I really enjoyed this book. It is set in war time and follows three city girls who have volunteered to work on farms in order to replace the men fighting in the war. Prue, Ag, and Stella come from different parts of England and have to adapt to life in the countryside and hard physical labouring on a farm, yet they form strong relationships and learn a great deal during their time there. Read the rest of this entry »

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Review by Katriene

That book is very good, Ive read it, and it’s funny when all the little gnomes sit on stools and have a meeting and then someone runs to them and steals their money, and Frannie and the gang all run after him and give the gold back to the gnomes and they all thank them!

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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I really enjoyed this book and raced through it, finding it difficult to put down. It is the story of 12 year old Nicky Dillon and her father, Robert, struggling to come to terms with bereavement and choosing to hide themselves away from the world in a remote house on the edge of woods. They go for a walk in the woods one evening and come across a new-born baby abandoned in the snow. The baby’s mother, Charlotte, while avoiding the police, becomes involved in the Dillons’ lives ending up with them all snowed in during extreme weather. Charlotte affects both father and daughter, becoming almost hero worshipped by Nicky, and helping Robert to realise that his grief is crippling him and he has to try and move forward.
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(1 votes, average: 3 out of 5)

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Review supplied by Guy Adams

Slide propels at rocket speed and keeps spinning until the last page. Take a punch, read Slide, it screams cool and is a modern satire with guts and beauty, if anyone says different they’re not reading it right! Viola tells a story with her heart and creeps into your mind with her edgy one liners and sharp humour. Riveting to the end.
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(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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Review by Gill Cooke

Just read the debut novel of Sacher Torte; With Bells on his Toes. Highly recommended. Loved it!

(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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This story is about Nicholas Spencer, the head of Gen-Stone company, who has supposedly died in a plane crash – but was the plane sabotaged by his enemies, is he dead or did he actually escape and is hiding, or is the whole accident a scam engineered by Nicholas to enable him to disappear with huge sums of Gen-Stone money? The reader follows Carley, a journalist, as she investigates Nicholas and Gen-Stone.

Second Time Around is an enjoyable read, but I didn’t find it as gripping as her other books I have read. I think I prefer her dead-body-found-in-mysterious-circumstances type story where the reader has a list of suspects to ponder about, to this story about financial and medical crimes.

(1 votes, average: 2 out of 5)

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The book shifts between two time zones, present day and 1485, and is set in Florence. The historical parts of the novel tell the story of Arnaldo, a young artist, who is commissioned to paint a portrait of Alessandra, the beautiful daughter of a powerful Florence leader, Lorenzo Medici. Arnaldo and Alessandra fall in love with each other, but Alessandra’s father is determined that she will marry someone else and his word is always obeyed. The modern day part of the story features Maria and her family and their discovery of a very old painting of a beautiful girl. They begin to suspect that this painting has special powers and could possibly even be cursed, and Maria becomes determined to learn more about the girl in the painting.

This is an interesting book to read but it didn’t really grip me as much as I thought it would. I was left wondering if its target readership was perhaps more the teenager market.

(1 votes, average: 2 out of 5)

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This is a book that aims to fill in the background story of the character Rebecca de Winter from Daphne du Maurier’s book ‘Rebecca’. I was initially unsure if I wanted to read this book as I usually don’t like books that aim to change, add to, or alter an original classic novel. I was pleasantly surprised, however, as Rebecca’s Tale is a good gripping read, very well written, and very true to all the original characters. The book is narrated by four different characters and I found this really interesting as all had different views of Maxim de Winter, Mrs Danvers, and Rebecca, and each narrator also had their own secrets and motivations which we are privy to.
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(1 votes, average: 3 out of 5)

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This is a very powerful and thought-provoking book, and one that is absolutely fascinating. It is the diary of a drug user and details her first experience with drugs and subsequent addiction to them, her harrowing experiences and determination to leave them alone, and then, inevitably, to using them again.

It sounds a very depressing read and it is depressing in parts, but Alice is such an interesting person, very literate and intelligent and moral, she is close to her family and regrets the pain she is causing them, she is funny and can see her own faults and weaknesses, and she is very positive at times and grateful for the love and kindness shown to her. Reading the book of a diary, I find, is one of the most fascinating things to read as you see someone’s innermost thoughts, there is far less of a front put on, people are more honest and revealing – and it is therefore addictive to read.
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(1 votes, average: 3 out of 5)

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I felt certain I wouldn’t enjoy this book as it is about the Holocaust and (as I’ve mentioned in previous book reviews) I don’t generally choose such potentially upsetting subjects for my reading pleasure. But the book was strongly recommended to me, and, in turn, I am strongly recommending it to everyone else! It is one of the most incredible and powerful books I have ever read and one that I think will stay with me for a long time.

It is the story of nine year old Bruno, whose father is an important man in Hitler’s government and is sent to manage Auschwitz concentration camp resulting in the family having to leave their comfortable life and home in Berlin and move to live near Auschwitz. Bruno is not aware of what is happening in the world at this time, or of his country’s part in these momentous events, or of the terrible cruelties being inflicted upon the Jewish people, and he becomes friends with one of the camp’s inmates, a boy called Shmuel.
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(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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