Review! The Wish List by Jane Costello

There are six months left of Emma Reiss's twenties. . . and she has some unfinished business.

Emma and her friends are about to turn thirty, and for Emma it's a defining moment. Defined, that is, by her having achieved none of the things she'd imagined she would.

Her career is all wrong, her love life is a desert and that penthouse apartment she pictured herself in simply never materialised. Moreover, she's never jumped out of a plane, hasn't met the man she's going to marry, has never slept under the stars, or snogged anyone famous - just some of the aspirations on a list she and her friends compiled fifteen years ago.

As an endless round of birthday parties sees Emma hurtle towards her own thirtieth, she sets about addressing these issues. But, as she discovers with hilarious consequences, some of them are trickier to tick off than she'd thought…

With only one novel to complete the set, this was a welcome addition to my highly-enjoyable Jane Costello Marathon. A big thanks to Amanda at Onemorepage for sending it to me!

Review: Another cracker of a novel by Jane Costello. I have been thoroughly enjoying working my way through her novels and have been desperate to read the latest addition to her collection. This one is just as witty, fun and entertaining as the rest, certainly up to her usual fabulous standards!

This wonderful author always lands the reader right in on the action and this is no exception, straight away we find out about what exactly 'The Wish List' is and the fact that Emma has a matter of months to tackle it before her thirtieth birthday. We are introduced to all the characters. Emma is wonderful as a Heroine. She is a successful twenty-something with her own flat and a group of fabulously funny friends, and yet she allows this list to take her to places (metaphorically speaking) that she never thought possible. That, to me, is incredibly brave and inspiring. Her friends are fully supportive of her in this quest.

They are all well-developed characters in their own rights. And in true Jane Costello fashion, they all have issues of their own to deal with. Emma's sister Marianne is living in Edinburgh with her boyfriend, but there is some sort of mystery surrounding why she chose to up and leave her fabulous life in London. Cally is a single mum, but her friends are worried that being a mother has taken away the feisty character they once knew! And Asha is in a relationship, the complexities of which unravel of the course of the novel.

Then of course we have the male lead, Matt. At first I thought Matt seemed like a bit of a sap when he sends Emma a message over Facebook, but he turns out to be a really genuine guy who has Emma's best interests at heart even though he also comes with some baggage of his own. The book has the added bonus of a storyline involving Emma's father and his dating life running parallel with the main storyline, this is definitely worth some laughs and rally adds some depth to Emma's own story!

There were countless times when this book made me laugh, also a couple of times when I shed a tear or two. There was one particular moment during a supermarket scene where my blood literally boiled with anger, such is the power of this authors writing! I love the fact that Jane Costello writes in short chapters BUT it does mean that you may find yourself uttering the 'one more chapter' plea and not actually putting the book down for another 150 pages! This is a great addition to Jane Costello's collection of novels. Something that would be enjoyable whether you have read her novels before or not. I think this would appeal to fans of any age and would make an absolutely FABULOUS summer read! 

You can follow Jane Costello on Twitter @janecostello

Or click here to buy this fabulous novel!

Letterbox Love #2

Welcome to Letterbox Love, this is a UK meme, hosted by the lovely Lynsey at Narratively Speaking and inspired by The Story Siren's In My Mailbox. This post is a means by which to highlight the books we get in the post and beyond, and especially to bring attention to those books which may be sat on our shelves for a little while yet that we love all the same.

I've had such a good book haul over the past code of the weeks, I thought I would save it all up for another Letterbox Love! 

I've been sent two books by some lovely publicists this week, these were Noble Conflict by Malorie Blackman and The Shadow Year by  Hannah Richell. Am looking forward to reading both of these because I've heard great things about them!

I've been quite active on NetGalley this week too. I've downloaded some FAB books on there which I'm going to review very soon. I was intrigued to read Longbourn by Jo Baker, have heard fab things about Save the Date by Allie Spencer so I'm looking forward to reading both of these. I also downloaded The Humans by Matt Haig and The Desperate Wife's Survival Plan by Alison Sherlock which both looked like fun! 

I went to a book launch this week and got a signed copy of I'm Dougal Trump...Where's my Tarantula? By Jackie Marchant. I'm looking forward to having a nice break whilst I read this one. I may share it with some of the kids at school. Look out for the review of this soon, and pictures of the launch!

With my audiobook credit this month, I decided to download By My Side by Alice Peterson. I'm really looking forward to listening to this one as I have loved all of this authors other novels! 

So all of these fabulous review copies and downloads has also led to be buying more books...there's no surprise there I'm sure! Revenge wears Prada was released this week, so I got myself a copy of that. I also picked up The Runaway Princes by Hester Browne because id heard good things about it on Twitter and Bared to You by Sylvia Day after having had lots of people tell me to read it. Another one I had heard a lot about on Twitter was Love from Both Sides by Nick Spalding. 

This might seem like a lot of books to be going on with, but I've got the summer holidays coming up soon, so I know I'm going to have plenty of time to get through them all. If you'd like to hear what I think about any of them, pop back to the blog soon to see the reviews, or if there's anything you have a burning desire to find out about, just let me know and I'll try and get to that one next! 

Thanks to everyone who has sent me books this week and also thanks for all the recommendations! 

Keeping Her by Cora Carmack Reveal

As an extra treat this week for all Cora Carmack fans, I've been chosen as one of the bloggers to host the KEEPING HER. Preview package! Yes, Cora's next novella is the continuation of Garrick and Bliss's story and you can find out all about it by clicking here:

 http://avonromance.hc.com/keeping-her/

You can see the gorgeous cover and you will also be able to read all four of the scenes from Garrick's point of view from Losing it, if you're after even more Cora Carmack action! 

You also have the opportunity to chat LIVE with Cora Carmack next week! Cora and Jay Crownover will be participating in a Goodreads chat on 26th june AND there will be a Faking It book club on Cora’s facebook page on 27th Juns from 8pm-9pm (UK time) where you can live chat with Cora about the book and ask her all your burning questions.

You can participate in these fabulous events by clicking here:

Link to Goodreads chat: http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/106036-ask-jay-crownover-and-cora-carmack---wednesday-june-26th

Link to Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/CoraCarmackBooks

I've not included ANY pictures in my post because I want you all to be surprised when you click the link BUT please don't forget, if you're in the UK, you can enter my giveaway to win a signed copy of the fabulous Faking It (check back to Monday for my review).

Happy reading!

Giveaway! Faking It by Cora Carmack SIGNED! (UK only)

Ok so I've had a bit of a Cora Carmack theme to the blog this week and because I loved Faking It as much as I did I decided to do a giveaway.

I have a copy of the FABULOUS Faking It, which Cora personally signed-I handed her the book, she was lovely enough to sign it and I'm giving you the chance to win it!

All you have to do is comment on this post and I will draw the winner one week from today.

I will notify the winner as soon as I can get in touch with them. This giveaway is UK only I'm afriad, but i promise to have an international giveaway at some point over the summer!

Get commenting!

If you don't win a copy of the book, you can always grab yourself a copy here.

Review! Gold Star by Josh Evans

Star leaves the city for nowhere, she just needed to get out. Along the way she found a new circus to join, a collective of rock n roll royalty, the coolest music scene in the world up there in the Joshua Tree....

Review: I was lucky enough to be sent this book as part of the blog tour! I thought a novella about Rock and Roll/coming of age sounded really interesting, you know I am always up for trying something new! The novella wasn't really to my taste, but I really enjoyed reading something different, from a different point of view.

Star leaves the big city and the novella is a series of events that she goes through and Pete that she meets. It seems quite daunting meeting all these new people, musicians and managers and the people associated with that whole world. She seems to take it all in her stride through and believes that her grandfather is there guiding her through the whole thing, I found the belief that he was there the whole way through quite admirable, and shows the faith that Star had in him, and herself.

Some of the musicians that she met seemed like typical musicians, and she feels Awfully young to be thrown into a world of drink and drugs, but she gets on with it. There are a few moments where I felt a little uncomfortable for her, and was tempted to step away from the story but she comes though it all. Things do eventually get on top of her, but she finds her own way of dealing with that.

As I said, the novella wasn't really my kind of thing, but I would imagine that if you are into the world of music and coming of age type things, this would be a quirky little read for you. My only really criticism was that it ended rather abruptly. I would have liked to have fond out how things panned out a bit more, it was as if the writer had run out of ink. Perhaps though, he is simply leaving the novella open to develop into something else. A very different read for me, but short and sweet!

Click here to buy the book.

Faking It Making it event with Cora Carmack

On Thursday 13th June I hot-footed it to Random House publishers to a fabulous event hosted by Ebury with Cora Carmack. She was there to talk about her latest book Faking It which was released the week before. The event was very popular and the room was filled with fans an bloggers as she spoke to us about her latest book Faking It as well as her first novel Losing it. It was a real treat to hear her talking about her writing process and the inspiration behin both novels.

She told us that she wrote Losing it in just three weeks, and that was after writing it by hand! She found that there was a gap in the market between YA and adult fiction, she wants dot write something about college age people because when she was in college, she really struggled to find anything out there for her as a reader. She then read from both books and much laughter and appreciation from the audience ensued...

Bloggers and fans were then able to ask questions. Cora was so detailed in her answers, it was lovely to see an author taking so much time out for her fans! She was asked about whether she found it harder to write as a male or as a female. She said that initially, Faking it was going to be written entirely from a male point of view, but that she felt too intimidated to do this and so that's how it ended up as a dual narrative. She was asked a very though question about whether she would go for Garrick or Cade and she very diplomatically decided that she would like a bit of both!

Cora then went on to talk about what she's working on at the moment. She told us about her novella which is written from Kelsey's point of view (Bliss's friend from Losing It) and that full novel number 3 will come out in October, with another novella out in January. Exciting times ahead for Cora Carmack Fans then!

We were then treated to some drinks and activities in the other room which included a Faking It booth, revealing things we had or hadn't faked. Decorating Faking it covers with famous faces as well as pretty shiny things. There were cupcakes and cava, and Cora mingled with her fans, signing books and talking about her plans for future novels! We were lucky enough to take home goody bags containing copies of the books, a condom in a Losing It cover, love hearts, and a fabulous Barry M nail varnish (Barry M sponsored the event).

It was a fabulous evening. Thank you to Ebury for hosting it, and that you very much to Cora for being lovely and singing my book!

You can follow her on Twitter @CoraCarmack and don't forget to check out both of her best selling novels. I have recently posted reviews of both!

Keep your eyes on the blog for a giveaway of Faking it coming soon!

Top Ten Tuesday: top ten books on my summer TBR pile

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because they are particularly fond of lists over there at The Broke and the Bookish. I'd love to share my lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

My TBR pile is seriously massive right now, so narrowing this down to just 10 books is going to be hard. i think I'll split my choices between books that are coming out and books that I am saving for my time off work in the summer holidays, there are sooooo many more I could talk about though!

 

1. About a Girl by Lindsey Kelk. I am really looking forward to this coming out in July, and looking forward even more to going and getting it signed. I will probably read this as soon as I get my hands on it, but it still counts as summer reading!

2. Revenge Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger. This one comes out on Thursday, so again, it won't last until the summer holidays, but still definitely right up there on my TBR pile!

3. I'm a big Milly Johnson fan (as you may have noticed) so I'm really looking forward to this one coming out slap bang in the middle of my summer holidays...and its being released on Yorkshire day as well-how awesome is that? (Totally not biased)

4. This has been on my TBR pile for quite a while now, but because it's hardback, it literally does just sit there. I am looking forward to sitting down with Jennifer E. Smith's This is What Happy Looks Like in my Parents' garden and putting my feet up and just devouring it, cover to cover.

5.I've read a few books recently that have mentioned Jilly Cooper's Riders and also heard some people talking about it on Twitter so I felt that I had to read it, having never done so. my next audio book credit is going on this mammoth listen!

6. You may have noticed that my Paige Toon Marathon has been somewhat shoved aside by other novels in recent weeks, so pledge to finish my marathon over the summer holidays and so she is definitely way up
there on my TBR pile!

7. Another author featuring on my TBR pile is Lisa Jewell. I have a few of her novels languishing on my  bookshelves now and so she is another writer I would really like to catch up with over the summer.

8. I am really looking forward to the release of Finding Colin Firth by Mia March this summer. I loved the Meryl Streep Movie Club and so I'm sure that this will be just as good, if not better!

9. Katie FForde, A French Affair. I have had this sitting on my kindle for a while now, and i begin it but then have to abandon it in favour of something else i have to read for a certain time. I will definitely give it the full attention that it deserves this summer and so that is why it is at the top of my TBR pile!

10. As above, Leftovers  by Stella Newman has been sitting on my Kindle for some time now waiting to be read, and I'm sure I will managed to squeeze it in this summer some time!

There are so many more I could add onto here, some coming out and some which have been sitting on my shelf for ages. I know they're all there and you can keep an eye out for the reviews of these coming up soon on my blog as well as an exciting giveaway! Let me know what's at the top of your summer TBR pile, or indeed if you feel there is anything I am missing from mine! I always love to hear from you!