Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Favourite Books by my Favourite Authors 7/3/17

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!

I had a request for a video a couple of weeks ago for this very subject and so I made a video of this top ten but I think it would work well as a blog post instead and so here are my top ten favourite books by my favourite authors. These are adult books, I'm planning on doing a YA/MG top ten very soon! As always, these are in no particular order!

Lindsey Kelk

Milly Johnson

Rowan Coleman

CL Taylor

Paige Toon

Sophie Kinsella

Marian Keyes

Lucy Robinson

Miranda Dickenson

Lisa Jewell

Reading 7 Books in 7 Day-The Results!

So last week, i set myself a challenge of reading 7 books in 7 days. I did this because there were so many books I was just desperate to read and so I cleared my schedule and made reading these books a priority for the week. I took the books from my March TBR and read some of the march releases I wanted to read combined with some library books that I recently borrowed and a book I recently bought!

So the week was a success and it literally lasted me right up until the end of the week. This was partly because I chose to listen to quite a long audiobook!

So here's what I read and my page count for the week!

The first book I finished was The One That Got Away by Melissa Pimentel. I reviewed this one straight away and you can find that by clicking here! This came in at 352 pages.

Next I read the second book in the Tanglewood Animal Park series by Tamsyn Murray-The Troublesome Tiger. I learned so much about wild animals from this book, look out for a review coming soon! This was 176 pages!

Next I read The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett by Chelsea Sedoti. I had heard a lot of hype about this one online. I don't think that it lived up to all the hype but I still found it an enjoyable read. I'll be reviewing this soon and it added 398 pages to my total.

Next I read an ebook of the final book in the Geek Girl series by Holly Smale, Forever Geek. I so loved this book, as I have all the other Geek Girl books! This one comes out on Thursday and so look out for a review of that then! This was 400 magnificent pages!

My fifth book that I read was Secrets of a Happy Marriage by Cathy Kelly. This is only the second book I've read by Cathy Kelly and it was certainly a book packed full of drama. This one also comes out on Thursday and I'm part of the blog tour for this one so I'm going to be reviewing this this week too! This was a whopping 514 pages but each of those was turned eagerly!

Over the course of the week I listened to the audiobook of Truly Madly Deeply by Liane Moriarty so this is kind of book 1 and book 7 because I started this one first but finished it last. I'll be reviewing this one soon, it is already out and has been since July. This is 472 pages in length.

And finally a book of short stories. This was a collection of 10 short stories, edited by Ellen Oh, co-funder of We Need Diverse Books. Some stories I liked more than others but this book was a little bit of a disappointment to me-I'm no sure if I'll review this one! This was 218 pages. 

So altogether this week I read 4 physical books, 2 of them library books, 2 ebooks and 1 audiobook for a total page count of 2530 pages. I'm really pleased that I made time for all these books this week and I'm glad I had a nice range of YA, MG and adult reads. The only thing this week was missing was non-fiction. So now I can continue making my way through the rest of my March TBR and focus on getting to some non-fiction reading soon. 

What did you read this book? What else is on your March TBR?

Letterbox Love #4

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 got some more books to share with you and so it's time for another book haul!

I bought some books from Amazon this week. There are some books that I can't seem to get over here and so I had some books sent to my mum's house and then she brought them over last week when she came to visit-yey!

I bought The Troublesome Tiger by Tamsyn Murray which is the second book in the Tanglewood Animal Park series. You can see my review of the first book here.

I also bought Difficult Women by Roxane Gay because I was supposed to be going to an event with her and wanted to get it signed. Unfortunately the event was cancelled but I'm still excited to have a copy of this one for my shelf. 

From the library I got The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett by Chelsea Sedotti. I heard about this one on BookTube and so I'm really excited about reading it!

And from Netgalley, I received a copy of Laura Lake and the Hipster Weddings by Wendy Holden. I'm a big Wendy Holden fan and so I'm looking forwards to this one, it sounds quite different from her usual fayre...

And finally, another Netgally i received was The Escape by CL Taylor, I can't wait to read this one, I know once I pick it up, I won't be able to put it down!

Review: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Any great friendship can be as confusing, treacherous, inspiring and wonderful as any great romance.

Naomi and Ely have been best friends forever. Naomi loves and is in love with Ely, and Ely loves Naomi, but prefers to be in love with boys. So they create their "No Kiss List" of people neither of them is allowed to kiss.

And this works fine - until Bruce.

Bruce is Naomi's boyfriend, so there's no reason to put him on the List. But Ely kissed Bruce - and the resulting fallout is going to shake up the world!

Review: This is another one of those that has been on my TBR for a while now, I even have 2 copies of it, that's how much I wanted to read it, but I really struggled with this book and I feel a little let down by these characters. I have loved everything else that I've read by these two authors and so I really thought I was going to love this one. Plus this book is set in New York, probably one of my all time favourite settings. Whilst there was definitely some interesting description of the Washington park area and the Waverly Place area, it was a little lacking in the Big Apple for me.

I found the range of characters quite difficult to follow. There are an abundances of Bruces which meant I had trouble keeping up with them and then there are various love interests and friends of Naomi and Ely to keep track of too and I just wasn't sure who I was supposed to be liking and who I wasn't. The main characters themselves strike me as entitled brats. Now I'm not the type of person who has to like a character to be able to think a book is wonderful. Those characters we love to hate are just as much fun as those we want to keep as our best friends, but when you're trying to vouch for someone to get you through a book but both main character rub you up the wrong way because they are so needy and bitchy and unforgiving, then there's a little bit of a problem.

Obviously I loved the high level of Starbucks in this book, that was a definite plus for me. I like the fact that Naomi has visited lots of Starbucks and there's a whole chapter entitle Starbucks that lists what she likes about them. I like that the whole thing starts with her waiting for Ely in a Starbucks but I don't think I would recommend this book to people based on just that fact. On the whole I really struggled with this book but I'm hoping that I will find out a little more about these characters by watching the film which I am about to do now. Not a book for me and not something I would recommend you read.

If you'd like to form an opinion of your own, you can get your copy here.

Review: The Wedding Speech (Short Story) by Isabelle Broom

Ed waited until all the eyes in the room were on him before he began. He took a deep breath, inhaling as he did so the sweet scent from the lilies, which were arranged extravagantly in front of him. 'Ladies and gents, I promise to try and keep this short and sweet…' 

When Billy asked his best mate Ed to be his best man, Ed knew he would have to make a speech and he was dreading it. But he also knew how important it was to Billy - and to his soul mate and wife-to-be, Amelia. So Ed is determined to do them proud. But little does he know that it will be the most important speech he will ever make, and his toast - 'To Billy and Amelia - together forever' - will mean more than he ever thought. 

A beautiful short story to remind you of the importance of love.

Review: This was a short story and it was just such a lovely read, I don't know why it took me so long to read it!

We start at the beginning of the book hearing Billy's best man Ed reading a speech. We know there are friends and family around and we get to see their reactions. Although it sounds rather odd that this whole short story is just one speech, we get to learn so much about these people in the speech and it just feels so right!

I loved what a compassionate man Ed was, I liked that he wasn't afraid to share his feelings, to shed a tear and I liked that he thought of others. We can see him mentioning people in his speech and then checking their reactions. There are moments of laughter but also times to cry. 

This was definitely an emotional read, and for a short story, it is something that has stayed with me. I loved this little insight into these people and hope that I will get to hear more from them soon in this future. You will love this story and I definitely recommend downloading this one now!

To grab your copy now click here!

March TBR

Ok so I've gone from not really having TBRs at all to quite enjoying having a list of possible books to work from. I enjoyed including February releases and other books I wanted to read in my February TBR and so that is how I'm going to structure my March TBR too! I'm not expecting March to be a big reading month because I'm going home for a little bit and so I don't think I'll be reading much whilst I'm there but that does mean at least one 10 hours flight worth of reading time too so we'll just have to wait and see!

March releases I want to read

Other Books I want to read/finish

I know this second section looks pretty big, but you know what it's like when you're travelling, sometimes you're in the mood for a certain book or genre and so I want to live myself plenty of options. Four of these are library books and so I hope I'll be able to get these read so I can return them before I head back to the UK!

Guest Review: Breakfast Under a Cornish Sun by Samantha Tonge

Kate Golightly needs to move forward and what better way to do that then with a trip to the Cornish coast with best friend and boss, Izzy.

The sea wind is just what Kate needs to finally relax and begin to let go of her past. Except she’s suddenly got one big reason to panic! She RSVP’d ‘yes’ to the Queen Bee of her high school’s wedding saying she’s bringing her boyfriend (she doesn’t have one) who looks just like Ross Poldark!

With only two weeks to find the Poldark look-alike of her dreams Kate is under a lot of pressure for the Cornish coast to deliver…

Review: This is the first book I have read from Samantha Tonge, an author recommended to me by a friend. When I spotted it in the Kindle store, I thought I would give it a go, especially as we could all do with a little sunshine when it's so cold outside. There seem to be so many stories set in Cornwall at present that a successful addition to their number needs to have something to make it stand out from the rest. This one ticks that box due to its unusual culinary content and definitely different plot. 

The action revolves around Kate Golightly, her struggle to recover from a lost love, her passion to help some new friends in need, and her search for a Ross Poldark lookalike. Kate works with boss and friend, Izzy, in the interestingly named Donuts & Daiquiris cafe bar serving coffees and cakes during the day and cocktails and cakes later in the day. She also works as a singer when she can get the opportunity. However, when the girls decide to spend a week in a luxury lodge in Cornwall, they find themselves involved in the rebranding of the holiday camp and on a busman's holiday instead. While in Cornwall, Kate (a big fan of the TV series Poldark) also takes the chance to look for a suitable plus-one to take to a wedding, having claimed to have a boyfriend with a striking resemblance to the hero of the series. 

This story was very easy to read, but I found the plot rather too predictable. I also found the number of mistakes in the text quite annoying; it had clearly been spell-checked but not properly proofed. On the plus side, there are lots of mentions of food running through the story, from the doughnuts with their interesting fillings (not sure I fancy the savoury ones) to the mouthwatering breakfasts and intriguing cocktails. Add to that some good looking men and a bit of romance, and I think that this book would make a good, lighthearted addition to a holiday reading list. 

To take a trip to Cornwall through the pages of this book, just click here!