Sam's Fireside - Cosy Book Reviews & Recommendations

"Sally lifts the fishfingers from the grill pan and turns off the gas under the tinned spaghetti." This quote is so English and so comforting. 🇬🇧✨ I love fishfingers and spaghetti hoops, ideally with homemade chips! 🍟 Anyway, I digress. This is my first book by Simon Michael, and I really liked it. A lot of the book is written across two timelines, 1942 and 1970, and is set predominantly in a tiny village in France. Much of it is loosely based on true events and characters, which makes it all the more chilling. 👀 Once Charles arrives in the small French village, he discovers, in a somewhat strange way, that he is surrounded by secrets, strangers, and a lot of anger. Seemingly without reason, he is thrown into the middle of the village's version of a court case and finds himself defending the accused. ⚖️ Eventually, all the mysteries are solved, but not without upset and danger along the way. 😬 Even though this is the eleventh Charles Holborne thriller, it doesn't...

"Never turn your back on the sea." 🌊 I always enjoy any book that is set in Cornwall. We nearly ended up moving there, but alas, it wasn't meant to be. So, reading a Phillipa Ashley book gives me my Cornwall fix whenever I need it! 😊 I love the beaches that only the locals know about, the Cornish folk singers, and any mention of a pasty! And Eric... poor Eric! 💔🕊️ I could almost imagine myself sitting on the balcony with a cup of coffee, chatting away to him. Phillipa never fails to immerse me in the stunning Cornish coastline, the often laid-back way of life, and the quirky inhabitants of its towns and villages. Sybil is definitely the quirky one in this book! 😄 I can imagine she'd be an absolute hoot to have as a friend, with plenty of wayward stories to share. Zennor is the female protagonist in this story. I thought it was a weird name at first until I realised it's actually a village in Cornwall, not far from St Ives—so that's kind of cool! I liked Z...

"I love you, Betty! Forgive me. You aren't to blame!" Jack Kendall is our protagonist in  Mountain Crossing , and this is our first insight into him as an investigative reporter in Jay B. Greene's new series. I enjoyed the whirlwind way in which the story progresses, jumping from one manic scene to another, with a number of very unlikeable characters who, quite frankly, would be far better off walking into the Jamaican mountains and never returning! 😆 I think I liked Jack... I'm still on the fence 🤔. I'll let you know after the next book! What I can say is that he's definitely better off without his wife. When she goes missing, I'm not sure I'd have been bothered to go and find her! 😂 There are a few strange characters who tag along with Jack as he sets out to find his wife, and it seems that, in his eyes, they're completely disposable. They're there to help him in his mission, and he doesn't much care what happens to them afterwards...

“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...