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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...

  Published: 2020, Penguin Books Genre: Fiction Themes: Slavery, American Southern States, supernatural powers My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤ Over the last year I have read several books that tackle the unimaginably difficult topic of slavery, and I have every respect for authors who give a voice to all those people who had no voice for the whole of their lives.  The Water Dancer carefully captures life for the slaves living on a huge plantation in Virginia, where the owner grows tobacco as a main crop, and has so many 'Tasked' working for him that their humble cabins form an entire street.  This is where we find young Hiram who is the son of the white estate owner and his enslaved mother has just been taken away to be sold. Ta-Nehisi Coates then introduces an unexpected twist to the story of Hiram and that is the ability to perform 'Conduction' and transport his body out of danger when he is under great stress.  I have to confess that I struggled with a fantasy ele...

  Published: 2020, Peepal Tree Genre: Fiction Themes: Islands of Central America, legend, ancient tribes, historic legacy My rating (out of 5):  ❤❤❤❤ A thousand years before the story begins, the Mermaid of Black Conch was a young woman living with her tribe on a tiny island in the Caribbean Sea.  She had yet to find a husband, and the other women in her village grew jealous of her as the sound of her voice and the sinuous movements of her dancing drew much attention from their men.  These women conspired against her, and using a powerful curse, they turned her into a mermaid doomed to swim in the depths of the oceans for all time. She remained hidden for hundreds of years, but one day in 1976, drawn to the sound of a local fisherman strumming his guitar, she raised her barnacled, seaweed-clotted head from the sea.  David Baptiste meant her no harm and returned to the same spot day after day to lure her back and gain her trust, but later he came to realise that ...

  Published:  2021, Harper Collins Genre: Fiction Themes:  Antarctic research, extreme weather, communications, injury My rating (out of 5):  ❤❤❤❤ Before starting this book you will need to switch your imagination to 'wide screen' and channel your inner David Attenborough as you picture the stark white landscape of Antarctica.  You must be prepared to mentally stand in the extreme cold and feel the force of the wind crashing against your body while you watch the field workers go about their business.  Jon McGregor will take you across the ice and snow with Robert 'Doc' Wright, a veteran of the Antarctic, and his two young researchers Luke and Thomas and very quickly you will understand the constant danger of just being in that environment. When an unauthorised expedition goes wrong, the whole team are plunged into mortal danger, and each man finds himself alone and fighting for his life against the elements.  What happens next tests the limits of their...