BOOKSIMO

Description We all have our lucky dress... an irresistibly hilarious rom-com! Emi Harrison  hasn't been feeling particularly lucky lately. Ever since her ex-fiancée, Jack Cabot, successfully shattered her heart into a million pieces. She's managed to avoid him for a whole year, but all that's about to change at her brother Evan's wedding... She will have to face Jack, Jack's sister, Jack's parents, and Jack's new girlfriend: a mean girl that just won't quit.  What could possibly go wrong? With her lucky dress on, all bets are off, and maybe  Emi will find her happily-ever-after at last? Review I've actually read and reviewed this book before - except Aimee got a new publisher and rewrote the book and so it's not technically the same book at all. I never read books twice - I mean why would you when there are so many books to read. However, something about the previous version of the book "The Little Gray Dress" hooked me ...

Description HOW MANY LIFETIMES DOES IT TAKE TO LEARN HOW TO LIVE? Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old history teacher, but he's been alive for centuries. From Elizabethan England to Jazz-Age Paris, from New York to the South Seas, Tom has seen it all. As long as he keeps changing his identity he can keep one step ahead of his past - and stay alive. The only thing he must not do is fall in love . . . Review If you've read my reviews before you will know I love time travel books. Now whilst this isn't strictly time travel, it's someone who has lived for a very long time, so it still felt a little like time travel and I loved it. I also love social history and this book has it in oodles, as Tom recounts some of his life from years past and then in the present day he points out how things in London have changed since Tudor times. I've read before accounts of the witch hunts and the dunking stool, but this brough...

Description The police say she's guilty. She insists she's innocent. She's your sister. You loved her. You trusted her. But they say she killed your child. Who do you believe? Review I was a little torn when I began this book as I hadn't realised the child that had been killed was a baby. I wasn't sure I wanted to read it - but I have read her two previous books and really wanted to see what this book was like.  Most of the book is a court room scene and I'm not sure if that is why it took me a while to get into it. It also seemed to be an open and shut case and I found it hard to get interested for the first few chapters. Mainly because it was such an emotive read. Two sisters on opposing sides and a dead baby. As the witnesses were introduced the author also gave a little back story as to how they had seen the evidence from their point of view. This really was great observational writing and gave life to each of the characters, even...

Description Keiko has never really fitted in. At school and university people find her odd and her family worries she'll never be normal. To appease them, Keiko takes a job at a newly opened convenience store. Here, she finds peace and purpose in the simple, daily tasks and routine interactions. She is, she comes to understand, happiest as a convenience store worker. But in Keiko's social circle it just won't do for an unmarried woman to spend all her time stacking shelves and re-ordering green tea. As pressure mounts on Keiko to find either a new job, or worse, a husband, she is forced to take desperate action... A best-seller in Japan, and the winner of the prestigious Akutagawa Prize,  Convenience Store Woman  marks the English-language debut of a writer who has been hailed as the most exciting voice of her generation Review Having visited Japan I am working my way through books by Japanese authors. As soon as I read the words "Irasshaimase!" I wa...

Description Kate Reddy is back! The follow-up to the international bestseller I Don’t Know How She Does It, the novel that defined modern life for women everywhere. This time she’s juggling teenagers, ageing parents and getting back into the workplace, and every page will have you laughing and thinking: It’s not just me. Mail on Sunday’s Books of the Year Kate Reddy is counting down the days until she is fifty, but not in a good way. Fifty, in Kate’s mind, equals invisibility. And with hormones that have her in shackles, teenage children who need her there but won’t talk to her and ailing parents who aren’t coping, Kate is in the middle of a sandwich that she isn’t even allowed to eat because of the calories. She’s back at work after a big break at home, because somebody has to bring home the bacon now that her husband Rich has dropped out of the rat race to master the art of mindfulness. But just as Kate is finding a few tricks to get by in her new workplace, her old clien...

Description Ivy is always destined to meet Abe. But when is the RIGHT time? At school, as a free spirit in her twenties or when she is married . . . to someone else? Perhaps they meet when she is a widow in her sixties? Or maybe he remains a stranger, glimpsed only fleetingly. Ivy and Abe are soulmates. But what if they meet at the WRONG time, and fate and circumstance stand in Ivy's way? Told over Ivy's lifetime, across a series of alternate realities, Ivy & Abe is a story for anyone who has ever wondered 'what if?' Review I was really looking forward to reading this book but unfortunately felt a little disappointed. It's a great concept and could have been a really good story line. Unlike "Sliding Doors" each time Ivy and Abe meet it is in a different year - things in their lives are at a different point, sometimes one of them is married, sometimes one of them or both of them are widowed.  I'm not sure how many times the s...

Description A story of love, line graphs and lost directions Violet North is wonderfully inconvenient. Abandoned by her family and lost in an imagined world of moors and adventure, her life changes in the space of just 37 words exchanged with a stranger at her front door. Decades later, Daniel Bearing has inherited his father's multi-million pound business, and is utterly lost. He has no idea who he is or where his life is headed. When Violet’s granddaughter’s marriage falls apart, Tilly, always adept with numbers, compiles a detailed statistical report to pinpoint why. But the Compatibility Index Tilly creates has unforeseen consequences for everyone in her world. Tilly and Daniel share a secret too. 10.37am, April 22nd. Soon, a complex web of secrets and lies is exposed and an adventure begins with a blue typewriter… Review It was probably the mention of and a picture of a typewriter that drew me to this book - but I am so glad it did. Such a quirky and un...