Review: Cecily

Cecily by Annie Garthwaite
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

DNF at 50%.

The story of Cecily and her husband Richard Duke of York as they struggle to do right by KIng Henry VI, a religious man who was easily swayed by whoever was speaking at the time. Richard and Cecily do all that they can to hold English lands in France, brokering deals with the Dukes of Burgundy and Orleans, committing their own funds to pay the soldiers and compensate the townsfolk. But when the King is beset by Gloucester on the one hand promoting all-out war against France and her uncle Cardinal Beaufort arguing for peace, whilst also promoting the interests of his brother's sons over Cecily (his sister's daughter), Richard and Cecily are always going to be on the losing side.

I have always found this era of English history difficult to follow, not least because every other person seems to be called Henry, Edward, Edmund or Margaret so I was really hoping for an engaging historical novel to bring history to life. Sadly I didn't get that. I can only describe this book as akin to someone describing a film to someone who can't see the action, there's a lot of Cecily touching Richard's arm, looking into his eyes, watching other people but all described in such an incredibly lifeless way that it feels like a history book. The book has covered 20 years in such a matter-of-fact way that Cecily seems no older than she did at the start of the book. Indeed, the start of the book opens with Richard and Cecily watching Joan of Arc put to death - that was a harrowing read and it feels like that was the only emotive thing I've read. Wives come and go, dying in childbirth, divorced for witchcraft and it's just mentioned in passing. Cecily's life seems curiously empty, she apparently has no friends or confidants, she is ambivalent about her children, while she and Richard discuss politics and court matters he plays his cards close to his chest - what exactly does she do all day?

Overall, I was hoping that as I got further into the book Cecily would start to become a real character but sadly the novel remains like a patchwork of recorded historical events with no insights/imagination as to how Cecily felt. Accordingly, after reading half the book I don't feel inclined to continue.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: A Lady for a Duke

A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Viola Carroll lived a lie, then when she was wounded presumed dead at Waterloo she took the chance to live her life honestly, even though it meant giving up the title of Viscount Marleigh to his younger brother Bartholomew (Badger) and forgoing the friendship of his childhood partner in crime Justin de Vere, now the Duke of Gracewood. Now she acts as companion to her sister-in-law, the interfering Lady Louise Marleigh who always thinks she knows best.

Then Louise receives a letter from Gracewood's younger sister Lady Miranda which, reading between the line and adding two and two and getting at least six or seven, indicates that Miranda is bored and lonely, desperate for a London season, and worried about her brother who is still suffering from the injuries he sustained at Waterloo and mourning the death of his best friend Marleigh.

Much against her will, Viola accompanies Louise to Gracewood's forbidding Northumberland home Morgencald Castle where they find Gracewood drunk and under the influence of laudanum. Slowly Viola persuades Gracewood to set aside his demons and romance blossoms. But can Gracewood forgive Viola for allowing him to believe she was dead for two years? What future can there be together when society would not recognise any marriage between them, even were she simply a lady's companion, let alone the truth? And Gracewood owes it to his lineage to have heirs - how would that be possible?

I really wanted to like this queer historical romance but sadly there was too much navel-gazing by both Viola and Gracewood, too much push-me, pull-me as Gracewood and Viola almost kiss, then retreat, kiss then retreat, rinse and repeat.

This was an ambitious project, to bring twenty-first century trans sensibilities to an historical romance and it didn't really work for me. Maybe its because Viola was so completely a woman, no self-doubt. Although there were veiled references to Viola always wearing gloves and a choker to disguise her hands and Adam's Apple, there was no overt expressed concerns about her body not reflecting her outward appearance or her inner self and maybe that would have sold it to me better.

Also, everyone who loved her was 100% accepting of Viola, almost without hesitation, I think even today that might be an ideal situation, let alone two hundred years ago when society viewed even homosexuality as deviant (which is odd considering the perversions that men indulged in freely in brothels).

Overall, this felt very slow, my overwhelming feeling when I finished this book was relief which is not something that I would ever have associated with Alexis Hall novels. Juxtapositioning modern attitudes and an historical background did not work for me.

I received a free copy of this book from the publishers via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: Owner of a Lonely Heart

Owner of a Lonely Heart by Eva Carter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Gemma was widowed after just a few short years of marriage when her husband got cancer. They planned for IVF treatment when he was in remission and she has been going through it alone, this could be her last chance to have Andrew's baby. She works as an illustrator and volunteers with her dog Bear at the local cancer hospital in Bristol to cheer children up who are undergoing cancer treatment. On her way to the hospital one day she comes across a man, clearly anxious about going in - she initially assumes that he is cancer patient but learns he is visiting his daughter and is frightened of doing or saying the wrong thing. There's something about this man, Dan, that stirs something deep inside Gemma, something she thought had died with Andrew.

One day Gemma meets Casey a twelve year old with a brain tumour. Casey's mother Angelica's is a germaphobe and initially resists Casey being anywhere near Bear, but Gemma soon gets talking to Casey and learns that she had never met her father until they came to Bristol, now the two of them are sharing his luxury penthouse flat for four weeks while she has revolutionary treatment for her tumour. Gemma can't help but judge Casey's father who sounds like a selfish individual. Quelle surprise when the selfish dad turns out to be none other than Dan.

Dan avoids getting close to anyone. His mother died giving birth to him and his father was a con-man who dragged Dan into his schemes. Deep down he doesn't want anyone to know the real Dan, afraid of what they might see. He's borrowed the penthouse apartment from his friend Vijay and fully intended to tell Angelica and Casey the truth but the time is never right. He's falling for Gemma but can he tell her the truth about himself?

I liked this but OMG it was slooooow. Gemma is keeping secrets from Dan so she keeps pulling away conflicted that she is 'cheating' on Andrew. Dan is keeping secrets from everyone about his past, his family, and his home, so he keeps pulling away. Push, pull, push, pull. One other gripe, one character has a 100% personality change at the end after a five minute conversation - that felt false.

Good story but could have been way shorter, I was pleading for this to end sooner, recommended for those who like slow-burn romances.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: The Fixer Upper

The Fixer Upper by Lauren Forsythe
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Aly(ssa) has always been a fixer, whether it's cheering her mother up after her father left her for another woman, or helping everyone in the office to get their projects done on time, she's always there, everyone's friend, making things right. Until a chance encounter in a swanky restaurant brings her to the realisation that she's also been fixing her boyfriends, taking the workshy, soap-shy, commitment-phobes, and other broken manchilds (menchild?) and encouraging them to become their better selves. The kicker is, other women benefit from Aly's hard work but she never does.

With her two best friends from work, Eric and Tola, Aly sets up what was initially a social experiment to help women get what they wanted from the men in their lives: whether it is a wedding after a decade of being together; or taking responsibility for childminding; or just going for that job they've been wittering on about for years. Using psychology and the male desire for peer approval, Aly gets it done.

Then her biggest job to date, an assignment from Nicki, AKA The KItty-Litter Princess, a social media influencer who wants her tech-entrepreneur boyfriend to be more supportive, expand his business, and pop the question (so that she can star in a celebrity wedding TV show). Only trouble is, her boyfriend is Aly's old-school BFF and love Dylan who she hasn't spoken to for fifteen years.

With her professional reputation and a whole load of money on the line, can Aly persuade Dylan to propose to Nicki?

I really liked this, Aly and her friends were funny and astute. Although the plot was predictable (was I alone in hoping Hunter would actually turn out to be a good guy and meant for Aly?) it was well-paced and a fun read.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: The Unplanned Life of Josie Hale

The Unplanned Life of Josie Hale by Stephanie Eding
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Josie Hale has split up from her husband and moved back in with her parents. Unfortunately, in an attempt to reconcile they got together one last time and now she's pregnant. Oh, and her parents have announced that they are selling the family home and moving to a condo so she is about to be homeless. Walking round the county fair Josie bumps into Kevin and Ben, two old school friends who she hasn't seen for years.

After the three of them commiserate over how bad their twenties have been: Kevin works for his father's insurance company, which he hates; and Ben got his girlfriend pregnant at nineteen, now he has an eleven year old daughter who he only sees once a month, they enter into the Corn Dog Pact to improve all of their lives, financially, professionally, and romantically, by the time the last of them turns thirty-one.

I see that this was meant to be funny, but all I could think was that three thirty-year old adults were living like a bunch of teenagers, eating badly and drifting through life aimlessly. Heck it even took Kevin to tell Josie she couldn't eat or drink certain things whilst pregnant. To make it worse, Josie is supposed to be a teacher - how did she and her husband live before she left him? Also I don't quite understand how they all started saving money when they earned no more than previously and clearly hadn't been spending money on anything substantial previously.

Maybe I'm just too old but this really didn't do it for me.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review,

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Review: The Casterglass Heir

The Casterglass Heir by Kate Hewitt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The third child, and only son, Sam Penryn gets his story. Sam has always felt a disappointment to his father, he prefer the outdoors to books which is at odds with his intellectual father. After a deeply shaming episode where he tried to cheat on his A' level exams and was expelled, Sam has avoided Casterglass at all costs happy to travel the world doing crazy stunts (like climbing a mountain with a fridge on his back) for charity. But when the family calls he must (eventually) answer and he is making the best of a bad job by setting up a glamping site and a rope climbing course for the more adventurous.

Then one day a blast from the past arrives at Casterglass, Rose Lacey, the feisty, happy-go-lucky girl Sam met in New Zealand arrives and announces that she is pregnant with Sam's baby. Rose has had a hard life, her mother left her when she was very young, and she spent her childhood galivanting around the world with her father rather than attending school. Then suddenly when she was eighteen he left her to cope on her own and she's been holding down a series of cleaning and bartending jobs ever since. Life ha taught her never to rely on other people, but the news that she is pregnant has forced her to reassess her priorities.

One niggle, Sam is supposed to be thirty-three years old yet he reads like an eighteen year old, maybe twenty-one at a push. He's still haunted by being bullied by the village children when he was ten years old and has conflagrated his father into someone who is perpetually disappointed in him.

This started very slowly for me and I found both Sam and Rose quite difficult characters to like, again they both 'read' much younger than their supposed ages.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher Tule in return for an honest review.

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Review: Summer at the French Café

Summer at the French Café by Sue Moorcroft
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Two and a half stars.

I must preface this review by saying that while I generally love Sue Moorcroft's UK-based novels I have a less enthusiastic relationship with her novels set abroad, despite that I requested this book when it came up on NetGalley.

Kat(erina) Jenson works in a bookshop come café in Parc Lemmel in Alsace, France. The owners Reeny and Graham were very kind to her when she first moved to France, giving her somewhere to stay etc, and she has been fiercely loyal ever since. Now Reeny has cancer and Graham's mother is ill in the UK so the task of managing the bookshop falls squarely on Kat, which she relishes.

Kat's stepbrother Solly has recently also started work in the park, after being sacked as a teacher for drunken rowdiness on the school steps, as a groundskeeper. Kat and Solly have not been close previously as Solly's mother Irina has always made it clear that she is jealous of any time that Kat spends with Solly, or her father Howard even though Kat only saw her father at weekends. Even Kat's mother showed her less attention when she remarried, prioritising her new husband's young daughters who were traumatised at their mother's death. Then after her own mother's death, her step-father and his daughters moved away, leaving Kat all alone.

Kat hasn't had much time to spend with Solly so far as she has been too engrossed with her French boyfriend Jakey, until shocking truths are revealed about who he really is.

Despite her heartbreak and shock, Kat soon finds herself attracted to Solly's housemate Noah, who has moved to Alsace from the Dordogne to try to find his ex-wife Irina and daughter Clemence who abruptly up and left with his ex-wife's new (controlling) husband Johan with no notification. But given her history of being thrown over for other people and their children, will the situation with Noah be any different?

Sorry, I tried to like this but I found it incredibly slow. Also, Kat was such a victim of absolutely everyone she knew that I started to feel that maybe she was partially to blame, like those people who are 'bullied' at every single job they have - at some point you have to ask are they oversensitive or are they themselves acting unreasonably and getting upset when they are called out on it?

I've said it before but this time I mean it. No more overseas romances from Sue Moorcroft for me.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: A Place to Call Home

A Place to Call Home by Carole Matthews
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Ayesha Rasheed had an arranged marriage. She left her home and family in Sri Lanka and moved to Milton Keynes to be with her new husband. Unfortunately, after a happy start her husband Suresh starts a downwards spiral of drinking, loses his job, and starts beating Ayesha. After years of abuse Ayesha escapes from Suresh and escapes to London with her daughter Sabina on the 04:30 coach to London.

When Ayesha arrives at the women's shelter in Camden, there are no places available, but a chance phone call to a friend gets them a room with a woman called Crystal. The room turns out to be in a Hampstead mansion owned by reclusive pop-star Hayden Daniels who has allowed Crystal (an exotic dancer) and Joy (a grumpy retiree) to live with him.

Ayesha can barely read and write English but together with the help of her housemates she starts to learn, but at the same time Ayesha helps each of them in different ways.

Carole Matthews may write romances but they are always a little quirky, the female characters are always a bit unusual, and this is no exception. It's had to see how armed robbery, wife-beating, and tragic death can fit into a cosy romance and yet she manages it.

Not one of her best, but still a fun read.

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Review: Old Bones Lie

Old Bones Lie by Marion Todd
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

DI Clare Mackay and DCI Al Gibson have finally moved in together and all seems to be rosy on that front (thank goodness).

A prison van containing a prisoner on compassionate leave to attend a funeral goes missing along with the prisoner and two prison guards escorting him. The prisoner was convicted or armed robbery of a local high-end jewellery store so Clare puts officers on guard of the store, its owner, and the assistant who actually identified the man and got him convicted. But when she goes to the woman's isolated cottage, she finds a dead body in the shed and £20,000 in cash hidden in a bag of compost (ericaceous in case you were wondering).

With a murder and two missing prison guards, not to mention an escaped prisoner, Clare's boss brings in a DCI from another station to take over the disappearances while Clare focuses on the murder, but she can't help but think the two are linked and that the missing prisoner is her prime suspect.

This is police procedural at its best. Following down clues, missing things, circling back and double-checking. Things not being as obvious as you might originally have thought. Things that make no sense.

Having received an ARC of the fifth book, and then having bought the previous four and devoured them, I can honestly say that Marion Todd has joined my list of autobuy/request authors. The crimes are different (not a serial killer every time like some authors), the interaction with the other characters at the police station is good and there has been some real character development from when Clare first came to St Andrews.

Overall, another intriguing and gripping detective story.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: Forever Yours

Forever Yours by Debbie Johnson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Eighteen years ago Gemma Jones decided to give her baby up for adoption. A child of a single mother with substance abuse and mental health problems, and currently living with foster parents, Gemma wanted something better for both herself and her baby.

Gemma is now a history teacher at a school in Liverpool. To stop herself from speculating about young children she made a choice to teach sixth formers a long time ago, but of course now that has backfired because her daughter will shortly be turning eighteen and could (theoretically) be one of her students.

Her mother's issues have given Gemma anxiety, something which she self-soothes with counting items and memorising facts. Now as an adult Gemma is alone, self-sufficient, and avoids allowing other people to get close. She even moves jobs every few years and has worked all over the UK.

But this year events conspire to force Gemma out of her shell: a new student who looks uncannily like Gemma; a colleague who makes it clear he fancies her; a woman she meets at yoga; and her elderly neighbour who needs help walking her dog.

How very typical, I no sooner finish a book about a woman who was given up for adoption by her sixteen year old mother than I start a book about a woman who gave up her child for adoption at sixteen.

I have read and really liked a lot of Debbie Johnson's previous books but I have to say that this one was not among my favourites. First, Gemma's habit of counting things and reciting random facts was really irritating (although a shoe-in for a pub quiz), I get that it was a manifestation of her anxiety but my eyes glazed over every time she started.

Second, there seemed to be a little bit of contradiction about Gemma's childhood, at times the reader is told that she was too embarrassed to invite school friends home and consequently never went to their homes either. Also that she couldn't afford things so never went out or did things like other kids. Yet at other points in the story she talks about going to a friend's house and going to the cinema with a friend - and not as if these were the only times she had ever done such things. It was as though Debbie Johnson couldn't keep up the characterisation and/or it didn't fit with the plot at other times.

Third, Gemma seemed to do a lot of navel-gazing self-diagnosis, pages and pages of her dissecting her behaviour and that of her friends and family. Also (this may be point four), if you have no friends and essentially no family, why wouldn't you stay in touch with your foster mother and your social worker who both helped you enormously? It seems like a huge self-sabotage to cut off people and then whine that you are all alone.

Anyway, I liked it but I didn't love it.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.



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Review: Who Do You Think You Are Maggie Pink?

Who Do You Think You Are Maggie Pink? by Janet Hoggarth
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Maggie Pink has always known she was adopted, her adoptive parents have been very open with her on that point, they were kind and good parents but she didn't really have much in common with them and they weren't overly affectionate. Nevertheless, Maggie never felt comfortable trying to contact her birth mother while her adoptive parents were alive.

In addition to being a virtual orphan, Maggie is also battling with a bolshie teenage daughter called Roxie and the disintegration of her marriage to Adam, the menopause, and the events of a few years past (yet to be revealed).

While Adam (a music journalist) is working abroad, Maggie and Roxie (albeit reluctantly) travel to the Highlands of Scotland to re-engage with her birth mother Morag, and find out why she was abandoned as a baby.

What Maggie and Roxie discover is more than just the truth of Maggie's birth and adoption, its a family history of shared experiences through the generations from Morag's mother, Morag, Maggie, and Roxie. Can they learn from the past to prevent a repeat in the future?

I liked this, but I didn't love this. First, it kind of reminded me of one of those generational books that used to be popular back in the 1980s (like Barbara Taylor Bradford's Emma Harte saga), with each generation making mistakes and paying the price, which sat uneasily with the modern. Second, there seemed to be an awful lot of traumas suffered by a small group of people - which I won't list because *spoilers*. Overall, I started to feel that this family tree was a genetic dead-end! Also the sheer volume of issues was so overwhelming it started to be funny. Secondly, there were so many different points of view, we hear Maggie, Roxie, Morag and even Morag's mother's internal monologues at different times which felt very fractured. Finally, the whole novel hinged on every generation keeping secrets: from siblings; spouses; and children, which just led to dissent, estrangement and missed opportunities.

From my brief skim of the start of the author's acknowledgements I gather that her mother was adopted and she has drawn upon that experience when writing this novel, so it is clearly an issue close to her heart. I just feel she maybe brought in too many variables and we didn't connect enough with a single character.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.



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