Review: Sweet Sweet Revenge Ltd by Jonas Jonasson

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: HarperVia

Published: April 2021

Pages: 336

Summary

Victor Alderheim has a lot to answer for. Not only has he heartlessly tricked his young ex-wife, Jenny, out of her art gallery inheritance, but he has also abandoned his son, Kevin, to die in the middle of the Kenyan savanna.

It doesn't occur to Victor that Kevin might be rescued and adopted by a Maasai medicine man, or that he might be expected to undergo the rituals expected of all new Maasai warriors - which have him running back to Stockholm as fast as you can say circumcision without anaesthetic.

Back in Stockholm, Kevin's path crosses with Jenny's - and they have an awful lot to talk about, not least a shared desire to get even with Victor. So it's convenient when they run into a man selling revenge services, who has an ingenious idea involving Victor's cellar, a goat, some forged paintings, four large boxes of sex toys and a kilo of flour...

ARC Book Review: Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Viking

Published: March 2021

Pages: 288

Summary

**From the bestselling author of Homegoing comes a searing novel of love and loss, addiction and redemption, straight from the heart of contemporary America.**

As a child Gifty would ask her parents to tell the story of their journey from Ghana to Alabama, seeking escape in myths of heroism and romance. When her father and brother succumb to the hard reality of immigrant life in the American South, their family of four becomes two - and the life Gifty dreamed of slips away.

Years later, desperate to understand the opioid addiction that destroyed her brother's life, she turns to science for answers. But when her mother comes to stay, Gifty soon learns that the roots of their tangled traumas reach farther than she ever thought. Tracing her family's history through continents and generations will take her deep into the dark heart of modern America.

ARC Book Review: A Pho Love Story by Loan Le

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's UK

Published: April 2021

Pages: 416

Summary

All's fair in love, war and noodles...

If Bao Nguyen had to describe himself, he'd say he was a rock. Steady and strong, but not particularly interesting. His grades are average, his social status unremarkable. He works at his parent's pho restaurant, and even there, he is his parents' fifth favourite employee.

If Linh Mai had to describe herself, she'd say she was a firecracker. Stable when unlit, but full of potential for joy and spark and fire. She loves are, and she dreams of making a career of it one day. The only problem? Her parents rely on her in ways they're not willing to admit, including expecting her to work practically full-time at their family's pho restaurant.

For decades, the Mais and the Nguyens have been at odds, having owned competing, neighbouring pho restaurants. Bao and Linh have resolved never to befriend each other, for fear of pushing too far and bringing on undue heartbreak. But when a chance encounter brings Linh and Bao closer, sparks fly...

Can Linh and Bao's love survive in the midst of feuding families and complicated histories?

This delicious debut is perfect for fans of When Dimple Met Rishi and To All the Boys I've Loved Before. 

ARC Book Review: The Flatshare by Beth O'Leary

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Quercus

Published: April 2019

Pages: 400

Summary

Tiffy and Leon share a flat

Tiffy and Leon share a bed

Tiffy and Leon have never met...

Tiffy Moore needs a cheap flat, and fast. Leon Twomey works nights and needs cash. Their friends think they're crazy, but it's the perfect solution: Leon occupies the one-bed flat while Tiffy's at work in the day, and she has the run of the place the rest of the time.

But with obsessive ex-boyfriends, demanding clients at work, wrongly imprisoned brothers and, of course, the fact that they still haven't met yet, they're about to discover that if you want the perfect home you need to throw the rulebook out the window...

ARC Book Review: Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: May 2017

Pages: 386

Summary

Smart, warm, uplifting, the story of an out-of-the-ordinary heroine whose deadpan weirdness and unconscious wit make for an irresistible journey as she realises the only way to survive is to open her heart.

Meet Eleanor Oliphant: she struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she's thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. All this means that Eleanor has become a creature of habit (to say the least) and a bit of a loner.

But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kind of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond's big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine is the story of a quirky yet lonely woman whose social misunderstandings and deeply ingrained routines could be changed forever - if she can bear to confront the secrets she has avoided all her life. But if she does, she'll learn that she, too, is capable of finding friendship - and even love - after all.

ARC Book Review: The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Transworld

Published: November 2017

Pages: 238

Summary

It's not the journey that counts, but who's at your side.

Nana is on a road trip, but he is not sure where he is going. All that matters is that he can sit beside his beloved owner Satoru in the front seat of his silver van. Satoru is keen to visit three old friends from his youth, though Nana doesn't know why and Satoru won't say.

Set against the backdrop of Japan's changing seasons and narrated with a rare gentleness and humour, Nana's story explores the wonder and thrill of life's unexpected detours. It is about the value of friendship and solitude, and knowing when to give and when to take. The Travelling Cat Chronicles has already demonstrated its power to move thousands of readers with a message of kindness and truth. It shows, above all, how acts of love, both great and small, can transform our lives.

ARC Book Review: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Published: September 2017

Pages: 367

Summary

Everyone in Shaker Heights was talking about it that summer: how Isabelle, the last of the Richardson children, had finally gone around the bend and burned the house down.

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is meticulously planned - from the layout of the winding roads, to the colours of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.

Enter Mia Warren - an enigmatic artist and single mother - who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than just tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the alluring mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past, and a disregard for the rules that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When the Richardson's friends attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town and puts Mia and Mrs. Richardson on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Mrs. Richardson becomes determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at unexpected and devastating costs to her own family - and Mia's.

ARC Book Review: Istanbul Days, Istanbul Nights by Leonard Durso

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers

Published: August 2017

Pages: 290

Summary

Leonard Durso's Istanbul Days, Istanbul Nights is a contemporary reimagining of Shakespeare's timeless tragedy, Romeo & Juliet, that takes place in Istanbul. With a cast of characters from across the globe, they struggle to find a way through the trials and tribulations of romantic involvement, hindered by their own unique cultural differences.

ARC Book Review: The Border by Steve Schafer

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Published: September 2017

Pages: 364

Summary

One moment changed their lives forever.

A band plays, glasses clink, and four teens sneak into the Mexican desert, the hum of celebration receding behind them.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

Not fireworks - gunshots. The music stops. And Pato, Arbo, Marcos, and Gladys are powerless as the lives they once knew are taken from them.

Then they are seen by the gunmen. They run. Except they have nowhere to go. The narcos responsible for their families' murders have put out a reward for the teens' capture. Staying in Mexico is certain death, but attempting to cross the border through an unforgiving desert may be as deadly as the secrets they are trying to escape...

ARC Book Review: Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Published: August 2017

Pages: 304

Summary

The author of the international bestseller The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry returns with a witty, moving novel about what it means to be a woman - especially in the Google age where no secret is safe for long.

Aviva Grossman, an ambitious Congressional intern in Florida, makes the life-changing mistake of having an affair with her boss - who is beloved, admired, successful, and very married - and blogging about it. When the affair comes to light, the Congressman doesn't take the fall, but Aviva does, and her life is over before it hardly begins. She becomes a late-night talk show punchline; she is slut-shamed, labelled as fat and ugly, and considered a blight on politics in general.

How does one go on after this? In Aviva's case, she sees no way out but to change her name and move to a remote town in Maine. She starts over as a wedding planner, tries to be smarter about her life, and to raise her daughter to be strong and confident.

But when, at the urging of others, she decides to run for public office herself, that long-ago mistake trails her via the Internet like a scarlet A. These days, Google guarantees that the past is never, ever, truly past, that everything we've done will live on for everyone to know about for all eternity. And it's only a matter of time until Aviva/Jane's daughter, Ruby, finds out who her mother was, and is, and must decide whether she can still respect her.

ARC Book Review: Dramatically Ever After by Isabel Bandeira

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Spencer Hill Press

Published: June 2017

Series: Ever After #2

Pages: 384

Summary

Senior year is not shaping up to be the picture perfect movie Em Katsaros had imagined. Her super hot leading man is five thousand miles away. Her dad just got laid off. And Em can kiss her first-pick university goodbye if she doesn't snag a scholarship.

To turn this Shakespearean tragedy into the Academy Award-winning dream Em has written for herself, she enters a speech competition and manages to cinch a spot in the US Youth Change Council national round. She gets to spend a week in Boston and her prayers might be answered if she can kick butt and win one of the national scholarships.

Everything seems to be going by the script until she finds out Kris Lambert--senior class president, stuck-up jerk and her nemesis--is going, too. Cue the dramatic music. In Boston, Kris is different. Nice. Cute, even. But she knows his game way too well--be nice to your opponents and then throw them under the bus on your way to victory. Instead of becoming his next victim, Em decides to turn the tables by putting her acting and flirting skills to work. Unfortunately, as they get close to the final competition and judging, reality and acting start to blur.

Can Em use the drama from the stage to get the future she's been dreaming of?

ARC Book Review: Rain Falls on Everyone by Clár Ní Chonghaile

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Legend Press

Published: July 2017

Pages: 272

Summary

Theo, a young Rwandan boy fleeing his country's genocide, arrives in Dublin, penniless, alone and afraid. Still haunted by a traumatic memory in which his father committed a murderous act of violence, he struggled to find his place in the foreign city. Plagued by his past, Theo is gradually drawn deeper into the world of Dublin's feared criminal gangs. But a chance encounter in a restaurant with Deirdre offers him a lifeline. But Theo and Deirdre's tender friendship is soon threatened by tragedy. Can they confront their addictions to carve a future out of the catastrophe that engulfs both their lives?

ARC Book Review: Optimists Die First by Susin Nielsen

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Andersen

Published: March 2017

Pages: 272

Summary

Petula has avoided friendship and happiness ever since tragedy struck her family and took her beloved younger sister Maxine. Worse, Petula blames herself. If only she'd kept an eye on her sister, if only she'd sewn the button Maxine chocked on better, if only...

Now her anxiety is getting out of control, she is forced to attend the world's most hopeless art therapy class. But one day, in walks the Bionic Man: a charming, amazingly tall newcomer called Jacob, who is also an amputee. Petula's ready to freeze him out, just like she did with her former best friend, but when she's paired with Jacob for a class project, there's no denying they have brilliant ideas together - ideas like remaking Wuthering Heights with cats.

But Petula and Jacob each have desperately painful secrets in their pasts - and when the truth comes out, there's no way Petula is ready for it.

ARC Book Review: The Radius of Us by Marie Marquardt

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: St Martin's Griffin

Published: January 2017

Pages: 304

Summary

What happens when you fall in love with someone everyone seems determined to fear?

Ninety seconds can change a life - not just daily routine, but who you are as a person. Gretchen Asher knows this, because that's how long a stranger held her body to the ground. When a car sped toward them and Gretchen's attacker told her to run, she recognised a surprising terror in his eyes. And now she doesn't even recognise herself.

Ninety seconds can change a life - not just the place you live, but the person others think you are. Phoeninx Flores-Flores knows this, because months after setting off toward the U.S. / Mexico border in search of safety for his brother, he finally walked out of detention. But Phoenix didn't just trade a perilous barrio in El Salvador for a leafy suburb in Atlanta. He became that  person - the one his new neighbours crossed the street to avoid.

Ninety seconds can change a life - so how will the ninety seconds of Gretchen and Phoenix's first encounter change theirs?

Told in alternating first person points of view, The Radius of Us is a story of love, sacrifice, and the journey from victim to survivor. It offers an intimate glimpse into the causes and devastating impact of Latino gang violence, both in the U.S. and in Central America, and explores the risks that victims take when they try to start over. Most importantly, Marie Marquardt's The Radius of Us shows how people struggling to overcome trauma can find healing in love.

ARC Book Review: My Name is Leon by Kit de Waal

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Penguin

Published: January 2017

Pages: 254

Summary

A brother chosen. A brother left behind. And the only way home is to find him.

Leon is nine, and has a perfect baby brother called Jake. They have gone to live with Maureen, who has fuzzy red hair like a halo, and a belly like Father Christmas. But the adults are speaking in low voices, and wearing Pretend faces. They are threatening to take Jake away and give him to strangers. Because Jake is white and Leon is not.

As Leon struggles to cope with his anger, certain things can still make him smile - like Curly Wurlys, riding his bike fast downhill, burying his hands deep in the soil, hanging out with Tufty (who reminds him of his dad), and stealing enough coins so that one day he can rescue Jake and his mum.

Evoking a Britain of the early eighties, My Name is Leon is a story of love, identity and learning to overcome unbearable loss. Of the fierce bond between sibilings. And how - just when we least expect it - we somehow manage to find our way home.

ARC Book Review: Holding Up the Universe by Jennifer Niven

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Penguin

Published: October 2016

Pages: 388

Summary

Everyone thinks they know Libby Strout, the girl once dubbed "America's Fattest Teen". But no one's taken the time to look past her weight to get to know who she really is. Following her mom's death, she's been picking up the pieces in the privacy of her home, dealing with her heartbroken father and her own grief. Now, Libby's ready: for high school, for new friends, for love, and for every possibility life has to offer. In that moment, I know the part I want to play here at MVB High. I want to be the girl who can do anything.

Everyone thinks they know Jack Masselin, too. Yes, he's got swagger, but he's also mastered the impossible art of giving people what they want, of fitting in. What no one knows is that Jack has a newly acquired secret: he can't recognize faces. Even his own brothers are strangers to him. He's the guy who can re-engineer and rebuild anything, but he can't understand what's going on with the inner workings of his brain. So he tells himself to play it cool: Be charming. Be hilarious. Don't get too close to anyone.

Until he meets Libby. When the two get tangled up in a cruel high school game - which lands them in group counseling and community service - Libby and Jack are both pissed, and then surprised. Because the more time they spend together, the less alone they feel. Because sometimes when you meet someone, it changes the world, theirs and yours.

ARC Book Review: When the Moon was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Thomas Dunne

Published: October 2016

Pages: 288

Summary

When the Moon Was Ours follows two characters through a story that has multicultural elements and magical realism, but also has central LGBT themes - a transgender boy, the best friend he's falling in love with, and both of them deciding how they want to define themselves.

To everyone who knows them, best friends Miel and Sam are as strange as they are inseparable. Roses grow out of Miel's wrist, and rumors say that she spilled out of a water tower when she was five. Sam is known for the moons he paints and hangs in the trees, and for how little anyone knows about his life before he and his mother moved to town. But as odd as everyone considers Miel and Sam, even they stay away from the Bonner girls, four beautiful sisters rumored to be witches. Now they want the roses that grow from Miel's skin, convinced that their scent can make anyone fall in love. And they're willing to use every secret Miel has fought to protect to make sure she gives them up.

ARC Book Review: The Finding of Martha Lost by Caroline Wallace

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Doubleday

Published: March 2016

Pages: 320

Summary

Martha is lost. 

She's been lost since she was a baby, abandoned in a suitcase on the train from Paris. Ever since, she's waited in station lost property for someone to claim her. It's been sixteen years, but she's still hopeful. In the meantime, there are mysteries to solve: secret tunnels under the station, a suitcase that may have belonged to the Beatles, the Roman soldier who appears at the same time every day with his packed lunch. Not to mention the stuffed monkey that someone keeps misplacing. 

But there is one mystery Martha cannot solve. And now the authorities have found out about the girl in lost property. Time is running out - if Martha can't discover who she really is, she will lose everything...

ARC Book Review: The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Quercus

Published: March 2016

Pages: 407

Summary

Think you know all about Charlotte, Emily and Anne? Think again.

Samantha Whipple - a young American woman - is the last remaining descendant of the famous Brontë family, of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre fame. After losing her father, a brilliant author in his own right, Samantha travels to Oxford in search of a mysterious family inheritance, described to her only as 'The Warnings of Experience'. While at Oxford, Samantha studies under Dr J. Timothy Orville III, a disarmingly handsome tutor who seems nothing but annoyed by her family heritage. With Orville as her tempestuous sidekick, Samantha sets out on a mission to piece together her family's history - which, it turns out, could also be literature's greatest buried secret. A witty modern love story that draws from the enduringly popular classics.

ARC Book Review: You Were Here by Cori McCarthy

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Published: March 2016

Pages: 400

Summary

Grief turned Jaycee into a daredevil, but can she dare to deal with her past?

On the anniversary of her daredevil brother's death, Jaycee attempts to break into Jake's favourite hideout - the petrifying ruins of an insane asylum. Joined by four classmates, each with their own brand of dysfunction, Jaycee discovers a map detailing her brother's exploration and the unfinished dares he left behind. As a tribute to Jake, Jaycee vows to complete the dares, no matter how terrifying or dangerous. What she doesn't bargain on is her eccentric band of friends who challenge her to do the unthinkable: reveal the parts of herself that she buried with her brother.