Sam's Fireside - Cosy Book Reviews & Recommendations

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Girl with the Scarlet Ribbon is a story set within a dual timeline, full of passion, anger, cruelty and patriotism. We begin in 1943 when we are coming towards the end of the Second World War. Gabriella and her brother Riccardo are living with their parents in Florence, Italy, where they are becoming anxious about the German invasion.  In 2019, Riccardo has recently passed away and his wife Isobel and daughter Sofia are organising an exhibition of his artwork. Neither is sure of the meanings behind his paintings, but with a little help from Riccardo, they set out to discover why he painted what he did. I enjoyed how Gabrielle played her own role in the war, offering her services to the Resistance and doing her best to help save the city that she’s living in. Suzanne Goldring writes about such great community spirit and camaraderie amongst the inhabitants of Florence and how they lived through the war with the help and support of each other.  Riccardo was a trouble...

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I loved the first book in this new DS Max Craigie series, and The Blood Tide is even better because now we have a relationship with the characters! We know who’s a pain in the backside; we know whose heart is always in the right place, and we know who we can trust...or do we? If you have read the first in the series, you will be familiar with what Max and his small team do, basically searching out dodgy law enforcement guys and making sure they are brought to justice, whilst solving the crimes at the same time. The Blood Tide is gritty, dark and often violent, so if you don’t like dead bodies, then it’s probably not for you!  Throughout a lot of the book, I found myself thinking that he or she had turned into one of the bad guys, and the author kept me guessing with every turn of the page. Was it safe to let this character have the information they are being given or not? I found myself muttering out loud sometimes when I voiced my opinions and often cringed when some of the ...

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Set between the present day and the years following the end of World War II in Mid Wales, The Drowned Village is a beautiful, but heartbreaking story. Sixty-five years ago, Elin Jenkins, a young Welsh girl, and Al Locke, an American sailor, had their whole lives ahead of them and, after Al proposed, the plan was for Elin to move to Pennsylvania and marry the man she loved. However, life doesn’t always work out the way you want it to. Present-day and Sophie is running a bunkhouse in Wales, and one of her guests is an elderly gentleman in his eighties... I thoroughly love a book that is based on historical facts and makes me want to research more about what I’ve read, This is definitely true of The Drowned Village, I only live about 3 hours drive from Mid Wales, yet I wasn’t aware of entire villages that were flooded with water to create a reservoir, to provide water for industries, just over the border in Liverpool.  The descriptions of the Welsh countryside, with its towering...

  ⭐⭐⭐⭐   It is 1963 and our protagonist, Alexandra, is in Paris, en route to a Swiss finishing school which she isn’t looking forward to and would really rather stay in Paris. Through a friend of a friend, she finds herself in short-term employment as a Nanny to three French children, although not in Paris, but in sunny Provence, deep in the French countryside. Planning on staying with the family for a few weeks and then continuing onto Switzerland, Alexandra settles down to look after her charges. As time goes by, Alexandra finds herself indispensable to the children’s father, Antoine. As he is away so often on business, and the children grow fond of her, she agrees to stay a little longer. A Wedding in Provence is a lovely read, like all of Katie Fforde’s books. I immersed myself in French life and culture and found myself living in Provence with Alexandra, drinking rosé wine, eating pain au chocolat and relaxing in the sunshine. Katie is adept with her descriptive writ...

⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Terrible Kindness by Jo Browning Wroe is based on the horrific disaster which occurred, in the coal mining village of Aberfan, Wales on 21 October 1966. Embalmers were the unsung heroes of Aberfan, with volunteers rushing to the small Welsh village to ensure that the 116 children and 28 adults who perished were cleaned, identified and embalmed to keep them from deteriorating and thus saving their loved ones from further distress. This book follows the fictitious character of William Lavery, from his young life as a chorister in Cambridge, through to him working for the family business as an embalmer which led him to Aberfan, right after he first qualified. The story jumps from 1966 and Aberfan, back to when William was a child and then forward again as he learns how to deal with the aftermath of the tragedy he witnessed and how it affected his life moving forward. It has been clear from the book, that Jo Browning Wroe has carried out a great deal of research on the role of the...

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I love a dystopian; the world is ending, kind of book and The Book of Sand by Theo Clare didn’t fail to deliver. Written with a parallel timeline, Mckenzie is a teenager, living in the present day in Virginia in the USA. Spider (I couldn’t work out what age Spider was supposed to be), is living in a parallel universe somewhere in a desert, which comprises various countries, states and cities from around the world. He is surrounded by his desert family and they are on a mission to discover the Sarkpont and although they aren’t sure what that is; they know that other families are searching for it too. They also know that if they don’t find it, their quest is over. We flit back and forth between Mckenzie and the family in the desert, both linked in some way, although it’s a while until we discover how. Seemingly, Mckenzie’s life is just that of a normal teenager’s, although she appears to have some psychotic episodes. So at first, I wondered how this fitted into a fantasy novel and ...

⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Rebound, by Catherine Walsh, is just what you need to get you in the mood for love and romance this Valentine’s Day! It will have you laughing and crying and shouting at the characters!  Abby has had no choice but to return home to Ireland from New York, where she has been living and working for the past few years. Her entire life was there, her home, her job, her fiance and her friends. Now she is left with nothing. Staying with her sister, who she doesn’t really get on with, and having to face familiar faces in the village who all know why she’s had to come back, Abby sets about rebuilding her life. Most of the characters in The Rebound are lovable in their own way. Abby and her sister Louise are very different people and have never really got on with each other, but this changes as the story progresses and in their own way, each of them is there for the other, because who can you rely on, if you can’t rely on family. I loved Beth, Abby’s newfound friend, and they ...

  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Once again, it was a privilege to be an Advance Reader for Gary Clark’s new book, Some Kind of Comfort. It’s totally different from his Interland books, which are a dystopian fantasy series. This one is real-life, sensitively dealing with issues that many teenagers have suffered or are suffering with.  Charley is our protagonist. A sixteen-year-old girl with severe anxiety issues and ‘thought tangles’, her anxiety has caused Charley numerous problems as she has been growing up, but right now, they’ve hit what is hopefully the peak and she begins to deal with them.  Admitted to a psychiatric unit for children and young people, Charley makes friends with a group of people who are on the same wavelength as she is and, slowly, with therapy and the understanding she needs, she begins her road to recovery. Gary Clark is an awesome author, and he has dealt with the topics in this book brilliantly. He delves into each character and we begin to understand why they have...

  ⭐⭐⭐⭐  The 5th book in Kristen Bailey’s ‘The Callaghan Sisters’, but you don’t need to have read any of the others to enjoy this one. This is the first Kristen Bailey I’ve read and Lucy is our protagonist, happy-go-lucky Lucy, the sister with the wild streak and a devil-may-care attitude. I loved her, her free spirit, her unconditional love for her family, and simply her energy. Lucy has it tough throughout much of the story. Following a head injury, she has no memory of the last ten years and has to fight hard to recover what she’s lost. She meets up with friends, colleagues and anyone that may be able to help her work out what she has been up to in the years she’s missing. Her sisters are with her every step of the way and for this, Lucy is thankful.  I loved the easy reading of ‘Am I Allergic to Men’. I could put it down and pick it back up again without having to remember what I’d read before. However, if you pick a day when you’re not doing much else, if it’s wet an...

  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This is Stacy Willingham's debut novel! I didn't realise this until I'd finished reading it, and to say I was surprised is an understatement. It feels like she's been writing for years! Full of plot twists and turns, I guarantee it'll leave you reeling and wanting more with each turn of the page. Chloe is the protagonist in A Flicker in the Dark and has been trying to hide from her past, and her serial killer father for the last twenty years but some things just never go away... Flitting back and forth between the present, and Chloe's memories of the past, we begin to understand why she seems as troubled as she is.  It now seems that the murders are beginning again, with a similar modus operandi and Chloe feels that somehow she is a link to the killings, setting out to try and find out what is going on. Stacy Willingham's novel certainly keeps you on your toes and I really didn't see the ending coming, not in the way that it did.  Although I'...