⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “Where hope is found” is an intense emotionally-driven story about a young woman, Marissa, dealing with horrendous loss and desperately trying to make it through to the other side of her overwhelming grief. With the help of her family, including her brother Owen and their children, Marissa relocates to…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The House of Rougeaux is a sweeping multi-generational family history, beginning in the late 18th century on the isle of Martinique where we are introduced to the healer Abeje (Marie) and her brother Adunbi (Guillaume), bonded slaves and the children of Iya, who was herself brought over from Africa…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️➕ I found this gorgeous picture book incredibly endearing. (It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that I teared up at the end of it, so touched was I by the messaging and so deeply did it resonate with me). From the very first notes, drifting across the park to…
This outstanding addition to the DCI Alan Banks series, (#27), delivers everything you would expect from this author, (whose characters just keep getting better with age) and at the same time, introduces a bit of a wistful and nostalgic tone that makes me wonder if changes are afoot in this…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ “Revenge. Secrets and Lies” is a chatty, engrossing story revolving initially around four pensioners, (two couples), living in a quiet British village. The author does a wonderful job introducing us into the everyday life and quaint charm of this community and these characters, who feel like people you may…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Emotional. Thoughtful. Poignant. Eva (Evangeline) is a twenty eight year old woman, a photographer, who is fascinated with old and crumbling things. Eva becomes part of a group of “urban explorers” who visit derelict and abandoned buildings - each of them looking for beauty and yearning for a connection…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️➕ This book took my breath away. Literally. Towards the very end of the story, I became aware that I was holding my breath, allowing in only tight short intakes, afraid to disturb the rhythm of the space I had dropped into, not wanting it to ever end. This is…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ What happens when your world is suddenly unrecognizable - when everything, everyone, you thought you knew; in fact, you built your life around; is suddenly, dramatically (explosively) shifted. Meet Lexi Greenwood. Wife. Mother. Friend. Lexi and her family live in a quiet middle-class British suburb just outside of London.…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Please tell me this will be a series! Set in the year 1910 in and around London, “The Wrong Sort to Die” completely captivated me from page one, and I found it hard to stop reading until I was all done. Our main protagonist, Margaret, is a sharp, gutsy,…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I adore first-person present-tense novels. There is something so claustrophobic, so intense, so jumpy about being in another person’s head as their world unfolds - whether real or imagined, you feel it all, and in the slowly building structure of a novel that reads like a emotionally-dizzying journal, the…