I received a free copy of this book from Penguin Random House Ireland in exchange for an honest review.

The Last Days of Summer follows a family dealing with upheaval when a uncle who has been in prison for 10 years is released and comes back into the family home. Now Lizzie is trying to accept her brother Jasper is back, while wondering if he's the same man she grew up with while her oldest daughter Katie remains fearful and wants nothing to do with him. The youngest girl, Joanne, ends up forming a bond with Jasper but trouble is only around the corner.

This was a lot more dark than I thought it would be. Based on the cover and description, I thought it was a summery novel about a man acclimatising back into normal family life and the family moulding itself back together. And while it's kind of that, it also isn't. Jasper is not a man who went to prison for something he didn't do. He wasn't wrongfully accused or convicted of a crime, nor does he ever show remorse for the heinous crime he did commit (you learn what he did eventually, though it's heavily hinted through. Hint, it's really bad). Jasper is scary. He's scary in a way that you don't when he'll snap and I found myself fearing for Lizzie and her girls in case he snapped at them and did something awful.

Lizzie's acceptance of her brother being home was interesting. She wasn't totally happy but she never said he wasn't welcome. She opened up her doors for him, and made sure he had a place to go. Yet, she is afraid of him around her daughters despite being happy enough to have him in the home.

I don't think I would recommend this book to anyone who might be triggered at mentions or flashes of violence, particularly violence towards women. Jasper definitely seems to have a grudge against beautiful women and his thoughts aren't always nice, and are often downright creepy and disturbing - even his thoughts about his nieces. Despite his good relationship with Joanne, his obsession about the 'woman he could see within her' was a bit much for me at time.

One of the strongest bits in the book is the setting I think. There's a huge emphasis on the rural area, the prairie and how each member of the family feels about it and loves it in each their own way.

The ending was a bit of a ride, and quite horrifying as well in a weirdly satisfying way.

Bellman and Black follows pretty much the entire life of a man called William Bellman. When William is young, he kills a young rook with a stone while out galavanting with friends and somehow it seems to mark his life. As Williams grows older and the events of that day are forgotten, William encounters the death of some of his closest friends and family and begins to see a man in black at all the funerals. When William's wife and children die, and his last daughter is struggling between life and death, William is offered a proposition from Mr Black. From there, Bellman and Black was born.

I enjoyed this at first. As an audiobook, it was pretty relaxing to listen to and I liked listening to how William grew up and the kind of man -good and ambitious - he turned out to be. I liked how he met his wife and became a father and even though nothing particularly exciting happened, i just enjoyed the story of his life.

Then halfway through, Mr Black and the weird business deal came into the picture and things got really boring for me for a while. I'm not sure if I lost my feel of the story as I went on holiday and didn't listen for a week and a bit and I felt a bit discombobulated when I came back and started up again. I just felt super disconnected with the story and I was just bored and didn't want to pick it up. There was so much about the running of Bellman and Black, and the accounts and profits and stuff that I just didn't care about. The second half of it just didn't really interest me, and even the very end where the whole thing came together was just a bit blah for me. I definitely preferred The Thirteenth Tale a lot more.

In Sheena Wilkinson’s first novel in the Declan Kelly series Taking Flight, we followed Declan as he moved in with aunt and stuck-up cousin and discovered his love and talent with horses. Declan grew up in a rough and poor area and continuously had to fight his background and reputation while he found his true passion with horses, and particularly his cousin’s horse Flight. In Grounded, it’s two years later and Declan’s life is right on track. But then Flight is gone and when Declan gets a great opportunity, he’s suddenly torn when a bombshell is dropped on him.

Thi was a pretty great read and it really kept me gripped until the end. However, unlike the first book, I felt the book was lacking a lot of the horsey communication and general bits and bobs that make me love horse-centric books. Declan was very much torn between his horse life and his home life in this one, and I felt like the home life took a bigger emphasis. I did enjoy a lot of Declan’s thoughts about Sheaneen and their situation, stuff that everyone has thought about and he actually put into words at time. I really felt for Declan and everything that was happening and how overwhelmed he was - and I was almost disgusted at myself that at times I just wanted Seaneen to go away.

This lost a star for me just because of the general lack of horsiness. In other books that have similar scenarios like Declan and Folly’s, I’ve seen a lot of moments where things were hard and then got better and real ‘bonding’ moments and I don’t feel like there was much of this. I also felt a large disconnect with Declan and Folly. I think this may be because he had wanted Flame first and Folly was just a second-choice but there was definitely something lacking.

The situation with Cian was heart-wrenching and it was hard to read. It was really Declan looking back and seeing what he could have been and become and it wasn’t nice at all.

I think I would have liked 50+ pages more of this book, just to have a bit more with Declan and Folly. I also am disappointed we didn’t see more of Rosevale. I would have liked Declan to have helped out there more. If there’s a third book, I hope to see that! I also felt, given how big Colette and Vicky were in Taking Flight, they would have had more of a part in Grounded but it seems not.

Holy effing shit, this was good.

I received a free digital copy from the author/publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest feedback.

You followed Joe as he fell in love with Beck and became rather...obsessed with her. Caroline Kepnes' first book with Joe was chilling and creepy and downright fascinating. Hidden Bodies continues Joe's story and we go different places with him, in both location and sanity.

It's literally hard for me right now to write down my thoughts on this book as my head is spinning from it. It took me so many places and I was really on the edge of my seat for most of the latter half of the book. Joe seems to take on new life in this book and he wasn't so one-minded in this one as he was in You. I felt like he became a little bit more dimensional for me, and he stopped being someone just obsessed about someone loving him back but someone with other dreams and aspirations. It seemed we experienced with Joe, the moment he stopped and realised he could really be someone in life, and I really felt the excitement and nervousness along with him. Like in You, I really wanted things to go right for Joe and felt really happy when they did, and angry and sad when they didn't. Joe is not a good person and he does terrible things yet, for some weird reason, this book makes me forget about common sense and I just really love Joe.

I found the other characters in this book fascinating, in particular Love and her family. I really liked Love and couldn't figure out if she was an open book or much more complex than she was making out. I found Beck very unlikeable in You and I often wondered why Joe liked her so much and she was a bit of a mess. Love was a little bit more put together and while she definitely was a bit off-the-wall, I dunno, she just fit Joe so much more. I found Forty pretty fun to read as well plus everything to do with The Pantry and all the celebrity name-dropping. I really hope Reese Witherspoon and Amy Adams read this book and are like, "wait, what?"

One of the problems with You was how convenient everything wrapped up for Joe. I always felt he got off a little too easily so it was great to see him worrying now and again about certain things that happened in the first book. There were definitely times in this book that I felt Joe get too messy and I didn't think he was covering his tracks and I was so worried. It was almost like he had done it so many times, it just became a solution to all his problems rather than facing it like a normal person.

BUT HOW CAN IT END LIKE THAT? I feel like I'm dangling on a precipice and I just need Caroline Kepnes to hold out the promise of another book for a safety net. I need more, more, more! I definitely don't want this to be the last of Joe Goldberg.

I received a free digital copy from the author/publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest feedback.

Nancy is a teenage girl who is adjusting to having to live in a normal world again after she walked through a door in her cellar and found herself in a magical underworld land. Nancy's parents don't understand why she's different and send her to a special school for children like her. Nancy finds out that all of the students in her new school have been through portals and doors like hers and are trying to find their way back, including her teachers. Just as Nancy starts feeling less alone, disaster strikes and she has a mystery to solve.

I loved this! I knew from the get go that I had to read this short story. It was like an answer to everything I had always wondered. How did Wendy, Michael and John feel about having to live in normal old England without pirates and indians to fight, and fairy dust to help them fly? How did the Pevensies deal with having to grow up all over again, and stop being royalty? This story lets us know all the little things these other characters may have had to deal with in such cases.

This book starts off feeling quite magical but quickly turns into a dark and creepy murder mystery when the students start turning up dead with body parts missing. I definitely did the usual thing, suspecting everyone and fearing for my favourite characters. I did guess who it was in the end but I was totally happy okay with it. It was very intriguing to see how it all wrapped up.

I love how there were characters of different sexualities like Nancy who is asexual and Kabe who is transsexual. There was a beautiful acceptance among the characters and i l loved Nancy's inner monologue about how she felt. It really gave me, as a heterosexual person, an insight into what a person who is asexual feels and must think about things when it comes to romance and relationships in a way I've never experienced before in other books.

This book is just chockablock full of beautiful observations and metaphors. It's magical, and creepy and poignant and a must-read.

A novella about a tribal girl called Binti who walks away from her family to go to a special college that no-one in her tribe has ever gone to. On the ship to the college, something terrible happens and binti finds herself being a peacemaker.

This was a really interesting novella packed with traditions, culture and interesting new technology. I really loved Binti's journey to her college and the events that happened. I did imagine the Meduse as giant squids for most of the novella which is probably very wrong, but oh well. I loved hearing about Binti's tribe and all their traditions such as the clay she spreads on her skin and the different way people in her tribe can shame themselves. I also liked the friendship that grew between Binti and the Meduse and how they grew to respect her. I feel like I got enough story but at the same time I'd gladly read more.

Vianne and Isabelle are two sisters living in Nazi occupied France during WW2. While completely different in personality, the two sisters find themselves sucked into different parts of the war effort. What happens is an extraordinary tale of strength, love and hope.

Ugh this was so beautiful. It's the kind of book that makes you feel like someone has reached it and squeezed your heart to bits because emotions, emotions, emotions. It's also a quiet kind of story, you don't fall head over heels in love with it right away. I didn't realise I was so sucked in and so invested in these women until over halfway through when it hit me like a ton of bricks. Things started getting really intense and I found myself worrying about Vianne and Isabelle and some of the dangerous situations they found themselves in. Truly a story of women's amazing courage during wartime.

The setting was great, the pacing was great, the characters were great from Vianne and Isabelle to Beck and Ari/Daniel. I love moments like the very end of this book when you get sucker punched with emotion and can't help but tear up. A MUST READ for every WW2-fiction lover.

4.5 Stars

I received a free copy of this book from O’Brien Press in exchange for an honest review.

Izzy Gregory is living a normal life with her normal family in Dublin, Ireland, when one day she sees a beautiful work of graffiti showing a fallen angel. From then on, Izzy’s life changes and she is introduced in quick succession by a tortured boy called Jinx to the secret side of ‘Dubh Linn’ where the fae live. Fae and angels are real and Izzy may have just been dropped into the middle of a war.

This was really good, surprisingly so. The first thing I got to say is how refreshing it was to read a YA book where the main character has such a wonderful family, with parents who love and support her and love and support each other. No missing parent syndrome here. I also loved the subtle way Irish culture and myths and legends were introduced to the story (side note: I really want a Salmon of Knowledge necklace now) and they were treated with the utmost respect. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again - a similar series called Dark Fever eventually left a bad taste in my mouth in how it portrayed Dublin and Irish people and culture. A Crack In Everything doesn’t suffer from this or the over-exaggerated assumptions of what Irish people are like or the overuse of the word ‘craic’, all of which I’ve seen in books about Ireland written by non-Irish people. Ruth Frances is Irish and her writing reflected that.

I really loved the mentions of the Dublin streets such as Grafton Street and Westland Row which are places people living in Dublin and going to town would actually be (not Temple Bar, which is mainly tourists).There were some great descriptions of how Dublin is both the old and the new and the feel and magic of it that as a Dubliner, and someone who is in that area everyday, I really got.

Izzy herself was a strong main character and I really enjoyed her developing relationship with Jinx. The Fae in this book and the way they were organised reminded me a lot of the TV show Lost Girl (which is a good thing) and the rules and regulations around the Fae and how they have to honour their Matriarch and kith was very interesting. This book was well thought-out and really well written. I can’t wait to read the next one!