Sincerely Me By Julietta Henderson @JuliettaJulia1 @TransworldBooks @alisonbarow @RandomTTours #SincerelyMe is #ContemporaryFiction

Sincerely Me
By Julietta Henderson

Sincerely Me has humour, darkness and a main character whose life isn’t going anywhere but suddenly something happens that means it is about to change in unimaginable ways. The author has previously written The Funny Thing About Norman Foreman, which captured the attention of Richard and Judy for their book club. Check out the blurb and my full review below. Thanks first to Random T. Tours for inviting me onto the blog tour.

Blurb

An uplifting and heart-warming novel about a family reunited, second chances and the power of forgiveness, from the author of Richard & Judy Book Club pick The Funny Thing about Norman Foreman.

Danny is the definition of a man who ‘could do better’. He drinks more than he should, currently lives in his best friend’s garden shed – and he hasn’t spoken to his sister in 16 years.

But when Danny is the subject of a misleading newspaper article, claiming his lifestyle is actually quite enlightened, he suddenly finds himself in the limelight. Letters begin to flood in from strangers seeking his guidance.

Wolfie is the daughter of Danny’s estranged sister, Lou. She’s never met her uncle, but her mother is struggling. So when Wolfie sees Danny’s picture in the paper, she sets out to find him.

Within a week, Danny goes from being responsibility-free to a big brother, an uncle and an unwitting existential ‘guru’ to some very lost souls.

Can he become the man they all need him to be?

Review

I got into the book right away. Danny’s life isn’t going too well and I’m sure not as he planned it. It is assumed it is an enlightened life, like they assume it is all care-free. He thinks of it rather differently and no wonder, since he doesn’t exactly have a fixed abode, no job after a period of lurching from one job to another, is single and his family are estranged. He also gets arrested for graffiti. It is an appealing read as here is a man whose life isn’t as he would have hoped and is far from perfect and yet he has a life changing moment.
It is odd how life works out and also not as he may have expected it. He then turns into an agony uncle as people start writing to him for advice.Then, Wolfie, the daughter of his sister, Lou, turns up out of the blue. Suddenly it is like everyone wants a piece of him and he needs to grapple with this and readers need to read to see if he can be what they need to help them through their crisis. Lou, his estranged sister is also in a crisis, which is why her daughter has set off to find her uncle, even though they’ve never met before.

The book has humour amongst many sad, darker side of life topics, which adds a certain grittiness and it all in all a pretty good read from the start with all the characters you meet, but told from Danny and Wolfie’s point of view and are characters worth investing time in. It is worth seeing if life truly gets on a different track or if it is a temporary detour back to where he whence came.

#Review of A Beginner’s Guide To Ruling The Galaxy By David Solomons #DavidSolomons @NosyCrow #MiddleGrade #ChildrensBook #Humour #Sci-Fi #ABeginnersGuideToRulingTheGalaxy #BookRecommendation

A Beginner’s Guide To Ruling The Galaxy
By David Solomons

A Beginner’s Guide To Ruling The Galaxy is a humorous Middle Grade book for ages 9 plus and already a hit with some “reading teachers” in schools for reading for pleasure times. David Solomons has also won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize.
Thanks firstly to Nosy Crow for accepting my request to review.

A brilliantly funny story for 9+ readers about what happens when a galactic princess moves in next door and almost brings about the end of the world, from the bestselling, award-winning author of My Brother is a Superhero.

Gavin’s got a new neighbour and she’s really annoying. Niki follows him everywhere, bosses him about, and doesn’t care that her parents will obliterate Earth with their galactic warships if she doesn’t stop running away from them.

Can Niki and Gavin sort out the alien despots (aka Mum and Dad) and save the planet? Possibly.

Will they become friends along the way? Doubtful…

A hilarious new story from the author of My Brother Is a Superhero, winner of the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and the British Book Industry Awards Children’s Book of the Year. Perfect for fans of David Baddiel and David Walliams.

Review

A Beginner’s Guide To Ruling The Galaxy is humorous with much hi-jinx in a fast-paced sci-fi adventure.
Children will find it fun finding out about Gavin, who is generally quite a private person and his strange new neighbour, Niki. The quirks and adventure is the type of fun that children can really get stuck into. There is a lot to like in this packed-full book. It’s a book that is great for reading for pleasure alone and with an adult together as there are certain quips that adults would appreciate but children would see very differently, much like in family films, there’s something for everyone.

The book makes me remember tv drama My Parents Are Aliens and Third Rock From the Sun but with the quick humour of the likes of David Walliams. That aside, the book has its own originality too with its own blend of relatable characters, who are interesting to discover more about, throughout its themes of family, friendship and kinship.
The premise of aliens walking among us is always going to be fun, but with the way this is written, the author has nailed it!

#Review By Lou of Someone To Kiss By Jamie Anderson #JamieAnderson @jandersonwrites #GoSocialBooks @rararesources #Romcom #RomanticFiction #BlogTour

Someone To Kiss
By Jamie Anderson

Someone To Kiss is witty and romantic. If you’re a fan of Beth O’Leary and Jo-Jo Moyes you may enjoy this book. You’ll find the blurb and review below and a bit about the author. Thanks to Rachel Random Resources inviting me on the blog tour.

Blurb

A Hilarious and Heartening Take on the Pitfalls of Modern Dating

As the clock strikes midnight over a disastrous New Year’s Eve and happy couples celebrate all around her, Kate makes a resolution, hastily scrawled on the back of a napkin, that next New Year’s Eve she will have found someone of her own to kiss.

But when you’re a forty-something cat-mom who’d rather binge Netflix than brave the singles scene, finding someone to kiss turns out to be harder than it sounds. Kate is totally unprepared for navigating hook-up apps, speed-dating, and sliding into somebody’s DMs.

With the end of the year rapidly approaching, Kate seems further than ever from reaching her goal. As relationships crumble around her and dark long-kept secrets spill out, could Kate’s fixation on her quest cause her to let true love slip through her fingers forever.

Someone to Kiss is a wry and witty romantic comedy, tackling serious issues with real heart. The perfect new read for fans of Beth O’Leary, Jennier Weiner and JoJo Moyes.

Review

Kate would like to find love, now she has reached the grand era of being in her 40s, working in marketing, where you get the measure of the man she works for quite quickly.

It’s the start of a new year and she is aware that she will never meet a man if she stays home with her cat and binge-watching Netflix in her spare time. Her New Year’s resolution is to enter the singles dating scene. It is a bit Bridget Jones meets Love Actually meets health issues. There is heart and humorous characters to meet in fun storytelling.

With help from a friend to set up a profile on the dating sites. What happens next is a series of dates and this is where the humour is. You can’t help but feel sorry for Kate, but the consequences are funny. She sort of feels societal pressures to find a partner but I feel it is also her desire to as well. There is a guy who cares about her, loves her but is so unspoken that you want to tell him to do something about his feelings, as she dates all these other guys, trying to find the one. This guy, however is also battling mental health issues and struggles a bit. It is good that this highlights male mental health as figures are so high. That’s what made me want to review the book with the hope the rest was good. It’s a different and real slant, this, being quite a big issue is what makes me think of Jo-Jo Moyes books as they also have romance intertwined with health issues.
Kate and her best friend drink excessively, makes you feel a bit sorry for them, but Kate is still a good and fun character to read and has a good attitude on the whole.

Ultimately the book is entertaining and has a good balance. It’s a good one to sit back, relax with a glass of wine and just have fun with.

About the Author

Jamie Anderson is based in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. A proud Canadian and Saskatchewanian, she wanted to set her first two novels in the place she was born and raised.

She works in content marketing, has a certificate in professional writing and has done a smattering of freelance writing, character development and copyediting over the past several years.

She’s been writing for as long as she can remember, and has been reading for longer than that. She lives happily with her mountain of books, her TV and her two plants.

#BookReview By Lou of Sunrise With The Silver SurfersBy Maddie Please @MaddiePlease1 @BoldwoodBooks #TheSilverSurfers is entertaining #Uplit with #Travel #Friendship #Romance in #ContemporaryFiction

Sunrise With The Silver Surfers
By Maddie Please

You’re never too old to have some fun in the sun with sea and sand in this book that will appeal to both the retired and younger readers alike. It gives hope, elements of surprise and intrigue, whilst being uplifting and adventurous in the exciting travel plans. Discover more in the blurb and my thoughts below.

The brand new novel from the #1 bestselling author of The Old Ducks’ Club!

Newly single at sixty, Elin Anderson decides it’s finally time for an adventure of her own. With her marriage to tedious Tom now officially over, Elin plans to visit the family she hasn’t seen in years. First stop: Australia!

But going home is harder than Elin thought. Everywhere she turns Elin sees brightness and colour, which only makes her own life seem even more drab and beige. How has she let herself fade away?

Determined to have some fun, Elin reluctantly agrees to join The Silver Surfers – a group of seniors who travel the coast, only caring about their next big adventure. Because life’s too short to watch the ocean when you could be making waves…

There’s only one catch – her road trip companion, Kit Pascoe. Kit is a man who doesn’t know the meaning of the word fun and makes it clear to Elin that this adventure will be subject to his own strict rules.

But with every new day, Elin slowly begins to rediscover who she really is. And she’s certain that rules are meant to be broken…aren’t they?

Perfect for fans of Judy Leigh and Dee Macdonald

Review

This is perfect for sweeping winter away and escaping to the sun. This is the first book I have read by Maddie Please and I rather enjoyed it. All that promise of fun travel on holidays that beckons and companionship makes this great to sit back and for awhile, let the sea within the book wash all your cares away and bring inspiration and a warm feeling like the sun beaming down on you.

Elin was living in what sounds like a kindly neighbourhood. Her marriage hasn’t survived intact, as some don’t when life changes into a new phase. There are also changes where she lives. We meet her at Heathrow Airport waiting for her flight to Australia, where she was born. Most of us people watch and that’s what she does, she’s also a bit introspective as she looks around at her fellow passengers. She also likes some of the more lavish lifestyle and goes to town in treating herself. You can feel the relief of the divorce and see she is ready for a new adventure. She isn’t alone when she touches down in Australia, she has Rowan, Maggie and Shane to meet up with.
Then she has Kit Pascoe to meet and contend with… her main travel companion. Will they warm to each other? Will he get into the spirit of things? Where will their explorations lead them?

As her new big adventure begins, in many ways, she gets more than she and the group get more than they bargained for. Not everything is plain-sailing. There are just a few unexpected challenges to face to say the least. Some more complicated for Elin to work out than others, including her emotions and how she’s going to be in this phase of her life, what paths, personally, to take. Then there’s home in the UK, that one way or another, isn’t ever too far away, even when she is physically thousands of miles away. There are elements here and there that are reminiscent of Shirley Valentine, in a good way. There’s part of story within this that could go either way. There are elements of the book being a page turner as curiosity as to how it all turn out firmly bites.

It’s an adventure of a lifetime and one worth joining The Silver Surfers on. I certainly wasn’t disappointed.

Thanks to Boldwood Books for the review e-book copy to review from.

#Review By Lou of Chapters 1 and 2 of #TheSatsumaComplex By @RealBobMortimer #TheSatsumaComplexExclusiveFirstLookChapters12 @JessBarratt88 @simonschusterUK

The Satsuma Complex
By Bob Mortimer

I am so excited to review the first 2 chapters, thanks to Jess Barratt at Simon & Schuster has presented to me in e-book form. The star rating is based on the first 2 chapters alone as this is what I’ve been exceedingly lucky to have been gifted. I’ve liked Bob Mortimer’s work for a long time. His comedic style amuses me and although I’ve not been fishing since I was a child, I’ve been enjoying, most recently, “Mortimer and Whitehouse Gone Fishing”and all those tales and life experiences they share. Now, Bob Mortimer has a debut novel – The Satsuma Complex… Follow down to the blurb and see if the first 2 chapters capture my attention and imagination like his tv shows, it’s a big question as tv and books are in some ways different mediums. Find out if I’m hooked into this contemporary fiction…

Blurb

My name is Gary. I’m a thirty-year-old legal assistant with a firm of solicitors in London. To describe me as anonymous would be unfair but to notice me other than in passing would be a rarity. I did make a good connection with a girl, but that blew up in my face and smacked my arse with a fish slice.

Gary Thorn goes for a pint with a work acquaintance called Brendan. When Brendan leaves early, Gary meets a girl in the pub. He doesn’t catch her name, but falls for her anyway. When she suddenly disappears without saying goodbye, all Gary has to remember her by is the book she was reading: The Satsuma Complex. But when Brendan goes missing, Gary needs to track down the girl he now calls Satsuma to get some answers.

And so begins Gary’s quest, through the estates and pie shops of South London, to finally bring some love and excitement into his unremarkable life…

A page-turning story with a cast of unforgettable characters, The Satsuma Complex is the brilliantly funny first novel by bestselling author and comedian Bob Mortimer.

Review

Everything looks intriguing to begin with, from the cover to the blurb and the humour within it. But what of those pages inside?
From page 1 I start to get the measure of Gary Thorn, a 30 year old legal assistant and his seemingly “unremarkable life”. Bob Mortimer has painted a clear picture for the mind’s eye to capture him and how ordinary he is. I suspect he would be relatable to many people. From the start he draws you in, using first person narrative. It’s enough for curiosity to strike to want to know more about his life and see how this story pans out in what is a good premise, which gets even more intriguing when he and Brendan are down the pub.

Those first two chapters are fast-paced and I was becoming intrigued in the first chapter. A couple of pages into chapter 2 and I’m hooked, wishing I had the entire book, but also feeling exceedingly lucky to have these initial chapters.

Delving deeper into these chapters, there’s a slight air of intrigue and mystery within the characters, such as who is certain women? There is already humour in some of the chat and suddenly some poignancy. It tells a certain truth about London and the challenges of forming friendships etc.

I am impressed by the observations, laced with poignancy and humour. The writing style itself just works so well. It’s naturally formed and would make any reader truly see these characters down the pub, perhaps even their own local. It’s all easy on the eye and a book to truly relax into. When these 2 chapters ended, I was left of that feeling of wanting more. All these questions of where is it going to go, how will it end and I actually care about all of that.

Bob Mortimer can write as well as he can do tv. I scrutinised and thought about it carefully and there just seems there’s not much he cannot do. I reckon this shouldn’t be the first and last of Bob Mortimer’s novels.

I know this is only the first 2 chapters but I can honestly say I highly recommend people to get started on this book.

#Review By Lou of Chapters 1 and 2 of #TheSatsumaComplex By @RealBobMortimer #TheSatsumaComplexExclusiveFirstLookChapters12 @JessBarratt88 @simonschusterUK

The Satsuma Complex
By Bob Mortimer

Blurb

And so begins Gary’s quest, through the estates and pie shops of South London, to finally bring some love and excitement into his unremarkable life…

A page-turning story with a cast of unforgettable characters, The Satsuma Complex is the brilliantly funny first novel by bestselling author and comedian Bob Mortimer.