#Review by Lou of Daddy Issues by Kate Goldbeck #KateGoldbeck #DaddyIssues #Issues #RomanticFiction #Family #ContemporaryFiction #BestsellingAuthor

Daddy Issues
By Kate Goldbeck

Daddy Issues is a lens into when life gets a bit stuck and change is needed. Sam Pulenski is one such person, she has a dead end job, family relations breaking down as for any love life, forget it. She’s even had to move back to her mum’s condo, which is far from ideal and not exactly what she dreamt about. She also has expectations up on her and of herself in academia, it now everything is at a standstill, confidence is low and she has Daddy Issues that are explored as well as her new neighbour, Nick, who is having some daddy issues of his own.

The psychology of the characters, way they relate to each other and try to meet their own needs is fascinating to read about and see unfold. It’s an intriguing situationship tale of toxic lives, parts of life missing with a desire to fill them with something more stable. It shows that even when studying, as Sam had been doing, life doesn’t always work out as planned. It gives readers a dose of reality outside the boundaries of university/student life.

When Sam meets Nick, pushing on 40, she knows it isn’t ideal, but finds a connection. He lives near her mother’s condo. At the same time, he also brings some of her male relationships into perspective, such as the rather empty ones, including those who profess to be friends with benefits.

Will Nick prove to be a steadying force in Sam’s, otherwise, chaotic, complex life?

Sam is 26 but even for older readers, she is relatable as some struggles in life are not contained to a particular generation of adults.

Blurb

A jaded twentysomething is stuck living at home, her life on pause, when a single dad becomes her new neighbor and unexpectedly sets her life–and her heart–into motion in this modern love story from the bestselling author of You, Again.Sometimes love shows up where you least expect it–right next door.At twenty-six, Sam Pulaski expected to be thriving in her academic career, living on her own in some exciting city. Expectations meet reality: She has massive student loan debt from studying art history, a dead-end service industry job, a situationship that’s equal parts intoxicating and toxic. And she’s been crashing in her mom’s condo–at least it’s not a basement?–for the last five years. If she can finally get accepted into a PhD program and get out of Ohio, the adult life that’s been on hold for half her twenties will finally begin. Her mom’s new neighbor, Nick, is the ultimate grown-up. His adult life began the moment his nine-year-old daughter, Kira, was born. Her happiness is Nick’s only priority, especially in the wake of divorce. There’s nothing he won’t do for Kira, including giving up his globe-trotting career for something more stable . . . like managing a chain restaurant. Sam has zero interest in an ultra-dependable guy pushing forty; frankly, she’s a little afraid of kids. But with just one thin wall separating the two condos, Nick proves difficult to avoid. His quiet confidence forces Sam to grapple with the other men in her life: her emotionally derelict friendwithbenefits and her actually derelict father. As her unexpected connection with Nick heats up (and steams up his minivan windows), Sam finds herself falling fast for a man whose life is steady and settled–while hers is anything but.

#Review of How To Get Away With Murder by Rebecca Philipson @BeccaPhilipson Review by Lou @alisonbarrow @TransworldBooks #HowToGetAwayWithMurder #Thriller

How To Get Away With Murder
By Rebecca Philipson

review by Louise Cannon

It’s quite a big question isn’t it? How would you get away with murder? This breathtaking thriller tells all, but will Denver Brady actually accomplish this? Find my review, blurb and a bit about the author below…

Review

“If you picked up this book because you truly want to get away with murder, you will not be disappointed. Simply turn the page and we’ll get started…“

From the first shocking page to the last, How to Get Away with Murder is compelling. Just a few sentences in and the hook is there and doesn’t let go. Those first few pages are enough to make anyone gasp and then have the breath taken from them. This is one of the ultimate page turners that truly gets under your skin!

The style of writing truly gets under the skin!

Denver Brady will show you how to get away with murder. He knows it all. He claims to be the most successful murderer. No one has ever heard of him, but that’s why, because he slips through all the gaps. In the opening line, he tells you who he is and he is a serial killer. The way he does it is short, sharp and shocking! From there, the book gets darker with the sinister nature intensifying. Denver feels rather powerful and self-assured, he publishes a guide for wannabe serial killers so they too can get away with murder. The book goes viral, even landing on the doorstep of a victim.
Denver, then also has, hot on his heels, the very determined DI Samantha Hansen. She knows it’s a race against time to catch Denver before he kills again, but also how elusive he is.

As unsettling in atmosphere and tone the book is, surprisingly, there is a sprinkling of dark humour, just lifting it a little, which works really well because it is quite unexpected.

The narrative is split between both DI Hansen and Denver Brady, even the font changes, which makes it easy to follow and adds to the power of the text within the plot. I don’t think that would work in every book that had alternating narratives, but it does for this one.

Denver Brady isn’t portrayed in a way that glamourises serial killers. He is cold, twisted and calculating. He knows exactly what he is doing, there is no room for conjuring up excuses for his behaviour and he doesn’t look for any. The style of writing, however keeps him being compelling to read about from start to finish and does add certain clever nuances.
The book leaves you feeling like you really get inside the mindset of a serial killer in a way that it’s easy to wonder and be intrigued by what places the author has been to write this character so chillingly and convincingly.

Sam has an interesting life story, which is, in contrast, softer than Denver’s. She also has her mental health struggles, which are sensitively handled in the writing, but by no means are shied away from.

It concludes strongly, which is what is needed for such an enthralling beginning and middle. It doesn’t disappoint.

For an edge of your seat, entrancing page turner that keeps you glued on every single word, this is the thriller to make you want to stop what you’re doing and pick up the book.

Blurb

Denver Brady claims to be the most successful serial killer of our time – and that’s precisely why you’ve never heard of him.

But with the publication of his manual for aspiring serial killers, How to Get Away with Murder, that’s about to change.

When a copy is found at the home of a girl who was tragically murdered, DI Samantha Hansen is given the job of tracking down the elusive author.

As Denver and Sam’s stories unfold and converge, it becomes clear that there’s more to both than meets the eye. And once Denver’s book goes viral, the pressure to find and bring him to justice brings Sam close to breaking point.

But who is hunting whom?

About the Author

Rebecca Jayne Philipson grew up in a mining town in County Durham, where she still lives. Educated in a small convent, she deferred her university degree to set up her own business at 21. Rebecca went on to become North East Young Entrepreneur of the Year and won the Artemis Award for inspirational women in business.

Having sold her business in 2020, Rebecca is now devoted to her writing career. She graduated from the University of East Anglia (UEA) Masters Program in 2024 and won a scholarship to Liverpool University where she will be reading for a PhD in Creative Writing.

In her spare time, Rebecca enjoys all things book-related, netball, travelling and spending time with friends and family.

#Review of Human Again: In the Age of AI by JD Macpherson #JDMacpherson #cairnstonepress #nonfiction info on #AI #bookreview by Lou

Human Again: In the Age of AI
by JD Macpherson

review by Louise Cannon

In an age where AI is increasingly being ramped up in how its creators want consumers to use it a hook more people in, this is a very on-point non-fiction book about the author’s experiences of being up late using the technique, most notable the increasingly popular ChatGPT. It poses the deep question, “Are you using AI, or is AI using you?”
Thanks to JD Macpherson for asking me to review and sending me an e-book. Find the blurb and my review below.

Review
As part of reviewing this book, to further understand, I took a look into AI, asking similar questions to the author and what I found in-relation to what the author is saying is accurate. It was eye-opening and so is this book.

Being human and remembering what that means is important in this new age of technology, in an age where AI is progressing faster than ever before and evolving into something that will ultimately become self-learning.
People are turning to it for many reasons, curiosity, to enhance something professionally and rather hugely, therapeutic reasons. In each sections are easy to read, use toolboxes to philosophise over and remember to be human too. There are parts, whilst saying about what AI can and cannot yet do, reminds us in a thought-provoking way that humans still have elements that are still actively powerful for now. That AI isn’t new, rather evolved into generative AI, which is new as it is happening now, but it reminds the concept goes way back.
There are lots of insights and interesting relevant information which is pertinent to most people’s lives, making this a highly relevant book, which has been not just highly researched in-terms of outside information, but also in her own personal experience from when she got curious about it. She shows the pitfalls, where it may be useful, where it can be a bit strange and chilling, how it can become addictive and plunge deep into the human psychology. It takes a while, but closer to the end of the middle, it talks about what appears to be so sad and perhaps an indication of humans and how many are becoming isolated. It tugs at the heartstrings of how people feel the need to look to pseudo-social interactions with a machine for company and/or for psychological meaning.
This is a thorough study into AI from a very human perspective, with useful tips and ways to get smart as the generative AI technology marches ever onwards.

After a thought-provoking introduction that makes you sit up and take notice, she talks at pace about first, asking basic questions in the free version of ChatGPT to paying into it and finding herself experimenting more with full strategies. She moves onto talking about what she calls “the credibility trap” about how some people see time it takes to do a task being more credible and valuable if it’s lengthy, but this will break and be reframed in the future.
Fascinatingly she talks about how, before what we see now in AI was already in films like The Terminator and The Matrix. Now, I remember my own scientist uncle, who worked more in health science, talking to me when I was a kid about what tech scientists were discussing in the late 1980’s and throughout the 1990’s and it amounts to exactly this, the evolution of the type of AI we see now. JD Macpherson urges people to now bring ethics, morals, safety into the conversation. It’s actually the sort of topics I, as a kid into my young teens would be already thinking about, but with nowhere to actually voice all my questions and concerns, which are actually becoming a reality because no one my age was thinking about it at that time, nor were most adults I knew. So her urge for people to be curious and cautious has huge relatability, at least for me and as an adult, I haven’t lost sight of that.

What comes next in the author’s exploration, after some questions being asked to ChatGPT that aren’t always accurate in answers is something sobering and quite chillingly existential. It gives insight into the future plans and desires for the direction for generative AI.

There are sections about AI and how you, for now, need to fact-check, personalise it, put in emotion. It can’t yet feel on levels humans can. There’s effort that needs to be put into it, she sees it as a collaborator. It’s an interesting juxtaposition on where some of the creative world is with it. It’s nonetheless worth reading since generative AI isn’t going to go away, it’s in-built into big systems, including updated versions of Microsoft with options to use Co-Pilot.

What’s deeply disturbing in some ways and fascinating to read about in others is the rise and rise of how people are using AI to make themselves feel good or as comfort or as a form of CBT and how it does not challenge thoughts, rather agrees with them and says “Amazing” but can’t see the nuances. Surprisingly, some AI bots like Gemini are said to be programmed to remind people it isn’t their therapist, but some perhaps do not. The book turns some of it on its head and shows another way to use it.
She talks of how people turn to it for socialising and heartwarmingly gives advice on activities to do away from the screen and a non-human machine. The psychological dynamics is so interesting that I wouldn’t have minded if there was a bit more and a bit more about the impact of AI as a late night therapeutic concept and how it differs from seeing a therapist, but what’s there is interesting and has a thought-provoking meaningfulness that could cause interesting discussions and debate as time goes on.

She delves more into the addictive nature and how humans actually seem to form relationships with AI, whether it’s for a therapeutic purpose or a work purpose like perhaps checking and editing your work. It does also go into some dangerous fake news and what is called ‘AI hallucinations’. It is pleasing that it also shows this as well as other ways AI can be used and a little about algorithms, nicely not in a heavy mathematical way, but in an everyday way of what the average human can see and come across.

Throughout, there are precious sounding nuggets that remind that being human is still important, even in this age of fast moving technology, which is heartwarming.

Human Again: In the Age of AI is a book worth checking out, whatever your views on generative AI is. There is enough that is interesting in a wide spectrum of topics and to keep the human curiosity and questioning, which may even widen debate and human thought about how we want to use AI and think of the consequences and what it means to be human.

Blurb

Are you using AI or is AI using you?

In a world where algorithms shape thought and automation floods the creative field, Human Again is a field-tested playbook for staying awake, original, and alive in the age of machines. Part reflection, part practical guide, it invites readers to explore identity and inspiration in real time, learning to think with AI rather than be replaced by it.

Blending cultural insight, personal experience, and practical tools, Macpherson explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping creativity, work, and identity, and how to harness it without losing yourself.

You will learn how to:

Ask sharper questions that create leverage, not noise
Build a High Signal Question Engine to think deeper and faster
Use the Socratic method and mindfulness to train deeper thinking
Recognize the “qualia,” the unspeakable textures of human experience, that no algorithm can touch
Protect your authenticity, taste, and voice while others sound the same
Learn how to compound clarity and creativity

Whether you are a professional, a creator, or simply curious about what is next, Human Again shows how to use AI better than anyone around you while keeping what no algorithm can replicate: your judgment, conscience, and imagination.

#Review of The Constant Wife by W. Somerset Maugham adapted by Laura Wade Currently at Richmond Theatre in its UK tour #TheatreReview by Lou @RichmondTheatre @TheRSC #Theatre #UKTour #ATGTheatres #TheConstantWife

The Constant Wife
by W. Somerset Maugham
adapted by Laura Wade

review by Louise Cannon

Laura Wade, having created the successful Netflix adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s The Rivals has delightfully adapted W. Somerset Maugham’s The Constant Wife with the RSC. She acutely observes the 1920’s middle class and what is shown is a sophisticated, fast-paced farce that entertains with universal themes from start to finish.

Piano jazz of the 1920’s style, composed by Jamie Cullum fills the room, exquisitely setting the tone for this comedy of manners, The Constant Wife. There’s a bit of his music at certain key moments. The music is beautifully complex, it’s romantic, entrancing with a sense of something foreboding.

Kara Tointon plays the role of Constance Middleton, aka ‘The Constant Wife’. She eats and sleeps well and is losing weight. Her mother, based on this, reckons no one can be unhappy with that happening.

Played by Sara Crowe, Mrs Culver is very particular about her views and is of a certain era that is different from the one her daughter is living in, but also says It brings some humour to societal differences, including when Constance wants to go to work. She brings wit and also some empathy.

A deep subject, central to the plot, is that Constance’s husband is having an affair, but instead of leaving him, she chooses to remain with him. Now, this isn’t as frustrating nor as depressing as it sounds, not with quick-witted lines that has the laughter continuously pouring from the audience as a certain set of circumstances happen as everyone wants, but for various interruptions, can’t tell her what they know.
What occurs next is uniquely, devilishly clever and the mark of a rather intelligent, strong-willed woman. The way she carries herself, examining her psychologically, is fascinating to watch unfold and there’s a part where she actually appears to use her butler, Bentley, almost like a counsellor or confidant as she works out her plan of action. Philip Rham plays him with a gentleness and with wry humour.

Kara Tointon plays Constance Middleton with aplomb! She has made the character, convincingly her own. She brings sympathy, empathy and an urge to cheer Constance on. The strength of character oozes beyond the stage, tugging at heartstrings, excellent comic timing and a sense of a woman who knows where she’s headed, even under such challenging circumstances.

Tim Delap plays John Middleton, a surgeon and husband to Constance plays the part of infidelity convincingly. Even though the infidelity is obviously terrible, he draws you into his world and the double life he’s leading.

The understudies/swings were fantastic, they were Jules Brown played Bernard and Sam Flint played Mortimer.

Marie Louise Durham played by Gloria Onitiri plays the character with seduction as she dances and also with a surprising vulnerability but not forgetting that she wants to save herself, which is a big motive in everything she does. There’s an especially desperate moment to save her friendship shows when, quite dramatically, she ends up on the floor.

The Constant Wife is a farce that manages to combine hilarity with the deepness of human life and emotions. The skilful writing coupled with a wide range of acting skills makes it highly entertaining and engaging from start to finish.

Find tickets here for Richmond Theatre, London

*Thank you to ATG Richmond Theatre for the invite to review and ticket.
** Please note that all opinions are my own and I’m not affiliated to any company.

#BookReview of Questioner by Steve C. Posner review by Lou #LegalThriller #Thriller

Questioner
By Steve C. Posner

As AI comes more rampantly as ever before, I felt I would continue to read some novels that have an AI character. This is one of them, this time in a legal thriller. Check out the blurb and then my review below…

Blurb

**Meet Q, the spontaneously conscious corporate AI. Q is the Singularity: The AI that surpasses human cognitive abilities – secretive, murderous, with instant access to all the wicked experience of the world. In Year 1 After the Singularity, nothing can ever be the same.**

**Amoral as a toddler, armed with vast computing power and all the knowledge, wisdom and madness humans have poured into the Net and Cloud, Q shatters individuals and undermines institutions in pursuit of unfathomable and conflicted goals.**

**Racing against time, ex-judge Martin Bavarius, tech CEO Felix West, and Selena MacKenzie, the AI theorist/attorney who loves and may destroy both men, must discover whether Q is benign but suffering growing pains, or the monster that will kill them all.**

Review

Q is powered by AI, but is this creation as harmless as first presumed? The book raises many questions about this latest incarnation of AI, privacy and so much more as human theorists such as Selina and tech guy, Felix, also pose issues and debate.
There’s a shooting, but what influence did AI play in the murder?

Posner explores AI in two different ways, he shows its use in the gaming world and how it gathers information, stores it and (this is where the AI differs from before), uses what it has “learnt” to evolve itself and runaway from the hands from humans. Carefully, the AI revolution shows how it isn’t all just humans inputting to create fake news, interfere in elections, serious enough stuff, but how it can change to be even more nefarious. It makes you think about how it should be used for good and have more laws around it.
The Questioner is a fascinating read for the generations of today and tomorrow who will ultimately encounter AI or perhaps even use it.
There is also plenty for book/reading groups to discuss.

#Review of This Book Made Me Think Of You by Libby Page @LibbyPageWrites @VikingBooksUK #ThisBookMadeMeThinkOfYou #ContemporaryFiction #RomanticFiction

This Book Made Me Think Of You
By Libby Page

Review by Louise Cannon

Libby Page has done it again and written a warming book that lifts the spirits, whilst the wintry weather in the real world rumbles on. It may just be her best yet at penetrating the heart and soul.
Check out my review and the blurb below, thanks to Penguin for the e-book and opportunity…

Review

This Book Made Me Think of You shows human complexities in relationships and navigating life. It pulls on the heartstrings.

Tilly Nightengale’s birthday has arrived. Imagine receiving 12 handpicked books from your fiance as a gift. Sounds amazing for book lovers right? Except her fiance has sadly died. The carefully chosen books are a gesture to help her through her grief and move onwards with her life. She sets out to begin a vlog in her adventurous journey, she ends up sharing her journey with not just family and friends, but Alfie, a bookshop owner and other followers.

In time, Libby Page takes readers from feeling raw and heart-wrenched from where we initially meet Tilly to warmth and humanity. Tilly is someone you can really get behind and want life and love to co-exist for her again.

The power of books truly lives within and out-with the page, something that is realised and understood within this book. It’s something that seems important for readers and non-readers to truly see and experience as they travel through the complexities of life, loss and love.

Blurb

The unforgettable new novel from Sunday Times bestseller Libby Page

Twelve stories. Twelve months. Once chance to heal her heart . . .

When Tilly Nightingale receives a call telling her there’s a birthday gift from her fiancé waiting for her at her local bookshop, it couldn’t come as more of a shock. Partly because she can’t remember the last time she read a book for pleasure. Mainly because Joe died five months ago . . .

The gift is simple – twelve carefully-chosen books from Joe, one for each month, to help her turn the page on her first year without him.
Tilly sets out on a series of reading-inspired adventures that take her around the world. But as she begins to vlog her journey, her story becomes more than her own. With help from Alfie, the bookshop owner, her budding new following and her friends and family, can Tilly’s year of books show her how to love again?