Tag Archive | Rachels Random Resources

Chasing Dreams At Wagging Tails’ Dogs Home by Sarah Hope

Oct26

A Time For Miracles

Chasing Dreams At Wagging Tails Dogs’ Home by Sarah Hope is a perfectly charming contemporary novel that I loved.

The novel is set in December in Cornwall. The dogs’ home is a place for homeless dogs, with loving people who are determined to make a difference. The dogs’ home is the dream of the owner who established it thirty five years ago. She will always go the extra mile for the dogs, putting them above her own welfare. She has a huge philanthropic heart who just wants to do the best for the dogs.

A character returns to the dogs’ home of her childhood after a relationship breakdown. Here, she receives a warm welcome from both humans and dogs. As she puts the dogs first, her heart begins to heal.

The dogs know when they are loved. It is beautiful to see a bond develop between an abandoned puppy and an abandoned heart.

Family is important. Sometimes family is blood related and at other times it is people who love us. The dogs’ home functions as a family with the dogs at the heart.

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The Puppet Maker by Jenny O’Brien

Oct22

Gripping

The Puppet Maker by Jenny O’Brien is a gritty contemporary murder suspense that I just could not put down. It is the first book in the Detective Alana Mack series. I am looking forward to the subsequent books.

The plotline is extremely well thought out and executed. This is not a book for the faint-hearted as there are some gruesome scenes. The author has clearly done her research into police and medical procedure.

All the characters are well drawn and realistic. There are some very unsavory characters. The leading lady is fair, kind to the innocent and tenacious in her pursuit of justice.

The weather mirrors the action. The tale is set in the week before Christmas with snow on the ground and generally very inclement weather.

Dublin is the location as we travel from police headquarters around the city.

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Drumbeats by Julia Ibbotson

Oct19

A Journey Of Discovery

Drumbeats by Julia Ibbotson is a marvellous historical coming-of-age novel that completely enthralled me. It is the first book in the Drumbeats trilogy.

The novel is set in 1965-1966. It is the dawn of a new era. Travel is beginning to open up and there are new freedoms on the horizon for women. The 1960’s was a decade that brought choice.

We follow an eighteen year old girl on her gap year to Ghana. Here she teaches English to local girls. It is a year in which her eyes will be opened, new friendships formed and old traumas re-visited.

Travelling to small villages shows up the terrible poverty. Children are dying through lack of basic medication and no mosquito nets. Any aid given is a drop in the ocean but can make a difference.

Having been sheltered in England with a Quaker upbringing, the leading lady rapidly grows up in Ghana. She proves herself to be very capable and far wiser than her years.

The leading lady’s hometown is Birmingham but it is Ghana that speaks to her heart and soul as she hears the rhythm of the drums.

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Christmas At The Cabin by Rebecca Boxall

Oct19

Cover Reveal

Christmas at the Cabin

A festive, coming-of-age tale about an Oxbridge candidate and a young homeless man who find themselves in the bittersweet predicament of falling in love with exactly the right person at exactly the wrong time.

Well-to-do Jed never imagined he’d end up homeless, but family circumstances have made it his only option. Local vicar, Ben, tries to help him but there’s an element of self-punishment to the homelessness that makes Jed continue to put up with his situation – until disaster leads him to re-consider the vicar’s offer of a place to stay.

Hattie is on the cusp of adulthood, frantically trying to persuade her mum that she doesn’t want to attend an elite university, preferring the idea of pursuing her love of art and textiles. When she meets Jed, she badly wants to understand his circumstances and why, when she has everything at her fingertips, he doesn’t.

Hattie’s mum, Christine, has had a hard life and is desperate for more for her only child. When she meets Ben, the vicar who’s trying to help Jed, she finds an unlikely ally, and the two heartbroken souls find themselves drawn to each other. Until they find their relationship suddenly tested to the limit.

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