Pam Ayres, famous for humorous poems for both adults and children. This latest collection of poems for children is perfect for some spring reading. Find out more in the blurb and then I have a review below that, thanks to Macmillan Kids for the book.
Blurb
Join Hattie the playful Brown Hare as she leaps from meadow to farm to heath, in this heartwarming tale written in rhyme by the much-loved poet Pam Ayres, author of The Last Hedgehog.
We didn’t always live here, once we had a sunny home, We came here with centurions, all the way from Rome . . .
From grape green meadows to old-fashioned farms, hares travelled thousands of miles to find a home in the British countryside. What do they eat? What’s their perfect habitat? Can you tell them apart from rabbits?
Wonderfully illustrated by award-winning artist Nicola O’Byrne, I Am Hattie the Hare is a follow-up to the bestselling I Am Oliver the Otter. Bursting with natural and historical facts interwoven throughout the story, and with an information spread at the end that includes tips on where to spot these gentle animals.
Review
The mix of poetic rhyme and scenes that Pam Ayres creates is, in my view, sublime. It’s great that she now writes poems for children too. They learn a lot from rhymes at any age. Poems, when told and written well, stick in their brains. Poems can also be fun. Pam Ayres encompasses all of this in this book.
I am Hattie the Hare will inspire many young minds to look around them this springtime and have fun in playful rhyme where they’ll learn something new and have fun at the same time.
Can’t ask for anything more in a poetry book for children.
Everyone needs a book with positivity from time to time and this has bags of it. Find out more in the blurb and review below, thanks to Orion Books for a copy.
Blurb
Among the cobbled streets of Frome in Somerset, Lou is about to start something new. After losing her mother, she knows it’s time to take a chance and open her own vintage clothes shop.
In upstate New York, Donna receives some news about her family which throws everything she thought she knew into question. The only clue she has to unlock her past is a picture of a yellow dress.
Maggy is in her seventies, newly divorced and all alone in an empty house. Visiting the little vintage shop in Frome, with its rows of beautiful dresses, brings back cherished memories she’d long put aside.
In ways they can’t imagine, one dress is about to change their lives forever…
Review
On the backdrop of the lovely, picturesque county of Somerset, England, Lou is setting out to create something positive after a sad situation, her mother died. The book sets out to show that something good can come out of hard times. It does it rather endearingly, when Lou, in her 30’s, follows her passion for everything vintage and opens up a shop.
Hard times can fall onto someone at any age and in any place, as Donna and Maggie show. They both travel many miles and end up in Frome, Somerset and meet Lou in her vintage shop, which evokes many memories. There’s emotion and humour all round. Little do they know that this chance encounter and a dress will be life-changing, giving them all something new to discover and focus on.
Fashion, friendship, turning a big page to a new chapter in life all feature in what is a lovely, uplifting, positive read.
After reading and reviewing the first two of the Merseyside crime series, Catch As Catch Can and Syn, it gives me great pleasure to be back on the Hobeck Books blog tour for the third instalment. You can read it as a stand-alone or as part of the series. I’ve also trawled through my many photos of Liverpool and included the Albert Docks and the Liverbirds Building that are mentioned after my review. I don’t live in Liverpool, but have visited this city.
Blurb
Edge of the Land is the thrilling third novel in the Merseyside crime series from Malcolm Hollingdrake, author of the best-selling Harrogate crime series.
The waterways of the Liverpool docks contain many ghosts and shadows. It’s a place to disappear… a place to die. Detective Inspector April Decent and Detective Sergeant Skeeter Warlock are fearful for the welfare of a vulnerable young man injured in an attack ordered by drug dealers. Originally questioned at the scene, the young man denies the attack and refuses to co-operate with the police. He soon disappears. Clues to his whereabouts are sown, a cry for help maybe, but he remains elusive.
At the same time, the team are dealing with a spate of deaths in the city. The one thing the deaths have in common: the victims are all homeless and seemingly ravaged by addiction. Initially, the deaths are not considered to be suspicious as there is no obvious connection. Soon the hallmarks of murder are discovered and a hunt for a potential serial killer is on. Is there a link between the missing man and the deaths? Could he be the vital piece of the puzzle which will solve the mystery behind the brutal murders?
Review
The Merseyside crime series is gritty with twists and turns, creating a dark, yet very compelling atmosphere. In reality, the docklands around Liverpool is an interesting area to visit, for readers who perhaps visit this city or live in and around it.
The writing is engaging, with shades of light and dark. There’s a petty criminal, Danny, who has been sadly involved in crime since the age of 8, so knows no different. It’s quite a reflection on certain areas of society and how people can turn out. He’s now fallen foul to a drugs gang. Police are concerned about his activities and his welfare.
Homeless people are seen as “easy targets” and are being murdered. As a wider picture emerges, it looks like a serial killer is on the lose, going through the Liverpudlian streets.
Detective Inspector April Decent and Detective Sergeant Skeeter Warlock are the beat to solve both cases. Both are gripping and intriguing and not easy for the police to piece together the fragments of evidence.
It’s a fascinating read with tricky puzzles to solve before time runs out. There’s a lot for the police to handle and a lot at stake in this pacy read.
Pics are of the docks and Liverbirds building that are mentoned in the book.
The Night In Question is mysterious, emotional and a story that becomes life-affirming.
Blurb
Florence Butterfield has lived an extraordinary life full of travel, passion and adventure. But, at eighty-seven, she suspects there are no more surprises to come her way.
Then, one midsummer’s night, something terrible happens – so strange and unexpected that Florrie is suspicious. Was this really an accident, or is she living alongside a would-be murderer?
The only clue is a magenta envelope, discarded earlier that day.
And Florrie – cheerfully independent but often overlooked – is the only person determined to uncover the truth.
As she does, Florrie finds herself looking back on her own life . . . and a long-buried secret, traced in faded scars across her knuckles, becomes ever harder to ignore.
Readers of Elizabeth is Missing, Small Pleasures or Dear Mrs Bird will love prize-winning author Susan Fletcher’s The Night in Question – an absorbing and uplifting novel with a uniquely loveable protagonist at its heart.
Review
The Night In Question is evocative, with a main character with a colourful past. Florence is an octogenarian, so has a lot of lived experience of life and been quite the adventurer through her travelling. Now, she is wheelchair bound due to an amputation and is in a carehome. There’s a lot for her to reflect upon, which means the reader really gets to delve into who she really is and by the end of the book, you feel like you know her rather well. Life isn’t as uneventful as she perhaps first thought.
It’s an evocative and interesting book, full of emotion and intrigue. There’s a lot more than care going home in this carehome. There’s murder afoot and Stanhope Jones and Florence (Florrie) think just know it, whereas others assume it is suicide. Florrie is invested in solving the crime, since she had been conversing with Renata just before she died.
Florrie is a terrific character to get to know in what is an absolutely engrossing book to read.
It’s a book I can see reading again some time in the future.
Hauntingly beautiful and vibrant, Roseland is the latest book by Judy Finnegan, set in Cornwall. Find out more in the blurb and my review below.
Blurb
Lose yourself in the Cornish countryside with this gorgeous new novel from the Richard and Judy Book Club champion. If you love Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, you’ll adore Roseland.
The summers spent at Roseland, the sprawling ancestral home of her best friend, Eloise, were among the happiest of Cathy’s life. Tucked away on the Cornish coastline and brimming with history, Roseland seemed to belong to another century.
Cathy has barely been back since Eloise’s death a decade ago. So she is shocked when Jack, the love of Eloise’s life and father of her children, announces that he is getting married, and that the wedding will take place at Roseland.
As Cathy and Eloise’s family gather at the house for the first time in years, long buried secrets and resentments come to the surface. Nobody likes Jack’s new bride, but is she really the imposter everybody claims, or are they merely haunted by memories of Eloise? And how can Cathy look to the future, when the past refuses to let go?
Utterly captivating and beautifully told, with echoes of du Maurier’s Rebecca, this is the gorgeous new novel from the bestselling book-club champion.
Review
Roseland, with a gorgeous backdrop in Cornwall sounds serene, a place to escape to, but the reality is rather different from something dreamy conjured up in the mind. It’s a house with history and in this case one that carries a haunting atmosphere.
The beautiful descriptive writing carries you along and envelopes you into the landscape, which also means you pick up on the feel of the place.
There’s the glamour of a wedding to be held at Roseland, but there’s still the lasting legacy of Eloise. When you meet the Trelawney family and get to know them, you discover the secrets they’ve been hiding for a rather long time and the grief from Eloise’s death that still lingers and haunts them.
There’s an intense air of Daphne De Maurier in the writing and the atmosphere that Judy Finnegan creates.
It’s a book to lose yourself in and be captured by Cornwall’s beauty.
“Big night out. Big. HUGE. Pretty Woman: The Musical is finally embarking on a UK and Ireland tour – so make a date to see Hollywood’s ultimate rom-com, live on stage…” See the link for booking tickets after my review. It’s going to several theatres in both the UK and Ireland, so could be one near you! *Please note, I am not affiliated to any theatre.
Cast
Amber Davies as Vivian Ore Oduba as Happy Man/Mr Thompson Oliver Savile as Edward Natalie Paris as Kit de Luca Ben Darcy as Philip Stuckey Chomba Taulo as David Morse Stuart Maciver was Phillip Stuckey Swing cast: Becky Anderson, Rebekah Bryant, Joshua Lear, Stuart Maciver, Victoria Rachel McCabe. Ensemble: Andrew Davison, Sydrie Hocknell, Ellie Jay, Michael Kolwadia, Eleanor Morrison Halliday, LJ Neilson, Annell Odarty, Elliott David Parkes, Curtis Patrick, Toby Shellard
Synopsis
Once upon a time in the late ’80s, Vivian met Edward and her life changed forever. Be swept up in their romance in this dazzlingly theatrical take on a love story for the ages – and get to know these iconic characters in a whole new way – in a sensational show that took London’s West End by storm, guaranteed to lift your spirits and light up your heart.
Review
It’s the 1980’s and the opening sequence oozes with colour and life. Get into the Hollywood groove and enter The Blue Banana Club to meet Vivian and Kit De Luca and others in a terrific song and dance sequence, full of so much energy that you can feel it sweep into the audience. Then get swept off your feet in the romance as you see escort, Vivian’s life change when she meets business-man Edward. Get caught up in the fashions of the day when Vivian hits Rodeo Drive and high fashion shops, which are ingeniously recreated. See how lives transform. The transforming of the whole stage to recreate iconic scenes of the film/movie, coupled with a terrific score means all eyes are glued to the stage for the entire time in enjoyment and entertainment. Throughout, there are big, bold musical numbers, with some quieter songs in-between, all carrying the story seamlessly from “scene to scene”.
To my delight, the musical pretty much follows the film, but with great musical scores added that carry the story along.
Amber Davies is very convincing as Vivian, so much so that you no longer see it as a part just for Julia Roberts. It’s like she’s perfectly cast as Vivian taking the chance away from the club. You can hear in her voice and see in the way she acts, the vulnerability, the passion, the strength and the determination as the show progresses. The chemistry between her and Oliver Savile as Edward projects very well as the love story unfolds. He switches very well between being a suave business man buying up businesses and dealing with lawyers to transforming Vivian and bedroom romance, (which is all done very tastefully) very smoothly.
Ore Oduba as Happy Man/Mr Thompson brought some terrific humour in both his delivery of lines and at times, his poise. Look out for a fun homage to his time on Strictly. This guy, however is very multi-talented and carries the charisma needed for this roll, wonderfully.
Ben Darcy normally plays Philip Stuckey, but when I saw this production I saw the excellent Stuart Maciver who embodies this manipulating character with aplomb and great acting skill.
The ensemble cast were also compelling, adding to the richness of stage action in both dance and song.
All the cast sang with great depth and richness to their voices. They all fit together incredibly well. It truly is an excellent cast.
I highly recommend this musical, whether you’ve seen the film or not. Either way, I’m fairly certain you won’t be disappointed.
I’ll also add that it’s ingenious and wonderfully creative what is said at the beginning of the show and interval… to find out what that is and about the rest, you’ll have to watch the show.
Bookmarks and Stages by Lou 