Last Night - Mhairi McFarlane

Description

Two best friends. One missed chance. And a night that changes everything.

Eve, Justin, Susie and Ed have been friends since they were eighteen. Now in their 30s, the four are still as close as ever, Thursday pub quiz night is still sacred, and Eve is still secretly in love with Ed.

Maybe Eve should have moved on by now, but she can’t stop thinking about what could have been. And she knows Ed sometimes thinks about it too.

Then one night, in an instant, all their lives change forever. And, as Eve learns she didn’t know her friends as well as she thought, she also discovers she isn’t the only person keeping secrets…

Review

I've read all of Mhairi's books and loved them, this one is no exception. 

I realise I've been reading Mhairi's books since the first one in 2012 - so it should come as no surprise that her writing style has evolved. It's still Mhairi that's for sure. Unable to pin her into a neat genre, she has one all of her own. Not really chick lit, although you always get girly gossip, a nice run down of outfits including shoes etc, there is also always some very down to earth event and a need to look up the meaning of a minimum of three words she's used. But with this latest book her writing and plot development has grown so much. I felt it from the first page.

Eve has been in love with Ed for years, just waiting in the wings. We get a couple of flashbacks to how and when they first met and their circle of friends formed. Then something happens, Eve is changed forever in more ways than one. The book is very much in the here and now with little flip flopping about. Set in my home city but also in a city I love, Edinburgh. It was a nice little road trip.

The book covers some very serious issues such as dementia, child abuse, loss and grief with sensitivity that had me reaching for the tissues, but it also has some very funny laugh out loud moments. I found myself telling anyone who would listen about them, and they thought they were funny too! I don't want to say much more as I think you need to read it straight from Mhairi.  

This book did not go where I thought it would. It was a surprise, a revelation and one I enjoyed so much, I couldn't put it down. I defy anyone to say that they guessed what would happen in this book! The only awful thing for me, is I now have to wait for the next book...

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

Lost Property - Helen Paris

 

Description

Dot Watson has lost her way.

Twelve years ago her life veered off course, and the guilt over what happened still haunts her. Before then she was living in Paris, forging an exciting career; now her time is spent visiting her mother's care home, fielding interfering calls from her sister and working at the London Transport Lost Property office, diligently cataloguing items as misplaced as herself.

But when elderly Mr Appleby arrives in search of his late wife's purse, his grief stirs something in Dot. Determined to help, she sets off on a mission - one that could start to heal Dot's own loss and let her find where she belongs once more...

Review

Strong trigger warning - scenes of attempted suicide, suicide, dementia, sexual assault

This book wasn't quite what I was expecting. Whilst a lovely read in places, it is also very, very dark in a lot of others. I listened to the audio version of this book.

Dot works in lost property at TFL and is, shall we say, a little uptight in her role. She's fastidious, a stickler for the rules and even wears her own felt uniform, even though one isn't required in the job. At first I thought she was small minded and had no life experience. How wrong I was. She'd had a life, but she'd lost it.

Once Dot began the trail after Mr Appleby's purse I did like the hunt she went on, not only for the purse but for the people Dot and her family members once were. The narrator was brilliant with wonderful accented voices for the different characters. The book touches on so many important life choices and experiences and was richly written with evocative phrases. 

I refer to the trigger warnings, and that it may at times be a little too realistic for some to cope with. Although Dot goes to some dark places along the way ultimately the book has a good and satisfying ending. 

I did enjoy this book. I'm giving it 4 out of 5 stars. My thanks to netgalley for the audio book to review.

Early Morning Riser - Katherine Heiny

 

Description

A wise, bighearted, boundlessly joyful novel of love, disaster, and unconventional family from the celebrated author of Standard Deviation.

Jane easily falls in love with Duncan: he's charming, good-natured, and handsome. He has also slept with nearly every woman in Boyne City, Michigan.

Jane sees Duncan's old girlfriends everywhere – at restaurants, at the grocery store, even three towns away. While she may be able to come to terms with dating the world's most prolific seducer of women, she wishes she didn't have to share him quite so widely. His ex-wife, Aggie, still has Duncan mow her lawn. And his coworker Jimmy comes and goes from Duncan's apartment at the most inopportune times. Jane wonders how the relationship is supposed to work with all these people in it. But any notion Jane has of love and marriage changes with one tragic accident. Now her life is permanently intertwined with Duncan's, Aggie's, and Jimmy's, and she knows she will never have Duncan to herself. But is it possible that a deeper kind of happiness is right in front of her eyes? 

A novel that is alternately bittersweet and laugh-out-loud funny, Early Morning Riser is Katherine Heiny's most astonishingly wonderful work to date.

Review

I wanted to read this book because I loved Katherine Heiny's first novel Standard Deviation so much, and this second book did not disappoint me.

I think whatever I write about this book cannot do it justice. Just like in her first book Heiny has an innate ability to just write about everyday life and have you wanting to read it forever. At times I felt myself wondering - what would I do when this book was over and I had to leave these people?

Jane is the main character in the book, she has a dry sense of humour and a wonderful way of explaining the world around her. She meets Duncan and soon finds out that she is far from the love of his life, having a trail of exes around town (and the next town over) who he acknowledges all the time when he sees them. Not only that his ex wife is still around and he mows her lawn and fixes anything her current husband can't, which basically is everything. 

The star of the novel for me is Jimmy. He has learning disabilities and is so trusting and kind to everyone. My heart was in my mouth for most of the book, hoping he would come to no harm. I think I worried about him more than Jane did. 

Eventually Jane's life becomes that of a 2nd grade teacher with two children a husband and Jimmy all to look after. How she gets through her life over the years and what becomes of her is the basis of this novel and one I thoroughly enjoyed. It may not sound like it, but really this book has laugh out loud moments to beat any TV sitcom.

I'm giving this book 5 out of 5 stars. My thanks to netgalley for the ARC to review. This book is published on 15 April 2021.

The Favour - Laura Vaughan

 

Delighted to be on the blog tour for this amazing book.

Description

Fortune favours the fraud...

When she was thirteen years old, Ada Howell lost not just her father, but the life she felt she was destined to lead. Now, at eighteen, Ada is given a second chance when her wealthy godmother gifts her with an extravagant art history trip to Italy.

In the palazzos of Venice, the cathedrals of Florence and the villas of Rome, she finally finds herself among the kind of people she aspires to be: sophisticated, cultured, privileged. Ada does everything in her power to prove she is one of them. And when a member of the group dies in suspicious circumstances, she seizes the opportunity to permanently bind herself to this gilded set.

But everything hidden must eventually surface, and when it does, Ada discovers she's been keeping a far darker secret than she could ever have imagined...

Review

I love Italy and so to revisit past haunts via this book was just heaven in the present climate. Ada goes to Italy as part of a group of young privileged people on an organised tour. Although she no longer lives in a grand house now her Father is dead, her Godmother has some money to spare to pay for the expensive tour.

Whilst on the tour the students get to experience Italy, there's a few secrets that surface, and it's actually educational too (for the reader also!). Ada tries her hardest to resurrect what's left of the lifestyle she once had, with a plummy voice to match, but unfortunately not the cash to splash. So when she gets the opportunity to provide a "favour" for her more affluent new friends, she's quick on the uptake. Hopeful of  beneficial rewards and new connected friends in her future.

The beginnings of this book belie what is to come. Up until this point it's a beautifully written book, with a wonderfully descriptive backdrop of Italy. Ada reminiscing on the childhood home she wishes she still roamed and the life she felt destined to lead. But something that happened whilst they were in Italy comes back to haunt the group in later years. It concerns in particular Ada and her "favour" and a couple of the others. In a page turn this became more like a dark Agatha Christie with a wonderful twist to the plot. It's just absolute genius.

I'm giving this book 5 out of 5 stars and wish it could be more! My thanks to Random Tour Things for the copy of the book to review.

About the author

Laura Vaughan grew up in rural Wales and studied Art History in Italy and Classics at Bristol and Oxford. She got her first book deal aged twenty-two and went on to write eleven books for children and young adults. is her first novel for adults. She lives in South London with her husband and two children. 

Saving Missy - Beth Morrey

 

Description

Sometimes it takes a lifetime to find where you truly belong…

Seventy-nine is too late for a second chance. Isn’t it?

Missy Carmichael is prickly, stubborn – and terribly lonely. Until a chance encounter in the park with two very different women opens the door to something new. Something wonderful.

Missy was used to her small, solitary existence, listening to her footsteps echoing around the empty house, the tick-tick-tick of the watching clock. After all, she had made her life her way.

Now another life is beckoning to Missy – if she’s brave enough…

‘A touching, deftly written debut that celebrates community and kindness’ Sunday Times

‘Moving and optimistic… will delight readers right up to the very last page’ Stylist

‘Bittersweet, tender, thoughtful and uplifting . . . I loved it’ Nina Stibbe

Review

I loved, loved, loved this book.

Missy is 79 years old and all alone in her big rambling house with too many memories of her family life. Then one day after a bit of a turn, she is rescued and helped by well meaning strangers, and suddenly she's not alone at all. What follows is a wonderful story of love, family life and friendship, but with all the ugly scars and realities of living.

We get flashbacks to Missy's university days and then her bringing up her young family. Did she get it all wrong? Should she have taken a different path to find herself in a different reality now? Brilliantly written with such down to earth day to day stories. Yet interwoven with the most wonderful prose together with stories and quotes from the ancient world. I started off enjoying reading the book, but then it reeled me in and I read the remaining half of it in one go as I was completely subsumed into it.

Towards the end of the book two events happened which had me in great floods of tears. No sooner had I managed to read the rest of the book through blurry eyes, I was crying again, this time for a different reason. I feel quite shaken by this book, I'm going to be thinking about it for some time to come. 

I can't praise this book enough. I'm giving it a solid 5 out of 5 stars and urge you to read it too. My thanks to Random Things Tours and netgalley for the ARC to review.

Slow Motion - Jennifer Pierce

 

Delighted to be on the Blog Tour today.

Description

Westview belongs on a postcard. Quaint, picture-perfect, a tiny New England town steeped in history and traditions.

 Angela has always been everything people in Westview want her to be. She’s supposed to be happy here, but she’s starting to see all the flaws in her seemingly-perfect life and she’s afraid that everyone else will notice, too. Now, she wants something more than small towns, something bigger than the life planned out for her by a family that has designed and destroyed reputations in Westview for generations.

Owen knows that history can be a lot of lies depending on who tells the story and he’s just discovered the truth about how Westview became a drowned town a century ago. But all he wants is to run away from his own past, from the bad decisions he’s made and the tragedies still haunting him. He’s focused on the future and proving people wrong, even though that means keeping secrets from his friends.

Long before they understood the rumours and grudges that rule their hometown, Angela and Owen were friends for one perfect summer. Now, as they navigate their senior year of high school and Westview celebrates its Tricentennial, they are reunited, discovering truths about themselves, each other, and the ways their community has been shaped by secrets, lies, and a devastating obsession with perfection.

Review

What stood out most for me about this book is the beautiful descriptive writing. Some of the lines I just had to read several times over, they were so evocative and poetic.

Angela has it all, friends, money, popularity and a family that more or less own Westview. Her parents are founders of the town and appearances are everything. It is within this environment that we meet Angela who has become aware of what a life in Westview really means to her, and she wants out of that life - now.

By chapter 5 I too had begun to feel how trapped Angela felt in Westview, the writing really portrayed the overbearing lifestyle and the constant upkeep of appearances. At this point I still had some sympathy with her. However, as the book progressed I liked Angela less and less and my sympathy for her waned. 

Owen is a childhood friend who Angela wasn't allowed to see anymore - we don't know why and the book keeps it from us for a good part of the story. I did like Owen and his determination to get where he wanted to be in life. I began to feel sorry for him when he once again, had Angela in his life. 

This might seem like just a book about two people one privileged, one not, each wanting something more, but what an ending! To say more is difficult without giving too much away. I'm this book 4 out of 5 stars. My thanks to Random Thing Tours for a copy of the book to review.

AUTHOR DETAILS 

Jennifer Pierce is a graduate of Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, where she earned a degree in Creative Writing & Literature. Upon graduation, she moved to England to obtain her Master’s in Publishing at Oxford Brookes University. Jennifer has worked with lifestyle websites and academic publishers in Ireland, England, and the United States. She is currently an Editorial Project Manager at Elsevier and resides in Boston. Slow Motion is her first novel.

Mrs Boots Goes to War - Deborah Carr

 

Description

The world is at war and her country needs her

When Florence’s son, John, announces that he has enlisted, she is horrified but determined to hold her family together during the oncoming hardships they are to face.

Men are returning to England wounded, with many more not returning at all, families are struggling, and Florence's ‘Dear Girls’ are risking their lives in new and dangerous jobs. Florence might be older now, but she has no intention of sitting back on her laurels while others fight for King and Country. She knows what needs to be done…

Review

This is the third book in the Mrs Boots series, but it could be read as a standalone. I think this is the best book yet.

I've not read many books set in the 1914 war and so was interested firstly in the book from that point of view. The book covers the war from the perspective of  the Boot family in Nottingham and their employees and the impact it has on all their lives and of course the Boots business. I found it to be well written with attention to detail and historical accuracy.

I felt myself feeling parallels to the pandemic we are living through at the moment when certain scenes were described.  Towards the end of the book obviously the Spanish flu pandemic strikes in 1918, and it really did feel very comparable to the world we are living in today.

Whilst I knew a lot of WW2 domestic and social history I knew very little of the WW1 background. The author really brought alive the era with many local place names familiar to me. I hadn't realised the role Chilwell ammunition factory played in WW1 or the working conditions that had to be endured. I think anyone would find this interesting but me for it had a special resonance with being a local area.

Once again Mrs Boots (or Lady Boot as she is by now) proves how much of a driving force she was for change and in the compassionate treatment of staff. I really liked reading the most about the interactions of her with the staff at Boots. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I'm giving it 4 out of 5 stars. My thanks to netgalley for the ARC to review.