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Tag: illustrated novel

ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – The Wreck by Lizzy Stewart

Posted on 19th May 2026 By Nicola

The Wreck by Lizzy Stewart is published by Jonathan Cape is and out now. My thanks to Vintage Influencers for the review copy. Two couples […]

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shortbookandscribes

UK book blogger (Sheffield), Bookstagrammer and lover of all things bookish.
Just one person trying to read all the books.
Physical books only.

Ad/PR product. New review: Rose & Renzo by @caroly

Ad/PR product. New review: Rose & Renzo by @carolynmanc. Published by @northodoxpressofficial and out now.
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Rose and her older sister Ivy have to leave the vicarage where they grew up after their father dies. Motherless too, Ivy steps into the role, much to Rose’s discontent. She feels Ivy is holding her back and preventing her from fulfilling her dream of attending art school in Manchester. They move to Ancoats, to an area known as Little Italy, where Rose meets painter Renzo. They’re immediately drawn to each other but fascism is on the rise and Rose doesn’t know enough about Renzo’s past to be totally sure of where his loyalties lie.
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Rose is a brilliantly drawn character who jumped off the page. I loved her individuality, her cropped hair and daring outfits (both rather outlandish for 1936 Manchester) and her desire to do the right thing. Renzo is passionate, principled and kind, and he made a good hero.
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The tensions of the time around the fascist behaviour and the prejudice against the Jewish community are portrayed well and they provide a backdrop to what is essentially a burgeoning love story. What I perhaps enjoyed most of all was Rose’s introduction to a new way of gritty city living after a sheltered existence in a Cheshire vicarage, and the opening of her eyes to what is going on around her. Sense of place is strong and this is a well-written piece of historical fiction.
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Thank you to the publishers for the review copy.
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#bookreview #RoseAndRenzo #historicalfiction #shortbookandscribes

Ad/PR product. New review: Hunger and Thirst by Cl

Ad/PR product. New review: Hunger and Thirst by Claire Fuller. Published by @penguinfigtree and out now.
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Hunger and Thirst is the story of 16 year old Ursula. After a childhood trauma followed by a succession of children’s homes, she’s now working in the post room of the local art school where she meets Sue, a slightly older and much more worldly-wise woman who becomes Ursula’s friend and whose large and chaotic family she wishes were her own. Ursula lacks any real joy in her life and so when she’s invited to share a deserted bungalow she jumps at the chance of the new experience. The Underwood has a sinister past, though, and events take a turn for the worse, leading to an incident that haunts Ursula for the rest of her life.
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The first half of this book set the scene and built up the tension, whilst the second half became virtually unputdownable. Is Ursula an unreliable narrator? Did she do what she thinks she did? To be honest, I got to the end and I still don’t know but somehow it doesn’t really matter as the writing is so strong and it’s such a consuming story. It’s unsettling to witness Ursula apparently unravel before us as some very weird and disturbing things happen. It’s unclear if it’s the malevolence of the Underwood that’s to blame or Ursula’s own deluded mind playing tricks on her. Either way, it makes for a really gripping and dark read with a thrilling horror element.
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Claire Fuller is such a great, versatile writer. She nails Ursula’s inner demons and Sue’s devil-may-care attitude and portrays perfectly the uneasy creepy feeling of the vividly-described abandoned bungalow with all the previous owners’ belongings still in place. Hunger and Thirst is a mesmerising novel which I’m still thinking about it days after I finished it.
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Thank you to the publishers for the proof copy along with 'squashed fly' biscuits and tea bags.
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#bookreview #HungerAndThirst #grippingreads #atouchofhorror #shortbookandscribes

Ad/PR product. New review: Five by @ilona.banniste

Ad/PR product. New review: Five by @ilona.bannister . Published by @readingjuniper and out now.
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A busy train platform, a train due in five minutes, the usual mixture of people stand waiting. But when the train comes, one person will die. We are told it will be one of five people, a child, his mother, a businessman, a young gambler, or an old lady. It’s an unusual premise: a conversational, often mocking narrator gives us an overview of the train station situation, interspersed with deep dives into the backgrounds of the main players, so that we find out not only what led to them being on the platform on this fateful day but also what led to them being the person they are. We also get to see the impact that the death has on each of them.
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What I like most about Ilona Bannister’s writing in this book (and I saw it in her first book, When I Ran Away, too) is that she gets to the heart of motherhood - how it feels to be a mother and what a mother will do for her children - with searing and unflinching honesty. This is what felt like the overarching theme of the book for me,
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Expect more than a psychological thriller. Expect a human story about complex and messy lives, unlikeable characters but ones whose stories draw you in and make you realise that nothing is ever black and white. Who really knows what is behind the facade of the people you pass by in everyday life? I really enjoyed Five and found it a well-written, thought-provoking, powerful and engrossing character-driven story.
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Thank you to the publishers and author for the proof.
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#bookreview #Five #psychologicalfiction #grippingreads #shortbookandscribes

April Reads 👑 Elizabeth and Marilyn by Julie Owen

April Reads

👑 Elizabeth and Marilyn by Julie Owen Moylan
A compelling story about Queen Elizabeth II and Marilyn Monroe, and the lead up to their brief meeting in 1956, the year they both turned 30. I loved this one.

🌳 Woodspring by Elizabeth Buchan
This is about three generations of people connected to Woodspring, their ancestral home. It didn’t quite live up to expectations for me, but I still enjoyed the transportation into the past.

📞 Caller Unknown by Gillian McAllister
An exciting, ‘edge of your seat’ story about a woman whose daughter is kidnapped and held to ransom. One of my favourites by this author.

💭 Dreams Come True at the Wartime Hotel by Maisie Thomas
The final instalment in this lovely trilogy about three women courageously forging their own way through life during wartime. Full of warmth and friendship.

💦 The Drowning Place by Sarah Hilary
Dark and compelling first in a new police series with fascinating main characters.

🌿 Spring at Flora’s House by Freya North
Second novella in the series set on the Isle of Harris. I had trouble liking the three main characters in this story but as always, the setting is beautiful and there’s a lovely sense of community.

🚢 The Restless Sea by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
Book 27 in the Morland Dynasty series – the sinking of the Titanic forms a large part of the story, with some of the Morland family being on board the so-called unsinkable ship. The younger generation play their part in history, as do the women fighting for the vote.

🪖 The White Road by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
Book 28 covers the first few months of WWI amidst the hell and heartbreak of war.
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As always, my book post for the month and stats are on my blog post - link in bio.
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#AprilReads 2026 #monthlywrapup #monthlyroundup #AprilReads #shortbookandscribes

Ad/PR product. New review: The Drowning Place by S

Ad/PR product. New review: The Drowning Place by Sarah Hilary. Published by @harvillbooks and out now.
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When he was 11, Joseph Ashe was on a school bus when it veered off the road into a reservoir. Everyone on board drowned apart from Joseph. Why did he survive and no one else did? It’s a mystery, but as Joseph never moved away from his childhood town in the Peak District, he’s treated with either awe or a kind of suspicion. Now a DS in the Edenscar police, he’s joined by DI Laurie Bower, a newcomer to the area with personal reasons for her move, in investigating a terrible local crime.
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The Drowning Place is a well-written police procedural with the addition of a number of other interesting aspects to the storyline: there’s the accident that Joe inexplicably survived and the legacy of that, which is his uncanny supernatural ability; there’s Laurie’s home life and her move from an inner-city police force to a more rural one (expecting a slower pace and then being thrust into the heart of a major investigation); and there’s the setting in the Peak District, an area with which I’m reasonably familiar.
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The characters are all well-drawn and often flawed. Joe has a massive case of survivors’ guilt but his police work helps a little with that. I found him hugely likeable, if something of a closed book. Laurie is a no-nonsense cop with tons of experience so I’m looking forward to seeing her and Joe work alongside each other in the next book in the series, and I’m also keen to see if more insights about what happened on the day of the crash emerge.
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The plot of this book is dark and compelling, although I must admit that at times I found it a little difficult to concentrate on, possibly due to the number of characters or the complex storyline. I’m definitely interested in reading the next Joe and Laurie book – the quirkiness of this one has me curious to know more.
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Thank you to the publishers for the proof copy.
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#bookreview #TheDrowningPlace #crimefiction #policeprocedural #shortbookandscribes

Ad/PR product. New review: Dreams Come True at the

Ad/PR product. New review: Dreams Come True at the Wartime Hotel by Maisie Thomas. Published by @boldwoodbooks and out now.
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Dreams Come True at the Wartime Hotel is the third book in this heartwarming trilogy and my favourite of the three as it rounds up every character’s story perfectly.
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Kitty, Lily and Beatrice live at Dunbar’s Hotel with Abbie, Kitty’s daughter, and Mrs Ivy Dunbar, Kitty’s mother-in-law. Whilst the men are away at war, it’s the women who step forward on the home front. The feckless actions of Bill, Kitty’s husband, mean that she is running the hotel as a storage business and has also branched out into wedding and funeral receptions with the help of her friends and family.
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The future for Kitty and Lily seems uncertain. The thought of Bill coming home and taking all that Kitty has built up is unthinkable to her, and Lily is pregnant with another man’s child so reconciliation with her husband seems an impossibility. Beatrice is content with her life working in welfare and running children’s clubs but she does sometimes feel like she has missed out on family life. What will the future hold for these three plucky women?
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I loved reading this book and catching up with the characters I have so enjoyed reading about. I had hopes for the conclusion of both Beatrice’s and Lily’s stories and I was thrilled with the outcome for each, but with Kitty I thought it could only go one way and I was wrong. The author came up with a much better idea and I couldn’t have wished for more.
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This whole trilogy has been a delight to read. It’s about strong women courageously forging their own way during wartime and doing a jolly good job of it. The stories are easy to read and flow beautifully whilst covering the hardships of life during conflict and the joys of romance and friendship. Highly recommended for all saga fans.
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Thank you to the author for sending me a review copy.
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#bookreview #DreamsComeTrueAtTheWartimeHotel #sagabooks #warfiction #shortbookandscribes

Ad/PR product. New review: Caller Unknown by @gill

Ad/PR product. New review: Caller Unknown by @gillianmauthor. Published by @michaeljbooks and out now.
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I consider myself to be a Gillian McAllister fan and Caller Unknown is now one of my favourites of her books (along with How to Disappear and Wrong Place Wrong Time).
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Simone flies to the US to meet up with her teenage daughter Lucy who has been at summer camp before hopefully taking up a place at RADA. Bar some temporarily lost luggage, all goes well until the morning after Simone’s first night in Texas when she wakes up to find Lucy gone and a phone in her place. Lucy has been abducted and from that moment Simone’s only purpose is to get her back. Her husband, Damien, is back home in London but even if he was in Texas, it would still be Simone who would be following orders not to contact the police, complying with the abductor’s demands, and doing all she could to save Lucy.
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Some reviewers have said a suspension of disbelief was required when reading this book but of course that is the case as who can really imagine being in Simone’s situation? It doesn’t happen very often but it does happen sometimes. What shone through from start to finish is what parents, and mothers in particular, will do for their child, the hoops they will jump through, the laws they will consider breaking and the sacrifices they will make, all to keep their child safe. McAllister, in Caller Unknown, writes what she does best: a psychological thriller with moral dilemmas scattered throughout and a love story, not only between wife and husband, but in this case, even more powerfully, between mother and child.
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I found this book very hard to put down. It’s pacy and full of cliffhangers (good ones that lead into the next chapter rather than leaving you hanging for longer) and it’s exciting, edge of your seat, ‘one more chapter’ brilliant. The plot is so well executed and there are so many passages of wisdom about family life that I wish I had marked them all to come back to and read again. This is such a fantastic book.
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Thank you to the publishers for the proof copy.
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#bookreview #CallerUnknown #5starreads #psychologicalthriller #shortbookandscribes

Ad/PR product. New review: Woodspring by Elizabeth

Ad/PR product. New review: Woodspring by Elizabeth Buchan. Published by Corvus and out now.
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Woodspring tells the story of three generations of one family, the Dane family who have been inextricably linked to their ancestral home for over two hundred years. The three timelines are 1940, 1975 and 2005, portrayed from the viewpoints of Harry, Nell and Mia respectively.
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I was drawn to Woodspring as it sounded like just my kind of book, one which tells the story of a family connected by their home. That wasn’t exactly what I got. To start with, Woodspring hardly features in two of the timelines. Harry is commando training in Scotland or on leave in London for his timeline and in Mia’s we see a Dane through her eyes with only a small focus on Woodspring. It’s clear much has changed at the estate over the generations, in the way of many large country houses, but it’s only Nell’s story that really takes us there and I would have liked more.
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Elizabeth Buchan’s writing is very good, it kept me interested (particularly where the focus was on Harry and Nell) but I did feel like Woodspring had more of a bit part than the lead role that the title suggests. I also felt that the joining of the three strands seemed rather disjointed, probably because the links between the characters were broken or partially broken so they didn’t flow as well as they might.
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What I did really enjoy were the descriptions of the house and its surroundings, the wartime experiences of Harry and his cohort, and Nell’s time at Woodspring discovering things she didn’t know about her family and the estate. Whilst not quite the read I was hoping for, I did still enjoy Woodspring for the transportation into the past.
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Thank you to the publishers for the proof copy.
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#bookreview #historicalfiction #histfic #shortbookandscribes

Ad/PR product. New review: Elizabeth and Marilyn b

Ad/PR product. New review: Elizabeth and Marilyn by @julieowenmoylan. Published by @michaeljbooks and out now.
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Elizabeth and Marilyn – two of the most recognisable women in the world. The year is 1956, the year in which both women turned 30 years old, and they’re about to meet at a film premiere at which Marilyn was invited to meet the Queen. Julie Owen Moylan imagines the months before that meeting for each woman. Marilyn has come to England to film The Prince and the Showgirl with Sir Laurence Olivier. Newly married to Arthur Miller, she believes herself to finally be happy in love but she finds it increasingly difficult to cope with being treated as a dumb blonde. Elizabeth is also finding it hard to balance family life with her responsibilities as Queen.
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I thought the author did an excellent job at getting deep into the inner thoughts of each woman. Telling their stories in the first person meant that the combination of the presentation of known facts mingled with fictional elements worked really well. Whilst I have plenty of prior knowledge about the Queen, I didn’t know much about Marilyn’s early life and this story showed that there was a marked contrast between the two. For much of the book there is no merging of the two characters’ individual stories and yet they exist alongside each other beautifully. By 1956, though, here were two dazzling public personas each hiding a young woman struggling with the weight of expectation, the parallels between them now quite clear to see.
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I loved reading Elizabeth and Marilyn. I found it absolutely compelling and couldn’t wait to pick it up and read some more. It was a joy to read, a small slice of fascinating history that had me hooked from beginning to end.
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Thank you to the publishers for the proof copy.
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#bookreview #ElizabethAndMarilyn #historicalfiction #5starreads #shortbookandscribes

📚March Reads📚 ☀️ Dead Heat by Sabine Durrant I ab

📚March Reads📚

☀️ Dead Heat by Sabine Durrant
I absolutely loved this intense, slightly menacing literary thriller set in Greece.

💔 Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
This is a heartbreaking love story spanning countries and decades with a will they/won’t they vibe.

✍🏻 Based on a True Story by Sarah Vaughan
A twisty read about a dysfunctional and complicated family. It didn’t have quite the intrigue I was expecting but I enjoyed it.

🔍 It’s Not What You Think by Clare Mackintosh
An excellent thriller, really cleverly plotted and told from multiple viewpoints to great effect.

🤱🏻 A Short Road to Longbrook by Bethan Roberts
A captivating story of complicated mother/daughter relationships. I couldn’t have loved it more.

❓ The Question by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
Morland Place is at last full of family life again and the Victorian era comes to an end with the death of the Queen (book 25).

💭 The Dream Kingdom by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
Morland Place is thriving with old and new family members, the Suffragettes continue to fight for the vote and aeroplanes are starting to take off. But there’s trouble on the horizon with rumblings of war (book 26).
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As always, my book post and stats for the month can be found on my blog post (link in bio).
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#March2026Reads #MarchReads #monthlyroundup #monthlywrapup #shortbookandscribes

Ad/PR product. New review: A Short Road to Longbro

Ad/PR product. New review: A Short Road to Longbrook by @msbethanroberts. Published by @chattobooks and out now.
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Lillian is a teenager in the 1960s and seems to have the world at her feet. She lives with her mother, Winnie, at 25 Mason Road, is happy studying and thinking ahead to possibly fulfilling her dreams of going to art school, and she has a new boyfriend Jim, who she enjoys going dancing with. There’s always the perpetual issue of Winnie’s nerves lurking in the background though, and the question of Lillian’s father. Lillian’s story forms the majority of the book but there are also sections in 2005 as Rachel, Lillian’s daughter, prepares to go to university. Lillian sees many of the same traits in Rachel as she and her own mother had and she worries for Rachel’s future.
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Lillian grew up hearing ‘it’s a short road to Longbrook’ the fear and stigma of being incarcerated in the local hospital for the mentally ill never far from the minds of the locals. Indeed, Longbrook casts a long shadow over the characters of this book, at a time when mental health problems were something to be whispered about and kept secret.
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Within a few pages of starting this wonderful book I had already grown wistful at the memory of the ‘club book’ (the catalogue where Winnie gets her striking red curtains) and had smiled at the observations of life that seemed somehow so familiar and real. I knew then that I was going to love this book and I really did adore every moment of it. It examines the complicated relationships that are passed down from Winnie to Lillian, and then to Rachel, a pattern that Lillian wants to see broken for the sake of her daughter.
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Beautifully written with incredibly perceptive insights into the minds of the complex characters, A Short Road to Longbrook is a captivating novel which deserves to be read and talked about. I couldn’t have loved it more.
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Thank you @vintagebooks @vintagebooksinfluencers for the proof copy.
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#bookreview #AShortRoadToLongbrook #fivestarreads #captivatingbooks #shortbookandscribes

Ad/PR product. New review: It's Not What You Think

Ad/PR product. New review: It's Not What You Think by @claremackwrites. Published by Harper Collins and out now.
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Nadeeka and Jamie are really happy together but there’s a niggling doubt in Nadeeka’s mind, something about Jamie’s behaviour that makes her think he’s cheating on her. Rushing home to confirm her suspicions, she in fact finds Jamie dead and police on the scene. From there it becomes very clear that it’s not what she or the reader thinks.
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I think it’s fairly common knowledge that there may be some twists in this book and Clare Mackintosh certainly does know how to do an excellent twist. I loved that nothing was obvious in this story, but even setting aside the clever twists, this is simply a first-rate thriller with a compelling story that I wanted to be reading all the time. The writing and plotting are flawless, the characters are so brilliantly depicted and the pacing is timed to perfection.
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It’s Not What You Think was one of the books I was most looking forward to reading this year and it delivered on every level. I thought it was superb.
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Thank you to the publishers for the proof copy.
@harperfiction
@harperfictionpr
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#bookreview #ItsNotWhatYouThink #twistyfiction #thrillerfiction #shortbookandscribes

Ad/PR product. New review: Based on a True Story b

Ad/PR product. New review: Based on a True Story by Sarah Vaughan. To be published by @simonschusteruk on 26th March.
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Dame Eleanor Kingman is about to turn 70 and will celebrate with a lavish party at her new Cornish home. Eleanor is a popular children’s author and as well as her family and friends, the party will be attended by a team who are making a documentary about her which is threatening to turn into more of an exposé, as Eleanor has a secret, one which somebody seems determined to reveal. Eleanor’s not the only one with a secret though. Her three daughters are all hiding something too.
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This is a book packed full of secrets and lies. It’s told from various viewpoints which helps to build up the story as a whole and if there aren’t any particularly likeable characters (with the exception perhaps of Eleanor’s daughter, Gilly, who has something of an awakening – go Gilly!) they are definitely interesting and multi-layered. I thought the windswept setting by the Cornish cliffs was ideal and depicted perfectly to give the impression of somewhere isolated yet accessible via cliff paths, offering ways onto Eleanor’s estate for guests who might not be quite welcome.
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The premise of Based on a True Story grabbed me the moment I heard about it. The intrigue I was expecting never fully materialised though, which I felt was because there was rather more telling than showing. I was still compelled to keep reading to find out what the big reveals were going to be and I do love Sarah Vaughan’s writing (a new book by her is always something to celebrate for me). Overall, this is a good twisty read about a dysfunctional and complicated family.
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Thank you to the publishers for the proof copy.
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#bookreview #BasedOnATrueStory #contemporaryfiction #psychologicalfiction #shortbookandscribes

Ad/PR product. New review: Almost Life by Kiran Mi

Ad/PR product. New review: Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave. Published by Picador and out now.
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Almost Life is a heartbreaking love story which spans countries and decades. Erica is a student visiting Paris in the summer of 1978 before starting university when she meets Laure and strikes up a conversation with her. Laure is prickly and worldly, only a few years older than Erica but with so much more experience of life. Erica is quite gauche but soon learns how to fit in with Laure’s bohemian life. Laure is a lesbian and Erica, finding herself attracted to Laure, enters into a relationship of sorts with her.
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The strands of this relationship are what keep the two women linked throughout the next 30+ years. In many ways each of them are intent on self-destruction and the question I kept coming back to when I was reading Almost Life was: are they actually any good for each other? Yet, there is an enduring love between them which, whilst not unwavering, is unbreakable.
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This is quite a sad story really, filled with longing and regrets. At the beginning I struggled to like Laure but that changed a lot throughout the course of the book and by the end I thought she was an amazing woman. Erica, in feeling the need to conform more than to risk hurting Laure, came across as thoughtless at times but I think some of her behaviour was understandable, especially when you consider the era and her conventional background.
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I love an epic love story and Almost Life fits that description. The author captured the yearning and the will they/won’t they vibe very well. I didn’t always find it easy to gel with and I enjoyed some sections more than others, but on the whole I found it a compelling story that kept me picking it up to see how the two women’s intertwined narratives would end.
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Thank you to the publishers and Book Break for the proof copy.
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#AlmostLife #bookreview #queerfiction #parisfiction #shortbookandscribes

Ad/PR product. New review: Dead Heat by @sabinedur

Ad/PR product. New review: Dead Heat by @sabinedurrant. To be published by @centurybooksuk on 12th March.
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Dead Heat is narrated by Matt Grimshaw. Down on his luck after both his relationship and his work as a journalist ended, he goes to Greece to stay with his best friend, Adam Murphy and his wife Celia. Adam is everything Matt is not. He’s a successful TV presenter, he is charming and congenial, a generous host and a fun person to be around, but tensions rise when somebody else arrives in the area who threatens to derail the summer and seriously muddy the waters.
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To say anymore about the story itself would be to risk spoilers and I think it’s better to just let it all unfold, just as it would have done for Matt. I read Dead Heat fairly slowly because I wanted to savour every detail, every exchange between Matt and the other characters, and every move he made, all expertly set up by the author so that she could draw all the strands together for the finale.
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For me, this is a masterclass in plotting and everything I want in a literary thriller. There is a languid build up, the edgy feel of a hot, claustrophobic summer full of resentment and covetousness, an unreliable narrator, and then the conclusion where it all converges to great effect. I thought several times throughout that I knew what had happened and that I’d guessed a twist, but I was wrong.
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The writing is absolutely spellbinding, the story is quietly menacing and the characters are unstable and/or untrustworthy. Put together, Dead Heat is quite simply superb.
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Thank you to the publishers for the proof copy.
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#bookreview #DeadHeat #5starreads #thrillerfiction #shortbookandscribes

📚February Reads📚 🔹The Homecoming by Cynthia Harro

📚February Reads📚

🔹The Homecoming by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles
This is book 24 of the Morland Dynasty series. Although I always love following the London contingent I did miss Morland Place action in this one.

🔹Mrs Pearcey by Lottie Moggach
A well-researched book based on a true Victorian crime but unfortunately I found it hard to engage with.

🔹The Barbecue at No. 9 by Jennie Godfrey
This is an enjoyable and authentic story set on the day of Live Aid in 1985, following different characters from the same road.

🔹Unreliable Narrator by Araminta Hall
I thought this was a first-rate story of subtle manipulation through one intense summer and its rippling effect over the following ten years.

🔹The Infamous Gilberts by Angela Tomaski
I enjoyed this story of a family’s downfall and eventual extinction as their family home is bought by a hotel chain.

🔹Six Little Words by Sally Page
A joyous story of a group of new friends embracing their creativity. Full of colour, warmth, empathy and humour.
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Book Post from the month and my Storygraph stats can be found on my blog post (link in bio).
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#FebruaryReads #monthlyroundup #February2026Reads #monthlywrapup #shortbookandscribes

Ad/PR product. New review: Six Little Words by @by

Ad/PR product. New review: Six Little Words by @bysallypage. To be published by @harpercollinsuk on 12th March.
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Six little words on a café noticeboard bring together a group of people looking to embrace or rediscover their creativity. Bardy is a former English teacher who is struggling with life alone after his divorce. Kate is in a similar situation and also recovering from illness. Along with Bardy’s best friend Luigi, prickly Dane Pia, and married couple Linda and Leonard, the group provides friendship, support and encouragement, whilst bringing out their natural talents for various kinds of art.
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Sally Page has a wonderful warmth and empathy to her writing and in this book she has created such interesting, likeable yet flawed characters. I loved Linda for her caring nature (and for tackling her frustration at Leonard refusing to wear his hearing aids), Pia for her wisdom, Kate for her vulnerability, Bardy for his kindness and Luigi for his hospitality. Each and every one of these characters, along with a few others who play a role in the story, brings something special to the mix and I came away from this book thinking that it must be really nice to be in the midst of such an amazing bunch of people. I loved the trajectory that each character’s progress took and by the end of the book I felt each one had achieved something and reached a kind of peace with themselves and their lives.
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Six Little Words is a joyous read. It’s full of colour, art, love, camaraderie, inspiration, optimism and humour. Put all these attributes together and it’s quite simply a splendid read from start to finish. I loved it!
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Thank you to the publishers and Sally for the proof copy.
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#bookreview #SixLittleWords #feelgoodfiction #5starreads #shortbookandscribes

Ad/PR product. New review: The Infamous Gilberts b

Ad/PR product. New review: The Infamous Gilberts by Angela Tomaski. To be published in hardcover on 5th March by @penguinfigtree.
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Some years ago, Angela Tomaski visited a house that had just been bought by the National Trust. She saw slippers and soap belonging to the late owner in his bedroom and by her next visit they had gone, those items so personal to him erased forever. This was the seed of a story that led her to write The Infamous Gilberts.
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The Gilberts are siblings Lydia, Hugo, Annabel, Jeremy and Rosalind and their story covers much of the 20th century. In short chapters, vignettes almost, we see the trajectory of their lives at Thornwalk, their gothic family mansion, not through their own reminiscences but through those of Maximus who walks us through life at Thornwalk in the manner of a tour guide (although he’s actually a friend of the family) before it passes into the hands of the hotel chain who have bought it.
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It becomes clear there is an element of madness running through the Gilbert siblings, a self-destructive nature that is inescapable. I got to the end and thought they literally had no redeeming features but when I thought about it more I realised that Annabel and Jeremy were at least a little more likeable. The other three didn’t have much going for them but they certainly made interesting reading.
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The writing style of The Infamous Gilberts won’t appeal to everyone. It did take a little getting into, the narration being rather matter of fact yet conversational, but I got to a point where I found it difficult to put down. The story itself, of a family’s downfall and extinction, is fascinating and I agree with the author, it’s the small things that feel so incredibly intimate, those stains and scratches, the wedding ring, the blotter by the telephone, all memories of a family and a way of life now lost. I enjoyed this unusual and poignant book.
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Thank you to the publishers for the proof copy and the little box of Fruits of Thornwalk strawberry jam.
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#TheInfamousGilberts #bookreview #historicalfiction #debutfiction #shortbookandscribes

Ad/PR product. New review: Unreliable Narrator by

Ad/PR product. New review: Unreliable Narrator by @aramintahall. To be published by @panmacmillan on 5th March.
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When I read Araminta Hall’s first book, Everything and Nothing, back in 2011, I commented that I hoped the author would write more great reads like that one in the future. She certainly did, perhaps most notably her most recent book, One of the Good Guys, which I thought was brilliant. Now she’s done it again with Unreliable Narrator which drew me right into the world of Hope Jenkins and didn’t let me go until the end.
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Hope takes a job as assistant to author, Ambrose Glencourt. As an aspiring writer herself it sounds ideal and she is soon fully assimiliated into the glamorous and dazzling life at Shadowlands with Ambrose and his wife. Hope tells her story in the form of a journal, but is she an unreliable narrator?
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Hall’s skilled writing enables the reader to view events from an independent standpoint, less blinkered by the Glencourts’ allure or by Hope’s naivity. I still didn’t know the truth of the matter (although I had a good idea) but I loved every minute I spent finding it out. The second half of the book has a different style to it, leading to an ending which was poignant, ingenious and feministic, and which rounded off the story perfectly.
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I thought Unreliable Narrator was extremely well-written, a first-rate story of subtle manipulation through one intense summer and its rippling effect over the following ten years.
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Thank you to the publishers for the proof copy.
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#UnreliableNarrator #bookreview #5starreads #psychologicalthriller #shortbookandscribes

Ad/PR product. New review: The Barbecue at No. 9 b

Ad/PR product. New review: The Barbecue at No. 9 by @jennie.godfrey. To be published by @hutchheinemann tomorrow!
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The Barbecue at No. 9 takes place on the day of the Live Aid concert in July 1985, an event that I think turned out to be more momentous than most people could have imagined at the time. Certainly the day is pretty momentous for the residents of Delmont Close. There is a street plan of the close at the beginning of the book which shows all the residents. The main ones featured in this book are Hanna Gordon and her family at no. 9, Steve and his mum at no. 20 and Rita at no. 15, although many of the other residents play a small role too.
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The story is broken up into the hours of the concert and who was on stage at the time. It’s such a brilliant idea to take Live Aid as a basis for the book and for the barbecue that brings everyone on the close together. Emotions are running high, especially for Hanna and Rita who have secrets that will rock the worlds of their families and their neighbours. The pacing is excellent and kept me interested all the way through, with these individual lives coming together to create a kind of pressure cooker that was bound to explode eventually.
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As with Jennie Godfrey’s first book, The List of Suspicious Things, it’s the characters that stand out, with the backdrop of a point in history to anchor them. Hanna, Steve and Rita are memorable characters who I came to care about (and I must admit to a soft spot for Prince the dog). It felt authentic to the 80s too and put me right back there (Hanna’s mum Lydia’s style icons are Princess Di and Krystle Carrington!).
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This is another great read from this author and I can’t wait to see what she writes next.
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Thank you to the publishers for the amazing proof package.
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#bookreview #TheBarbecueAtNo9 #fictionbooks #contemporaryfiction #shortbookandscribes

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