A Single Breath Blog Tour – Review
A Single Breath by Lucy Clarke
Eva and Jackson are married, happy and in love but when, on a trip to Dorset, Jackson falls into the sea and drowns, Eva’s life is shattered. She knows that she can’t live without him. She decides to go to Tasmania, where Jackson grew up to meet his family, friends – the people who knew him as well as she does but when she arrives, she starts to find out more about Jackson’s past and that things are never as they seem.
From the first chapter, I knew this book was going to make me cry and I was right. Eva looses everything that she loves in one moment and the tone of the book really helps convey the grief she is feeling in an honest way. As a character, she’s fairly lost and doesn’t know what to do in order to get to the end of each day and I really did empathise with her. I wanted to give her a hug. We can all relate to loss in some way.
There were moments of this book that were truly heart-breaking (hence the making me cry part,) and I really wanted to know what happened at the end. I finished the book both Continue reading
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Skeletons Blog Tour – Review
Skeletons by Jane Fallon
Michael Joseph, 2014
Jen has discovered a secret. It’s not hers to share, but is it hers to keep? If she tells her husband Jason, he might get over the shock but will he forgive her for telling the truth? She might drive a wedge through their marriage. If she tells someone else in Jason’s family – the family she’s come to love more than her own – she’d not only tear them apart but could also find herself on the outside: she’s never really been one of them, after all. But if she keeps this dirty little secret to herself, how long can she pretend nothing is wrong? How long can she live a lie?
Jen knows the truth – but is she ready for the consequences?
Jen leads a happy life. She is happily married to Jason, she has two daughters and she is very close to her husband’s family – her sister-in-law being her best friend.
Jen then learns a secret. It’s a secret that has the potential to ruin her perfect life and the perfect family around her. It’s not her secret but she’s in a horrible position. Either way, people are going to get hurt.
by Peach Blossom Pavilion Blog Tour: Review
Peach Blossom Pavilion by Mingmei Yip.
When Precious Orchid’s father is falsely accused of a crime and found guilty, he is executed, leaving his family a legacy of dishonour. Her mother’s only option is to enter a Buddhist nunnery, so she gives her daughter over to the care of her sister in Shanghai. At first, life at Peach Blossom Pavilion feels like a dream. She is schooled in music, literature, painting, calligraphy, and the art of pleasuring men. The beautiful Pavilion has a darker purpose as an elite house of prostitution. And even as she gets attention of China’s most powerful men, Precious Orchid never gives up on her dream to escape the Pavilion, be reunited with her mother, avenge her father’s death, and find true love.
This isn’t a book I would pick up just from browsing book shelves in a shop but I am glad we were given the opportunity to take part in the blog tour. Continue reading
by Half Bad Blog Tour: Review
A wonderful debut from author, Sally Green.
Nathan is between good and evil. He is a half code: he’s half white witch and half black and therefore is on the edge of conflicting worlds – not really belonging anywhere. This is a fact that the council, his half-sister and the purest white witches don’t want to let him forget.
He is a prisoner of the council, being put through assessment after assessment, wondering whether each time is going to be the moment he’s given freedom as a white witch or whether he will be condemned and will face a darker future, if one at all.
His father is the most notorious black witch and the more he learns about his dark ancestry, the more he has to try and live down a reputation in the real world as he approaches his seventieth birthday and the traditional giving ceremony. He also wonders about his father. He wants to search for him and meet him.
This book is the first part in the series focusing on Nathan as a child and his struggles as a teenager. Continue reading
by The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
The Goldfinch is a story of loss, obsession, survival and self-invention.
Little, Brown. Oct 2013.
Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love – and his talisman, the painting, places him at the centre of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.
This was my ‘real life’ (as in not on NK) book club book in February. Usually one person suggests three or four novels, and the group votes their favourite. In January one of our members was raving about The Goldfinch, so we decided we’d skip the vote and just read this.
Four of us went to the meeting in March. Continue reading
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