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I jumped at the chance to join the blog tour for the latest book by Anna Hope as I absolutely adore her previous books, both historical novels, Hope and the stunning Ballroom. This lady is without doubt an exceptionally talented and accomplished author with the ability to create a world into which you are gently immersed then suddenly drowning in emotion. Expectation couldn’t be more different in style and setting to both this authors previous books and I must admit I was a little wary of the genre change, historical fiction being a theme I am reluctant to relinquish. This is edgy women’s contemporary fiction, with a modern day setting and themes of female ambitions and friendship. The author will gather a whole new following with this book. Featuring twenty and thirty-something girls written with depth and feeling. Youthful and contemporary the book centres around feelings of dissatisfaction when life never goes quite to plan and opportunities are missed. It explores what people will ...

The Glovemaker by Ann Weisgarber My Review Having read and loved the authors two previous books I have waited and anticipated a new title by her for quite some time. So I was eager to read this and very fortunate to receive an advance copy.  I quite simply LOVED it.  The author has the amazing skill of creating, convincing characters whose skin you can slip inside for the duration of the book. Strong, credible women who live a life so different to my own it would seem virtually impossible to relate to them. Yet the women she creates have left such an indelible mark on me it feels as though they have left a fine layer of themselves in my soul.  She writes about well researched austere locations where I have never been yet by the time I finish reading I feel as though I once lived there. This time we visit the location of Rural Utah in a secluded valley amidst harsh yet dramatic landscapes in the late 1800s. This book is leisurely and gradual, gentle and rather bleak and th...

Blackberry and Wild Rose by Sonia Velton - my Review Anyone who knows me, even the tiniest bit, will know, as surely as I did the minute I saw the cover of this book, that it is exactly the kind of book I fall head over heels in love with. And I did. For several reasons. (1) I swooned when I saw the absolutely gorgeous cover art. I am loving the current trend for historical novels to have a rich tapestry of all-over design and this one is covered with a lavish illustration of the woven floral silks which wind their way through the story. (2) it is highly recommended by one of my very favourite authors the sublimely talented Laura Purcell (If she told me I'd enjoy reading the labels on sauce bottles, you wouldn't be able to get in my kitchen for ketchup and pickles) (3) It is set in England, Spitalfields, London to be precise, in the late 18th century - Mmmmm it's piqued my interest. (4) it is peopled with strong, willful women, who are all utterly believable a...

The Familiars by Stacey Halls My Review I concur with all the great reviews I've seen for this title. Firstly I adored the cover the minute I saw it appearing on social media, it's beautiful and very evocative of the story contained within, just perfect. As soon as I opened my copy and began to read, it held me firmly in its grip from start to finish and never let go. It is a quite terrifying indictment of how powerless women were, and were expected to be, in an age when men held all the power and quite literally had the power of life and death over women with the capacity to dominate women and decide their fate, just because they were male and could get away with anything. I found the story all the more shocking as the heroine, with the unusual first name of Fleetwood, is just 17 years old yet is in the midst of her fourth pregnancy. She is an innocent yet proves to have an inbuilt strength she needs to survive. She has a charming but perfidious husband, a mother she despises,...

Blog Tour The Word For Freedom I'm thrilled to be helping round up the blog tour for the brand new collection of 24 fabulous short stories celebrating 100 years of women's suffrage; The Word for Freedom. Compiled for Retreat West Books which is an independent press publishing paperback books and ebooks, by the founder, Amanda Saint, who is a novelist and short story writer, novelist Angela Clarke and a foreword by Rose McGinty this is a work of collaboration and team work from all the authors who have contributed.  The book contains short stories contributed by a diverse collection of established and emerging authors, all of whom have been inspired by the suffragettes and whose stories focus on the same freedoms that those women fought for so courageously. My Thoughts Although I don't often read short stories, this compilation compelled me to read it, with its subject matter linked so closely to the strength of women in differing situations. With stories set in the p...

The Lighthousekeepers Daughter by Hazel Gaynor - my review Can I give it six out of ten please? The minute I heard about this book I knew I had to read it. Not only have I read and loved work by this delightful author before, including The Cottingley Secret. Not only is it a dual time frame historical novel with BOTH timelines set in the past (joy) but the subject is very dear to my heart ..... (tells a little story of own) "When I was about 7 years old I remember my (now late) Aunt, tracing our family tree on my Mums side. I was told she had traced it back to the 1800s where she had found a strong family link to Grace Darling. I went to school and told my teacher who incorporated Grace Darling into a lesson. Tragically, my Aunt died and the family tree research she had done has never surfaced. I dabbled with genealogy myself but didn't manage to go into as much depth as she must have and couldn't verify the link but anything connected with this heroine of the North East i...

Today I'm part of the #blogtour for the newly released debut novel by Caroline England entitled Beneath the skin. Beneath the Skin is a stunning debut psychological Domestic Noir drama about a life-changing lie. Caroline England’s,  Beneath The Skin  is a tense and compelling read, exploring truth, friendships and betrayal. Description: No-one remembers your past. But you do. ‘Antonia, Antonia. My name is Antonia.’ It’s been her name for many years. But sometimes, like tonight, she forgets. Antonia has a secret. A secret so dark and so deep that she can barely admit it to herself. Instead, she treats herself to Friday night sessions of self-harm while her husband David is at the pub, and her best friend Sophie is drinking too much wine a few doors down. Nobody close to her knows the truth about what the teenage Antonia saw all those years ago. No-one, that is, except her mother. But Candy is in a care home now, her mind too addled to remember the truth. Antonia is safe. Isn’t ...

Widdershins by Helen Steadman  The Blurb ‘Did all women have something of the witch about them?’ Jane Chandler is an apprentice healer. From childhood, she and her mother have used herbs to cure the sick. But Jane will soon learn that her sheltered life in a small village is not safe from the troubles of the wider world. From his father’s beatings to his uncle’s raging sermons, John Sharpe is beset by bad fortune. Fighting through personal tragedy, he finds his purpose: to become a witch-finder and save innocents from the scourge of witchcraft. Inspired by true events, Widdershins tells the story of the women who were persecuted and the men who condemned them. My Review: I am inexorably drawn to stories of witchcraft and the notorious Witch trials of the 17th century and this one in particular called out loudly to me, especially as it is set in the North East of England, as am I. It is based on factual events that will quite frankly make any womans blood run cold! Narrated in 2 ver...

A Dangerous Crossing - Rachel Rhys - Review The Blurb 1939: Europe is on the brink of war. Lily Shepherd, a servant girl, boards an ocean liner for Australia. She is on her way to a new life, leaving behind the shadows in her past. For a humble girl, the passage proves magical - a band, cocktails, fancy dress balls. A time when she is beholden to no one. The exotic locations along the way - Naples, Cairo, Ceylon - allow her to see places she’d only ever dreamed of, and to make friends with people higher up the social scale who would ordinarily never give her the time of day. She even allows herself to hope that a man who she couldn’t possibly have a future with outside the cocoon of the ship might return her feelings.  But Lily soon realises that her new-found friends are also escaping secrets in their past. As the ship’s glamour fades, the stage is set for something awful to happen. By the time the ship docks, two of Lily’s fellow passengers are dead, war has been declared and Lil...

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 ...