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Short Book and Scribes

The Scandalous Life of Ruby Devereaux

Posted on 14th January 2024 By Nicola

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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.

New Book Purchases 📚📚📚 These four books arrived in

New Book Purchases
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These four books arrived in the house last Thursday.

🔸Wonderful by Louise Beech – ‘Three women, three eras, surprising things in common…’. I’ve read quite a few of Louise’s previous books and really enjoyed them so I had to get myself a copy of this one which is partly about Marilyn Monroe.

🔸Entitled by Andrew Lownie – this is the explosive royal exposé that felled a prince and there are sure to be some shocking revelations in here.

🔸Murder at the Spirit Lounge by Jess Kidd – this is the second in the Nora Breen Investigates series. I haven’t read the first book yet but having bought that one with spredges I felt I needed to keep up the good work. I’ve heard good things about this series anyway.

🔸The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow – I don’t think this needs any explanation as it’s been everywhere since the, frankly brilliant, TV series. I’ve been hunting for this hardback version secondhand as I really like the cover much more than the paperback and TV tie in versions (shudder to the last one). It’s a brick though, in fact it’s bigger than a brick.
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Have you read any of these or do you like the sound of them?
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#bookpurchases #newbooks #fictionbooks #fortheloveofbooks #shortbookandscribes

Bank Holiday Weekend Last ● Now ● Next Reads ☀️ Ha

Bank Holiday Weekend Last ● Now ● Next Reads
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Happy Bank Holiday weekend. It’s looking like a scorcher which isn’t my favourite kind of weather but I’m sure there are a lot of people in the UK who can’t believe this is actually our Bank Holiday weather. I thought I’d share my last, now and next reads with you today.
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Last: Body of Lies by Jo Callaghan - I absolutely flew through this brilliant book about a detective and her AI sidekick, only sorry that it’s the last one in the series (😭). I reviewed it on Thursday if you’d like to read my thoughts.
☀️
Now: The Repentants by Kate Foster – I always enjoy this author’s historical fiction. This one is inspired by an attempt by Scottish merchants to annex Iceland as a remote prison for the British empire in the late 1700s.

I’m also reading my ‘morning book’ The Measure of Days by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, book 30 of the Morland Dynasty series which is set in 1916 and follows the family’s fortunes during WWI. I could not love this series more.
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Next: I’m going to start Alison by Lizzy Stewart. I bought this after enjoying The Wreck so much. This illustrated novel will be my ‘downstairs’ book, one that I dip into every evening.

I think then I will read Dissection of a Murder by Jo Murray because I’ve been looking forward to this one since I first heard about it and I love a legal thriller.

I’m hoping to read The Last Marriage of Dot Brightmore by Laura Pearson soon too. This is the follow up to The Last List of Mabel Beaumont which I thought was brilliant, so I’m looking forward to it very much.
☀️
What will you be reading this Bank Holiday weekend? Have you read any of my choices?
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#lastnownextreads #crimefiction #historicalfiction #contemporaryfiction #shortbookandscribes

Ad/PR product. New review: Body of Lies by @jocall

Ad/PR product. New review: Body of Lies by @jocallaghankat. Published by @simonschusteruk today! Happy #publicationday 🎉🎉
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The chilling ending of book three in the Kat and Lock series, Human Remains, left me champing at the bit for book four and my goodness, what a book it is and what a truly brilliant finale to the series as a whole….sob.
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After the terrible events of book three, DCS Kat Frank is getting back to some normality with AIDE Lock, the AI detective which resides in a bracelet on her arm and which manifests itself as a hologram, by her side. The two characters and their interactions are what make this series so very special and Body of Lies is no different. Lock, as you might expect, is very literal and the juxtaposition of AI and human can be really funny at times. It’s no laughing matter, though, when an MP is murdered in a very public and disturbing way. Kat and Lock begin their investigation but things get even worse when there is a major cyberattack on the National Grid.
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This is a fast-paced and VERY exciting book. Thrillers don’t get any better than this for me and I particularly like the AI aspect which illustrates all the good and bad sides of a technology which feels both futuristic and a part of everyday life. AIDE Lock exists in that way, working alongside the police, which makes it feel like just another member of the team. Just as AI is already all around us, largely unregulated and gaining in power, it all feels very believable and possible.
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I’m bereft at the end of this spectacular series (tears were shed). I honestly can’t praise it enough. Body of Lies rounds it all off nicely, being both an outstanding story in its own right and the perfect conclusion overall. The murder aspect alone is utterly gripping but add in the thrill of the race against time to save the UK from the consequences of an extended period without electricity (think about how much we rely on it) and Body of Lies is pretty much the ideal crime thriller. In case you couldn’t tell, I absolutely adored it.
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Thank you @likely_suspects for the proof copy.
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#bookreview #BodyOfLies #5starreads #shortbookandscribes

Ad/PR product. New review: The Wreck by @lizzy_ste $Ad/PR product. New review: The Wreck by @lizzy_stewart. Published by Jonathan Cape and out now. 🏠 Reading an illustrated novel is really unusual for me, in fact I think I’ve only read two graphic novels before (both by Audrey Niffenegger if you’re interested). What drew me to The Wreck is that it is a combination of written and graphic elements, the written being the story and the graphic the dialogue, which gave me a real sense of the characters. 🏠 Those characters are Charlotte and Bill, Francesca and Adrian. Charlotte, Fran and Adrian were friends at university in the 1970s but over the years had drifted apart, partly due to Fran and Adrian getting together, and later getting married, which kind of fractured the friendship with Charlotte. Twenty years later Fran gets in touch with Charlotte with an unexpected and surprising proposal: that Charlotte and Bill move into Fran and Adrian’s large house in the country, known as The Wreck, and embrace a kind of communal living. 🏠 I enjoyed The Wreck so much. It’s a large book so I have been reading a little every evening and I always very much looked forward to picking it up. The story itself is engrossing, told for the first three parts from Charlotte’s perspective and then in the last part from Fran’s. It takes the reader back to the university days, setting the scene for all that was to come, the old friendships and the new ones, and life at the Wreck. At first life is really good but there was a sort of inevitability to the outcome I think. 🏠 The illustrations are absolutely stunning. Lizzy Stewart is a brilliant artist and I got to truly know the characters through her art, each one so perfectly drawn and which put me right there with them at the Wreck. I took a bit of a chance on this book, it being something different for me, and I’m so glad that I did. In fact, I’ve now bought Stewart’s first illustrated novel, Alison. I highly recommend The Wreck; it’s a captivating and pleasing written and visual experience. 🏠 Thank you @vintagebooksinfluencers for the review copy. * * * * * * #bookreview #TheWreck #illustratednovel #illustratedfiction #shortbookandscribes$

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

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