Hannah Morgan-Lewis
A melancholy gothic novel set in two time periods, following the life of one woman. Ivy remembers a tragic fire that happened in the local Manor House and her passion for the son of the owner, whilst she is mourning the loss of her son. There are a number of mysteries and secrets she gradually unravels. This is not a fast moving novel in terms of plot, but the writing is beautifully lyrical and gives a real sense of both periods, particularly how women dealt with the senseless loss of their children during and after the war. Ivy is a well drawn character and I thought having her narrate in the first person was a good choice, particularly in the way she comes to recognise that maybe she saw things in the wrong way as a young woman. The gothic elements are subtle, there are no ghosts and things that go bump in the night, it's more related to the mysterious foreboding house full of secrets.
What a cute couple! I loved the humour and the Britishness of this book, and loved the dynamic between Elliot and Freddie, both the romance and how well they got on together and enjoyed each other's company. The bits at the wedding when Freddie was pretended to be arm candy made me grin from ear to ear. Will definitely be reading the next two in the series.
A cute festive story but I think the blushing virgin thing isn't really my thing. I also got the impression that there wasn't much to build a relationship on other than a kind of mutual obsession and family bonds as they didn't really have much in common other than being from the same place and being brothers-in-law.
Much like The Circle this is deliberately over exaggerated. I think part of the issue I found with it was that I didn't find the satire very funny and the whole thing seemed rather unworkable in real life. This could have done with some editing too, a great chunk in the middle completely abandoned the plot for ever more ludicrous schemes dreamt up by the protagonist and lapped up by her colleagues. It's undeniably clever, but I thought it lacked substance; it's just Dave repeatedly hitting you over the head with his ‘tech bad' hammer. Plus I absolutely hated the nod and a wink references to current events and even the film version of The Circle.
A hard one to rate, and I'm still wondering how many stars to give it! It was OK, but I found it a little overblown at times. I think my favourite parts were the descriptions of the staying in the country house enjoying the food and drink! Loved the idea of the sonnets, which I thought were well written, and the idea of solving clues, but I thought that more attention could have been paid to character development. Sara was particularly annoying, as there didn't seem to be much motivation for her being so awful (I am not one of those readers who avoid unlikeable characters, but I do want them to be nuanced). Sometimes it was a little hard to keep track of who was who.
A very satisfying cosy holiday romance. I loved how the author created the community around the two main characters and thought that she explored their traumas well. This isn't an explicit story, but I didn't miss the smut. I liked the plot too, it felt like a proper story rather than only centering on the romance.
A cute, short novella about two teenagers facing persecution over their sexuality and falling in love. I had a few issues with Austin being only 16 thought, although the sex is minimal, I still felt a bit uncomfortable reading about an eighteen year old making out with boy who is pretty much below the age of consent and described as small and delicate in contrast to Jace being bigger. I think it would have worked better if Austin was 18, and it was set in college.
The scene setting in the book was good, and gave a good flavour of the period, however, I found this difficult to read as someone who loves historical fiction as I didn't feel as if Georgia was being treated as a woman of her time and class. She seemed to be able to wander about at will without people questioning her, even to pubs and other places women wouldn't be able to go into without arousing suspicion. I found her an interesting main character with potential, but requiring an element of disbelief. I get that she needed to be a strong character, but it wasn't to my taste. I wasn't keen on the ending either.
I received an advanced review copy for free and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Very sweet and cosy, with lovely touches of humour. I liked both the main characters and the sense of the community, it made a nice change reading a book of this genre set in the UK, especially as the descriptions of the village traditions are very prominent. It's not too saucy, but has a nice amount of romance.
A fascinating and timely biography of a member of a Scottish landowning family who was assigned female at birth but lived life as a man and even had his birth certificate changed to reflect this. When he was forced to ‘prove' his gender in court to prevent his cousin from inheriting, this had implications that would affect trans people to this day.
Professor Playdon has obviously done a great deal of research about Ewan's life, despite the Hidden nature of the case which was kept intirely private behind court orders. There is also a wealth of history regarding how society's attitudes have changed towards LGTBQI+ people, I found it particularly fascinating how it was previously not that big a deal to change gender on your birth certificate, yet partially as a result of this case and through changing societal attitudes, this became an issue mainly to do with fear that the male priomogenitive line would survive and exclude anybody considered to be female. Ewan Forbes's treatment at the hands of the medical establishment he was a part of and by the courts is shockingly cruel at times, even how the tabloid newspapers reported on people who changed genders, yet Playdon shows the reader that the fight to live in dignity and privacy is far from over for many people.
Look, I kind of get what Dave was trying to do here, and it's very clever but this book just TRIES SO HARD. I don't think it helped that the humour totally went over my head, I think as someone who suffers from anxiety the scenes where Mae is frantically trying to get her ratings up just didn't resonate.l and I just despaired at the deliberately awful sex scenes. The characters veer from Mae being impossibly naive and totally gaslit by the company to her former boyfriend who is annoyingly preachy. I think because we see things so much from Mae's point of view, the other characters are not really developed, and it can be quite easy to become wearied of her constant navel gazing and selfishness, which is hammered home at every opportunity. Instead of allowing the reader to come to their own conclusions, the author puts huge red lights around everything, signs pointing to where to laugh, where to feel shocked and where to marvel at his brilliance. It didn't have to be written in such a simplistic way, give the reader some credit. Honestly, though Infinite Jest is a complex behemoth and DFW is ‘problematic' to put it mildly, it's far more memorable in comparison.
I thought the descriptive writing in this was really good, the characters were well drawn but ultimately I was disappointed by the issues with the pace and the emotional impact of parts of the plot on the characters and the readers. I found this was a very slow burn with what should have been some quite emotional events packed into the end in a way that felt rushed to me. I wasn't that convinced by the conclusion either, and felt that maybe I would have preferred the author to be braver.
A lovely little cosy Christmas romance. When Liza is forced to return to her deceased father's Christmas tree plantation, she is determined to sell up and move on, and to avoid her growing feelings for the handsome son of her father's business partner by setting him up with another woman. Swain has created a lovely community of Weybridge with a nicely drawn cast of characters, and I thought she handled Liza's feelings of grief well.This is unlikely to make grandma blush as it doesn't contain anything too graphic and only has one swear word.
Thanks to the Pigeonhole for allowing me access to a free review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
I loved Amanda's first book, The Wayward Girls, so I was really looking forward to this, and it didn't dissapoint! She has a real talent for creating beautifully written, sympathetic and realistic adolescent girl characters (though I would stress that this is not YA fiction, it is more of a modern ghost story).
The novel mainly explores the difficult relationship between Nell and her 12 year old stepdaughter, but also covers the mother daughter relationships of a few other inhabitants of the village where they are staying. Nell and her husband are renting a mysterious house in the village where Nell once lived, partly as a holiday and partly as Maude, the stepdaughter has had to leave school for an unknown reason. Mason creates a great ominous atmosphere with just the right amount of spooky goings on, especially when the family discovers the hiding place of the title. When the husband leaves for work reasons and they are left alone, the tension of staying in the house, their relationship and Nell's longing for a child of her own come to the forefront.
This is a really different kind of ghost story, and if you are looking for something spooky but also sensitivily written and absorbing I highly recommend it.
Although this was not the book for me, I think that other readers would really enjoy it if you are after historical romance. I did think that the heroine Vaughn was well written and spirited, and I liked how she interacted with other characters. The set up of the novel was really good, a woman working as a lawyer in a mysterious house.
I think my main problem was that to my taste, there was far more romance and pottering about in the library than gothic elements, it almost felt like the spooky parts of the story were an afterthought. Towards the end, the pace slowed down then rapidly sped up towards the conclusion, and I found the mystery element a bit bizarre, again like it was tagged on as an afterthought. In fact, I think the story would have succeeded better if the whole Curse bit was left out.
However, rated as purely a love story, I thought it worked well and I enjoyed it. I got the reference to A Secret Garden too.
I received an advanced review copy for free and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
I thought this was a beautifully written, evocative novel. Gifford has a real talent for lyrical descriptions and the characters were really well drawn. You can feel Caro's frustration at trying to fit in with the family and with the conventions of the period. The mystery at the centre was heartbreaking and I loved the story of the grandparents and the descriptions of the voyage.
I thought this was an accomplished, emotionally charged novel about family relationships. Spanning three generations, it explores how three women in a family deal with their negative experiences with men and how this affected their relationships with each other. I liked the way that the author unfolded the plots of the three women and I thought the way that she used the motif of the painting of the girl in the maze and the mystery behind it was well done. Although there are three different timelines, the voices of each of the women was distinctive and it didn't become difficult. Some of it, however, is difficult to read due to the subject matter, but this is the kind of book that will make you think.
I received an advanced review copy from Netgalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
I found this to be a far too sanitised version of the life of Wallis Simpson. I get that Holden wanted to present her in a new light, but I think she did her a bit of a disservice presenting her like she did. I doubt she was as big a socialist who was a kind to the servants and considered a great influence on the Prince of Wales, I thought her second husband was a more interesting character in the book. The great friendship with Charles seemed like a cheesy plot device, and Holden was very careful to write worshipfully of any royalty still alive. The only ones who got slated were Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, presented as a cold snobby bitch, her husband, presented a stuttering useless alcoholic and the King, presented as a booming emotional abuser obsessed with rules.
Anything Holden thought would present Wallis in a less flattering light was ignored or explained away, so what you ended up with was a fluffy romance.
Loved this utterly bonkers medieval short story translated from the original Latin. A tailor called Snowball has a few unfortunate ghostly encounters, including one with a green glowing dog! Jones really brings the story to life with some great descriptions.
Nicely illustrated and with some good historical background as well as the original Latin story with notes that Dan Jones has added showing the way that he translated it. Would make a nice Christmas present for someone who likes ghost stories and the medieval period.
I received an advanced review copy for free from Netgalley and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
A decent biography, I loved how the author described the empty lives of the Windsors and their utterly decadent lifestyle. Very interesting parts about the links to the Nazi party and some of the scandals that they were linked to. I thought the author gave a good sense of who they were, and this was highly readable. I liked the section at the end listing fiction and films/dramas about the pair. My only big criticism is that I would have liked the kindle edition to have contained some photos, particularly as there were some great descriptions of the clothes, jewels and interior design of the subjects.
This is quite a sweet tale of two valets working belowstairs, one of whom is being blackmailed by the other's brother. I enjoyed the plot and thought that the writing was mostly well done, I liked the sub plot of William attending a potentially seditious book club and the reappearance of someone from Edwin's past added an extra dimension to the story. However, this is a book for people who are easily offended in that it's unlikely to make Grandma blush! Nice if you are after those classic literature vibes where a kiss and a fumble are exciting things, but not if you are looking for spicy passionate sex scenes.
I received an advanced review copy for free and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Based on the true story of William Jackson Crawford, this delightfully spooky, gothic tale is set in 1914. After becoming suspicious that his wife is having an affair, the engineer discovers the medium Kathleen Goligher and becomes obsessed with investigating her to find out if she can really summon spirits.
Written from Crawford's point of view, I thought that he was brilliantly characterised, I especially liked his lack of sense of humour and how things completely went over his head at times. He's a wonderfully flawed man but as a reader, you do end up feeling sympathy for him. The other characters in the book are also well drawn, particularly his poor wife and long suffering family.
I found the plot spooky and gripping, with some extremely well done twists.
Add to this the fantastic atmosphere filled with period details and beautiful illustrations and this makes the ideal read for Halloween.
I received an advanced review copy for free and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
A short, but very informative read. This is an accessible account of how Andrew Wakefield sparked the MMR vaccine panic through various nefarious means such as inventing evidence and performing unnecessary, unethical tests on young children with autism in an attempt to prove his theories. Absolutely shocking how he is still making money from this, especially at the moment. Some meticulous research went into this.
Thomas Threadneedle returns from the civil war to reports from his sister that his father is having an improper relationship with his servant, who his sister accuses of witchcraft. This is a beautifully written, really different historical fiction novel which incorporates elements of mystery, magic realism and the gothic with a gripping plot and some well realised characters, particularly Thomas, the servant and the sister. I loved how the mysteries were revealed slowly and unexpectedly, this is not the kind of book where you can guess the plot easily. As historical fiction, it gave a good sense of the post civil war period, where there is a sense of society changing, particularly the role of women. I will be eagerly recommending this.