#BookReview by Lou of Journey To The Moon And Other Stories By Ed Goodwin @whizoap @ConradPress @RandomTTours #JourneyToTheMoon #ChildrensBooks #MiddleGrade #9-12yearolds #Humour #Fantasy #Unicorns #Space #Humour

Journey To The Moon
And Other Stories
By Ed Goodwin

3 stories in 1 provide adventure, fantasy, humour, realism all for 9-12 year olds. Find out more in the blurb and my review below…
A little later than planned due to unforseeable circumstances.
Thanks to Random Things Tours and Conrad Press for the book and invite to review.

Blurb

Fantasy, reality and humour are blended in three adventures. Nothing is as it seems as two young girls go to the moon, present a unique style of Punch and Judy and try to look after a unicorn.
In ‘Journey to the Moon’, with the help of a possibly over-optimistic dad and practical mum, two young sisters make their dream visit to the moon and back despite numerous setbacks. In ‘Punch and Judy’ the question of what would happen if violence was banned in Punch and Judy shows is explored. In the story ‘Unicorn Tale’, looking after a unicorn presents more challenges than expected, especially when it disappears into a dream world.

Let’s start with the cover. It’s just so eye-catching and fun. This is a book where children can go and have adventure that will send their imaginations soaring. 3 stories in 1 also makes this fun and rather special.

This hits some trends for children, including unicorns. There’s much fun and humour to have in these stories. The puppet shows that the family perform is great and may well spark the imaginations of its readers. That is possibly one of the best bits as it brings puppets back into the modern sphere again.

The family is one that I think children will have fun within this book during quiet times or bedtimes. It’s great for wherever you want to read.

Each story brings something different. From an adventure to the moon, which brings about a touch of reality to the realms of fantasy, such as in working out how to look after a unicorn. Each story provides entertainment in different ways. that are sure to surprise and give children space to have a laugh.

#BookReview By Lou of The Family Man By Kimberley Chambers @kimbochambers @HarperCollinsUK #RandomTTours #GangsterCrime #CrimeFiction #GangsterFiction

The Family Man
By Kimberley Chambers

Spectacular and mightily gritty with a fast pace. This is slick gangster crime with edge, at its best!
Thanks to Random Things Tours for inviting me to review and to Harper Collins for providing an exquisite Limited Gold Edition of the book. Follow down to find out more in the blurb and the rest of my review below…

Blurb

A brand-new series from the queen of gritty crime

A fascinating interviewee and a brilliant raconteur, Kimberley has appeared on BBC Breakfast, BBC Radio 4 Saturday Live, Loose Ends and Front Row, BBC Radio 2 Graham Norton and the Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Virgin Radio…

MEET THE BONDS…
Kenny Bond is finally out of prison after doing a long stretch for killing a copper, and is determined to get back to life on the straight and narrow. He’s got a lot of time to make up for, he’s missed his beloved wife, Sharon, and his family is growing up fast.
A FAMILY LIKE NO OTHER…
Kenny’s son Donny might lack his father’s edge but his twin grandsons, Beau and Brett – well, they are Bonds through and through. Like him, they won’t let anyone stand in their way.
BUT THEY’RE ABOUT TO MEET THEIR MATCH…
Family comes before everything else for Kenny. There’s nothing he won’t do for them. But there are enemies from his past he can’t shake off, and a family feud is brewing. Kenny’s determined that nothing, and no one, will threaten his family. But can the Bond family stick together when someone’s out to take them down?

Review

The Family Man is fast-paced and enthralling. It’s full of grit and pulls readers into the authenticity of the underground of a gangland family.

The Family Man tells the story of The Bond family throughout the 1980’s and into the 1990’s. For a gangster family you really get the sense of those family bonds and the whole juxtopositions that is especially embodied in Kenny, who is a gangster and murderer, yet really cares about his family. Don’t be mistaken, there is nothing that is cosy and warm as such. This book feels authentic in language and situations used. It has bags of intense grit that builds from Wormwood Scrubs and throughout the book.

The bonds between the family are put to the test and there’s someone after them… It puts into question how far someone will go to protect their family, even in the gangland world.

It’s interesting reading how Sharon, a devoted wife to Kenny Bond, really feels about things as she has spent so much time standing by her man, even though he was banged up in prison. The relationships in this family and strong feelings really come through in this, at times, visceral book.

There, even in such an underground of life, is emotion in many ways, felt by the characters, simmering away, but all the while, in the forefront is that knowledge they are gangsters. The family feud that brews and betrayal, adds another level of intensity and grit.

About the Author

A truly unforgettable character, Kimberley injects authenticity into her gritty gangland crime novels set around the east end. She came to writing later in life, having worked as a street trader (being promoted from tea girl to sales when she rugby-tackled a shoplifter), a DJ and a cabbie.
Fed up of scraping a living, she set her mind to writing a novel, despite being laughed at by friends and family, who dubbed her ‘a female Del-Boy’. But with her creative mind, colourful life experiences and memorable covering letter (‘Take a chance on me, you won’t regret it. This time next year I’ll be wearing Prada, not Primark’), she quickly had five agents knocking at her door and a publishing contract. Fifteen novels and three Sunday Times number ones later, she’s top of her game and an incredible inspiration.
Join Kimberley’s legion of legendary fans facebook.com/kimberleychambersofficial on and
@kimbochambers on Twitter.

#BookReview by Lou – Freckles by Cecelia Ahern @Cecelia_Ahern @fictionpubteam @HarperCollinsUK @RandomTTours #Freckles #Fiction

Freckles
By Cecelia Ahern

Freckles is a warm and well-observed book with interesting concepts.
Find out more in the blurb and the rest of my review below, as well as a bit about the author.
Firstly, thanks to Random T Tours for inviting me to the blog tour to review and to Harper Collins for this opportunity and for an e-book.

Blurb

‘Freckles is a beautiful, hopeful book when the world needs hope most. Cecelia has written a novel about our search for our authentic selves in a crazy world. Like all her novels, it’s inspiring, life-affirming and full of insight’ CATHY KELLY
You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with… When a stranger utters these words to Allegra Bird, nicknamed Freckles, it turns her highly ordered life upside down. In her current life as a parking warden, she has left her eccentric father and unconventional childhood behind for a bold new life in the city.
But a single encounter leads her to ask the question she’s been avoiding for so long: who are the people who made her the way she is? And who are the five people who can shape and determine her future?
Just as she once joined the freckles on her skin to mirror the constellations in the night sky, she must once again look for connections.
Told in Allegra’s vivid, original voice, moving from Dublin to the fierce Atlantic coast, this is an unforgettable story of human connection, of friendship, and growing into your own skin.
Five people. Five stars. Freckle to freckle. Star to star.

Review

Freckles is a bit like 6 degrees of separation in some ways and an interesting concept to find connections. Allegra Bird is otherwise known as Freckles, who is by and large an interesting character and yet someone readers will be able to connect to. It begins with her connecting her own actual freckles in different, creative ways and gets her thinking about life connections and how it can shape a person. It’s a though-provoking concept and one that makes you think about who are the 5 people you are most connected in life and in what ways they play a part in making you who you are as she tells you that you are the average of 5 people.

Freckles is a “plan A” type of person and has grit and determination to stick with it, no “plan B”, until the first plan doesn’t work and she ends up being a parking warden with Fingal County Council, so she’s not totally inflexible and it’s close to her desires. She’s an enjoyable character to discover more about, as is where she is based – Malahide, a real place, near Dublin, with its beautiful scenery, which Cecelia Ahern presents so well and truly paints a picture of there and Valentia.

Freckles tells her story in the first person and of the people she meets and the routines she has, such as the bakery she goes to and who serves her. The writing is so accomplished and is so well thought out that it is almost like you are following Freckles around her lifestyle. From the start you’re pulled into her life in the present and also get a peek into her past, when she was at boarding school. The past, especially is written in such a way that you could be sitting next to Freckles having a wonderfully fascinating conversation.

Readers will meet Becky and Donnacha, who she babysits for; Pops, who loves music; Paddy who is a work colleague; a person who is a Great Dane Walker and Spanner who is a baker, each with interesting lives, some also with secrets. There’s friendship and human connectivity at the heart of this story, how people’s paths cross, how some become part of routines, yet not taken for granted. It also tells a story about how lives aren’t always rosy. Freckles however seems a positive and friendly person to get to know and it is fascinating to see who outwith her family at each stage of her life had some influence in her character building. It’s a book that may make you do some introspection too as Freckles leads you down the path of self-discovery and also having the desire, even if it seems impossible to write letters to certain people, which certainly brings a different slant to things, with some added warmth and humour.

Freckles is a heartwarming and entertaining book to explore and by then discover who connects to who and how they all connect back to Freckles.

About the Author

Cecelia Ahern is one of the biggest selling authors to emerge in the past fifteen years, having sold more than 25 million copies worldwide in over 50 countries.
Two of her books have been adapted as major films and she has created several TV series in the US and Germany. Her novel PS I Love You was a New York Times bestseller and huge #1 bestseller in Ireland and the UK. In 2007, it was made into a major film starring Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler and most recently,
Cecelia wrote the sequel- Postscript which was an instant bestseller.

Cecelia has written 13 bestselling novels including two YA novels and a critically acclaimed collection of short stories, ROAR which is being produced by and starring Nicole Kidman. Her novels have resonated with readers everywhere through their thoughtful, unique and inspiring storytelling and have won numerous awards.
Cecelia lives in Dublin with her family. To find out more please visit http://www.cecelia-ahern.com

The Great Silence by Doug Johnstone @doug_johnstone @OrendaBooks #RandomTTours #TheSkelfs #TheGreatSilence #CrimeFiction

The Great Silence
by Doug Johnstone

The Great Silence is the latest book in The Skelfs series. They are back. Thanks to Random T. Tours for inviting me to the blog tour and to Orenda Books for gifting me the e-book. Find out more about this Edinburgh based crime book in the blurb and my review below.

Blurb

Keeping on top of the family funeral directors’ and private investigation businesses is no easy task for the Skelf women, and when matriarch Dorothy discovers a human foot while walking the dog, a perplexing case presents itself.
Daughter Jenny and grand-daughter Hannah have their hands full too: the mysterious circumstances of a dying woman have led them into an unexpected family drama, Hannah’s new astrophysicist colleague claims he’s receiving messages from outer space, and the Skelfs’ teenaged lodger has a devastating experience.
Nothing is clear as the women are immersed ever deeper in their most challenging cases yet. But when the daughter of Jenny’s violent and fugitive ex-husband goes missing without trace and a wild animal is spotted roaming Edinburgh’s parks, real danger presents itself, and all three Skelfs are in peril.
Taut, dark, warmly funny and unafraid to ask big questions – of us all – The Great Silence is the much-anticipated third instalment in the addictive, unforgettable Skelfs series.

Review

It is great to be reunited with Dorothy, Jenny and Hannah, of whom each have a chapter dedicated to them and it rotates through them until the end of the story. It starts with a nose-wrinkling moment with Dorothy and her collie dog – Einstein. It’s definitely a most unexpected opener.

The Skelf family own a funeral business in Edinburgh, but also there are investigations to conduct. This isn’t your usual funeral parlour, this is one where investigations also occur, so it’s quite a lot for the Skelf’s to juggle.

In a way, like previous books in this series, it presents itself as something a bit more genteel, but when you get into the detail, nestling amongst some humour and the beauty and fun of Edinburgh and its surrounding areas, such as Leith and Portobello including the zoo and Cramond, (which Doug Johnstone adeptly leads his readers round), it’s actually quite dark and full of mystery. There seems to be many mysterious deaths that turn up in the mortuary; there is one presenting with no clear cause of death or DNA match. There are also mysterious limbs by Leith, not necessarily matching up with each other. There’s mystery and black humour in the way it is written, including some strange embalming.

Nothing is straight forward and some people aren’t either, as Hannah’s got a new colleague who is an astrophysicist and absolutely convinced there are aliens. To add to this strangeness, there may be a mystery surrounding a big cat. As well as mysterious deaths, there is also grief, high emotion, much tension and family dramas; it’s a story of multi-layers that also sees the Skelf’s in danger and a lot of life questions and contemplations about life, religion and more, being questioned are considered.

About The Author

Doug Johnstone is the author of twelve previous novels, most recently The Big Chill (2020). Several of his books have been bestsellers and three, A Dark Matter (2020), Breakers (2019) and The Jump (2015), were shortlisted for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish Crime Novel of the Year.
He’s taught creative writing and been writer in residence at various institutions over the last decade – including at a funeral parlour ahead of writing A Dark Matter – and has been an arts journalist for over twenty years. Doug is a songwriter and musician with five albums and three solo EPs released, and he plays drums for the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers, a band of crime writers. He’s also player-manager of the Scotland Writers Football Club. He lives in Edinburgh. Follow Doug on Twitter @doug_johnstone and visit his website: dougjohnstone.com.

#BookReview SHELL – Episode 1 – The Horse Awakens by Chris White @chriswhitepoet @VentorrosP @VentorrosPress #Shell #TheHorseAwakens #ChildrensBook #MiddleGrade #primaryreads #readingforpleasure

Shell – Episode 1 – The Horse Awakens
By Chris White

Action and humour with themes of team-building and thinking for yourself is what is in this great novel for middle-grade readers of 7 years old plus.

Find out more in the blurb and review below as well as its author who has been to the Edinburgh Book Festival, Schools and so much more… Thanks to Random T Tours for the invite and to Chris White for the book.

Blurb

‘Star Wars’ meets ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ in this sparkling, actionpacked, highly original galactic adventure with a feel-good vibe. Sure to inspire young readers to be their own person; to embrace team values; to balance thinking and feeling with action; and to reach for the good in all their endeavours.
S.H.E.L.L. – Episode One – THE HORSE AWAKENS is wonderfully cinematic and world-building, and
contains characters that will make a lasting impression. It’s an action-packed, rip-roaring
adventure story about a bunch of action heroes who have one thing in
common – They all have shells. When the universe goes crazy, the team assembles to find out who, or
what, is making the population of every planet act in a really grumpy
mood.
Humorously illustrated throughout; yet SHELL is filled with serious themes about fitting-in and thinking for yourself.

Review

Some Middle Grade fun here. This is practically a parody and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and StarWars mashup. Here and there is some Sponge Bob Square Pants humour too, but it sits squarely at Middlegrade readers and those who have been introduced to StarWars and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and know them reasonably well, will understand and see the parody.

There’s Commander Sky Crawler, Butt Dazzle, Clam, Snail, Shell Agent and more to meet. There are planets to explore such as Planet Sands and Planet Unicorn. There is a lot of action. Planet Wibble has declared war on Planet Wobble and a planet has declared war on itself; there’s unrest on other planets too.

The world-building is full and great for jetting you into, which is sure to grab children’s attention.

Children will just love this book. It’s full of jokes and font types to bring certain words deliberately to the forefront to add to the humour and drama. The fonts make it comic like, so reading it won’t feel like any sort of chore to children, but it is a great step-up from books that have pictures on every single page. That isn’t to say there aren’t any illustrations, there are and they are great!

It has a great ending and there are bits of other fun, like a Shakespearean reference in the last chapter, that I’m sure can be explained to children or just left as is.

The themes of team-building and having to also develop some independent thought to do tasks is also good.

This is an entertaining book that has the feel-good factor for children.

About the Author

Chris White is a writer. Illustrator an performance poet. He has sold thousands of books world-wide due to his constant appearances at festivals, schools and libraries across the globe.
His last book was ‘The A to Z of Completely Made Up Dinosaurs.’

Chris has featured at many literary festivals , including The Edinburgh Fringe, The
Edinburgh Book Festival, The Doha Book Festival and The Cheltenham Book Festival.
His poetry performances and writing workshops have taken him all over the world, visiting schools in places such as China, Russia, Vietnam, Jordan, India, Germany and even The Congo, where he held a poetry and illustration workshop in a cave! Chris was recently writer in residence at the Qatar National Library

#BookReview by Lou – Peacocks in Paradise by Anna Nicholas @ANicholasAuthor @burrobooks #PeacocksInParadise #BlogTour #TravelBook #Travelogue #NonFiction

Peacocks in Paradise
By Anna Nicholas

Today I am honoured to be closing the blog tour for Peacocks In Paradise. This is an entertaining travelogue that’s come at the right time, just as people are thinking of exploring, but also at a time when travel is still limited.
Thanks to Random Things Tours for inviting me to review and for Burro Books for gifting me the book.
Go on a journey through the blog post to find out more abou the author and her interesting life, the blurb and my review of her entertaining book.

About the Author

ANNA NICHOLAS is of Celtic origin & has lived for 18 years in rural Mallorca. An inveterate traveller & experienced freelance journalist, she regularly participates in humanitarian aid expeditions overseas with British explorer Colonel John Blashford-Snell, CBE and is a Fellow of the RGS. She ran her own PR
company in Mayfair, London, for 20 years, was a Guinness Book of Records adjudicator alongside the book’s founder, Norris McWhirter, CBE, and as a rookie press officer at charity Help the Aged, handled events for Princess Diana. She runs an international marathon annually for her favourite causes.

Blurb

The long-awaited seventh title in Anna Nicholas’s humorous travel series about how to live the dream in a Mediterranean country. The author explores different local cultural themes in each title.

Anna delves into the island’s authentic heartland, exploring nature reserves, bird sanctuaries and paprika, fruit and almond farms. On her travels, she meets the makers of siurell whistles, palm leaf baskets, hot sauces and ensaïmada pastries, and revels in visiting local producers of wine, craft beer, gin and brandy – and Mallorca’s famed herbes liqueur.

Meanwhile, she and chum, Alison, are tackling all 54 Tramuntana peaks over 1,000m, enduring the arduous overnight Guell hike to Lluc Monastery along the way.

Back home in Soller, new kittens and abandoned ducks abound and just as peacock, Jeronimo, swoops in, Anna hears of Josephine, a lonely peahen. Could love be in the air?

Review

Peacocks in Paradise has Mallorca all wrapped up from the food to the people and animals she meets on her journey around the island. With humour and enthusism for the island she has explored, this is an interesting and entertaining travelogue. The observations come with wit and sometimes poignancy and will easily provide escapism for its readers. As well as taking readers on a journey, giving future travellers ideas of what to do when in Mallorca, it also provides an insight into her homelife and the animals she enjoys most and their own antics. Anna Nicholas had a dream of where she wanted to live and is one of those people who have been able to do it, which makes this a fascinating read as it gives both sides – living there and enough for the humble tourist to gain more insight than what they may ordinarily get.
Her passion and zest for life and interest about what is produced on the island comes through the book well.