Hello everybody! And welcome to a new, exciting feature that myself and the lovely Michaela @ A Novel Idea created!
Do you like recommending your favourite books? Would you like more recommendations tailored to your mood or content you fancy?
Then you’re in the right place!
The Happiness Project
by Pippa James
Bookouture
Pub date: February 12th 2019
3/5 Stars
Buy on Amazon*
Three mumsy friends each make a New Year’s Resolution; hyper-organised Alison wants to escape her comfort zone, single mother Frankie want to get a job and hold it down and Kate, pregnant for the third time, wants to approach the new baby’s birth with ‘zen’ instead of being her usual worrying self. Naturally it all goes entirely to plan – not. Navigating new romances and old friendships, hirings and firings, PTA mums and wayward family members all while raising a collective brood of crazy four years olds doesn’t make their Happiness Project as straight forward as they’d hoped.
Read moreWell, hello! It’s not a Tuesday or Friday, but I couldn’t let today’s monumental event go by without acknowledging it in a bookish blog post…
I read my first five star book of 2019!!
Now, I know we’re still in January so maybe it’s not a huge deal but as I was looking over my Goodreads challenge so far, I realised that although I’ve read eight books, nothing has blown me away.
Until now.
I’m so excited, I don’t want to wait to fit a proper review into my blogging schedule!! So here is a mini-review of my first five star read of the year (drumroll please):
Read moreI’ve seen a few posts recently about how if you read and enjoyed ‘x’, you’ll also like ‘y’ book and I find them so useful to get recommendations. Here I’m doing something similar, picking a book that I liked and looking for something I haven’t read but seems to be in the same ballpark.
Obviously, I haven’t read the second book so I’m going off blurbs, reviews and a few friends’ recommendations to try find books that contain matching elements.
Basically, I’m making a new TBR pile based on novels I already love!
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The Weight Of A Piano by
Chris Cander
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Pub date: 22nd January 2019
4/5 Star
Buy on Amazon*
Two women over nearly 50 years are united by their attachment to an extraordinary piano and a secret that causes a domino effect of tragedy. Katya is growing up in the Soviet Union during the 1960s when a neighbour gifts her with a Bluthner piano; Clara has just ended another hopeless relationship in 2012 and is moving the same piano from her ex-boyfriend’s house to a new flat. The story of how the instrument went from one woman’s hands to the next unfolds when Clara allows the piano to be used by an enigmatic photographer for a special project, in a history as mournful and heart-wrenching as the music it played in its previous life.
Read moreThis is embarrassing to be honest. I’m such a book hoarder, but this year I’ve put myself on a year long book buying ban (after 15 days, it’s going well!) so it seems like a good time to Beat The Backlist.
This is a year long challenge hosted by NovelKnight where you have to try get through your tbr between the 1st January and 31st December, and read books published in 2018 or earlier.
I’ll also be taking part in the Hogwarts mini challenge for Hufflepuff!
These are my physical tbr bookshelves (with a couple of read ones that have sneaked in)… I may do a kindle one too but I should probably pace myself for now! Because… well… There’s a few.
And by a few I mean:
Read moreHello everybody! And hello new followers – somehow there’s 99 of you?? What?? This seems like a good time to introduce myself a little better and get to know you all!
I put it out into the Twitterverse that I’m not good at writing ‘About Me’ and my gorgeous friend Michaela @ A Novel Idea, one of my favourite people in the world, came up with a list of prompts for me to answer! I joked she was interviewing me, so I’m turning it into a tag: The Book Interview.
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Just For Clicks by Kara McDowell
Amberjack Publishing
Pub date: February 19th 2019
3/5 stars
The Dixon family are ‘internet famous’. What began as a mommy blog run by Ashley Dixon has turned into an international empire – and her daughter Claire wants out. Having everything from potty training to junior prom discussed online is no longer her idea of fun and the perks of sponsorship deals don’t hold a candle to her dream of going to college and finally being a normal girl. Her twin sister Poppy thinks she’s mad to give up the glamour of fame, especially when all it requires are a few hair tutorial YouTube videos in return… oh, and giving up your privacy, embarrassing viral outbursts and being forced in front of your mom’s camera 24/7. However, underneath the insta-perfect facade, the cracks are beginning to show, with traumatic moments from the past and the uncertainty of their future as celebrities and as a family all come to a head.
Read moreAm I too late to join the party? We’re a week into 2019 and I feel like everyone was done and dusted with their best of 2018 posts before the end of December. Ah well! Here we go anyway.
In 2018 I read 115 books (my goodreads challenge was 100) but looking back on it I feel like I can barely remember anything from before, ooh, about November?
Still, I’ve dug back into the recesses of my dusty memory and picked my top 5 books from 2018! These aren’t necessarily books published in 2018 (although a couple were), just ones I got my hands on during the year and loved entirely.
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Nova in New York by Katherine Richards
Orca Book Publishers
Pub Date: 29th January 2019
4/5 Stars
Amazon UK
Book Depository
My first review on the blog! Ahh! My first review of an ARC!! Ahhh!!
Now that’s out of my system…
Nova in New York follows a teenager from a small town as she enrolls on a prestigious summer course at a ballet school in New York. Nova leaves behind her family – an absentminded father obsessed with the stars and an aunt who dreamed of dancing but lives with cystic fibrosis – to take on three weeks of intensive training under strict tutors. Struggling without their support and feeling lost in the big city, Nova has to figure out her place in the world of dance and decide whether or not to fight for it.
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esmoogle reads 