*This post contains affiliate links Missy Carmichael’s life has become small. Grieving for a family she has lost or lost touch with, she’s haunted by the echoes of her footsteps in her empty home; the sound of the radio in the dark; the tick-tick-tick of the watching clock. Spiky and defensive, Missy knows that her…
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Book Review: Ellie & the Harpmaker by Hazel Prior
Read more*Post contains affiliate links A rich, heartwarming and completely charming debut that reminds us that sometimes, you don’t find love–love finds you. Dan Hollis lives a happy, solitary life carving exquisite Celtic harps in his barn in the countryside of the English moors. Here, he can be himself, away from social situations that he doesn’t…
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Book Review: The Break by Marian Keyes
Read more*Post contains affiliate links *May contain spoilers ‘Myself and Hugh . . . We’re taking a break.’ ‘A city-with-fancy-food sort of break?’ If only. Amy’s husband Hugh says he isn’t leaving her. He still loves her, he’s just taking a break – from their marriage, their children and, most of all, from their life together.…
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Book Review: One Summer’s Night by Kiley Dunbar
Read more*Post contains affiliate links I bought this book as part of a three for £5 deal in The Works. It appealed to me for many reasons. Firstly because I’ve been to Stratford-Upon-Avon, which is where the book is set, and also because I love an easy, romantic read and this ticked all of those boxes!…
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People who read live longer
Read more*Post contains affiliate links Yup, you read the title right! People who read really do live longer than those who don’t. That’s according to a 2016 study conducted by the Yale University School of Public Health. The study showed that those who read 30 minutes per day were shown to live 23 months longer than…
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Book Review: The Binding by Bridget Collins
Read more*Post contains affiliate links Emmett Farmer is a binder’s apprentice. His job is to hand-craft beautiful books and, within each, to capture something unique and extraordinary: a memory. If you have something you want to forget, or a secret to hide, he can bind it – and you will never have to remember the pain it…
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Book Review: Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glenda Vanderah
Read more*Post contains affiliate links After the loss of her mother and her own battle with breast cancer, Joanna Teale returns to her graduate research on nesting birds in rural Illinois, determined to prove that her recent hardships have not broken her. She throws herself into her work from dusk to dawn, until her solitary routine…
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Book Review: To Kill a Mockingbird
Read more*Post contains affiliate links ‘Shoot all the Bluejays you want, if you can hit ’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a Mockingbird.’ A lawyer’s advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee’s classic novel – a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the…
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Book Review: Normal People by Sally Rooney
Read moreConnell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in the west of Ireland, but the similarities end there. In school, Connell is popular and well-liked, while Marianne is a loner who has learnt from painful experience to stay away from her classmates. When the two strike up a conversation in Marianne’s kitchen –…