Tag: literature
+ abuse, child abuse, childhood, family, fiction, humour fiction, List, literature, love, review, sisters, sixties, supernatural
My 3 favourite books of 2020
It was far easier to choose my over all Top 3 than it was to choose my favourite eight from each half of the year. Why? Because once you open the floodgates it’s impossible to stop. So here goes. They are all totally different from each other, but they each hold a special place in my heart. Image thanks to Leafy Bean Co The … Read More My 3 favourite books of 2020
+ abuse, childhood, coming-of-age, crime fiction, dark humour, family, fiction, friendship, Historical fiction, humour fiction, Iceland noir, List, literature, murder, murder mystery, mystery, Psychological fiction, relationships, review, Scottish Highlands, short stories, sisters, sixties, split personality, supernatural, superstition, thriller
2020 – A Year in Books
Here is a round-up of my favourite books of 2020. Being furloughed during the first lock-down, I got used to reading far more books than in previous years and it also saw the beginning of my new ‘career’ taking part in blog tours. The following are not just from those blog tours, but also NetGalley and Pigeonhole reads. I hope 2021 has as many … Read More 2020 – A Year in Books
+ abuse, brothers, child abuse, childhood, family, family drama, fiction, literature, religion, review, sisters
Girl A by Abigail Dean
‘Girl A,’ she said. ‘The girl who escaped. If anyone was going to make it, it was going to be you.’ Lex Gracie doesn’t want to think about her family. She doesn’t want to think about growing up in her parents’ House of Horrors. And she doesn’t want to think about her identity as Girl A: the girl who escaped. When her mother dies … Read More Girl A by Abigail Dean
+ abuse, anthology, crime fiction, dark humour, fiction, humour fiction, Iceland noir, List, literature, murder, mystery, politics, Psychological fiction, relationships, review, Scandi noir, thriller
My 8 favourite books of 2020 second half
Earlier this year I published my Top 8 books of the first half of 2020. These are my Top 8 books of the second half of the year. There are so many more, but I have tried to cut it down. Her Last Words by Kim Kelly There is something very personal about Her Last Words. It feels as though the author has lived it … Read More My 8 favourite books of 2020 second half
Patch Work: A Life Amongst Clothes by Claire Wilcox
A linen sheet, smooth with age. A box of buttons, mother-of-pearl and plastic, metal and glass, rattling and untethered. A hundred-year-old pin, forgotten in a hem. Fragile silks and fugitive dyes, fans and crinolines, and the faint mark on leather from a buckle now lost. Claire Wilcox has worked as a curator in Fashion at the Victoria & Albert Museum for most of her … Read More Patch Work: A Life Amongst Clothes by Claire Wilcox
Fae Child by Jane-Holly Meissner
When eight-year-old Abbie Brown discovers a quiet pool of water while wandering through the woods behind her Oregon home, she wades out into it and discovers she’s not alone. A wild-haired boy in green stares at her from the other side of the water. Mesmerized, Abbie reaches down to him and is yanked underwater. #FaeChild @hanejolly #RandomThingsTours @annecater @RandomTTours She emerges on the other side as … Read More Fae Child by Jane-Holly Meissner
+ childhood, coming-of-age, family, fiction, friendship, literature, love, motherhood, relationships, review, romance, writing
Gravity Is the Thing by Jaclyn Moriarty
The adult debut from bestselling, award-winning young adult author Jaclyn Moriarty—a frequently hilarious, brilliantly observed novel—that follows a single mother’s heartfelt search for greater truths about the universe, her family and herself. Twenty years ago, Abigail Sorenson’s brother Robert went missing one day before her sixteenth birthday, never to be seen again. That same year, she began receiving scattered chapters in the mail of … Read More Gravity Is the Thing by Jaclyn Moriarty
+ fiction, friends, literature, love, relationships, review, romance, writing
Art and Soul by Claire Huston
There’s no problem Becky Watson can’t fix. Except her own love life… Struggling single mother Becky Watson longs to revive her career as a life-fixer, working miracles to solve her clients’ problems, no matter how big or small. Since the birth of her two-year-old son she has been stuck preventing wedding fiascos for the richest and rudest residents of the Comptons, a charming, leafy … Read More Art and Soul by Claire Huston
+ female friendship, fiction, friends, friendship, haunting, literature, love, relationships, review, romance, sixties, supernatural, writing
When the Music Stops by Joe Heap
This is the story of Ella. And Robert. And of all the things they should have said, but never did.‘What have you been up to?’I shrug, ‘Just existing, I guess.’‘Looks like more than just existing.’Robert gestures at the baby, the lifeboat, the ocean.‘All right, not existing. Surviving.’He laughs, not unkindly. ‘Sounds grim.’‘It wasn’t so bad, really. But I wish you’d been there.’ #WhentheMusicStops @Joe_Heap_ … Read More When the Music Stops by Joe Heap
+ family, fiction, haunting, literature, mystery, review, Scottish Highlands, secrets, supernatural, superstition, thriller, writing
Pine by Francine Toon
They are driving home from the search party when they see her. The trees are coarse and tall in the winter light, standing like men. Lauren and her father Niall live alone in the Highlands, in a small village surrounded by pine forest. When a woman stumbles out onto the road one Halloween night, Niall drives her back to their house in his pickup. … Read More Pine by Francine Toon
+ abuse, adventure, child abuse, childhood, family, fiction, literature, love, obsession, relationships, review, secrets, sisters, writing
Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone
Cat lives in Los Angeles, about as far away as she can get from her estranged twin sister El and No. 36 Westeryk Road, the imposing Gothic house in Edinburgh where they grew up. As girls, they invented Mirrorland, a dark, imaginary place under the pantry stairs full of pirates, witches, and clowns. These days Cat rarely thinks about their childhood home, or the … Read More Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone
+ anthology, crime fiction, dark humour, Detective novel, fiction, fifties, jealousy, literature, murder, murder mystery, mystery, review, short stories, short story, sixties, thriller, writing
Vintage Crime by Martin Edwards (Editor)
Vintage Crimes is a CWA anthology with a difference, celebrating members’ work over the years. The book gathers stories from the mid-1950s until the twenty-first century by great names of the past, great names of the present together with a few hidden treasures by less familiar writers. The first CWA anthology, Butcher’s Dozen, appeared in 1956, and was co-edited by Julian Symons, Michael Gilbert, … Read More Vintage Crime by Martin Edwards (Editor)
