Hi! It’s been a minute… a quick update & a few snaps of books I’ve read over the past few months.
The Love Hypothesis ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
The Three Dahlias ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨
The Silent Patient ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Check & Mate ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨
I have a new found love for audio books! Ice breaker!! I’ve just started Wildfire. Let’s discuss…
Our book club @ratherbereading.bc were blessed to have a chat with Coco Mellors ( Cleopatra & Frankenstein was our top read of 2023 ) it was such a privilege 📖
Excited to be back posting on here. Any reading recommendations?
Happy Place - Emily Henry
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨
Sunshine 🤝 Emily Henry
Nobody writes a romance novel like Emily. This felt more mature and heart wrenching than her others, with miscommunication to match Marianne and Connell…but still with a perfect balance of light, fun and spicy. This would make for the perfect tv series.
Go to your happy place, I think desperately, only to realise I’m literally in my happy place. And he. Is. Here. The very last person I expected to see. The very last person I wanted to see. Wyn Connor. My fiancé.
“Things change, but we stretch and grow and make room for one another.
Our love is a place we can always come back to, and it will be waiting, the same as it ever was.
You belong here.”
My Body - Emily Ratajkowski
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
‘In my early twenties, it had never occurred to me that the women who gained their power from beauty were indebted to the men whose desire granted them that power in the first place. Those men were the ones in control, not the women the world fawned over. Facing the reality of the dynamics at play would have meant admitting how limited my power really was—how limited any woman’s power is when she survives and even succeeds in the world as a thing to be looked at.’
What a way to take back power and control.
‘ what a joy life can be in this body.’
tw: sa
Year Of Yes - Shonda Rhimes
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This book makes me want to be the very best version of myself, and to fall in love with the process.
In this poignant, hilarious and deeply intimate call to arms, Hollywood's most powerful woman, the mega-talented creator of Grey's Anatomy and Scandal and executive producer of Bridgerton, For the People and How to Get Away with Murder , reveals how saying YES changed her life - and how it can change yours too.
“ I am not lucky. You know what I am? I am smart, I am talented, I take advantage of the opportunities that come my way and I work really, really hard. Don’t call me lucky. Call me a badass. “
It Ends At Midnight - Harriet Tyce
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Addictive. Both the writing and the plot.
It's New Year's Eve and the stage is set for a lavish party in one of Edinburgh's best postcodes. It's a moment for old friends to set the past to rights - and move on.
The night sky is alive with fireworks and the champagne is flowing. But the celebration fails to materialise. Because someone at this party is going to die tonight.
I loved the way this bounced back from past to present, I never quite knew where it was heading. A great psychological thriller. Blood Orange does take the win for me though.
tw: sexual assault
Cleopatra and Frankenstein - Coco Mellors
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨
I adored this start to finish.
Cleo and Frank run head first into a romance that neither of them can quite keep up with. It reshapes their lives and the lives of those around them. I truly felt like I was part of Cleo and Franks life, watching two soulmates try navigate marriage and love each other without fully understanding the others needs. It felt so natural and real the words became a film in front of me.
“ When the darkest part of you meets the darkest part of me, it creates light. “
The Yellow Kitchen - Margaux Vialleron
A novel of friendship, food and belonging. ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I liked this book, I didn’t love it. The yellow kitchen stands as a metaphor for the lifelong friendship between three women: Claude, Sophie and Guilia. This book explores all the complexities that come with friendship, sexuality, culture and politics. I found myself pausing after each chapter and asking myself questions, which I really enjoyed.
“ Perhaps it is the nature of the decade they live in but they often fall, exhausted, from the peak of their emotions, from the deep sadness to explosive happiness. They worry they might be what is called unstable. “
Verity - Colleen Hoover
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Lowen is a struggling writer when she gets an offer too good to pass up. Jeremy, the husband of successful author Verity Crawford, hires Lowen to complete Verity's series when his injured wife is unable to do so. Once Lowen arrives at their home to start compiling notes and do research, she discovers an unfinished manuscript that looks to be Verity's autobiography. What is written in those pages will horrify and haunt anyone who reads it.
Whether Colleen is writing about love, sex or emotional tragedy she builds up a suspense and energy that I only feel when reading her books. This is a different vibe for her, in her acknowledgements she says this was an indie project for her. I hope she explores thrillers more as this was a perfect creepiness. 🤯 what to believe!
And Now You’re Back - Jill Mansell
⭐️⭐️⭐️
Cute, easy beach read. Slow start but I was totally invested half way through.
Didi Laing met her first love, Shay Mason, on a magical winter visit to Venice. For six months after that they were rapturously happy together and Shay came to work at Didi's parents' hotel in the Cotswolds. One event changed everything, shocking the town, and leading to Shay's disappearance. Then one day, out of the blue, Shay returns to Elliscombe to fulfill his father's dying wish and unintentionally upends Didi's life…
Ugly Love - Colleen Hoover
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Colleen can do no wrong. This is my favourite book I’ve read of hers so far. Thrilling, sexy and heart wrenching.
When Tate Collins meets airline pilot Miles Archer, she knows it isn’t love at first sight. They wouldn’t even go so far as to consider themselves friends. The only thing Tate and Miles have in common is an undeniable mutual attraction. He doesn’t want love, she doesn’t have time for love, so that just leaves the sex. Their arrangement could be surprisingly seamless, as long as Tate can stick to the only two rules Miles has for her.
Never ask about the past.
Don’t expect a future.
They think they can handle it, but realize almost immediately they can’t handle it at all.
‘God gives us the ugliness so we don’t take the beautiful things in life for granted.’
Book Lovers - Emily Henry
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Stunning. I loved every single page. I’ve taken about 15 pictures of quotes that I just adore. A perfect summer romance story.
One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn’t see coming… Nora is a cut throat literary agent at the top of her game. Charlie is an editor with a gift for creating bestsellers. Nora swaps city life for a month in Sunshine Falls. It’s a small town straight out of a romance novel but instead of meeting handsome doctors or cute bartenders, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie…
‘Sometimes, even when you start with the last page and you think you know everything, a book finds a way to surprise you.’
Exciting Times - Naoise Dolan
⭐️⭐️
A quick read, a slow book. I was hoping this would be like Conversations With Friends but sadly not.
Ava moves from Ireland to Hong Kong to find happiness but instead ends up with a badly paid job, Julian who likes to spend money on her and Edith, who actually listens to her..
I am excited to see what else Naoise writes as I loved her style of writing.
‘You keep describing yourself as this uniquely damaged person, when a lot of it is completely normal. I think you want to feel special - which is fair, who doesn’t - but you won’t allow yourself to feel special in a good way, so you tell yourself you’re especially bad.’
