Sam's Fireside - Cosy Book Reviews & Recommendations

“An autistic psychopath is the human being who is most fundamentally himself. He cannot be anything but original and spontaneous. He is uninhibited by the collective social will.” The Matchbox Girl is a story based on true events in Austria 🇦🇹 during the Second World War. Our protagonist, Adelheid, has been placed in a specialist paediatric clinic 🏥 for children with a range of mental illnesses. Adelheid tells her story as she lives it 📝. At times it feels chaotic and random, yet she makes meticulous notes about everything that happens around her—sometimes to the detriment of those sharing her world 😬. She follows the rules carefully and does exactly as she’s instructed, until she begins to realise 🤔 that maybe she needs to follow her own rules instead. I initially found The Matchbox Girl difficult to read—not because of the subject matter, but because of the haphazard use of capital letters 😕. This felt like a deliberate stylistic choice, intended to reflect Adelheid’s fragment...

'No shouting cracked the silence; no flashlights sliced the darkness'. Steve's writing is incredible. I didn't particularly want to be in Helena's shoes, as slowly, her family disappears, and she has no alternative other than to face the horrors that the Germans are inflicting, all alone. Yet, I had no choice. Such is the power of the words which Steve writes and the in-depth descriptions he portrays of the sufferings Helena experiences, I was right there with her. Every step of the way.  Every time I read a book like this, one which is inspired by true events and particularly one set during WWII, I often have to stop reading, and reflect that all this s**t really happened and how courageous and resilient people absolutely had to be.  So much research has gone into Helena's story and Steve has done an amazing job of telling her story and ensuring that no matter how much time has passed, they have not been forgotten. Thank you to Steve N. Lee for the opportunity ...

Immerse yourself in the most gorgeous gardens in the world.  This is such a gorgeous book, full of beautiful pictures from amazing gardens, all over the world. I'd love to visit even just a fraction of these. We love a road trip, so maybe now I will need to persuade my husband that a garden needs to be incorporated into each vacation! The book also includes lots of ideas for you to travel and enjoy outdoor spaces. A great coffee table book that will definitely give your guests something to talk about! Thank you to Sabrina Dax and Lonely Plant for the gifted copy of The Joy of Exploring Gardens. About the Book Discover 60 of the world's most spectacular gardens plus 120 travel ideas to ignite a love of outdoor spaces. Featuring the history of every botanical gem, beautiful photography and trip planning tips, this uplifting book explores the restorative effects of flora and fauna, and the joy to be experienced from each of the inspiring gardens inside it. Walk spellbinding nature...

'For those they took, whose names we'll never know because no one was left to remember them'. Once again, Steve N. Lee has bowled me over with this WWII historical fiction novel. It is set in Poland at the beginning of the war, in an orphanage run by Mirek, a published author, and Baba Hanka, a grandmotherly figure who I adored. He was a miracle worker in the kitchen. She made edible meals out of plants and herbs that had been foraged in the forest. Mirek was an incredible strength to the kids he was looking after, and even when things were looking bad, he pulled on his positive mask and attempted to turn things into a game, so the kids wouldn't be scared. This is a book, based on true events, about WWII so of course it's heartbreaking, hearing about yet more unspeakable events which took place and how horrific people were treated. But everyone should be aware of just how bad things were for hundreds of thousands of people and how heartless the people who carried ou...

 Eye-opening, heartbreaking and insightful. Thanks to #classiclitbookclub I am revisiting many of the books I read as a child or in my teenage years and The Diary of a Young Girl is one of them. I'm unsure whether I read it at school or on my own but I was fascinated and heartbroken, then and now. Fascinated that such a young girl - Anne was just thirteen when he family went into hiding in the 'annexe' - wrote her diaries in such an adult and eloquent way, and despite the hardships surrounding her, she wrote with wit and humour, often making the best of an absolutely horrendous situation. She had a sarcasm about her that made me giggle as I was listening to the amazing narration of Helena Bonham Carter, who brought Anne's personality to life as she retold Anne's writings.  Of course we all know the ending, which was devastatingly heartbreaking, as Anne was eventually captured and sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where, at just fifteen years of age, she m...

'In love, we find out who we want to be. In war, we find out who we are'. Historical fiction, particularly that set during World War II and inspired by true events, is my first love as a genre. The Nightingale is incredible. I cannot even begin to explain how this book made me feel. I was in awe of the two female protagonists, who both became a part of the Resistance in order to help others. Isabelle - the Nightingale - took many treacherous journeys across the Pyrenees, to help downed Allied airmen return home and Vianne helped to hide Jewish children who were forcibly abandoned by their mothers. The Nightingale is a book about determination, perseverance and love. It is heart-wrenching, but positive, harrowing, yet encouraging. It will fill you with every emotion you have, a million times over, Every single time I read a book like this, I always turn the last page with a gut-wrenching thought that all of these things happened.  Thank you so much to #BookstaBritsBookClub for ...

Historical fiction is one of my favourite genres, so I jumped at the chance to read Helen Parusel’s latest book. Jana owns a bookshop and is also secretly involved with the resistance whilst working as a part-time cleaner at one of the German headquarters in Prague. Helen’s writing provides intrigue, whilst showing empathy for the characters she writes about. Many books set during WWII are based on true events, and this is no exception. I love learning about events that took place during the war, how people dealt with horrific situations and how resilient they had to become. Resistance, bookshop, wartime, secret codes - I just knew this was going to be a book I’d love! Thank you to NetGalley, Boldwood Books and Rachel’s Random Resources for the opportunity to read and review The Last Bookshop in Prague by Helen Parusel. About the Book Was she incredibly brave or incredibly stupid? Neither. Just a bookshop girl doing what she could against her country’s oppressors. The banned books clu...

I read the first two books in the Clarks Factory Girls series, back to back. This second in the series is a continuation of the lives and stories of the people who live and work in Street, Somerset, in the UK and, once again, they welcome us with open arms. I love the characters (well, most of them) that May has created and the family and friendship they bring.  This time around, we discover more about the effects the First World War had on the men who fought and the women who stayed at home, as well as the backward beliefs that some characters had, resulting in heartbreaking decisions having to be made, particularly by young women.  I love the community spirit in this series. Almost everyone looks out for their friends and neighbours and will help them out any way they can if necessary.  If you love a wartime saga like I do, then pick up these books. Despite the setting of WWI, they are warm and cosy books with great characters who you just want to be friends with. ...

The Clarks Factory Girls is a new wartime saga series by May Ellis and as I’m on the book tour for the second in the series, I wanted to read the first one, before I started the second. I’m unsure whether our friends across the pond know that Clarks Shoes used to be a massive thing in the UK (although maybe not as much these days). Almost everyone I knew had a pair of Clarks shoes as their first ever pair, and school shoes in particular would, more often than not, have been a pair of Clarks. Anyway, this series immerses us into the lives of characters who lived and worked in the village of Street in Somerset in the UK, where Clarks had its first factory. Louisa, Jeannie, and Kate have been friends since they were all at school together and now work side by side in the machine shop in the Clarks factory in 1914. Throughout the book, we learn how the community, factories and individuals coped with the onset of war and the challenges that it brought, whether personal or professional. I ...

"It reminds me that as long as the lemon trees grow, hope will never die". I have seen this book reviewed many times over on Bookstagram and I love a story that educates and entertains me, and As Long As The Lemon Trees Grow, certainly did this. I listened to it as an audiobook, read by Rasha Zamamiri and it was haunting. Whilst the majority of us are living free lives, enjoying vacations and being able to travel anywhere we want to, there is still a war continuing in Syria that has been going on for 13 years! I cannot even begin to imagine what that must be like to live through. As Long As The Lemon Trees Grow is an absolutely incredible story with beautiful imagery, but it’s so sad. I’m sure the war in Syria is something that many people will be aware of, yet many won’t know to what extent it has affected and is affecting the people of that country. No one actually wants to leave all that they know and get on a boat to sail to who knows where. They do it because they have ...

I love this series from Marion Kummerow. The Berlin Wife’s Resistance is the third book in the German Wives series and we start this book as we finished off the second, where Julius and Edith are at the Swiss border hoping to escape Germany to begin a new life. Once again, I had my heart in my mouth throughout the entire book. Just what was in store for the families that were simply trying to stay alive in the country of their birth? A country that no longer wants them and will go to the utmost atrocities to rid Germany of these people, by any means necessary. Marion Kummerow always researches her books brilliantly, and this one was no exception. I always learn something new when reading one of her novels and as I closed the cover on this one I was blown away by the attitude of the women who tried to save their families. I recommend that you read this series in order to enable yourself to get the full story, and if you enjoy historical fiction and in particular a war story, then I hop...