Four old friends. Thrown back together after forty years apart. What could possibly go wrong? In the 1970s, The Girls were best friends sharing a house and good times: Zara the famous diva actor, Val the uptight solicitor, Jackie the wild child and Pauline the quirky introvert. Now they’re in their twilight years, and Zara suggests that they live with her to support each other through old age. Initially, being housemates again is just as much fun as in their heyday. But then Zara reveals the real reason she asked them to move in with her, and suddenly things take a sinister turn. As the women confront their demons they come under the spotlight of the press, the police and an angry parrot. With their lives spiralling out of control can they save their friendships and each other?
Bella Osborne has been jotting down stories as far back as she can remember but decided that 2013 would be the year that she finished a full length novel. In 2016, her debut novel, It Started At Sunset Cottage, was shortlisted for the Contemporary Romantic Novel of the Year and RNA Joan Hessayon New Writers Award. Bella’s stories are about friendship, love and coping with what life throws at you. She likes to find the humour in the darker moments of life and weaves these into her stories. Bella believes that writing your own story really is the best fun ever, closely followed by talking, eating chocolate, drinking fizz and planning holidays. She lives in the Midlands, UK with her lovely husband and wonderful daughter, who thankfully, both accept her as she is (with mad morning hair and a penchant for skipping). Follow Bella: Twitter: @osborne_bella Facebook: @BellaOsborneAuthor Instagram: @bellaosborneauthor
My thoughts: this was interesting, I don’t think I’d want to be thrown together with people I hadn’t seen or spoken to in years like this. All the old scars and disagreements, the personality clashes are still there, but all of the characters are also pretty set in their ways and some find it harder than others to get along.
Zara is very manipulative, these are her oldest friends, the ones she claims she wants to spend however much time she has left with, but she’s playing a long game and has been for some time. She’s not really kind and has secrets of her own. Who makes their friends their staff.
Val doesn’t really want to be there, she went along with it for Pauline, who she can see has some pain and needs a supportive pal, rather than freewheeling Jackie who’s a little oblivious but not malicious.
There’s lots of secrets and years of their lives missing that they need to catch up on, but as the pals spend time in the French sunshine, they get distracted by other things, like Brian the cat, the obnoxious parrot, the overly chummy gardener and trying to riddle out Vera. It’s a fun book but lifelong friendships take a fair amount of work. Luckily this book is a nice gentle read and I really came to like Val and Pauline, even Jackie.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
If you knew how your love story ends, would you dare to begin?
From the outside, Lorelai is an ordinary young woman with a normal life. She loves reading, she works at the local cinema and she adores living with her best friend. But she carries a painful burden, something she’s kept hidden for years; whenever she kisses someone on the lips, she sees how they are going to die.
Lorelai has never known if she’s seeing what was always meant to be, or if her kiss is the thing that decides their destiny. And so, she hasn’t kissed anyone since she was eighteen.
Then she meets Grayson. Sweet, clever, funny Grayson. And for the first time in years she yearns for a man’s kiss. But she can’t…or can she? And if she does, should she try to intervene and change what she sees?
Spellbinding, magical and utterly original, With This Kiss is one love story you will never forget.
My thoughts: Lorelai avoids falling in love – when she kisses someone she can see how they’ll die, which is a pretty traumatic super power quite frankly and I don’t blame her for being wary. But then of course she meets the one person who could be the love of her life and runs away from him. Literally. Bits of this book are really funny, as is her hilarious best friend.
It’s also a sweet love story about finding the person you love and deciding to be with them regardless of any hardships that might come your way – which is what we all do really. It’s why the traditional marriage vows include “for better, for worse”, love is a decision. A risk, and one Lorelai realises she can take even if she knows how it ends.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own persona
CSI Ally Dymond’s commitment to justice has cost her a place on the major investigations team. After exposing corruption in the ranks, she’s stuck working petty crimes on the sleepy North Devon coast.
Then the body of nineteen-year-old Janie Warren turns up in the seaside town of Bidecombe, and Ally’s expert skills are suddenly back in demand.
But when the evidence she discovers contradicts the lead detective’s theory, nobody wants to listen to the CSI who landed their colleagues in prison.
Time is running out to catch a killer no one is looking for – no one except Ally. What she doesn’t know is that he’s watching, from her side of the crime scene tape, waiting for the moment to strike.
My thoughts: I’m very familiar with North Devon as part of my family comes from there and several relatives still live there. I’ve spent many holidays down there visiting my rellies, and am weirdly familiar with supermarkets and traffic queues of the area, it’s what happens when you’re staying with residents, not in the more “Holiday” areas.
Breakneck Point is set in that world, the part tourists don’t see, the rundown estates and unlovely bits in which real people live their whole lives, not eating fish and chips washed down with a Mr Whippy for every meal.
I liked Ally, she’s very dedicated and dogged when it comes to her work, she doesn’t like people who break the rules and won’t lie to get a conviction, even if she knows the scumbag’s guilty. But that backfires on her and leaves her without a friend in the police when she spots inconsistencies and evidence they’ve overlooked that could have prevented further deaths.
But when it comes to her daughter, she’s not as focused as maybe she should be and I get that too. It can be hard, teenagers are secretive and don’t share, she and Megan have lost some of their closeness – which is normal, but the fact she’s been a little distracted means she’s even more passionate about solving this case when Megan becomes a victim.
The writing was really clever, flipping between viewpoints and tenses – you get a really disturbing insight into the mind of a violent criminal as well as the attempt to stop him. The author worked as a CSI and draws on her knowledge here, and that adds a layer of expertise and insider details to the story.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Welcome to the book tour for The Discontent of Mary Wenger by Robert Tucker. Read on for more details!
The Discontent of Mary Wenger (Paper Dolls #1)
Publication Date: February 3rd, 2022
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Tell-Tale Publishing
Emotionally torn between the conflicting historical social forces of feminism and the traditional roles of women in post-World War II society, Mary Wenger struggles with a deep sense of despair. Spanning the continent during the decades of the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s to the turn of the century, her compulsive lifelong odyssey in search of an acceptable house in which to realize her personal and economic goals throws her out of balance with her family.
A master wordsmith tells Mary’s story with a subtle touch of humor only an actual descendant could wield with success. Her fictional memoir is based on historical facts and bravely reveals Mary’s discovery and fear of separation from her children. The existential examination allows Mary to finally understand how her personal discontent, obsessions, internal demons, and depression affect her husband and children, as they mature and independently react to her attempts to mold them to her vision of how they all should be as a family. The life of every character is determined by his or her delusions and how they clash or compromise with one another.
Since I was a young girl, I have always believed that death is stalking me. It lurks and hovers in the dark recesses of my mind like a virus waiting to strike and destroy when I least expect it.
When I was eight years old, I wrote a poem about myself and death.
My name is Mary
Sounds airy
Death is scary
It makes me wary
Being wary makes me carey
All my life, I have developed defenses and tried to be a protector of the people I love. They often didn’t see things the way I did and they didn’t agree with me. But I knew what was best for all of us.
I always have.
My mother told me the first night when she and Dad moved in, the wail of an infant floated up to their bedroom. Eyes wide open with fear, she lay listening as the weak cry faded to silence.
“Mike, did you hear that?” she whispered and poked Dad in the ribs. “It came from the cellar.”
“Just a cat. I’ll chase it out in the morning.”
Shaking his arm, she insisted. “It sounded like a baby. You must go down and look.”
“I’m tired. I look in the morning.”
“Please, Mike, I scared.”
“Aah! All right.” He touched a lighted match to their bedside candle. The electricity had not yet been connected. He went down the creaking stairs into the cellar.
Unseen by him, a woman’s bare foot and leg were pulled out through the window. The glow of the candle light was reflected by the wet shine of an object in one corner. Dad approached it and his blood chilled.
A newborn infant lay curled, the blood and mucous of the afterbirth still clinging to its blue body.
In horror, he fumbled his way back up the stairs to the bedroom where he blew out the candle and set it on the dresser.
Mother pulled the blankets close around herself. “What was it?”
Dad quickly climbed into bed. “Nothing but cat. I get rid of it in the morning.”
Before Mother awoke, Dad buried the infant in the back part of the yard farthest from the house in a corner of what would be a vegetable garden.
Many years later, when I was a young woman, Mother told me she knew Dad had lied to her to shield her from the grotesque reality of what he had found in the basement. She knew the difference between the wail of a newborn infant and the wail of a cat.
She never asked him where he had buried the infant. She suspected she knew from the unusual growth and size of tomatoes she had planted in that section of the garden. The thought of the child as fertilizer sickened her. Believing the soul of the infant existed in the ripe red fruit, she buried the tomatoes in a field far from the house and dug up and destroyed the plants.
Refusing to explain why, she avoided planting any other vegetables in that part of the garden. The spot of untilled soil was a silent message to Dad that she knew what had lain buried there.
I was sitting between Ruth and Nina clinking ice in our glasses of lemonade. I slowly turned the pages of the latest Sears & Roebuck catalog while they chatted about the clothes and merchandise they would buy if they had the money. We all did a lot of wishing in those days. Wishing didn’t cost anything, but left us with an aching malaise and a shared emptiness that our imaginations could not fill.
Since we had little in the way of personal possessions, we shared everything. If one of us even bought a candy bar, we wouldn’t think of eating it all. We would divide it up so each of us had a taste.
Author of 27 novels and a retired business and management consultant in a wide range of industries throughout the country, I reside with my wife in Southern California.
I’m a graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles with Bachelor’s and Master Degrees.
A Pulitzer nominated author, I am a recipient of the Samuel Goldwyn and Donald Davis Literary Awards.
An affinity for family and generations pervades my novels. My works are literary and genre fiction that address the nature and importance of personal integrity.
As the grandson of immigrants who fled persecution in Germany and Austria-Hungary and came to America during the early 1900’s, the early history of our country and the rise of the middle-class have always held a fascination for me. The dramatic depiction of fictional characters placed in actual events sharply and realistically bring alive the harsh times and adversity of the multitude of people who sought freedom and a better way of life and demonstrate that only a little over one-hundred years have passed to bring us to where we are as a struggling society today.
The chronology and events of history have captured and held my interest for many reasons, among them being stories that entertain, educate, and inform. Learning about the lives of my immigrant grandparents coming to America from Czechoslovakia during the early 1900s and the lives of my parents during the 1920s, 30s, and 40s provided the initial motivation. Researching and writing historical fiction is a way to learn more about myself and my origins and the social, political, and economic influences related to my generation.
Whether writing historical fiction or non-fiction or fantasy, I’m drawn into the societies and cultures of a particular period that inspire the creation of characters who bring that era to life. Not only do I experience this dynamic in books, but in films, plays, dance, music, and other art forms.
Researching history takes me into the exploration of new territory perhaps outside of my own life experience through reading other sources, interviews, travel, and films. Although a number of fine books are written from personal experience by authors who lived through those times, much of the historical writing by contemporary authors is dependent on secondary sources. Forays into the past for story material is a rewarding part of the creative process.
Instead, she’s eating an ice cream sundae and drinking an obscenely large glass of wine in a Harvester off the M25.
Everyone thinks she’s gone mad. She’s jilted the man everyone told her she was ‘so lucky’ to find. But Serena wants to find love. A love she deserves – not one she should just feel grateful for.
So, she escapes to the big city and sets herself a challenge: 52 weeks. 52 dates. 52 chances to find love. It should be easy, right?
Bethany Rutter is a writer, podcaster and plus-sized influencer. Her adult debut, Welcome To Your Life, came to life through conversations with her friends over drinks in London. Swapping stories of toe-curling online dates, workplace harassment, new crushes, fashion discoveries and workout classes, she wanted to write a heroine who turns her life upside-down just ahead of her thirtieth birthday and is plunged into the wonderful chaos of contemporary urban life.
In her words: ‘My heroine Serena Mills makes huge decisions. She wants things for herself, she has Big Feelings, she desires people and is desired in return. And… she’s fat. Of course, so much about her story has little or nothing to do with her body, and I hope Welcome To Your Life resonates with you, whatever your body looks like and whatever you feel towards it. This is just one story that I wanted to tell, where a fat girl gets to be the protagonist of her own story, rather than a silly footnote in someone else’s
Welcome To Your Life is dedicated to ‘anyone who’s ever held themselves back’ and encourages us all to shake off our insecurities and wholeheartedly embrace everything that life has to offer.
My thoughts: I am a massive Bethany Rutter fan, from her blogging days to her fashion on Instagram to her books and the earrings she’s currently making. I’ve followed her for ages, love What Page Are You On? podcast with Alice Slater (another super talented writer) and was thrilled to be on this blog tour.
Welcome to Your Life does not disappoint. I loved it, I loved plus size Serena, from jilting her almost husband to deciding to date 52 men, to realising she could be whichever version of herself that she wanted. I loved her friends Lola and Nicole, I loved the tour of London pubs and restaurants, which made it all feel more realistic. I could not put this down. It’s funny and honest and I related hard, despite being nothing like Serena – except fat.
I completely recognised her feelings about her body and her worries that men were either fetishising her or being creepy. But thankfully that wasn’t true and some of the men she met in her epic dating adventure were nice and sincere and up for fun.
I really enjoyed this one, I thought I probably would as I liked Bethany’s two YA books as well, but you never know! Luckily this was absolutely cracking and left me with a warm happy glow.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Even wedding planners struggle to get it right… Jason is the best wedding planner around, known as the Fairy Godfather to the couples whose special days he plans. But coming up against workplace prejudice is taking a toll on his love for his job. His mother-in-law, Mel, has just discovered her husband has been cheating on her with a younger woman. Nearing fifty, jobless and struggling, she needs to work out who she is aside from a mum and a wife, and get her life back on track. Meanwhile, up-tight wedding planner Harriet is struggling to find her own true love – if such a thing exists. Between liars, married men, and disaster dates, she thinks she may never find the one. And her outdated attitude toward LGBT marriages make her even more bitter. When Jason starts Extra Weddings – helping people marry whoever they like, in whatever way they want – he, Mel and Harriet find themselves coming together to help couples make memories to last a lifetime. But can they bridge their gaps, and be a unit when others need them most? Fans of Casey McQuiston, Lindsey Kelk and Justin Myers are invited to the most heart-warming and extravagant wedding event of 2022.
Charlie Lyndhurst is an award-shortlisted gay romance novelist, writing tutor, ghostwriter, and the Diversity Officer of the Romantic Novelists’ Association. The Grooms Wore White is his first commercial crossover novel. Twitter
My thoughts: I really enjoyed this, Jason and Pete were lovely and Mel getting her groove back made me cheer. Her stupid husband deserved everything he’d done to himself. It took a while to warm to Harriet, whose opinions were stuck in the 1950s, and needed a good sharp shock to jump into the 2020s.
I liked the clever use of almost the correct names – The Fridays, Appledrama, for real bands and brands, that made me laugh. Having planned my own wedding, nightmare!, I think I’d hire a wedding planner like Jason if I ever had to do it again. Let someone else deal with all the chaos and stress.
Funny, thought provoking, sweet and heartfelt, a really enjoyable book. Hope for more from this author soon.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
The chase is on in this utterly suspenseful and unputdownable mystery from New York Times bestselling author Mary Burton.
After being on the run for the last nine months, Kristen Rodale has finally settled in a small town in Virginia, where she hopes her dangerous and deadly brother Benito can never find her.
But former FBI agent, Dane Cambia, has other ideas: after his sister died at the hands of Kristen’s brother, he wants to hunt Kristen down and use her as bait to get his final revenge on Benito.
Cambia manages to locate Kristen, setting his plan in motion. But playing into the killer’s hands is just the beginning of Kristen and Cambia’s new nightmare…
My thoughts: I felt a bit sorry for Kristen, none of this is her fault and she’s been used as a pawn by her brother and then by Dane and Lucien. All she wants is the quiet life, keeping her head down, in a place where she finally feels safe.
Yes, she should have testified but how many people might have died protecting her on the way to court. Dane manipulates her and uses her, rather than just being honest and asking for her help.
I got a bit frustrated reading this because I don’t agree that falling for Dane was the right storyline, Kristen should have kicked him out when she learnt the truth and stayed with Sheridan and Crystal, running the yoga studio. Though I am glad her awful thug of a brother got his comeuppance in the end.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Samira is an up-and-coming TV journalist, working the nightshift at a major news channel and yearning for greater things. So when she’s offered a trip to the Middle East, with Kris, the station’s brilliant but impetuous star photographer, she leaps at the chance In the field together, Sami and Kris feel invincible, shining a light into the darkest of corners … except the newsroom, and the rest of the world, doesn’t seem to care as much as they do. Until Kris takes the photograph. With a single image of young Sudanese mother, injured in a raid on her camp, Sami and the genocide in Darfur are catapulted into the limelight. But everything is not as it seems, and the shots taken by Kris reveal something deeper and much darker … something that puts not only their careers but their lives in mortal danger. Sarah Sultoon brings all her experience as a CNN news executive to bear on this shocking, searingly authentic thriller, which asks immense questions about the world we live in. You’ll never look at a news report in the same way again…
Sarah Sultoon is a journalist and writer, whose work as an international news executive at CNN has taken her all over the world, from the seats of power in both Westminster and Washington to the frontlines of Iraq and Afghanistan. She has extensive experience in conflict zones, winning three Peabody awards for her work on the war in Syria, an Emmy for her contribution to the coverage of Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015, and a number of Royal Television Society gongs. As passionate about fiction as nonfiction, she recently completed a Masters of Studies in Creative Writing at the University of Cambridge, adding to an undergraduate language degree in French and Spanish, and Masters of Philosophy in History, Film and Television. When not reading or writing she can usually be found somewhere outside, either running, swimming or throwing a ball for her three children and dog while she imagines what might happen if… Her debut thriller The Source is currently in production with Lime Pictures, and was a Capital Crime Book Club pick and a number one bestseller on Kindle.
My thoughts: this book was so good, gripping, shocking and impossible to put down. There is something about the character of Kris that is so compelling, but then all the women in the book would probably agree.
Heading to some of the worst atrocities in the world (Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur) with naive but talented Sami at his side, Kris captures the human interest stories we, as consumers of news and media, want. The ones that are more than just facts and figures. Quite literally, the faces of these human tragedies. Sami puts them together for the team back home, not realising there’s something much darker going on.
The final section of the book flips everything that’s gone before upside down. Suddenly there’s something else going on, acts of mercy or cruelty? Sami’s naivete was a shield, but others were watching and picking the story out. Absolutely brilliant writing, honestly not at all where I thought this book was going. Not giving anything away, so you’ll have to read it yourself.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Turn the lights on. Lock the door. Things are about to get SERIOUSLY SCARY!
The brand new must-read middle-grade novel from the author of super-spooky Crater Lake. Perfect for 9+ fans of R.L.Stine’s Goosebumps
It’s basically the worst school detention ever. When classmates (but not mate-mates) Hallie, Angelo, Gustav and Naira are forced to come to school on a SATURDAY, they think things can’t get much worse. But they’re wrong. Things are about to get seriously scary.
What has dragged their teacher underground? Why do the creepy caretakers keeping humming the tune to Itsy Bitsy Spider? And what horrors lurk in the shadows, getting stronger and meaner every minute…? Cut off from help and in danger each time they touch the ground, the gang’s only hope is to work together. But it’s no coincidence that they’re all there on detention. Someone has been watching and plotting and is out for revenge…
Jennifer Killick is the author of Crater Lake, the Alex Sparrow series, and middle-grade sci-fi adventure Mo, Lottie and the Junkers. She regularly visits schools and festivals, and her books have three times been selected for The Reading Agency’s Summer Reading Challenge. She lives in Uxbridge, in a house full of children, animals and Lego. When she isn’t busy mothering or step-mothering (which isn’t often) she loves to read, write and run, as fast as she can.
My thoughts: The Breakfast Club is one of my favourite films, with its group of misfits thrown together for a Saturday detention – something my school thankfully didn’t have. But Dread Wood school does, and this might be the worst detention ever because there’s something lurking in the grounds of the school and it’s hungry.
I should also state I am massively arachnophobic and reading this book freaked me out – a lot. If spiders aren’t your jam, don’t read this just before bed.
Angelo, Hallie, Gus and Naira are thrown together but they combine their individual smarts and talents as a group to fight back against those who want to hurt them and save the day, if not the school, but who hasn’t wanted to blow up at least one part of their school?
The first in a new series featuring this intrepid gang – The Loser Club – as Gus dubs them, it’s funny, smart and a bit creepy. There’s also bonus points for positive disability rep and diversity – no one is negative about the differences between them, which is great to see. And the gang do learn their lesson – they didn’t need to be menaced by monsters and crazed scientists to learn it either. Which bodes well for the rest of the series. Can’t wait.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
The utterly charming and feel-good new novel from the bestselling author of The Secrets of Sunshine and The Library of Lost and Found.
Liv Green loves losing herself in a good book. But her everyday reality is less romantic, cleaning houses for people who barely give her the time of day. So when she lands a job housekeeping for her personal hero and mega-bestselling author Essie Starling, she can’t believe her luck.
When Essie dies unexpectedly, Liv is left with a life-changing last wish: to complete Essie’s final novel. To do so, change-averse Liv will have to step away from the fictitious worlds in her head, and into Essie’s shoes. As she begins to write, she uncovers a surprising connection between the two women – and a secret that will change Liv’s life forever…
Brimming with joy and packed with a sparkling cast of characters, The Book Share is a moving reminder that it’s never too late to re-write your own story – perfect for fans of All the Lonely People and The Authenticity Project.
My thoughts: as someone who wants to write but keeps getting sidetracked by life, I completely related to Liv, her passion isn’t for cleaning, like mine isn’t office admin, but it pays the bills and that is more important than living your dreams sometimes. When one of her cleaning clients is an award winning author however, and needs her help, Liv is more than happy to step in and make sure Essie’s last book, her twentieth, makes it to print by the deadline.
Even though it completely messes up Liv’s life, keeping all the secrets and making sure no one learns the truth, it also liberates her in many ways. She realises that she can have a life that makes her happy, and finds a way to really talk to her husband Jake about the things that they’ve both been worrying about.
I loved Liv, her determination to finish the book, her love for her family, her ballsy, take no prisoners attitude and the way she forgives Essie her secrets. Tremendous fun to read, sweet and heartfelt.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 