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 […]
I just can’t seem to help myself, but I always end up coming back to Lisa Jewell. She’s the Cadbury Dairy Milk of authors in my mind. Reliably delicious stories that never disappoint, always hit the mark, leaving you satisfied and yes, wanting more. Chances are that if I don’t know what to read, perhaps […]
Every now and then you read a book that you just love so much, that you wish you could move inside it, inhabiting the very world in which it is set. This is how I felt as I read The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow. I actually don’t really know how […]
There are some books that are just written to become movies and I have to say that, with the right casting, The French Girl by Lexie Elliott could be one of them! I chanced across this book whilst having a wander through Bookshop Santa Cruz, and yet again it was another simple case of liking […]
If you want a great recommendation for the perfect holiday read, then I think that Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions might be it. Mario Giordano’s light hearted tale, tells of Auntie Poldi who has recently moved from Bavaria to Sicily, to enjoy the warmth and food at the latter end of her life. When […]
My twelve year old son loves a good conspiracy theory and, whilst I like to listen to him share whatever ‘story’ he has found online or heard at school, I suppose that I have always been pretty dismissive of such things and the adults who propound them. The events of 9/11 are never far from […]
Every now and then a writer comes along that really excites you because she, or he, is just so amazingly different. It doesn’t always have to be a high-brow reading experience that challenges conventions of grammar or story construction. Sometimes it can just be a writer that is fun to read and hard to put […]
I think that the last time I wrote about a Lisa Jewell book I felt exhausted. A little worn out after having read so many of her novels in a relatively short period of time, a few of which had made me feel profoundly sad. When I picked up Watching You I felt that I […]
A few years ago, probably decades in the land of celebrities but a heartbeat ago to the rest of us, Charlize Theron dated Sean Penn. You probably don’t really care, after all, what are the lives of celebrities to us mere mortals, but for a brief period of time they were an intriguing ‘it couple’, […]
There are certain books that you read which are impossible not to find profoundly disturbing. I’m not talking here of murders stories or supernatural tales, but the rather more mundane. The novels where you find yourself questioning whether something so simple is actually possible? The problem being that, if you believe it is, then could […]
Nutshell Book Reviews 