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. 

The Heights by Louise Candlish - Review

I requested this book at the library at like the beginning of May and picked it up and then ignored it for a while. I am very much a mood reader and can't ever make myself read something if I don't want to. But I took it on holiday and picked it up on our last day while we were at a spa in Helmsley. I've enjoyed the other books I've read by Louise Candlish but I found this an odd one. She writes a lot about social class which I don't ever mind but I do find it weird sometimes how she deals with it. 

The book has a story within a story, kind of. There's a woman writing an article for a newspaper about a creative writing class, and in that, Ellen is an attendee, so most of the book is from her point of view. But there are other points of view too which are needed but sometimes they end up telling the author too much. 

She is a lighting interior designer kind of person and one day she is working with a client in central London when she catches sight of a man on a high roof across the road. She recognises him as Kieran Watts - but surely, he is dead? She follows him over the next few days. He is the person she blames for ruining her life and her family's life. She catches up with him and realises he has had some plastic surgery. He is also going by a different name. Ellen is warned off by an older man in Kieran's life. 

She gets in touch with her ex partner, Vic. He, like her, thought that Kieran was dead, but he doesn't believe her to begin with. See, Kieran used to know their son, Lucas. Back in time five years, Lucas was paired with Kieran at the beginning of sixth form when Kieran was new to the school. Lucas was asked to buddy with him and they quickly became friends. Lucas' sometimes girlfriend, Jade, was a good friend of Kieran's too. To be honest, he seemed just like an ordinary teenager. He smokes weed, they like to go to parties and skip school sometimes, and he learns to drive. It's basically what I did when I was in 6th form, but Ellen absolutely loathes him.

She is married to Justin and they have a daughter, Freya, who is twelve. Ellen basically hates Kieran because she thinks he's below her family. He is in care and living with a foster mother. Her family is incredibly middle class and Ellen is just snotty towards Kieran. She doesn't believe that her darling son would EVER do anything wrong. That is the basis of the whole book.

I sort of don't want to give more details because it would be spoilers. But Ellen is sure that Kieran died, and now he is back. She becomes obsessed and of course it all goes off the rails. 

I did guess a couple of the twists. I quite liked the ending, but I found Ellen so insufferable that I struggled to sympathise with her throughout. I did feel sympathy for Vic, who seemed like a decent dad. I'm giving this three out of five. 

This Is Me Trying by Jenna Adams - Review and Blog Tour

Hello and welcome to my blog for my stop on the tour for This Is Me Trying by Jenna Adams. It is a pleasure to welcome you here, especially because it's the first day! I only finished this book on Monday night! I really wanted to get it finished for today so that I could write a full review of the book, because it's a long book and it's really dense, and I really want to know how it ended. 

So, the book is told from the points of view of Brooke and Matt. At the start of the book Matt is seventeen and Brooke is fourteen. Matt has been part of Stagefright, a drama company for teens and young adults for a while, but this is Brooke's first year. The play they are going to put on is Romeo and Juliet. Matt is Romeo and Brooke is Juliet. They obviously have to work very closely together and Matt manages to bring Brooke out of herself. She's a bright, vivacious teenager. She lives with her mum and her sister Amy. Her dad is American and he's pretty absent from her life generally. She has a best friend, Lucy, and is close with Lucy's brother, Callum. They are also in Stagefright.

Matt lives with his parents and has a few close friends. He is in the sixth form, and Brooke is only in Year 9. He has feelings for her, and they kiss a couple of times. Matt knows how it will look, though, so he asks Brooke to not tell anyone about it. A couple of times they are nearly caught. Matt eventually breaks up with Brooke but a bit later they meet up and they have sex. It's illegal because by this point Matt is eighteen and Brooke is not yet fifteen. 

Matt feels terrible. It is hard to not sympathise with him, actually, but as an adult I know that this is really wrong and that he should have left her alone. Brooke comes to that realisation too. I really liked how this was portrayed. She is incredibly hurt and slips into a deep depression that lasts for her whole teenage years. She self harms and she's very miserable and when she's 18, she leaves. 

I liked both Brooke and Matt and felt a lot of sympathy for both of them. They don't have this amazing romance. They do have issues. A lot of young girls will have been through something similar to Brooke, I am sure, which is terrible, because it is terrible, but it does mean that I was happy to see this reflected in a novel. I would definitely read something else by the same author. My only criticism really is that I wouldn't necessarily call this Young Adult. New Adult, maybe? I dunno. It's a hard one because both characters grow up and become adults in the book. But I'm giving it four out of five. 

Thank you for having me on this tour. I was provided with an electronic copy of this book for the tour but was not otherwise compensated for this post. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Have a click around and read some of my other reviews! 

Empress & Aniya by Candice Carty-Williams - Review

When I was on holiday last week we went to Whitby and went into a discount book shop there. It was there when we visited in January but it was closed, so I was happy it was open this time. The Young Adult section was pretty decent, lots of contemporary stuff and lots of diverse stuff. They had three books for a fiver so I picked three up, including this one. I then read it while we were on holiday, and actually at a day spa that we were at for our anniversary. It is a novella so it isn't very long, so I read it very quickly. 

I read Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams and liked it, so I was intrigued to read her first YA story. However, I think she missed the mark a bit with it. She maybe just isn't that familiar with YA and its ages and tropes and stuff. The speech between the girls especially skewed a lot younger than the age they were supposed to be. 

So, anyway, Empress and Aniya are now at the same school. It is a private school and Empress has got herself a scholarship. Aniya has been there for years. Her parents are rich, she lives in a huge house. She has a lot of privilege. Both girls are Black. Empress though is from 'the wrong side of the tracks'. She lives with her mother and her baby brother, Leo. They live in poverty and often the hot water or the electricity isn't working in Empress' flat. She gets bullied at school which is awful.

She and Aniya are sort of friends, though. Then on the eve of the 16th birthdays (they happen to share a birthday) they do a spell. And when they wake up, they are each other. Aniya then sees how hard Empress' life is, and of course she wants to swoop in and help. I found this whole bit a bit weird, actually. A bit too saviour-y? A bit patronising. In general the ending annoyed me too, but I won't spoilt it. 

In all, I think it had promise but perhaps didn't live up to it. I'm giving this three out of five. 

The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas - Review

I bought this on Amazon when it was only a pound or so, having enjoyed previous books I read by Claire Douglas. I read it while I was away on holiday and it didn't take me long to read, it was good holiday reading. I did mostly enjoy it, but I thought the ending was a bit weird. 

Most of the book is told from the point of view of Tasha. She is thirty something and married to Aaron. She lives in a village not far from Bristol I think called Chew Norton. They have twin girls, Elsie and Flossie, who are 'nearly three'. Keep this bit in mind for later. Aaron is a mechanic and Tasha works in a dentist clinic. Her dad has passed away. Her mum Jeanette lives in France. Her sister Alice is married to Kyle and lives in London. They are very rich and totally high flying. 

Alice and Kyle offer to look after the twins for a week so that Tasha and Aaron can go and stay in Alice and Kyle's apartment in Venice, have a break from the girls, and rediscover themselves a bit. So they set off. They love the apartment and they have amazing food and drink and Tasha borrows some of her sister's clothes. However, they are chased by a man with a knife down some back streets. He says something to them that Tasha thinks means 'you owe me'. 

However, in the early hours of the morning Tasha gets a phone call telling her that someone broke into their house and attacked Alice and Kyle. Kyle is dead. Alice has suffered awful injuries and is in hospital. Tasha and Aaron obviously rush home. Jeanette rushes from her home in France to be with her daughter too. She moved out there after her husband died. She has never got over the abduction of her youngest child, Holly, thirty years before. 

Some parts of the book are from Jeanette's point of view. She took Holly to the shop, left her in the pram outside the shop, and when she came out, the baby was gone. Viv, who is Aaron's mum, was there with one of her young kids, and she comforted Jeanette. A huge manhunt occurred, but there was never any positive sighting of Holly again. But, in the DNA of the blood after the attack in Tasha's house, the police find DNA that can only belong to another child of Jeanette's. Who else can it be except Holly? 

Aaron and Tasha have not always had an easy relationship and there is a woman at his workplace who seems to fancy him and Tasha is uncomfortable about the whole thing. There are so many ins and outs to this book and I won't give them all away, but I did find them compelling.

However. I have two main criticisms of the book. Firstly, the twins did NOT come across like 'nearly three' year olds. They speak in full sentences and they ask a lot of questions about how Kyle died which didn't ring true at all. Tasha also sends them upstairs to play for a couple of hours which sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. 

Secondly, I thought how the DNA issue resolved itself was kind of stupid. Not that it was wrong, it was just stupid. 

Because of those criticisms I am only giving this three out of five.