Holy SHIT THAT ENDING!!!!

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

Wow, oh wow, this book.

Madeline is an 18-year-old girl who doesn't know what it's like to be in the Outside world. All her life, Maddy has been stuck inside the walls of life because she suffers from SCID. Basically, Maddie is allergic to everything, and everything could kill her. And Maddie is okay with that, more or less. She has her mom, she has her books and she has her nurse Carla. What else is there?

And then comes Olly. Olly who only dresses in black, runs up walls and makes hilarious skit comedies about bundt cakes. Olly is what Maddie has been waiting for, and she just didn't know it until now.

When it comes to Goodreads and BookTube, there are several months every couple of months that get a massive round of hype. This is one of those books. It's a book you desperately want to read, but you're almost afraid to start in case it ends up disappointing you. This book did not disappoint me. It lived up to those expectations and then exceeded them.

Despite her situation, Maddie is more or less a normal girl. She likes reading, and she likes board games. She likes instant messaging and Tumblr. And she's able to develop an intense crush on the guy next door.

Olly and Maddie's relationship was perfect. It wasn't insta-love. It was a brief attraction at first glance, that crew into an insatiable curiosity. Then it morphed in to jokes, friendship, laughter and finally tenderness, love and heartbreak.

There were some perfect, beautiful moments in this book. All the bundt cake jokes, Maddie's Rapunzel-like hair, Hawaii, the bookshop. I don't think there was one second that I wasn't riveted.

It's hard to develop such intense relationships without some flashes of hatred towards characters for their actions. But somehow Maddie seemed justified in certain ways she acted because of how she had lived her life. She never knew such feelings, and like a wild animals, something new and scary made her flee into a safe corner.

And the twist in this book blew me away.I really didn't see it coming! I'm sure other people did but not me. And I love that!

I would implore anyone thinking about picking this book when it's out on bookshelves in September to do so.It makes your heart dance, sign and sob, all in the space of a few hundred pages. And when you put it down, it will never leave you...not really.

A very enjoyable book about a young black female civil rights lawyer in 1946. Regina Mary Robichard is inspired to travel to Mississippi to help in solving the murder case of a young black soldier when the author of her favorite book writes to her office for help. When Regina gets to Revere, she finds out that the case is going to be a lot more difficult than she believed. She is deep in Jim Crow laws, lynching is very common and the white men and women who take part in the racist acts are not imprisoned or charged for their crimes.

This book gave a real sense of the deep southern town Regina visited - from the customs, to those laws you just didn't break and the secrets you didn't talk about. All through the book, I felt a deep fear imprinted in the words that followed Regina around and it made me so afraid for her. I wasn't sure if something would happen because of her investigations.


This book would be great for anyone that's a fan of The Help or even anyone who grew up reading Mildred D Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. I would have liked the ending to be slightly more fleshed out, it fell rather flat for me and left me asking more questions than I would have liked and a slight sense of disappointment in basic human nature. But overall, a very good read!

4.5 Stars

Molly 'Maybe' MacPhearson loves her life on her farm with her family and her cows, all who have names. But Maybe is starting to grow up and realising that with a Nigerian father and Irish mother, she's a bit different to the others around her in her Scottish village. As Maybe is trying to accept her family and differences, tragedy strikes and Maybe's father dies. As she tries to keep everything together, Strawgirl magically comes into Maybe's life and might just help her save the farm.

This was just the cutest book! I loved Maybe and how she thought. I loved her mind, her personality, her vivaciousness and just everything about her. The writing quality was beautiful with some really gorgeous descriptions. This is a middle-grade book so the villains in this book are very villainous but also to an almost comical extent and this made it very enjoyable. Maybe's friendship with Strawgirl reminded me a little bit of Pete and Elliot from Pete's Dragon (which I LOVED as a kid). I really loved the fact that there was a short chapter from Madam Bovary the cow in amidst all the drama and the fact that every single cow had a name as well.

The ending was great and I loved how Maybe came to love and accept her differences and where she came from on her father's side. She was Scottish but also Ibo and that was okay. I loved it - it made me tear up a little bit!

Definitely recommend this one.

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

A young Irish girl meets a young Irish boy as the two of them travel to England to find their fortunes. Predictably, they fall in love but soon a tragedy tears them apart. Over 40 years later, Mona is helping other women overcome their trauma, while still grieving for her own loss.

This book is just a wonderful, gentle, and moving novel that honestly just took my break away. I loved how hooked i got into Mona’s story, as tragic as it was, and how much I yearned to just gather her, both the young and old versions of her, in my arms to help her and console her.

Mona was truly a lovely character who I just felt for a lot, and it was obvious she was someone who could easily connect to people. She was a seriously gentle soul who deserved all the love and kindness the world had to offer her.

There are a lot of subtle reveals in this book that seem obvious but the way everything is eventually uncovered just flows really nicely. This is a book that will definitely leave you with some tears in your eyes when you’re finished!

I received a free digital copy of this book from the publishers/author via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Zula, Adoma and Linet are sisters yet they live on opposite ends of the world to each other. Zula guards her beloved mountain in Mongolia, Adoma cares for the River Goddess in Ghana and Linet's soul is one with the drowning pool in Cornwall. Though not bound by blood, the sisters live with each other in a world beyond our own and learn how to use their gifts for the good of the world. But when evil and greed threatens to destroy nature, the sisters must rise up and fight with everything they have.

This is a beautifully told story that really echoes the fight humankind are having today with the current climate emergency, and the wall of corporate greed and cruelty that seems intent on destroying our beautiful world. Wolf Light really emphasises the importance of caring for nature, and how in turn, nature cares for us as well. This book has a wonderful bond of sisterhood in it as well, and it's very much three girls rising up to face down whoever tries to break them apart and they're always there for each other through thick and thin.

The writing in this is very melodious and flowery, which suited the spiritual nature of the book in my opinion. I think this story bordered between middle grade and YA and because of that I feel like some parts of the story missed out on further development which could have made it stronger. I would have liked more back story about the guardians - how they knew of their powers, how they met each other in the spirit world and knew the girls would be the most powerful. It was alluded to that there was a wider group but we only saw Nana Merrimore's friends. Linet's story also felt a little bit unfinished and it felt like she didn't really get her 'rising up' story the way the others did. The villains were very black and white in this book too, and I think they got their comeuppance too suddenly and easily as well. I would have liked a bit more of a fight between them all I think, as the suddenness of everything near the end felt rushed.

Overall, a really enjoyable story though!