Tag: blog tour

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Maybe Tomorrow – Penny Parkes

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What a difference a year could make…
 
Jamie Matson had once enjoyed a wonderful life working alongside her best friend, organising adventures for single-parent families, and her son Bo’s artistic flair a source of pride rather than concern.
 
She hadn’t been prepared to lose her business, her home, and her friend. Not all in one dreadful year. And now she finds herself reeling – rebuilding her world, with Bo at its heart – swallowing her pride and asking for help.
 
Jamie certainly hadn’t expected to find such hope and camaraderie in the queue at her local Food Bank – thrown together with an unlikely and colourful group of people – all of them struggling to get by, yet still determined to reclaim their lost careers and agency over their lives. Even if just choosing their own groceries again is a goal they can all share.
 
As their friendships flourish, they quickly find it’s easier to be objective about each other than about themselves, and decide that – when you’re all out of options – it’s okay to bend the rules a little and create your own.
 
A story of friendship, possibilities, and hope, that maybe tomorrow will be brighter than today…

Penny Parkes survived a Convent education largely thanks to a ready supply of inappropriate novels and her passion for writing and languages.

She studied International Management in Bath and Germany, before gaining experience with the BBC. She then set up an independent Film Location Agency and spent many happy years organising shoots for film, television and advertising – thereby ensuring that she was never short of travel opportunities, freelance writing projects or entertaining anecdotes.

Penny now lives in the Cotswolds with her husband, two children and a geriatric spaniel. She will often be found plotting epic train journeys through the Alps, baking gluten-free goodies or attempting to prove that you can, in fact, teach an old dog new tricks.

Twitter: @CotswoldPenny

My thoughts: this is a happy/sad book set in our current, post pandemic, economic slump, underemployed times. Jamie lost her home, her best friend and her business. She’s trying to put her life, and that of son Bo, back together. Working in a posh deli for a boss who needs a slap, for minimum wage, dealing with a mouldy flat and a creepy landlord who keeps letting himself in, rushing to A&E with Bo, who has chronic asthma. None of this is good for either of them. And she’s really lonely.

But,in the queue for the food bank, she meets Bonnie and Kath and Amy. Three other women facing their own predicaments. Together the four new friends will pull each other up, help out and support one another.

A lucky break comes when, just as everything seems to be completely fallen apart, Jamie is offered a live in job with Ruth and Henry. This charming couple are starting to struggle, and with their son in the States, need a hand. Could this be the first step towards a better life for Jamie and Bo?

I was completely charmed by this book, despite recognising bits of my own current disaster of a life in Jamie and her friends, I thrilled to the moments when things went well for people. When Amy showed off her art, when Bo was happy in the garden, when Jamie was able to take a breath. I loved the whole gang, and I’d love a sequel, showing them in a few years time, when hopefully things are better for all of us.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Death in the Highlands – Fliss Chester

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There’s a dangerous killer lurking by this loch… and only canny Cressida can track them down.

Scotland, June 1925. Socialite Cressida Fawcett has been invited to cast her interior design eye over the Stirling family’s new seat, Ayrton Castle, up in the Scottish Highlands. Thrilled to be spending the summer at the historic estate, Cressida fills her suitcase with this season’s hunting jackets – and some tartan for her little pug Ruby, of course!

But before the party is ready to tramp through the glens, shocking news puts paid to their plans. Hamish Glenkirk, former owner of Ayrton, has been found dead inside a turret room of the castle. The door was bolted from the inside, and the room is three storeys up, surrounded by impenetrable stone walls… How did the murderer get in? And out?

With Detective Andrews of Scotland Yard at least a day’s journey away, Cressida knows she needs to get to the bottom of this case – and fast. There’s no end of suspects among the hunting party. Could it be the local doctor whose wife left him for a fling with the now-dead laird? Or is the gamekeeper hiding secrets under his kilt?

Just as Cressida is closing in on the truth, a blood-curdling scream echoes through the mist. Another member of the party, and one of the suspects, has been shot. With a wee dram in hand, can Cressida find the killer before the bagpipes play for another victim?

An unputdownable and gripping cozy mystery which fans of Agatha Christie, T.E. Kinsey and Lee Strauss will love.

Amazon

Fliss Chester lives in Surrey with her husband and writes historical cozy crime. When she is not killing people off in her 1940s whodunnits, she helps her husband, who is a wine merchant, run their business. Never far from a decent glass of something, Fliss also loves cooking (and writing up her favourite recipes on her blog), enjoying the beautiful Surrey and West Sussex countryside and having a good natter.

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My thoughts: I do enjoy this series, Cressida, Dotty and Ruby are lots of fun and getting very good at crime solving.

This time they’re in Scotland, for the 12th August, the “Glorious Twelth” when the grouse shooting season starts. Only someone has decided it’s not birds that need to die but a local laird, Hamish Glenrick. Found stabbed in his former home, which just so happens to be where our intrepid detectives are staying, of course.

Once they start putting the clues together, a story of sadness, betrayal and long held grudges starts to emerge. Plenty of people had motive to kill Glenrick, but who is DM and why was he found clutching a blackmail letter?

With police inspector Andrews on his way, Cressida explores secret passages, interviews her suspects and builds up a picture of a deeply unpleasant man, up to his eyeballs in debt, disliked by his children and peers. But the clues, and red herrings, might lead closer to home than Cressida originally suspects. Another cracking case for this flapper detective and friends.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own

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Blog Tour: The First Bright Thing – J.R. Dawson

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If you knew how dark tomorrow would be, what would you do with today?

“This is the magic circus book that I have been looking for all my life.”―Seanan McGuire, New York Times bestselling author of Every Heart A Doorway

Ringmaster — Rin, to those who know her best — can jump to different moments in time as easily as her wife, Odette, soars from bar to bar on the trapeze. And the circus they lead is a rare home and safe haven for magical misfits and outcasts, known as Sparks.

With the world still reeling from World War I, Rin and her troupe — the Circus of the Fantasticals — travel the midwest, offering a single night of enchantment and respite to all who step into their Big Top.

But threats come at Rin from all sides. The future holds an impending war that the Sparks can see barrelling toward their show and everyone in it. And Rin’s past creeps closer every day, a malevolent shadow she can’t fully escape.

It takes the form of another circus, with tents as black as midnight and a ringmaster who rules over his troupe with a dangerous power. Rin’s circus has something he wants, and he won’t stop until it’s his.

J. R. Dawson (she/they) is a writer and educator who has published shorter works in places such as F&SF, The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, and Lightspeed. She lives in Omaha with a loving spouse and three dogs. Having earned a BFA from The Theatre School at DePaul, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Stonecoast, Dawson works as a teaching artist. Her clients include assorted Midwestern non-profits that teach kids the power of performance and storytelling.

My thoughts: one of my literary loves is circus themed books, I blame Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus. I am fascinated by the history too, of circuses and side shows and the terribly poorly treated “freaks” who worked in them.

Here, instead of freaks we find Sparks, people gifted with strange powers or abilities, something that happened during the dark days of the First World War. No one knows why or how, but there it is.

Rin, Odette and Mauve try to use their gifts for good, taking in other Sparks and offering them a home in their travelling circus, while also trying to make the world a better, happier place, even if it is one person at a time.

They find Jo, and her twin Charles, and invite them to join the family. Jo can create vivid, realistic illusions with her mind, and Charles has invulnerable skin. But Jo’s power could be dangerous in the wrong hands – like the sinister Circus King.

Rin has a past she keeps secret, and it’s starting to catch up with her. Can she and her friends outwit the cruel man chasing them, can they prevent another war?

It’s beautiful and magical and sad and hopeful and I cried and laughed and rooted so hard for Rin and the family she built, for her wife Odette, for Mauve and her ability to see the future but not always fear it, for Bernard. For Jo and Charles too, two sweet kids caught up in something so much bigger than them. I need a sequel, I want to know that Rin’s plan works and they’re all ok. It’s so very, very good.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: Not So Perfect Strangers – L.S Stratton

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Two strangers – a Black woman and a white woman – who discover that each has a husband she’d be better off without, find their lives entangled in increasingly sinister ways following one fateful encounter, leading to a shocking and violent conclusion.

Tasha and Madison may live in different parts of the country and have different everyday realities, but they have one thing in common: marriages they need out of. Tasha and Madison want to help each other, but they have very different ideas of what that means…The women are on a collision course that will end in the case files of the D.C. MPD homicide unit. Unravelling the truth of what really happened may be impossible…and futile. Because what has the truth ever done for women like Tasha and Madison?

Combining dark humour with classic domestic thriller tropes, Not So Perfect Strangers offers a fresh take on a classic story, in a brilliantly updated homage to Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. Featuring a cast of diverse female leads living in modern America, L.S. Stratton’s latest release delves into pressing contemporary issues regarding feminism, gender dynamics, racism, and the white saviour complex.  

Fans of Lucy Foley’s The Guest List and Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister the Serial Killer are sure to enjoy this highly anticipated domestic thriller.

Writing under numerous pen names, L.S. Stratton is an NAACP Image Award-nominated author who has written dozens of books across multiple genres from romance to thrillers.

L.S. Stratton is a NAACP Image Award-nominated author and former crime newspaper reporter. She is a member of the Crime Writers of Color organization founded by Kellye Garrett, Walter Mosley, and Gigi Pandian and has written more than a dozen books under different pen names. Her writing varies from thrillers to romance to historical fiction – she enjoys writing just about every genre. She currently lives in Maryland with her husband, their daughter, and their tuxedo cat.

Instagram: shellystrattonbooks Twitter: ellisromance

My thoughts: I really enjoyed this clever thriller, with its unhinged murderer, Madison, Tasha – who really doesn’t want to be involved in Madison’s craziness, and the twists that come out of nowhere and that ending, excellently done.

After a row with her husband, Madison gets in Tasha’s car and begs for a lift. Tasha, already in her own crisis, agrees and sets in motion a chain of events she just can’t seem to stop.

Madison wants to trade their husbands’ deaths, Strangers on a Train style, only Tasha isn’t a killer. And when she doesn’t hold up her end of their “bargain”, Madison becomes threatening. Tasha’s also worried about her son – could be become an abuser like his dad?

But as she tries to warn people about Madison, no one believes her, her life starts to fall apart and she needs to prove that Madison killed her husband. Tasha’s doing everything she can, if only she’d thrown the crazy woman out of her car. One good turn leads nowhere nice it seems.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own

blog tour, books, reviews

Blog Tour: The Moose Paradox – Antti Tuomainen, translated by David Hackston

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Out now in paperback from Orenda Books and all good bookshops!!

And in case you’re not sure, I’m resharing my review from last year’s hardback blog tour so you can see what I thought below.

Insurance mathematician Henri Koskinen has finally restored order both to his life and to YouMeFun, the adventure park he now owns, when a man from the past appears – and turns everything upside down again.

More problems arise when the park’s equipment supplier is taken over by a shady trio, with confusing demands. Why won’t Toy of Finland Ltd sell the new Moose Chute to Henri when he needs it as the park’s main attraction?

Meanwhile, Henri’s relationship with artist Laura has reached breaking point, and, in order to survive this new chaotic world, he must push every calculation to its limits, before it’s too late…

Finnish Antti Tuomainen was an award-winning copywriter when he made his literary debut in 2007 as a suspense author. In 2011, Tuomainen’s third novel, The Healer, was awarded the Clue Award for Best Finnish Crime Novel and was shortlisted for the Glass Key Award. With a piercing and evocative style, Tuomainen was one of the first to challenge the Scandinavian crime-genre formula, and his poignant, dark and hilarious The Man Who Died became an international bestseller, shortlisting for the Petrona and Last Laugh Awards. Palm Beach Finland (2018) was an immense success, with The Times calling Tuomainen ‘the funniest writer in Europe’, and Little Siberia (2019) was shortlisted for the Capital Crime/Amazon Publishing Readers Awards, the Last Laugh Award and the CWA Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger, and won the Petrona Award. The Rabbit Factor, the prequel to The Moose Paradox, will soon be a major motion picture starring Steve Carell.

My thoughts: back to Finland’s maddest adventure park we go. Just as Henri thinks he’s solved all his problems, more appear. There’s shady businessmen/gangsters who seem to be determined to ruin the park, with inferior equipment and a hostile takeover, the staff are in revolt, and he’s not sure about whether to take the next step with the lovely Laura. Just another day’s work at YouMeFun then.

Although we never find out exactly what the Moose Shute does (and some of the other creations of Toy Finland sound downright nuts and beyond dangerous), the lengths Henri goes to to secure it are hilarious. For someone who spends their time calculating risk, he’s prepared to go to extremes for the park.

This book might actually be even more fun and ridiculous than The Rabbit Factor, as chaos lurks around every corner, not to mention the police, furious criminals, the park’s own staff (no one else would hire them) and a blast from the past that could destroy everything Henri has worked so hard for. 

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.

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Blog Tour: The Couple in the Photo – Helen Cooper

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From the author of The Downstairs Neighbor and The Other Guest comes a propulsive suspense novel that asks how far you would go to keep a friend’s secret.

Lucy and her husband, Adam, have been best friends with another couple, Cora and Scott, for years. The four are practically family at this point—they vacation together, co-own a beach cottage, and their young children are inseparable. So Lucy is devastated when, while looking at a colleague’s photos of a trip to the Maldives, she spots a picture of Scott, apparently on a luxurious holiday with another woman.

Lucy is determined to protect her best friend from her husband’s seeming infidelity, but when she learns that the woman in the photo has gone missing, she can’t help but fear that Scott was involved. As she searches for answers, she uncovers secrets about her friends and her own husband that could destroy the wonderful lives they have built…and she suspects that everybody around her knows much more about the missing woman than they are letting on. Is Lucy actually the one most in the dark? If so, what are the consequences of discovering the truth?

My thoughts: a glimpse of a photo with a familiar face, but the woman with him isn’t his wife, sends Lucy off down a wormhole into her best friends’ (and husband’s) past. What happened at university, how are they connected to a death in the Maldives and why can’t Lucy just leave it alone?

It gets tenser and tenser as Lucy digs into events that bound her husband Adam to his best pals, Cora and Scott, back when they were students, secrets they’ve been keeping for years, but it seems someone knows what they did, could it be the mysterious Juliet? And it involves Lucy’s newlywed colleague Ruth now in some way.

It gets ugly, and violent, with one of the trio willing to kill to keep the status quo. How much danger is Lucy in? Well, read it and find out. Also, modern children clearly have no curiosity, or at least the ones here don’t, happily playing while their parents argue and discuss murder. I’d have been under the table taking notes, Harriet the Spy style.

Gripping, a bit creepy at times, Scott needs to chill, as does Adam, they’re all a little unhinged to be honest. I rooted for Lucy, but also worried for her safety as she kept hanging around potential murderers. The ending, while not happy, at least meant I could relax, safe that Lucy and her children were out of harm’s way, for now.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.

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Blog Tour: Battle Within – Christina Mattingly

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BattleWithin copy

Welcome to the tour for Christina Mattingly’s Battle Within. A shifter romance with bite!

Battle-Within-Claimed-Series

Battle Within (Claimed: Emma & Ryder)

Publication Date: October 26, 2022

Genre: Shifter Romance

Emma, a sound mage, needs to get away from her fast-paced life as a magical nightclub owner in the city, so she decides to visit her brother’s small mountain town for the winter. After years of living without long-term commitments or consistent relationships, she’s ready to settle down and find something real.

After finding herself in her roommate’s bed, what she thought was a one-night stand turns into a big mess when she discovers Ryder’s wolf imprinted on her, irrevocably claiming Emma as his. He’s just the kind of guy that she could see herself settling down with, but Ryder doesn’t want anything to do with a relationship with her.

His wolf’s possessive nature won’t let Ryder leave her alone so she can move on, but with Ryder pushing her away at every turn, their relationship seems doomed to fail before it’s ever had a chance.

Available on Amazon

About the Author

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Christina Mattingly enjoys spicy romance novels with strong characters and phenomenal world-building.

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Christina Mattingly

Book Tour Schedule

June 19th

http://rrbooktours – Kick-off

https://www.instagram.com/book_lover_danny/ – Review

https://www.instagram.com/squeakeysundergroundlibrary/ – Review

https://www.thereadingdiaries.com/ – Review

https://www.instagram.com/readingdiaries/

https://www.instagram.com/ripples_and_embers/ – Review

https://www.thesexynerdrevue.com – Feature

https://www.instagram.com/shannonl0vesbooks/ – Feature

June 20th

https://countrymamaswithkids.com/ – Review

https://www.instagram.com/countrymamaswithkids/

https://www.instagram.com/jenalreads/ – Review

http://readsandreels.com – Feature

http://ramblingmads.com – Feature

June 21st

https://www.instagram.com/its_b.e.l.l.e/ – Review

https://www.instagram.com/kristens_book_nook_/ – Review

https://www.tiktok.com/@kristen2ya?_t=8cabFcA3Fal&_r=1

https://www.instagram.com/bookishlyrieka/ – Review

https://www.instagram.com/_toris.thoughts_/ – Review

https://www.instagram.com/kemalareadsbooks/ – Feature

June 22nd

https://www.instagram.com/katierichardauthor/ – Review

https://www.instagram.com/fargoanbookmoth/ – Review

http://www.ismellsheep.com/ – Feature

https://lshadowlynauthor.com/ – Feature

https://christinebialczak.com/ – Feature

June 23rd

https://cherylsbooknook.blogspot.com/ – Review

https://rissreviewsx.wixsite.com/website – Review

https://www.instagram.com/katslovesbooks/ – Review

http://www.tiktok.com/@katslovesbooks

https://www.instagram.com/addicted.to.romance73/ – Review

https://www.instagram.com/mommasbookies/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D – Review

https://ilovebooksandstuffblog.wordpress.com – Feature

Book Tour Organized By:

R&R Button

R&R Book Tours

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Blog Tour: Last Dance at the Discotheque for Deviants – Paul David Gould

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Moscow, 1993. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union have brought unimaginable change to Russia. With this change come new freedoms: freedom to travel abroad and to befriend Westerners, freedom to make money, and even the freedom for an underground gay scene to take root.

Encouraged by the new climate of openness, twenty-one-year-old Kostya ventures out of the closet and resolves to pursue his dreams: to work in the theatre and to find love as his idol Tchaikovsky never could. Those dreams, however, lead to tragedy – not only for Kostya, but for his mother and for the two young men he loves, as all three face up to the ways they have betrayed him.

‘The venue was the canteen block of the Red Hammer Cement Works. It was the usual set-up: way out of town, secretive directions to get there, and disco lights blazing…’

Paul David Gould grew up on a Huddersfield council estate and studied Russian at the University of Birmingham. His experiences of work, life and love in Russia have inspired Last Dance at the Discotheque for Deviants, his first novel. He works as a sub­editor at the Financial Times.

Paul worked as a journalist in Russia in the early nineties, and his experiences from that time have informed his debut novel, while he still occasionally writes about Russia for the Financial Times.

Last Dance At The Discotheque For Deviants is one of the first titles in Unbound’s new imprint: Unbound Firsts -for debut writers of colour. Gould said:

‘I’m not only thrilled to be getting published by Unbound Firsts, I’m also honoured to be one of this new imprint’s inaugural writers at a time when we so need to champion diversity. My novel is set in Russia in the 1990s, a more hopeful time for peace and friendly relations with the West, I’m horrified to see those hopes trampled on by Putin’s unprovoked and brutal war against Ukraine.’

My thoughts: take a trip back to Russia in 1993, the age of glasnost, of the fall of the Soviet Union. There’s a McDonald’s in Moscow and a sense of openness, of freedom in the air.

But not for everyone – homosexuality is illegal and the only club night around is secret and moves venues to avoid both the police and the gangs of violent homophobes out to beat gay men up. Kostya is a young man from a small town, working for a US organisation, he speaks English and is intelligent and hard working. His friendship with Jamie, a British journalist, means he’s been to the West and sees through the old Soviet lies his mother clings to.

Jamie is investigating Kostya’s death – the tiny announcement of it, that he died of “natural causes” in an unnamed hospital outside of the city is suspicious. As he, and Kostya’s boyfriend Dima, begin to dig, they uncover a terrible thing that was done to their friend and a web of US investment that allowed it to happen. Even Kostya’s mother, Tamara, comes to understand that she was wrong to question his sexuality, wrong to push him to be “normal”.

This book is terribly sad in places, Kostya is so lost and heart sore. I wanted to reach into the pages and give him a hug, tell him it would get better. Although Russia is stilla terrible place to be gay, as we all saw highlighted by the Sochi Winter Olympics, there are people fighting to change things and government policy doesn’t always go with the will and beliefs of the people.

I’ve been to Russia, and met Russians, many of whom were lovely and open, friendly people. I know that the changes the early 90s brought, the promises that decade held, haven’t all been achieved but, as with the end of this book, there is hope out there.

Beautifully written, and supplied by the author’s own experiences, although hopefully not as dark as some of Dima and Jamie’s, this is an intelligent and thought provoking thriller, with real heart and strong characters that draw you into their hard scrabble lives.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.

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Blog Tour: The Love Theorem – Camilla Isley

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Are a rocket scientist and one of Hollywood’s brightest stars a match made in heaven or is it a catastrophe headed for a crash landing?
Lana loves four things: science, her cats, her friends, and her books. She’s on her way to earning her professorship when she finds out her long-term boyfriend has been sleeping with her best friend!
That discovery has her hiding in the broom closet at a posh hotel.
Only, it turns out broom closets are the place to be these days.
Christian Slade, America’s sexiest man alive (as voted by fans), in a desperate attempt to escape the paparazzi finds himself in a broom closet with one sobbing occupant. Unable to leave a damsel in
distress, he offers help, only to realise she has no idea who he is! It’s like he’s been given a gift. A smart, beautiful woman, who isn’t after him for fame and fortune . . .
Soon Christian is buying a Tesla to impress his scientist with his eco credentials and taking her on dates where no one will recognise him.
Purchase


Camilla Isley is an engineer who left science behind to write bestselling contemporary rom-coms set all around the world. She lives in Italy and her first title for Boldwood, The Love Theorem, a
Hollywood-meets-STEM romance, will be published in June 2023.

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My thoughts: this was a fun LA set rom com about the world’s most handsome man, actor Christian Slade, and a clueless but super intelligent scientist, PhD student Lana. She doesn’t own a TV so has no idea who he is, preferring to read a book and hang out with her cats. A girl after my own heart.

When they accidentally hide in the same broom cupboard – for very different reasons – there’s a spark. Cue romantic picnics and over the top presents.

Things don’t go as smoothly as you’d hope, there’s a few bumps in the road, but as they’re both genuinely nice people, and it’s a love story, it all eventually works out for the best. But getting to the HEA is lots of fun. With a great set of supporting characters, and obviously two cats (who doesn’t enjoy feline friends?), this is a sweet and enjoyable, Notting Hill-esque, romance.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.

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Blog Tour: We Are Family – Beth Moran

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Thirty-three-year-old Ruth Henderson and her daughter Maggie have some hard choices to make.
Following the tragic death of Maggie’s father, they are left with a mountain of debt and broken hearts. So, despite her vow never to return home after the fall-out from her teenage pregnancy, Ruth
can’t see any option other than for the two of them to move back in with her parents.
Going home means many things – finally confronting her estranged father, navigating her mother’s desperate need to make everything ok despite the wobbles in her own marriage, not to mention helping a still-grieving Maggie to settle into a new school, find new friends, and stop expressing her emotions through her ever-changing hair colour.
What Ruth needs are friends, but she abandoned her childhood ones when she left all those years ago. Luckily for Ruth, they haven’t abandoned her. Slowly she lets herself be embraced by a group of
women who have always had her back – even when she didn’t know it. And as the grief and shock recede, Ruth can even begin to imagine sharing her life with someone other than just Maggie – if Maggie will let her.
Purchase


Beth Moran is the award winning author of ten contemporary fiction novels, including the top ten bestseller Just the Way You Are and #1 bestseller Let It Snow. Her books are set in and around Sherwood Forest, where she can be found most mornings walking with her spaniel Murphy. She has the privilege of also being a foster carer to teenagers, and enjoys nothing better than curling up with a pot of tea and a good story.

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My thoughts: there’s lots of different families in this book, from the Henderson clan, to Lois and Matt and their five hundred foster kids (ok, just five, but still), to Ruth and Maggie, and David, Arnold and Ana Lucia. Families are not just born, they’re made, built from love. There’s also the family Ruth finds in her friends, and in the church her parents go to.

I grew up in the church and some of my oldest, closest friends are part of my church family, so I really resonated with that. You can find family all over the place.

And Ruth really needs them all – her parents, her sisters, her daughter, her pals. Even grumpy Veronica and Hannah, who lives mostly in her memories. She’s been through a really rough time, losing her partner, leaving her horrible job, having to sell her house and discovering a mountain of secret debts her partner didn’t deal with.

And then there’s creepy Carl, who won’t leave her alone. She really doesn’t need his weird and scary nonsense on top of trying to get her life back together. And Maggie needs her mum, she just doesn’t know what to say. My heart was aching for her. Fourteen is a horrible age, without all the grief and trauma she’s dealing with.

But the book isn’t all sadness and bleak misery, there’s a lot of cake, there’s dancing, there’s new life (literally a baby is born), there’s new jobs and new love and parties and I loved girls’ night. When Ruth lets the people in her life help her, support her, then she can thrive. A joyful book really.

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.