Sam's Fireside - Cosy Book Reviews & Recommendations

I have never read anything like this before. Everything happened in this book really fast, and I couldn’t keep up. I couldn’t turn the pages quickly enough and I hated most of the characters! Yes, some of was unbelievable but so what, it was the most entertaining book I have read in a long, long time and I really can’t explain why.  Emma leaves a negative review for a book she has just read and the author contacts her...! There are some dual narratives in this, but not until later on and that’s when I got slightly confused. Just make sure that when you get to the first set of acknowledgements, you read them. I nearly didn’t and thought the book had ended. As I was reading it I was thinking that nope, I’ll never give anyone a 1 star review ever again. They might come and find me, and torture me and my dog, but it’s a story right? That would never, ever happen! But now I’ve got you wondering what weird people are out there! Thank you to #acrossthepondbookclub for choosing The Last ...

Give me a book that actually has books included in the story and you’ve got me hook, line and sinker! I was always going to love this one, I just knew it! A library that is on the brink of closure, in the small backwater that is Willow Grove needs someone to revive and love it, and that’s just what Elodie is hoping to do. Hating her corporate lifestyle in a family business in London, she ups and moves herself to Willow Grove and sets about making the necessary changes in order to keep the library alive. I loved Elodie’s idea of the library lending people’s stories, rather than just a book. There are plenty of people in the local community with a story to tell and Elodie’s idea of lending these people out for 30 minutes, to tell their story is genius. I have no idea whether real libraries do this, but if not, they definitely should. This book is not just about second chances for the library, it’s also about second chances for Elodie, Teddy, Harry and Pete, amongst others. Everyone deser...

I’m pleased to be part of Bonny Fawn’s ARC team, and The Assistant is another brilliant book from the author of The Clients. It was quite literally full of WTF moments, fast-paced, with lots of violence. Told from three points of view, Laney, JD and Vlad and set across different timelines, it took me longer than Laney to realise what was going on. Even then, I still couldn’t work out who was good and who was bad! Finally, though, all the pieces of this masterpiece are brought seamlessly and cleverly together.  Bonny Fawn is a phenomenal writer and drags the reader in, keeping them locked in until the bitter end. If there are any movie directors out there, this would be so good on the big screen - just wanted to put that out there, Thank you to the author for including me on her ARC team and for the opportunity to read and review The Assistant. Amazon UK  | Amazon US  |  Facebook  |  Instagram  |  Website  |  X

Wow! This had more twists than the largest rollercoaster in the world and I was certainly turned upside down whilst listening to it! Murder, deception, lies, dirty cops, this book has it all. I started listening to Best Friends Forever while on a long walk in the countryside with the dog. I was obviously hoping that I wouldn’t get lost but when I told my Bookstagram friends what I was doing that day, one of them said, and I quote...‘we are gonna write a book about our friend lost in the countryside while listening to a murder book’! I honestly loved it from start to finish, and I didn’t work out who the murderer was at all. I discovered the culprit right alongside our protagonist. For me, it was totally unexpected and a real shocker. There were lots of characters to hate in this book and not many to love! Shannon Hollinger got it so right and every character just added to the interest of the story. Kate Handford was a well-chosen narrator, and she simply made the book come alive. ...

This is the second book in the German Wives series, and we continue along with the stories of Edith and Julius, and Helga and Heinrich, as Hitler gains power and WWII begins. Julius and Heinrich are Jewish, although from differing backgrounds, and we discover just how life changed, step by step, for those unfortunate Jews. Once again Marion Kummerow has delivered a brilliant story, based on fact but very much a work of fiction and once again, I learnt things I didn’t know about Hitler’s rise to power and the atrocities he was responsible for, at the very beginning of the war. Enjoy is probably the wrong word, but I was interested in the continuation of Joseph’s story, a staunch SS member, but also Edith’s brother. He played a big part in the commencement of the war, but he also had Edith’s back and ultimately wanted what was best for her. I would definitely recommend this book if you are a fan of historical WWII fiction, but check out the first in the series to begin with, so you are i...

When I was contacted by the author, Thomas Chin, to ask if I would consider reading and reviewing a copy of his debut novel, Unpredictable Winds, I didn’t know what to expect, but wow, what an amazing book with a beautiful story.  Unpredictable Winds begins at the outbreak of WWII in Shanghai, China, and whilst WWII is predominantly in the background, the story focuses on the civil war, which ended in 1949 with Communist control and how the characters in the story are affected by this. Ultimately, this is a complicated love story with many twists and turns and a case of - Will the man get the girl? The author conveys such exquisite imagery throughout the book as the story spans tragedy, heartbreak, love and death. I’m sure many of Thomas Chin’s readers will know little or nothing about the culture of which he writes so beautifully, and I was definitely amongst them. I may have done a small amount of Googling as I read the book, as I was so interested in what he was writing about an...