Rare Singles by Benjamin Myers - Review

I know I've read The Offing by Benjamim Myers and enjoyed it, but I can't remember how or why I picked this one up. I think it must have just caught my eye in the library. I go to craft club every Monday morning in my local library but they are refurbishing it at the moment so they're in the local town hall at the moment. They still have a room we can use which is brilliant. They only have a few books in the much smaller room - but of course, they can order anything in that you might want - so maybe that's helped me to see the wood for the trees or something, because I have picked up a few books that have popped out at me. 

I read this at the beginning of October so the details are a bit hazy - we're in mid November as I'm writing this - so please do bear with me. I did really like the book, though. It's set in Scarborough and I love books that are set in the north of England as it's where I live myself. I know Scarborough quite well after going a thousand times throughout my life, so it was lovely to be able to picture the streets and the harbour and bays perfectly. 

The book is about Northern Soul music. In Scarborough there's Dinah, who lives with her husband and son, who are both useless human beings. Her husband drinks too much and her son, while an adult, sits in his bedroom smoking weed and so on. She works a thankless job (I want to say in like a supermarket or something, can't remember exactly) and she loves Northern Soul. She can lose herself in the music a couple of times a week, and she does. She reaches out to a musician called Bucky Bronco, who had a couple of hits way back in the sixties, and then vanished off the face of the earth. Dinah has managed to find him, and she invites him to Scarborough to sing. 

Bucky Bronco is now an old man, living by himself in Chicago after the death of his beloved wife, Maybelle. He had some kind of injury and now has an opioid addiction. He is basically just getting through life, talking to his late wife and wishing it was his turn to go. He doesn't really think of his musical life. He has a lot of regrets and through the book we learn why his musical career was cut so short. This part was actually fascinating, because yes things happened in his personal life, but there was also a lot of music industry stuff that was so interesting. He hasn't sung since the late sixties but he decides to go to Scarborough anyway. 

Then he manages to leave his pain pills on the aeroplane, so he is in England going cold turkey for the first time in like a decade or something. He stays in the Grand Hotel, which is a real hotel in Scarborough which anyone would recognise. Ben has described it perfectly - I know people who have stayed recently and apparently it's very shabby and run down now and not a patch of its glamorous past. I loved that Bucky - who was himself a bit faded and a call back to a different time - stayed there. 

In all I'm giving this four out of five, it was a really good book about music and nostalgia and stuff. 

The Glass Room by Ann Cleeves - Review

 

I picked this up off my shelves recently. I had forgotten I had this Vera Stanhope but, so was happy to see it when I unpacked my books. I bought my mum the first eight books in the series and she has made her way through them and enjoyed them, and I've been in an out of them. So I picked this up, anyway, at the beginning of October. I'm still way behind in blogging so I'm writing this in the middle of November. I've forgotten some of the ins and outs of it, sorry. I am hoping to get caught up eventually but, man, life keeps happening. 

Anyway, Vera has made friends with her closest neighbours to her isolated farm. They invite her over and feed her and stuff. Joanna is one half of the couple and she goes to this writing retreat on this island off the Northumberland coast (how many islands ARE there off the Northumberland coast??) and one of the writers is found murdered. Joanna is found holding a knife over the body, so it really looks like she is guilty of murder.

Vera knows that really she should hand the case over to someone else, but she just doesn't believe that Joanna is capable of murder. All of the people at the retreat are suspects, but when it seems like one of the writers has written a scene exactly like the murder scene, it gets more and more complicated.

As always, I liked the mystery, but I only gave the book three out of five and now I can't remember exactly why. I guess it just didn't do it for me that much. 

Kittiwake Stormhaven and the Pirate's Portolano by Victoria Williamson - Blog Tour and Review

 

Hello and welcome to my blog for my stop on the tour for Kittiwake Stormhaven and the Pirate's Portolano by Victoria Williamson! It is a pleasure to welcome you here! Please do click around and read some of my other reviews. I've read a lot of books by Victoria and always love her, so there's a few reviews of her books around. 

I love Victoria's books and think she's a great Middle Grade author who we need more of in the UK, so I was pleased to see a new book by her arrive and signed up immediately. I was lucky enough to receive a physical copy which came in a very cute box with some pirate themed goodies in it too, so thank you very much for those, I really enjoyed them! Such a cute little gift from Tiny Tree Books, thank you. I was provided with a copy of this book for review purposes but all thoughts and opinions are my own. 

The hero of the book is Kittiwake Stormhaven, who is around twelve years old. She lives in a world where there isn't much, if any, land left. There are a few seaports around the world, but most of the population lives on ships and the world is divided into quadrants. Kittiwake lives on the Amazon Princess, living a luxury, pampered life. Her mother Mollyhawk is the captain of this ship. Her sister Petrel went missing and their father Kestrel went off to look for her and is presumed dead. 

Kittiwake has a friend, Scallion, known as Scally, who was caught on a pirate ship so is branded on his forehead with a P. He is a stowaway on the Amazon Princess and is careful to not be found. Kittiwake also has a pet monkey, Caboodle. The three get into mischief and such, which is funny. But then there come rumours that Petrel is the captain of a pirate ship, the Seawitch. Mollyhawk is rightfully shocked and upset about this.

Meanwhile, the material that the ships are fuelled by is running scarce. It comes from a meteor and one is expected to land soon, so all ships are trying to get a piece of it. I liked this environmental aspect of the book. I also liked the setting, it felt old fashioned but with more modern inventions. I think this is a fun swashbuckling adventure book. I recommend it for middle graders! 

Read Between the Li(n)es by Malcolm Duffy - Review

I can't remember where or when I picked this book up but I obviously did at some point, and I picked it up towards the end of September. I'm reviewing this like six weeks later as I've just been so busy and have been on holiday, so some of the details of the book are a bit lost to me now. However, I didn't like it much - I don't think it was as good as Me Mam, Me Dad, Me by Malcolm which I read years ago and liked. 

Anyway, there are two protagonists of this book. Firstly there is Ryan. His parents are divorced and he is living in the south of England with his dad, although he is from the north east. His mam isn't around much. Ryan and his dad are living with his dad's new girlfriend, whose name escapes me right now, and her son, Tommy.

Tommy has been in a young offenders institute for a year and now he's back home. He's got to start school again in Ryan's year, although he's older. Ryan's mam thinks he is a bad lad and doesn't want Ryan living with him, but what can she do? Ryan wants to get on with Tommy but the two clash to begin with. Tommy is well liked at school but he's also prickly and can be difficult. He finds school difficult, because he is dyslexic, and he has never got help for that. 

Ryan is dyslexic too, but he's been well supported in it so he is doing well in school. He has things that help and strategies, so he is a bit nerdy. He wants Tommy to like him as he doesn't have many friends in his new area.

The two get closer and Ryan shares how he learnt to read and all of that stuff. Secrets start to slide out, which as an adult I found a little bit predictable, but a teenager may not find it that way. So maybe I can't really judge on that score. 

I am giving this three out of five. It has positive things - it's UK based, it's a normal family situation, and I liked what Tommy went through as a teen that landed him in trouble. But the negatives just outweighed that a bit for me. 

The Killer Question by Janice Hallett - Review

You know I love a Janice Hallett book so when I knew there was another one I picked it up straight away. It's very similar to her other books - written in a non linear fashion, without prose. This time it's about a pub, a bit off the beaten track, which is being run by Sue and Mal Eastwood. They have a WhatsApp group with several other publicans in the same chain. Each pub runs a quiz - except one, I think - and each of them is really proud of their quiz for bringing in business etc. Mal prides himself on writing his quizzes himself, unlike lots of the other landlords in the group who rely on quiz books. 

There are several teams who always come to Mal's quiz, who are known by their team names and who have friendly rivalries between them. A new team turns up one night and puts the cat among the pigeons by coming first. They make their way round a few of the pubs and keep coming first. Mal becomes certain that they are cheating, and sets out to find out how. 

A body is found near Mal and Sue's pub which brings lots of intrigue and police into their pub. The body belongs to someone who knew a bunch of the quizzers who keep winning, so it all gets really confusing. I was expecting a twist at the end but when it happened I was incredibly shocked as I hadn't seen it coming at all. I liked the book as a whole and thought it read more quickly than some of her others. I can't wait until her next book as I will of course read it.

I'm giving this four out of five. 

The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd - Review

 

If you haven't heard of this book before, I have mentioned it on this blog before. In 2020 I read The Guggenheim Mystery by Robin Stevens, which is kind of a sequel to this book. Siobhan Dowd made notes and a title for her sequel, but then she died before she wrote it, so Robin took the characters and wrote the sequel. I really liked the book so got this one and then forgot about it for five years. When we were unpacking all my books after the move I found this and picked it up, thinking it was about time. And I really enjoyed it, so that's good. I didn't really remember the characters so it was nice to get to know them again, from Siobhan herself. 

The protagonist of the book is Ted, who is about eleven or twelve, I think. He is autistic. He lives with his parents and sister, Kat, who's about fourteen. His special interest is the weather and he doesn't really like things outside of his routine. 

One day in the holidays, Ted's mum's sister Gloria turns up with her son, Salim. They are about to move to New York but stay with Ted's family for a bit. Salim doesn't want to move to New York but wants to do some tourist stuff in London first. Mum, Gloria, and all the kids go into London to go on the London Eye. But the queue is huge so the mums have a sit down and the kids join the queue. Then a man offers the kids one ticket to jump the queue; Ted and Kat decide to give it to Salim as he's never been on the Eye before. He goes up, but when the capsule he is in comes back round half an hour later he doesn't get off it. 

At first Ted and Kat think they've got it wrong, so they wait a bit longer. But no, Salim doesn't turn up. Later the family reports Salim missing to the police. He had a disposable camera so Ted and Kat have the film developed, hoping that they might get some clues about what has happened to him. They can see the man who gave them the ticket, and deduce where he was working. They follow a trail - while their parents are trying to keep them contained and keep Gloria feeling okay while Salim is missing - to try to get to the bottom of what has happened. 

It's a good mystery and I really liked how Ted and Kat's relationship developed through the book. It's a good middle grade book, I'm glad I finally got round to it. I'm giving it four out of five. 

Little Manfred by Michael Morpurgo - Review

Recently we got all my books unpacked in the new house and arranged into their genres on the new shelves in the back bedroom. Well, two of the bookshelves were new but one was in our old house and one of the other shelves we had is now in my craft room, but they are all in new places, that's for sure. This bedroom is not huge but it's got a single bed in it and my work desk, and now it also has over a thousand books. In fact, let me show you the pictures of the shelves:

Here we've got literary fiction on two shelves, a bunch of books about music, and then a bunch of non fiction

Here's all the YA - these books are all double shelved as are the literary fiction ones at the top

These books are all crime at the top then more non fiction in the middle, my cousin helped to rearrange these 

These are all classics and stuff, under my work desk, because I do want to keep them but I don't need to access them often. Some of these belonged to my grandparents! 

And here there's children's lit and middle grade at the top and then two shelves of books that I know are LGBTQ+, no matter what other genre they might fit into. I like to have them all together! I sure do have a lot of them!

Anyway, with all the books unpacked there are more than a thousand, so I officially do have a whole entire library all of my own! Lee owns some of the music books and I haven't pictured all his stupid Viz annuals, but he mostly reads digitally so doesn't own a lot of books. It's been lovely to be reunited with all my books, and I've been trying to pick out things that I really want to read but haven't seen in ages. With that, I picked up Little Manfred by Michael Morpurgo. 

I don't think I've read anything by him before, but of course I have heard of him. I'm really not sure where I picked this book up from, but I feel like I've had it a while. It's a cute little novella and I would recommend it to any chapter book young reader. 

The main characters of the book are Charley, who is 12, and Alex, her brother, who is seven. The book is set in 1966 when England have just won the World Cup. The kids live on a farm and often take off to the beach to walk their dog, Manfred. He is named after a little toy dog that their mum had, called Little Manfred. The kids are walking on the beach and shout the dog, and nearby two men overhear them. It turns out that one of them was on the ship Bismarck when it went down, when two thousand men were left to drown, but he and Manfred were rescued by HMS Dorsetshire but then became prisoners of war and eventually lived on the farm where the children live and where their mother grew up. 

This is a really cute book and I really liked it and even learnt some history in the meantime! I'm giving it four out of five. 

The Three Investigators and The Mystery of the Talking Skull

When I was younger I read a bunch of these Three Investigator books and absolutely loved them. I think I must have got most of them from the library, but I owned this one. It still has my book plate inside so I know it's mine. It was packed and when we unpacked it I pulled it off the shelf immediately because I really wanted to reread one of these books as an adult. I really enjoyed it and would like to read more in the series, so I'll have to keep an eye out for them. 

So, the Three Investigators in question are Jupiter, Pete, and Bob. Jupiter Jones lives with his aunt and uncle, for reasons that I can't remember. Pete and Bob both live with their parents. The books are set in the sixties in California. Alfred Hitchcock has nothing to do with the books but his name was used, which did confuse me when I was a kid but I've read up on it since. Jupiter's aunt and uncle own a scrapyard, which is filled with weird and wonderful things. Jupiter has built a secret hideaway for the boys' detective club within the scrapyard, and there are several exits and entrances to it and the yard itself, which often comes in useful. 

Jupiter is incredibly clever, he is also very charming and good at speaking to adults. Bob is brainy and is often tasked with research for the cases that the boys get involved in. Pete is 'the muscle', I guess, but there's not a lot about him in general. I like the parts that are from Bob's point of view as he's often rolling his eyes at Jupiter. Jupiter is sometimes a know it all but I like him anyway. 

In this book they attend an auction, for no good reason at all, and Jupiter buys a suitcase for a dollar. It turns out to have belonged to a magician known as The Great Gulliver, who disappeared as one of his tricks and is missing. It takes the boys a while to open the suitcase, but inside they discover a talking skull! But a few people want the skull for themselves, adding some danger to the book. 

I would recommend this for younger teen readers, it is a bit old fashioned but in a really endearing way. I'm giving it four out of five. 

Sorry I've been so absent around here! Moving house over the summer really took it out of me and I haven't been writing as much. I have TONS of reviews to do, though, so I'll need to get caught up! 

Take Me Back by Amanda Rodriguez - Review and Blog Tour

 

Hello and welcome to my blog for my stop on the tour for Take Me Back by Amanda Rodriguez. If you haven't been here before please do click around and read some of my other reviews. It's a pleasure to have you here! 

I don't often read poetry but when I do I like it, I get quite absorbed and I like to pick out individual phrases and words that really resonate with me. I think Amanda has a real way with words, especially rhymes, which she used in creative ways. I would have liked a few more abstract poems, I think, but I'm not complaining. The book as a whole is about the breakdown of a relationship Amanda had, how she fell apart a bit, how she healed, and how she put herself back together. I liked the collection as a whole and I liked how it was divided into clear sections too. I would recommend it!

I was provided with an electronic copy of this book for review purposes. I was not otherwise compensated for this post and all thoughts and opinions are my own. The book will be published on November the 18th 2025. Please find more information below: 

Book Info

Genre: Poetry

Number of Pages: 185 Pages

Publication Date: November 18, 2025

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242373381-take-me-back 

Amazon: https://a.co/d/5yQhL8t (Canada) https://a.co/d/5Pbp09J (USA) https://amzn.eu/d/8mUW5Wv (UK)

Blurb

Take Me Back is a powerful poetry collection by Amanda Rodriguez that explores the raw, emotional journey of heartbreak, healing, and self-discovery. Through deeply personal poems, Rodriguez opens up about the pain of toxic love and the profound strength that comes from self-awareness. This poignant collection is divided into parts that reflect the stages of love and loss, offering a relatable experience for anyone who has ever faced the complexities of emotional recovery.

Take Me Back is a must-read for anyone on a journey of self-healing and transformation. Whether you're navigating a breakup, overcoming past trauma, or simply looking to understand the process of emotional growth, this book offers a comforting reminder that healing is possible - and that you are not alone

About the Author

Amanda Rodriguez is a poet and writer from Miami, Florida. From a very young age she has embraced the therapeutic power of writing and never let it go. With a deep passion for soulful music and introspective lyrics, Amanda draws emotional inspiration from themes of personal identity, love, loss, empowerment, and spirituality. Her poetry reflects a raw and honest exploration of the human experience, and she finds great fulfillment in offering comfort and empathy to others through her words. Her work isn't just about self-expression; it's also about creating connections.

https://www.instagram.com/amandarodriguezpoetry/

Mudlarking by Lara Maiklem - Review

This was the September choice for my book club, and it wasn't something I would have ever picked up but as always I will give it a go. It took me forever to read which really annoyed me, especially as it's not even that long of a book! But I persevered and we did have a good discussion about it at book club. 

Mudlarking is the act of scavenging stuff that turns up in the muddy banks of a river shore when the tide goes out. It mostly refers to the River Thames in London, which is tidal, and where in the 18th century poor people and their children scavenged for goods that they could resell and make a tiny living from. These days, anyone can go and search for stuff on the muddy banks, and Lara is one of those people. She did explain the difference between people who just search stuff that lays on the foreshore and those who actually go digging for stuff - which is illegal unless you're a member of the mudlarking society, apparently, which Lara is not so she was a bit scathing about it. 

Let me talk about the parts of the book that I found interesting: the history of London and how it shows up in what artefacts she founds - Roman pottery, Victorian pins, loads of other bits. Lara has to turn over all her finds to the Museum of London because they have first refusal on what's been found, which was also interesting. She talked about finding rings and jewellery and precious gems, and she throws back some of the engraved rings she finds as she just finds them too sad. There was an interesting part about a bag of garnets that fell off a ship or were nicked, and apparently it's quite easy to find them. I also found the parts about how climate change is changing the edges of the river and so on. So those bits were good.

But a lot of it was quite repetitive and some of the others in my book club said that too. There was way too much about the steps going down to the banks and just choosing different places to go and why, blah blah blah. Also a lot of her finds seems really similar which was annoying. Plus I found the ending quite odd, where she goes to one of the most easterly points where the river is more of a sea, and nearly gets caught by the tide. I just didn't really care enough about it. 

In all i'm giving this three out of five. There's a sequel but I don't think I'll bother!

Ryan and Avery by David Levithan - Review

If you've read this blog for any amount of time you might know that I blow hot and cold on David Levithan. I maintain that Every Day is one of the worst books I've ever read, but I liked Two Boys Kissing. When I saw this in a children's and young adult bookshop in Retford when I was there with friends over Easter, and my friend Lucinda recommended it so I picked it up. After I'd slogged through the end of The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater I picked this up. It's funny because Lee's stepdad put one of our bookshelves back together on the second day after our move, and unpacked a box of books that were nearby. He said, "These are all gay books!" which yes, was true, because it was a box marked LGBT. So yes, they were. He also told me I didn't need any more books which obviously isn't true!

Anyway, that meant this was ready available for I picked it up. I needed something cute and easy to read and this ticked all the boxes for me. It was so cute and just what I needed. I feel like David has come on a lot in ten years and is mroe accurately reflecting the teen queer community than he maybe did in the past. 

Ryan and Avery live in towns some two hours apart in the middle of nowhere in America, you know how it goes. This is the story of their first ten dates together. It goes backwards in time as well as forwards so we know that they're pretty serious about each other at the beginning of the book, and we get to see how they got to that point. They met at a queer prom in Ryan's town and now have to drive hours (for a Brit this is loopy!) to see each other. 

Ryan is gay and lives with his parents, who are not accepting of him and who try to stop him seeing Avery. He is close to his aunt, whose name I forget, and he is totally falling in love with Avery and it's adorable. He has some friends and is out at school, but his home life is pretty rotten and I felt sorry for him. 

Avery is trans, and gay, and lives with his parents. They have always been accepting of his transness and his queerness - in fact sometimes they're a bit TOO accepting and do his head in - and so they accept Ryan very quickly too. 

Their dates are so cute. The whole book is cute but also has real depth and drama. I would recommend it to any romance fan, and I'm giving it five out of five. 

Sweat by Emma Healey - Review

I bought this book on Amazon for 99p, I think at the recommendation of my friend Janet? It seems likely. I haven't read Emma Healey's other book but I've heard good things about it. But this one didn't really land for me, so I wouldn't be in a rush to read the other. Still, you never know these things until you try them.

It is absolutely weeks since I read this so I'm having to cast my mind back a bit. I do know that I only gave it three out of five. It was trying to be something that it didn't quite manage to be. 

It's about Cassie, who works as a personal trainer in a gym. She's working one day when her ex. Liam, walks in. She tries to avoid him but realises he is now blind. Fuelled by anger over what he did to her in their relationship, Cassie poses as her colleague Steph and begins to guide Liam through weekly sessions. She runs into his friend, who I think is called Daniel, who tells her that Liam has a brain tumour which has caused him to go blind. He wants Cassie to reconnect and reconcile with Liam, because no one really understands what went on between the two of them. Cassie refuses, but she feels like someone is following her, so she starts to follow Liam, playing with him, to see if he's faking his illness and playing with her. 

It almost feels like this revenge thing would be not understandable, but acceptable, because there are flashbacks to when Cassie and Liam were together. Bit by bit, little by little, he played with her self confidence, wore her down, and abused her domestically. It started ouff innocent and innocuous, with like getting her to go out for a run and persuading her to give up alcohol, stuff like that, but it ended with the fridge locked and her unable to contact anyone. This was a really good portrayal of how domestic abuse starts and spirals. I also thought that Cassie's parents reaction to the abuse when she finally tells them about it is that he's 'just looking after her' and only wants the best for her, etc etc. I really liked this bit.

But the ending just didn't quite work for me. I'm not sure what I wanted to happen, but this didn't get there for me. As I said, three out of five. 

What A Way to Go by Bella Mackie - Review

I read Bella's first book How to Kill Your Family back in 2022 so was interested to read her second book. I found it quite similar to the first one in that all the characters are highly unlikeable but the narrative is compelling anyway. I read this a while ago so please forgive me as I remind myself of what happened in the book... 

Oh yes so the book is about the Wistern family. The patriarch, multi millionaire Anthony, is turning sixty and his wife Olivia is throwing him a lavish party. They have four children, all of whom are terrible, but it's hard not to have some sympathy for the youngest, Clara. The eldest, Jemima, is married to Will, who is a bit likeable but caught up in this terrible family. She is terrible, though, and her other sister is too. Anthony is a ruthless capitalistic person. Olivia loathes him and is basically very materialistic. There's any number of rich 'friends' of the family who have been invited. It's all a massive thing. And then Anthony's body is found in the pond. The family turn on each other, pointing the finger for murder, but what really might have happened? 

Meanwhile, Anthony is in a place that's like purgatory or something. He can watch his family as they go about their lives, and he has to work out how his death happened, and then he will get to go on to the next place. He has to present his findings to the management in this place, but he keeps getting it wrong. Was it his wife? His business partner? Who knows. 

There's also a local young person who is obsessed with true crime and spends a lot of time online talking about true crime, and so when this case lands on her doorstep, she becomes obsessed. She basically starts stalking the family, in their massive country house, and soon begins to irritate them. She keeps going viral with her posts, so she won't stop any time soon either. 

I liked t he premise of the book but just didn't feel like it was pulled off properly. I can't really explain it, but this didn't have me thrilled and it's quite forgettable a month later. I'm giving it three out of five. 

I am so sorry it's been so quiet on this blog recently. I've been reading lots as usual but just haven't been blogging as I've been busy unpacking the house. I've got tons of posts to catch up on so keep a look out!

Joffe Books Murder Mystery Short Stories Vol 1 by Various Authors - Review

A few months ago I signed up for the Joffe Books newsletter, which sends daily emails detailing books from them that are either free or low cost. A lot of them are right up my street - they are crime novels but there are so many subgenres within that. I would recommend it if you like crime fiction at all! 

I think I got this short story collection for free and I picked it up when I needed something quick and easy to read. My favourite of the stories was by Greta Mulrooney, because it was creepy and weird, but I enjoyed all of them. It is a few weeks since I read it though so I don't remember them all perfectly, but I am so behind on blogging and I really just want to get caught up. So in all I'm giving this four out of five. Sorry for the extremely short review! I will read some others of this collection though for sure. 

The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater - Review

So I'm really sorry that it's been quiet around here. It's because.... we moved house! It has been in the works since February but because the people we were buying off were buying a new house, which wasn't yet built, we had to wait. We had put a lot of things in storage in preparation to move, including most of my books. I had kept one basket full out in the old house, but I was so sad without my shelves of books. In the new house one of the spare rooms has enough space for a TON of bookshelves, so we've been building those and unpacking my books. It is glorious to see them all again! I will share some photos when everything is unpacked and looking great. 

Over the move itself I found it hard to read because I was stressed and wound up, so I tried to be gentle on myself. I started this book just before the move but couldn't concentrate on it, so I put it down for a bit. I finished it at the end of August and thought it did redeem itself in the last fifty pages or so, but I think it was overly long. I reckon you could have cut out about seventy five pages and still had the the same novel, with a bit less flannel. 

I love Maggie, as you know, so when I saw this book I was intrigued by it. I requested it at the library and picked it up in mid August. Although it seemed like my kind of thing, and although it's really typical Maggie, I did find it slow. Maybe that's one of the differences between Young Adult fiction and fiction for adults. Dunno. But it did annoy me somewhat.

So the book is about the Avallon hotel in West Virginia somewhere. It is set in about 1942, after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The hotel is owned by the Gilfoyle family but June Hudson - aka Hoss - is the general manager. She is from the area, from a poor family, but she was kind of adopted by the Gilfoyle family. The patriarch, Mr Francis, who has died not long before the start of the book, basically moulded June into the person she is now. She has kind of had a relationship with one of the sons, Ed, but the war is looming and she has refused to marry him. A different son, Sandy, has been injured and is now using a wheelchair and unable to move around by himself. His sister, Stella, is basically his carer. A different sister exists but doesn't feature. 

June is told that the hotel is being requisitioned by the FBI to house diplomats from Germany, Italy, and Japan. Apparently this was a thing that really happened in World War Two which was really interesting to learn. She has to get rid of all the guests - except for the mysterious long term guest who lives in Room 411 and who demands things daily. A number of her male staff have been drafted to fight and those that are left often have problems. She is well respected by her staff though. 

The FBI men are headed up by Tucker. He is a native to West Virginia - as June identifies by his coal tattoo - but doesn't really talk about that. The Axis diplomats arrive but they're almost slightly incidental to the story. There are quite a few Nazis, of course, and there is a girl who the story follows through. She is most likely autistic or something similar, but it's not diagnosed. The FBI men work to repatriate the diplomats and get some American diplomats back in exchange. This was all very interesting!

And then there is the water. The hotel has four bath houses and fonts on every floor. The water is sweetwater. June drinks glasses of it daily. It definitely has magical qualities. It is there, bubbling under the hotel, bubbling under everything that happens in the book. June knows how to subdue it, but eventually, she can't anymore. This is really typical Maggie, and I loved it. 

in all, this is a 3.75 out of five, so I'll round it up to a four. I loved the ending but as I say, I felt like there was quite a bit that just didn't need to be there. 

Evenings and Weekends by Oisin McKenna - Review

I really loved this book and really recommend it! I was made aware of it by Janet, who often shares books that she has liked that are cheap on Kindle on her Instagram. She and I have very similar taste in books, so when this was only 99p I had to get it. That's a couple of months ago now, but I'm really glad I picked it up because I liked it a lot. My friend Sarah, when she saw this photo on Instagram, messaged and said that she didn't like it at all and found all the characters unlikeable. After Janet said it was the best book she read last year I was really intrigued to see what I thought... Sorry Sarah, I loved it!

At its core the book is about three people: Maggie, Ed, and Phil. It is set in the heatwave summer of 2019, in London. Maggie and Ed are a couple, Maggie is pregnant, and they are barely scraping by in London so they are planning to move back to Basildon, where they grew up, to raise the baby. It's Maggie's last day at work before the move. A whale has come up the Thames and is beached, and all of London is talking about it and people keep going to see it. Ed is a courier, cycling all over London every day for little money. His dad died a few years ago, and his mum sits on the street back in Basildon every day, still grieving. Ed's best friend is Callum, who is about to get married to Holly. He is having a stag do with Ed and his dad Steve, but he goes AWOL for a bit so everyone is worried. 

His brother is Phil. Phil is gay and lives in a warehouse squat in London with eleven other people. One of them is Keith, who is in an open relationship with Louis, and who is also seeing Phil. Phil is sort of catching feelings though, but doesn't really know what to do about it. He doesn't like Louis, and he also thinks Keith is maybe using him. The squat is going to throw a party so everyone is getting ready for that.

Phil and Callum's mum, Rosaleen, has just discovered that she has cancer and her prognosis is terminal. She visits London on the Saturday with the intention of telling Phil, but finds she can't. A lot of the books is from her point of view too, about her childhood in Ireland and her friend Pauline, who died. Everyone in the book is very, very queer, except Maggie, who is just very in the scene. I loved how little bits were revealed and how so many people were intertwined with each other. I loved Rosaleen, I thought she was great, and I liked Phil a lot. I feel like I understand Phil. I didn't like Ed and Maggie as much for most of the book but I did really like their ending and thought it worked well. 

The book is about one weekend, that kind of hot city weekend when everyone is dying to get out of work and get to the parties, to the alcohol and the drugs and the dancing. I liked how this was portrayed a lot. I was right there, with these young people, who are connected by years and years of history (Phil and Ed have history too) and a vague sense of wanting more in life.

I'm giving this five out of five. It is an almost perfect book. 

The Otley Murders by J R Ellis - Review

You know I have read everything by J R Ellis and really rated his earlier books about DCI Oldroyd and his team, based in Harrogate. I know that part of the world and I've always really liked reading about places I recognise. My mum has read all this series too although I don't know yet what she thought of this one. It came out at the end of July and I picked it up because I can't resist! 

But I had a lot of problems with it. I'm not sure that the story was thought out properly, and it just kind of annoyed me. Then there were the kids named within - who were called Jonathan, Mary, Tom, Jane and Anne! Come on, find me a classroom in 2025 which includes those five children, I guarantee you cannot. Kids don't have names like that! Come on. It's not hard to name some kids. 

I also didn't think the ending really paid off. It felt a bit like Ellis had seen a topic that he wanted to address but hadn't really done enough research and didn't make sure enough justice happened. That annoyed me too. Really, I might be done with this series now, but then I feel bad because my mum will want to talk to me about them!

Anyway, the plot. A man called Adam Blake escapes from prison in a planned escape. He is a serial killer and when he was found guilty he threatened Oldroyd so now that he has escaped Oldroyd and his family all have to have protection so he can't get to them. Andy goes off to help look into the escape and where Adam is now, and has to investigate both prison warders and friends that Blake had on the inside. 

Meanwhile, Oldroyd and Steph are investigating a bizarre murder in Otley. In the new Arts Centre, which used to have some prison cells in it, a body is found. He wasn't killed there, so his body has been put there on purpose. It becomes obvious that some of the elders of the town know about historical things but they are still keeping it to themselves to stop any blame. It was this element that I just didn't feel worked properly. I enjoyed what Oldroyd and Steph did, for sure, but. But. 

In all I can only give this three out of five. 

The Burial Plot by Elizabeth MacNeal - Review

I read a review of this book somewhere and thought it sounded great, so I requested it at the library. However, I didn't really enjoy it at all. It took me absolutely forever to read because I just couldn't get into it. I did feel like it picked up at the end, but getting there just wasn't worth it for me. I won't rush to read anything else by the same author, that's for sure. 

The book is about Bonnie. It is set in 1839. She lives in London, sharing lodgings with her lover Crawford and his friend Rex, who hates her. They vie for Crawford's affection. Crawford thinks himself a cut above quite a lot of people. He takes bets on games in pubs. He gets Bonnie to entice men outside - them thinking they can buy her for the night or whatever - and then he and Rex attack and rob the men. 

One night Bonnie entices a gentleman outside, but things don't go as planned when Crawford and Rex don't show up, and the man starts to assault her. She hits him, and he whacks his head. Bonnie is certain she has killed him and thinks she will hang for the crime. Crawford however has a plan. He has seen an advert for a lady's maid wanted at a mansion in Richmond, which at that point was not part of London (I did like this historical part of the book!). Bonnie goes, applies for the job, gets it, and moves in, safe from the hangmen of London.

The family she moves in with is the Moncrieffs. The father is somewhat stilted, closed off. The daughter, Cissie, is sixteen and a strange little thing, but she and Bonnie grow close. Cissie's mother, Josephine, drowned in the pond earlier in the year, and the whole house is in mourning. There are only two members of staff, Annette, the housekeeper, and Manton, the butler. Mr Moncrieff has fallen on hard times and it seems likely that he will have to declare himself bankrupt. He spends a lot of time sketching mausoleums for Josephine and it is this which gives Bonnie an idea.

She has heard Crawford talking about the new cemeteries in London, like Highgate, and says that Mr Moncrieff could sell some of his grounds to make a cemetery, where he could also make a huge tomb for Josephine. He doesn't disagree, but nothing happens until Crawford turns up.

Posing as Bonnie's brother, he inveigles his way into the household and persuades Mr Moncrieff to start the cemetery. But he is cunning and he has so many plans and so much bitterness. Bonnie is quite stupid, though, and there are many times when she could do something but she just waits for things to happen. I liked her as a character but so much of the book just drags and there's no action. It's supposed to be really gothic and I thought the setting was good, but the slowness just stopped it from being really gothic for me.

In all I'm giving it two out of five, possibly a two and a half. But I won't rush to read anything else by her! 

The Rising Tide by Ann Cleeves - Review

After the last book I read, which I didn't much like, I wanted something easy to read. So I turned to Ann Cleeves, because I find the Vera Stanhope books easy to read. I hadn't heard of this one before but I saw it when we were on holiday and liked the premise, so I bought it on Kindle. 

A group of old friends is meeting on Holy Island. They are all sixty odd but they met fifty years ago in drama class and went on a residential course to the island, and they have had a reunion every five years since. At the first one, five years after the original trip, two of the people got into an argument and one of them drove off and was drowned on the road back to the mainland when the tide came in. This time, when everyone is getting on a bit, one of the men is found dead. It's been staged to look like a suicide, but Vera doesn't agree. And she's right - so there has to be a murder investigation. Vera and Joe and Holly have to spend a lot of time on the island to solve the crime. 

The group these days are: Louise and Ken, a couple. Ken is suffering from dementia. Lou is younger than the others and is the sister of Isabel, the girl who drowned forty five years ago. Philip is a vicar now, and seems to have found peace in his old age. Annie works in a local deli with her friend Jax. Rick is celebrity journalist but he has been 'cancelled' recently due to allegations of misconduct. He says that he is writing a book, thinly veiled as what happened to Isabel. He also says that fifty years ago he had sex with their teacher, Judy Marshall, who was newly out of college when she taught them. He is the one found dead and it turns out that quite a lot of people would have a motive to kill him. 

He has an ex wife, who also knows the group. Annie's ex husband is involved, too, and his new partner turns out to be Vera's boss, which complicates matters quite a bit. There is a whole cast of characters but it was easy to keep them straight which I appreciated. I liked the mystery behind the whole thing. I felt a lot of sympathy for a lot of the characters. 

In all I'm giving this four out of five, I appreciated the easy read. 

The Magickal Summer of Evie Edelman by Harriet de Mesquita - Review

I was offered some book to review by UCLAN Publishing, because I'm on their list, so I chose this and another, and I was so excited to receive them! So thank you very much to UCLAN Publishing for gifting me this copy of this book. I was provided with a copy for review purposes but was not otherwise compensated for this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 

I didn't like this book much at all and I feel really bad about saying that, because I really thought it sounded like my kind of thing. But it just wasn't. It also took me nine days to read it, which was partly because I was away for the weekend with not much time to read, but also because I just couldn't get engrossed in the prose. It is a shame because I wanted to like it! 

The book is set in 1982 and is written as the diary of Evie herself, so it comes off a bit like Adrian Mole in parts, which may or may not be intentional. As it is historical fiction I do think it is broadly of the time, but there were a couple of things that were anachronistic which kind of annoyed me. I also think the language skews more modern, but maybe that doesn't matter. 

So anyway, Evie is twenty two and she lives in Leeds with her parents, Dad and Lizzie. Her elder brother, Joe, is married to a woman called Val and they have a one year old baby, Tom. The family is Jewish, but not particularly religious, I think. They attend synagogue but it seems like it's more for the gossip that anything else! They live in a community of Jewish people with a lot of women called Susan and Sarah, which I get was a joke, but it was also a bit difficult to keep everyone straight in my head. Evie used to have a thing with a young man called Alex Ishkowitz but they broke things off, and he is now married to one of the Susans. 

Evie visits a psychotherapist and is diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. It feels like everyone in her life already knew this and has been kind of blaming her for it? I also strongly suspect her dad is autistic too (since that is the term we use these days). So she starts a diary. 

Evie's auntie Miriam dies very suddenly one day, and in her will, she leaves Evie nearly all of her quite sizable fortune. There is a distinct feeling that this is a stupid dea and she won't know what to do with it. Evie is trying to be a witch and as part of this she buys a small cottage in a village near Barnsley and moves there. She goes there because of a picture of a mill in that village that her parents have in the house. 

Now it must be that this village is close to where I live because it is four miles from Scissett, and I live about eight miles away from Scissett. Scissett is misspelt as Scisset, which I found incredibly annoying, because it's not that hard to google. In fact the book needed a better edit/proof read because there were a few mistakes like this that I picked up. In fact, Edelman is spelt wrongly on the spine of the book! 

Anyway Evie moves there in to a tiny somewhat delapidated cottage and makes friends with some of the locals, but she doesn't entirely fit in. She still practises her magick and she is awkward at times. She sometimes have visions but these aren't really explained enough. I just sort of didn't get the point of the book? I liked Evie enough but just couldn't get into the story. 

Two out of five. Sorry. 

The Mourning Necklace by Kate Foster - Review

I saw this book a couple of times when I was on holiday and was intrigued by it, but it was still in hardback so it was the best part of £20 and I just didn't want to spend that much on a book. But then I saw it on Kindle for a few quid a bit later so I bought it. I also sent it to my friend Leanne because I thought this would be right up her street. We read it at the same time which was really nice. I also read it quickly and would have read it even quicker if I had had more time over the weekend. 

It's based on the story of a real woman called Maggie Dickson who was sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of her child. However, she survived the hanging and was deemed to have served her sentence. She lived a lot longer! So Kate Foster has reimagined her life. 

Maggie is twenty two years old, ish, and lives in Fisherrow near Edinburgh with her parents and her sister Joan. At the very beginning of the book she awakes after being hanged, and realises she is in her own coffin (well, the parish coffin, because her parents are too poor to pay for one for just her) in the stables of an inn. She gets out of the coffin and goes into the inn, surprising her family, who thought she was dead. She has given her engagement ring to her sister and demands it back. She is captured by the sheriffs who take her back to Edinburgh because they have to discuss whether she has served her sentence or not and whether she is allowed to go free. 

The novel then goes back in time to show the reader what has happened. Maggie lives in a tiny cottage with her parents and sister. The four of them share a bed. Her Da has a bad temper. He is a fisherman and Ma, Joan and Maggie all sell the fish. She meets a stranger called Patrick Spencer and starts a courtship with him. They get married and Maggie is quite content in her little cottage with him. She doesn't want a baby so Spencer gives her some kind of 'women's tonic' to try to prevent that.

She discovers something awful about him and takes off. She wants to go to London, where Spencer always told her they would go, and open a perfumerie, but she only gets as far as Kelso. She stays the night in an inn and ends up staying there. She is betrayed by a woman she meets and gets a job in the inn. She realises she is pregnant but keeps it to herself, because she doesn't want to lose her job. 

I won't give anything else away because I was so intrigued by the book and loved uncovering that for myself. I really liked it, really rated it, and can't wait to read more by Kate Foster. I am giving it five out of five. 

Scattered Showers by Rainbow Rowell - Review

I bought this book in the children's and YA book shop in Retford that I visited over Easter with my friends. We each had a gift voucher to spend so all bought books, which is always a joy. I got this and two others. I picked it up in early July which was actually a really stupid time to pick it up, because a lot of the stories are Christmas themed or winter themed, so it would have been cute to read it in December. But never mind, I enjoyed it anyway!

There are nine stories in the book, but the first two are Midnights (which I've read) and Kindred Spirits (which I've read twice) and which I reviewed in one volume here back in January. So I didn't bother reading those two again. I went straight in with story number 3, which was SO good, I loved it. It's called Winter Songs for Summer and it's about a girl at college who breaks up with a boy and plays Tori Amos over and over again, and the guy who lives below her, Benji, makes her a mix CD so that he doesn't have to listen to Tori Amos anymore. The two of them become close. Rainbow describes Benji as a 'different type of love interest' to what she usually writes I guess, and I agree. I loved him. 

She says The Snow Ball was a prototype for Slow Dance, which I read and reviewed here, and I can see where she's coming from. I liked it. The next story, If The Fates Allow, features Reagan, who was apparently in Fangirl, which I read and LOVED before I started this blog. I don't remember Reagan but I really liked the story, especially as it uses Covid and the pandemic lockdowns as a backdrop. The Prince and the Troll was perhaps my least favourite of the stories, mostly because it's a fairytale and I am not that keen on that. 

Mixed Messages was really good, focussing as it does on older women - like I myself am getting towards - so I liked that a lot. Snow for Christmas is about Simon and Baz from the Carry On trilogy, which I didn't love, but I did really like this story because it was cute and Christmassy.

The last story, In Waiting, is very meta, I loved it. It's about a character waiting in the wings, with her whole life and world set out. She lives in a world where characters wait - some only for a day or two and some for literally years. I really liked this, especially as a writer myself. I know what it's like to have some characters hanging around for a long time!

In all I'm giving this book four out of five. I really liked it and liked being immersed into Rainbow's worlds again. 

The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré - Review

 

I chose this book for my book club choice of 2025. I have seen a couple of friends read it and enjoy it, and I thought it would be good for book club. I'm writing this before our book club meeting so I don't know what everyone will have made of it, but I hope they liked it. I did, but it is harrowing in places and I would give a trigger warning for sexual assault and abuse. 

So, Adunni is fourteen years old and she lives in a small town with her dad and her brothers - one older and one younger. Her mother died a few years ago and Adunni misses her terribly. She has friends, and she wants to stay in education because she is clever. But her family is poor, so she can't do that. Instead, her dad sells her off to a much older man, Morufu. He already has two wives - Labanke, and Khadija. Labanke struggled with infertility and managed to have just one child. Khadija has had four girls and is pregnant again. Everyone is hoping for a boy. Khadija is kind to Adunni but Labanke hates her and bullies her. Morudfu doesn't get involved in the tensions between the women. He takes some kind of elixir and rapes Adunni night after night, wanting her to get pregnant and have a boy. He is a terrible person and Adunni's life seems over. Something happens that means she has to run. She eventually makes it to Lagos. 

She is trafficked by the brother of a friend into being the house girl of a woman called Big Madam. She has fabric stores and is very wealthy. She is married to a man called Big Daddy who she hates. He is having loads of affairs and spends all her money. Big Madam is cruel to Adunni, of course, but some salvation does come. I really wasn't sure where I expected this part of the book to go, but I'm mostly happy with what happened. 

The book is written in non standard English (which explains the title, as Adunni describes herself as having a 'louding voice') with some Pidgin English in there. I wonder if book club members will have had a problem with this, but honestly, I think it's good for us as readers to be pushed out of our comfort zones occasionally. It took me maybe twenty pages to get used to the writing, but once I did, I loved it. I loved turns of phrase that Adunni used and I loved how she learnt things throughout the book. 

She is a genuinely fantastic character and I wanted her to succeed. I've seen there is a sequel to this book which I will have to read! I'm giving this five out of five.