But I Smile Anyway…

May – the weather gets better, and things are hotting up in school, as well. Lil Princess has started her GCSE exams, as well as our report writing and assessment windows getting tighter….

I guess the big question is, what did I read, and did I continue to get words down?

I started the month with 11 (oops!) NetGalley ARCs and around another 10K left to write on book three…

I wrote not many words on the book, but many words, as in the comments for the end of year reports we, as teachers, have to write.

I also had my week of half term, however that was busy with various appointments, as well as being mum taxi, still, to my Not-So Lil Man, and ending the week with a set of antibiotics, as I appear to have a throat infection, affecting my ears and giving me a wonderful temperature. Fingers crossed they will kick in soon, and I’ll be better for back to school on Monday!

I read 11 books. Yes, all were arcs… but they were good! Some were NetGalley, some were sent by publishers for blog tours.

And I ended up with ten Netgalley ARCS still to read! Ooops! But I promise, I stopped saying yes to them, last week, for a while!

Unladylike Rules of Attraction by Amita Murray
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved the first book in this series and was excited to read the second, as I wanted to know what happened to the other sisters from book 1.
This book centres around the middle sister, Anya. She is a sitar player in Queen Anne’s court and finds herself inheriting a large sum of money, with conditions attached, such as marriage, and a rather prickly executor, Damien.
What follows is some amateur sleuthing, as the family she inherits from tries to discredit both her and her executor, and Anya and Damien find themselves in increasingly hot water.
There is mild spice, and though I knew, romance-wise, exactly where it would go, it was fun reading the lead-ups to it and the little mysteries to solve!
I enjoyed reading Anya’s story and can’t wait for Maya’s!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK for an ARC.

Releasing 13th May, 2024

Prickly Company by Kitty Johnson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which provides some great information about Hedgehogs and how we can help this endangered animal. It also takes us through the rollercoaster lives of the residents of Hilltop Place.
Frances is a widow who isn’t interested in learning how to live in the now, preferring to live in the comfort of the past. She starts the campaign to create a hedgehog highway when the animals she has come to love come to harm.
Then there is Jess and Michael, a couple with their own upsets, trying to complete their family with a difficult adoption.
Tara is a single mum with a bit of a reputation.
Irene lives in the Place and has her son, Ryan, living with her, having come back from a war zone with life-changing injuries.
Then there’s Justin and Helen, the epitome of a perfect couple, hiding their secrets.
There are some real twists and turns through the book, as the residents live entwined with one another, as they also help the hedgehogs along the way.
A real twist at the end, too!
Enjoyed this.

The House in the Water by Victoria Darke
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I do love a dual timeline!
And this first book by Author Victoria Darke was a pleasure to read.
Set between 1942, in the war years, and 2013, we see the connections build between a young nurse working in a hospital on an island in the Thames, where May Day House sits, and the present era when a young couple decides to invest in said house and island with all manner of ideas, but then strange things start to happen.
Ellen is a nurse, already haunted by what she has seen of the treatment given to men suffering what we now know as PTSD, including electric shock therapy. She is transferred to May Day House, filled with the hope that the humane methods used by the doctor she has worked with previously will be administered here, but she comes in for a shock of her own. All the while, her personal life becomes more and more muddled.
Meredith finds this beautiful but dilapidated house for sale on an Island not far from where her husband, Philip, grew up. She becomes almost obsessed with building their home and business around the property. Her husband being a pilot means she spends increasingly long amounts of time alone as she tries to tidy up, as best she can, decades of ruin and process hidden truths she slowly uncovers while reading a diary she found from 1942 written by a nurse who lived there.
Oh, and ghosts! There had to be hints of ghosts, didn’t there?
The twists and turns revealed kept me turning pages way longer than I was meant to stay awake. The way Meredith’s mind gets confused as she learns more and more tugged at my heart, and reading Ellen’s experiences with her beau and how his mental health was essentially compartmentalized in an era when there wasn’t much knowledge was heartwrenching. And I wasn’t even aware that the Thames had little islands, like this one!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for an ARC.

Releasing 27th May, 2024

The Life-Changing Magic of Falling in Love by Eve Devon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ashleigh has found her happy place, away from the ‘career’ her family thought she wanted, in a city away from everyone who knows her. Cleaning has been her saviour, though many would doubt that it was a sensible career move from her home in editorial.
The satisfaction she gets from cleaning the messes of others and learning about people she rarely meets helps her forget the real tragedy behind her leaving her first job.
Then she finds a new client who doesn’t seem to need her, with a spotless, almost sterile apartment in a beautiful location. However, she finds a crossword incomplete, sparking a chain of events that will inevitably bring about a meeting of the two.
George, from the sterile apartment, lived his whole life in the UK to move to New York for a job, and his girlfriend, Anya, who happens to be his boss’s daughter. He’s lonely but happy in many ways, though he knows no one other than his colleagues and a couple of neighbours. This suits him, as it stops him from having to think about the medical condition he had, which caused his family to stifle his childhood and continue to worry about him even though he’s quite okay.
Until the panic attack.
I love anything about words; essentially, words bring these two crashing into each other’s lives. Ashleigh has been through the trauma of loss and in a cycle of blame which she has never admitted to anyone. George has spent his life trying to show everyone he is capable of living a normal life, just like anyone else, but there are still wobbles, which despite his best efforts, manifest in ways that affect his whole life.
I love the additional cast of characters: Ozzie and Carlos and their coffee shop, Oscars, as well as Hildy, the elderly neighbour of George and a client of Ashleigh’s who, in their own way, become fast friends and a real network for both Ashleigh and George.A lovely summer romance read, with a lotta heart.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK for an ARC.

Releasing 24th May, 2024

Bookishly Ever After by Mia Page
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I do love a good bookish story.
This is an enemies-to-lovers story about rival book shop owners Lexi Austen and Sam Dickens, who vie for the most custom in their Washington, DC, book shops.
Both shops have coexisted fine over the years until Sam takes over Great Expectations, primarily a second-hand bookstore, and begins changing his offerings. This affects Lexi’s business, a bookshop set up by her grandmother.
You have plenty of Britishisms, with Lexi’s character originally having been from the UK, and comparisons. Obviously, there is a connection to two classic authors, given the names of our two main characters, but it was a bit predictable.
Yes, Lexi and Sam have chemistry, but ultimately, they come across as quite mature in handling situations, considering they are meant to be mature business-owning adults.
There’s plenty of to-ing and fro-ing, will they, won’t they situations, but it was a pretty long-winded read and could have been shorter.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Avon Books for an ARC.

Releasing 6th June, 2024

Scripted by Fearne Cotton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was excited to read Fearne Cotton’s new offering, which has the intriguing premise of finding scripts that foresee important conversations that have yet to take place in your life.
That sounds great, doesn’t it?
What if you could know what was to come so you could be prepared or even try to change the outcome?
Well, this is what happens to Jade, our MC. Jade is a woman in a stale relationship, with a job she enjoys but a boss who, quite frankly, takes the mick with what he asks of her, and a family who also leave a lot to be desired, especially her sister, around whom the world appears to revolve.
It was an okay story, but it felt a bit flat once the initial premise was introduced. I didn’t feel a huge affinity to Jade and the other characters, though her workmates were a bit of a laugh.
If you need a read to plug some spare time, this is one of those books, but maybe not if you want to read something groundbreaking.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Michael Joseph Penguin Random House for an ARC.

Releasing 6th June, 2024

You’ll need to wait for a post coming in the next couple of days for the review, as Mark is joining me for a Book & Brew!

Releasing 1st June, 2024

The Riviera House Swap: The BRAND NEW uplifting, sun-drenched getaway romance from BESTSELLING AUTHOR Gillian Harvey for 2024 by Gillian Harvey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Gillian Harvey’s books have made me want to chuck everything in and disappear to a small village in France numerous times, and The Riviera House was no different!
Nina is off-kilter. Having turned forty, she is amicably divorced and still stuck in a job where she’s pootling along. Something in her decides it is time to live life for herself. However, it’s hard when you’ve spent your life being sensible, doing the right thing, and thinking of others before your needs.
Finding a batch of never=quite-forgotten love letters in the back of her cupboard as she sifts through her stuff, spurs her on to make a huge decision to leave her comfortable life and go on an adventure alone, by arranging a house swap with a man whose own home is on the French Riviera, and happens to be where her ‘one that got away’ was from.
Will she find her second chance?
Well, I’m not going to tell you that. You need to read the book! Nina is a woman on the cusp of that perimenopausal time we women have to deal with. She’s not sure if her hormones or something else are making her make certain decisions, and I think there are a few of us who could relate to that!
Nina has some wonderful friends, both in the UK, who cheer her on, and people she meets in France who become close to her, and they make a wonderful addition to the story.
And there is romance from several angles, involving others, as well as our main character, Nina.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, devoured it in a day, and now want to go and swap my home for one in a gorgeous European setting… (But I’ll take my Hubby, as he doesn’t need swapping!)
Many thanks to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for an ARC.

Releasing 11th June, 2024

The Plot Twist by Victoria Walters
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’ve read several Victoria Walters books and have loved each one.
The Plot Twist is based on books, the publishing industry, and bookshops, with books at the heart—what more would a bookworm like me want?
Stevie Phillips is nervous about starting a new job. It’s the job of her dreams in an established publishing house. When she gets there, she finds most of the staff are leaving due to a takeover and immediate redundancies, and, horror of horrors, her new boss turns out to be Noah Anderson, her ex!
She’s faced with a conundrum: leave the job she so desperately wanted or stick it out and deal with the ‘uncomfortable-ex’ situation.
Chuck in an author described as a diva who Stevie adored growing up, a romance-hating colleague, and the EX, and Stevie has her work cut out.
I was hooked from the off.
I read this in a few hours, as I could not put it down!
Stevie is a fantastic character with passion. Her stance on #RespectRomFic is highlighted throughout the book. Where would we be without romances? How she gathers the troops to stand against those trashing her favourite genre is fabulous. I would have attended that protest if I could!
The simmering chemistry between her and Noah is HOT, too! Maybe don’t read this when you have people around. You may find yourself a little flustered during certain scenes, lol!
It was great to get a little update on Liv and Aiden, characters we were introduced to in Walters’ previous release, The Love Interest. But don’t worry—this is a stand-alone book, though I love it when stories interlink in some way.
Loved it!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for an ARC.

Releasing 19th June, 2024

Lucky Day by Beth Morrey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I enjoyed Beth Morrey’s Saving Missy and Em & Me, so I was delighted to be able to read Lucky Day.
Clove Hendry is not far off my age, and having the MC as someone who I can relate to is always a bonus.
She’s your typical middle-aged woman, married with two kids, in a stable job, with a loving hubby who doesn’t know how much she does. He’s not a bad guy; he’s just oblivious.
She’s got an annoying boss and an even more annoying mother.
One morning, she wakes with a migraine, takes a dodgy tablet, and then bumps her head, which seems to be the catalyst for one of the most open, honest, ‘lucky’ days of her life.
Suddenly, she’s filled with the strength to be honest instead of saying what is heeded to constantly crowd-please.
Does it make the world better? Well, maybe not for some, but it sure feels liberating to Clover!
I loved how it built up, with little foibles that she managed to address, to much bigger issues, that she finally managed to air, culminating in a chance to finally bury one of her biggest fears,
Fantastically written!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins Fiction for an ARC.

Releasing 20th June, 2024

The Cornish Campsite Murder by Fiona Leitch
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I binged the first six of these books a while back and had so much fun with this cosy mystery series, with Jodie ‘Nosy’ Parker, the ex-cop turned caterer who can’t help but get involved in the investigations for the local murders. It’s obviously in the blood with her father having been pretty high up in the forces, too.
This time, Jodie and her partner, Nathan, a DI, are operating a catering van for a friend at a festival. The only crimes should be how many pies people are eating, Jodie trying to keep an eye on her teenage daughter, with all the drugs flying around.
But that wouldn’t be a Cornish mystery, would it?
Playing at the festival is one of Jodie’s teen idol bands, and once she gets over her fangirling moment, she’s knee-deep in another investigation, as an ex-band member is found dead.
Is it murder or an unfortunate accident?
Well, I shan’t tell you because what would be the point of your reading the book?
But it was fantastic to be back with Jodie and the crew, including her daughter and mother, and their dog, as they spent the weekend slumming it (Unless, like Jodie’s mum, you were in a luxury yurt!) experiencing festival life, as well as investigating said death.
Again, Fiona, you made me hungry with the food you described!
It’s a brilliant addition to the series, and I hope we hear more from Jodie and her crime-busting!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK, One More Chapter for an ARC.

Releasing 28th June, 2024

So, tell me what you have been reading, and what caught your eye from the above!