#Review By Lou of Felix’s Favourite Day By Fiona Lowry @FionaLowry9 #PictureBook for 3-5 years #ChildrensBook #KidsLit @RandomTTours #FelixsFavouriteDay

Felix’s Favourite Day
By Fiona Lowry

Today I am part of starting off the Random T. Tours blog tour with a review of a lovely award winning picture book for 3-5 year olds. Discover the cover, blurb and review below.

Blurb

A fun and colourful picture book of positive thinking to show that your dreams come true.
Perfect growth mindset book for ages 3-5yrs

Winner of The Golden Wizard Book Award 2022.
Winner of American Writing Awards 2023 Children’s Book International,

Felix loves animals and dreams of being a vet when he is older. The only problem is, he doesn’t have his own pet to look after yet.
After begging, badgering and bothering his parents, Felix is finally taken to the local animal shelter for what his parents hope will be a sensibly chosen cat or dog…Felix may have other ideas!

Review

Felix very dearly wants a pet and has ambitions to become a vet when he grows up. Young readers are taken through his desires for a pet through a lovely rhyming story and brightly coloured, attractive pictures of the different animals he looks at and considers.

The book is playful and fun as well as easily accessible with its linkage of words to pictures and varying fonts. It’s an eye-catchingly attractive book that has a great storyline that is short enough to hold the attention for 3-5 year olds and has humour they’ll appreciate. It’s a book that is just easy to want to turn page after page until the end.

It’s great for a bedtime story or one if you’re considering a pet for the home and it’s also great for nursery settings too. Everyone can have fun with it, including the adults reading it aloud to children or children taking a peek on their own or with a friend.

#Review By Lou of True Love By Paddy Crewe #TrueLove #PaddyCrewe @DoubledayUK #LiteraryFiction @RandomTTours #BlogTour

True Love
By Paddy Crewe

True Love, which covers all different types of love, is set in the 1980’s that’s gritty and meaningful. It’s an excellent literary read for both young adults and adults alike. It would also be a fantastic read for school classes and adult reading groups alike. There’s much to be learnt from and be inspired by. Today I have a review as part of the Random T. Tours blog tour and thanks to Doubleday UK for a copy.

Blurb

What does it mean to love and be loved?

It is the 1980s and Finn and Keely are growing up in the North East of England.

Keely is a fighter. Even in the face of loss she strives to seek connection, but finds that she’s not always searching in the right places.

Finn is quiet, sensitive, distant. He spends much of his time alone, yet deep down he wants to discover the thrill of relating to others.

When the two finally meet, everything is changed. Love – with all of its attendant joys and costs – is thrust upon them, and each must decide if they will bend or break under its pressure. True Love is a story of the trials of youth, the bonds of family and friendship, and of how much we are willing to risk to have ourselves be seen.

Review

Gritty, gripping and meaningful this is a terrific read!
Connections and that desire to connect with others is human nature and you can feel it sparking off the page. It’s brilliant that it isn’t all romantic love, it also covers agape love, unconditional love etc.

Keely is the true heroine of the piece. She has love running through her bones for her family. She comes from a generation of sea coalers in the North East of England. Life is tough in a way that young people and adults today can learn a lot from.

Keely has immense reserves of resilience and love to the point where she even gives up on some of her dreams and becomes a sea coaler for a time so her family survives, since a great tragedy occurs. I feel great connection to Keely with that level of selflessness she demonstrates and resilience she pulls up and keeps going, even when life throws her the toughest and most unfair of times. Her strength of character is only to be admired.

Finn is quiet and lives with his grandparents as his own parents are living their own lives. Nature, especially the water gives him solace and comfort. He does finally find that there’s more to life and becomes a bit more of a character you want to read when he joins a band. Keely and Finn then meet and their lives begin a new chapter and to change…

The writing is lyrical in places and sweeps you along with the sea into Keely and Finn’s absorbing, quietly intense stories. This is a book that I highly recommend.

About the Author

Paddy Crewe was born in Middlesbrough and studied at Goldsmiths. His debut novel, My Name Is Yip, has been shortlisted for the Betty Trask, the Wilbur Smith, a South Bank Sky Arts Award and The Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, and longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize.

#Review By Lou of Four Seasons In Japan By Nick Bradley @nasubijutsu @penguinrandom #FourSeasonsInJapan @RandomTTours #BlogTour

Four Seasons In Japan
By Nick Bradley

As we consume more Japanese inspired food, watch more films from there, even buy their vehicles, as the consumption fluctuates, Japanese culture seems to be on the rise again in popularity and now books are again also on the rise. So, now’s the perfect time to really enter the country and take a look at this immersive literary book, Four Seasons In Japan. Thanks to Penguin and Random T. Tours, I am on the blog tour for. Check out the gorgeous sunny cover, the blurb and my review below.

Blurb

From the author of The Cat and The City – ‘vibrant and accomplished’ David Mitchell – a BBC Radio 2 Book Club Pick.

Flo is sick of Tokyo. Suffering from a crisis in confidence, she is stuck in a rut, her translation work has dried up and she’s in a relationship that’s run its course. That’s until she stumbles upon a mysterious book left by a fellow passenger on the Tokyo Subway. From the very first page, Flo is transformed and immediately feels compelled to translate this forgotten novel, a decision which sets her on a path that will change her life…

It is a story about Ayako, a fierce and strict old woman who runs a coffee shop in the small town of Onomichi, where she has just taken guardianship of her grandson, Kyo. Haunted by long-buried family tragedy, both have suffered extreme loss and feel unable to open up to each other. As Flo follows the characters across a year in rural Japan, through the ups and downs of the pair’s burgeoning relationship, she quickly realises that she needs to venture outside the pages of the book to track down its elusive author. And, as her two protagonists reveal themselves to have more in common with her life than first meets the eye, the lines between text and translator converge. The journey is just beginning.

From the author of The Cat and The City, Four Seasons in Japan is a gorgeously crafted book-within-a-book about literature, purpose and what it is to belong.

Review

Enter Japan and be whipped up in to its four seasons, of which the sections are divided up into. Nestled amongst, what is an emotive story, are also some Japanese pictures in the book too, some that also help section each part off, but others that are photographs of real places and people, which are fascinating.

Train stations, subways etc can be interesting places, if you let curiosity flow in. Flo did and discovered, what becomes quite a journey when she discovers a book, left by a fellow passenger. It looks mysterious and her innate fascination to discover more is piqued. Four Seasons in Japan, cleverly transpires to be a book within a book as we enter this journey of discovery with Flo. What she finds is more about Japanese culture, including an all important cat, a story about tragedy, a sense of community, all of which become significant as Flo discovers things in common with her own life.

The book intertwines between the protagonists of the story Flo is translating and her own life as it layers up. The hunt is on for the author of this mysterious book. The style of writing feels different from other books and, authentically, readers see a bit of what Flo sees as she translates, so she sees the Japanese words and characters in Japanese calligraphy, which is translated. At the back of the book, there are Japanese proverbs, which are familiar and are set alongside the English equivalent. By the end it feels a bit like you’re ready to embark on a Japanese adventure. Four Seasons in Japan truly gives one of the most immersive experiences of Japan in a book.

A pic of my cat approving of Four Seasons In Japan

#Review By Lou of The Sun Over The Mountains By Suzie Fletcher #TheSunOverTheMountains #SuzieFletcher @Octopus_Books @RandomTTours #TheRepairShop #Autobiography #Nonfiction #Memoir

The Sun Over The Mountains
By Suzie Fletcher

Suzie Fletcher is someone you may have heard of. She is one of the crafters in The Repair Shop who works with various materials, including leather, velum etc. For her, life wasn’t always like that. Here, she tells her story in The Summer over the Mountains. There’s much to discover. Check out the blurb and my review below.

Blurb

A memoir of hope, healing and restoration, from star of TV’s The Repair Shop, Suzie Fletcher.

Suzie Fletcher is the warm and friendly face on TV’s The Repair Shop that viewers look forward to watching every week as the resident leather expert – a craft she has honed over four decades and was born out of her love of horses. But while she tends to be the one repairing and offering a gentle kindness to others, Suzie has also been in a process of change, reflection, and healing.

In her first book Suzie looks back over her life – which moves from England to Colorado and back again – and the places, people and experiences that have shaped the person she is today. We’ll hear for the first time, how Suzie has overcome some of life’s most difficult challenges, from complicated relationships to grief.

A self-confessed free spirit with a deep connection to nature, Suzie’s exceptional warmth and zest for life shine through on every page, making The Sun Over the Mountains a truly inspiring read that will resonate with anyone who has faced uncertainty but has the courage and power within them to overcome it.

Review

Suzie Fletcher’s autobiography is fascinating. She has led a fascinating life, living in both Colorado and England. Whilst watching her on The Repair Shop, something of both shows through as she talks and works away on repairing people’s “treasures”, I find anyway. It’s now interesting to find out more about her life as there’s often something that intrigues on that tv programme that there’s more than repairing objects that’s a bit telling that she’s perhaps lived quiet some life. I wasn’t wrong, when reading about her life and quiet reflections on it all.

Readers discover her love of horses and where that comes from. Compellingly she also lets readers know about more challenging times in her life and how complex it has been for her. In many ways the writing is emotional and feels raw and real, especially when it comes to sharing how her relationship with this guy really was and it isn’t pretty. It’s as far removed from some rom-com as it gets.

The book, perhaps gives people hope as she is testament to some people who go through the toughest of times can be strong, resilient and come out the other-side being successful in career choices and still have a positive zest for life and an advocate, in a way in how connecting with nature can be restorative and healing.

#Review By Lou of Miss Harris in the New World by Peter Maughan @PeterMaughan5 @FarragoBooks #CompanyOfFools #MissHarrisInANewWorld #Theatre #Books #Humour

Miss Harris in the New World
By Peter Maughan

Theatre, humour and great for those who like old Ealing Comedies and P.G. Wodehouse. Check out the blurb and review below.

Blurb

The Red Lion production of Love and Miss Harris is booked to tour America, opening in Manhattan.

On arrival the group finds that it’s not the Manhattan with the Great White Way of Broadway at its glittering heart, but the part between the Bowery and the East River, on the Lower East Side, in a vaudeville venue owned by a local mobster. And when members of a rival gang decide to disrupt the play, the action shifts from the theatre’s state to its auditorium…

Determined to fulfil the rest of their tour dates, the company heads west from New York. Try as they might to shake it off, trouble seems to follow them wherever they go.

Review

This is the second of the Comedy of Fools series of books, which can be read a standalone too, the first being Love and Miss Harris is a fun duo of books. They are reminiscent of the likes of P.G. Wodehouse and old comedy capers. It follows the touring actors as they try and put on a show. It shouldn’t be so challenging, but they have dates still unfilled and things don’t get off to a good start, even on opening night, when a rival gang to the mobster who owns the theatre makes their presence felt. It reminds potential audiences not all is plain sailing all of the time to put on a show. The books themselves could be quite good fun if they were actually staged as they are a bit like a play within a play, as well as giving a look at behind the scenes.

This is just good old British humour written very well for a 2024 audience.

#Review By Lou of The Shadow Network By Tony Kent @TonyKent_Writes @EAndTBooks @RandomTTours

The Shadow Network
By Tony Kent

I hadn’t read books by Tony Kent before, even though I’d definitely heard of him and what he’d written. When the opportunity arose to review came my way on the blog tour, I figured I would give one a try. I was not disappointed and may even look out for his other books. Discover more in the blurb and my review below.

Blurb

How do you take down an enemy when no one believes they exist?

When the lawyers of alleged war criminal Hannibal Strauss are caught up in a terror attack in The Hague, barrister Michael Devlin immediately suspects all is not what it seems. Teaming up once more with Agent Joe Dempsey, they must find who’s behind it all before any more innocent lives are lost.

With their key witness on the run and assassins on their tail, their only lead is a the Monk, a legendary and mysterious foreign agent with a fearsome reputation. But what is his stake in this dangerous game? And just who is part of his shadowy network of spies? Caught in a complicated web of lies, secrets and double agents, there’s no one Dempsey and Devlin can trust but themselves.

Review

Short, sharp, cleverly constructed chapters gives The Shadow Network pace and a sense of reading in real-time as the events unfold. It quickly turns into a page-turner. so don’t expect to follow through with any plans to fall asleep after just a couple of pages. It’s easy to get caught up in the book and want to read more.

Joe Dempsey reckons he deserves some ‘down-time.’ He’s off to London as he’s accepted his invite to be Godfather to the twin sons of his best friend, Barrister, Michael Devlin, and his partner, journalist Sarah Truman. The Christening should be a beautiful occasion with some time to also relax. It doesn’t quite happen like that. News reaches Michael about one of his friends in severe danger at The Hague as there’s been an attack and its suspected to be terror related. With corruption and conspiracies flying, Dempsey and Devlin have their work cut out. For readers, there’s great, involving action scenes, the dark web, and twists that mean no one knows who can be trusted. There’s also The Monk, a mysterious character who could be mythical and legendary or real. You’ll have to read the book to find out which it is and what the connection is to this case.

If like me, you hadn’t picked up a book by Tony Kent before, or have been waiting in anticipation for the next Dempsey and Devlin book to be published, then The Shadow Network, with its excellent plotting, is for you.