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I post book reviews as often as possible but at least once a week every Wednesday! I hope they help you to find some new books that you'll love as much as I did!
 Today is my stop on the blog tour for Cover Your Tracks by Claire Askew! Thanks so much to Jenny for organising the tour and don’t forget to check out the rest of the stops! The Synopsis 'What if I told you,' he said, 'that I believe my mother's life to be in danger?' Robertson Bennet returns to Edinburgh after a 25-year absence in search of his parents and his inheritance. But both have disappeared. A quick, routine police check should be enough - and Detective Inspector Helen Birch has enough on her plate trying to help her brother, Charlie, after an assault in prison. But all her instincts tell her not to let this case go. And so she digs. George and Phamie Bennet were together for a long time. No one can ever really know the secrets kept between husband and wife. But as Birch slowly begins to unravel the truth, terrible crimes start to rise to the surface. My Review After reading and loving All The Hidden Truths, Claire Askew became a firm favourite author of mine. I was lucky enough to meet her at Noirwich Fest a few years ago and she was so lovely which just makes it even more exciting to see her going from strength to strength. Askew’s books are always a showcase of her immense talent and Cover Your Tracks is no different. The engaging and entertaining writing keeps you gripped for the entirety of the book and Helen Birch is such a layered and compelling DI, making it all too easy to get lost in the pages of her journey. The plot is taut and unpredictable, yet super believable and I can’t recommend reading this enough! Whether you’ve read the first two or not you’ll slip right in, but I can say for sure that if you haven’t read the first two, you’ll definitely be going back to do that after this! Overall, I’m giving Cover Your Tracks 4.5 out of 5. It’s addictive, absorbing and beautifully written. I can’t wait for more from Askew! This book was provided free in exchange for an honest review. About the AuthorClaire Askew is a poet, novelist and the Writer in Residence at the University of Edinburgh. Her debut novel in progress was the winner of the 2016 Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, and longlisted for the 2014 Peggy Chapman-Andrews (Bridport) Novel Award. Claire holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh and has won a variety of accolades for her work, including the Jessie Kesson Fellowship and a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award. All The Hidden Truths was longlisted for two CWA Daggers: Gold (best novel) and John Creasey (best debut).
Her debut poetry collection, This changes things, was published by Bloodaxe in 2016 and shortlisted for the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award and a Saltire First Book Award. In 2016 Claire was selected as a Scottish Book Trust Reading Champion, and she works as the Scotland tutor for women's writing initiatives Write Like A Grrrl! and #GrrrlCon. Cover Your Tracks is her third novel.
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 Today is my stop on the blog tour for Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the stops! The Synopsis It begins with a mystery. Sylvie, the beautiful, brilliant, successful older daughter of the Lee family, flies to the Netherlands for one final visit with her dying grandmother - and then vanishes. Amy, the sheltered baby of the Lee family, is too young to remember a time when her parents were newly immigrated and too poor to keep Sylvie. Seven years older, Sylvie was raised by a distant relative in a faraway, foreign place, and didn't rejoin her family in America until age nine. Timid and shy, Amy has always looked up to her sister, the fierce and fearless protector who showered her with unconditional love. But what happened to Sylvie? Amy and her parents are distraught and desperate for answers. Sylvie has always looked out for them. Now, it's Amy's turn to help. Terrified yet determined, Amy retraces her sister's movements, flying to the last place Sylvie was seen. But instead of simple answers, she discovers something much more valuable: the truth. Sylvie, the golden girl, kept painful secrets . . . secrets that will reveal more about Amy's complicated family - and herself - than she ever could have imagined. My ReviewI was extremely intrigued by the synopsis for Searching for Sylvie Lee and although unsure of what exactly to expect, I was looking forward to this different approach to my usual genre. I immediately fell in love with the way Kwok writes, the whole book is so beautifully written. It strikes the perfect balance of page-turning suspense and heartbreakingly moving moments which makes it utterly compelling. The portrayal of this immigrant family was thoughtful and sensitive, while the themes that arose from this were deftly explored. I found the ideas around family to be particularly thought-provoking and the book left me reflecting on what it means to truly know someone. The central mystery was clever and gripping and although I worked out some elements, it didn’t take away from the overall experience of reading this book and I was hooked until the end. Overall, I’m giving Searching for Sylvie Lee 4.5 out of 5. It’s poignant, suspenseful and so very powerful. An absolute must-read. This book was provided free in exchange for an honest review About the AuthorJean Kwok is a New York Times and international bestselling, award-winning author. She has been selected for numerous honours, including the Sunday Times Short Story Award shortlist. She immigrated from Hong Kong to Brooklyn when she was five, and worked in a Chinatown clothing factory for much of her childhood.
In November 2009, her older brother Kwan, a highly successful MIT graduate who had encouraged Jean to write since childhood, disappeared, failing to come home for Thanksgiving. Inspired by Jean’s own story and those of thousands of immigrants like her, Searching for Sylvie Lee was born out of her love for her brilliant brother. Jean is trilingual, fluent in Dutch, Chinese, and English, and studied Latin for seven years. She lives in the Netherlands with her husband, two sons and four cats.  Today is my stop on the blog tour for Conviction by Denise Mina! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the stops! The Synopsis It’s just a normal morning when Anna's husband announces that he's leaving her for her best friend and taking their two daughters with him. With her safe, comfortable world shattered, Anna distracts herself with someone else's story: a true-crime podcast. That is until she recognises the name of one of the victims and becomes convinced that only she knows what really happened. With nothing left to lose, she throws herself into investigating the case. But little does she know, Anna's past and present lives are about to collide, sending everything she has worked so hard to achieve into freefall. My Review After seeing Denise Mina at the London Book Fair and thinking she was brilliant, I was very excited to be invited on to the blog tour! Mina has a long list of books to her name, but somehow I’d missed giving them a read, so Conviction was the first book of hers that I’d read. It was definitely an amazing introduction to her work and I could instantly see why she’s had the success that she’s had! I absolutely loved Conviction, it’s totally compelling and the mixture of intense thrills, twists and dark humour make for an utterly captivating and unmissable novel. The plot is unpredictable and suspenseful and I found myself completely gripped by the mystery. There wasn’t a single moment where I could even consider stopping reading. The characters are brilliantly drawn, and what really topped things off for me was the bang up to date feel of the book, it’s totally fresh and modern and this really made the book what it is. Overall, I’m giving Conviction 4.5 out of 5. It’s addictive, dark and extremely pacey. I can’t wait to catch up on all of the books that I’ve missed! This book was provided free in exchange for an honest review About the AuthorDenise Mina is the author of thirteen novels, including The Long Drop, winner of the 2017 McIlvanney Prize for Scottish crime book of the year, and the Garnethill trilogy, the first installment of which won the John Creasey Memorial Award for best first crime novel. Mina has twice received the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. She lives in Glasgow.
 Today is my stop on the Blog Tour for The Estate by Liza Costello! Don’t forget to check out the rest of the stops! The Synopsis There's no place like home...and Beth hopes there never will be again. Beth never had a settled home as a child, but that's all behind her now. She's fine. Great. Settled in her single life. Until friends start peeling away, moving on to careers and family, leaving her feeling impatient and angry. When she bumps into Jason at a party, she spots the opportunity for her own fresh start - to turn her back on a reckless life of drinking and missed deadlines. She can build a new life, too...can't she? When she discovers that Jason has the opportunity to house-sit a new build out of town, she glimpses her chance. There's only one catch - Jason needs to stay in town for the sake of his new job. But Beth can keep their dreams alive on her own, can't she? As her drinking worsens, and new friends turn out to be prospective enemies, her sense of reality begins to unravel. As Beth comes to confront the mysteries of her own past, she moves closer to understanding the desperate crime at the heart of the estate. But first she must learn who is behind the strange attacks on her new home. And is Jason who she thought he was? Can she even trust him? My ReviewDue to earlier starts, I’ve recently been driving a lot more on my commute rather than taking the train, and The Estate came along at the perfect time, receiving the ‘honour’ of being the first audiobook that I listened to during my commute!! This improved my drives to say the least! The only downside was that it had me so gripped, I often struggled to get out of the car upon reaching my destination! I found Beth to be an extremely interesting central character and enjoyed the way that the narrative switched between the past and the present to reveal what had gone on at The Estate and to subtly create a sense of foreboding regarding the state that Beth was currently in. I really didn’t know which, if any, of the characters that I could trust and found myself constantly questioning everything that I read. While I guessed a small part of the plot in terms of the cause of Beth’s troubles, the dark and twisty atmosphere kept me hooked and dying to find out the full story. Which in the end turned out to be satisfyingly explained and still had a few surprises in store. Additionally, I thought that the narrator did a fantastic job. Not only could I always tell who was speaking, sometimes due to the most subtle differences in her voice, but also the way she read really added to the atmosphere. Overall, I’m giving The Estate 4 out of 5. It’s gripping, eerie and super intense. I thoroughly enjoyed it. This audiobook was provided free in exchange for an honest review About the AuthorLiza Costello was born in County Westmeath, where she lives with her husband and two children. A copy editor and poet, her writing has been broadcast on RTE Radio 1 and published in outlets including The Stinging Fly, The Saturday Independent (Ireland), The Manchester Review and Mslexia. Costello won the Dromineer Literary Festival Poetry Award (2011), came joint second for the Patrick Kavanagh Award for an unpublished collection of poetry (2015), and has been shortlisted for the Sean O’Faolain International Short Story Competition and the Francis McManus Short Story Competition. She is currently completing a PhD on the work of the Irish writer Dermot Healy.
 Today is my stop on the blog tour for Beginners Spanish with the Superpolyglotbros! I’m so excited to be kicking off this tour! Thanks so much to Edwina for organising and don’t forget to check out the rest of the stops. About the Audiobook Learning a language doesn’t have to be difficult - sitting through hours of classes, reading boring lists of vocabulary or listening to someone trying to explain all that grammar. Let the Superpolyglotbros take you with them on a journey through the basics of Spanish. Full of personality and humour, this is a conversational guide to help you build the phrases and exchanges you actually need. With this original audiobook, you’ll be entertained as you learn, building up all the skills you need to get by and much more in just under 10 hours of listening. Based on 30 real-life scenarios packed with essential everyday vocabulary, listeners will be taken on an audio immersive trip of a typical Spanish-speaking place complete with a host of real-world scenarios to help them learn language in context – whether it be meeting new people, exploring a new city or ordering in a restaurant with their new amigos. Perfectly tailored for audio, and thanks to the brothers’ innovative method of gradual immersion, spaced repetition and complete guidance throughout the course, students will be forming their own sentences and making the language their own in ways they never thought they could. Drawing upon their own methods of learning together and a wealth of experience at all levels of teaching, the twins strongly believe that anyone, with the right tools and a healthy dose of fun, can learn a new language. My ReviewBeginners Spanish with the Superpolyglotbros is something a little different from what I usually review - which is just one of the reasons I’m so excited to be taking part in this blog tour! Having learnt French the ‘traditional’ way, which took me a long time to understand all of the grammar and get to a level of being able to converse with others, I was super interested to see how this experience of controlled immersion would be, compared to what I had done before. And I’ve got to say, right from the first lesson, I knew that this style was going to be effective and enjoyable to learn with. After just the first 20 minutes, I’d already picked up so much in absolutely no time at all! The bite sized lessons enabled me to listen on the go and made learning a lot more manageable. The content was clear and easy to follow and I didn’t find myself drifting or getting distracted or frustrated. There were lots of really useful tips as well as quick and easy to understand guides on pronunciation and grammar. This was a key benefit for me, as grammar in particular has been something I’ve struggled with in the past, but they made it extremely simple to follow. I could really feel the twins’ experience with teaching and learning languages coming through, as well as their personalities and humour, which is what took this audiobook and learning experience up to the highest level for me. Overall, I’m giving Beginners Spanish with the Superpolyglotbros 5 out of 5. It’s clear, concise and truly engaging. This audiobook really is for anyone, whether learning new languages is something you do a lot or whether you’ve never tried to learn a new language before, I’d highly recommend this and the Superpolyglotbros for all your language learning needs. This audiobook was provided free in exchange for an honest review About the Superpolyglotbros The Superpolyglotbros are twin brothers and professional language coaches with over 20 languages between them. They've spent years perfecting a unique approach to language learning that puts immediate understanding and effortless interaction at its heart. Their technique has helped them learn Turkish in a week and teach Danish in just five days by immersing themselves and their students in the day to day use of a language.
With over ten years of professional experience in the language industry, from translation and interpreting to second language instruction and acquisition, from accent coaching to subtitling films, from bilingual education for pre-schoolers to linguistics seminars; if there’s something to do with ‘languages’, it’s safe to say they’ve done it. Their linguistic abilities feature extensively in international media, with the twins making regular appearances on TV, radio and social media. |
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