The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo had been sitting on my bedside table ever since I finished Daisy Jones and the Six. Daisy Jones had really enthused me about the writing of Taylor Jenkins Reid and I wanted more. The weird thing is, that once I bought this book, I let it languish. I had […]
In what currently feels like a lifetime ago, I discovered Nina Revoyr and her wonderful novel about life amongst the super elite in LA, A Student of History. It opened up to me an LA that I had no idea existed and that has fascinated me ever since. Although I hadn’t exactly forgotten Revoyr recently, […]
The last few weeks have posed a reading challenge, and part of that has been caused by meeting the right book at the wrong time. As you may already know, I live in the lovely coastal town of Santa Cruz, California. About three weeks ago now, we experienced the most spectacular electrical storm. It was […]
It has been roughly twelve months since The Husband and I parted ways and in that period of time I feel like I have done nothing but try to start over. In my reality, this doesn’t mean romantic entanglements, so much as emotional upheaval, jobs and taking care of teenage kids. It has been a […]
Perhaps I should start this review by stating, sadly, that How to Find Love in a Bookshop is not a self-help book for the recently separated. If it were, I expect it would be nearly impossible to find a copy! Veronica Henry’s novel is, of course, a love story of the fictional kind and oddly, […]
I couldn’t quite put my finger on what Midnight Blue reminded me of, and then it hit me: waiting rooms. I know that sounds like an awful thing to say and a damning summary of the book, but let me explain. I’m in my late forties and, in an era before phones, you might […]
This week a friend of mine posted a question to Facebook, asking what the first thing we would like to do is when the quarantine is over might be? I’m notoriously bad about responding to such things, but it did make me think. I know that I want to go out with friends and eat […]
Sometimes I can’t help but pause and wonder whether, as a reader, the books we read find us, rather than vice versa? This idea has been playing around in my brain over the last few days, as I finished two of the loveliest books, both of which provided much needed respite from the pandemic that […]
It took me a couple of months of dallying in front of the top picks table at Bookshop Santa Cruz, before I finally picked up The Great Alone and walked it to the counter. I had been wooed by the cover, tempted by the author, moved by the remote setting and yet, a book about […]
I have always had a soft spot for novels that use a variety of formats to tell their story. When You Read This by Mary Adkins, is one such novel, with the narrative divided between emails and blog posts. I read this novel just before the COVID-19 outbreak, back in the days when life was […]
Nutshell Book Reviews 