⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️➕ 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…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ What an absolute delight! This picture book, written by a New Jersey psychologist (and spectacularly illustrated by an amazing artist) tells the story of Blossom, a tall and gangly sunflower, and Bud, a little stem, not yet fully opened, who share space in Mr. Baxters floral shop with an…
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ It’s been a while since I read an endearing rom-com, and I can so understand the appeal. Some days there is nothing quite like losing yourself to the pages of a charming work of fiction, - one with quirky and unusual characters, who each aren’t aware of the others…