#Review By Lou of Podcast – From The Library With Love by Kate Thompson @katethompson380 @RandomTTours #Podcast

Podcast Review~
From The Library With Love
for people who’s lives have been changed by reading
By Kate Thompson

I am on the blog tour with a review of the podcast – From The Library With Love by Kate Thompson, author of successful book – The Little Wartime Library.
A fascinating podcast and I am reviewing one of the episodes. I have a list of episodes already up and those to come and the link to where you can listen to the podcast from the author at the end of my review.

Review

Pique your interest and take time, whether your out and about or relaxing in the warmth to pique your interest in the podcast – From The Library With Love. There’s more than meets the eye in this fascinating, original podcast. It will take you to places not considered when it comes to libraries, even underground. You will meet people with such interesting stories that are deeper than you may expect.

Kate Thompson wrote the highly popular book – The Little Wartime Library. She now has a podcast you can listen to called “From The Library With Love”. I have chosen for the blog tour to review the episode – Discover The Hidden History.
I was at this event, so it’s lovely to have the opportunity to revisit an amazing time.

Kate launched The Little Wartime Library in Bethnal Green Library 100 years after it first opened. She talks to Siddy Holloway, presenter of Secrets of the London Underground and runs Hidden London, taking people into disused tube lines, secret bunkers. Original Eastender Ray Lechmere who used to shelter down the tube when he was a kid as bombs dropped overhead.
She revisits this time and from the comfort of your home, you are invited to listen about a subterranean community.

Kate talks about how she explored Clapham South underground tunnels on the tour. She brings it to life and you can really feel the atmosphere and immerses the listener. She also talks about the inspiration for her book and who inspired it. She interviewed many people, but there is one in-particular that really brings authenticity to her writing about Bethnal Green and it’s community that went underground during the Blitz and so much happening before the welfare state.

Together, the panel evokes all the senses and truly immerses the listener in the historical research and the interview with the original Eastender, who talks about how it really was going underground. It’s very moving and will give a greater understanding to what the Blitz was really like for those who didn’t live through it. It’s highly insightful, invaluable for it to be captured in a podcast.

It is an inspiring podcast about how people were “library educated” and for them giving a place to escape to. She evokes a lot of emotion at a time when libraries are closing. I find it amazing this one is still open and busy and not taken for granted, unlike so many others have been.

Hear from John Drury about a great tube disaster and how people behaved. It’s a disaster that’s been researched afresh about what actually happened. He also talks about communities today and back in the Blitz and people’s behaviours.

Robert Jones talks about Reading For Victory. A real campaign by librarians and is featured in the book. Interestingly, we today, benefit from this time. Some publishers had certain attitudes, you may be surprised by for this time.

She reads out her Love Letter to Libraries that tells a lot of truths that people don’t think about when you first walk into a library. Librarians, like me, were interviewed and she has added this, most humbly into this letter that features in her book. It’s insightful and emotional and tells some home-truths about what a library truly is, it may be more than you think…

The podcast, like the book, truly champions libraries, reading, listening to books that warms the heart. It’s a podcast that everyone would find well-worth listening to as there is lots to be gained from it in many ways.

Interviews up already:

📚 100-year-old Bletchley Park Codebreaker Betty Webb on keeping her wartime secrets.

📚 Bestselling author of The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Christy Lefteri on the importance of writing what you feel.

📚 New York Times bestselling author Madeline Martin on underground libraries and clandestine book clubs.

🎙October 2nd – 8th is Libraries Week. I’ll be releasing an episode every day with some incredible librarians, including the librarian who has kept everything she has ever found in a returned library book.

🎙November. ‘I was born in a concentration camp’ A powerful interview with 78-year-old Eva Clarke, who told me ‘‘You don’t know what you can withstand until you are put to the test.’

TO COME…

🎙December marks the 85th anniversary of the Kindertransport scheme, 97-year-old Gabriele Keeaghan bravely shares the harrowing moment she was forced to leave behind her family and flee Nazi occupied Vienna.

🎙National Letter Writing Day, I met the woman who collects forgotten letters from flea markets and told me, ‘Letters capture the essence of what it is to be living through history. In attics, and drawers and shoe boxes under beds there are hundreds of stories waiting to be told.’

Link to Podcast: From The Library With Love

#Review By Lou of The Last Bird Of Paradise By AJ Aberford @AJAberford @HobeckBooks #CrimeFiction

The Last Bird of Paradise
By AJ Aberford

Adventurous, murderous and anything but the quiet life for George Zammit in his latest outing. Find out more in the blurb and my thoughts in my review below. Thanks to Hobeck Books for inviting me to review.

Blurb

An act of sacrifice
A young boy starts his journey in the refugee camps of Syria, only to find himself excited on the terraces of a football stadium in London. How did he get there and what does Uncle want him to do to? Who can set the Birds of Paradise free?

One more adventure
George Zammit’s quest for a quiet life, as a Maltese policeman and soon-to-be grandfather, is disrupted once again with orders to travel to Syria to gather evidence of potential fraud in the refugee camps. Accompanied by his son, Denzel, a seemingly simple mission quickly unravels, as George encounters a deadly former foe and discovers the secrets of The Birds of Paradise. As always, George finds himself in a perilous predicament not of his making.

One enemy too many
Natasha Bonnici has risen to the top of one of Europe’s most powerful crime groups. Rich beyond imagining, she is also increasingly isolated and under attack for her past deeds. Who can she trust? Can she escape her fate? As George Zammit knows, all paths cross in Malta, and vengeance waits around every corner.

Review

The Last Bird of Paradise is a gripping, colourful read, but perhaps not quite all is as beautiful as the feathers of a bird of paradise as certain events unfold.

George Zammit’s life is anything but quiet, even though that’s what he set it out to be. He’d probably need to retire and leave the country to get that kind of a life!
His boss, Assistant Commissioner, Gerald Camilleri has a mission to Syria he wants to send him on and chooses his son, Denzel to accompany him. The task itself is simple enough when set out on paper or said out loud, except that isn’t how things transpire. Murder follows Zammit and there’s the complexities of someone from his past and powerful crime groups that have a quite the grip.
There are some really good, interesting family moments as certain people reconnect with each other and relationships evolve.

With a strong prologue and an ending that won’t leave you disappointed.
With many emotions of certain political truths, refugees and huge crimes in-between, The Last Bird of Paradise is a compelling read, that may well have you feeling many different emotions.

#Review of Upstairs at the Beresford By Will Carver @OrendaBooks @RandomTTours #Thriller

Upstairs at the Beresford
By Will Carver

There are many things to keep you awake at night. Will Carver’s books do that to me and may well to you too. They are so graspable. so attention grabbing that putting them down is hard to do. Upstairs at the Beresford – book 2 following on from The Beresford Hotel. Like all of Will Carver’s books has something that most or all readers will take away with them after reading this or any of his books.
Today I am on the blog tour for Random T. Tours and Orenda Books. Take a look at the blurb and then my no spoiler review and a couple of places it’s available, below.

Blurb

There are worse places than hell…

Hotel Beresford is a grand, old building, just outside the city. And any soul is welcome.

Danielle Ortega works nights, singing at whatever dive bar will offer her a gig. She gets by, keeping to herself.

Sam Walker gambles and drinks, and can’t keep his hands to himself. Now he’s tied up in a shoe closet with a dent in his head that matches Danielle’s broken ashtray.

The man in 731 has been dead for two days and his dog has not stopped barking. Two doors down, the couple who always smokes on the window ledge will mysteriously fall.

Upstairs, in the penthouse, Mr Balliol sees it all. He can peer into every crevice of every floor of the hotel from his screen-filled suite. He witnesses humanity and inhumanity in all its forms: loneliness, passion and desperation in equal measure. All the ingredients he needs to make a deal.

When Danielle returns home one night to find Sam gone, a series of sinister events begins to unfold. But strange things often occur at Hotel Beresford, and many are only a distraction to hide something much, much darker…

Review

Enter The Beresford if you dare… You will learn what the rather chilling Legend of the Faustian Bargain is. Hopefully your soul will remain in-tact… If you happen to read the book, you will discover more about what I mean by that.

It’s thought-provoking in many parts. One of them is the point of how we only make a list of things to do when you know you’re dying. This, when you really think about it, is true, except for possibly a few. For me, I started to create a list in my teens, knowing life is precious, there’s a lot of things to do and one day, we all die, we may not all know when. So I started to tick some things off and over time, I’ve added to it and so it goes on…
The book asks many questions for readers to perhaps ponder over, as well as the characters. It truly bores down into the human psyche and how we behave, how we work, but wish we spent more time doing something else.

Much like the start of the book, as you meet the characters in each room, as the chapters are named within each “experiment” as the parts are called, Carver has ensured the reader remains engaged by cleverly writing, as though he is addressing you every so often.

The Beresford is a grand building, rather an old hotel in-fact that isn’t short of people with all sorts of lives they’re leading, staying within its rooms and apartments.

The Hotel Beresford is one of curiosity as you enter it further and meet everyone residing there. It’s buzzing, full of all sorts of life and deceased life. People, who come from all walks of life. The Beresford is also almost a character in itself, in stature as well as with a certain line eluding to this that makes me think of the saying “if walls had ears”.
There’s a lot of atmosphere. You can practically hear what the music would be like in the dead of night from Danielle Ortega.

Mr Balliol is interesting and is intrigued by the human condition, which this book highlights a lot of, as Will Carver’s books often do, with pure brilliance.

The other, often troubled characters are also interesting to meet and get to know there story too. They come from all walks of life.

World issues are also mentioned, with sheer and forceful anger that leaps from the page and anyone not apathetic, will feel it. It’s a fast, short part, but jumps out, before it goes onto the rest of the characters stories.

How I wish they’d be televised or something. That would be genius because here is an author with so much creativity in his writing and with so many important things to say, about life and society.

Once finished, like most of Will Carver’s books, it may well linger on with you. Upstairs at the Beresford, like the other books, are powerful reads. It’s all in the character building and the writing style, especially the style he presents stories. They pack a punch!

Discover the characters, why they’re at The Beresford Hotel and what the “Crossroads” are throughout the book. It’s worth taking a chance and allowing this book to consume you…. but hopefully with your soul in-tact.

If you want to buy, I’ve scouted around and there are a few places. I’ve mentioned a couple. I’m not affiliated to any place by the way.

Bookshop.org Waterstones

#Review By Lou of The Unseen By Lilla Glass #Fantasy @CityOwlPress

The Unseen
By Lilla Glass

Discover what The Unseen means in this entertaining fantasy book and what secrets does a young girl hold in the world she is in? Discover more in the blurb and my review below.

Blurb

Elwyn is remarkably unremarkable, and she prefers it that way. What more could a thief hope for than to pass through life unseen?

Perhaps it is a talent owed to the training of the notorious syndicate that reared her, or it may be a gift from her invisible friend—a clever and capricious creature who, unlike most invisible friends, has only grown more real with time.

Either way, Elwyn’s un-remarkability is about to fail her.

Upon absconding to the tiny town of Amblewick in search of a quiet, uneventful life, she catches the attention of two feuding tricksters, each in the market for the perfect pawn.

Through either fate or magical machinations, she soon finds herself in the company of a cutthroat assassin, a wayward prince, and a little girl with a chilling secret. Despite their differences, this ragtag group of ruffians just might manage to save multiple worlds…provided they don’t kill each other first.

Review

Cutthroat assassins and wayward princes makes the book a little whimsical, but then what may grab you, as it did me is a little girl with a huge secret. That and the world-building makes this book just about gripping enough and then there’s the action, which draws you in even closer.

Brannon is a grumpy, cold-hearted assassin. Not someone to be trusted.
Aeydin and Fae, who bring some romance.
Lydia and Tawney who have secrets and set readers off into this fantastical world.
Elwyn with the strange gift of un-remarkability, even though is a thief, but then would be quite useful for this. The problem is, Elwyn, who, in the world of the ‘unseen’ would love be part of the ‘seen’ world.
There are also the Tricksters to create mischief and mayhem.
On a deeper level it makes you think of society and how people are ‘seen’ and some are perceived as or feel like they are ‘unseen’ and also that of conjured up mystical imaginary friends.

It’s a fairly entertaining read for around Christmas time, although it isn’t really a Christmassy book, but the tone for it is there in some of the frivolity of it, and then there’s the right amount of darkness, just twisting it up a bit.

#Review By Lou of The Secrets of Rochester Place By Iris Costello @CostelloWords @PenguinRandom @EllieeHud

The Secrets of Rochester Place
By Iris Costello

Although set in Spring, The Secrets of Rochester Place is a great winter read.
If walls could talk…
Find out more in the blurb and my opinion in the review below.

Blurb

Spring 1937: Teresa is evacuated to London in the wake of the Guernica bombing. She thinks she’s found safety in the soothing arms of Mary Davidson and the lofty halls of Rochester Place, but trouble pursues her wherever she goes.

Autumn 2020: Corrine, an emergency dispatcher, receives a call from a distressed woman named Mary. But when the ambulance arrives at the address, Mary is nowhere to be found. Intrigued, Corinne investigates and, in doing so, disturbs secrets that have long-dwelt in Rochester Place’s crumbling walls. Secrets that, once revealed, will change her life for ever . . .

Who is Mary Davidson? And what happened at Rochester Place all those years ago?

Review

Set between 1937 and 2020, it has an eerie quality intertwined in mystery. Mary phoned Corrine, telling her about a child under rubble. The house she says she is in no longer exists, as such. This sparks many questions, including what happened to Rochester Place and what secrets are being harboured there? Where did Mary suddenly disappear to?
If walls could talk they would tell a thousand stories or more… The crumbled walls of Rochester Place has had its time of harbouring secrets and now is its time for letting them all unravel from its crumbling structure.

It’s quite a complex story set in complicated times as both The Spanish Civil War and World War 2 rumbles on. Everyone has a story to tell, whether its about friendship, bigotry and more…
There’s a lot that people can take from this book, whether it is something about both of these wars or the bigotry aspects that people faced then and still, sadly face today.

Join Corrine on what turns out to be quite an intriguing investigation in challenging times into what is a multi-layered, mystifying story about 2 people separated by time.

#Review By Lou of This Year’s For Me and You By Emily Bell #EmilyBell @PenguinRandom @MichaelJBooks

This Year’s For Me and You
By Emily Bell

This Year’s For Me and You is heart-warming and just gets you into the festive spirit and ready for ringing in the bells for the new year.

Blurb

When Celeste loses her best friend Hannah, she’ll do anything to keep her spirit alive.

So when she uncovers her friend’s old list of New Year’s resolutions, Celeste vows to complete them all.

One adventure at a time, she rediscovers how wonderful life can be.

But when one resolution leads her to someone from her past, Celeste can’t help but wonder . . .

Could the biggest adventure of all be falling in love?

Review

This is a heart-warming story that is great for seeing in the new year. It’s full of tradition like making new year’s resolutions and the warmth of hope and wonder of what’s to come.

Hannah was Celeste’s best friend and it is heart-wrenchingly emotional to learn that she dies. This is when the almost magical part comes in, where memories are re-ignited and new hope comes and surprises spring into life – there’s a new year’s resolutions list that was Hannah’s that gets discovered. What follows feels bittersweet and tender. Celeste vows to honour her friend and do everything in the list. It sends her on quite an adventure of discovery, and re-discovery as one resolution brings her back to an old flame. The ‘will they won’t they’ scenario kicks in and by this time, I’m so invested in the characters that I find myself rooting for Celeste’s love to come alive again as grief and peace circle.

Go on an adventure of a lifetime to bring you in the new year and be inspired to carry out your own resolutions. This book sure does the job and will leave a fuzzy warm glow inside, quite the contrast from the wintry temperatures outside.

You can buy at Waterstones
Please not I am not affiliated to Waterstones in any way.