Saturday, March 29, 2025

My Review for The Existence of Amy by Lana Grace Riva

March 29, 2025  , ,  No comments



Told through the words of someone with severe OCD, anxiety and depression. This is an eye-opener.

First, my sincere apologies to the author who kindly gifted me a copy of her book back in 2023, and I'm ashamed to say it's taken me two years to read it. Over commitment is my only excuse, but I am trying to do better this year!

A short read, I found The Existence of Amy to be so informative, yet entertaining. None of us are fully aware of how another person is feeling, and if you are good at hiding the real you, quite often, no one will find out. This is how Amy has been living, but at some point, it's all going to get too much, and she won't be able to hide it any longer. 

I think we all have an element of OCD, but thankfully, the majority of us can go about our daily lives without it affecting us too much. I am pretty sure that this is based on the author's own experiences, and I loved how raw and honest this book was. All the way through I was rooting for Amy, her friends are amazing and two in particular really looked out for her and helped her when she needed it. 

If you enjoyed Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, then I would definitely recommend this one. 

Thank you to Lana Grace Riva for the opportunity to read and review The Existence of Amy. 

About the Book

Amy has a normal life. That is, if you were to go by a definition of 'no obvious indicators of peculiarity', and you didn't know her very well. She has good friends, a good job, a nice enough home. This normality, however, is precariously plastered on top of a different life. A life that is Amy's real life. The only one her brain will let her lead.

What is it really like to live with mental illness?

An insight into the reality of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), anxiety and depression.

About Lana

Lana Grace Riva has written two books, one nonfiction the other fiction, both based on her experiences of mental health. Her first book 'Happier Thinking' is a short collection of tips and exercises to maintain a healthy mind. Her second book 'The Existence Of Amy' is a fictional story based on the reality of life with OCD, depression and anxiety.






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My Review for The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

March 29, 2025  , , , , ,  No comments


'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 choosing this as March's read. It's been sitting on my shelf for years and I finally had the opportunity to read it.


About the Book

FRANCE, 1939

In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says good-bye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France…but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.

Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gaëtan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can…completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others.


About Kristin

Kristin Hannah is the award-winning and bestselling author of more than 20 novels including the international blockbuster, The Nightingale, which was named Goodreads Best Historical fiction novel for 2015 and won the coveted People’s Choice award for best fiction in the same year. Additionally, it was a selection of the Reese Witherspoon Book Club in 2023. It was named a Best Book of the Year by Amazon, iTunes, Buzzfeed, the Wall Street Journal, Paste, and The Week. In 2018, The Great Alone became an instant New York Times #1 bestseller and was named the Best Historical Novel of the Year by Goodreads. 

The Four Winds was published in February of 2021 and immediately hit #1 on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Indie bookstores’ bestseller lists. Additionally, it was selected as a book club pick by the both Today Show and the Book Of the Month club, which named it the best book of 2021. 

The Nightingale is currently in production at Tri Star, with Dakota and Elle Fanning set to star. Tri Star has also optioned The Great Alone and it is in development. Firefly Lane, her beloved novel about two best friends, was the #1 Netflix series around the world, in the week it came out. The popular tv show stars Katherine Heigl and Sarah Chalke and Season Two is currently set to conclude the series on April 27, 2023. 

A former attorney, Kristin lives in the Pacific Northwest.






























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Tuesday, March 25, 2025

My Review for The House on Cold Creek Lane by Liz Alterman, read by Emily Ellet and Gail Shalan

March 25, 2025  , , , , , ,  No comments


Well, that was a dark ending!

I'm flying through my audiobooks this year, and The House on Cold Creek Lane was another good one. I seem to be picking up the thriller audiobooks rather than the physical or digital copies, and I'm loving the immersiveness of them. A good narrator makes for an even better story, and Emily Ellet and Gail Shalan did a fantastic job of picking me up and depositing me into the lives of those who live or have lived on Cold Creek Lane. 

I didn't care for Laurel's husband, yep, he might have wanted what was best for her, but he didn't handle her very well. He came across as controlling and bossy, many a time I wanted to throw that influencing attitude right back at him. 

Told alternatively from Laurel and Corey's point of view, both characters were pretty screwed up in different ways. I worked out pretty early on who the bad guy was, but what I wasn't expecting was that ending! Wow, Liz, just wow! As an author I'm pretty sure you want your readers to remember the book, long after they've finished that last page, and that's certainly what happened to me!

Thank you to Libro FM and Dreamscape Media for the opportunity to listen to and review The House on Cold Creek Lane by Liz Alterman.

About the Book

Who was I? What had I become? Breathe, I commanded. You're doing this for your family.

When Laurel and Rob West move into their new home in New Jersey, it seems too good to be true. But Laurel can't shake off her old feelings of anxiety. The neighbour who pays far too much attention to the Wests' two young children . . . Rob watching her every miss step . . . and there's something people aren't telling her about this house . . . 

I promised myself I wouldn't go to that neighborhood again. Not that street. Not so soon. But I couldn't help it. They made it too easy.

Corey Sutton is trying to outrun her past. Recently divorced and reeling from a devastating loss, she moves into her widowed mother's retirement condo in Florida. Everyone says she just needs some time to recover and rebuild . . . but is Corey beyond saving? She wants answers. And there's very little she won't do to get them.

Though Laurel and Corey have never met, the women have something in common, and if they're not careful, it may just destroy them both . . .



About Liz

Liz Alterman's work can be found in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Parents, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and other publications. She is the author of a young adult novel, He'll Be Waiting, a memoir, Sad Sacked, and the domestic suspense novels The Perfect Neighborhood and The House on Cold Creek Lane. Liz lives in New Jersey with her husband and three sons. When she isn't writing, Liz spends most days reading, microwaving the same cup of coffee, and looking up synonyms.







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Monday, March 24, 2025

My Review for I Will Ruin You by Linwood Barclay, read by George Newbern and Johnathan McClain

March 24, 2025  , , , ,  No comments


So many plot twists that I didn't see coming!

I'm pretty sure this was my first venture into Linwood Barclay's world, and I was hooked from the time I pressed play that first time, until I removed my AirPods after the final chapter and wondered to myself what I had just listened to!

Tense and frantic, I was pulled this way and that as chapter after chapter brought more surprises and WTF moments. I felt for Richard, our protagonist, as he has to spend the entirety of the book trying to prove his innocence, whilst investigating just what the hell is going on. This seems to be a theme right now for my books!

Fancy an adrenaline rush, where at the end of the book, you'll physically feel like you experienced absolutely everything, then grab yourself a copy of I Will Ruin You. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Thank you to Harper Collins UK and Libro FM for the opportunity to listen to and review I Will Ruin You by Linwood Barclay.

About the Book

How would you react in a life-or-death situation?

It’s a question everyone asks themselves, but few have to face in real life. English teacher Richard Boyle certainly never thought he would find himself talking down a former student intent on harming others, but when Mark LeDrew shows up at Richard’s school with a bomb strapped to his chest, Richard immediately jumps into action. Thanks to some quick thinking, he averts a major tragedy and is hailed as a hero, but not all the attention focused on him is positive.

Richard’s brief moment in the spotlight puts him in the sights of a deranged blackmailer with a score to settle. The situation rapidly spirals out of control, drawing Richard into a fraught web of salacious accusations and deadly secrets. As he tries to uncover the truth he discovers that there’s something deeply wrong in the town—something that ties together Mark, the blackmailer, and a gang of ruthless drug dealers, and Richard has landed smack in the middle of it. He’s desperate to find a way out, but everyone in his life seems to be hiding something, and trusting the wrong person could cost him everything he loves.

What price will he pay for one good deed?

About Linwood

Linwood Barclay, a New York Times bestselling author with twenty novels to his credit, spent three decades in newspapers before turning full time to writing thrillers. His books have been translated into more than two dozen languages, sold millions of copies, and he counts Stephen King among his fans. Many of his books have been optioned for film and TV, a series has been made in France, and he wrote the screenplay for the film based on his novel Never Saw it Coming. Born in the US, his parents moved to Canada just as he was turning four, and he’s lived there ever since. He lives near Toronto with his wife, Neetha. They have two grown children.




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Sunday, March 23, 2025

My Review for The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, read by Bernadette Dunne

March 23, 2025  , , , , , , ,  No comments


I think this will become a favourite...

The Haunting of Hill House was one I listened to last October for #classiclitbookclub. I don't usually read or listen to horror, but this sent me down a rabbit hole of defining horror. According to Wikipedia, 'Horror is a genre of speculative fiction that is intended to disturb, frighten, or scare an audience'. According to what I researched, Dracula, Frankenstein and The Picture of Dorian Gray can all be classified as horror. I've read all of these, and I wasn't disturbed, frightened or scared by any of them. I was entertained, immersed and enthralled by them all. The things that I class as horror are that vile doll Chucky (was that his name) and The Exorcist, so maybe I need to be a little less judgmental of the horror genre from now on, and perhaps it isn't reading horror that I don't like, it's watching it!

Anyway, back to the review...I liked it, I liked it a lot. The author didn't just create the atmosphere, she was the atmosphere. That makes more sense in my head than it does writing it down, but hopefully you know what I mean. She was the mysterious house, the quirky characters, the annoying Mrs Dudley, who sort of reminds me of Mrs Danvers. This book stayed with me, long after I finished listening to it. The house was a character in itself, sinister and dark and wanting to keep its inhabitants out, or at least scare them away. 

I am going to go back and read this later this year, rather than listen, and see if I can soak up some more of that atmosphere. 


About the Book

The classic supernatural thriller by an author who helped define the genre. First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a “haunting;' Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.

About Shirley

Shirley Jackson was an influential American author. A popular writer in her time, her work has received increasing attention from literary critics in recent years. She has influenced such writers as Stephen King, Nigel Kneale, and Richard Matheson.

She is best known for her dystopian short story, "The Lottery" (1948), which suggests there is a deeply unsettling underside to bucolic, smalltown America. In her critical biography of Shirley Jackson, Lenemaja Friedman notes that when Shirley Jackson's story "The Lottery" was published in the June 28, 1948, issue of The New Yorker, it received a response that "no New Yorker story had ever received." Hundreds of letters poured in that were characterized by, as Jackson put it, "bewilderment, speculation and old-fashioned abuse."

Jackson's husband, the literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, wrote in his preface to a posthumous anthology of her work that "she consistently refused to be interviewed, to explain or promote her work in any fashion, or to take public stands and be the pundit of the Sunday supplements. She believed that her books would speak for her clearly enough over the years." Hyman insisted the darker aspects of Jackson's works were not, as some critics claimed, the product of "personal, even neurotic, fantasies", but that Jackson intended, as "a sensitive and faithful anatomy of our times, fitting symbols for our distressing world of the concentration camp and the Bomb", to mirror humanity's Cold War-era fears. Jackson may even have taken pleasure in the subversive impact of her work, as revealed by Hyman's statement that she "was always proud that the Union of South Africa banned The Lottery', and she felt that they at least understood the story".

In 1965, Jackson died of heart failure in her sleep, at her home in North Bennington Vermont, at the age of 48.




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My Review for Hannah and the Hitman by Vanessa Vale, read by Gail Shalan and Rock Engle

March 23, 2025  , , , , ,  No comments



He loves the spice as much as she does.....

For the first couple of chapters of this audiobook, I wasn't sure I was going to like it. I don't know why, I just didn't get that initial vibe, but, OMG, I am so glad I carried on with it. What a cute, spicy listen this was. First off, Jack loves books as much as Hannah does. Now I love my husband more than anything in the whole wide world, but sometimes I just want to tell him about what I'm reading, and he just doesn't care! Although he did say some book mail I received yesterday was pretty so......!

The hitman thing worked well, from one extreme to another though - he's the hitman, and she's the librarian, but hey, when you get into her character, Hannah is quite good at holding her own! Feisty little thing she is!

The story is told alternately from Jack and Hannah's point of view, and the two narrators, Rock Engle and Gail Shalan were so good. Rock in particular, I could have listened to those dulcet tones all day long. 

Thank you to Simon Maverick and Libro FM for the opportunity to listen to and review Hannah and the Hitman by Vanessa Vale.


About the Book

An assassin and a secretly spicy bookworm ignite sparks in Hannah and the Hitman , a steamy romantic suspense bursting with humor, sizzling chemistry, a supernatural twist, and the ultimate fight for a happily-ever-after.

What happens when a sexy, cocky hitman and a secretly smutty small-town librarian get together? Sparks fly.

I’m a hitman. With all the bad guys out there, business is brisk. I don’t have time to focus on anything but work until I sit beside a curvy woman on a plane…and read over her shoulder. I’m instantly obsessed with the small-town librarian who dreams of having a happily-ever-after of her own but is convinced true love is a fantasy only found in books.

My new job? Proving that she’ll have an HEA with me. Because she’s mine.

Except...big problem. I haven’t told her I’m a hitman. Turns out, she has a few shocking secrets of her own. When a mafia boss doesn’t like me distracted from one last hit, can I be a superhero and keep Hannah alive, or am I not the one wearing the cape?

About Vanessa

Vanessa Vale is the USA Today bestselling author of sexy romance novels, including her popular Bridgewater historical romance series and hot contemporary romances. With over one million books sold, Vanessa writes about unapologetic bad boys who don’t just fall in love, they fall hard. Her books are available worldwide in multiple languages in e-book, print, audio and even as an online game. When she’s not writing, Vanessa savors the insanity of raising two boys and figuring out how many meals she can make with a pressure cooker. While she’s not as skilled at social media as her kids, she loves to interact with readers.



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My Review for The Christmas Tree Farm by Laurie Gilmore

March 23, 2025  , , , , , , , ,  No comments


Unusually, it's the woman who is the grump in this one....

I'm a bit late with this review, but I did read it in December when I was feeling Christmassy! The Christmas Tree Farm is the third in the Dream Harbor series and I loved this one, although Cinnamon Bun is still my favourite!

Kira is awesome. Despite her tetchy exterior, we soon discover that deep, deep down, beneath all the crotchetiness, she has a heart of gold, and she loves dogs so yep, that's more than enough for me! I adored her dogged determination as she tried to make her farmhouse at least a tiny bit habitable, and little by little she lets Bennett in to help her. Bennett had the patience of a saint, dealing with Kira's mood swings and stubbornness, but of course they get there in the end.

As others have mentioned, this would be great as a Christmas rom-com - think The Holiday! I love that movie!

I've already read and reviewed The Strawberry Patch Pancake House, so go back and read my review for that one too. I'm loving this series, and I'm looking forward to finally hearing Annie and Mac's story.


About the Book

Kira North hates Christmas. Which is unfortunate since she just bought a Christmas tree farm in a town that’s too cute for its own good.

Bennett Ellis is on vacation in Dream Harbor taking a break from his life in California. And most importantly, taking a break from his latest run of disastrous dates.

After a run in with Kira in her fields, Ben has no intention of offering to help the grumpy owner set up her tree farm, despite the fact she’s clearly got no idea what she’s doing.

Kira knows she should stop being so stubborn, but her farm is not all cute and cozy like people always show on social media, it’s borderline dangerous with no heating, and she’d rather no one saw it.

But somehow fate finds Ben at Kira’s farm once more, and as Kira watches him swing an ax at the first tree, she finds herself appreciating his strength and questionning why she refused help in the first place..


About Laurie/Melissa - by Laurie

As Melissa McTernan, I write sweet and steamy fantasy/paranormal romance. I love grumpy heroes, sarcastic heroines, and grown-up fairy tales. I am currently working on The Wolf Brother’s series for One More Chapter (a HarperCollins UK imprint). The trilogy follows three werewolf brothers and their (maybe if they don’t screw it up) Mates.

As Laurie Gilmore (my pen name), I write steamy small-town romance. My Dream Harbor series is filled with quirky townsfolk, cozy settings, and swoon-worthy romance. I love finding books with the perfect balance of sweetness and spice and strive for that in my own writing. If you ever wished you lived in Stars Hollow (or that Luke and Lorelai would just get together already!) then these books are definitely for you.

When I’m not writing, I’m most likely reading or wrangling my kids as a stay-at-home mom. I live in upstate New York with my husband, kids, cats, puppy, and full bookshelves. I write romance to keep my sanity.



















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