The Paper Palace is an unexpectedly intense book. It’s a mix of sandy summer memories, laced with so many trauma-inducing moments I kept stopping to ask myself “WTF am I reading?”

The book I never knew I needed. Somehow it was like the universe planted the exact book I needed to be reading in my hands, without me consciously realizing it. It’s one I now want to purchase.
This handbook was really informative & I found myself placing tags to remind myself to come back to sections constantly. It was a really well collaborated manual & it didn’t read like any old boring health book at all. I’d definitely encourage other women to read this! It was relevant & transformative.

I don’t know much about the history of the IRA in Northern Ireland & what the people faced during that war. This was a fictional but eye-opening glimpse into the mentality of those times.
On a more personal note, I sometimes wonder if I should read this type of book? Is it possible that my logical brain completely ruins the anticipation & sequence of events that ultimately makes these types of books the thrilling race-against-time that they are? I do understand that what makes these books work is the secret keeping, the error in judgement… but I find these traits so frustrating in a character & it really made it hard to enjoy this book, which was full of potential!
It wasn’t a winner for me, but it wasn’t because it was a bad book.

This was a welcome change to my usual reading choices. It was quite different in style & I hadn’t ever heard of Egon Schiele, the artist, before this.
The story is broken into four sections, detailing the relationships & experiences of four significant women in Schiele’s life. It was a story of love, passion, scandal, tragedy & heartbreak. Egon was ahead of his time when it came to his outrageous artworks, deemed a pornographer, before finally being recognized as one of Austria’s most prestigious painters.
It was a well written & researched piece of historical fiction.

I had big expectations for this one, going off the hype on Instagram over the past 12 months. TJR has such a great rep for writing great stories, so I was excited to get into it finally.
It had a really interesting writing format, written like an interview but in a way you could clearly imagine the band documentary, playing before you on the TV. Footage of each of the band members speaking to the camera, highlights of the performances, black & white images & glimpses of the creative sessions. I really liked that. It was a unique way to read a story.
While it didn’t quite reach that fever pitch for me, it wasn’t a bad book. I didn’t love the characters (except for Camilla, she had more fire than all these rockstars combined), but I did enjoy the way it was written, almost like it was the absolute truth.
I’m definitely looking forward to the movie!

Before picking up this book I had previously heard of Marie Antoinette, but I hadn’t heard of her sister Marie Carolina (Charlotte), two Queens who had a huge impact on the 1700’s & early 1800’s. I love a good historical novel & found myself cross-referencing records to see the correlation between the fictional & the fact. The Embroidered Book crosses over beautifully between historical fiction & magical fantasy. The only downside to this book for me was the author taking well over 600 pages to tell the story. A thick book has never really deterred me before, but this one took longer than usual & I honestly feel it could have been substantially shorter & gotten to the conclusion much sooner. Around the 300 page mark, I was beginning to lose interest & really had to push myself to continue on, knowing I still had 300 pages to go. I really feel that it took away from the overall content of the book.
While I definitely had issues with the length of the story, I still quite enjoyed it & really loved wrapping my mouth around all the beautiful words in this novel, the names & places of other ethnicities only added to my fascination with this story.

Very much the kind of book I was needing after several DNF’s over the past few months. I loved so much about this story, the characters, the relationships, the historical significance & the scenery, which was described so beautifully, but the meals that were detailed throughout the story, had me practically drooling! It was an unexpected delight.
The Inheritance pulled at the heart-strings, gave glimmers of hope & threw out a nugget or two of golden wisdom. My very favourite kind of book to read. It was a love story… but not just romantic, it was the love between the family you create, the family you choose & the family you didn’t even know you needed. It was a sweet read.

Straight up, this really did feel super similar to the After series. Bad guy, good girl, bad guy makes a shady deal to seduce the good girl, they end up falling for each other, you know the one. I actually really enjoyed this story though. It was fun, it was sexy, it was lighthearted & I kind of loved the voice of Cooper, who’s tone dripped with animosity & classist prejudice, but I found him weirdly likable. Just gonna say it though… the sex scene….

I felt like it was time for a good thriller, so I picked up this, The Long Weekend. A lot of people compared it to The Hunting Party & while it’s been a while since I read that, I can see the similarities.
It’s written without chapters, new paragraphs form transitions to new characters, which at first left me confused about who was speaking. It was also full of incredibly unexpected twists & odd connections. There were so many characters in this story & there was so much going on for every single one of them, I almost felt like the author just had so many ideas she couldn’t bare to leave any out & just chose to include them all. I was a little underwhelmed with the ending, especially the final sentence which felt clipped & rushed. It felt like this book had ADHD.
I did get a bit hooked on the story & I did find it hard to put down, so maybe that combo was a winner!

This was a really enjoyable mystery to read! I liked the writing style & the voice of the main character. I liked the almost anxious way the story was told, ending with the gained bravado & strength of someone who’s solved the mystery.
The story itself was full of unexpected twists & that had me flipping back going, “Wait, what!?”. I felt some confusion at parts, but all the loose ends were tied up nicely in the end… if you can even say that about this kind of book.
I’ll be keeping this author on my radar!