Review: To Say Nothing of the Dog

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I thought I had read this, but as they say, if it isn't in Goodreads it didn't happen.

This is a difficult book to categorise/describe. In the future time travel is a real thing, but since nothing can be brought back from the past it has fallen out of favour (can't plunder history you see). Accordingly, funding for time travel experimentation is left to wealthy eccentrics like Lady Schrapnell who is determined to rebuild Coventry Cathedral because her distant relative once visited the Cathedral in the 1880s, before it was destroyed by fire in a bombing raid during WW2, and according to her diary the visit changed her life, particularly an artefact called the Bishop's bird stump.

Our hero, Ned Henry, has been sent back to the cathedral, along with several others, on multiple occasions to try to determine what happened to the bird stump, so much so that he is suffering from an advanced case of time lag which requires two weeks rest. Unfortunately lady Schrapnell is like a bulldozer and rides roughshod over everyone else so he is unlikely to get the rest he needs, especially since the ceremony to open the new cathedral is just weeks away.

It turns out that a fellow time traveller has returned from the 1880s an accidentally brought something back with her - something previously thought to be impossible and the institute posits that this is causing time slippage on multiple other drops to the past. Ned is charged with returning the object to the 1880s before its presence in the future causes further instability, once safely returned Ned can enjoy two weeks rest safe from Lady Schrapnell. However, symptoms of time lag include Difficulty in Distinguishing Sounds as well as a tendency to drift off into daydreams. Consequently, Ned is sent to the 1880s ill-prepared and not entirely what he is supposed to return. From the outset things go wrong, Ned accidentally prevents a young man meeting his future wife, something that could have devastating consequences in the future as one of their descendants would have been a bomber pilot in WW2.

What follows is (I believe) a homage to Three Men in a Boat, it also draws heavily on the country house farce and the country house mystery with frequent allusions to the detective styles of Hercule Poirot and Lord Peter Wimsey. There's boating, mad professors, stately butlers, silly girls, a jumble sale, a séance, and lots more madcap fun. Its certainly very different to the first book which has stayed with me for decades.

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Review: Waiting for the Flood

Waiting for the Flood by Alexis Hall
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

I first read/reviewed Waiting For the Flood in 2020, now it has been republished, I think there have been some updates, and there is a brand new novella about Marius.

Waiting For The Flood
This is very different from the first novel in this series, no glitter pirates to be seen. Instead we meet Edwin Tully an introspective man with a severe stutter, grieving the loss of his long-term relationship with the outgoing artist Marius.

Edwin catalogues and restores old books in Oxford, he lives alone in the terraced cottage he and Marius bought, trapped by his speech impediment and his inability to get over the end of their relationship. Then torrential rain and rising river levels put his home at risk of flood and introduce him to a man from the Environment Agency, Adam Dacre.

This was a sweet, gentle romance. more about Edwin learning that he is still lovable than about the burgeoning love between Adam and Edwin, full of imagery of glittering waters and peace. It felt so packed with emotion and imagery that I was amazed it was only just over 100 pages long, it felt like a full-length novel.

Chasing The Light
A totally new novella about Edwin's former love Marius. Reluctantly returning to his family home for the Polish festival of Wigilia, Marius is discombobulated when he sees Edwin and Adam at the party. Unable to cope with the suffocating love of his parents, Marius runs away and slips on the icy canal-path, dropping his phone into the canal and severely spraining his ankle. Marius is found by narrowboat owner Leo who brings him to safety.

Leo and Marius are tortured souls, although Leo has come to terms with his past and is trying to live a better, simpler, life away from his toxic family and fair-weather friends. Marius doesn't know how to deal with kindness and support, he'd rather be sarcastic or f*ck, both of which he employs with Leo. But somehow the cramped narrowboat eases Marius' soul and enables him to open up to Leo about his issues in a way he doesn't feel able to do with anyone else.

What I love about Alexis Hall's writing is they can make you hate a character one minute and the next, even though they are being obnoxious, you start feeling for them. Marius is just such a character, even when he's being a d*ck.

BTW apologies for the asterisks but the B&N review censors are very puritanical about any mildly offensive words, particularly relating to s*x which is itself a no-no word LOL.

My love for Alexis Hall's writing continues.

So glad I requested an ARC, especially because of the new novella.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

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Review: A Stolen Shadow

A Stolen Shadow by H.L. Marsay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

This is the seventh book in the series featuring York detective Chief Inspector John Shadow. Shadow has just returned from a holiday in Italy and is immediately faced with the theft of a sabre from the local army regimental dinner, suspecting nothing more than alcohol-fuelled high-jinks or a prank Shadow isn't particularly invested. Then Sergeant Jimmy Chang persuades Shadow to attend a local amateur pantomime production featuring Jimmy's sister Angela, a local school teacher. Partway through the pantomime the lead actor, financial adviser Spencer Knight dies live n stage after drinking a 'magic potion'. As Shadow and Jimmy investigate it seems there is no end to the potential suspects, Spencer was a ladies' man with little respect for the institution of marriage. In addition, Spencer seemed to be running (in my opinion) a series of Ponzi schemes in which unsuspecting friends, little old ladies, and lovers invested their life savings only to lose everything.

Then only a few days later the body of one of the other pantomime actors is found murdered. Francesca French was married to Major Armitage, the person who reported the sabre stolen, until her affair with Spencer.

All-in-all a cosy English mystery. I haven't read the previous six books in the series and I found it easy to read this as a stand-alone although there were obviously some ongoing side stories. TBH I thought the murderer(s) was quite obvious early on but I enjoyed the discovery. What I found less easy to like was Shadow himself. I don't know whether he is intended to be York's answer to Morse, but I honestly thought this was set in the 1950s for quite a while because he is so old-fashioned (and I'm a fifty-six year old woman), if it wasn't for his late wife being Italian I suspect he would have been one of those people who won't eat 'foreign muck'. How he can be described as a lover of good food when he only eats Italian or pies is beyond me.

Anyway, I enjoyed it, recommended for fans of TA Williams' Armstrong and Oscar series.

I was offered an ARC by the publisher Tule for an honest review.

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Review: A Page in Your Diary: An '80s Time Travel Adventure

A Page in Your Diary: An '80s Time Travel Adventure by Keith A. Pearson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I f you know me you know I love a time travel novel (unless it involves men in kilts), so when I saw this book available on Kindle Unlimited I was intrigued.

Sean Hardy thinks he has been (relatively) happily married for over thirty years, then he discovers his wife has been cheating on him. After the divorce he decides he can no longer in the West Country and his wife and her lover have remained in the same town, so he returns to his childhood home of Guildford, even though his parents are both dead and his brother lives abroad. Running into an old school friend/acquaintance he finds out that he recently missed a school reunion, the friend takes great delight in recounting who has fared badly and then ghoulishly listing the people that have died. None of this is much interest to Sean until he mentions Jackie Benton, she was Sean's first girlfriend, they were together for five years, until Sean met his now ex-wife at Exeter university and rather cowardly dumped Jackie by phone. Apparently Jackie died only a year after they broke up! When Sean visits her parents to offer his condolences her step-father accuses Sean of being the cause - brandishing an incriminating page from Jackie's diary which says she doesn't want to live after being dumped by Sean.

Somehow Sean is transported back to 1988, just a few weeks before Jackie's tragic death, all he can think (once he realises what has happened) is that he has been sent back in time to prevent her suicide.

As someone said on the Amazon page, if you remember the 1980s and love a time travel novel this is right up your street. Its nice for the protagonist to be an overweight fifty-something man trying to connect with his twenty-something former girlfriend and I loved the trip down Memory Lane - I'd totally forgotten that nothing used to be open on a Sunday.

Its fun seeing how Sean finds money and a place to stay, then finding its not so easy to become friends with a young woman - love his cover story!

Overall, a really great story.

Read on my Kindle Unlimited subscription.

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Review: At First Spite

At First Spite by Olivia Dade
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Athena's fiancé Johnny breaks off their engagement, but only after she has surrendered her apartment, bought him the sliver of a house next to his called The Spite House, and given up her job. Now, with very little savings Athena is forced to move into the Spite House. What is worse is that she finds out her ex-fiancé's judgemental older brother Matthew, the one who convinced Johnny to dump her in the first place, lives next door. Now while Johnny enjoys a month long trip to Hawaii that Athena meticulously planned for their honeymoon she's trapped beside judgy-McJudgerson.

When Matthew first met Athena at a party he had no idea who she was. The two of them had a wonderful discussion, they seemed like soulmates, until Johnny landed the bombshell that this was his fiancée. Matthew loves his younger brother, in fact he practically raised him so he's half older brother half father figure, which is perhaps why Johnny has never grown up properly. Matthew paid for Johnny's college education and medical school, he even paid for the honeymoon, and now he and his business partner are covering Johnny's clients at their paediatric clinic while he enjoys a solo honeymoon. The trouble is Matthew just can't say no to Johnny. So now he'll do anything in his power to help Athena, get her a job, get her some friends, get her a better job, but he would never try to poach his brother's girlfriend.

This romance tackled some serious issues which affected both Matthew and Athena, and by-and-large it tackled them very sensitively in my opinion. Matthew and Athena seem to be the only ones who really see the other person and recognise what they are going through. However, I get the feeling that to alleviate the serious topics Olivia Dade went for some comic relief in the form of a book club that enjoys erotic creature romances, a baker who listens to erotic creature romances on audio books at full blast ... well you get the picture. It was funny once but then it felt silly. If it hadn't been for that this would have been a four star read.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

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Review: How to End a Love Story

How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Helen Zhang had a troubled childhood after her younger sister Michelle committed suicide by jumping in front of a moving car driven by one of the students at their school. Now a successful novelist, she has written a YA angsty series set in a boarding school. Now her series is being made into a TV series and she has been flown from New York to California to sit in with the screenwriters as they adapt her novels. Helen has always been a nerd and an over-achiever, she had very few friends at school and even now, thirteen years later, she only has a couple of close friends, although she worries that her recent success may have alienated even them. To add to her woes, Helen is struggling to find new ideas for her YA series and can't seem to start anything new.

Grant Shephard is a Hollywood screenwriter with movie star looks whose life was drastically altered when his car hit and killed Michelle Zhang when he was just a teenager. While everyone agrees it wasn't his fault, ever since then he has suffered from crippling anxiety attacks.

It was inevitable that Grant should be the second screenwriter for Helen's TV series, despite her attempts to get rid of him Grant insists on staying. Right from the start they butt heads on everything, Grant is the team member that everyone likes, he's charming and thoughtful whereas Helen finds it difficult to express her opinions without sounding rude, as a solitary writer she finds the collective hive mind of the writer's room alien.

Yet despite the antagonism sparks start to fly ... but what hope is there for Helen and Grant when her parents still haven't forgiven him for Michelle's death?

I liked this but I didn't love it and I found the effusive reviews from other authors to be a bit puzzling TBH.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

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Review: Once Upon a Leap Year

Once Upon a Leap Year by Anna Bell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Lucy is a Leapling, someone born on 29 February. On a birthday day trip booze cruise to France in 2020 organised by her clueless boyfriend she meets another Leapling, Noah. The two of them spend the day wandering around Calais and nearly miss the coach back to the ferry. The two of them have an instant rapport, despite Noah being a hopeless romantic and Lucy being what she calls a realist. Over time, both being at the same university, Noah and Lucy develop a great friendship, something Lucy doesn't want to spoil with romance which might get awkward.

Over the next twenty years we see Lucy and Noah and their friends evolve and encounter all of life's experiences like marriage, childbirth, illness, divorce, but the timing is never right and Lucy begins to wonder, was she right to keep Noah at arm's length and has she missed out on what the wider world had to offer her?

I have read and thoroughly enjoyed a couple of books by Anna Bell previously so I was keen to read this, but unfortunately something didn't really work for me, it felt too similar to something I had read/seen before and didn't have anything new to say - other than the fact that Noah and Lucy shared the same birthday.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

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Review: Alternate Endings

Alternate Endings by Ali Rosen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Beatrice is a divorced mother of a precocious six-year old. She shares her brownstone with her former sister-in-law while her ex-husband lives in the basement. Their divorce has not been amicable and he finds fault with everything she does. Bea is the Chief Revenue Officer (I think) for a fancy start-up and loves her job, until her boss announces that she is getting divorced and moving to live in an Irish castle. Now Bea and the rest of the C-suite have to travel to Ireland twice a month for meetings, not something she wants to discuss with her ex-husband who is bound to kick-up a fuss and demand a change to their custody agreement.

Then when Bea arrives to the first meeting, jet-lagged and thoroughly dishevelled, she discovers that the new Chief Technology Officer is none-other than the boy who broke her heart in high school, Jake Sander. Twenty years ago at school Bea was the introvert nerd while Jake was the popular sports star, yet they bonded over art and developed a relationship. Bea thought they would openly date after high school but instead Jake refused to take her to prom and basically ghosted her.

As the months progress Bea and Jake enter into a colleagues with benefits arrangement while they are in Ireland, but they both have their 'reasons' for wanting nothing more.

This was okay, albeit the premise was a bit unrealistic, I mean really what CEO pulls that kind of caper and why did all the executives not just say no, but I could overlook that. Unfortunately Bea came with a gaggle of friends who all felt entitled to psychoanalyse her every move. Meanwhile in Ireland Jake takes it upon himself to force Bea into new experiences, whether its clay pigeon shooting, fishing, or relearning how to drive. Basically it all smacked of everyone knowing better than Bea about everything. Also Jake appeared to be a bit of a conundrum, on one hand he was making her do things 'for her own good' but on the other he was supportive and did little things to make her life easier. He felt more like a plot device than a real character.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

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Review: Chick Magnet

Chick Magnet by Emma Barry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I got this book after reading Kaetrin from Dear Author's review of her top 10 reads of 2023, it didn't hurt that it was also available on Kindle Unlimited.

Nicole is a social media influencer. Her ex-boyfriend Brian got her into creating content during lockdown when her job at a winery got laid off. Nicole's 'thing' is chickens, she's known as Chick Nic on YouTube where she posts content about her brood of chickens. When her relationship implodes, Nicole impulsively buys a house in the small town of Yagerstown, Virginia where her grandmother used to live to get away from the social media fall-out and metaphorically lick her wounds.

Will Lund is the local vet in Yagerstown, his practice has never recovered from the pandemic and he is facing the fact that he is going to have to close down. He can't bear the humiliation of failing in front of his community and his toxic younger brother who never fails to make digs about Will's job. Always a taciturn man, Will has become grumpy and even more introverted as he watches his practice teeter on the edge of bankruptcy. Although Will has secretly watched every single one of Nicole's YouTube videos, he also has great distain for her because she insists on giving her viewers advice about medical conditions and never mentions seeking advice from a vet.

Of course Nicole has moved into the house next to Will's. Of course there is much hilarity involving chickens. Its a sunshine meets grumpy, opposites attract romance. There is also a surprising amount of information about chickens.

I really enjoyed it.

Read on my Kindle Unlimited subscription.

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Review: Blood Runs Deep

Blood Runs Deep by Doug Sinclair
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

D.S. Malkie McCulloch has been on leave for several months after the death of his mother in a house fire. He feels unbearably guilty and has been warned about his behaviour by his bosses in relation to Jake Fielding and his son Liam, a local crime family. His first call back on the job is a hit and run, although his superiors suggest it is no more than that Malkie isn't convinced and based on the tyre marks on the road suspects he was deliberately targeted.

Piecing together the evidence, it seems as though a former soldier suffering with PTSD is responsible as the car involved in the incident, one of the Fielding's mini cabs, was found parked outside his cottage on the Fielding's estate. However, Liam also took out one of the mini cabs - who was responsible and why?

This was a gritty, sometimes graphic, mystery (somewhat more gritty than I normally like). Malkie is a tortured soul who makes bad choice after bad choice. His long-suffering partner DCI Steph Lang is running out of patience and his boss DI McLeish is just itching to kick him out of the force. It felt as though this was midway through a series because there was so much backstory, although I understand that this is the author's first novel.

Overall, I enjoyed the plot, some aspects I suspected quite early on, although others were unexpected, I would be interested to see where this series leads.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

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Review: To Woo and to Wed

To Woo and to Wed by Martha Waters
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Sophie, Lady Fitzwilliam Bridewell, is a widow and the eldest of five daughters, three of whom are happily wed, the fourth of whom, Alexandra, is also a widow. When Sophie realises that Alexandra has found love with someone but is putting off getting married because she doesn't want Sophie to be lonely, Sophie realises she must take action, after all as the eldest it is practically her job to ensure her sisters' happiness.

Seven years ago, before her marriage, Sophie was in love with the Marquess of Weston, and he with her. But because Sophie's mother was from a wealthy merchant family rather than the ton, West's father was against the match and blackmailed/threatened Sophie. Sophie and West have been avoiding each other ever since, but their recent sojourn in Cornwall with Viscount Penvale and his new bride Jane has thawed the ice somewhat. So Sophie concocts a plan, since her sisters believe she still holds a torch for West, she will persuade him to enter into a fake engagement which they can cancel once Alexandra and her beau are happily married.

After a fatal carriage racing accident which killed his best friend, West has been lamed. He blames himself for his friend's death, and was devastated when the woman he loved married a mutual friend while West was still recovering from his injuries. Now his only joy is thwarting his father's succession plans, to which ends he had led his father to believe that his accident had made him incapable of fathering a child (ie an heir). Now his father has learned the truth and his threatening to sell West's late mother's estate unless West gets married. Whilst initially resistant to Sophie's madcap plan, he sees that an engagement to a woman his father deems unsuitable whilst fulfilling his father dictat to marry would be delicious revenge.

However, Alexandra is a schemer and soon inveigles Sophie into agreeing to have a joint wedding, where the grooms will arrive, on white horses no less *horror*. As the hoax continues Alexandra's demands become increasingly unhinged, but Sophie can't say no. In the interim, West has decided that he will use this opportunity to renew his courtship of Sophie, seven years have passed and he has never felt a fraction of the love he felt for Sophie for any other woman.

I recently read the previous book in this series,To Swoon and to Spar, and enjoyed it so when I saw this available as an ARC I jumped at the chance. Unfortunately, some of the issues I had with the previous book, but overlooked, felt a bit more jarring in this book. Whilst there are half-hearted attempts at chaperoning Sophie and Alexandra, they also have an intimate dinner with West and Alexandra's fiancé which just would not have been permitted. Similarly, when Sophie and West first meet they are alone together which could have led to Sophie being compromised. I know these are modern takes on historical romances but there seem to be some inconsistencies around the way in which Sophie and West being left alone is viewed compared to when one of Sophie's younger sister's is viewed when she is found alone with a young man.

My other gripe is that I found it hard to understand Sophie's reluctance to marry West.

But anyone who knows my reviews knows I focus on the negatives, overall I enjoyed this novel, although I found the four other couples quite difficult to distinguish between which was not such an issue in the previous book I read.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

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Review: The Hidden Graves of St Ives

The Hidden Graves of St Ives by Sally Rigby
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

This is the second book in a series, I haven't read the first one but this was easy to read as a standalone.

DI Lauren Pengelly and DS Matt Price lead a small team of detectives in St Ives, Cornwall. When one of the team asks if she can make some enquiries for a neighbour whose wife didn't come home from a trip to the shops, Lauren gives the go-ahead, there's nothing much going on. But shortly thereafter another woman goes missing, there are no obvious connections between them, but the second disappearance makes finding the first woman all the more urgent. Then a third woman goes missing. Could there be a serial killer in St Ives?

This was an interesting mystery. I thought the similarity between the women was quite obvious, but I didn't spot the link. Lauren was quite a prickly character ad in contrast Matt was a bit too perfect - always the voice of reason. Also some of the decisions made during the undercover operation were questionable.

Overall I enjoyed the story and would definitely read more in the series.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

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Review: Laying Out the Bones: A riveting and twisty cold case mystery

Laying Out the Bones: A riveting and twisty cold case mystery by Katherine Webb
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Gah! Just decided to finish this ahead of its imminent publication only to discover I finished reading it two weeks ago.

This is the second book featuring DI Matt Lockyer who has been demoted to solving cold cases after suspicions were raised that he covered up the involvement of a personal friend in an arson attack.

After the long hot summer is broken with a torrential downpour a skeleton is uncovered. Forensics confirm the skeleton is that of a young man called Lee Geary who disappeared nine years ago. Lea and two others, one man and one woman were suspects in the disappearance and suspicious death of another young woman, Holly Gilbert. The other two are both dead and the discovery of Lee's remains lends credence to the theory that the three of them were perhaps killed as revenge for Holly's death.

Meanwhile, Matt is pining over Hedy Lambert, a woman wrongly incarcerated for fourteen years for a murder she didn't commit. Matt had feelings for her then, and they briefly rekindled their relationship on her release, but she left him to go travelling. In addition, his mother is desperately ill in hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic and his taciturn father is stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that she might not recover. If that weren't enough, at the end of the last book his elderly next door neighbour admitted to her part in covering up a death, something which has put Matt in a very difficult position.

The mark of a good story for me is whether or not you can recall it. When I started flicking back to see what had happened (so I could write this review) it all came flooding back to me. Who killed Lee, who killed Holly, what had happened and why. So even though I didn't remember finishing the book, it only took a moment to recall it perfectly. In fact, the only weakness in the book (in my opinion) was Matt's love life, it felt like the author didn't want to commit to Matt/Hedy and wrote her out of the picture just to be able to introduce potential other partners.

Also, and I usually complain the other way, I could have done with more of a reminder of what had happened in the first book between Hedy and Matt.

Otherwise, a nice twisty turny cold case mystery solved.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

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Review: The Villain Edit

The Villain Edit by Sarah Brenton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ashley Foley is the girl they love to hate, the girl who coldly schemed to bring down her competitors in a reality TV programme and she has no problem living up to that reputation. Unfortunately, it has meant the work has all but dried up. She's been in love with her former neighbour Nic Fontana since she was a child, but he is about to marry her cousin Jessie later unless Ashley can seduce him now. However, Ashley's PA directs Hollywood heartthrob and all-round golden boy Gabriel Sinclair to her room by mistake.

Gabriel is the adopted son of a notable film director and he struggles to live up to his father's moral code. He seems indifferent to Ashley, but when the paparazzi (primed by Ashley for a different scoop) snap a picture of his leaving her room covered in her lipstick while she watches en dishabille from the door he sees it as a chance to show the public that he isn't just good for fluffy rom-coms, something he desperately needs in order to hang on to his new role as a superhero in an upcoming film.

Gabriel and Ashley's agents and PR people decide the bad girl and the good guy could play for both of them, but only if they spin it as the two of them dating, rather than a sleazy one-night stand. Reluctant companions on a road trip across America, neither of them can deny the physical attraction, but can they see behind the masks to the real people underneath?

I really enjoyed this, it was super steamy as Ash and Gabe gave in to their animal lusts (and Ash liked to try to shock boy scout Gabe), yet there was also a strong plot which didn't tread the same tired old path as other opposites attract romances are wont to do. I also liked that although we see a softer side of Ash she doesn't change beyond all recognition, she's still the exhibitionist, straight-talker at the end.

I haven't read any of the previous books in the series, but this is easy to read as a standalone.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

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Review: Nice Work, Nora November

Nice Work, Nora November by Julia London
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Nora November nearly drowned, in fact she was clinically dead for a few minutes. When she emerges from her coma she decides she needs to do things differently, to really live her life now that she has a second chance, so she creates a reverse bucket list of things she wants to do after she (technically) died.

She wants to make peace with the memory of her late grandfather by tending his garden patch (allotment) which she has shamefully neglected since his death. She wants to learn to cook, to be a better friend to her sister Lacey and to her cousin Gus, who struggles with addiction. She wants to find the guy she met in a corner shop during a robbery and reconnect, she wants to start playing sport again. But most of all, she wants to leave her soul-destroying job at her family's personal injury law firm where her father has dictated her life.

Jack Moriarity is a hospice and palliative nurse, helping those with incurable diseases take their final breaths. Although it is his calling, he finds the deaths can take an emotional toll. One of his patients left him a plot of the local community garden and Jack has found it therapeutic to garden. He regrets losing the number of the woman he met at a convenience store one night, they really connected in a way he's never felt before.

So we see Nora and Jack leading parallel lives, always close but never quite managing to meet, while Nora attempts to put her reverse bucket list into action. But things never go quite to plan and she is in imminent danger of slipping back into her former depression, especially when her parents refuse to acknowledge the truth about her accident.

This was a weird book for me to review, not least because I had imagined that this was more of a romance than women's fiction, which having reread the blurb was 100% my own imagination. It was very slow, at about 85% on my Kindle everything was still going wrong. And yet ... it rang true, far truer than a romance where everything would miraculously work out perfectly in the end. Overall, it wasn't what I thought it was going to be, but I enjoyed it.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

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Review: Time to Choose

Time to Choose by Jan Turk Petrie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Its 2036, Ollie and Vega are precocious teenagers. Tom is scratching a living making sculptures and finding lost objects/pets as a side line(view spoiler)[, and Beth is back in the 1980s becoming a successful actress, with a few years of amnesia (hide spoiler)].

Tom is approached by a mother, her adult son, a City trader, has gone missing. The police suspect he fell into the Thames whilst drunk/committed suicide, but she is convinced that even if he was drunk he was a strong swimmer and could have swum to safety. She ridicules the idea of suicide, he had just been given a large bonus and had been celebrating with his colleagues all night. Tom fully intends to refuse the assignment, it's too dangerous and could expose his abilities to the wider world, but surely it wouldn't hurt to travel back a few days and see what really happened ... would it?

I'll be honest, this was my least favourite of the four books. Vega was a brat (although most thirteen-year old girls are), no-one seemed to recognise what a nice guy Ollie was, and Tom seemed to have become completely ineffectual; I get that his children far surpass him in abilities but to make him such a blundering fool was unkind. Overall, this book raised more questions that answers, there seemed to be too many storylines, and I didn't feel the love for the characters like I did in the previous books.

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Review: Turn Back Time

Turn Back Time by Jan Turk Petrie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Tom and Beth now have two small children. Tom is the landlord of a pub in a small Cotswold village. The two of them are trying to cope with two gifted children who can time-travel at will, although at least Ollie can translate what his little sister wants/needs.

Things are stressful, but they are flying under the radar and pacifying the Guardians, then Tom uses his powers to save a drowning child in full view of a crowded pub. The repercussions are enormous, but also lead to a woman contacting him to find her husband, an MP who mysteriously vanished into thin air. She believes that he somehow travelled back in time to 1919 because she has seen a photograph of a procession in which a man looks remarkably like her husband is in the crowd. Moreover, it looks very much like Tom standing behind him.

Can Tom deflect the media interest and appease the Guardians? Can he find this woman's husband?

I think this was my favourite of the four books, Ollie and Vega are cuteness personified. Tom wrestles with the very real dilemma of whether he should rescue someone and it ends with a shocking decision.

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Review: Play for Time

Play for Time by Jan Turk Petrie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Apologies, I read all four books in rapid succession and didn't write a review of any of them so I'm not sure what happened in which book.

To recap. In summer 2020 Tom Brookes accidentally time-travels back to 1982. When he attempts to return to 2020 he inadvertently brings backs Beth Sawyer, an aspiring young actress.

Now parents of a small toddler called Ollie, Beth and Tom are living in a quiet Cotswold village, trying to live a normal life. Unfortunately, Ollie has inherited Tom's time travelling abilities and without any understanding of what he is doing has travelled on his own.

The time-travel Guardians are watching Tom closely and he knows they will take Ollie away if he can't stop him from potentially creating anomalies in the time stream.

Ollie is an absolute delight, the author has done a really good job of portraying a precocious child with an adult vocabulary.

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Review: Running Behind Time

Running Behind Time by Jan Turk Petrie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Apologies, I have read the four books in this series back-to-back and I am no longer sure what happens in which book.

Tom Brookes has moved back to his small home Cotswold village of Stoatsfield-under-Ridge to live with his mum during the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020. Furloughed from his travel job he is drifting aimlessly. A friend offers him a potential job opportunity in London and he gets on a mostly empty train bound to London. However, when the train goes through an exceptionally long tunnel Tom finds himself inexplicably on a crowded train with people smoking and no-one wearing a facemask! After trying (and failing miserably) to buy a flat white with skinny milk at the station when he gets to London, and flabbergasted at the low prices, refused card payment by the vendor, Tom realises he is no longer in 2020, but seems somehow to have travelled back in time to 1982. He decides that the time-slip must have occurred in that long tunnel, one which he doesn't recall ever having travelled through before, and therefore logically to get back to 2020 he needs to get back on the same train going back home and recreate his every move.

Its 1982 and Beth Sawyer, an aspiring young actress, is going to Cheltenham to visit her aunt. As the train unexpectedly enters a long tunnel she stumbles and grabs hold of a young man. When they emerge from the tunnel she discovers that the train is far less crowded, her bag has disappeared, and the stranger she grabbed hold of is insisting that she has time travelled to 2020.

Having successfully returned to 2020, Tom thinks Beth can just do the same thing in reverse to return to 1982 but then there's a landslide and all London-bound trains are cancelled indefinitely.

This was an interesting twist on time-travel and I thoroughly enjoyed it, although it was never clear to me how Tom involuntarily travelled back to 1982 in the first place.

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