prdgreads

Today is my stop on the blog tour for the incredible love songs for sceptics by Christina Pishiris thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part and thank you to Simon and Schuster for my copy.

Pages: 464

Synopsis: My brother’s getting married in a few weeks and asked for help picking a song for his first dance. I suggested Kiss’s ‘Love’s a Slap in the Face’.

It didn’t go down well.

When she was a teenager, Zoë Frixos fell in love with Simon Baxter, her best friend and the boy next door. But his family moved to America before she could tell him how she felt and, like a scratched record, she’s never quite moved on. Now, almost twenty years later, Simon is heading back to London, newly single and as charming as ever . . .

But as obstacles continue to get in her way – Simon’s perfect ex-girlfriend, her brother’s big(ish) fat(ish) Greek wedding, and an obnoxious publicist determined to ruin her career – Zoë begins to wonder whether, after all these years, she and Simon just aren’t meant to be.

What if, despite what all the songs and movies say, your first love isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be? What if, instead Zoë and Simon are forever destined to shuffle around their feelings for each other, never quite getting the steps right . . .

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: I absolutely adored this book, I won’t give too much away in my review because I want to encourage you all to pick it up & not just tell you the story 😂

We follow Zoe, who is a bit of a Debbie downer when it comes to love, mainly because she has been in love with her childhood best friend Simon for as long as she can remember and the feelings have never been reciprocated, but when she gets the news through Zak that Simon is returning to the UK could this be her chance?

Throw in a wedding to prepare for, a failing business, band members that have got too big for their boots & a publicist who seems to do everything in his power to sabotage Zoe’s attempts to save her job, what follows is absolutely hilarious at times, heartbreaking in others but is ultimately impossible to put down!

This is one of those few books I read that I wish I hadn’t just so i could experience it again for the first time 😍

Thank you to Christina for giving me the chance to read her debut novel

🐧❤️

Today is my stop on the blog tour for The Assistant by Cathryn Grant, thank you to Emma at Damp Pebbles Blog Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part and thank you to NetGalley & inkubator books for my copy.

Pages: 306

Synopsis: Two women. One office. A fight to the death.

Laura has sacrificed a lot for her high-powered career – her marriage, the chance to have kids. Now, finally, she’s in line for a big jump up the corporate ladder – all the way to the boardroom.

But there’s a fly in the ointment in the shape of beautiful Vanessa, a lowly assistant who seems to have it in for Laura.

Vanessa is PA to Hank, the most powerful executive in the company, a man whose support Laura desperately needs if she is to secure the job of her dreams. Repelled by Laura’s naked ambition, fiercely possessive of her boss, Vanessa deliberately sabotages Laura’s every attempt to make a good impression on Hank.

Laura threatens and cajoles but Vanessa just won’t play fair. Soon their mutual dislike escalates to an all-out war.

But career-obsessed Laura has always been willing to do whatever it takes to get ahead. And if Vanessa stands in her way… she’s going to pay the ultimate price.

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧.5

My Thoughts: this was an enjoyable read, we follow Laura, who after giving up everything for her career is ready to make the next step and it seems like she’s almost there but one person stands in her way. The Executives assistant Vanessa.

Vanessa is very anal about Hanks time, who gets to see him and when is a delicate thing and there is no way you can get to see him without an appointment! – when she notices Laura always hanging around the office trying to catch Hank unawares it seems Vanessa will do anything to stop that from happening – she’s the assistant that’s her job, right?

Things aren’t as perfect for Laura as she likes to portray to the world, she has a very strict routine with herself, one thing being running very early every morning! One morning she notices someone else has joined her on the track & thinks nothing of it until a few days later and decides to take matters into her own hands!

The story was fast paced I read it in one sitting & would recommend to fans of mysteries, I wouldn’t necessarily say this one was a thriller, but it had left me intrigued enough to look at Cathryn’s back catalogue!

🐧❤️

Today is my stop on the blog tour for Finding Love at the Christmas Market by Jo Thomas, Thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part.

Pages: 352

Synopsis: Residential-home caterer Connie has had one online-dating disaster too many. Hurt in the past and with her son to consider, now she’s feeling hesitant. Then one of Connie’s residents sets her up on a date at a beautiful German Christmas market – with the promise she’ll take a mini-bus full of pensioners with her…

Amongst the twinkling lights and smell of warm gingerbread in the old market square, Connie heads off on her date with a check-list of potential partner must-haves. Baker Henrich ticks all the boxes, but when Connie meets Henrich’s rival William, she starts to wonder if ticking boxes is the answer.

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: it’s never too early for a Christmas book, right? Soppy Christmas romances are one of my favourite genres & this one was my first of the year & it didn’t disappoint, what an absolute delight it was!

We follow Connie, who has agreed to take the residents of the residential home she provides meals to on a trip to Germany, to scatter the ashes of Elsie – a recently deceased resident of the home who always has dreams of returning to Germany to experience the Christmas markets of her childhood again. Throw in a dare with Heinrich who Connie has been speaking with online!

One caterer and a bunch of OAP’s on an adventure to Germany – What could possibly go wrong? 😂

What follows is hilarious, heartwarming and heartbreaking in equal measure.

We work out that life doesn’t have to become boring when you’re old and frail, that the seemingly perfect man isn’t always the right one (sometimes you just have to look at what’s right in front of you)

And more than anything that if people work together they can achieve anything they put their mind to!

I absolutely adored this and will be picking up more from Jo in the future 🥰

🐧❤️

Today is my stop on the blog tour for The Course of Conviction by Cheryl Butler, thank you to Emma at Damp Pebbles Blog Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part

Pages: 402

Synopsis: Having responded to Abbie’s absence in his own inimitable style, an unexpected reconciliation sees Joe conflicted by a need to seek revenge and a need to seek gratification, but as he wavers between hope and hatred, an unlikely reunion throws all those involved into further turmoil, deepening wounds and threatening fragile minds. Battling for normalcy, accusations and revelations abound until a devastating discovery proves almost fatal. There are lessons to be learned and theories to challenge, but who is really responsible for the endless stream of fear and betrayal? Dark minds and dirty deeds will only cause destruction when obsession knows no bounds. Explicit – strictly 18+

My Rating 🐧🐧🐧🐧

My thoughts: I was originally worried about going into this given how much i enjoyed book 1 – sometimes the first book can generate so much buzz and be so highly rated that the sequel can flop, however with this that definitely wasn’t the case!

The story picks up right where the first one ended & let me tell you that if you thought a proclivity to prurience was gripping, twisty and full of sexual chemistry then you haven’t seen anything yet!

The relationship between Joe and Abbie has developed so much, but also seems stuck in the same pattern of are they exclusive, or not?

This book is so much darker than the first! – you see the extreme side to Joe and the way he uses sex as a weapon, a few times whilst reading I thought to myself that’s just not right, but Cheryl makes it seem so hot at the same time 😂🤷🏻‍♀️

There are some characters in this story that I just knew were going to turn out to not be what we thought they were and I personally can not wait to see how that develops in book 3!

The only downside to this is that the chapters are really long so it can make the story feel like a slow build instead of the fast pace that you’re used to with this kind of story BUT that is totally personal preference & does not take away from the overall enjoyment!

If you love a series that will leave your feeling hot under the collar but also unsure of where the story will go & all with a dark twist then this is the one for you!

🐧❤️

Today I’m coming at you with a feature where I tell you all about the book and the author 🙂

Firstly, can we appreciate how bright and colourful the front cover is 😍

Synopsis: Chris Pringle: simpleton, casualty or local hero?

Propped up by biscuits, benefits and a baffling faith in his plan, he lives in a world where every day is obsessively the same: wedged in his recliner, watching murder mysteries, taking notes. Until the day a serious and peculiar crime stumps the local police – and Chris announces he can solve it.

Accompanied by a loyal crew of chancers, committed to making amends, and pursued by a depressed Detective Inspector, trying to join the dots, Chris heads back to the raves of his past, where a heartbreaking personal tragedy lies abandoned. But what exactly is Chris Pringle looking for? Has he really worked out the way to find it? And what will happen if he does?

About the Author: Billy Moran is an award-winning television writer who is obsessed with music, TV detectives and how to solve the ultimate mystery: happiness.

He grew up in Dorset in the 1980s, recording the Top 40 and feeding apples to cows for entertainment, until the Second Summer of Love, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the rise of Madchester changed everything – Billy fell truly in love with music and daydreaming, and nothing has ever been the same for him again.

Billy has been a successful game show inventor, comedy podcaster and now writer, working on shows including the multiple BAFTA-winning Horrible Histories. ‘Don’t Worry, Everything Is Going To Be Amazing’ is his debut mystery novel, and it reflects not just the incredible freedom of the early 90s, but the struggle that many of his generation have had to feel they belong ever since. It’s a book about the questions we all have, and the way one very simple man uses his love of whodunits to try and answer them.

Billy lives in London, returning regularly to the West Country. He has two children, two cats and one football team.

BUY THE BOOK HERE! 😍

🐧❤️

Today is my stop on the blog tour for Jesse’s Girl by Tara September, thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part & thank you to Tara for providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Pages: 144

Synopsis: Jessie’s got himself a girl and I want to make her mine!

Successful Texas lawyer, Reade Walker, curses that damn song every time it plays, all too aware of the irony of its lyrics. After all, he has been secretly and painfully enamored with Jesse’s girl, Gwen, for nearly a decade. It was love at first sight for him, but sadly she’s not his girl. She belongs to the one man who betrayed him and knows Reade’s hidden family secret. Yet Reade can’t seem to love anyone except the one woman he can’t have. Or can he make her mine?

When Gwen Clark’s senator husband runs off with his intern and all their money, the ensuing scandal turns her life upside down. Deserted, penniless and desperate to provide for her six-year-old daughter, Gwen has no one to turn to but Reade Walker. The one man her heart desperately wants, but her pride dreads having to ask for help. Despite welcoming them into his home, it seems like Reade can barely stand being in the same room with her anymore, let alone under the same roof—in the same bedroom. But Gwen is determined to get her life back on track. It is past time to rediscover her own dreams…if only she can keep her aching heart from breaking all over again.

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: I normally set the scene in my reviews, but the synopsis does a pretty good job of that and I’d just be repeating myself so I won’t do that 😂

For such a short book this has me feeling some serious emotions! – Anger at Jesse, sadness for Gwen and just total heartbreak for Maddie who through no fault of her own lost her little family unit and her home with no real understanding as to why. (I know I know so did Gwen) but mehhh shoot me.

With no real thought as to what she will do next Gwen decides that since Jesse has taken everything from under her including the house, the money and with all the material things any stability that she may have been able to keep for Maddies sake she decides its time to move away.

Little does she know that Reade is on his way home from a business trip trying to work out how he can pull her out of the hole she’s inadvertently found herself in… Will he succeed?

What follows is an absolutely beautiful story of friends rediscovering a love that they’ve both felt but ignored for so long. – I really enjoyed witnessing Gwen finally realise that she isn’t alone and that it’s ok for her to find solace in another mans arms even if it is someone she met through her ex husband.

Reades total devotion to both Gwen and Maddie was another powerful aspect in the story, he was willing to change his life and living arrangements to fit around them.

He had a softer side, but could also be bossy and slightly controlling too, but never nasty with it.

I didn’t want the story to end, I need to know what happened with Jesse and want to read more about Reade and Gwen & hoe their relationship develops!

🐧❤️

Pages: 384

Synopsis: Eudora Honeysett is done – with all of it. Having seen first-hand what a prolonged illness can create, the eighty-five-year-old has no intention of leaving things to chance. With one call to a clinic in Switzerland she takes her life into her own hands.

But then ten-year-old Rose arrives in a riot of colour on her doorstep. Now, as precocious Rose takes Eudora on adventures she’d never imagined she reflects on the trying times of her past and soon finds herself wondering – is she ready for death when she’s only just experienced what it’s like to truly live?

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: Oh god this book got me right in the feels 😩

When I was 10 I befriended my next door neighbour after her husband died, – unfortunately she died 10 years ago.

This story was like a walk down memory lane,

I felt Eudora’s loneliness which broke my heart, and I honestly saw myself in Rose, I was that annoying child who would walk into next doors house and say “hello it’s me from number 3”

I loved seeing their relationship blossom and experience rose slowly breaking down Eudora walls.

There was a completely heartbreaking element to the story that I honestly couldn’t get out of head, I was lucky enough to get the ebook and the audiobook from netgalley & read them at the same time, I was listening to the audiobook but I had my kindle in my hand reading along.

I highly recommenced the audiobook, it added something special to the story. & I can honestly say that this story will stay with me for a long long time

🐧❤️

Today is my stop on the blog tour for Back to School by Jack Sheffield, thank you to Anne at Random Things tours for organising it and inviting me to take part

Pages: 338

Synopsis: The year is 1969 and Jack Sheffield is a young teacher in need of a job.

In a room full of twenty-nine other newly qualified teachers, he’s overjoyed when he’s appointed to Heather View Primary. Jack is excited to start his first year there and to begin shaping young minds in a beautiful new location on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales.

But Heather View isn’t as idyllic as it first sounds. In fact, it looks more like a prison than a primary school. With less than adequate funding and a head teacher who doesn’t seem to care, it’s no easy task to give the kids the education they deserve. But Jack’s determined to do just that.

Full of warmth and good humour, Back to School is like taking a nostalgic walk through the past to a simpler time…

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧🐧

My thoughts: when I went into this I had no idea that this was a memoir, but once I realised it just added to the overall feel of it.

This was such a beautiful story, of a newly qualified teacher starting a new job and learning that not every school is the same. – I loved jacks “character” he was so likeable, but wasn’t afraid to stand up for himself or what he believed in.

All of the people in here were different, and I fell in love with most of them, although I have to be honest I didn’t like Norman at all 😂

As a 90’s baby it was a real insight into what schools were like in the late 60’s, a lot of it was different but some of the aspects were the same too.

Knowing that this is actually book 13 in a series makes me want to go back and start at the beginning.

Thank you Jack for turning your life into a story and allowing me to be a part of its journey into print.

🐧❤️

Today is my stop on the blog tour for The Dentist by Tim Sullivan, thank you to Emma at damp pebbles blog tours for organising it and inviting me to take part.

Pages: 360

Synopsis:A homeless man. Violently strangled. No leads. Except his past

An outsider himself, DS George Cross is drawn to this case. The discovery of the dead man’s connection to an old cold case then pulls Cross in further. Convinced this is where the answer to the murder lies, he sets about solving another that someone has spent the past fifteen years thinking they’ve got away with.

Cross’ relentless obsession with logic, detail and patterns is what makes him so irritatingly brilliant. It doesn’t exactly make him popular with colleagues or his superiors, though. He has numerous enemies in the force wanting to see him fail.

Red flags are soon raised as suspicious inconsistencies and errors in the original detective’s investigation come to light. Now retired, this ex-cop has powerful friends in the force and a long-standing dislike of Cross.

Set in picturesque Bristol in the Southwest of England, it’s not long before the city reveals its dark underbelly, in a case of intriguing twists and turns whose result astonishes even those involved.

Difficult and awkward, maybe. But Cross has the best conviction rate in Avon & Somerset Police. By far. Will this case put an end to that?

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧.5

My thoughts: at first the case seems simple, cut and dry a dead homeless man, killed by another homeless man, but something makes George Cross dig deeper – he has Asperger’s syndrome, he’s not happy with the conclusion everyone else seems to have drawn and despite the case seemingly solved he carries on with his own investigation.

What he digs up could solve a past murder and find the real perpetrator for the current one.. are they linked?

I had a soft spot for George, I have a stepbrother with autism so I sae a lot of him in George, I felt the aspect of Aspergers was dealt with accurately and sensitively, it’s always a worry when specific conditions are mentioned that they are not going to be portrayed in the right way!

The investigation itself was fairly straight forward and easy to follow as well as throwing some twists in there too which was appreciated, especially with it being the first in a series I do feel it’s always important to introduce the lead characters properly to help us grow attached to them.

I loved this story so much that I actually forced myself to make it last, as much as I wanted to know what happened and for the case(s) to be solved, I wasn’t actually ready to let go of or say goodbye to the characters and I personally can not wait to give back into the series with book 2 when I get chance.

🐧❤️

Today is my stop on the blog tour for Deadline by Geoff Major Thank you to Emma at Damp Pebbles blog tours for organising it and inviting me to take part!

Pages: 446

Synopsis: Adam Ferranti was a talented American journalist, who moved to England to escape the issues surrounding his fall from glory at the Washington Post; only to be thrust back in it when a mysterious serial killer makes him his confidante.

DS Stephanie Walker is a member of the West Yorkshire Police. Whilst tough and results-driven at work, she hides the abuse she suffers at home. She finds Ferranti annoying but he’s her only chance to stay close to what the killer is planning next. 

Ferranti reluctantly complies with the Police, but when the killer reveals himself it suddenly gets personal.

My Rating: 🐧🐧🐧🐧🐧

My Thoughts: this book was incredible, it’s a long one for a crime thriller, but one that I really struggled to put down!

We follow Adam, a hot shot American journalist who has moved to England and is now working for the Yorkshire Post, he gets to work and gets a phone call telling him about a murder that has already happened telling him to go to the police and “heed the note”

What follows is truly gripping, complex but yet easy to follow, the characters were so deep and complex that I found myself really invested in all of their lives.

There was one part in particular that absolutely broke my heart and I had to read it twice to make sure I hadn’t read it wrong 💔

I could honestly rave about this book for ages – the story was scarily believable and the twists and turns didn’t stop.

I for one did not see the ending coming, I actually gasped when it was revealed!

Just go and buy it and experience it for yourself, I promise you’ll love it!

🐧❤️