Thursday 22 August 2019

Winner of a copy of Don't Drink the Pink announced

A big thank you to everyone who entered my giveaway for an copy of Don't Drink the Pink . The giveaway closed on 14th August and the winner was randomly selected (using Random org) from all correct entries. 

Congratulations to..


  Katiria Rodriguez


Your book will be sent directly to you by the publisher.

Please see my Giveaway tab for more chances to win great books.
 
 

Winner of I Love My Dad Because announced

A big thank you to everyone who entered my giveaway for a copy of I Love My Dad Because . The giveaway closed on 8th August and the winner was randomly selected (using Random org) from all correct entries. 

Congratulations to..


  Krystyna 
Your book will be sent directly to you by the publisher.

Please see my Giveaway tab for more chances to win great books.
 

Tuesday 20 August 2019

Book Review: I Know Who You Are (Mystery/Thriller)

I Know Who You Are
by
Alice Feeney


Publisher: HQ Fiction 
Publication date: 20th May 2019
Pages: 352
Format read: Paperback
Source: Courtesy of the publisher

 
Meet Aimee Sinclair: the actress everyone thinks they know but can't remember where from. Except one person. Someone knows Aimee well. They know who she is and they know what she did.

When Aimee comes hme and discovers her husband is missing, she doesn't seem to know what to do or how to act, The police think she is hiding something and they're right, she is  - but perhaps not what they thought. Aimee has a secret she has never shared, and yet, she suspects that someone knows. As she struggles to keep her career and sanity intact, her past comes back to haunt her in ways more dangerous than she could have ever imagined.

 

Aimee is an up and coming actress. She has always been an introvert but when she is acting she can be someone else. She is very good at acting in front of and away from the camera. One night she arrives home after a long day on the set to find her husband missing. He has gone out without his car, wallet and phone. They’d had an argument the night before. Surely she couldn’t have killed him! Could she?

“The lies we tell ourselves are always the most dangerous”

I do love an unreliable narrator and Aimee plays the part perfectly. She quite often second guesses herself; she can remember what happened and then she can’t. This has you questioning everything that Aimee says. It’s impossible to tell if she is lying or not. Despite the uncertainty in Aimee’s mind she shows a real vulnerability and it’s hard not to like her and feel some empathy towards her.

The story plays on the mystery of Aimee’s missing husband and the fact that Aimee isn’t sure of her movements that night.  

“My secrets are my own and I don’t like them being shared”

We get to learn Aimee’s insecurities, her upbringing and her secrets.
This mystery pulled me in and kept me glued to the pages. Nobody can be trusted; from fellow actor and nemesis Alicia White to co-star Jack, she feels everyone is out to get her.
When the twits appear they just keep on coming. The suspense ramps up and the tension intensifies. I was absolutely shocked by the final twist.

I Know Who You Are is a dark, addictive, twist filled thriller that will shock you to the core. Highly recommended for readers of Girl on the Train & Before I Go to Sleep.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

My rating 5/5 



 
Alice Feeney is an author and former BBC journalist. Her debut novel, Sometimes I Lie, was a New York Times and international bestseller. It has been translated into over twenty languages, and is being made into a TV series by Ellen DeGeneres and Warner Bros. starring Sarah Michelle Gellar.

Alice has lived in London and Sydney and has now settled in the Surrey countryside, where she lives with her husband and dog. Her second novel, I Know Who You Are, is being published in Spring 2019.


 

Saturday 17 August 2019

Book Bingo - Round 17 #BookBingo

Book Bingo is a reading challenge hosted by Theresa Smith Writes , Mrs B’s Book Reviews and The Book Muse. Every second Saturday, book bingo participants reveal which bingo category they have read and what book they chose. 

This week I have chosen the category 'Fictional Biography about a woman in history '.



Yay! I've managed to get two full rows completed. Once again I need to thank Theresa and Amanda for posting their book bingo early and reminding me it's that time again. The fortnights come around so fast.

Fictional Biography about a woman in History.

For this category I have chosen Making Trouble - Tongued with Fire by Sue Ingelton. This was an imagined history of Harriet Elphinstone Dick and her partner Alice C Moon. Two women that started women's gyms in Australia and also introduced Physical Education to girls schools. I don't know whether to thank them you not, I hated PE at school 🌝
 
You can read my full review of Making Trouble  here


#BookBingo 2019

 

Wednesday 14 August 2019

Blog Tour Book Review: Another You by Jane Cable

Another You
by
Jane Cable

Publisher: Sapere Books 
Publication date: 27th June 2019
Pages: 287
Format read: Kindle edition
Source: Courtesy of the publisher

 

Sometimes the hardest person to save is yourself…
Marie Johnson fell in love with The Smugglers pub when she first moved to Dorset with her husband, Stephen.
But when Stephen’s wandering eye caused the breakdown of their marriage, and the costs of running the pub started to mount, Marie felt her dreams crashing down around her.
With local celebrations planned for the 60th anniversary of D-Day, Marie is hopeful things will turn around.
But she could never have predicted the ways her life will soon be changed forever.
A charming American soldier walks into Marie’s life, but it becomes clear nothing is really as it seems...
Why is Marie suddenly plagued by headaches? Is her American soldier everything he seems to be?
Or could the D-Day re-enactments be stirring up something from the past…?




I went into this story blind. I didn’t read the blurb or any reviews and I think this is the best way to start this story so you really get a sense of the mystery.
I will try and make my review as vague as possible so as not to spoil the story.

Marie is the chef at The Smugglers, a pub she owns along with her estranged husband Stephen. Stephen is controlling and verbally abusive and even though Marie doesn’t want her husband back she is finding it hard to completely let go, more so now their son, Jude, is getting older and will be leaving home soon.

Studland is a buzz with servicemen as a re-enactment of the D-Day rehearsals, which were performed there 60 years ago, will be taking place along with a memorial service.
Marie encounters a few different men on her path to self discovery and they all play an important roll in her journey. There is the elusive serviceman Corbin, George the WWII veteran, George’s son Mark and American serviceman Paxton who is the new love interest.

Jane Cable has written a richly described, heart-felt and captivating story, mixing the past with the present, as Marie battles to release her unfulfilled dreams and start anew.

Marie’s struggle will have you yearning for a happy ending.
Another You is recommended for readers who enjoy a mystery mixed with history and a little romance.

🌟🌟🌟🌟 .5


My rating   4.5/5

 
Although brought up in Cardiff, Jane Cable now lives in Cornwall and is a full time writer. Another You is a moving saga of family life in the 21st century which draws on the horrors of combat, both in modern times and World War Two as down-trodden Marie fights to reclaim her identity and discover what really matters to her. Jane’s next book, Winter Skies, will be available for pre-order from Sapere Books soon.
Follow Jane Cable on Twitter @JaneCable, on Facebook at Jane Cable, Author 


This review is part of the Another You blog tour. You can follow the other blogs on the tour below:
 
 
 







 

Monday 12 August 2019

Mailbox Monday - August 12th


Mailbox Monday is a meme started by Marcia of To Be Continued. Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week. It now has a permanent home at the Mailbox Monday blog. Head over and check out other books received during the last week. 


Happy Monday!

I haven't managed to post pictures of my book mail for the last few weeks because I have been extra busy with family and trying to squeeze in some reading time.
I visited my sister in sunny Queensland recently to attend my brother's 60th birthday celebrations. Flew up Friday with my daughter, mother, brother and sister-in-law and we all stayed in my sister's sprawling sandstone home.  I had the best weekend and it was so wonderful to have the whole family together, not just for a few hours but a whole weekend. We did lots of reminiscing and had plenty of laughs.






My grandson spent a night in hospital with a nasty chest infection. I was imagining him lying in a hospital bed sick and upset. How wrong could I be! My daughter-in-law sent me a photo he was happily sitting on the bed shooting everyone with his Ventolin inhaler. Later that day he was sitting at the nurses station watching cartoons on the computer. He is back to perfect health and definitely not traumatised by his hospital stay. 


Books  received during the past two weeks.


Received from the publisher

The Quest Diaries of Max Crack by Jules Faber
Publication date: 27th August 2019


Hi everyone! I'm Max Crack and this awesome book is all about me and my quests and my best friend Frankie!

Buried treasure, new school, doodles, peanut butter and honey toast, best friends, horrible blobs, mysteries, Meddlyslop, spelling bees (hard words, harder words), more doodles, comics, World War Undies ... this book has it ALL. 
 
 
The Girls by Chloe Higgins
Publication date: 27th August 2019
 
In 2005, Chloe Higgins was seventeen years old. She and her mother, Rhonda, stayed home so that she could revise for her HSC exams while her two younger sisters, Carlie and Lisa, went skiing with their father. On the way back from their trip, their car veered off the highway, flipped on its side and burst into flames. Both her sisters were killed. Their father walked away from the accident with only minor injuries.

This book is about what happened next.
 
 
Snake Island by Ben Hobson
Publication date: 5th August 2019
 
Vernon and Penelope Moore never want to see their son Caleb again. Not after he hit his wife and ended up in gaol. A lifetime of careful parental love wiped out in a moment.

But when retired teacher Vernon hears that Caleb is being regularly visited and savagely bashed by a local criminal as the police stand by, he knows he has to act. What has his life been as a father if he turns his back on his son in his hour of desperate need? He realises with shame that he has failed Caleb. But no longer.

The father of the man bashing Caleb is head of a violent crime family. The town lives in fear of him but Vernon is determined to fix things in a civilised way, father to father. If he shows respect, he reasons, it will be reciprocated. But how wrong he is.
 
And what hell has he brought down on his family? 
 
A gift from my sister:
 
One Summer in Paris by Sarah Morgan 
Publication date: 9th April 2019 
 
To celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, Grace has planned the surprise of a lifetime for her husband—a romantic getaway to Paris. But she never expected he’d have a surprise of his own: he wants a divorce. Reeling from the shock but refusing to be broken, a devastated Grace makes the bold decision to go to Paris alone.

Audrey, a young woman from London, has left behind a heartache of her own when she arrives in Paris. A job in a bookshop is her ticket to freedom, but with no money and no knowledge of the French language, suddenly a summer spent wandering the cobbled streets alone seems much more likely…until she meets Grace, and everything changes.

Grace can’t believe how daring Audrey is. Audrey can’t believe how cautious newly single Grace is. Living in neighboring apartments above the bookshop, this unlikely pair offer each other just what they’ve both been missing. They came to Paris to find themselves, but finding this unbreakable friendship might be the best thing that’s ever happened to them…
 
 
 
 
What Books did your postman deliver, or you downloaded, this week?

Post a link to your Mailbox Monday or simply list your books in the comments below.