Book Review: In the light of what we see – Sarah Painter

The blurb

Brighton, 1938: Grace Kemp is pushed away by the family she has shamed. Rejected and afraid, she begins a new life as a nurse. But danger stalks the hospital too, and she’ll need to be on her guard to avoid falling into familiar traps. And then there are the things she sees…Strange portents that have a way of becoming real.

Eighty years later, Mina Morgan is brought to the same hospital after a near-fatal car crash. She is in terrible pain but recalls nothing. She’s not even sure whom to trust. Mina too sees things that others cannot, but now, in hospital, her visions are clearer than ever…

Two women, separated by decades, are drawn together by a shared space and a common need to salvage their lives.

My Review:

Format: Kindle

Pages: 330 Pages

My Rating: 4 stars

I know you should never judge a book by the cover, however, this cover is beautiful and totally swayed me when I was hunting for a book to request of NetGallery!

This is the story of two women who at first appear very different both set in the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton

Grace – its 1938 and Grace has been sent away from home after a traumatic event to be a Student Nurse only things do not go as well as she hoped

Mina – Its the present day and Mina, who is a radiographer at the hospital gets injured in a car crash and has temporary memory loss.

Initially it appears the two women are very different but as the stories progress they both have similarities and become almost connected.

I loved this book, I like the alternate chapter arrangement of the two characters, I was quickly hooked and ended up reading the last half of the book in one sitting as I was eager to find out what happened!

*I received a free copy of this book from Net Gallery after requesting it to review*

Book Review: Stitch Head – The Monster Hunter – Guy Bass

The Blurb:

He’s back! Join Stitch Head, a mad professor’s forgotten creation, as he steps out of the shadows into the adventure of an almost-lifetime…

When an unexpected visitor crash-lands on top of Castle Grotteskew, Stitch Head knows it can only mean trouble. Eccentric explorer, Dotty Dauntless, has bet her fortune on delivering a monster to the Venture Club – the problem is, all the castle’s monsters are as meek as kittens…

My Review:

Format: Paperback

Pages: 208 Pages

Series: Stitch Head #6

My Rating: 5 stars

***The publisher sent me this book free of charge in order to provide an honest review***

The boys love it when they get a book to review and couldn’t wait to start this as their bedtime story for the week, I was a little apprehensive as it was book 6 of a series and I do like to start a series at book one, however as it happened it did not impact at all on the enjoyment of the story and everything made sense!

This is the story of stitch head a friendly monster living in a castle with a professor who  makes very scary monsters with something called “beast yeast” stitch head adores his master but spends all of his time using his “least beast” potion to make the monsters less scary.

This story focus’s on the dramas which unfold when the explorer Dotty Dauntless turns up to bag herself a scary monster.

This is a chapter book but has some absolutely fantastic illustrations which really add to the story.

The boys opinions:

J: Loved the twist at the end and the unexpected monster!

A: Loved how exciting the final twist was at the end of the story

 

Book Review: We are all completely beside ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler

The Blurb

Rosemary’s young, just at college, and she’s decided not to tell anyone a thing about her family. So we’re not going to tell you too much either: you’ll have to find out for yourselves, round about page 77, what it is that makes her unhappy family unlike any other.

Rosemary is now an only child, but she used to have a sister the same age as her, and an older brother. Both are now gone – vanished from her life. There’s something unique about Rosemary’s sister, Fern. And it was this decision, made by her parents, to give Rosemary a sister like no other, that began all of Rosemary’s trouble. So now she’s telling her story: full of hilarious asides and brilliantly spiky lines, it’s a looping narrative that begins towards the end, and then goes back to the beginning. Twice.

It’s funny, clever, intimate, honest, analytical and swirling with ideas that will come back to bite you. When you’re telling a friend about it, you do decide to spill the beans about Fern – it’s pretty hard to resist – don’t worry. One of the few studies Rosemary doesn’t quote says that spoilers actually enhance reading.

My Review

Format: Kindle

Pages: 348 pages

My Rating: 5 stars

I downloaded this book a year ago and it has been sitting on my Kindle untouched, I started it recently as am trying to read my existing books before I buy more! I was apprehensive about reading this as it has mixed reviews and a few of my goodreads friends had rated it low.

This is the story of three siblings, two (Fern and Lowell) who go away and Rosemary who is left to tell the story of their life together and apart. It’s quite a complex story, yet at the sametime an easy read to get absorbed into.

I was hooked as soon as I started reading this book, I didn’t know the twist before I started reading and guessed a few things but was totally wrong. I can’t deny I got that part of the book and thought “WHAAAAATTTT??? Nooooooooo!” and was surprised and slightly put off initially, but then I got over it and was eager to find out what happened, after that I couldn’t put it down.

 

 

 

Book Review: Calling all Services, Tara Ford

The Blurb says:

Calling All Services is the first book in the Calling All… series.
Alex Frey, successful businesswoman, wife and mother to a busy and demanding family, doesn’t find it easy to take a break. So when she’s hospitalised with a mysterious illness, paralysed and afraid of what the future might bring, frustration meets fear and she can’t wait to escape the hospital, get back in control of things and return her family to the normality of salmon paste sandwiches.
At home, her husband Grant is determined to manage the kids, Alex’s parents, his sister and anything else life can throw at him while his wife is away recuperating. But what else can possibly go wrong while Alex is in hospital? The Frey family is about to find out. . .

My Review:

Format – Kindle

Pages – 323 pages

Series – Calling all… #1

My rating – an undecided 3.5 – 4 stars!

I chose this book as a nice easy read and that it definitely was. I read it in a few evenings and the storyline did keep me intrigued as to what would happen next.

The storyline of the Mum going into hospital and the household falling apart without her is certainly easy to relate to and I did enjoy it, there was just something missing for me and I can’t really decide what it was! Which is why I gave it the 3.5 – 4 stars.

(I use the Goodreads ratings of 5 – excellent/ 4- very good / 3 – good / 2 – ok/ 1 – didn’t enjoy)

 

 

 

 

Book Review: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4 – Sue Townsend

The Blurb:

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ is the first book in Sue Townsend’s brilliantly funny Adrian Mole series.

Friday January 2nd
I felt rotten today. It’s my mother’s fault for singing ‘My Way’ at two o’clock in the morning at the top of the stairs. Just my luck to have a mother like her. There is a chance my parents could be alcoholics. Next year I could be in a children’s home.

Meet Adrian Mole, a hapless teenager providing an unabashed, pimples-and-all glimpse into adolescent life. Writing candidly about his parents’ marital troubles, the dog, his life as a tortured poet and ‘misunderstood intellectual’, Adrian’s painfully honest diary is still hilarious and compelling reading thirty years after it first appeared.

Bestselling author Sue Townsend has been Britain’s favourite comic writer for over three decades.

‘I not only wept, I howled and hooted and had to get up and walk around the room and wipe my eyes so that I could go on reading’ Tom Sharpe

‘A satire of our times. Very funny indeed’ Sunday Times

‘We laugh both at Mole and with him. A wonderful comic read, that, like all the best comedy, says something rather meaningful’ Heat

Sue Townsend is Britain’s favourite comic author. Her hugely successful novels include eight Adrian Mole books, The Public Confessions of a Middle-Aged Woman (Aged 55¾), Number Ten, Ghost Children, The Queen and I, Queen Camilla and The Woman Who Went to Bed For a Year, all of which are highly acclaimed bestsellers. She has also written numerous well-received plays. She lives in Leicester, where she was born and grew up.The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ is the first book in Sue Townsend’s brilliantly funny Adrian Mole series. Friday January 2nd I felt rotten today. It’s my mother’s fault for singing ‘My Way’ at two o’clock in the morning at the top of the stairs. Just my luck to have a mother like her. There is a chance my parents could be alcoholics. Next year I could be in a children’s home.Meet Adrian Mole, a hapless teenager providing an unabashed, pimples-and-all glimpse into adolescent life. Writing candidly about his parents’ marital troubles, the dog, his life as a tortured poet and ‘misunderstood intellectual’, Adrian’s painfully honest diary is still hilarious and compelling reading thirty years after it first appeared.Bestselling author Sue Townsend has been Britain’s favourite comic writer for over three decades.’I not only wept, I howled and hooted and had to get up and walk around the room and wipe my eyes so that I could go on reading’ Tom Sharpe’A satire of our times. Very funny indeed’ Sunday Times ‘We laugh both at Mole and with him. A wonderful comic read, that, like all the best comedy, says something rather meaningful’ Sue Townsend is Britain’s favourite comic author. Her hugely successful novels include eight Adrian Mole books, The Public Confessions of a Middle-Aged Woman (Aged 55¾), Number Ten, Ghost Children, The Queen and I, Queen Camilla and The Woman Who Went to Bed For a Year, all of which are highly acclaimed bestsellers. She has also written numerous well-received plays. She lives in Leicester, where she was born and grew up.

My Review:

Format – Kindle

Pages – 276 Pages

Series – Adrian Mole #1

My Rating – 4 stars

I’ve been on a bit of a role recently re-reading books from my teens first I re-read all the Helen Cresswell books, then Judy Blume and now Adrian Mole.

I think everyone is familiar with Adrian Mole, the life of a 13 year old in the eighties through reading his private diary.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this much more than I did as a teen, it did make me laugh out loud and reminded me how everything is a major drama at that age. I laughed out loud at a lot of the book. It was interesting to be reminded how the book is from a time when on a Sunday there really was nothing to do and if you didn’t go to a bank or the shops before a bank holiday you had to do without!

Would definitely recommend this as a good book to reread as an adult and have put the others on my Amazon wishlist but they are very short books for £4.99 so hope to grab them if they are ever on a deal of the day!

 

 

 

Book Review: Monster and Chips – David O’Connell

The blurb says says:

Meet the amazing monster customers and sample the foul-food served up daily at Fuzzby’s diner – the brilliant setting for this innovative series from debut author and illustrator, David O’Connell.

Somewhere in suburbia, or maybe smack-bang in the middle of your city, there is a very special diner. What’s so special about it? Well it does the best chips ANYWHERE but also its customers are a little bit ‘unusual’… some people say they are monsters… The diner is hard to find, you have to look carefully, in fact some people say only a special kind of kid can find this special kind of diner. But maybe that kid could be you?

When Joe the ‘hooman’ gets a job at Fuzzby’s diner, he learns to bake zombie-cupcakes, exploding milkshakes and not to stare at the customers – even the ones who are see-through. He also foils a terrible plan to sabotage the annual Grand Cooking Competition.

My Review

Format – Paperback

Pages – 192 Pages

Series – Monster and Chips Book 1

My Rating – 5 stars

This book was chosen by my 9 year old Jake for our bedtime story, it is a chapter book and it took three night for us to read it, we probably read for longer each night than we usually would as a) the chapters are quite long and b) we really could not put it down!

The book is very funny and full of disgusting meal combinations which really do make your stomach churn! The illustrations make the book and we really enjoyed how they were incorporated into the story enabling us to read them as we went along without losing the flow of the book.

Book Review: Alone in the Dark – Karen Rose

The Blurb says:

In ALONE IN THE DARK, Karen Rose – the Sunday Timesbestselling author of CLOSER THAN YOU THINK – returns with a breath-taking new novel in the Cincinnati series – would you cross the line between danger and desire, justice and revenge? A desperate hunt to find a young girl’s killer is about to turn deadly…

Former Army Ranger Marcus O’Bannion and homicide cop Scarlett Bishop have met only briefly but when Scarlett receives a phone call in the middle of the night, she immediately recognises the hauntingly smooth voice asking her to meet him in one of Cincinnati’s roughest areas.

On arriving, Scarlett finds the body of a seventeen-year-old Asian girl and Marcus injured. A fierce champion of victims’ rights, Marcus claims the young woman was working for an affluent local family and the last time he saw her she was terrified, abused, and clearly in need of help. Having agreed to meet her, both Marcus and the young woman were targeted for death.

As they investigate, Scarlett and Marcus are pulled into the dangerous world of human trafficking where they soon realise they are going to have to become as ruthless as those they are hunting.

Because if they don’t, how many other girls may end up alone in the dark?

My Review

Format – Kindle eBook

Pages – 608 pages

Series – The Cincinnati Series Book 2

My Rating – 4 stars

I was introduced to Karen Rose by a friend and started with “Closer than you think” which was the first book in this Cincinnati series and I loved it. I then tried a few of her other books but found them a little bit too gruesome!

I decided to try again when I saw that this,  the second book in the Cincinnati series, had been released. I was initially skeptical about how Karen Rose could match Deacon and Faith’s romance in the first book, but she did. Deacon is quite a prominent character in this series and Faith crops up here and there, however the main romance this time is between Faith’s cousin Marcus and Deacon’s partner Scarlett.

I would say this book although gruesome in places is slightly less so than the first, which for me was a good thing and kept me gripped throughout. The story follows on from the first book well, but I think it could also be read as a stand alone book without too much confusion.