My Review for You Can Become Someone: It's Your Life by Anita Onli

I really enjoyed this book. You Can Become Someone: It’s Your Life is a story of how Izzie grows into her life and finally works out just what she wants to do, albeit with a few mishaps and traumas along the way.

She needs to find out what job she really wants to do, what it is she actually wants from a relationship, and realise that friends are in your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. 

The story speeds through quickly and I think the author could make a full-length novel out of this if she wanted to, just by giving the reader more of a background to the characters and including them more in the story.

The book definitely needed a final edit as there were quite a few typos throughout and at one point, Harry became Henry! That being said, I would read another book by Anita Onli. She has a great future as an author in front of her if she wanted to go down that route.

Thank you to Anita Onli for the opportunity to read and review a copy of You Can Become Someone: It’s Your Life.

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My Review for Mayatte's Catharsis: A Feathered Serpent Reborn by Jack E. Mohr

From the beginning, I was drawn onto Naña’s island and into her world. An island that seems to be in the middle of an ocean and perhaps within a Bermuda triangle-type vortex. Naña and her fellow islanders hide from any visitors, and only show themselves when they feel safe. So, when survivors of a shipwreck land on the island, they initially seem to be on a deserted island.

We are soon thrown into a world of fighting monsters and characters fighting for their lives whilst trying to save each other.

I enjoyed this short novella, but I felt that it could have done with a final edit to iron out the few errors I found. I would also appreciate some world-building to understand more about what is happening and why. There is definitely scope for further, perhaps full-length books and I would like to see what the author comes up with next. 

Thank you to Jack E. Mohr for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of Mayatte’s Catharsis.

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My Review for A Mother's Heart by Carmel Harrington, Narrated by Aoife McMahon

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ OMG, I loved A Mother’s Heart by Carmel Harrington, from the moment I put my AirPods in, until the moment I took them out. It helps that I also love Aoife McMahon. She is such a brilliant narrator who makes a book come alive and invites you into whatever world she reads about.

Full of love and happiness, anger and sadness, I defy anyone who enjoys a family-related story, with its fair share of pain-in-the-ass grandparents but also loveable ones, to not fall in love with Rachel, Olivia, Dylan and their family. You’ll cry, laugh, and shout out loud, in sheer frustration at some of the things that happen between them all.

I haven’t read or listened to anything by Carmel Harrington before, but I’ve just put everything I can find straight onto my TBR list.

Read or listen to this as soon as you can. I promise you won’t regret it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins Audio for the opportunity to listen to and review an ARC of A Mother's Heart by Carmel Harrington.

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My Review for Typecast by Andrea Stein

⭐⭐⭐⭐ I have had Typecast on my TBR list for a few months and after a very hectic summer, I finally got around to reading it, and boy was it worth the wait! From the very beginning, I was invested in Callie and her life, what had gone before and what was to come. Set over two main timelines, before the break-up with college boyfriend Ethan and present day where Callie is now a preschool teacher and living in the house she grew up in.

Typecast was a delight to read, all the characters were loveable in their own way and I especially had a soft spot for Callie’s niece, four-year-old Zoe who was just so cute when she realised she’d get to share a bedroom with her Auntie Callie for a few months.

Callie finds herself with a lot to contend with, her sister and her family coming to stay for a while, the discovery that Ethan is the screenwriter for a movie that just may or may not be based on what happened when Callie dumped him and finding out what she actually wants to do with her life.

I can imagine Typecast being made into a movie and what an entertaining and funny movie it would be. In the meantime, if you enjoy women’s contemporary fiction and want something easy to read as Christmas approaches, grab yourself a copy of Typecast. Andrea Stein obviously has an amazing talent for writing and I hope she brings out another book soon.  

Thank you to the author for my gifted copy in exchange for a review.

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My Review for We Fly Beneath the Stars by Suzanne Kelman

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I read a lot of historical fiction, particularly based on facts surrounding World War II, but never before have I read anything that focused on Russian women who became pilots to fight for their country. I didn’t realise this was a thing and now I have to know whether there were any other women who flew and fought for their country during that time.

Suzanne Kelman has done an amazing job with this book and decided to continue writing it and publish it at a time when Russia incited another war. However, the world needs to read about these amazing women and what they achieved and what is going on right now shouldn’t take our admiration away from that. 

Nadia and Tasha are incredibly brave sisters who cope with so much discrimination as they attempt to infiltrate the world which has, until now, been dominated by men. We Fly Beneath the Stars is laced with expectation, love, and happiness, but a great deal of sadness and pain. I don’t want to give you any spoilers, but look out for the shocking revelation towards the end of the book as the war ends and remember that this is based on fact. 

I urge you to check out Suzanne Kelman’s latest novel; We Fly Beneath the Stars if you enjoy historical fiction and love learning about something you may not have known. 

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of We Fly Beneath the Stars by Suzanne Kelman.

Book Description

1942, Europe: Based on the true story of a female-only bomber battalion, this is a totally heartbreaking and unforgettable story about sacrifice, sisterhood and a love that transcends war.

When the love of Tasha’s life, Luca, joins the air force to fight against the evil Nazi invaders, she knows she has to follow her heart—and him—into battle. Headstrong, impulsive and a daredevil, she’s the perfect recruit.

Tasha’s sensible older sister Nadia plans only to stop Tasha’s madness and bring her home. But a chance encounter puts her in a plane, soaring above the clouds, and she also finds her calling.

Underestimated by their superiors, Nadia and her sister find themselves in airplanes barely fit to fly, being sent on perilous missions with little hope of return. But before long their battalion is being nicknamed ‘the Night Witches’ by the Nazis, their ownership of the skies second to none.

But danger is up in the storm clouds with them, and when both sisters are shot down behind Nazi enemy lines, and taken to a brutal prison camp, they expect to never see their beloved homeland again.

Until Tasha’s eyes meet across the wire fence with someone she never expected to see again: the love of her life, Luca.

But with love comes peril… Will one sister have to sacrifice everything to save the other?

Absolutely unputdownable historical fiction, perfect for fans of All the Light We Cannot See, The Ragged Edge of Night, and The Tattooist of Auschwitz.

Author Bio

Suzanne Kelman is a 2015 Academy of Motion Pictures Nicholl Finalist, Multi-Award-Winning Screenwriter and a Film Producer. As well as working in film she is also an International Amazon Bestselling Fiction Author of the Southlea Bay Series – The Rejected Writers’ Book Club, Rejected Writers Take the Stage and The Rejected Writers’ Christmas Wedding. Born in the United Kingdom, she now resides in Washington State.

 

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My Review for Time and Chance in Market Linborough by Elaine Taylor

⭐⭐⭐⭐ I loved this, and I was so utterly thrilled that the author, Elaine Taylor, reached out to me and asked me to review her first book, Time and Chance in Market Linborough.

A fictional village in the Leicestershire countryside, Market Linborough is home to a variety of residents, young and old, families, and single parents, with the local pub, The White Rose, the centre of village life. Ella and Adam are our protagonists and each has their own gremlins in the closest when it comes to previous relationships. However, I guarantee that when Adam becomes Ella’s knight in shining armour in the middle of a snowstorm, you will just want to keep on reading to find out what happens to our complicated couple.

I have just moved from Leicestershire, and throughout the book, I wondered where the author had based Market Linborough on, and whether it was somewhere, I had visited. I wanted to wander through the snow with the dogs at my side, just as Ella did and perhaps visit the secret pool in the moonlight - you’ll need to read the book to find out what happened there!

If you need an easy-reading, contemporary romance novel (with a little bit of sexual content),  to sweep you off your feet, then give Time and Chance in Market Linborough a whirl. I really don’t think you’ll be disappointed. I believe that there is a second book in the series, on the way and I can’t wait to find out what happens to the Market Linborough residents next.

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My Review for The Wife's Promise by Kate Hewitt

⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Wife’s Promise is the first in the Goswell Quartet, (Tales from Goswell), by Kate Hewitt, and although I’ve only read the first one, I am looking forward to reading the others. Written across two timelines and with two protagonists, Alice in the 1930s and Jane in the present day. A shopping list and the vicarage are the only two things they have in common as they both leave their home cities and move into the vicarage in Goswell, Cumbria. Both are finding it difficult to fit into village life and settle down. I really enjoyed The Wife’s Promise, and was rooting for them both as the book progressed. I wanted them to get out and about, immerse themselves in village life, make friends and make the vicarage their home.

I was frustrated with Jane. In particular, she was needy and selfish and I wanted to shake her up a bit, and get her to see what she had right on her doorstep! Alice’s story was a little sadder, and as the war approached, things became even harder for her.

If you enjoy a dual timeline book and village life, I would recommend The Wife’s Promise and lose yourself in Cumbrian life for a while.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of The Wife’s Promise by Kate Hewitt and for including me on the book tour.

Book Description

The Wife's Promise - Book 1

Alice looked at the young girl standing alone on the platform, sensing the same vulnerability she’d once felt entering the village she now called home. Then, as the child gripped her hand, the pain and sorrow Alice had held in her heart for so long softened… And in that moment, she vowed she’d always protect her – whatever the cost…

England, 1939: When Alice marries twinkly-eyed, kind-hearted vicar David, it means leaving everything from her old life behind and moving into the draughty vicarage in the beautiful but remote village of Goswell, Cumbria. Though homesick, Alice is determined to make a new life there for herself and her husband.

But soon tragedy strikes, and she is devastated when war breaks out and David chooses to sign up to fight. But everything changes when Alice is asked to take in a child evacuee, and she makes a promise to protect this girl, no matter what it costs her…

Now: When Jane and her family move to the small coastal village of Goswell where her husband grew up, she’s afraid she might have made a huge mistake. Their new home – in what had once been the vicarage – feels a million miles from their previous fast-paced life in New York City, and Jane struggles with her empty days that seem lonely and purposeless.

But then she finds a small note, forgotten behind a shelf in the pantry. A note written in the Second World War. By a woman named Alice, whose incredible story has the power to change everything…

Two wives’ stories – told over 70 years apart – about courage, finding a home, and how the unexpected arrival of someone else’s story in your life can change your own. Perfect for fans of Fiona Valpy, Lucinda Riley and Barbara O’Neal.

This novel can be enjoyed as a standalone.

Previously published as The Vicar’s Wife by Katharine Swartz.

Author Bio

Kate Hewitt is the author of many romance and women’s fiction novels. A former New Yorker and now an American ex-pat, she lives in a small town on the Welsh border with her husband, five children, and their overly affectionate Golden Retriever. Whatever the genre, she enjoys telling stories that tackle real issues and touch people’s lives.

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