Left on the Shelf

About the Author

Eleanor Shearer is a mixed-race writer and the granddaughter of Windrush generation immigrants. She splits her time between London and Ramsgate. Her debut novel, River Sing Me Home, sold in 20 territories. It was named as one of Time Magazine's 100 Must-Read Books of 2023, was a finalist for the 2024 Dayton Literary Peace Prize Fiction Award, shortlisted for the Grand Prix des Lectrices ELLE 2025 in France and also shortlisted for the Prix Fragonard 2025 in France. It was a Good Morning America Book Club pick, and has been optioned for TV by AL Films and BBC Films.

You can also find Eleanor at:

(ARC and media courtesy of the publisher)

(all opinions are my own)

(Bookshop.org affiliated)

Friday, 6 February 2026

The Heart-Shaped Box by Lucy Kaufman - #bookreview #blogtour

Constance never discovered when or where she caught his eye. But caught it she must have, for on the fifth of January she received his letter.

The Blurb

The page-turning psychological thriller novella about infatuation, revenge and the lengths we will go to for love.

“She pressed her nose gingerly to the glass, peering unblinking through the viscous liquid at her gift.”

Victorian, rural Sussex. When headstrong daughter of a rector, Constance Timothy, receives a flurry of gifts in pretty little boxes from the charming, smouldering student doctor Smith Williams, her whole family anticipates a future betrothal.

Yet beneath the exquisite pastel lids and satin bows lie macabre secrets that entice Constance into a private world of obsession and darkness, where morality becomes blurred, loyalties are tested and unthinkable acts are possible.

One secret will shake the genteel world she knows to the core...

My Review

This novella was a quick and excellent read.

Set in a Sussex village, Constance remains single, despite her parents parading a number of suitable young men before her. One day she receives a letter from a man, Smith Wilson. She has caught his eye and is keen to meet her. Her parents are as excited by this as she is herself. Could this man become her suitor?

Initially, it appeared that this short novella would be a romantic tale. However, Smith Wilson is studying to be a doctor, and while they are apart he sends Constance a stream of gifts which begin as romantic and become eerily bizarre.

Constance is an odd character herself. She revels in the nature of the gifts that she received from Smith Wilson which I found unsettling, and highly surprising in a woman of her class and nature.

This is an unusual story and is different to my usual reading fare. That said, I enjoyed it very much despite it's dark quality. The author told her story well and succinctly and it made for compelling reading.

The first book of The Carousel of Curiosities series, this haunting novella is perfect for readers of Sarah Waters, Laura Purcell, and Angela Carter. I am keen to read the next in the series when it is published.

Book Details

ISBN: 978 1919277202

Publisher: Sepia Ink

Formats: e-book and paperback

No. of Pages: 120 (paperback)

Series: Book 1 in the Carousel of Curiosities series

Purchase Links

About the Author

Lucy Kaufman is an award-winning author, playwright, audio dramatist and poet. 40 of her plays have been performed professionally around the UK and Australia, to critical acclaim. She has lectured in Playwriting and Screenwriting for Pen to Print and Canterbury Christ Church University and is a mentor at The Writing Coach. Originally from London, she now lives by the sea with her husband, sons, dogs and cats.

You can also find Lucy at:

Bluesky

(ARC and media courtesy of Rachel's Random Resources)

(all opinions are my own)

(Bookshop.org affiliated)

Wednesday, 4 February 2026

Journey to the Scottish Highlands by Julie Shackman - #bookspotlight #blogtour

I am delighted to be shining the spotlight on this book today. Journey to the Scottish Highlands by Julie Shackman looks like a book I would love to read. The cover alone has been hooked.

The Blurb

Daisy’s career hasn’t exactly been going to plan and the last thing she wants to do is stay home and wallow in self-pity. So, when an opportunity arises to escape her London home, and make some money working a fancy event at a stately home, she jumps at it.

Determined to make the most out of the situation, she decides a road trip to the Scottish Highlands would be the perfect way to reset and take control of her life.

When devilishly handsome Evan finds himself stranded at the event following a cancelled flight to Scotland, Daisy does the kindest thing she can think of and invites him to join her. As they embark on their journey north, will the scenic trip help them rediscover themselves, and possibly even find something they weren’t expecting…

Book Details

ISBN: 978 0008728014

Publisher: One More Chapter

Formats: e-book, audio and paperback

No. of Pages: 384 (paperback)

Series: Book 10 in the Scottish Escapes series

Purchase Links

About the Author

Julie Shackman is a former journalist from Scotland, who has always wanted to write feel-good romance.

As well as being an author, Julie also writes verses and captions for greetings card companies. Julie admits to having an obsession with stationery and handbags.

She has two sons and a Romanian rescue pup, Cooper.

Journey to the Scottish Highlands is Julie's fourteenth novel.

You can also find Julie at:

(media courtesy of Rachel's Random Resources)

(all opinions are my own)

(Bookshop.org affiliated)

Friday, 30 January 2026

Books I Read in January 2026

January has been a wonderful month for me and my husband, as we have welcomed our fifth grandchild into the world. We couldn't be more excited, and as soon as I push the publish button on this blog post, we will be getting in the car and driving to meet my new little granddaughter. I can hardly wait for my first cuddle.

Somehow in all this excitement I have managed to read some good books.

What have you read this month? Anything you would recommend?

The Market Girls of Petticoat Lane by Patricia McBride

This was a lovely story in which we meet friends Amanda, Maisie and Bethan. They all work together in the sewing factory making uniforms for the troops. You can find my review here.

The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place by Kate Summerscale

I have read the majority of Kate Summerscale's books and enjoyed each one of them. So, when I saw this on my library shelves I picked it up and checked it out with a sense of glee. You can find my review here.

The Dubrovnik Book Club by Eva Glyn

This was a lovely book and I have not had a blog gap to upload my review as yet. It is coming though so watch this space.

One Moonlit Night by Rachel Hore

I have read this book as part of the Clock Reading Challenge. There will be more about this when I upload my book review soon.

Dark is the Night by Rachel Evans

This book made for fabulous reading and I was gripped from the very first page to the last. You can find my review by clicking here.

Little Disasters by Sarah Vaughan

This book had me on the edge of my seat from the first page to the last. You can find my review by clicking here.

In the Blink of an Eye by Yoav Blum

This book was a locked room mystery combined with science fiction. I read 25% of the book and then decided it wasn't for me.

You Go, Girl! by Elaine Insinnia

A series of diary entries written by a grandmother in her youth during the 1950's. Not as good as I hoped but entertaining enough.

Fortune's Wheel by Carolyn Hughes

I found this hard to get into but probably because my mind was full of grandbabies. I shall try it again at some point.

Terrible True Tales: Saxons by Terry Deary

An excellent book for children of stories from Saxon history. My review will be coming soon.

(header photo courtesy of Picsea/Unsplash)

(all opinions are my own)

Thursday, 29 January 2026

Little Disasters by Sarah Vaughan - #bookreview

It is definitely the short straw of hospital medicine. A & E in a trauma centre on a Friday night in late January; almost midnight, and the waiting areas are rammed...

The Blurb

You think you know her…

But look a little closer

She is a stay-at-home mother of three with boundless reserves of patience, energy and love. After being friends for a decade, this is how Liz sees Jess.

Then one moment changes everything.

Dark thoughts and carefully guarded secrets surface – and Liz is left questioning everything she thought she knew about her friend, and about herself.

From the bestselling author of Anatomy of a Scandal – a new thought-provoking novel exploring the complexity of motherhood and all that connects and disconnects us.

My Review

This book had me on the edge of my seat from the first page to the last.

When Jess takes her baby, Betsey, to the A&E department at hospital, she finds her best friend, Liz, is the doctor on duty. What unfolds is every mother's nightmare, as Betsey is found to have an unexplainable fracture, and the finger is pointing straight at Jess, leaving Liz with a duty to inform social services and the police.

This was a powerful book, and it is thought-provoking from beginning to end. My sympathies lay with both of these characters, as they both find themselves in an impossible situation. Whilst Jess has always appeared to be the perfect mother, we get a glimpse of what is really going on beneath this façade of capability. Having myself been a mother to four boys under the age of seven, I could really identify with how utterly exhausted Jess was feeling. The book questions how this sleep deprivation can result in poor choices being made, how alone she felt, and how she did not understand her own feelings. My heart went out to her.

Liz was an equally interesting character. She is a busy doctor, wife and mother whose own busyness has meant that she hasn't been there for Jess as much as she would have liked. Nonetheless, she doesn't believe that Jess could have harmed her child, despite the evidence suggesting otherwise. She also has to deal with the secrets of her ageing mother, and come to terms with those. There is a strong parallel between both her mother and Jess's experiences.

Although the book is over 400 pages, I read it very quickly as it kept pulling me back. It was well written and perfectly paced, leaving me keen to get back to it between reading sessions.

Sarah Vaughan is a great storyteller and has the ability to hold her readers interested throughout. She is an author I will definitely be reading again. I highly recommend this book.

Book Details

ISBN: 978 1471165061

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Formats: e-book, audio, hardback and paperback

No. of Pages: 432 (paperback)

Purchase Links

About the Author

Sarah Vaughan is the Sunday Times and international bestselling author of Anatomy of a Scandal, Little Disasters and Reputation, plus two earlier novels. Translated into 26 languages, Anatomy of a Scandal became a worldwide number one Netflix limited series, watched for 200 million hours in its first month alone, and starring Sienna Miller, Michelle Dockery and Rupert Friend. Little Disasters dropped on Paramount Plus in May 2025, and stars Diane Kruger, Jo Joyner and a “powerhouse cast” including JJ Feild, Shelley Conn, Emily Taaffe and Stephen Campbell Moore. Reputation has been optioned by Made Up Stories and 3dot productions, the team behind Anatomy of a Scandal.

Before writing fiction, Sarah spent 15 years as a journalist, including 11 at the Guardian as a political correspondent and news reporter: great preparation for thrillers exploring power, privilege and misogyny, and incorporating police investigations and criminal trials. Brought up in Devon, she lives near Cambridge, England with her family and dog.

You can also find Sarah at:

Facebook

(media courtesy of the author's website)

(all opinions are my own)

(Bookshop.org affiliated)

Wednesday, 28 January 2026

In the Blink of an Eye by Yoav Blum - #bookspotlight

Last week I had the pleasure of featuring Yoav Blum's book, The Unswitchable.

I am doubly delighted to be shining the spotlight on another of his books today. In the Blink of an Eye is a locked room mystery with a science fiction twist. Enjoy!

The Blurb

A locked room. A dead scientist. A time machine.

Professor Yonatan Brand, a world-renowned physicist, amateur magician, and hot-chocolate enthusiast, dreamed of unlocking time itself. He mapped every danger, every paradox, every temptation of hubris. But when his body is discovered inside his sealed study, Brand leaves behind one impossible crime—and a machine that might have killed him.

Enter Benjamin “Bunker” Kronovic, a washed-up actor, and Abigail Canaani, a reclusive librarian. They’re not seasoned detectives; their usual cases involve lost pets and unpaid bills. Now they must face something far stranger: a corpse, a time machine, and a circle of Brand’s childhood friends, each guarding secrets darker than the past itself.

As Bunker and Abigail stumble through a mystery where time is as treacherous as truth, they discover that the question isn’t just who killed Professor Brand, but when.

Book Details

ISBN: 978 9659327171

Publisher: Yoav Blum

Formats: e-book and paperback (currently available on Kindle Unlimited)

No. of Pages: 430 (paperback)

Purchase Links

About the Author

Yoav Blum is an author known for blending high-concept speculative ideas with gripping mystery, thriller, and philosophical depth. His work explores extraordinary situations—time travel, body switching, orchestrated coincidences—while grounding them in questions of identity, perception, fate, and free will. Beneath each thriller or puzzle lies a reflection on what it means to be human. His tone is introspective, suspenseful, and often playfully self-aware.

You can also find Yoav at:

(ARC and media courtesy of AME)

(all opinions are my own)

Tuesday, 27 January 2026

The Peepshow: The Murders at 10 Rillington Place by Kate Summerscale - #bookreview

In the evening of Tuesday 24 March 1953, Harry Procter, the star crime reporter of the Sunday Pictorial, drove over to a Victorian terrace in Notting Hill in which the bodies of three young women had been discovered...

The Blurb

In 1953, the bodies of three young women are found by a tenant in the walls of a Notting Hill house. He tells the police that he chanced upon them while trying to put up a shelf for his transistor radio.

As a series of further horrors are discovered, 10 Rillington Place becomes an address synonymous with murder.

A riveting tale of violence, misogyny and tabloid frenzy, The Peepshow lifts the veil on what really happened inside Britain's most notorious house - and suggests a new solution to the case that transfixed a nation.

My Review

I have read the majority of Kate Summerscale's books and enjoyed each one of them. So, when I saw this on my library shelves I picked it up and checked it out with a sense of glee.

It's no surprise that this book was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction in 2025. It was also a five-star read for me.

The author has the ability to recreate a true crime story vividly on the page. I was already familiar with the murders at 10 Rillington Place, but this book still had something new to offer. She has created an easy-to-read, accessible retelling of the horrors which took place behind the innocent-looking front door of the Notting Hill house in which John Reginald Christie lived.

This was more than the retelling of a familiar story. It was an insight into the beliefs and culture of a community in 1950s London. It depicts the racism, misogyny and class differences of post-war Britain.

Despite this book being brilliantly written, it is an unsettling read nonetheless. How could we read of a serial rapist and murderer without a sense of shock, no matter how familiar one might already be with the story? We should be unsettled by such a quiet, unassuming man being able to carry out such brutalities. Although the author does describe the murders in some detail by using contemporary sources, at no point did I feel that she was describing these events in a gratuitous manner. Rather, she sought to present us with the facts of the horrendous crimes of this man.

It also considers whether the execution of Timothy Evans for the murder of his child was perhaps one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in Britain to date. Timothy Evans lived with his wife, and baby daughter, Geraldine, in the same house as Christie and his wife. Eighteen months prior to Christie's arrest, the bodies of Evan's wife and child were discovered in the house. It was largely the testimony of the apparently gentle and mild-mannered Christie which was instrumental in the conviction and execution of Timothy Evans.

The author's comprehensive research is evident throughout and the result is this excellent insight into the murders, society and legal system of 1950s Britain.

Anyone interested in history or true crime will find this an excellent read that I highly recommend.

If you would like to read my review of Kate Summerscale's, The Wicked Boy you can find it by clicking here.

Book Details

ISBN: 978 1526660510

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Formats: e-book, audio, hardback and paperback

No. of Pages: 320 (paperback)

Purchase Links

About the Author

Kate Summerscale was born in London and lived in Japan and Chile as a child. She was then educated at Parliament Hill school in London, Bedales school in Hampshire and at Oxford and Stanford universities. She worked at various newspapers and magazines until in 2005 she left her job as Literary Editor of the Daily Telegraph to write The Suspicions of Mr Whicher. She has judged several literary prizes, including the Booker Prize, and in 2010 was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She lives in London.

Kate Summerscale’s first book, The Queen of Whale Cay, was inspired by an obituary she wrote for the Daily Telegraph — it won the Somerset Maugham award and was shortlisted for the Whitbread biography prize.

The Suspicions of Mr Whicher won the Samuel Johnson prize and the British Book Award for both Popular Non-Fiction and Book of the Year. It was a Richard & Judy Bookclub pick and was shortlisted for the Crime Writers Association Non-Fiction Gold Dagger in the UK and the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime in the US. Hat Trick productions adapted the story for ITV, and went on to make three fictional dramas about Jack Whicher’s investigations.

Kate’s third book, Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace, was a Sunday Times bestseller, and her fourth, The Wicked Boy, won the 2017 Mystery Writers of America Edgar award for Best Fact Crime. The Haunting of Alma Fielding was shortlisted for the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, and The Book of Phobias & Manias has been published in 19 languages. The Peepshow was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction and won the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction.

You can also find Kate at: