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Cemetery Stories: Haunted Graveyards, Embalming Secrets, and the Life of a Corpse After Death
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Bay of Secrets
Following the death of her parents, Ruby Rae is clearing out the family home when she discovers a small box of photographs but who is in them? Why has Ruby never seen these pictures before?In a different era and country, Sister Julia is sent to live in a convent as her parents can no longer afford to feed her. While living there she helps out at a maternity clinic but all is not what it seems and Sister Julia finds some disturbing goings on.
I quite enjoyed this book, I loved the back and fore of the different era's, Ruby's being set in England 2011 and Sister Julia's being set in Spain 1939. At first I couldn't work out how they could be connected but with further reading all became clear.
I enjoyed all the characters, there were plenty of side characters but not enough to get confused as it was easy for me to keep them to their separate timelines.
Towards the end of the book, there was a twist that didn't make the story believable, up until that point it was all going well but that twist was just a bit to far fetched for my liking so did put a slight dampener on it.
Saying that I would recommend Bay of Secrets, a nice holiday read or a good read for a rainy day. Try it and see!
The last few reviews I've done haven't been very successful so for my next review book I wanted something good but I wasn't expecting this!All I can say about this book is 'WOW'! I could easily do a three word review on this and it would be 'Read it, now'! It's a book of all extremes, you'll either be crying with laughter or crying with sadness.
It revolves around Grace, a thirty-something single mum to Jack. Jack's father is an alcoholic and although he provides for him, he hasn't ever seen him. Grace, feeling unwell, goes to the Doctors where she's diagnosed with leukemia. All her friends step in to help with Jack.
Her friends are a lively bunch, there's Abby, an artist, desperate for love. Tom and Gerry (geddit?), the gay couple who are a delight to read about, Tom is the strong dependable type while Gerry is much more flambouyant. Then there's Sean and Tara, a doctor and nurse respectively, they are trying for a baby.
This is a book that covers two emotive issues, cancer and adoption, on the cancer issue it just gives you enough medical information but without overwhelming you, you do get an excellent sense of what's happening with Grace's treatment. With the adoption issue, every case is different yet I found this was handled sensitively.
There's so much I want to say about this book but won't because I'll give the plot away. The characters are all identifiable, all typical characters that you would find in a book like this. It focuses on strong friendship and how people help each other out when the chips are down.
A powerful debut novel, a book that will stay with me for a long time. I don't recommend this book. I insist you read it, I promise you it won't let you down.
Three Brides for Three Brothers
From the 1950s all the way through to the 1980s, Three Brides For Three Brothers is a nostalgic story of love and loyalty during the most testing of times.Three brides, Delia known as Dee, Judith known as Jodie and Laraine. Three brothers, John, Derrick and Richard.
Dee gets to know Jodie through their job in a haridressing salon where Dee is a Saturday girl. While Dee is babysitting one night so Jodie can go out with husband John, his brother Derrick calls in and before long Dee is smitten.
After getting to know each other a little bit, Derrick goes back to sea and Dee doesn't hear from him for over a year! All the brothers are seafarers.
In the meantime, Laraine has met and married the other brother Richard after a whirlwind romance.
What follows is a story that focus's on the girls relationships with each other and the ups and downs they have with being married to the brothers.
John is a bit of a cad and only cares about himself but all Jodie cares is their children and earning enough money to give their sons a nice upbringing.
This wasn't a bad book, it delved quite deeply into how the characters coped with certain situations.
The pace of the book ambled along quite nicely until three quarters of the way through when there was a few twists followed by some conclusions. After such a slow start to the book I felt the ending was a bit rushed and the twists could have been brought forward to liven the book up a bit.
The charaters were all believable although some things that the brother's mum, Marian did were a bit far fetched so it slightly spoilt it for me.
I wasn't too fussy on the title of the book either, when people found out what I was reading I had a few quips as in "Oh, seven brides for seven brothers is it". For some reason I found that very irksome!
I rate this book 3 out of 5 stars.
All Over the Place
Livi Callaway has left her home in New Zealand to return to her birth place England. She's getting away from the fact that her ex boyfriend has totally humiliated her by appearing on a dancing reality TV show. Will she ever be able to show her face again?While in London she's on a packed tube train, chatting/flirting with an American man, in the rush to get off at his stop his bag gets tangled with hers and he gets off without it. She knows nothing about him, not even his name, only that he is from Idaho.
Her best friend and flatmate Cass convinces her to hunt him down, telling Livi that he could be the love of her life but will Livi agree?
At first glance of this book I thought it might be a bit Mills & Boon type judging by the cover. Thankfully it's nothing like that. I finished this book over 12 hours ago and have thought and thought about it but I still can't make my mind up about it.
While there was plenty going on in the story, a few twists to it, I didn't find it really engaging. I didn't really care what happened to the characters, I just kept on reading to find out what happened. A bit of the plot had no need to be there, like what happened with Livi's parents, that could have been filled with something else which would have made a lot of difference. There were plenty of different characters in the book which made it a bit more livelier.
Told in the third person narrative, there were a few emails between Livi and her old childhood friend Cam. I enjoyed those as it's a bit of a favourite format of mine when reading, anything a bit out of the norm! The author did write this well as it the story did flow.
Would I recommend All Over The Place? I would recommend it, purely because we all have different tastes. I give this book 3 out of 5 stars.
Alberta Clipper
This story follows Christine Grogan and Mark Harrington. They both work for CarltonWachs Irish branch of the world famous bank. Christine is a meteorologist and Mark is the chief executive.
Christine has just started a new relationship with Gavan who she met on a blind date through her best friend Emily. What is it about 20th January that makes her so unhappy?
Mark has been in a relationship with Jennifer for 10 years but when he mentions having children she goes to Edinburgh to work for a year teaching English Lit at a University. He realises he's madly in love with Christine but can her reach out to her?
The first thing I want to mention about this book is the cover, I'm really not fussy on the cover despite it having a connection with the story. I personally feel that the cover could have been a lot different, it would have attracted me straight away. Luckily I live by the old adage 'Never judge a book by it's cover' and I'm glad I do as I would have missed out on a right gem of a book here.
I found myself getting heavily involved with the story, the raw emotion really did shine through the pages. The characters were well drawn and I found myself really caring about them, especially Christine and Mark who were fabulous main characters.
The story was good and while I did guess correctly at what the main point was, there was a twist towards the end which I hadn't expected so even though I had guessed it didn't spoil it for me.
I recommend this book and will certainly look out for more by this author. I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.
Here we meet a group of people, newly single for one reason or another who have joined the 'How To Survive Divorce' club. Karen who runs the club left her husband 10 years ago, she believes that her experience can help others so she opens the club.The other members are Lizzie, editor of Charisma magazine, her husband Tom has left her for her best friend. Alison, her youngest child has just left home, at the same time her husband David has left her and she's left quite a bit bewildered by it all. Ed, after numerous relationships which includes 3 marriages, all he wants is to find the right girl, settle down and have a family.
This book follows the trials and tribulations of their lives, how they are coping with singledom! Each chapter is devoted to a main character, I love stories told in this way rather than a conventional chapter one, chapter two etc.
Six sentences into the story I found myself belly laughing. I wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not, would the book keep the fun all the way through it or would it deflate like a balloon? I'm glad to say it did keep the fun, the writing flowed easily, making it an easy book to pick up, put down.
I really enjoyed this book, told in the third person narrative it explores every characters lives, it delves really deep and I felt I had a good understanding of how every character worked. There were plenty of other characters in this book which could have got a bit confusing but as each were related to a main character, I didn't have to stop and read back to find out who was who. King has included an introduction in the book to the four main characters and names of their children, friends. I loved all the characters but I feel that Lizzie's Mum and Dad must have a deserved mention for being fantastic, what a pair and I really enjoyed reading about their exploits!
This was good chick lit reading but with plenty of drama, every chapter ended on a cliffhanger, just like a soap opera, pretty hard to do because you have to keep that pace right through the book but King managed it. I swear at the end of each chapter I heard the opening bars of a well known tv show!
I'd highly recommend reading this book, a five star read for me.
Remember Me
I'm not really sure where to start with this book, to say I loved it or devoured it would be an understatement!The story centres around Lexi who has been in a car crash and is suffering from amnesia. She wakes up in hospital to a totally different life from the one she remembers which includes a husband!
I loved nearly all of the characters in this book but especially Lexi and found myself rooting for her the whole way through the book. She wasn't a ditzy blonde kind of character which can be the norm in books like this so that was a refreshing change. I wasn't too fussy on Eric but the way his character was built was essential to the story, we can't like every character though can we!
The story was fabulous, the humour in it made me glad I wasn't reading this in public as quite a few times I found myself snorting with laughter and getting weird looks from my family!
I was so involved in the story, not only did it bring out the giggles in me but I found myself feeling real sympathy with Lexi, she was like a good friend and all I wanted was for things to turn out ok for her.
I highly recommend this book, in fact I can't recommend it enough. A top 5 read for me this year so far and definately my favourite by this author.
It Happens Every Spring
A nice story this was but had a heavy religious theme running through it which isn't my kind of thing at all!!
Royal Wisdom: The Most Daft, Cheeky, and Brilliant Quotes from Britain's Royal Family
This is OK for a quick read, only took me about 20 minutes to finish!!
The Critical Path
This was a very roller coaster book for me! I either couldn't wait to read it or didn't want to pick it up and would do anything to avoid it. It was really well written but seemed to go off the boil at times, there were one or two characters that didn't need to be in there and some of the describing bored me! However when it came to the interactions of the characters I was hooked and couldn't wait to read more. This book wasn't as I expected which is a shame as it's had some great reviews.
I Am The Secret Swinger (Volume One)
A true story but only for open minded adults and definitely not for the faint hearted!! If I had to describe it on two words then 'hysterically rude' springs to mind.