to write the story. The author's note at the end of the book made for interesting reading. The tears I was struggling to hold back at this point fell freely, as fiction and truth met.  

I'm giving five out of five stars to this book. My thanks to Netgalley for an ARC to review and to Legend Press for inviting me on the blog tour today.

The The Woman in the White Kimono by Ana Johns – BBC Radio 2 Book Club pick on The Jo Whiley Show – Order Now

Normal People - Sally Rooney

Description

Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in the west of Ireland, but the similarities end there. In school, Connell is popular and well-liked, while Marianne is a loner. But when the two strike up a conversation - awkward but electrifying - something life-changing begins.

Normal People is a story of mutual fascination, friendship and love. It takes us from that first conversation to the years beyond, in the company of two people who try to stay apart but find they can't.

Review

I've been avoiding this book as I decided it was over hyped,  but when I went in the library there it sat and it looked like a quick read so I decided to go for it. I also heard that it's being adapted for the TV so I thought it would be good.

I was wrong! I didn't really care for this book at all. The beginning was ok, but after that it felt like it just kept repeating itself, or rather the characters did. The same relationship on and off and the same pitfalls repeated. Yes, I know this could happen in real life but it didn't make for a page turner. Honestly the only thing that kept me going was that it was a short book, any longer and it would have been a DNF for me. Maybe it's because I'm not the target audience but this book was a bit of a fail for me.

My thanks to my local library who saved me buying this book. I'm giving this book 2 out of 5 stars.

Everything We Keep - Kerry Lonsdale

Description

A luminous debut with unexpected twists, Everything We Keep explores the devastation of loss, the euphoria of finding love again, and the pulse-racing repercussions of discovering the truth about the ones we hold dear and the lengths they will go to protect us.

Sous chef Aimee Tierney has the perfect recipe for the perfect life: marry her childhood sweetheart, raise a family, and buy out her parents’ restaurant. But when her fiancé, James Donato, vanishes in a boating accident, her well-baked future is swept out to sea. Instead of walking down the aisle on their wedding day, Aimee is at James’s funeral—a funeral that leaves her more unsettled than at peace.

As Aimee struggles to reconstruct her life, she delves deeper into James’s disappearance. What she uncovers is an ocean of secrets that make her question everything about the life they built together. And just below the surface is a truth that may set Aimee free…or shatter her forever.

Review

I was invited to read this book and the title didn't really speak to me so it's slipped a long way down my TBR pile. How I wish I had read it sooner, the title belies a great story.

I found it a little bit of a slow starter. Don't get me wrong I was enjoying reading it, I just wasn't sure where it was going. The book begins with Aimee at the funeral of her fiance, on the day they would have been married. Even the flowers are the ones meant for the wedding as her MIL to be doesn't want them to go to waste! At this point I began to wonder if her future MIL had murdered her son just to stop him marrying someone she clearly didn't feel any empathy for.

As Aimee is leaving the funeral a physic approaches her and tells her that her fiance is still alive! The book then flip flops through Aimee trying to move on, and flashbacks to how they met with an insight into their early lives. We then get a little bit of hint of a romance and Aimee gets to open her own coffee shop in the meantime. 

Part two of the book, and it's now two years since her fiance died, and she has more than a hunch that he is still alive. This is the part of the book that I can imagine some people will find hard to believe. But they say truth is stranger than fiction and I certainly was reading it with incredulity - not at the story but at how it was unfolding, because I never saw it coming. This was the part where I began to race through the book as I really needed to know what the hell was going on.

The writing is easy to read and my only criticism is that Aimee is a little fey in her behaviour, which at times I found annoying. The book does tie off nicely at the end but then there is another twist. Luckily for me the sequel is out and I'm off to read it now. It's called Everything We Left Behind.

I'm giving this book 4 out of 5 stars. My thanks to Netgalley for an ARC for review.