The Box by Jo Linsdell - #bookreview #blogtour

 

Because a box is just a box, except when it's not.

***

Join in the creative fun as a little boy explains why his box is his favourite toy.

My Review

This is a charming book that young children will love.

As a parent I can recall many happy days of playing with a box with my boys. Their favourite game was to play Jack in the Box. One of them would pop up and the rest of us would feign surprise. Happy days!

This is just what this book is about. How something as simple as a cardboard box can be the spring board to imaginative play. We see the little boy use his box for so many different purposes. It becomes a football net, a spaceship, a racing car and many other things besides. 

I think young children will love the repetitive phrase of "because a box is just a box, except when it's not," which occurs regularly throughout the book. The author has illustrated this herself in a fun and simple way.

I really think preschoolers will love this, and it would also be ideal for those who are just beginning to read. This book deserves to be in every preschool/nursery library, and I recommend it for sharing with the little ones in your life.

Book Details

ISBN:  978 1497344648

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

No. of Pages:  44 (paperback)

Purchase Links

Amazon UK

Amazon US

About the Author:

Jo Linsdell is a best selling author and illustrator and internationally recognized marketing expert. To find out more about Jo and her projects visit her website https://www.jolinsdell.com/.

You can also find Jo at:

Amazon

Good Reads

Twitter / X

Facebook

Linked In

You Tube

(ARC and media courtesy of Jo Linsdell)

(all opinions are my own)

The Folly by Gemma Amor - #blogtour #bookreview

 He shuffled out of the prison door in a daze, a small bag of belongings clutched to his chest. I saw him pause as the early light of day embraced him. He closed his eyes briefly, and dragged in a deep, full breath, up through is nostrils, out through his mouth. I had haggled for his release to be set at five in the morning, to help avoid attention from the press...

***

The Blurb

Morgan always knew her father, Owen, never murdered her mother. She has spent the last six years campaigning for his release from prison. Finally, mid-pandemic, Owen is set free, but the debt-riddled pair can no longer afford (or bear) to live in the family home- a house last decorated by a dead woman’s blood.

Salvation and the chance for a new start in life comes in the form of a tall, dark and notorious decorative granite tower on the Cornish coastline known only as ‘The Folly’. The structure is empty, prone to break-ins, and the owner needs a caretaker- food and bills included. It’s an offer too good to refuse. Morgan and Owen relocate, leaving everything of their former lives behind and hoping that a change of scene and the remote location will be good for them both.

At first, the Folly is indeed idyllic, but soon enough that peace is shattered when a bald-headed stranger arrives. A stranger who acts like Morgan’s mother, talks like her mother, and wears her dead mother’s clothes.

What does he want? Why won’t he leave them alone? Why does he keep mentioning the year 1976?

And what secrets does the Folly tower hold?

My Review

Anyone who follows my blog regularly will know that I do not read horror. I'm a complete scaredy cat about the whole thing. So you may be wondering why I read this book when it sits absolutely in the horror genre?

At the beginning of this year I promised myself that I would read a few books that were outside of my comfort zone. When I was offered a copy of this book I decided that this was the book that would allow me to dip my toe into the horror genre.

I have completely surprised myself as I enjoyed this book very much. Yes, it was a bit spooky and creepy but it was totally gripping and I had to read on.

I liked the main character, Morgan who has fought for her father's release from prison after being incarcerated for murdering her mother. For the five years of his imprisonment she has been totally convinced of his innocence and has fought hard for his release. This is the point at which the story begins. Owen is released from prison and they are attempting to put the past behind them and move forward.

They move to remote part of Cornwall and into the titular Folly, and that is when things start to get creepy. A bald headed man turns up and seems to be channelling Morgan's deceased mother.

It is also set during the covid pandemic which served to highlight the isolation of the characters. However, it also addresses the theme of identity, who we are, where we belong and what happens when the past is revealed to be different to what you have always believed.

It is a powerful and short book at 160 pages but it oozed with atmosphere, suspense and tension.

The book was only released yesterday and it made for an enjoyable read.

Book Details

ISBN: 978 1915523563

Publisher:  Datura Books

Formats:  e-book, audio and paperback

No. of Pages: 160 (paperback)

Purchase Links

Datura Books

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Blackwell's

About the Author

Gemma Amor is a Bram Stoker and British Fantasy Award nominated author, voice actor/podcaster and illustrator based in Bristol, in the UK. She self-published her debut short story collection Cruel Works of Nature in 2018, and went on to release Dear Laura, Grief Is A False God, White Pines, Girl On Fire, These Wounds We Make, We Are Wolves and Six Rooms before signing her first traditional publishing deal for her novel Full Immersion, published by Angry Robot books in 2022. 

This was followed by The Once Yellow House, Christmas At Wheeldale Inn and All Who Wander Are Lost is her twelfth published book (her fifth for Cemetery Gates Media). Her next scheduled release is The Folly in 2024 with Datura books and an anthology of ancestral horror for Titan Books called Roots Of My Fears, as Editor, in 2025. 

Gemma is the co-creator of horror-comedy podcast Calling Darkness, starring Kate Siegel, and her stories feature many times on popular horror anthology shows The NoSleep Podcast (including a six-part adaptation of Dear Laura), Shadows at the Door, Creepy and The Grey Rooms. She also appears in a number of print anthologies including Ellen Datlow’s The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Fifteen, and has made numerous podcast appearances to date.

 A short film she co-wrote called Hidden Mother (2021) was well received at multiple film festivals and she just finished her first feature length screenplay, an adaption of her novella Dear Laura. Gemma illustrates her own works and also provides original, hand-painted artwork for book covers on commission. She narrates audiobooks too, including The Possession Of Natalie Glasgow by Hailey Piper, in 2020, and Full Immersion in 2022. She launched new folk-trivia podcast Wyrd, Wild & Wonderful in 2024. 

You can also find Gemma at

https://gemmaamorauthor.com/

Twitter / X

Instagram

Tik Tok

(ARC and author bio. courtesy of Datura Books)

(author photo courtesy of the author's website)

(all opinions are my own)

The Immigrant Queen by Peter Taylor-Gooby - #blogtour #guestpost

Today I am delighted to be hosting Peter Taylor-Gooby, the author of The Immigrant Queen. Peter is going to be addressing the question, why don’t we pay more attention to Aspasia, the leading woman of fifth century Athens? But first let me tell you a little bit about the book.

The Blurb

Hated as a foreigner, despised as a woman, she became First Lady of Athens.

Aspasia falls passionately in love with Pericles, the leading statesman of Fifth Century Athens. Artists, writers and thinkers flock to her salon. She hides her past as a sex-worker, trafficked to the city, and becomes Pericles’ lover.

Her writings attract the attention of Socrates, and she becomes the only woman to join his circle. She is known throughout the city for her beauty and wit and strives to become recognised as an intellectual alongside men.

Pericles’ enemies attack him through Aspasia and charge her with blasphemy. As a foreigner she faces execution, but her impassioned address to the jury shames the city and saves her. Pericles is spellbound, they marry, and she becomes First Lady of Athens.

Sparta besieges the city; plague breaks out and Pericles is once again in danger.

THE IMMIGRANT QUEEN tells the true story of how Aspasia rose to become the First Lady of Athens and triumphed against all the odds. 

Book Details

ISBN: 978 1836280606

Publisher:  Troubador

Formats:  e-book and paperback

No. of Pages:  320 (paperback)

Preorder Links

Bookshop.org

Amazon UK

Waterstones

Troubador

Welcome to the blog Peter.

So, why don’t we pay more attention to Aspasia, the leading woman of fifth century Athens?

History has paid scant attention to Aspasia. She is typically presented as the partner of Pericles, the leading figure in Fifth-Century Athens, but she was one of the most remarkable figures in the leading city of the Eastern Mediterranean. Probably from the Ionian sea-board, possibly from Miletus, she may have been trafficked to the city as a sex-worker or entered as a distant member of Pericles’ extended family. She certainly became Pericles’ mistress and, after the death of his wife, she took part in a form of marriage to him, although since she was a foreigner, his child by her could not inherit his considerable wealth. And that is her life according to the respected historian Thucydides. Other commentators make clear that the couple were genuinely in love and remained very much attached to each other until Pericles died in 429BCE, the second year of the Peloponnesian war.

She was clearly attractive but she was also a substantial and original thinker. She founded an Academy for women. She was a member of Socrates’ circle (almost certainly Diotima in the Symposium) and wrote philosophical dialogues, quoted approvingly by Xenophon and others. Indeed Socrates refers to her as his “tutor”. Some writers suggest that her ideas about love expressed in the dialogue the Symposium (but relayed by others – she does not speak directly. Would contemporaries not have taken her words seriously?) lie at the heart of the Platonic theory of ideals.

Plato understood our world as simple appearance, resting on an abstract reality to which we somehow have common access and in which the ideal forms of the physical objects we perceive and more importantly our values and ideas exist. The instances in our world only dimly corresponded to the reality of the ideals, but enough to enable debate and the search for truth. Aspasia talks of love as an ideal of which our experience is only a reflection and physical love is the least significant form. It is possible that Plato learned the distinction between  an ideal world and our experiential perceptions from Aspasia’s ideas.

She probably wrote many of Pericles’ speeches including, according to Plato in the Menexenus, his most famous speech, the  Funeral Oration of 431 BCE, with its extended metaphor of Athens as the school of Greece. There is no obvious reason why Plato should manufacture this claim, although it is clear that he did not support Pericles’ democratic politics and favoured the aristocratic party in Athens.

Yet many contemporary references see her primarily in terms of her body not her ideas. Aristophanes jokingly attributes the Peloponnesian War to her dealings in sex-workers with Megara – the Athenian blockade of Megara, an ally of Sparta provoked the Sparta invasion while ultimately ended Athenian pre-eminence in the region. Another tale is that when she was prosecuted for blasphemy (an easy charge to make against a foreigner who came from a land of different gods and carrying the death penalty) she secured her acquittal by stripping in court. A third is the rumour that she was the model for the statue of Athene in the Parthenon. And of course she is often described as a sex-worker and in terms of Pericles’ love for her.

Statue of Athene in the Parthenon

Why don’t we know more of her intellectual standing when we know so much about prominent Athenian men? She was a woman in a civilisation where school-children copied out the tag: “he who teaches a women to write gives poison to an Asp”, and where even Pericles claimed in the Funeral Oration that “the greatest glory for a woman is to not be spoken of for good or ill” – something that did not apply to his wife. Her philosophical work was not valued alongside that of men, never copied and hence lost. The speeches she wrote were attributed to Pericles and her activities as an educationalist of women were reduced to the equivalent of brothel-keeping. My new novel The Immigrant Queen seeks to set the picture straight and explain the challenges of being successful and a woman in one of the greatest cities of all time.

Many thanks to Peter for being my guest today.

About the Author

Peter Taylor-Gooby is an academic who believes that you can only truly understand the issues that matter through your feelings, your imagination and your compassion. That’s why he writes novels as well as research monographs. He worked in India as a teacher, in a Newcastle social security office and as an antique dealer.

Now he’s professor of social policy at the University of Kent, a Fellow of the British Academy, loves playing with his grandchildren and writes novels in what time is spare.

You can also find Peter at

Twitter / X

Troubador

Wikipedia

Amazon Author Page

(all media and excerpt courtesy of The Coffee Pot Book Club)

(bookshop.org affiliated)

The King of Kazam by Jen Hyatt and Cassandra Harrison - #readalong

Welcome to my first ever read along.

Why have I chosen to go for this book as my first time you may well ask?

The answer is simple; all proceeds from the sale of each book will go to The Trussell Trust, supporting their incredible work in fighting hunger. They are an anti-poverty charity and community of food banks. They work together to ensure no one in the UK needs a food bank to survive, while providing food and practical support to people left without enough money to live on. 

I'm sure you will agree that this is a very worthy cause.

So why not grab a copy of this book and join me in the read along which will be running for the next few weeks.  There will be questions for both adults and children so this is the perfect opportunity to share this reading opportunity with your little ones.

Please keep an eye out for my blog posts.

Purchase Links

Jen Hyatt

Waterstones

For more informtion about the Trussell Trust you can find them at:

The Trussell Trust

(book and media courtesy of Love Books Tours)

(all opinions are my own)

 

The Wives by Valerie Keogh - #bookreview #blogtour

 

Natasha met Daniel at a gallery opening she'd gone to with a friend. It had been a crowded event, full of minor celebrities posing for cameras trying to look as if they understood, or even liked, the garishly coloured artwork that had been chosen for the opening...

***

The Blurb

Meet The Wives...

Lies, secrets, deadly decisions…

When Natasha meets Daniel, she knows her life is made. Rich, handsome and charming, Daniel will make the perfect husband. Even if she won’t make the perfect wife…

She is thrilled when Daniel suggests an all-expenses paid cruise for Natasha, her friends, Barbara, Tracy Ann and Michelle, and their husbands. What better way to show everyone that Natasha has finally made it?

But as the ship sets sail, she learns that far from being the perfect husband, Daniel has terrible secrets that are about to be revealed. And each of the wives has their own reasons for wanting him dead.

This trip might cost more than any of them ever imagined…

My Review

I have previously read and enjoyed a few of Valerie Keogh's books, and so I jumped at the opportunity to read this when I was offered an early reader's copy for the blog tour.

 I think this is her best one yet and I was gripped from the first page to the last. It is the story of Natasha meeting Daniel. He is charming, caring and charismatic and they marry very quickly. His generosity appears to know no bounds and when he offers to pay for them both along with all of Natasha's friends and their husbands to go on a cruise, Natasha is all the more enamoured with him.

However, it is on the cruise that Natasha begins to see a different side to Daniel, who has dark secrets to hide. Equally it seems her friends have secrets too, and Natasha sees a different side to all of them, and of herself.

This made for an exciting read. Ms Keogh writes extremely well and knows how to increase the tension with the turn of every page. Being set on a cruise ship, I could really feel the sense of claustrophobia that the characters were experiencing. 

The chapters vary in their point of view. Most are written from Natasha's perspective, but there are also chapters written by her friends, Michelle, Barbara and Tracy Ann. This varied perspective gave the book immediacy as I was able to understand the feelings of the different women from their own viewpoint.

The story is loaded with secrets, lies and deceptions, along with some marvellous twists and turns in the plot. This was a five star read for me and I highly recommend it.

If you would like to read my thoughts on the books I have previously read by Valerie Keogh please click on the title links.

The Mother

The Mistress

The Nurse

Book Details

ISBN: 978 1805494416

Publisher:  Boldwood Books

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

No. of Pages:  296 (paperback)

Purchase Links

Amazon UK

Amazon US

About the Author

Valerie Keogh is the best-selling author of The Nurse. She lives in Wiltshire with her husband and a huge black cat, Fatty Arbuckle. She grew up reading Agatha Christie and initially wrote crime novels - she now writes psychological thrillers.

The Little Lies was shortlisted for the Crime Fiction Lovers Award 2021.

You can also find Valerie at:

Twitter / X

Instagram

Newsletter

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

(all opinions are my own)

Murder at the Crooked Horse by Lesley Cookman: A Libby Sarjeant Murder Mystery - #bookspotlight #bookpromo #blogtour

 

I am delighted to be shining the spotlight on this book today. 

Murder at the Crooked Horse by Lesley Cookman is a gripping whodunnit set in the English countryside, and is a Libby Sarjeant Murder Mystery.

The Blurb

After learning of a suspicious attempt to burn down a beloved old pub, The Crooked Horse, Libby Sarjeant and her friend Fran reluctantly agree to investigate.

But when a local antiques dealer mysteriously disappears after apparently taking out his boat, it appears there are dark and sinister forces at play.

Can Libby and Fran uncover a connection between the fire and the missing man? And will unravelling a deadly case put them in terrible danger?

Book Details

ISBN:  978 1035405718

Publisher:  Headline Accent

Formats:  e-book, audio and paperback

No. of Pages:  288 (paperback)

Buy Links

Bookshop.org

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Waterstones

About the Author

Lesley Cookman writes the Libby Sarjeant Murder Mysteries and the The Alexandrians, an Edwardian Mystery Series. She lives on the south east coast of England, and is a former model, actor, and journalist. Her four adult children are all musicians and writers. 

You can also find Lesley at:

Twitter / X

Newsletter

(media courtesy of Rachel's Random Resources)

(all opinions are my own)

(bookshop.org affiliated)

When the Stammer Came to Stay by Maggie O'Farrell - Illustrated by Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini - #bookreview

 

This is the tale of two sisters...

who had no idea that everything was about to change...

***

The Blurb

Quiet Bea keeps her shoes polished, folds her clothes every night, and alphabetizes her books. Her rambunctious sister Min wears torn trousers and wades into ponds to collect frogspawn. Above all, Min is a storyteller who loves to chat with everyone. But one day she chokes, and the words forming in her mouth never make it out. Words suddenly feel dangerous, unwieldly. Min is no longer herself--not with some strange creature stealing her words, a creature not even her sister can see. But that doesn't matter, because Bea sees Min. 

Award-winning author Maggie O'Farrell pulls from her own experiences with stammering to create a realistic portrait of shaken self-confidence and how sharing painful situations with a loved one can make all the difference. Featuring expressive and detailed illustrations from Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini, this book will speak to readers who have ever lost a part of themselves--and found something new in return.

My Review

I am a big fan of Maggie O'Farrell and so I was delighted when this book appeared on my doormat. 

It is the story of two very different sisters. Bea is quiet and likes order in her life. Min is boisterous and leaves chaos in her wake. One day Min suddenly develops a stammer and struggles with speaking her words. Whilst looking in the mirror she detects a wispy shape over her shoulder which is actually stealing the words as she tries to speak them.

They are both lovely characters and children will be able to identify with one or other of the sisters. I could really feel Min's frustration flow from the page. I loved the way the two girls come together to try to find a solution. When Bea takes Min to the library to research it, they discover the cause might be a dibbuk and this helps Min feel less alone.

This is a charming book which has been beautifully illustrated by Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini. The wonderful pictures support the text extremely well which makes this accessible to a large age range. Whilst it is aimed at confident readers, I could well imagine younger children poring over the illustrations and taking away the gist of the story solely on that.

In my opinion this book should be in every primary school library. It would be a fantastic aid to discussing differences.

It is full of charm and I highly recommend it.

I have previously read several of Maggie O'Farrell's books, The Hand That First Held Mine, Hamnet, I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox and After You'd Gone.

Book Details

ISBN: 978 1536239102

Publisher:  Walker Books

Formats:  Hardback

No. of Pages:  72 (hardback)

Preorder Links

Bookshop.org

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Waterstones

About the Author

Maggie O’Farrell, FRSOL, is the author of HAMNET, Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020, and the memoir I AM, I AM, I AM, both Sunday Times no. 1 bestsellers. Her novels include AFTER YOU’D GONE, MY LOVER’S LOVER, THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US, which won a Somerset Maugham Award, THE VANISHING ACT OF ESME LENNOX, THE HAND THAT FIRST HELD MINE, which won the 2010 Costa Novel Award, INSTRUCTIONS FOR A HEATWAVE and THIS MUST BE THE PLACE., and THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT. She is also the author of two books for children, WHERE SNOW ANGELS GO and THE BOY WHO LOST HIS SPARK. She lives in Edinburgh.

There is a very interesting article about Maggie and why she wrote this book at

The Guardian

About the Illustrator

Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini joined The Artworks in 2005 and has been going from strength to strength. She first studied Fine Art in Milan.  Inspired and encouraged greatly by the accomplished painter Claudio Olivieri, Daniela’s technique portrays mixed media, collage and sometimes computer-generated design.

Daniela moved to London from Italy in 1999 to study photography at The London College of Printing.  She has managed to split her illustration work into two distinctive and equally successful styles of detailed paintings and graphic surface patterns.  Since beginning her career as an illustrator with The Artworks, Daniela has worked extensively in many areas. The contemporary take on classic style has allowed Daniela to take on some very challenging picture books. “The Seeing Stick” published by Running Press and “The Animals Marco Polo Saw” published by Chronicle have attracted much industry acclaim.

You can learn more about Daniela at

The Art Works

Instagram

Twitter / X

Good Reads

(book courtesy of Walker Books)

(author media courtesy of the publisher Hachette)

(illustrator media courtesy of The Art Works)

(all opinions are my own)

(bookshop.org affiliated)

Secrets in the Water by Alice Fitzpatrick - Meredith Island Mystery - #bookreview

The Blurb

Emma Galway's suicide has haunted the Meredith Island for fifty years.

Back on the island to lay her grandmother to rest, Kate can't avoid reflecting on the death of her aunt. Learning that her late mother had believed Emma was murdered and had conducted her own investigation, she decides to track down her aunt's killer. With the help of her neighbour, impetuous and hedonistic sculptor Siobhan Fitzgerald, Kate picks up where her mother had left off. When the two women become the subject of threatening notes and violent incidents, it's clear that one of their fellow islanders is warning them off. As they begin to look into Emma's connection to the Sutherlands, a prominent Meredith Island family, another islander dies under suspicious circumstances, forcing Kate and Siobhan to confront the likelihood that Emma's killer is still on the island.

My Review

I love a book about hidden secrets and there are plenty in this novel.

The book is set in a small town on an island in Canada. The inhabitants know one another well. When the main character, Kate returns to the island she decides to continue with the investigation that her mother began into the death of her aunt which occurred some fifty years previously. It quickly becomes clear that somebody does not want her to ask too many questions.

There are some quirky characters on the island. I found Kate easy to engage with and her friend, Siobhan was a humorous addition to this cast of characters. I found all of them to be well fleshed out and utterly believable. 

I liked the way this cosy mystery was written. It was evocative and entertaining, was paced well and kept me hooked. The resolution came as a surprise. I love it when that happens.

As a debut novel this is excellent. This is the first in a planned series based on Meredith Island. A Dark Death is due to be released in the UK in June 2025 and I am very much looking forward to reading it.

Book Details

ISBN:  978 1988754604

Publisher:  Stonehouse Publishing

Formats:  e-book and paperback

No. of Pages:  340 (paperback)

Buy Links

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Amazon CA

Stonehouse Publishing

About the Author

Alice was born on the English side of the northern Welsh border and was raised in a small town in southern Ontario. After abandoning the idea of becoming the youngest person to win the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry, she earned both her BA in Fine Arts and BEd in English and Drama. Along the way, she received my MA in Interdisciplinary Studies.

She has taught creative and therapeutic writing, English as a Second Language (ESL), and high school English and drama while publishing literary short fiction and personal essays. 

Then she turned her hand to writing mysteries.

The Meredith Island Mysteries, a traditional mystery series set on a Welsh island, features historical novelist Kate Galway. The second novel in the series was a finalist for the Killer Nashville Claymore Award. That Which is Lost is a standalone crime novel set in Massachusetts.

A member of Crime Writers of Canada,  Sisters in Crime, and Crime Cymru, when she is not writing, she can be found singing or reading mysteries with her cats.

You can also find Alice at:

https://www.alicefitzpatrick.com/

Instagram

Twitter / X

(book courtesy of the publicist)

(all opinions are my own)

The Red Tunic by Kate Wiseman - #bookreview #blogtour

 

Corporal Knowles is in full flow this evening, trying to get us to write letters to our loved ones, "just in case the worst happens." He says this with a pursed-lipped smile, embarrassed at having to mention something so inconvenient. Hello and welcome to the Western Front...

***

The Blurb

History and gender are intertwined in this fast-paced arresting account of the First World War and its devastating impact on familial and romantic bonds.

As headstrong as her twin is gentle, Nina has never fit the womanly mould society expects of her. Alfie and Nina Mullins have always relied on their shared world of hope and make-believe for comfort, but as the pressure on Alfie to prove himself at the Front mounts, Nina is presented with more possibility than she had ever imagined and the two are pushed in wildly different directions.

Coming of age as the First World War breaks out, the Mullins twins’ fates are inextricably interlinked with the turmoil of conflict in this fascinating exploration of gender roles and the extremes to which war pushes us.

My Review

I so enjoyed reading this book and it had me gripped from the very beginning.

This is a coming of age story that features main characters, Nina and Alfie who are twins. They have a strong bond and understand one another extremely well. Neither are entirely happy in their own skin. We first meet them as children who are exploring their world, their gender and the expectations that lie ahead of them in life.

In fact, the main focus of the book is upon the expectations that their birth gender attributed to each of the twins. They bravely challenge this and the author does a good job in demonstrating that the roles of men and women were pretty much set in stone during this time period. However, with the role of Suffragists on the horizon, these views are beginning to be challenged.

I have read many books set during World War One but this one has an originality to it that made for fabulous reading. It is beautifully written and was easy to read. The words flowed from the page and I read it in a couple of sittings.

It is well paced for it's genre and the author captured the atmosphere of the trenches extremely well. It is thought provoking and powerful and I was captivated by the bravery of both of the main  characters.

It is well worth reading and has much to commend it.

Book Details

ISBN: 978 1915584137

Publisher:  Neem Tree Press

Formats:  e-book and paperback

No. of Pages:  240 (paperback)

Buy Links

Bookshop.org

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Waterstones

Neem Tree Press

About the Author

Kate was a late developer, attending university to study English and Creative Writing in her late 30s. She was one of the real life 'Ritas' featured on the Radio 4 Woman's Hour Programme commemorating the anniversary of the play, Educating Rita. Kate is a dedicated and licenced mudlark who is never happier than when she is up to her eyes in mud. She has won several literary awards and this year judged the historical fiction and biography category of the prestigious Eyelands International Book Awards.

You can also find Kate at:

Twitter / X

Instagram

Neem Tree Press

YouTube

(ARC and media courtesy of The Write Reads)

(all opinions are my own)

(bookshop.org affiliated)

Chicken Boy: My Life With Hens by Arthur Parkinson - #bookreview

 

You notice other small beings far more when you're little. I am a toddler the first time I meet a chicken, and we are equal in size and height. The hen has tiny eyelashes, a strawberry-jam face and a voice of purring clucks. I sense a happy spirit of inquisitiveness and smile in fascination. From that moment on, I will always love the company of chickens. I have found my tribe...

***

The Blurb

Most of us want a dog, or a cat, or a pony when we are young – but for Arthur Parkinson, it was always hens. Growing up in an ex-mining town in Nottinghamshire, the other kids in the playground called him 'Chicken Boy'. The quiet fulfilment of keeping hens became his sanctuary, a tonic for mental and physical health, a connection with his family and the natural world. Illustrated with Arthur's own characterful watercolours and photographs of his ‘girls’, Chicken Boy is a one-of-a-kind memoir of a life in nature.

My Review

This was a fabulous non-fiction title to read, and I enjoyed it very much.

Arthur Parkinson has been fascinated by hens almost his entire life, and has been a chicken keeper for much of it too. His passion and enthusiasm are infectious. It flows from the pages, and it made this book a delight to read.

There is a mixture of his personal story and his relationship with chickens presented alongside instructions on how to care for them. He paints a vivid and pleasurable experience whilst not avoiding the realities involved. For most of us keeping chickens is unfeasible but I almost feel as though I have lived some of his experience through this book.

 

The text is mesmerising and it is accompanied by beautiful photography and illustrations, all of which have been done by the author.

This will appeal to chicken keepers but also to those of us for whom this could only be a dream. It is a beautifully written narrative and I highly recommend this book.

Book Details

ISBN: 978 0241573662

Publisher:  Penguin

Formats:  e-book, audio, hardback and paperback

No. of Pages:  240 (paperback)

Buy Links

Bookshop.org

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Waterstones

About the Author

Arthur Parkinson is the author of The Pottery Gardener and The Flower Yard, and the co-host, with Sarah Raven, of the popular Grow, Cook, Eat, Arrange podcast. His writing and photography are regularly featured in the Daily Telegraph, and have appeared in The Times, Country Life and Country Living, among other magazines and newspapers; he has also featured in BBC Two's Gardeners' World.

You can also find Arthur at

Instagram

Twitter / X

Substack

(book and media courtesy of https://www.penguin.co.uk/)

(author photo courtesy of https://gardenmuseum.org.uk/)

(all opinions are my own)

(bookshop.org affiliated)