Tag Archive | Net Galley

The Little Venice Bookshop by Rebecca Raisin

Mar30

Purrfectly Charming

The Little Venice Bookshop by Rebecca Raisin is a most delightful contemporary novel that will warm your heart.

Following the death of her mother, a daughter is searching for her roots after a discovery of decades old letters. For all her life, it had been enough just being with her mother. Now she wants to seek out her father.

We see the importance of family. Family does not have to be blood related. The mother and daughter had spent their lives living with other women in a commune. “Women who will always strive to lift me up and love me. Help me when I fall.” These women were family.

Travelling to many places meant there is no one place to call home. But perhaps home was never meant to be bricks and mortar, maybe home is meant to be flesh and blood.

Sometimes when we are hurt, we build walls. “My walls are built high so that no one can ever leave me again.” Walls we build to protect can actually imprison us. Demolish the walls and begin to really live.

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A Secret Garden Affair by Erica James

Mar30

Enchanting

A Secret Garden Affair by Erica James is an enchanting dual timeline novel about love and life, guilt and grief, and memories that keep us warm at night.

The story is set in the summer of 1981 when the country was gripped by Royal Wedding fever, and also in the 1920’s moving forwards. We see the action in both the first and third person from alternating points of view.

We witness the passion for creating gardens that sees a character feeling at one with nature. And there is also a grande passion that not even death can break. Life is for living. We need to make the most of each day because we never know when life will be cruelly cut short.

There is a beautiful friendship between two ladies that has lasted almost a lifetime. Over the years they have shared each other’s confidences and kept each others secrets.

Guilt rears its ugly head as characters live with the fear that their individual actions caused a tragedy many years ago. Guilt binds us. We need to throw off the shackles and live free.

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His Fatal Legacy by Heather Atkinson

Mar24

Chilling

His Fatal Legacy by Heather Atkinson is an historical novel that gripped me from the start. It is the third book in the Alardyce House series but can be read as a stand-alone.

The tale is set in Edinburgh in the late nineteenth century. It has elements of the Gothic tradition with large houses, dark nights, deserted alleyways and sinister characters. The tone is chilling as an air of menace appears.

Family is important. A mother’s love is fiercely protective, needing to uphold appearances no matter the cost. Dreadful secrets and suspicions arise but lips are sealed.

We witness nature versus nurture – are monsters made by their genes or a product of their environment? A character wrestles with the darkness within as he tries to focus on the light.

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Ten Dates by Rachel Dove

Mar19

Still Me

Ten Dates by Rachel Dove is the most beautiful contemporary novel that warmed my heart and soul.

The story is told in the third person from two alternating points of view. The reader becomes well acquainted with the two lead characters. Both of which are easy to empathise with.

Love completely radiates from the pages – a mind recovering from a coma has forgotten much, but a heart still recognizes feelings of love. This is a love to last a lifetime. This is a love so huge, it fears hurting another. This is a love that denies self and always puts another first. This is a beautiful love.

Rachel Dove has written a novel that assaults your emotions. The raw emotion of love is palpable. The reader wafts alongside the characters as we long to know – what will happen at the end of ten dates?

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