Goodreads: A (slightly belated) November To Read List

Goodreads: A (slightly belated) November To Read List

Sunday, 13 November 2016

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Operation get back into reading commenced in October and I’m pretty chuffed with my scheduling and time-making skills at the moment! Granted, I’m a bit late in posting this one, and I’ve actually already finished a few of the books I’ve chosen to read over the course of this month. Nonetheless, I’m excited to get stuck into these books and share my feelings about them with you guys.

One of the books I’ve had on my kindle TBR for quite a while is the acclaimed The Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley. I bought this one a few months back whilst it was part of a kindle book deal and for whatever reason, hadn’t got around to reading it until now. It follows the life of a young black girl in the late 1950s after she, along with a few of her classmates, is integrated into an entirely white school. It tackles the enormous topic of racism and segregation in the US in the most beautiful of ways and I’m incredibly happy to have finally read this book.

Another book that recently fell onto my radar was The Stranger In My Home by Adele Parks. I’ve never read a book by Adele before, but I know her writing is becoming increasingly popular at the moment. This one appealed to me for a few reasons, principally because the plot sounded incredibly interesting and something that’d be right up my street.

I’ve also chosen to read Caroline Mitchell’s latest contribution, Witness. This is a review copy, with the book itself being published in December. As we all know, I love my psychological thrillers more than the average person so I know I’ll love this one. Keeping with my thrillers theme, I’ve added The Secret by Katerina Diamond and The Girls Next Door by Mel Sherratt to my list as well. Again, these are review copies although I believe that their publication day has passed already so you can go ahead and pick these books up if you so wish!

Finishing up with these books will take me to my yearly reading target of 52 books a month ahead of schedule, which of course I’m over the moon with considering the fact I’ve got an incredibly busy personal and professional life in line with my blogging commitments. Hopefully November will be an incredibly productive reading month!

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Book Review: The Secret by Kathryn Hughes

Book Review: The Secret by Kathryn Hughes

Tuesday, 20 September 2016

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September has been a bloody heavy month for me, let me tell you that for free. I’ve not had a lot of time to sit down and devour a good book. Unfortunately today, I woke up and was sick so I took advantage of my forced day in bed and got one of the books I had on the go finished. The lucky book was The Secret by Kathryn Hughes and I’m happy to say that after a false start, I quite enjoyed this read.

I say false start because the first 80 or so pages confused the bejesus out of me. I kept muddling up the characters and getting confused as to which storyline related to who but once I got that all figured out in my head, the book was pretty darn good. I absolutely loved how the story kind of full circled and everything and everyone mentioned was relevant in one way or another.

The characters were interesting and I enjoyed how they all had their individual tales – there wasn’t a character I particularly disliked throughout the entire story which is rare for me. I normally find someone who does my head in so it was a bit refreshing actually liking all of the characters, to be honest.

The story is centred around two time shifts, both important to the story and central to the “secret”, that Mary, the recently deceased character, has been keeping for the entirety of her adult life. The secret itself isn’t all that tricky to work out but the ways that Hughes goes about getting you to the reveal is incredibly well done and makes the story one that you just HAVE to finish. The story starts off in the present day, where we learn that Mary, the mother of Beth, has recently died. Beth has no idea who her father is, her mother’s husband passing away just months before she was conceived. Unfortunately for her, her son requires a lifesaving kidney transplant and neither her nor her husband are a match for his blood type. With the help of her husband, Beth investigates deeper into the mystery of her father’s identity in the hope that he can somehow save her child’s life.

I have to say that it’s not my usual type of book, I tend to go for psychological thrillers or else YA sob-fests but I enjoyed this one as if it fell into those genres. It was nice to go a bit out of my comfort zone and have a go at reading a genre that’s relatively unfamiliar to me- it’s been a while since I’ve read a general contemporary fiction.

Thanks so much to the team at Headline Review for my copy of the book! As always, it is much appreciated!

I’m excited to get stuck into my next book, Kids of Appetite by David Arnold, also published by Headline review and somehow salvage my September reads!

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