nice all read

Welcome to Littlewood, a small town community with a big heart.  Abbie's  ex-boyfriend and colleague, Jack, has arrived back on the scene... Will she be lured back to London or has her heart taken root at Huntley Manor?  Louise  has promised to be kinder to herself, but after suffering one heartbreak too many, she isn't keen to try her luck again.... Can the handsome local vet convince her otherwise? Eszter , who is over from Hungary with her daughter for the summer, has been met with nothing but kindness since she arrived in Littlewood, and now she and her daughter Zoe are all set to return the favour as Eszter's mother-in-law Anne finds herself with nowhere to stay... Eszter is determined to help Anne get back involved in the community after being alone for so long, but do they belong in Littlewood or will the three of them remain outsiders?  As soon as I finished reading Part 1 of Random Acts of Kindness by Victoria Walters I instant...

Welcome to Littlewood, a small town community with a big heart...   Abbie has fled London and the humiliation of not being able to make rent after being made redundant. Louise , unlucky in love, has thrown herself into her career at the local hospital. And Eszter , who has travelled from Hungary with her daughter  Zoe,  hopes to fulfill her husband's dying wish... to reunite his family I am so excited that Victoria Walters is back to bring us another book as I absolutely loved her debut The Second Love of My Life which in my opinion didn’t get the attention it deserved. Now she is back with Random Acts of Kindness which is being released as 4 parts which you all know I am not a fan of purely because of the fact I am greedy and impatient! However I wasn’t going to miss out on the chance to enjoy more of Victoria Walters writing so I was willing to put my greed to one side and download part one ( it helped knowing part two had already been released shh!) The first pa...

Nonfiction To learn, go teach THE MOUNTAINS IN ART HISTORY Edited by Peter Mark, Peter Helman, and Penny Snyder 132 pp. Wesleyan University Press Reviewed by Sue Ellis This group of essays takes a scholarly look at why we find mountains inspirational. We like to contemplate them, hike their trails, crest their summits and ski down their slopes. We feel God’s presence in a towering peak or a breathtaking drop in elevation. Some 18 th century writers/philosophers felt that the word, “sublime” seemed the perfect adjective to describe so majestic a vision. Little wonder then, that artists are drawn to capture them on canvas or through other artistic mediums. Each essay, by Wesleyan University students, contains one student’s unique perspective on a period in time or a particular artist chosen for his/her contribution to mountain art. The diversity of the essays is wide-ranging. In “Arnold Fanck and German Bergfilm,” by Jackson Sabes, we learn of Dr. Arnold Frank (1889-1974), a German film...

Fran has always wanted to be a farmer. And now it looks as if her childhood dream is about to come true. She has just moved in to a beautiful but very run-down farm in the Cotswolds, currently owned by an old aunt who has told Fran that if she manages to turn the place around in a year, the farm will be hers. But Fran knows nothing about farming. She might even be afraid of cows. She's going to need a lot of help from her best friend Issi, and also from her wealthy and very eligible neighbour - who might just have his own reasons for being so supportive. Is it the farm he is interested in? Or Fran herself? I am a big fan of Katie Fforde, her books never disappoint and they always leave you feeling pleasantly uplifted and her latest book A Country Escape is no exception. When Fran is contacted out of the blue by a distant relative Amy with news that she maybe inline to inherit the family farm in the Cotswolds she makes a big and brave decision to leave everything she knows and up st...

Fiction Death of the Butt God THE CHÂTEAU By Paul Goldberg 384 pp. Picador Reviewed by Lynne M. Hinkey, author of Marina Melee The Château is a humorous, often tragic, look at what it means to be an American, an immigrant, and an outsider in the land of opportunity. According to the back cover, The Château, is the story of down-and-out former-science reporter, William M. Katzenelenbogen. Newly fired from his job at the Washington Post , he finds new purpose investigating the seamy death of his college roommate, the famous plastic surgeon known as “The Butt God of Miami Beach.” While his investigation runs softly through the background, that storyline turns out to be a relatively minor subplot, as do the shenanigans of the board of directors at his father’s south Florida condo. Both of these play more of a supporting role giving context to the real stories of father-son relationships and the great political divide in America today. Goldberg gives us a mix of eccentric characters, like...

She knows how many miles lie between her new home in New York and her new boyfriend Sam in London. She knows her employer is a good man and she knows his wife is keeping a secret from him. What Lou doesn't know is she's about to meet someone who's going to turn her whole life upside down. Because Josh will remind her so much of a man she used to know that it'll hurt. Lou won't know what to do next, but she knows that whatever she chooses is going to change everything. Me Before You is one of my all time favourite books and one of the rare books I have reread over again so I was look forward to the release of Still Me to see what Jojo Moyes had in store for Louisa Clark this time so I snapped up my copy from my local bookshop and headed home to jump straight in. Louisa has an opportunity of a life time to really do what Will wanted her to do and push her boundaries and see the world when an opportunity for her to up sticks and move to New York and become a profession...

Fiction A manuscript to kill for HOLMES ENTANGLED By Gordon McAlpine 215 pp. Seventh Street Books Reviewed by Eric Petersen Gordon McAlpine, the master of avant garde mystery metafiction, is back with a new novel. His previous novels, Woman With a Blue Pencil and Hammett Unwritten , are also reviewed on this site. Holmes Entangled opens in Buenos Aires, circa 1943. After completing his shift, Jorge Luis Borges, assistant librarian at the Miguel Cane Municipal Library, quickly makes his way to the office of a private detective. In his encounter with the detective, Borges (who somehow knows the exact amount of money in the gumshoe’s wallet) claims that someone is stalking him – an assassin intent on killing him. Why? Because Borges is in possession of a rare manuscript that someone would kill for. The manuscript, called Uncertainty – a True Account , was written by Sherlock Holmes – the real Sherlock Holmes – in the late 1920s. It’s a memoir of the then 73-year-old Holmes’s strangest ...