#CoverReveal By Lou of Slow Burn By Oti Mabuse #SlowBurn #TeamBATC #OtiMabusi #RomanticFiction @BookMinxSJV

In 2025, something sizzling and electrifying is coming to a bookcase near you! It’s so hot and smouldering, can you handle it?

Former Strictly dancer, Oti Mabuse has written 2 books that will be published by Simon and Schuster’s Books And The City (BATC) arm. Slow Burn being the first.

I have the very exciting pleasure of being part of revealing the cover.
Check it out and the blurb below.

To fall in love, they first have to get back in hold.

For Lira, Latin Ballroom is everything. Whilst her dreams of fame were cut short aged 19, she’s never forgotten the connection she felt dancing with a stranger at the Paris World Championship afterparty 13 years ago.

Taking on the responsibility of running the family dance studio wasn’t in her master plan, but with her two younger sisters pursuing their own successful careers, Lira’s flame of ambition is barely burning anymore.

But Lira is still feisty and fierce, and just because her family treat her like a doormat, she’s not going to take it lying down anymore.

A chance encounter sees Lira secretly auditioning for Slow Burn, a new dance show about to embark on a 6-week European tour, and coming face to face with a blast from her past that sends her reeling.

Gabriele has been the darling of the Latin Ballroom scene since his mother taught him the Argentine tango as a child. Slim of hip, with long, lean muscles that pop, a chiselled jaw, dark eyes, obscenely long lashes, and a mouth that just won’t give, he’s been surrounded by fawning women all his life. He’s the quintessential bad boy – arrogant, cocky, and he almost can’t help but take women for granted.

As the longest serving, and most popular professional dancer on hit Italian TV dancing competition, Bring the Heat, the world’s his oyster, and it’s no surprise when he lands the principal male lead role on Slow Burn. But, with just a few weeks to go till the tour starts, he’s at his wit’s end and down to his last two female lead auditionees. He needs to feel the heat, the fire, the chemistry… then in walks Lira.

On the dance floor they’re smouldering, off it, they’re electric.

Filled with sexy, Black female characters, hot scenes of sizzling, spicy passion that’ll make you blush, and plot beats of swoon worthy romance that will leave you breathless, the highly anticipated and unputdownable debut novel from Oti Mabuse brims with heat and heart, for fans of Colleen Hoover, Tahlia Hibbert, Ana Huang, Lauren Asher, Tessa Bailey and Hannah Grace.

#Review By Lou – #CallingAllSwifties #BookReview of Little People, Big Dreams Series – Taylor Swift #KidsLit #ChildrensBook #Swifties #NonFiction #TaylorSwift #Music

Taylor Swift
Part of Little People, Big Dreams Series
By Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara

Learn about the glittering story of Taylor Swift! The talented singer-songwriter who dreamed of sharing her talent with the world.

Synopsis

The perfect gift for every Swiftie in your life, young and old, this powerful book features captivating illustrations and extra facts at the back, including a biographical timeline with photos of the star and a detailed profile of her life…

Little People, BIG DREAMS is a best-selling biography series for kids that explores the lives of outstanding people, from designers and artists to scientists and activists. All of them achieved incredible things, yet each began life as a child with a dream.

Review

Taylor Swift, she’s one of a few global superstars of the music industry. Many have been to gigs, bought her albums, downloaded her songs. This adds to the memorabilia of her life. This book is fun for fans, especially her child fans to keep as it charts her rise to meteor success, tells a little about her life pre-stardom, which makes it a bit grounded and “real” and gives a timeline of events and songs.
There are nicely placed starry photos of Taylor Swift in action.

It’s a good mix of info and presentation throughout!

All in all, it’s a fun book for young Swifties.

#Review By Lou of Have You Got Anything Stronger By Imogen Edward-Jones @welbeckpublish #Humour #ContemporaryFiction #WomensFiction #HaveYouGotAnythingStronger

Have You Got Anything Stronger
By Imogen Edward-Jones

If you like Bridget Jones or Motherland, you’ll like and appreciate the humour of Have You Got Anything Stronger. Thanks to Welbeck Publishing for a copy for review, which you can find below…

Blurb

‘I fell over laughing’ Claudia Winkleman

Sharp and furiously funny, Have You Got Anything Stronger? is a new novel about being married with two children — and having a husband whose t*ts are bigger than yours.

We follow a year in the life of four best friends as they navigate careers, friendship, love, sex, money, children, and question their harassed realities.

Why did they get married? Do they like their children? Does lemon in your vodka and tonic count as one of your five a day? Does life ever, you know, slow down?

Between running late, meetings, pick-ups and drop- offs, it’s clear the hamster wheel never really stops turning and the question eventually must be asked . . .

Is this it?

For fans of Why Mummy Drinks, this next-generation Bridget Jones’s Diary will resonate with women who, between running late for playdates, meetings and Ocado deliveries, have realised that the hamster wheel never stops turning, and it may be too late to crash out.

Review

Well, I am a fan of Bridget Jones’s Diary and humour, so gave this book a try. It is true, the “hamster wheel” never stops turning, no matter where you are and how else your life looks like, whether you’ve got kids or not or other responsibilities, this book is relatable with comedic moments throughout. It also shown the cliques some women get themselves into and believe in, which was a good reflection of how things can sometimes be. It reflects pretty well how some parents can be with their kids and then running around for pick-ups and drop-offs and more…

There’s the quips that many of us have used, like joking about fruit being one of your 5 a day when it’s a bit stuck in something alcoholic.

All in all a funny, but reflective look at some women’s lives and how some of them act. If it truly isn’t you, you probably know someone who the characters are like.

#Review By Lou of Home for Christmas by Heidi Swain – #WynbridgeSeries @Heidi_Swain @BookMinxSJV #Christmas #ChristmasReads #RomFic #WomensFiction #BlogTour #HomeForChristmas #ChristmasPresents

Home for Christmas
By Heidi Swain

Written by Louise

Home For Christmas is part of the Wynbridge series, but in saying that, because it is part of a community and because Heidi Swain has a different main character each time and new things happening, it works perfectly well as a stand-alone too. So, let’s step into Christmas together and check out the blurb and then my review. This book could make a great part of your Christmas reading plan or a lovely heart-warming present for someone.

Blurb

Bella is living her best life in Wynbridge, with her beloved Spaniel, Tink. She’s found a way to keep the house she inherited from her grandparents while expanding her dream business – Away With the Fairies – and she’s ecstatic that Christmas is on the horizon!
In fact, everything is perfect until family friend, Catherine Connelly asks Bella if she’d be willing to rent part of the house to freelance author, Jude who is researching the history of the Connelly Clan and Wynthorpe Hall ahead of turning his findings into a book. The plan had been for Jude to stay at the hall, but he can’t cope with the chaos and Bella reluctantly agrees to open her door to him.
Initially, the pair clash but then friendlier feelings begin to grow and Bella finds herself wondering if Jude could become more than just another guest before it’s time for him to leave. That is, until he announces he has no time for Christmas!
With her favourite time of the year suddenly in jeopardy, will Bella ever feel like she’s home for Christmas?

Review

You know Christmas must be just around the corner when Heidi Swain has a festive book published!

Full of festive cheer, romance and community, so it’s that season of pulling on those those cosy jumpers! There may be seasonal knit-wear in this book…

Home for Christmas is set in Wynbridge and Bella is excited and life is looking good, with an inherited house and her business, the fun name of “Away With The Fairies,” being such a success. You feel her joy and get swept away, but there is Jude. He sorely injects a dilemma and a bit of an unwanted challenge that you just know she doesn’t need to dampen her spirits. Jude is an interesting enough guy, being a freelance author doing research, but you do want to give him a bit of a kick up the backside at times. He doesn’t share her passion for Christmas, not even close and yet her heart is having all the feels of romance within it, so it’s quite a hook to see what Bella does next about a potential love and Christmas and if she can fuse the two together.

Home for Christmas is so perfect, it lifts your heart. It’s a special book like that, however you feel about Christmas, even if for whatever feeling you have about it, you can’t help but feel cheered and uplifted with a light feeling in your heart. Heidi Swain once talked at the Edinburgh Women’s Festival about how she wrote this book whilst going through a difficult time, but loving Christmas and wanting to write about this festive season and hopes it’ll also inject a bit of that festive feeling in readers.

#Review of The Milky Way Smells of Rum and Raspberries and other amazing cosmic facts @iconbooks #TheMilkyWaySmellsOfRumAndRaspberries #Space #NonFiction

The Milky Way Smells of Rum and Raspberries
By Dr. Jillian Scudder

The Milky Way Smells of Rum and Raspberries is packed full of fun facts, for a start, who knew that’s what its aroma is! Find out more in the blurb and my review below.

Blurb

An offbeat guided tour of the Universe, focusing on weird and wonderful facts.

Astrophysicist Dr Jillian Scudder knows more than most of us what a surreal place the Universe can be. In this light-hearted book she delves into some of the more arcane facts that her work has revealed, and tells us how we have actually managed to discover these amazing truths.

Did you know: the galaxy is flatter than a sheet of paper; supermassive black holes can sing a super-low B flat; it rains iron on a brown dwarf, and diamonds on Neptune; you could grow turnips on Mars if its soil weren’t full of rocket fuel; the Universe is beige, on average; Jupiter’s magnetic field will short-circuit your spacecraft – and, of course, the Milky Way smells of rum and raspberries.

Review

Jam packed full of entertaining and yet mysteriously true facts about the universe we live in, The Milky Way Smells of Rum and Raspberries is a must for anyone’s book shelf. There’s lots to be learnt from it as well as footnotes of added humour. The layout and writing style makes this book accessible, even with its facts of complex discoveries. It opens up the universe like never before in a weird, interesting way with what is demonstrated and explained through facts and notions.

#Review By Lou of Little House By Katya Balen #LittleHouse @katyabalen @BarringtonStoke #MiddleGrade #ChildrensBook

Little House
By Katya Balen

Though-provoking for young readers about the concept of home in the award-winning book – Little House.
The publisher, Barrington Stoke has opened up this book by editing it to be readable for ages 8 plus, instead of 9 plus. Find out more in the blurb and my review below.

Blurb

Carnegie Medal-winning author Katya Balen explores the importance and meaning of home in this thought-provoking new novella.

Juno’s furious about being sent to stay with her grandfather for the summer. She’ll miss all the fun she and her friends had planned for the holidays. She’ll also miss her mum, but it’s her mum’s fault for leaving anyway.

Then Juno discovers a long-forgotten little family in her grandfather’s attic. As she works to carefully craft a new home for them, can she learn to forgive her mum and understand her reasons for going away?

For ages 9+ / Edited to a reading age of 8

Review

Little House has big concepts about staying for a summer with grandparents, developing an understanding about why certain things happen in families and forgiveness.

Juno finds it daunting and is a bit angst-ridden about staying with her grandfather. His house is creaky and she doesn’t like the dark, and yet it is he who is available to take care of her in the holidays whilst her mum is called away to resolve a work disaster. She is also worried about her mum having to go abroad to do this.

In time, Juno settles. She discovers a rather dishevelled dolls house in her grandfather’s home and suddenly the two of them have a project on their hands to fix, what was once her mum’s toy.

As Juno becomes a “fixer-upper” with the dolls house, her mum in some sense is one too as she tries to aid people who are refugees due to war, rebuild their lives.

Little House is a big themed book that is compelling and thought-provoking with a bit of fun, written in a way that children can get caught up in the adventure of it all and understand what they are reading.