Thursday, April 30, 2026

My Review for The Sunshine Teashop by Jaimie Admans

April 30, 2026  , , ,  No comments



“You’ve got to be incredibly confident in your transport choices to drive a highlighter pen on wheels.” 🚗💛

I was worried about reading Jaimie’s new book because I loved her Ever After Street series so much, but I needn’t have worried—The Sunshine Teashop is every bit as good. It has a new vibe, new characters, and lots of huggy moments. 🤗

As the book starts, we’re in Kent. No offence to Kentish people, but I want my cute romance books to be set in the countryside or near the sea. 🌊🌿 So imagine my delight when Dolly ups and leaves for a gorgeous village in Yorkshire. 🏡 (Yes, I know the synopsis says this, but I don’t read them! 😆)

I was with Dolly every step of the way and loved how easily she immersed herself in village life. She had the little old ladies wrapped around her little finger—in a lovely, happy, friendly way—and, just as importantly, they had her back every step of the way. 💛 I did cringe a bit when she and her new-found builder friend, Reece, got out the paint rollers and brushes—that did not sit well with my OCD—but hey, needs must! 🎨😬

My favourite part was the nostalgic bakes Dolly loves making. 🧁 I’d forgotten half of them existed, and it’s such a lovely idea—to open a café serving all your childhood favourites. 🍰✨

Of course everything ends up lovely and cosy and utterly gorgeous and I know that this is supposed to be a standalone book but I really want to know what happens next please Jaimie. 📖💕

Thank you to Boldwood Books and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review The Sunshine Teashop by Jaimie Admans.  💕📚

About the Book

Welcome to Thimblenouth: where the kettle is always on and fresh starts and unexpected love are waiting. 🧁🫖

Dolly Lymford is having one of those days…The kind that starts with dreams of opening a café… and ends with discovering your boyfriend kissing your best friend!

Heartbroken and with nowhere else to go, Dolly accidentally-on-purpose borrows her now-ex-boyfriend’s campervan and drives until the road runs out. This leads her to Thimblenouth, a picture-perfect Yorkshire Dales village where life moves more slowly and the kettle is always on.

After literally bumping into gorgeous local builder Reece Sterling, Dolly begins to feel something she hasn’t in a long time: safe. She also rediscovers her love of baking, filling the campervan with the scent of warm scones and freshly brewed tea. And Reece is always around to share a lemon pie or two...

When Dolly has an idea to open her own pop-up café, Reece is all too happy to help. And as the summer sun begins to warm everything it touches, Dolly wonders if she's finally found a place to call home... maybe even with Reece.

But can she really build a future on borrowed wheels?

A warm, uplifting story of fresh starts, village kindness, and finding love where you least expect it — best enjoyed with tea and cake. 🍰


About Jaimie

Jaimie is a 38-year-old English-sounding Welsh girl with an awkward-to-spell name. She lives in South Wales and enjoys writing, gardening, watching horror movies, and drinking tea, although she’s seriously considering marrying her coffee machine. 

She loves autumn and winter, and singing songs from musicals despite the fact she’s got the voice of a dying hyena. She hates spiders, hot weather, and cheese & onion crisps. She spends far too much time on Twitter and owns too many pairs of boots. 

She will never have time to read all the books she wants to read.














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Monday, April 27, 2026

My Review for The Woman in the Cabin by Becca Day

April 27, 2026  , , ,  No comments


“Have dinner ready… be happy to see your husband and greet him with a warm smile.”

The Woman in the Cabin was my April read for the @hook.me.a.book challenge – the #NeglectedFaithfulsReadingChallenge – and a book that’s been sitting on my shelf for way too long 📚✨ It was dark, full of all sorts of wrongness… and I loved it so much 😈 I had to keep reading. I needed to know if Mary was going to be okay 😰, whether the control-freak husband was going to hurt her 😡, and just what other madness he had up his sleeve 👀

I think this book will send readers one of two ways: you’ll either be completely intrigued (like I was) and desperate to keep turning the pages 📖🔥, or you’ll be hugely frustrated by our female main character — like, kill the b*****d already! 😤 And if you’re big on women’s rights, this might make you properly angry at how any man could treat a woman like this 💔

However you feel, if you enjoy a captive thriller, you’re going to love this one 🖤

If you’re thinking of picking it up, definitely check the trigger warnings first ⚠️ — there are quite a few. But if you’re good with those… dive in! 🏊‍♀️📚

This is my first Becca Day read, and it definitely won’t be my last 🙌

A (very belated) thank you to Bonnier Hive for the gifted copy of The Woman in the Cabin by Becca Day 💌📖

About the Book

Deep in the woods, you can hide more than secrets...

Every day, in a remote cabin hidden deep in the woods in the Scottish Highlands, Mary wakes up before dawn to make breakfast from scratch. She tends the garden and feeds the animals. Every night, Mary makes sure she has dinner on the table for when her husband Cal gets home from work.

She puts on his favorite lipstick and greets him with a smile. 'I've missed you.' It's not true and he knows it. But he likes to hear it all the same.

Mary is the perfect wife and like any good wife she knows her job is to keep her husband happy.

But lately as she notices her first wrinkles appear, she can sense Cal change. A scowl at dinner not being ready on time, a too tight grip as he leads her to the bedroom tells her he's noticed too. And old memories are coming back too, of her life before the cabin...

Then she finds a stack of letters hidden under the floorboards detailing a life eerily similar to her own. They're addressed to her: 'To the next woman.'

If she's not the first to play the role of Cal's perfect wife, what happened to the woman in the cabin before her? And how long does she have until she is next?


About Becca - by Becca

Hello friends! I’ve been a storyteller since I can remember. I even wrote a short story (which I distinctly remember being rather cringe-worthy) that ended up being ‘published’ in the school’s library. I was basically a celebrity! Growing up, I was a constant day-dreamer, and “get your head out of the clouds” was a common phrase I heard from my parents and teachers. But the truth is my mind just liked to wander (still does), and I spent my teenage years and early adulthood attempting (and failing) to get my wandering thoughts down onto paper.

I became a full-time writer working for a parenting website – as well as venturing into graphic and website design as another creative outlet – but my heart has always been drawn back to fiction. I wrote a few pieces of short fiction (one of which came runner up in a competition) and my first full length novel in 2019, which will sit in a drawer for the rest of eternity. I began querying my second novel in March 2021 and in May 2021 I signed with my wonderful agent Emily Glenister at DHH Literary Agency. I also helped to run Reading Parties with fellow author William Shaw – he’s far more successful and talented than me, but don’t tell him I said that! Reading Parties has given me the opportunity to work with some amazing writers such as Phoebe Morgan, Will Dean, C.L Taylor and TM Logan, as well as countless industry professionals.

Nowadays, when I’m not working on my novels, I’m Head of Membership & Marketing at leading literary consultancy Jericho Writers, which means I get to help others to write novels for a living! What a life! And, amidst writing and working, I’m looking after my two daughters and cocker spaniel in my little home in Surrey.



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Thursday, April 23, 2026

My Review for The Doctor by Annie Payne

April 23, 2026  , , ,  No comments



"The feeling of being watched was just a symptom of her anxiety..." 👀

Full disclosure, I read this one over two years ago, but for some reason I didn't write a review, so when @megbatsbooks wanted someone to buddy read it with her, I thought it would be fun to read it again and see if I remembered much of it. 📚

I remembered bits correctly, particularly who one of the dodgy characters was, but I was wrong about other parts. I had killed someone off, but in fact he was alive and kicking at the end! 😅

Having worked for the NHS for many years, I understand and appreciate the lack of funding, lack of staff, lack of beds, etc. But this story goes way past the normal everyday frustrations and shows a deeper, darker (thankfully incredibly rare) and fictional insight into what happens when one or two unstable people take control. 🏥

Talk about gaslighting at work - poor Dr Wilson must have thought she was going round the twist when all the unexplainable things were happening to her. 😵‍💫 I was once again intrigued - who was trying to get rid of her, and why? 🤔 I admired her determination that no matter what, she was going to get to the bottom of what was happening in the hospital, and there is more than one disturbing thing going on in this book! 😬

Thank you to the lovely @megbatsbooks for reading this with me - what's next? 💕

A very belated thank you to Avon Books UK and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review The Doctor by Annie Payne.

About the Book

Running away from a past she’d rather forget, Doctor Alison Wilson has moved to a new town to take up the role of Medical Officer at failing hospital Saint Margaret’s.

Tasked with shaking things up, she quickly learns that things are worse than they initially seem: patient records are in disarray, staff morale is low, and there’s something afoot that she can’t quite put her finger on…

As Alison starts to dig into the hospital’s past, she gradually discovers a trail of lies that runs deeper and darker than she could have ever imagined.

There’s a cold-blooded killer in the hospital. And they’re hiding in plain sight…


About Annie/Candy

After publication of her novel, Deadly Treatment, Candy branched out into short story writing for radio and then started her television career on THE BILL. During her time there, the show was nominated for two Writer's Guild Awards. After brief sojourns on LONDON BRIDGE and CROSSROADS, Candy was part of the team that helped DOCTORS through development and into production with the BBC and she stayed with them through the first three series,. She has worked on three series of HEARTBEAT for ITV. 

Candy is now working on a series of novels for The Book Folks, the first six, starting with Dead Pretty are already published along with an anthology of the first three: A Police Doctor Investigates. More books are planned in this series.

​Candy also writes standalone thrillers for Avon under the name Annie Payne.















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Monday, April 20, 2026

My Review for Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, read by Trevor White

April 20, 2026  , , ,  No comments



“New friends can often have a better time together than old friends.”

Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald was April’s read for #classiclitbookclub, 📚 and one I’d read before for A Level. I wasn’t a fan when I first read it at sixteen—though, to be fair, I really didn’t enjoy dissecting books. For me, books were written to be read and enjoyed, not analysed and picked apart so students could try to get into the author’s head. 🤯 That’s probably why I failed my A Level English Lit!!!

Anyway, I did enjoy it more this time around, thanks in part to the narration from Trevor White, who brought the characters to life far more than a classroom full of students and a slightly fuddy-duddy teacher ever did! I also noticed a lot more this time 👀. Before, all I really remembered was people lying on a beach in the South of France—after all, a teenage girl is going to pick up on the places she’d rather be. ☀️🏖️

What I didn’t remember was the reason Nicole Diver was in a mental institution in the first place, which was quite shocking, 😳 or how young Rosemary actually was. Her mother really stood out as an enabler, actively encouraging her to flirt with a much older, married man—I mean, he was probably closer to her mother’s age! 😬

Overall, I still found the book a bit clunky. It didn’t always flow well and jumped around quite a bit. That said, I did enjoy the characters and their stories, villainous or otherwise, and I’m glad I had the chance to read it again—this time just for fun. 😊

About the Book

When the young and naïve Rosemary Hoyt comes to the French Riviera in the 1920s she is bedazzled by the glamorous lifestyles of Dick and Nicole Diver and their high-society set. Yet, beneath this polished veneer, the lives of the Divers are fraught with complexity and anxiety. As their mysterious, problematic past resurfaces, the struggle to keep up appearances takes its toll, and their seemingly perfect lives begin to deteriorate with alarming rapidity. Overflowing with descriptive brilliance and lyrical power, Tender is the Night is also remarkable for the strong autobiographical element to the story. 


About F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) was an American novelist and short story writer whose work came to define both the glamour and the underlying disillusionment of the Jazz Age. Known for his elegant prose and keen social observation, Fitzgerald explored themes of wealth, ambition, love, and the fragility of the American Dream. His most famous novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), remains a cornerstone of American literature, offering a vivid portrait of excess and longing in 1920s society.

Fitzgerald also wrote Tender Is the Night (1934), a more introspective and complex work that draws heavily on his own life, particularly his relationship with his wife, Zelda Fitzgerald. Alongside his novels, he produced numerous short stories that capture both the sparkle and the strain of high society. Though his success faded during his lifetime, Fitzgerald’s work has since gained enduring recognition, securing his place as one of the most influential voices in American fiction.




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Friday, April 17, 2026

My Review for From Now Until Forever by Rowan Coleman, read by Helen McAlpine and Nathaniel Priestly

April 17, 2026  , , , ,  No comments



“Leonardo hid so many of his secrets in his artwork. My very last hope is that he hid the secret to setting me free…” ✨

I really liked the first quarter of this book—but the rest of it? I absolutely loved it. 💛 It completely blew me away. Magical realism, living forever—quite literally—not what I was expecting at all. 🤯

I don’t want to say too much because that would spoil it… just trust me and read it. 📖

Don’t be fooled—there are some truly heartbreaking moments here. 💔 It isn’t all sunshine and roses. But there are also some beautiful family connections, especially towards the end, and it all balances out so well 🫶

Helen McAlpine and Nathaniel Priestly were brilliant as narrators, 🎧, bringing warmth, love, and sadness to their characters. I was completely invested in their voices from the start.

Honestly—read it, listen to it, I don’t mind—just get your hands on this book NOW! 🔥

A very belated thank you to Hodder & Stoughton Audio and NetGalley for the opportunity to listen to and review From Now Until Forever by Rowan Coleman.

About the Book

He's running out of time.

Ben Church has never done anything extraordinary in his life -- until now.

Now, he needs to fulfil as many of his dreams as possible while he still can.

That's why he's standing in front of his favourite painting by Leonardo da Vinci when he should be at work.

Time is all she has.

Vita Ambrose's life of parties and fabulous clothes looks wildly glamorous but in reality it has no meaning.

She's seen too much, lived too much and lost too much.

That's why she's come back to the gallery, to seek solace in her favourite painting.

Together, can they make time stand still?

Ben and Vita's connection is immediate, spontaneous and passionate. But the clock is ticking.

Can they find a way to make their love live forever? Because every moment matters when it might be your last...


About Rowan

Rowan Coleman is the internationally bestselling and award winning author and screenwriter of sixteen novels including THE MEMORY BOOK, THE SUMMER OF IMPOSSIBLE THINGS and THE GIRL AT THE WINDOW.

A life long Bronte fan, under the Bronte inspired pen name Bella Ellis, Rowan also writes the Bronte Mysteries – a carefully researched series of novels that imagine that before they were were famous the Bronte Sisters were amateur detectives. THE VANISHED BRIDE and THE DIABOLICAL BONES and The RED MONARCH are out now.






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Sunday, April 12, 2026

My Review for The Lily Garden by Barbara Josselsohn

April 12, 2026  , , ,  No comments



“Inside was a message in her dad's handwriting.” 💌

The Lily Garden was April's read for #kindlecrushchallenge 📚 and a book that had been sitting on my Kindle for almost five years! This was the first Barbara Josselsohn novel I’ve read, and I loved it from beginning to end. ❤️

We spend the majority of the book in the small town of Lake Summers—a place where, almost thirty years ago, Caroline lost her parents. 💔 She left a few years later and never returned… until now. ✨ The story had everything I adore in a book: a close-knit community, 🏡 cosy spots to grab a coffee, ☕ a great food place serving delicious, mouthwatering dishes, 🍽️ and of course, a cute love interest. 💕 Throw a garden into the mix 🌸 and I’m all in!

I really liked how Caroline’s daughter, Lee, consistently knew what she wanted throughout the book and stuck to her guns. 💪 Yes, other people tried to force their opinions on her, but in the end, her dreams shone through. ✨ Maxine and Gull are great characters too—full of wit and warmth. 🫶 They seemingly hold the town together, and I’d love to visit their grill and try their chicken riggies. 🍝 I have no idea what they are, but they sound amazing! 😄

I’ve added the other books in this series to my TBR, 📖 and although this is the third one, I don’t think it matters. I’ll definitely be checking out the others at some point. 👀

A very belated thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for the opportunity to read and review The Lily Garden by Barbara Josselsohn. 🙏

About the Book

She held the letter that she had found in the garden, and noticed the distinctive curls of her father’s handwriting etched on the worn paper. Her life had already been turned upside down by one family secret, would his last words force her to leave her childhood home forever?

When Caroline left Lake Summers thirty years ago, she thought she’d never go back to the place where she lost her parents. But when she finds out that the town’s lily garden lovingly built by her mother is going to be destroyed, she knows fate is calling. Dropping everything at her office in Chicago, she knows she is the only person who can save the garden.

Caroline and her daughter Lee are welcomed home by the warm smile of her mother’s best friend Maxine, and piles of pancakes at her cozy little restaurant in town. And Caroline soon learns that she isn’t the only person invested in saving her mother’s legacy, when she meets handsome historian Aaron . As she gets to know him, strolling along the sparkling lakeshore, she can’t imagine anywhere else she’d rather be.

But then Caroline learns a terrible secret about the day her mother died. And soon the real reason Aaron is in Lake Summers comes to light. Will the truth about the people she loves force her to give up a future with Aaron, and the beautiful town that has always been in her heart?



About Barbara

Barbara Josselsohn is a best-selling author known for her captivating contemporary and historical novels, including her latest, The Forgotten Italian Island. This sweeping, multigenerational story delves into the lives of two women bound by a fateful mistake made one night during the Nazi occupation of northern and central Italy. It is a follow-up to her two previous World War II novels, Secrets of the Italian Island and The Lost Gift to the Italian Island. Barbara’s work is marked by richly developed characters, intricate emotional landscapes, and immersive settings that transport readers to the heart of each story.


With a talent for blending history and human drama, Barbara’s novels explore complex themes of love, loss, resilience, and the enduring power of secrets. Her storytelling often spans generations, drawing readers into a tapestry of personal and historical struggles. Known for her lush descriptions and evocative prose, Barbara has garnered praise for her ability to bring history to life while crafting deeply emotional, character-driven narratives.

Her books resonate with readers who appreciate stories that combine rich details with powerful personal journeys. Currently, Barbara is working on a new World War II novel set in the mountains of southern France.

In addition to her writing career, Barbara teaches novel writing at Sarah Lawrence College and other prestigious venues. When not writing, Barbara enjoys ballet, yoga, reading, and relaxing on the beach. She loves spending time with her family, which includes her beloved rescue pup, Albie.



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Tuesday, April 7, 2026

My Review for Just Watch Me by Lior Torenberg

April 07, 2026  ,  No comments



"Having a desk job doesn't mean you have your shit together," I say. "It just means you have a flat ass from sitting all day." 😅💺

Let me begin by saying I was born in the seventies, when a stream was something at the bottom of my road that I paddled in 🌿💦, and the internet hadn’t even been thought of. This book is completely outside my comfort zone, so I was surprised I enjoyed it even as much as I did 🤔📖

The idea of someone watching and listening to my every move 24/7 is unsettling 😬👀 Dell’s world felt strange and uncomfortable at times—her life is about as far from what I’d consider normal as you can get. Some of the things she does for money really made me wonder… are there actually people out there like this? I suppose there must be 😳💸

That said, I didn’t like Dell. I found her underhanded and manipulative, with little respect for herself or anyone else. She’s not someone I’d ever want to meet 🙅‍♀️🚫

Thank you to Scribner UK for the gifted copy of Just Watch Me by Lior Torenberg 📚✨

About the Book

Dell Danvers is barely keeping it together. She’s behind on rent for her bathroom-less studio apartment (formerly a walk-in closet), she’s being plagued by perpetual, spiking stomach pain, and her younger sister, Daisy, is in a coma at a hospital that wants to pull the plug. Freshly unemployed and subsisting on selling plant propagations to trust fund kids, Dell impulsively starts a 24-hour livestream under the username mademoiselle_dell to fundraise $14,000 for a week of private life support for Daisy.

In the dungeon of her stream, Dell is in control, banishing those who don’t abide by her terms of engagement and steadily rising up the platform’s ranks with her sympathetic story and angry-funny screen presence. On a dare, she discovers that she has a talent for eating spicy food, and her streaming fame explodes as her pepper consumption graduates from jalapeño to habanero to ghost. Finally, Dell is good at something—but as her behavior becomes riskier and riskier and a troll-turned-incel threatens to expose her dark past, Dell must reckon with what her digital life ignores, and what real redemption means.

Narrated in seven taut chapters, one for each day of Dell’s livestream, Just Watch Me careens us through a nonstop week in the life of this charismatic misfit with a heart of gold. Voyeuristic and visceral, audacious and outrageous, Lior Torenberg’s debut is both an incisive, zippy tragicomedy about the internet economy as well as a moving meditation on love, loss, and forgiveness.


About Lior

Lior Torenberg is a contemporary fiction writer whose work is shaped by a keen interest in human behavior, particularly in the way people present themselves in everyday life and online spaces. She has lived between London and New York, an experience that informs the observational tone of her writing. During the pandemic, she became fascinated by livestream culture—sparked in part by watching her roommate follow gaming streams—which later influenced her debut novel, Just Watch Me (2026). Known to have a wry sense of humor, she has described herself as a casual “hot sauce hobbyist,” a small detail that reflects her understated, personal approach to creativity. Though generally private, her work reveals a thoughtful, curious perspective on connection, identity, and modern life.



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