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What an absolute delight this book was to read. It's a real feelgood book about loneliness, friendship and people, it has a real sense of place and community. Set in Brixton, London it centres on a bunch of random and disparate people who are soehow drawn together by a sense of purpose and that reason is to save a Lido swimming pool from being closed down. We must all have come across something like this over recent years. A local council struggling for funds sells off a public building, maybe a library, a swimming baths or a community centre, we complain, we mutter and we possibly sign a petition to try and help save it, but how many of actually take action? Rosemary and Kate do just that. The Lido has been part of Rosemarys life for over 80 years, she swam there as a child, met her husband there and spent all of her married life using it, looking out at it from the window of her flat. Kate is a junior journalist, she lacks confidence and suffers panic attacks, but when she is ask...

Among the Branded – Linda Smolkin Today I am taking part in the Blog Tour for the new debut novel by Linda Smolkin, arranged by RandomthingsTours. My Review: Among the Branded is a very modern and contemporary novel with historical connections to the fairly recent past. In it, we meet Stephanie, a 40 something Mum who is a dedicated career woman juggling family life. This busy art director is planning a family day out, and ends up spending a day out at a world war 2 re-enactment day. Whilst there, she chances on a bundle of old letters she can’t resist buying. Little does she know they are going to draw her in completely and possibly even put her hard earned career in jeopardy. Even though time is one thing she doesn’t really have to spare she can’t resist a mystery to get her teeth into. These faded letters contain a real puzzle to solve at the same time as fostering an unlikely friendship. One of the letters really connects with her, it’s from a desperate young mother who is imprison...

Home - by Amanda Berriman How fabulous it is to be the penultimate blogger on this blog tour, sharing my thoughts about the awesome new book by Amanda Berriman - entitled Home . Published on 8th February it's available now. My Review Home is where the heart is and in this book the heart belongs to Jesika, who at 4 and ½ has a warm heart as well as a lively and enquiring mind. Home will inevitably draw comparisons to Room by Emma Donoghue both books being narrated in the unique cadences of a very young child. In this case the narrators voice is that of Jesika who lives with her Mum and baby brother Toby in an apartment where the landlord is a nasty angry man who shouts a lot and comes demanding money. Jesika is a real sweetheart and I connected with her character easily and smoothly. Throughout my time immersed in this book I was 4 and a half and felt everything this little girl felt. I saw the world through her eyes and lived her life. She has left a little bit of herself in my sou...

My Review: Firstly I must confess I’ve been having a bit of a struggle recently to concentrate on my reading and find books which grab and hold my attention well enough to ensure I can’t put them down.  Three things about Elsie has been the exception to the rule and has renewed my faith in my ability to devour and drown in and adore a book. It also quite broke my heart – Joanna Cannon how could you put me through this?  By the end I was sobbing those great big ugly gut wrenching Waah’s that you just can’t do quietly – Thank goodness I was reading it in bed and not on the bus! Like her debut novel “The Trouble with goats and sheep” which I also read and loved, this author peoples her writing with wonderful characters to believe in and peppers it with wry observations and astoundingly astute and beautiful prose. We are introduced to the narrator Florence as she lies prone on the floor of her sheltered accommodation waiting for someone to find her following a fall. She spends her...

Can you keep a Secret by Karen Perry My Review: Can you keep a secret? is the latest psychological twisty school re-union gone wrong, chiller by Karen Perry, which is  is the pen name of Dublin-based authors Paul Perry and Karen Gillece. It's a conundrum of a thriller with lots of mystery about, unsurprisingly, secrets and lies. A group of ex-school chums get back together 20 years after they previously congregated for a tragedy laden 18th birthday party at Thornbury Manor, the family pile of 2 of their peers, brother and sister Rachel and Patrick. Lindsey is our main protagonist, she was at the original event and is about to be included in this one too. The Manor house is now run down and rather ramshackle and Patrick can no longer find the upkeep, so he gets in touch with Lindsey then decides that he will hold a final bash before he sells off the hall. As the small group of friends who attended his 18th gather together for the first time in two decades, old scores to be settled a...

My review Secrets We Keep - Faith Hogan I wasn’t sure whether I’d love this book, described as romantic contemporary women’s fiction. Of late I find I’m not always enjoying this genre nearly as much as I did, once upon a time. But I needn’t have worried. Secrets we keep has completely renewed my faith in books written by women, for women, with a lot of heart and a good few twists along the way. This is so much more than Chick-lit it’s a very competent and compelling dual timeline of love and loss and heartache spanning the generations, set in a small seaside town in Ireland called Ballytokeep. It is in Ballytokeep that Kate arrives, world weary, tired after years in her successful job as a top London lawyer, looking for a change of pace, a place to calm her soul and put down roots, a place like Ballytokeep. She comes to stay with elderly distant relative Aunt Iris who, with husband Archie, runs a charming, if slightly faded, guesthouse in this seaside village which charms so many folk ...