First a quick explanation!
Due to some severe health issues over the last few years, and a lingering chronic condition, my planned review schedule went right out of the window and I have been scrabbling ever since to get it back on track.
In an attempt to try to regain some lost ground, I have been scrunching some of my (overdue) NetGalley reviews together into one or two posts each week: shorter reviews, but still covering all of the points I intended to.
That's the plan anyway, so let's see if we can find any summer beach reads packed on my TBR shelves…!
Title: Hex and the City
Author: Kate Johnson
Publisher: HarperCollins UK, One More Chapter
Blurb: Something wickedly sexy this way comes…
A laugh out loud witchy romcom for fans of Lana Harper and Erin Sterling !
Things you should know about Poppy:
1. She's a witch
2. She has magical hair like Rapunzel from Tangled
3. She lives with Iris, the head of her coven, in a beautiful, ramshackle house next to Highgate cemetery
4. She works at Hubble Bubble, a magic shop in Covent Garden. Though none of it is real magic as that would be highly irresponsible. Until…
…Poppy accidentally sells gorgeous celebrity magician Axl Storm, all six-foot-four of him, a cursed pendant.
When all hell breaks loose can the guy with fake magic and the girl with real magic fix the chaos they've caused? Or will sparks fly both in and out of the cauldron?
Review: I read and loved Hex Appeal so was hoping this would be more of the same, and in some ways it is, but it is not a sequel and doesn't feature the same characters (barring a couple of cameo appearances!), so stands alone with no need to have read the previous book to know what is going on.
For the most part, this book is simply a sweet and sexy romance between two deeply insecure people, but halfway through there is suddenly an influx of statues coming to life, random time travel and other chaos - more than even the chaotic Poppy is used to.
I actually quite enjoyed all of the magical chaos and the very cute soulmates-at-first-sight romance between Poppy and Axl, and there were some great moments of humour throughout that I thoroughly appreciated. And, in my opinion, the pair's blatant, desperate need for each other made up for some of the less sexy descriptions in the spicy scenes.
I also loved Poppy's Rapunzel-esque magical hair, but couldn't help wondering what on earth it DID with all of the rubbish it collected!
All-in-all, this was fun, silly and endearing and made for a lovely, light witchy read. And I would definitely read more from this magical world in the future.
Title: If I Have To Be Haunted
Author: Miranda Sun
Publisher: HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction | Magpie
Blurb: Your first love will always haunt you…
The most haunting, heartwarming debut of 2023. Perfect for fans of strong female leads and supernatural stakes in Buffy, with all the sweetness and romance of To All the Boys I've Loved Before.
Cara's just trying to stay on top of all her classes, excel at her extracurriculars, and prepare for college – which means not speaking to the dead, an ability she inherited from her grandmother. Ghosts are trouble, and Cara doesn't need to add their problems to her own.
But then she stumbles upon the body of Zach – the super popular but very newly dead high school golden boy – in the woods, and guess what? He wants her to resurrect him.
Cue trouble.
Miranda Sun's debut touches on the power and conflicts in a mother-daughter love, first romance – and finding your place in the world while honouring your culture. Full of heart, humour and thrills, If I Have to be Haunted will put a spell on you.
Review: In this YA fantasy romance, main character Cara Tang is torn between her magical-heritage ghost grandmother and her magic-rejecting, over-protective (and highly critical) mother. And then there's her bitter emnity with loathsome, cocky, school-golden-boy Zach Coleson to contend with. Oh, and she can see and speak with ghosts. As you can imagine, she's pretty stressed out right from the start. And Zach then going and get himself killed as part of a wider supernatural just adds to her burdens.
Cue a cute enemies-to-lovers romance, alongside an adventure quest through a series of increasingly surreal liminal worlds, mixed with a large dollop of familial trauma and identity crisis coming-of-age drama. It's an entertaining and compelling mixture!
With so much going on, it felt like quite a lot was left open or unanswered in the story - especially around ghostly grandma's past - and the cliffhanger epilogue clearly points to this being the beginning of a bigger story, so I expect to see a sequel or even a series eventually emerge.
For me, the family drama and culture clash struggle were fascinating and really engagingly portrayed, and the fantasy elements hooked me in despite being a little confusing at times, but I wasn't as keen on the sudden flip from constant personal attacks to soulmates in just a few - admittedly fraught! - days. I'm not a fan of the only-tormenting-you-because-they-like-you trope and while I believed that the pressure of circumstances and a greater understanding of each other could lead to mutual respect and friendship, I found the romance too great a leap for the length of the story.
So, while I really enjoyed this book, I don't really feel it shows at its best as a standalone novel but it is definitely worth a read once there is a sequel to offer more explanation and a resolution.
Title: You Don't Have to Be Mad to Work Here
Author: Benji Waterhouse
Publisher: Random House UK, Vintage | Jonathan Cape
Blurb: A woman with bipolar flies from America in a wedding dress to marry Harry Styles.
A lorry driver with schizophrenia believes he's got a cure for coronavirus.
A depressed psychiatrist hides his profession from his GP due to stigma.
Most of the characters in this book are his patients. Some of them are his family. One of them is him.
Unlocking the doors to the psych ward, NHS psychiatrist Dr Benji Waterhouse provides a fly-on-the-padded-wall account of medicine's most mysterious and controversial speciality.
Why would anyone in their right mind choose to be a psychiatrist? Are the solutions to people's messy lives really within medical school textbooks? And how can vulnerable patients receive the care they need when psychiatry lacks staff, hospital beds and any actual cures?
Humane, hilarious and heart-breaking, You Don't Have to Be Mad to Work Here is an enlightening and darkly comic medical memoir - from both sides of the doctor's desk.
Review: This is Dr Benji Waterhouse's personal memoir about his training as a doctor, his choice to specialise in psychiatry, and his own personal therapy journey.
Sometimes heart-breakingly sad and sometimes hilariously funny, the book maintains throughout a self-evidently true and open authenticity that is immediately recognisable to anyone who has experienced NHS mental health services from either side of the 'counter', or even just as an interested onlooker.
As with many NHS memoirs I have read over the years, the clearest message that readers are left with is that caring, highly-dedicated health professionals are being bowed down and burnt out by issues such as systemic underfunding and lack of resources, skeletal staffing levels and forced focus on time-money targets over results for the individual patients in their care.
The author is open about the highs and lows of both his job and his personal life, and entertains us with the disarming, and often dark, humour that he employs to survive professional and personal challenges, making his book eminently fascinating and enjoyably readable. But it can also be incredibly depressing for anyone who reads between the lines and beneath the one-liners to the pain and helplessness of a person who just desperately wants to help others.
So, both an easy (well-written and funny) read and a difficult read (truthful; sad and bleak at times). I was left with an inexpressible gratitude towards the men and women who put their own physical and mental health on the line daily to try to improve those of the rest of us. Heartfelt thanks to all of you for hanging on in there, even when it feels like 'you must be mad' to do so. ❤
Title: The Suspect
Author: Rob Rinder
Publisher: Random House UK, Cornerstone | Century
Blurb: When the UK's favourite breakfast TV presenter dies live on air in front of millions of viewers, the nation is left devastated.
More devastated still when it becomes clear that her death was not an accident.
The evidence points to one culprit: celebrity chef Sebastian Brooks. But junior barrister Adam Green is about to discover that the case is not as open-and-shut as it first seemed.
And although her angelic persona would suggest otherwise, she was not short of enemies in the glittery TV world . . .
Can Adam uncover the truth?
Review: Technically this book is a sequel to The Trial but it stands alone perfectly well in terms of plot and character.
Junior barrister Adam is back and trying to live up to his mento's ideals, juggle work with a (reluctant) social life and avoid his mum's thorough phone interrogations. Oh, and he also has a couple of cases on his plate: one that leads to him being threatened by a local gang and the other that involves national celebrities and is assumed to be a clear open-shut case, which Adam strongly believes may be 'shutting' on the wrong suspect... but what can one baby barrister do against the whole machinery of the justice system?
Rob Rinder opens the chamber doors once again to give an insider view of the legal and/or justice system and explore the morality between whether the two are one and the same. The mystery plot is solid and kept me hooked in and guessing throughout, and there is definitely plenty of excitement - Adam's work/life struggle alone is going to give me ulcers-by-proxy! I don't know how he even survives the kinds of stress levels that his personal life and career engender.
But, regardless of the dangers to my digestive health, I would 100% read more from this series!
Title: How to Age Disgracefully
Author: Clare Pooley
Publisher: Titan Books
Blurb: When age makes you invisible, secrets are easier to hide
Daphne knows that age is just a number. She also knows that society no longer pays her any attention – something she's happy to exploit to help her hide a somewhat chequered past.
But finding herself alone on her 70th birthday, with only her plants to talk to and neighbours to stalk online, she decides she needs some friends. Joining a Senior Citizen's Social Club she's horrified at the expectation she'll spend her time enduring gentle crafting activities. Thankfully, the other members – including a failed actor addicted to shoplifting and a prolific yarn-bomber – agree.
After a tragic accident, the local council threaten to close the club – but they have underestimated the wrong group of pensioners...and with the help of a teenage dad and a geriatric, orphaned dog, the incongruous gang set out to prove it.
As long as their pasts don't catch up with them first…
Review: Similarily to The People on Platform 5, this book is a lovely, witty, found-family comedy (picture The Thursday Murder Club but without the murder!).
The story follows a few different characters as they navigate the perils of aging and relationships, but the standout for me was Daphne. Clever, resourceful Daphne sets out from the start of the story to make herself some friends and end her self-enforced years-long isolation (with the help of a whiteboard plan, which I found very relatable!) and somehow ends up very competently solving everyone's problems with straying husbands, gang peer pressure, estranged family, kleptomania and elective mutism (to name just a few).
Oh, and the also have to save the local community centre, of course!
Daphne's abrasive approach to human contact is both funny and sad, but it is when all of the characters come together as a group that the story achieves chaotic, comedic perfection.
I loved reading every minute of this and found myself wanting to be back in the story after I had finished it. And, as I loved The People on Platform 5 so much as well, I will clearly need to add Clare Pooley to my must-read author list for the future.
An amazing selection for this batch - all completely different but all brilliant books.
Whether you are looking for romantic fantasy, fantasy coming-of-age, comedic memoir, legal mystery or comedic found-family, Bookshine blog has you covered for an epic variety of summer reads... you're welcome!
Keep shining - come sunshine or rain clouds - and happy reading! 🙂
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