To Love A Liar by L.V. Matthews

From Goodreads

CHRIS FLETCHER IS A MAN WITH SECRETS . . .

One woman dead.
Nineteen years ago, policeman Chris Fletcher's lover was found dead in an abandoned house.

One woman missing.
Now, his loyal wife has disappeared without a trace.

A man with everything to lose.
There's no doubt that he's guilty, but of which crime?

My thoughts

My thanks to the Publishers via NetGalley for the invite to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a story of two halves, as the past looks set to haunt this ex undercover policeman Chris Fletcher. Having had to flee the country for his safety, he now finds himself having to return.   

I enjoyed this dual timeframe story, that was set in the past and the present.  At times you didn't know who to trust or what was the truth behind the past events.      

He may not be as innocent nor as guilty as you at first think, but to find out how far he may have sunk you will have to grab a copy for yourself.  I suggest grabbing a brew, closing the curtains, getting yourself settled and be prepared to immerse yourself among the secrets and darkness contained within the covers of this book.

This author can tell a good yarn for sure.

 

One Cornish Summer With You by Philippa Ashley

From Goodreads

Tammy loved her childhood growing up in the harbour town of Porthmellow. But when her father went bankrupt and her mother abandoned them, she was quick to learn that nothing lasts forever.

Now, Tammy spends her days creating works of art in the golden Cornish sand, and is determined to protect herself from further heartache. But everything changes when she meets Ruan – a gorgeous solicitor who has moved to Cornwall for a fresh start.

Just as Tammy starts to question if Ruan could be the one to break down her walls, she discovers he has a secret – one that unravels everything she thought she knew about her past.

Can Tammy find the courage to trust again? Or will Ruan’s secret push her away forever?

My thoughts

My thanks to the Publishers via NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I gave this a 4 star or 8/10 read.  

Tammy has had an idyllic childhood much like many children have, until fate has other plans instore for her parents, which in turn, turns her whole life upside down.  As a result of her parents lives, she has a very distorted view on life and relationships.  

She finds an escape from day to day life by creating her own sand art on the beaches were she lives.  The trouble is that sand art, like some relationship doesn't last forever!  

Meeting Ruan one day, things look set to improve for her as a relationship is formed over a period of time with this local solicitor.  But is all as it at first seems?

I enjoyed the gentle way the relationship developed between Tammy and Ruan, as they ambled along trying to cope with what life had in store for them.  Not everything goes the way you want it to all the time and this was certainly the case for these two.

I can thoroughly recommend this read, it's a pleasant way to wile away a few hours.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

From Goodreads

The Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression, a book that galvanized—and sometimes outraged—millions of readers.

First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into Haves and Have-Nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America. At once a naturalistic epic, captivity narrative, road novel, and transcendental gospel, Steinbeck’s powerful landmark novel is perhaps the most American of American Classics.

My thoughts

This was my local Library Reading group read.  To be honest it is not a book that I would've picked up off the shelf to read.

But ~ WOW what a read it was.  The author takes the reader on one hell of an arduous journey with the characters as they fight to survive all that is thrown at them both personally and financially during the  Great Depression.  Portraying well the differences between the rich and poor. 

Bleak, descriptive and very long.  This is a journey you won't want to miss.  All I can say is, please read it.  I am so glad that I did.

Quote

'    And in the south he saw the golden  oranges hanging on the trees, the little golden oranges on the dark green trees; and guards with shotguns patrolling the lines so a man might not pick an orange for a thin child, oranges to be dumped if the price was low.

   He drove his old car into a town.  He scoured the farms for work.  Where can we sleep the night?

  Well there's Hooverville on the edge of the river.  There's a whole raft of Okies there.

  He drove his old car to Hooverville.  He never asked again. for there's a Hooverville on the edge of every town.

  The rag town lay close to water; and the houses were tents, and weed-thatched enclosures, paper houses, a great junk pile.  The man drove his family in and became a citizen of Hooverville - always  they were called Hooverville.'

 This reminds me of a song called Hooverville by The Christians.

the christians hooverville lyrics - Google Search

The Christians - Hooverville (They Promised Us The World) - YouTube

20 Books of Summer 2025 Reading Challenge

It's that time of year again, that some readers aim to challenge themselves to read 20 books during June, July and August.  I had been keeping an eye out on Twitter for tweets about the challenge and not spotted any.  Then one day just into June, I spotted one.  It had been rebranded,  well ii had a new poster.

There was a reason for the new poster.  After 10 years of hosting the 20 Books of Summer Reading Challenge, Cathy of @cathy746books on Twitter (aka as X) has decided to hand over the reins to @annabookbel and @wordsandpeace who can both be found on Twitter.

Thanks to Cathy for all that you have done over the last 10 years looking after the Reading Challenge.

This year I don't have a set plan of 20 books to read, as life is too busy to stick to a set list and I want to be able to wing it, so to speak.  I may not even get 20 books read, but I will give it a go.

As my blog post is late at being shared, I have already finished 2 books with several on the go.

Good luck to everyone taking part and if you use Twitter keep your eye out for #20BooksOfSummer.

Water in the Desert, Fire in the Night by Gethan Dick (Blog tour post)

 

Info about the book

‘Original and lyrical...unlike anything I’ve read in recent memory’ JOHNY PITTS, presenter of R4’s ‘Open Book’ and author of Afropean

‘Vast, generous, funny, resistant and alive’ VALÉRIE MANTEAU, novelist and winner of the Prix Renaudot.

‘An original and vital perspective on much more than how a world ends: on how it begins' - OANA ARISTIDE, author of Under the Blue

Gethan Dick’s stunning debut is a thought-provoking post-apocalyptic novel, Fizzing with energy, anger, fear and ultimately hope.  Water in the Desert Fire in the Night will appeal to fans of Claire Kilroy, Megan Hunter and Cormac McCarthy.  

Here is a novel about hope, wolves, companionship and resilience, hunger and gold. It’s about an underachieving millennial, a retired midwife and a charismatic Dubliner who set out from London after the end of the world to cycle to a sanctuary in the southern Alps.  It’s about packing light and choosing the right companions and trousers: What’s worth knowing, what’s worth living and holding on to your sense of humour in moments big and small. It’s about the fact that the world ends all the time. It’s about what to do next!

About the Author

Gethan Dick was born in Belfast and grew up mostly in the west of Ireland. In 2001 she moved to London to study at Goldsmiths, and also Camberwell College of Art. In 2011, she migrated to Marseille, France, and has lived there since. She has performed at Latitude, Secret Garden Party and Green Man, and her artworks have been supported and exhibited by such internationally renowned institutions as: Creative Europe (EU); Fondation Van Gogh, MAC, FRAC-Sud (Fr); Barbican, ICA, Wellcome Trust (UK); Haus der Kulturen der Welt (De); Manifesta (Nl); Eyebeam (US) and the Havana Biennial (Cu). In the summer of 2024 she participates in the climax to the two-year Ulysses European Odyssey at the YES Festival in Derry.

My thoughts

My thanks to Helen Richardson and Tramp Press for the opportunity to take part in the Blog tour of this book. 

I am around half way through the book and had hoped to finish it, so that I could do a proper review.

However, life had other plans for me!

What I have read of the story so far, I have enjoyed as I do enjoy books set in the future like this one is.  It makes you think what life would be like living in a post apocalyptic era and how you would cope if you survived an apocalypse. 

I have included two quotes below that resonated with me.

Quote 1

'It’s so fucking pathetic, the way we’re made. We think we are able to imagine what it’s like to be somebody else, to go through something that somebody else is going through, but we aren’t. Nothing touches us really until it becomes something that’s happening to us. If you were really able to imagine the horrors that people go through in their lives you would never be able to move again.'

My thoughts about the quote: I often wonder what life is like for other people, this quote resonated with me.  

Quote 2

 'Anyway, so we lost the overview. First we lost it a bit and people tribalised. The rich blamed the left, the left blamed the right, the right blamed the others, America blamed China, China blamed Europe, Europe blamed Russia, the godly blamed the godless, the godless blamed the godly, and so on and so on. But when things really went to bits we completely lost the overview. We didn’t even know who was blaming who anymore. It is hard to remember now what it felt like to think we knew what was happening: that a nation had chosen this or that, that a building we’d never seen had been blown up, that somebody we’d never met had died. It’s hard to understand why we thought any of it was important.          There were always so many people saying it was all lies any-way, I don’t know how anyone reporting on stuff managed to keep themselves motivated – except the ones who were lying, who must’ve just been excited at how well their lies were working. But then when the communications started going down, and when the electricity didn’t come back on, there was no more overview. Your understanding of the world shrank down to what you were actually living, along with the bits and pieces that you could glean from the other alive people that you came across.'

My thoughts about the quote: This is so true, it's so easy to blame others for what is happening.  No one whether individual or a Country likes to accept the blame and suffer the consequences, they prefer to pass the blame on & on & on.

I look forward to finishing the story and sharing my review of it on my blog in due course. 

City of Sinners (Harry Virdee #3) by A.A. Dhand

 

From Goodreads

It is an ordinary Yorkshire morning, cold and miserable.

The streets are not yet busy. Police cars hurriedly pull up in the centre of town, but none of their lights are flashing and the sirens are silent.

A body has been found, elaborately and painstakingly positioned to send a message. But what message? And to who?

It’s DI Harry Virdee’s job to find out. But Harry doesn’t know that the killer is watching him, that the killer is coming for him.

Because this is personal.

My thoughts

I first came across this when I watched Virdee the TV series and then found out that it was based on a book.  I had to read the book even though I had seen and enjoyed the TV series.  Having seen the series didn't detract away from the book, as it was only loosely based on it.

I enjoyed this story and look forward to reading more of the books in this series.  I felt that the author portrayed the lives and the interactions between the characters of the criminals, the victims and the police well.  It shows that many religions and races of people have prejudices against each other.  

I doubt reading the first two in the series after having read the third in the series will be spoiled at all.  Keep your eyes out for reviews of them in the future once I have read them.

Fifteen Wild Decembers by Karen Powell

 
From Goodreads

A creative re-imagining of the short life of Emily Brontë, one of England’s greatest writers

Isolated from society, the Brontë children spend all their time inventing elaborate fictional realms or roaming the wild moors above their family home in Yorkshire. When the time comes for them to venture out into the world to earn a living, each of them struggles to adapt, but for Emily the change is catastrophic. Torn from the landscape she loves and no longer able to immerse herself in the fantastical world of Gondal that she and her younger sister Anne have created, she is simply unable to function.

As a child, Emily witnessed a rare natural phenomenon. After weeks of rain, the peaty soil on Crow Hill became so sodden that the earth exploded. Since then, her life has been dogged by tragedy and repeated failures. Her sisters are desperate to escape their unsatisfactory work as governesses and now the life of her brother Branwell, the hope of the family, is in turmoil. To the outside world, Emily appears taciturn, unexceptional; but beneath the surface her mind is in a creative ferment, ready to burst forth. As the pressure on her grows, another violent phenomenon is about to take place, one that will fuse her imaginary world of Gondal with the landscape Emily loves so passionately, and which will change the literary world.

My thoughts

' Cold in the earth - and fifteen wild Decembers.

From those brown hills, have melted into spring:

Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers

After such years of change and suffering!' 

I enjoyed this story and am more than happy to give it a 4 stars or 8/10.  This was a local Library Reading group read.  Sadly, not all the group enjoyed it as much as I did.  

This was a fictional story based on the Bronte family and their lives, told from the perspective of Emily Brontte.  Whilst it may not be factually correct in every aspect and this was possibly one of the issues that my reading group had with it.  Things like that don't always bother me as we have non fiction books to cover the facts.  I read a book for it's own merits.  This one did draw me into the bleak and harrowing lives that the Bronte family had. 

At times I felt as if I was on the Yorkshire moors with them when they were out walking.  The author knows how to draw you in and make you feel that you are there along with the characters.

I have included a couple of quotes below that made me think for different reasons. 

Quote

'Remember when we read Paradise Lost for the first time? How compelling we found Satan, though we knew we shouldn't. We fought among ourselves to read those passages! I've always believed that Satan must have set out to be a good angel but could not help himself, it was not in his nature. I want my hero to be just as bad and compelling. If he cannot have what he wants, then the whole world must pay for his pain and suffering.'

Well I suppose that that is one way of looking at how Satan developed into the person he is portrayed to be and what a way to think of how to develop your character in the story..

FINALLY, this quote below resonated with me as I often have similar thoughts.  I often wonder what things will be like when I am no longer alive.

'I struggled to conceive of a world in which I no longer existed, every thought and feeling inside this me-shaped container of flesh and bones, gone. Life could end with the snap of a bone, one misfire of a heart, and yet mine had seemed unending, unbreakable.'

This book is definitely worth reading if you ever come across it.