Well. It’s been a while, and 2019 seems to have come around and smacked me in the face.
I reflect on 2018 as a really tough year. I was coming to the final months of finishing my Open University Degree, and things in my personal life and the added stress of university, made me give up my bookseller job and move back home to Kent. I wasn’t initially unhappy with this, but it was certainly the best thing for me to do at the time.
Read More*Header image taken from Hawwa because it’s a beautiful photo. Go read her review too.
Salt to the Sea by Ruth Sepetys ~Goodreads~
Published by Penguin Books 2016
Paperback edition 400 pages
SYNOPSIS
It’s early 1945 and a group of people trek across East Prussia, bound together by their desperation to reach the ship that can take them away from the war-ravaged land. Four young people, each haunted by their own dark secret, narrate their unforgettable stories.
This inspirational novel is based on a true story from the Second World War. When the German ship the Wilhelm Gustloff was sunk in port in early 1945 it had over 9000 civilian refugees, including children, on board. Nearly all were drowned.
I’m not sure how I can contain my excitement in this post, but needless to say it’s obvious that my most anticipated read for 2018 is Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak.
This isn’t a promo post, nor is it a paid and sponsored one, I’m simply just wanting to share a bit about the book and my hopes for when I read it. After reading his previous novels, and of course in particular The Book Thief, I have been anticipating a new book from Zusak for a number of years. Now that it’s finally in my grasp, I’m itching to finish my current read and begin a new Zusak adventure.
I’m ready to laugh, cry, and just experience the author’s writing again.
Do Not Disturb by Claire Douglas ~Goodreads~
Published by Michael Joseph 2018
Paperback edition pages ~Book Depository~
SYNOPSIS
Could your dream home be your worst nightmare?
After what happened in London, Kirsty needs a fresh start with her family. And runnin a guesthouse in the Welsh mountains sounds idyllic.
But then their first guest arrives.
Selena is the last person Kirsty wants to see. Its seventeen years since she tore everything apart. Why has she chosen now to walk back into Kirsty’s life? Is Selena running from something too? Or is there an even darker reason for her to visit?
Because Kirsty knows that once you invite trouble into your home, it can be murder getting rid of it…
The Lost Letters of William Woolf by Helen Cullen ~Goodreads~
Published by Michael Joseph 2018
Hardback edition 325 pages
SYNOPSIS
Inside the Dead Letters Depot in East London, Willia, Woolf is one of thirty letter detectives who spend their days solving mysteries. Missing postcodes, illegible handwriting, rain-smudged ink, lost address labels, torn packages, forgotten street names- they are all the culprits of missed birthdays, broken hearts, unheard confessions, pointless accusations, unpaid bills, and unanswered prayers.
When William discovers letters addressed simply to ‘My Great Love’ his work takes on new meaning. Written by a woman named Winter to a soulmate she hasn’t met yet, the missives stir William, in ways he didn’t know were possible. Soon he begins to wonder; could William be her great love?
The Poison Bed by E. C. Fremantle ~Goodreads~
Published by Penguin Random House UK 2018
Hardback edition 402 pages ~Book Depository~
SYNOPSIS
Autumn 1615.
Celebrated couple Robert and Frances Carr are imprisoned on suspicion of murder.
She as been rescued from an abusive marriage by Robert, and is determined to make a new life for herself. Whatever the price.
He has risen from nothing to become one of the country’s most powerful men. But to get to the top, you cannot help making enemies.
Now a man is dead. And someone must pay with their life.
Frances knows the truth can kill. Robert knows a lie can set you free. Neither understands their marriage is a poisoned bed.
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon ~Goodreads~
Published by Cornerstone 2nd March 2016 (1991)
Paperback edition 864 pages ~Book Depository~
SYNOPSIS
What if your future was the past?
1946, and Claire Randall goes to the Scottish Highlands with her husband Frank. It’s a second honeymoon, a chance to learn how war has changed them and to re-establish their loving marriage.
But one afternoon, Claire walks through a circle of standing stones and vanishes into 1743, where the first person she meets is a British army officer – her husband’s six-times great-grandfather.
Unfortunately, Black Jack Randall is not the man his descendant is, and while trying to escape him, Claire falls into the hands of a gang of Scottish outlaws, and finds herself a Sassenach – an outlander – in danger from both Jacobites and Redcoats.
Marooned amid danger, passion and violence, her only chance of safety lies in Jamie Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior. What begins in compulsion becomes urgent need, and Claire finds herself torn between two very different men, in two irreconcilable lives.
Five on Brexit Island by Bruno Vincent ~Goodreads~
Published by Quercus 2016
Hardback edition 112 pages ~Book Depository~
Thank you to my lovely Sam for buying me these Famous Five books, I know I’m going to enjoy each and every one of them xxx
SYNOPSIS
It is the night of the referendum and the Five have retired to Kirrin Island to enjoy the fresh air and sunshine, fed up with the rancour of public debate. George is firmly a ‘remainer,’ whilst Julian, who is in the ‘Brexit’ camp, is tolerated on the grounds that Anne cannot bear to go camping without him. (Timmy, largely apolitical but not keen on cats or rabbits, joins them too.)
The night is tempestuous in more ways than one. George has managed to rig up a satellite link with the mainland so they can keep abreast of the news, and they sit huddled around the fire, amidst some tension, as George’s initial hope that the ‘remainers’ will triumph proves premature…
ANNNNNND RELAX.
It’s come as a shock that I have now officially finished by second year with the Open University. It only feels like yesterday that I was typing up about my upcoming exams and how much of a difference second year has had on my studying, and yet here I am now sitting here typing away telling you that I can finally relax and enjoy my summer. I admit that it hasn’t quite sunk in yet but boy am I loving not having the stress of exams and revision now.
Celebrating Lesley Pearse’s 25th novel, today I am providing you with a fact about Lesley’s novel Belle (part of Lesley’s only trilogy) as well as a review of her latest and 25th novel The Woman in the Wood.
Many thanks to Darran at ED Public Relations for inviting me on the tour!
SYNOPSIS
Fifteen-year-old twins Maisy and uncan have always had each other. Until that fateful day in the wood…
1960: Maisy and Duncan Mitcham are woken one night to find their mother is being committed to an insane asylum. Soon after, their father packs them off to ‘Nightingales’, their grandmother’s country house in the New Forest. Cold and distant, she leaves them to their own devices to explore; a freedom they have never experienced before and which they love. That is, until the day Duncan doesn’t come home from the woods.
When the bodies of other young boys are discovered in the surrounding area the police appear to give up hope of finding Duncan alive and with Grandmother Mitcham showing little concern, it falls to Maisy to discover the truth. And she knows just where to start. The woman who lives alone in the
woods. A woman called Grace Deville.
