Christa Liddle has led an interesting life. When the book opens, she is studying sea snails on a fictional island in the Indian Ocean. Her mom calls her frantically because her father who ‘died’ in a plane crash 25 years prior has come back to life. A complicating factor is that Christa’s dad is a Steve Irwin-type character – a famous TV conservationist. He also started a toy company called Liddle’s Liddles – a Beanie … Continue reading Christa Comes Out of Her Shell by Abbi Waxman →
I enjoyed this book. I read it cover-to-cover in almost one sitting, but as I sit here to write this review, I’m left with distinctly meh feelings about it. Is this because I had a disappointing breakfast and that’s colouring my perspective? Or was the book meh? Let’s find out together. This story is set in the Jewish community of London in the 1830s and is essentially a gender-reversed Snow White retelling. Solomon Weiss is … Continue reading Wake Me Most Wickedly by Felicia Grossman →
I think there is a fine art to creating cosy mystery television. It’s so easy to make the mystery predictable or even outright boring. But at the same time, you don’t want to make it so thrilling that it’s no longer cosy. In my mind, Sister Boniface Mysteries gets the balance just right. In Great Slaughter (the name of this English village) in the early 1960s, Sister Boniface, a Catholic nun, works as a scientific … Continue reading Sister Boniface Mysteries →
This book gave my emotions a workout in the best way. Aside from a slightly disappointing ending, it was a delight! Lucy Peterson is an apothecary in London in 1843. She inherited the shop from her father when her parents died in a cholera outbreak. Lucy has two siblings, Juliet and David. Juliet is an apothecary at a women’s clinic in the East End while David seems to flit from investment to investment losing money. … Continue reading The Love Remedy by Elizabeth Everett →
Do not be fooled by this cover. The cover says, ‘Look at me and my whimsy! My light frolic through life!’ No, dear reader, this is not light. This is a book about persevering through tough times. The title should have been a clue for me. A phoenix doesn’t arise from a bouquet of flowers, after all. The book is set in 1666. Plague had ravaged London the previous year and reading the characters’ reflections … Continue reading The Phoenix Bride by Natasha Siegel →
This is my first Olivia Dade novel and it certainly won’t be my last. It was emotional, grown-up and absolutely compulsive reading. Athena has no direction in life. When the book opens, she’s working as a teacher an hour and a half away from Harlot’s Bay, the setting of the novel. She’s burnt out and really not sure what to do next careerwise. Her distress is particularly acute because at the age of 37, she … Continue reading At First Spite by Olivia Dade →
It’s D for Dick, I’m afraid. Specifically, it was a close up of Beau’s (Joe Davidson) penis which gave me my first genuine (albeit startled) laugh of the movie. Bea (Sydney Sweeney) and Ben (Glen Powell) have a meet cute in a coffee shop and spend a lovely night together. The next day, Bea overhears Ben disparaging her to a friend and so the enemy part of the trope is set. Time passes until it … Continue reading Movie Review: Anyone but You →
CW: I’m going to quote the content note verbatim here: “Midnight Ruin is an occasionally dark and very spicy book that contains violence, murder, blood, guns, pregnancy (not the heroine) and abortion (off-page, not the heroine).” I can’t be trusted to be objective and balanced when the book in question made me gasp repeatedly and then exclaim at my partner that the book was SO GOOD. This book gave me so much Good Book Noise! … Continue reading Midnight Ruin by Katee Robert →
This book is CHARMING. C.H.A.R.M.I.N.G. I devoured it in just over a day and what a beautiful day it was. Emily Wilde is a scholar of the fae, or ‘Folk’ as they’re called in the book. She’s serious, a bit curmudgeonly, dedicated to her studies, and utterly genius when it comes to studying and interacting with the Folk. The Folk are tricky and cunning, with some of them being outright gruesome and vicious. In book … Continue reading Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett →
CW: In the author’s words: ‘mild, non-graphic sexual harassment of both a female employee and a child’ More on that in the review though. I hadn’t intended on reviewing this book. I absolutely devoured Half a Soul and this book was set in the same world, so I planned a few happy evenings of returning to that world. Perhaps my memories of Half a Soul aren’t accurate, but I didn’t expect to have my feelings … Continue reading The Witchwood Knot by Olivia Atwater →
I’m a sucker for a historical mystery with an angry female lead. Can’t resist. Must read immediately. Fortunately, I discovered this series of books with exactly this type of sleuth on offer. Rhiannon ‘Non’ Vaughan is auditing some lectures at Oxford in 1881. Women aren’t allowed to attend all lectures, write exams or attain degrees, but Non is determined to do as much as she can nonetheless. Non is a fearsome young Welsh woman studying … Continue reading A Bitter Remedy by Alis Hawkins →
