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 fallen out of love with books and the bookshop she works in, so it wasn't the way I thought it was going to be at all.

Kate is desperate to have baby, but as she isn't in a relationship the tactics she resorted to in order to try and conceive were in themselves very desperate and worrying. We find that Kate has very deep anxiety issues and through the course of the book we see her thoughts written in her journal. They don't make for very uplifting reading and at times it was so sad.

When I thought there was going to be a little light at the end of the tunnel in the form of her elderly friend June, that was soon extinguished and left me feeling a little bereft on behalf of Kate. At times it borders on being funny except it's Kate's life and the depths she's sunk to.

I wasn't sure about the ending. I read it twice in case I had missed something, but I hadn't. It was disappointing from my point of view, but I suppose true to life.

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

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 heritage and with that comes a tight family network of Aunts. Sometimes they interfere and sometimes they are there to help, like when she's just murdered her blind date!

If you think of a farce featuring a dead body and the disposal of it by an everyday family of women who have no idea what they are doing, then this is the outline of the book. What I was not expecting was the layers to the story and the twists that came with them. Brilliantly written and playing on the age divide between Meddy and her family with regard to social media etiquette was so much fun to read.

Then there is the rom com aspect. We get flashbacks to when Meddy dated Nathan years ago, and now just when she's trying to dispose of a dead body he turns up. She's not over him and he's just as good as she remembers him, expect now he's got the wrong idea of her.

As you might imagine the Aunts and Meddy's Mother are the stars of this book, their dialogue amongst themselves and the infighting is hilarious. If you are looking for a good read, with some laughs and surprises, then this is the book for you. Any age will enjoy the book as you have the whole age range covered by this intriguing family.

I felt all through reading the book that this would make such a wonderful film. So no surprise to find it is being made into one by Netflix - I'll definitely be watching it.

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

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 perfect, and the reader gets to see what's inside that box. 

The chapters alternate between the present day and the past. That's not immediately obvious but becomes so.  We see the unfolding of the consequences of the DNA test and what actually happened all those years ago. The consequences of youth, mental health issues, family values it's all laid bare.  It's a look at the past with the modern eyes of the #metoo movement and operation Yewtree. Whilst not comfortable reading in places the subjects are treated with sensitivity in the writing.

I loved the women characters in this book, they all had great voices, the author gave them original thoughts and believable lines. The writing is succinct and very readable and well researched.  Many references in the past were familiar to me, even down to the TV programmes, Jackie magazine and buying cards from Athena. It's little touches like that which gave an authenticity to the past timeline in the story. The present day timeline is also littered with modern and relevant recognisable references. 

It's certainly a thought provoking read and a brilliant subject for a book plot. At times I couldn't turn the pages fast enough as there were so many contra indications, but realising this was not going to be a fast fix I learnt to pace myself!

I'm giving this book 4 out of 5 stars. My thanks to Random Things Tours and the author for a copy of this book to review.

PAUL CARROLL – BIO

Paul Carroll has been drawn to ink and the written word since launching a rock fanzine in his late teens.

Born and bred in Leeds, Paul crossed the Pennines in the mid-70s to study English Language and English Literature at the University of Manchester. 

Chasing a job in journalism he stumbled into the world of PR and ten years after starting his career set up his own PR consultancy, Communique PR, in Manchester.

There he worked on many well-known brands including Boddingtons, Heineken, Thorntons Chocolate, Chicago Town Pizza, Big D peanuts, Co-op Funerals and Manchester Airport.

These days, Paul concentrates on his writing.

Paul’s books are full of dark humour and satirical takes.  His writing has been compared to that of Ben Elton, Nick Hornby and Jonathan Coe in tackling serious contemporary issues in a highly engaging and entertaining way.

Don’t Ask (Matador 2021) is Paul Carroll’s fourth novel, following A Matter of Life and Death (Matador, 2012), Written Off (Matador, 2016), and Trouble Brewing (Matador, 2017).

 

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 everything we think we know is ripped from under our feet’  Fiona Barton, author of The Widow and The Child

FOR BETTER, FOR WORSE.
When Fi Lawson arrives home to find strangers moving into her house, she is plunged into terror and confusion. She and her husband Bram have owned their home on Trinity Avenue for years and have no intention of selling. How can this other family possibly think the house is theirs? And why has Bram disappeared when she needs him most?

FOR RICHER, FOR POORER.
Bram has made a catastrophic mistake and now he is paying. Unable to see his wife, his children or his home, he has nothing left but to settle scores. As the nightmare takes grip, both Bram and Fi try to make sense of the events that led to a devastating crime. What has he hidden from her – and what has she hidden from him? And will either survive the chilling truth – that there are far worse things you can lose than your house? 

TILL DEATH US DO PART.

Review

This book begins with Fi returning home unexpectedly to find a couple are moving into her house and she hasn't sold it to anyone or rented it out!  A podcast is used for Fi to tell her story to us through a #victim social media site. What I liked about this was all the things I was thinking came up at the end in the social media chat, this really made me feel like I was listening to it too. Meanwhile her husband, Bram tells his story to us through a word document he is writing. That document certainly makes for interesting reading and for feeling very sorry for poor Fi.

The first third of the book was a little slow but it certainly kept my attention, and I did wonder as we knew the ending, how this was going to progress. Then the rest of the book came with plenty of "aha" moments and "well what would you do?" thoughts entering my head. Everyday life suddenly meets a psychological thriller.

Well written and researched, this is a clever book with a few twists to keep you on your toes. The ending though! The author definitely saved the best until last.  Nooooooo I was screaming as I read it! 

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

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 many years later . . .

A story of love and redemption, faith and forgiveness, Ask Again, Yes reveals the way childhood memories change when viewed from the distance of adulthood - villains lose their menace, and those who appeared innocent seem less so. It's a story of how, if we're lucky, the violence lurking beneath everyday life can be vanquished by the power of love.

Review

I really wanted to like this book so much more, but it really dragged in places.

Kate and Peter live next door to one another and become friends in the 1970s.  Something happens between the families, which means Peter and his family move away. But Peter and Kate never forget one another, they find each other again years later.

They say time heals everything, and in a way this book sets out to discover if that idiom is in fact true. This book covers some tricky issues very well, such as mental illness, and how it was viewed both back in the 70s and in more recent times.  

The Americanisms referred to and some of the way of life, especially from the 1970s, were lost on me and I felt that I missed out at times on really understanding and feeling connected to the characters. I never really warmed to any of them either. My biggest gripe with the book is that although the writing is good and at times some beautifully written scenes, it just went on for far too long in certain time frames.

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

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 suffrage movement was at its height and the Great War loomed, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. It's a delightful, lyrical and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words, and the power of language to shape our experience of the world.

Review

This book was ok, but I didn't love it.

I love words and their history so the title of this book really appealed to me. Based on the true story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary with a fictional character called Esme (and a few others) woven through the story. The research that must have gone into the book is very evident in the writing.

Reading about the Scriptorium and the sourcing of words and their contributors was great. However, it went on for far too long and in such detail that I began to get bored. A third of the way through and I felt like this was a story that was becoming very long winded. The story picked up a little after this and included references to the Suffrage movement which I found really interesting.

Unfortunately it wasn't long before the book once again became very drawn out in the telling of the tale. By the end of the book I had no compassion for Esme, she seemed to be a very one dimensional character. I think I enjoyed the premise of the Dictionary of Lost Words and the last pages of the book the most, together with the author's notes. This was a great story, just for me too long in the telling.

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

Effortless - Greg McKeown

Description

FROM THE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF ESSENTIALISM COMES A GUIDE TO MAKING THE MOST IMPORTANT TASKS EFFORTLESS

The intricacy of modern life has created a false dichotomy between things that are 'hard and important,' and those that are 'easy and trivial.' Everything has become so much harder than it ought to be. But, Greg McKeown, bestselling author of Essentialism, says, there is a third alternative. In Effortless, he offers practical strategies for making the most vital tasks the easiest ones. Honed over the better part of a decade, these strategies include:

· Asking 'What Step Can I Remove?' (accomplish more, in fewer steps)
· Having the Courage to Be Rubbish (prioritize progress over perfection)
· Deciding What 'Done' Looks Like (don't keep running after you pass the finish line)

McKeown's philosophy of essentialism has helped thousands to eliminate nonessential activities and focus on the few that really matter. Working out what is essential is the first step - making these tasks effortless is the next. Effortless will show you how.

Review

I've not read the author's first book "Essentialism", but I felt that this book was a standalone work that can be read independently, although it is a follow on book.

I thought the first part of the book was overly wordy and was trying too hard to sell the idea of "effortless".  A little like an infomercial, it promised many times that I would be able to make things more "effortless" and gave examples of people who had. However, I wanted the "how to" now and not be made to wait for it. Once I got through the first part of the book it was fine, and the "how to's" rolled off the page and I was gratified at last.

You may be familiar with the term “work smarter… not harder”, it originated in the 1930s from a man called Allen F. Morgenstern. In essence I felt that this is what this book was trying to say, but giving real world up to date examples. The book is certainly current as one such example was making masks for Covid -19. It was these parts of the book that I enjoyed the most, reading about how people had transformed processes or simplified their work. In fact this is a technique of "telling stories" that the book itself recommends.

The key concepts of effortless are recapped at points throughout the book so you can easily get a quick reminder without reading the whole book again. Another chestnut of advice from my childhood of "less haste, more speed" is also expanded on in the book to provide evidence of why "Mother knew best" afterall!

I'm giving this book 3 out of 5 stars. My thanks to netgalley for the ARC to review. This book is published on 27 April 2021.