Ginny Splinter, acclaimed radio host and relationship expert, prides herself on knowing what’s best for others. So, she’s sure her husband, Adrian, will love the special trip to Italy she’s planned for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. But when Ginny presents the gift, he surprises her with his own very different plan: a divorce.
Beside herself with heartache, Ginny impulsively goes live on air to invite four heartbroken listeners to join her instead. From hiking the hills of Bologna to sharing a gondola in Venice and dancing until dawn, Ginny and her guests embark on a holiday of full of fun, hope and healing.
Sunny, tender and brimming with charm, The Little Italian Hotel explores love, the importance of friendship, and reclaiming the present moment – even if it means leaving the past behind.
My thoughts: this was lovely, really heartwarming, hug in a book stuff as Ginny and her new friends embrace all that Italy has to offer, sun, amazing food, stunning views, beautiful architecture and oodles of history, and learn to heal, to live for the moment and not to mourn. Each of them has a secret heartbreak, and tragedy but all of them can find a new lease on life by getting to know one another and opening up.
Even hotel owner Nico and his teenage daughter Loretta need to heal and move on from their own losses and live their lives, whether they stay at the hotel Splendido or move on.
Ginny finally stops trying to fix everything for everyone else and starts to do the things she really wants to do, on her terms. It’s never too late to start over and find happiness.
This book will lift you up, make you laugh and possibly cry but ultimately feel rather cheerful.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for my review but all opinions remain my own.
A mysterious First Lady. The intrepid journalist writing her biography. And the secret that could destroy them both. Tired of covering the grating dysfunction of Washington and the increasingly outrageous antics of President Henry Caine, White House correspondent Sofie Morse quits her job and plans to leave politics behind. But when she gets a call from the office of First Lady Lara Caine, inviting her to come in for a private meeting with Lara, Sofie’s curiosity is piqued.
Sofie, like the rest of the world, knows little about Lara – only that she was born in Soviet Russia, raised in Paris, and worked as a model before moving to America and marrying the notoriously brash future president. When Lara asks Sofie to write her official biography, and to finally fill in the gaps of her history, Sofie’s curiosity gets the better of her. She begins to spend more and more time in the White House, slowly developing a bond with Lara. As Lara’s story unfolds, Sofie can’t help but wonder why Lara is rehashing such sensitive information.Why tell Sofie? And why now? Suddenly Sofie is in the middle of a game of cat and mouse that could have explosive ramifications.
Anna Pitoniak is the author of The Futures, Necessary People, and Our American Friend. She graduated from Yale, where she majored in English and was an editor at the Yale Daily News. She worked for many years in book publishing, most recently as a Senior Editor at Random House. Anna grew up in Whistler, British Columbia, and now lives in New York City
My thoughts: this was so good, a mystery, a thriller, political and personal, all blended together. Why is Sofie hiding out in Croatia? What did she do that meant she and her husband had to flee America?
Slowly the story is revealed. And it isn’t Sofie’s alone, it’s also Lara’s. And a few other people’s too. Her mother, Irina, her lost love Alex, her sister, her father and Russia’s as well. What seems like an amazing opportunity, to get up close and personal with the First Lady, ends up being so much more and Sofie realises she’s a pawn in a much larger game.
Beautifully written, totally gripping and so clever it shocks you, this is a fantastic read.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
When Elina makes her annual summer pilgrimage to her remote family farm in Lapland, she has three days to catch the pike in a local pond, or she and the love of her life will both die. This year her task is made even more difficult by the intervention of a host of deadly supernatural creatures and a murder detective on her tail.
Can Elina catch the pike and put to rest the curse that has been hanging over her head ever since a youthful love affair turned sour? Can Sergeant Janatuinen make it back to civilisation in one piece? And just why is Lapland in summer so weird?
Summer Fishing in Lapland is an audacious, genre-defying blend of fantasy, folk tale and nature writing.
Juhani Karila (b. 1985) is an award-winning journalist and an author who was born and raised in Finnish Lapland. Summer Fishing in Lapland is his debut novel. It was published in 2019, winning widespread acclaim and numerous prizes in Finland, and is being translated into 13 languages around the world.
Lola Rogers is a full-time literary translator living in Seattle. Her published translations include works by Sofi Oksanen, Riikka Pulkkinen and Antti Tuomainen. Her translation of Oksanen’s novel Purge was chosen as a best book of 2010 by The Sunday Times and several other publications. She has also contributed translations of fiction, non-fiction and poetry to numerous journals and anthologies.
My thoughts: this is not an easy book to define, featuring as it does a whole host of otherworldly creatures, curses, a detective, witches, a pike that somehow seems to regenerate, and other weirdness near the Arctic Circle. Lapland is part of Finland and the home of the Sami people, although none of the characters in this book are Sami, who might be further away with the reindeer they herd, which considering the goings on, is probably for the best.
This small town is very strange and the locals are just part of it. They live quite happily alongside things like the raskals, bear or dog like monsters, although the one we meet is very friendly and called Musti. He adopts the cop, or she adopts him, I’m not sure.
Theres the knacky, that won’t let Elina have the pike from the pond, and Slabber Olli, a sort of ghost/monster made out of trees and earth. I don’t know a huge amount about Finnish folklore to know whether these are regular creatures in the Arctic or not. There’s also a guest appearance by a bad dream that Sandman fans might recognise, it certainly made me say “oh, wait!”
I really enjoyed this book, weirdness and all. I love a good mash up of “reality” and the older, somewhat forgotten stuff. Our ancestors believed in all sorts of creatures, good or otherwise, that lived alongside us, maybe they still do in some places.
It’s also a break up/love story as Elina is still trying to get over her ex, and getting the pike out of the pond is what she thinks she needs to do to break a curse on them both. But things aren’t quite as she presents them and if her witchy neighbour Asko could remember where he is for five minutes and help her, she might be ok.
Funny, strange and somewhat profound in places, this is an enjoyable and entertaining read.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
‘Beautifully sensitive, quietly reflective, this absorbing tale about a group of strangers brought together following the death of Queen Elizabeth II is an absolute triumph.’ LoveReading debut of the month
One queue. 250,000 people. Twenty-four life-changing hours. A young boy wearing a cereal box crown, impatiently dragging his mother behind him. A friendly man in a khaki raincoat, talking about his beloved Leeds United to anyone who will listen. An elderly woman who has lived her life alongside the Queen, and is just hoping she’ll make it to the end of the queue to say goodbye. And among them, a British Indian mother and daughter, driven apart by their differences, embarking on a pilgrimage which neither of them yet know will change their lives forever. Full of secrets and surprises, this uplifting novel celebrates not only the remarkable woman who defined an era and a country, but also the diverse and unique people she served for so long.
Swéta Rana was born into a Gujarati family in Birmingham, and now lives in south London. She studied Philosophy and Theology at Oxford before doing a Master’s in Publishing at UCL. After working briefly in editorial at Orion, she moved into designing and managing commercial websites. Swéta has enjoyed writing ever since she was a child, always taking any opportunity she can to write fiction pieces, film reviews, or articles on Indian culture. Queuing for the Queen is her first novel. In her spare time, Swéta takes Hindi language classes, sings soprano in a chamber choir, and volunteers for a mental health charity. TwitterWebsite
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
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.
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.
‘Seahurst is set on the Suffolk coast. The area is famous for its folklore. I was born in the county and spent my childhood on the beaches, running along narrow, sandy paths that thread through the dunes. The vast empty skies, mudflats and whispering reed beds have inspired writers over centuries. What better setting could there be for a contemporary haunted house ghost story?’ – S.A. HARRIS
S.A. Harris returns with a gripping contemporary ghost story set on the Suffolk coast.
Evie Meyer and her son Alfie flee from her abusive partner Seth in Toronto to spend New Year with her half-brother Luke at their late father’s summer home on the Suffolk Coast, only to find Seahurst abandoned and Luke missing.
As Evie searches for her brother, she is filled with a deepening dread that something is very wrong at Seahurst and that their father’s death may not have been suicide after all. Can Evie uncover Seahurst’s sinister secrets and keep Alfie safe before the souls of the dead claim yet another terrible revenge?
‘Seahurst is a suspenseful spine-tingling ghost story I absolutely loved! One moment I was holding my breath, and the next my heart was aching for Evie and her son Alfie. Harris has once again held me with her spell-binding prose’ – RUBY SPEECHLEY
Sally Harris writes ghost stories and gothic fiction as S. A. Harris. Her first novel, Haverscroft was long listed for Not The Booker Prize, was one of Den Of Geek’s best books of 2019, a semi-finalist in the Book Bloggers Novel of the Year Award 2020, and a Halloween recommended read in Prima Magazine. Sally is a family law solicitor living with her husband and children in Norwich.
My thoughts: Seahurst is on a crumbling cliff, parts of which have already fallen away. It may also be haunted. Perhaps using parts of the old Abbey in its walls was a bad idea. Evie’s father lived there alone, and committed suicide off those cliffs, and now her brother seems to have vanished in the same way.
During a fraught time in her life, attempting to get away from her abusive partner and protect her son., she’s returned to Suffolk to see her brother and old friends but the past lingers. Her father’s room is the same as when he died, her brother’s things are everywhere, as though he just left the room. There’s strange noises and smells, the house seems sinister, which it didn’t before.
There’s a lot of tension in the book, the characters are all carrying it and maybe are more affected by the house and the winter, cut off at times from anyone else, than they’d like to admit. Suffolk is famous for its ghosts and monsters, something about all that land that belongs more to the sea than anything else.
Evie is on edge and her son, Alfie, picks up on that. It’s only them that sense the sinister in the house, Evie’s friends seem unaffected, certainly her horrible ex, when he shows up, doesn’t feel it.
While this isn’t a happy book, and the ending, while one of escape and resolution, doesn’t feel enormously cheering, there is hope for Evie and Alfie, and for their found family.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
After the sudden death of her husband, Emilie Russell just wants to feel normal. But being a middle-aged widow doesn’t come with a how-to manual. Her well-meaning friend, Viv, believes the cure to all that ails is simple: a new man. So, she sets Emilie up with her handsome and charming new neighbor, widower Colin. There’s only one problem with the plan—Colin is gay.
Emilie embarks on a rollicking journey of self-discovery with Colin as her mentor and best friend. From learning to swipe right without cringing while midlife dating in constricting shapeware to cougar moments in Key West, Emilie reenters the dating pool with both humorous and soul-crushing results.
With the encouragement of her friends, including a new furry one, plus a little therapy, Emilie begins forging a new life, one where she exchanges tears for laughter, and one that maybe—just maybe—includes the courage to find love again.
Michelle Paris is a Maryland writer who believes laughter can heal the heart. Her debut novel, New Normal is loosely based on her own experience as a young widow. Her personal story of overcoming grief was featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. And her essays about grief and mid-life dating have appeared in multiple editions of the Chicken Soup for the Soul inspirational book series as well as in other media outlets. She is a member of the Romance Writers of America, the Maryland Writers’ Association, and the Women’s Fiction Writers’ Association. Currently, Michelle is enjoying chapter two of her life with her new husband, Kevin, who keeps her from being a cat lady but only on technicality.
During the Việt Nam War, tens of thousands of children were born into relationships between American soldiers and Việtnamese women. Tragic circumstances separated most of these Amerasian children from their parents. Many have not found each other again…
In 1969, two sisters from rural Việt Nam leave their parents’ home to find work in Sài Gòn. Caught up in the war that is blazing through their country they, like many other young Việtnamese women, are employed as hostesses in a bar frequented by American GIs. Soon they are forced to accept that their own survival, and that of their family back home, might mean compromising the values they have always held dear. As the fighting moves closer to the city, the elder sister, Trang, begins a romance with a young American helicopter pilot.
Decades later, two men wander the streets and marketplaces of modern Sài Gòn. Phong is a ‘Dust Child’ – the son of a Black American soldier and a Vietnamese woman, abandoned by his mother and ostracized all his life – and is looking for his parents and through them a way out of Việt Nam. Meanwhile war veteran Dan returns with his wife Linda, hoping to ease the PTSD that has plagued him for decades. Neither of them can escape the shadow of decisions made during a time of desperation.
With the same compassion and insight that has made The Mountains Sing a favourite of readers across the world, Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai brings to life the interwoven stories of these four unforgettable characters, and asks what it takes to move forward.
NGUYỄN PHAN QUẾ MAI is an award-winning Vietnamese poet and novelist. Born in the Red Delta of Northern Việt Nam, she grew up in the Mekong Delta, Southern Việt Nam. She is a writer and translator who has published eight books of poetry, short stories and non-fiction in Vietnamese. Her debut novel and first book in English, The Mountains Sing, is an international bestseller, runner-up for the 2021 Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and winner of the 2021 PEN Oakland/ Josephine Miles Literary Award, the 2020 Lannan Literary Award Fellowship, and others, and has been translated into fifteen languages. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University, and her writing has appeared in various publications including the New York Times. Quế Mai was named by Forbes Vietnam as one of the twenty most inspiring women of 2021. Dust Child is inspired by her many years working as a volunteer helping family members unite, and reflects the real-life experiences of Amerasians and their family members. Moving between the Việt Nam war and the present day, DUST CHILD is a powerful and compelling tale of family secrets and hidden heartache nguyenphanquemai.com @nguyen_p_quemai
My thoughts: this is a moving and at times profoundly sad book, chronicling the lives of young Vietnamese women and their children during the years of the war and after. Trang and her younger sister move to the city, hoping to make money to help their parents. Finding work as bar girls, getting American GIs to buy drinks and sometimes their bodies, far from their dreams of a better life.
Trang falls in love with one American but he leaves her pregnant and alone. A story sadly common to many young women like her.
Phong is the child of one such story – abandoned at an orphanage, his life is never easy and as the son of a Black soldier, his appearance marks him out as different. He is lucky in his wife and children, and wants to emigrate to America for a better life for them.
He meets Dan and Linda, Americans on holiday, but with a purpose. Dan was one of those GIs, and he left behind a young woman and their child. He wants to find them and try to make amends. But are they even still alive?
All of the characters have suffered, and some are still suffering, from the after effects of the war. PTSD, poverty, trauma, none of it is easy to bear. But slowly as their stories interweave and the truth begins to reveal itself, they find ways to start to heal, to forgive and move on from the painful past.
Inspired by the author’s work with Amerasians (the children of American GIs and Vietnamese women), this is an important story about love, hope and family.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
As the war in Vietnam stutters to a close, a heavily pregnant Faith flees America for a new life in England. Leaving behind everything she knew, including the mystery of what happened to the father of her unborn child after he went missing behind enemy lines. Three decades on and her son, thirty-something slacker Dan, knows he’s wasting his life in pubs, nightclubs, and his dead-end job. That all changes, though, when a man with storied eyes and an old army jacket introduces himself as the father Dan never had a chance to know. But is Jacob, a battered and broken war veteran, really who he claims to be? As Jacob’s true purpose in seeking him out becomes clear, Dan comes to understand that his life is very far from meaningless and that the choices he makes might have deadly and irredeemable consequences. Readers who enjoy genre-bending books that play with themes of reality and identity will love The Heart Ladder! Amazon USAmazon UK
Sibby Spencer is an author, poet, podcaster and regular book reviewer for BBC Radio Derby. She enjoys playing around with the themes of reality and possibility, and creating characters who are very human in their flaws – yet capable of revelation and redemption. She loves getting lost in a good novel, swimming in the sea, learning new things and dancing in her kitchen. She lives in Derbyshire with her husband and two children.
My thoughts: this started off one way and then went somewhere very different. Dan is a somewhat aimless young man, working in a bookshop by day and hanging out at clubs and parties, getting wasted with his friends by night. He’s in love with his colleague Fiona, but won’t admit it. When a stranger appears, claiming to be his dad, Jacob, MIA in Vietnam years ago, he’s not sure what to believe.
He’s also getting involved with an activist group, but one that perhaps can’t be trusted, the leader Quinn, is charismatic but there’s a darkness in him and Dan might just be dragged into something terrible.
Can Dan learn the truth before it’s too late? Who is the man claiming to be his missing father? Why has he appeared now? The book takes a sudden twist that throws the whole plot so far in a different direction, but if Dan can learn the truth, he might be able to stop disaster in its tracks and find out about his past too.
Dan was a bit of a useless man to begin with, and he isn’t very nice to his mum, Faith, or Fiona at times, he seemed a bit lost. When he finally learns some things about Jacob, he realises he needs to change and fix his relationships. In doing that, his whole life gets better. I liked Faith and Fiona, I’m glad they got on. Dan needs them both to steady him and help him grow up a bit. An interesting and quirky read.
*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 