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Published: 2019, Penguin Random House Genre: Fiction Themes: Gender, relationships, race, sexual identity, social attitudes My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤❤ The dedication in this book is: ' For the sisters & the sistas & the sistahs & the sistren & the women & the womxn & the wimmin & the womyn & our bretheren & our bredrin & our brothers & our bruvs & our men & our mandem & the LGBTQI+ members of our human family.' Those last five words are the essence of it.  Whoever we love, whatever we look like, dress like, act like.  We are members of our human family.  We should be able to be who we want to be without judgement.  Except we're not there yet and there is still a long way to go.  This book helps to give context to some of the different ways people find love, and how that does not necessarily remain the same for a lifetime.   Bernadine Evaristo introduces us to a great many vibrant people, and you ...

  Published: 2018, Penguin  Genre: Fiction Themes: Romance, Vermont, small town community My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤ If you are looking for a book that gives you romance, a shaggy dog, happy endings all round and a recipe for Burnt Sugar Cake with Maple Icing written out in full at the back, then this is the book for you.   There is also a helpful reminder that men won't find you attractive if you persist in wearing dungarees  with comfortable shoes and if you learn to bake cakes everyone will like you. In the spirit of 'If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all' I will leave it there.  Not my kind of book I'm afraid but HelloGiggles found it 'Downright delightful... it has everything you want: sweetness, charm and a side of romance.'

  Published: 1998, Simon and Schuster Genre: Fiction Themes: Mother and daughter relationship, betrayal, teens, friendship My rating (out of 5):  ❤❤❤❤❤ This book will resonate with anyone who has ever dreamed of a perfect future where they find someone wonderful to love and then, in reality, end up pinning all their hopes on the back of the wrong person.   It is so easy to go forward blinkered by that sunlit mental image of a happy home and smiling partner, constantly making excuses for the reality seen by those nearest and dearest.   Details are glossed over or mentally re-written, actions excused and everything adjusted just enough to keep the dream alive. This is a story of broken dreams, manipulation and inappropriate relationships and how, so often, the people who cause the problems walk away and do not pay the emotional cost. Isabelle has these dreams, but for the moment, she lives with her teenage daughter Amy in the smallest acceptable house in Shir...

  Published: 2020, Bloomsbury Genre: Fiction Themes: Marriage, relationships, trust, death My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤❤ After reading the opening pages of the book I started thinking, 'If this is monogamy, then I'm doing it wrong!'  Annie has divorced her first husband and has ' learned to sleep around.  Happily.  Enthusiastically.  Fairly indiscriminately too, so that later she couldn't call up the names of some of the men she'd had sex with.'   But after all that, she is starting to yearn for something else, a deeper connection, and maybe even to consider a monogamous relationship again. Then she is introduced to Graham.  Graham is a big bear of a man who owns the local bookshop and enjoys all the comforts the comforts life has to offer.  His bearded face is lively and expressive and he is full of laughter and smiles as he works his way around the guests who have been invited to the opening of his store.  As soon as they meet there is a conn...