Blog Tour: I’ll Take New York by Miranda Dickinson – Review
Have you ever given up on love?
When her boyfriend lets her down for the last time, Brooklyn bookshop owner Bea James makes a decision – no more. No more men, no more heartbreak, and no more pain.
Psychiatrist Jake Steinmann is making a new start too, leaving his broken marriage behind in San Francisco. From now on there’ll just be one love in his life: New York.
At a party where they seem to be the only two singletons, Bea and Jake meet, and decide there’s just one thing for it. They will make a pact: no more relationships.
But the city has other plans . . .
Bea James and Jake Steinmann have both found themselves coming out of serious relationships. Bea has ended it with her boyfriend, Otis when he lets her down too many times and Jake has most recently moved back to New York after his wife unexpectedly files for divorce. After meeting at a party, Bea and Jake decide to make a pact against relationships.
The characters in this book are wonderful. I fell in love with Bea and Jake and immediately wanted them to be a couple. Bea is a lovely character and like Jake, she is lost after the end of her relationship and is trying to find a way to stop herself getting hurt. I found Bea a very relatable character and I love the sound of her bookshop. Some of my favourite parts of the book (apart from her developing relationship with Jake,) were the e-mail/letter exchanges she had with her grandmother. I think these really added another element to the novel.
Jake is also a warm, likeable character and I did feel so sorry for him. I liked Bea and him together and so wanted to keep reading to find out whether it would be a happy ending for them and what would happen before they got there.
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Blog Tour: Red Rose, White Rose by Joanna Hickson – Review
Harper, December 2014
In fifteenth century England the Neville family rules the north with an iron fist. Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland, a giant of a man and a staunch Lancastrian, cunningly consolidates power by negotiating brilliant marriages for his children. The last betrothal he arranges before he dies is between his youngest daughter, nine-year-old Cicely, and his ward Richard, the thirteen-year-old Duke of York, England’s richest heir.
Told through the eyes of Cicely and her half-brother Cuthbert, Red Rose, White Rose is the story of one of the most powerful women in England during one of its most turbulent periods. Born of Lancaster and married to York, the willowy and wayward Cicely treads a hazardous path through love, loss and imprisonment and between the violent factions of Lancaster and York, as the Wars of the Roses tear England’s ruling families apart.
Red Rose, While Rose is told from two points of view – Cicely who ends up married to The Duke of York, Richard (who is not the easiest man to live with,) and Cuthbert, her illegitimate half-brother. I liked the fact that there were two points of view as it gave me an insight into both sides. Cicely on her own would only have been able to take the story so far and so Cuthbert gives us an insight into the time on the battlefields – information Cicely would have no knowledge of as her story is from the domestic side.
I love it when fiction is mixed in with fact. Cuthbert is fictional but I found that I really liked his character and I connected with him in a way that I didn’t quite with other characters. He felt very real in my mind and the author has done such a great job giving him a voice. I found his situation interesting. He is seen to be accepted into Cicely’s immediate family but has to fight for his legitimacy as far as everyone else is concerned.
The two points of view also gave a very interesting account of how different it was for men and woman but in my opinion, it also shows how much importance the women’s behaviour had on their husbands and how they were forced to make difficult choices once married.
by Quick Spotlight: Map My Heart by Dom & Ink
It’s so near to Christmas now. I can’t believe we are only two weeks away. I am forever on the look out for great christmas presents for the writers in my life and I think this would make a great gift.
It’s called Map My Heart. I am loving this book. It is a relationship journal, similar to The Art of Getting Started. I am getting a slight obsession with these interactive books.. can you tell?
It’s from Huck & Pucker and it’s currently only £5 inc post and packing so it’s a bargain (until 12th December 2014.)
This book is about relationships. It’s about how people meet, fall in love, break up, wallow, and then pull themselves together again for round number two. It’s about dating and rejection and all the joy and the crap that goes with it. It will make you laugh and think, pour out your innermost thoughts and doodle away your angst. It will be your best friend and your counsellor; you can’t drink cheap wine with it but you can scrawl swear words on it and rip it up, should you feel the urge. In short, this book will make you feel better when your heart is being battered and bashed on the rollercoaster of love.
by Book Review: Love, Rosie by Cecelia Ahern
Harper, film tie-in edition, October 2014.
Sometimes fate just can’t stop meddling…
Best friends since forever, Rosie and Alex have shared their hopes, dreams, awkward moments – and firsts. But their bond is threatened when Alex’s family move to America. They stay in touch, but misunderstandings, circumstances and sheer bad luck seem to be conspiring to keep them apart. Can they gamble everything – even their friendship – on true love?
(Warning: review may contain spoilers.)
I remember reading this when it first came out in 2004 (released as Where Rainbows End.) I had been a huge fan of P.S I Love You previously so it wasn’t surprising that I would read Cecelia’s second novel. I loved it and since then, it’s been my favourite of her novels.
As it had been ten years since I’d first read it, I decided to give it a re-read when it was released with a new title (Love, Rosie,) and cover to tie in with the release of the film. I actually saw the film which then made me want to re-read the book. The film was great (Sam Claflin was perfect as Alex especially,) but the film only spans a small amount of their lives (until they are in their 30’s,) whereas the book spans from childhood until their 50’s which felt more realistic. I know you can’t fit everything into a film and it’s hard to age the actors but the book captures their lost love perfectly.
What I love about Rosie Dunne is that she is ordinary. She has dreams, plans and an idea of what her life was going to be like and then it suddenly throws her a curve ball she wasn’t expecting and she has to remap her life around it whilst her best friend is on the other side of the world living the life she could no longer have but somehow, through everything, they manage to sort themselves out in the end.
by Quick Spotlight: Memory Stick
I am a HUGE fan of interactive books. Not only does it help with the creativity of finding new ideas (as you never know how they are going to strike,) it also gives my critical editor a night off and lets me just have fun where my writing is concerned.
Memory Stick by Polly Smart is available from Huck & Pucker (August 2014.) I love this book and I think it’s great for storing all your ideas for stories and creative projects and there is no danger of it corrupting like a computer USB stick would. It’s a scrapbook of your ideas and thoughts and I am liking making my way through it.
Here’s the blurb:
Need a place to store all those moments, ideas and experiences, both crazy and everyday? Fill this journal with memories to create a record of who you are and what makes you tick. Download your brain into MEMORY STICK! A scrapbook of thoughts, happenings, hurrahs, ideas and conversations I have had.
by Book Club
