Sam's Fireside - Cosy Book Reviews & Recommendations

“People are willfully blind if it’s something they don’t want to believe.” 👀 I listened to The Lake of Lost Girls for the #LetsEarItAudiobookChallenge for May 🎧📖. One thing it has confirmed for me is that I don't enjoy a podcast within a book, particularly when it's an audiobook 😅 While the story itself was brilliant ✨, with an ending I did not see coming 😳, the podcast narrators spoilt it for me. One was supposed to have an English accent 🇬🇧 and the other an American accent 🇺🇸. However, never have I ever heard anyone speaking with an English accent like that! 😬 Just hire one narrator from each country, for heaven's sake! That aside, I really enjoyed the dual-timeline storyline 🔄, which switched between 1998 and 2022, with a different sister taking centre stage in each timeline—Jessica in 1998 and Lindsey in 2022 👭. I loved how each suspect was built up to the point where I was convinced it might be them 🕵️‍♀️, only for the plot to head off in a completely diff...

"I'm going to swim with the stars". Metal Slinger was May's choice for #thatbonkersbookclub and, hands up, I wasn't looking forward to reading it. 🙈 I knew nothing about it; I just knew I wasn't keen on the title! Well, what a mistake that was! 🤦‍♀️ It is an A M A Z I N G story with one of the most mind-blowing plot twists I've ever read. 🤯 When it happened, I literally sat up in my chair and re-read the page in question — WTAF did I just read?! 😱 I went through varying emotions with the main characters. I feel like I loved them and hated them in equal measure, and if you asked me now, my thoughts would probably change during the course of one conversation! 😂 The world-building is kept to a minimum, which I liked, although I did check out the map a couple of times to see where all the different regions were located. 🗺️ Metal Slinger is an easy-read romantasy that I'm sure readers will be able to get into pretty quickly. With politics, magic, war ...

"You've been house hunting for a year Jess... Maybe it's time to trust your gut instead of your models and spreadsheets." I adored When in Dublin. 🍀 As a UK resident, I loved the little nuances between the US way of life and that of people living in Dublin. Things like how a proper cup of tea is made (which definitely  isn’t  putting the water in the microwave btw 😂☕️) really made me smile. I also enjoyed the comparisons between how many people in the UK have travelled to lots of different countries, while many people in the US often haven’t travelled outside of the States because there’s just so much to explore there. Considering we can drive from top to bottom of the UK in a couple of days, it’s no wonder we spread our wings a bit more. 🌍✈️ In my head, Jessie was always capable of so much more than the promotion she’s striving for. She really finds her feet in Dublin and seems to flourish in a completely different environment — albeit one with a  lot  of rain. ?...

“Instead of fearing a thing, try to understand it. Because understanding can change everything about the way that you feel.” 💙 I read this book for May's read for the #NeglectedFaithfulsReadingChallenge, which I actually received as an ARC quite a while back now. I have no excuse for not reading it sooner other than life just getting in the way! 📚✨ Joe Nuthin's Guide to Life is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. I love a neurodivergent read, and I can always see little parts of myself in every character I read about. Joe is adorable, brave, and nothing but honest as he learns to navigate life and all the complications it brings — especially when you throw other people into the mix! 🥹💛 The blue and yellow notebooks that Joe’s Mum has written for him are invaluable. But how can you possibly write about every eventuality that might happen in a person’s life? You can’t — and that’s where good friends who truly understand Joe come in. I loved how his friends guide...

“Badger hates Society, and invitations, and dinner, and all that sort of thing.” 🦡📚 I love this quote — I think many, many bookish people can identify with Badger and his aversion to socialising. I definitely fall into this camp! 😅 The Wind in the Willows was our choice for May for #classiclitbookclub and I loved it. I thought I’d read it when I was a child, but I must have only read parts of it. I remembered Toad in the motor car and the riverbank, but I think there are many TV adaptations and spin-off stories too that I may be remembering. 🚗🌿 I loved the cosiness of the animals’ homes, the camaraderie as they share a meal, and the stoic way they all look out for one another when something goes wrong. The book is full of nature, and the descriptions are so powerful I felt as though I was living on the riverbank amongst Mole, Ratty, and Badger. 🍃✨ The edition I was reading was gorgeous too, with some beautiful illustrations that brought the story even more to life. 🎨📖 I loved ...

“She could see the stern schoolmistress, rows of desks, pens dipping into inkwells, tracing the script on straight lines.” It’s been a few years since I’ve read a book by Suzanne Goldring and this one has been sitting on my NetGalley shelf for a while, so I chose it for May’s read for #kindlecrushchallenge 📚✨ I enjoyed it immensely, just as I have done with the previous two books of hers that I’ve read. The Shut-Away Sisters is a dual timeline story, split between the Great War and the late 1990s, and it’s a real eye-opener into what was expected of women in the early 1900s. Of course, I knew they were predominantly housewives and brought their daughters up to learn how to keep house, but I don’t think I realised they weren’t supposed to go out unchaperoned unless it was to the shops. Even walks in the park were expected to be taken alongside a male member of the family! 😳 I was intrigued by Kate, in modern-day London, discovering the diaries of Florrie, one of the sisters, and learn...

“Hamish’s impression was that kindness itself was a cure, and one that was as powerful as any drug.” 💙

 The Figurine has been sitting on my NetGalley shelf for a while, and when @megbatsbooks suggested a buddy read, it pushed me to finally pick it up. 😊 Now while I didn't hate it, I didn't love it either. 🤷‍♀️ First off, the title is The Figurine and we see no such thing until approximately 70% into the book, which was strange. 😅 There was a lot of (for want of a better phrase) ‘world-building’ in the story. 📚 We learn about the Greek Junta — the military regime which took place from 1967–1974 — and while it was relevant to the rest of the story, there probably didn't need to be quite so much of it. 🤔

 I enjoyed Helena clearing out her grandparents’ apartment, and I was invested in what she was finding. 🏺 I loved the friends she made in Athens, and I was keen to follow along on the investigative journey to search for answers about what was happening in the archaeol...