Thursday, 14 January 2021
21 2021 Books I Will Definitely Read in 2021
Not going to lie, I have seen this post everywhere as lists and as videos and so I decided to jump on the bandwagon and do both! So Without further ado, here are 21 2021 release I will read in 2021...
(I've included the release date that comes first, in my video I go into slightly more detail bout whether that is the UK or the US release date).
January 12th
January 21st
January 21st
January 26th
February 11th
February 4th
February 4th
March 4th
March 18th
April 20th
April 15th
29th April
29th April
29th April
June 22nd
22nd July
8th July
August 3rd
24th August
The Start of Something-Miranda Dickinson 2nd September
November 11th
Wednesday, 13 January 2021
Guest Review: Coming Home to Seashell Cottage by Jessica Redland
This book was previously published as Dreaming About Daran.
For Clare O’Connell, home is where the heart aches…
Since the age of sixteen, Clare O'Connell has lived her life by four strict rules:
1. Don't talk about Ireland
2. Don't think about Ireland
3. Don't go to Ireland
4. Don't let anyone in
And so far, it's worked well. She's got a great career, amazing friends, and she's really happy. The future is all that counts, isn't it?
However Clare is about to realise that you can run from the past, but you can't always hide from it…
When her boss insists she travels to Ireland for work, Clare finds herself drawn back to the village of Ballykielty – the home of her family, and the home of her secrets. The one place where vowed never to return to again…
With the door to her past now wide open, the first three rules have gone out of the window. Will Clare stick to rule number four?
Can she be brave and face up to her family and the demons of her past?
Review: This is book 4 in the series Welcome to Whitsborough Bay from Jessica Redland. The books each focus on one particular person in this North Yorkshire seaside town, at the same time bringing the reader up to date with what is going on with other inhabitants they have met in previous parts. It is best to read the books in order to give the best enjoyment of the continuing overall story. This title was published previously as Dreaming About Daran.
This book focuses on Clare O’Connell, friend to Sarah and Elise, main characters in previous parts of the series. Until now, Clare has always had a rather cynical outlook on life, careful not to let anyone too close or to learn about her past. In this story, we learn about her background and find an explanation for why she behaves as she does. When her boss sends her back to her home town in Ireland for work, she meets up with the family she hasn’t seen for many years. A letter from a recently deceased relative brings her shocking news and starts her on a trip down memory lane that finally leads to revelations that have been hidden deep inside her subconscious for a very long time. Clare is lucky that Sarah’s brother Ben is there to support her through the trauma and pick up the pieces. Could it be that once the secrets have been revealed, she and Ben could become more than friends?
In common with the other books in this series, I really enjoyed this one and would recommend it, and the entire series. The story of Clare is a lot darker than the other girls’ stories. What is revealed when she goes back to the home she had for the first 16 years of her life is truly shocking, and what is unlocked from her mind is even worse. Not all of what Clare discovers as the pages turn is distressing; there are happy discoveries too, but as a reader I never knew what was going to come out next. I thought it was really good writing to keep the suspense going right up to the end. As the last part in the series, I liked that the author ended the book with an epilogue letting us all catch up with the current status of the characters we had followed through the various instalments. Although I have now finished this series of books, I shall be on the lookout for more of Jessica Redland’s books set in Whitsborough Bay.
Tuesday, 12 January 2021
Review: Siri Who Am I by Sam Tschida
When Mia wakes up in a Long Beach hospital with a head wound, she knows everything there is to know about the Kardashian-Jenner family but almost nothing about herself. The only items in her possession are her torn party dress which immediately begs the question, what kind of girl parties on a Tuesday night? a tube of Chanel lipstick, and an iPhone with a shattered screen. She might not remember where she lives but she can use her Instagram account to work backward to piece together the basic facts of her identity. Easy enough, right? Instagram tells her that she lives in a Millennial-pink duplex that would make Kylie Jenner jealous. But when she arrives, she discovers a cute housesitter named Max who tells her the house actually belongs to JP, a French billionaire and he has no idea how she s connected to him. After some sleuthing, she discovers she s the owner of a high-end matchmaking service. Could JP be one of her investors? As Mia works backward through her Instagram to figure out who she really is and find anyone who knows anything about her she discovers an ugly truth buried within her perfect social media image. Is it too late to undo her lies online and become an IRL good person?
Review: I'm still really struggling to figure this book out. At first I thought it was a contemporary YA novel, then a romance, then a mystery and then back to a romance again. I found the storyline very compelling even if I ddi think there were scenes that I fear might have been cut or cut short that should have stayed in the book. I think were some of the chapters, or days in this book just a touch longer I wouldn't still be sitting here trying to figure out what this book was in terms of its own identity.
Mia was a really intriguing character to spend this book with because she is in the same position as us in that she doesn't know anything about herself. She doesn't know about her past or what makes her tick. The assumptions she can make about herself are based on what is contained in her phone and there we have one of my favourite themes of a novel over the past couple of years, you can't tell everything about a person by what they put out about themselves online-I love it!
Mia is funny and caring and really does think she is a good person. When she starts to find out more about herself once she makes contact with some of the people from her former life though that kind of starts to unravel. I do still think she is a funny and intelligent person but boy has she made some really rubbish choices in her life. This book definitely takes a sinister turn at one point and so be warned the light-hearted start is not the direction that this book heads.
Although I definitely warmed to Mia some of the things that she finds out about herself really are quite concerning and I think really conform to the stereotype of 'influencers' that people have. There are a couple of moments in the book that made me really uncomfortable including a scene where she compares two men using safe/vanilla and chocolate and the men in question happen to be white and black, that made me really uncomfortable. I think some of my issues with the book definitely have to do with the editing. I think had this one had a better job done when it came to editing it could have been a really fun read but as it is it just falls short of 'good' for me and even branches into 'racist' in other parts.
I can't honestly say that I would recommend this book. The main character is really interesting to read about and the premise and setting are great but the execution just got it wrong in too many places for me to honestly say I enjoyed it and you should read it.
Monday, 11 January 2021
Bout of Books 30 Day 7 Update and Wrap Up
I think I finished this readathon strong. I saved The Island to read today and even though we spent all morning on the phone, calssic sunday here, I still managed to read it all. I mean it helps that the book was so compelling and I finished it with an hour to go yey! I also managed to finish my audiobook whcih is brilliant.
It's defintiely been a strange week hasn't it? Amd therefore I don't feel like I've been the best Bout of Books expert that I could have been, we'll see if they want me back again next time or not... Look out for my vlog of the week coming up soon. I will try to remeber to link it at the bottom of this post when it's up!
What I Read Today
I read all of this audiobook. It was wonderful, I need to watch her Netflix special now! 320 Pages.
I read all of this too. I definitely finished strong when it came to this novel. A YA thriller this book had me guessing the whole time and it was so easy to just keep on turning the pages. Look out for my review of this one coming your way very very soon! 384 pages.
What I Read This Week
304 Pages
390 Pages
352 Pages
400 Pages
241 Pages
264 Pages
304 Pages
160 Pages
160 Pages
384 Pages
Pages Read Today: 704
Pages Read This Week: 3279
Complete Books Finished: 11
Review: People Like Her by Ellery Lloyd
People like Emmy Jackson. They always have. Especially online, where she is Instagram sensation Mamabare, famous for always telling the unvarnished truth about modern parenthood.
But Emmy isn’t as honest as she’d like the fans to believe. She may think she has her followers fooled, but someone out there knows the truth and plans to make her pay. Because people like her have no idea what pain careless words can cause. Because people like her need to learn what it feels like to lose everything.
A smart and thrilling debut that delves into the darkest aspects of influencer culture, Ellery Lloyd’s People Like Her is about what you risk losing when you don’t know who’s watching . . .
Review: I really loved the way this was a thriller but had a much slower pace and shallower incline than a lot of thrillers I've read. This novel lets you get to know the characters and their world fully before you jump to any sinister goings on and what a world that is. I love that we are getting more and more books about the dark side of social media and the dark side of the people behind those accounts now because you just don't realise how this world is until you are in it.
Emmy and her family are intern et sensations. She is a queen mum influencer and her little pod on Instagram is equally big in the world of mum's online. She looks like she has it all on the surface because of the following, the merch and the everts she hosts and attends. She knows the world inside out and her manager makes sure that she maintains her spot at the top. But what about how her husband feels about ti all, what about the people she is influencing and what happens if all that world starts to crumble.
Emmy really is just like any other mummy you know aside from the fact that she turned her experience in the magazine world around to help her build her online platform and her own personal brand. I think that is what is so compelling about this book, she could be just like you and me. I really loved getting to know Dan as well. He is in a really unique position of having his own life and career but being better known for being Emmy's husband and Coco and Bear's dad. Its a really unique position and I am glad that his perspective was included in the narrative.
This book is structured in such a way that you really can't put it down, you have to keep turning the pages. We get to hear from Emmy, Dan and the follower. You never know who this follower is but you know their words are written in malice and so its just so easy to keep turning those pages because you have to find out what is going to happen next.
This book really does get quite dark and definitely comes with care warnings for baby loss. At the same time though if you are a fan of contemporary novels that get a little bit darker I think this is a great transition book because it has the action and pace of a thriller but you aren't thrown in at the deep end and there is still plenty of characters and situations that are easy to relate to. I would compare this to The Wives or The Girls in The Garden by Lisa Jewell. I read this in 2 sittings and I loved it, I'm sure you will too!
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