First Line Friday

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20booksofsummer, BlackLivesMatter, currentlyreading, firstlinefriday, meme, paperback, THUG

 

“I shouldn’t have come to this party.”

My choice for this week is from THE HATE U GIVE by Angie Thomas a YA novel that’s on my 20 Books of Summer list.

 

 

Sixteen-year-old Starr lives in two worlds: the poor neighbourhood where she was born and raised and her posh high school in the suburbs. The uneasy balance between them is shattered when Starr is the only witness to the fatal shooting of her unarmed best friend, Khalil, by a police officer. Now what Starr says could destroy her community. It could also get her killed.

Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, this is a powerful and gripping YA novel about one girl’s struggle for justice.

 

What about you, would this first line draw you in?

 

 

 

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First Line Friday

Tags

firstlinefriday, meme, paperback, thriller

 

“The man behind me is standing close enough to moisten the skin on my neck with his breath.”

My choice for this week is from I See You by Claire Mackintosh, a psychological thriller that’s on my summer reading list.

“You do the same thing every day.

You know exactly where you’re going.

You’re not alone.

When Zoe Walker sees her photo in the classifieds section of a London newspaper, she is determined to find out why it’s there. There’s no explanation: just a website, a grainy image and a phone number. She takes it home to her family, who are convinced it’s just someone who looks like Zoe. But the next day the advert shows a photo of a different woman, and another the day after that.

Is it a mistake? A coincidence? Or is someone keeping track of every move they make . . .

I See You is an edge-of-your-seat, page-turning psychological thriller from one of the most exciting and successful British debut talents of 2015.”

 

What about you, would this first line draw you in?

 

 

 

First Line Friday

Tags

firstlinefriday, meme, paperback

 

“Stuck in a sewer, hunting goblins. What a life”, Felix Jaeger muttered with feeling.

My choice for this week is from Skavenslayer by William King part of the Gotrek & Felix First Omnibus.

 

Gotrek & Felix return to the city of Nuln to lie low and gain some steady employment. Being a sewer-jack would seem to be fairly mundane work until the skaven raise their furry heads. The maze of sewers provides a perfect staging post for the foul chaos rat-men, as they seek to overwhelm the city. Luckily there are two people below ground who like a good fight.

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t read fantasy but my husband and son love it and really enjoyed these books.

What about you, would this first line draw you in?

 

 

 

Book Review: See You In September by Charity Norman

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book review, bookreview, Charity Norman, favourites, new favourite author, New Zealand, paperback, readers first

See You In September by Charity Norman is a contemporary novel told by Cassy and her mother Diana.

Cassy takes a break from university studies to go travelling around New Zealand with her boyfriend Hamish. They plan to be back in the UK for Cassy’s best friend’s wedding in September, hence the title. They haven’t been gone long when circumstances cause them to go their separate ways. Cassy is drenched and fed up whilst trying to hitch them both a ride, but instead takes a lift from a group of very friendly  people in a beat up old van. They’re from a farming collective living self sufficiently off the land in a beautiful valley only approachable by boat.

It’s all idyllic and seems the perfect place to spend the rest of her break before returning home for the wedding. The community are so positive and loving completely different to her stressed out life and planned future faraway in London.

So begins this absorbing read that took me on an incredible journey with Cassy in New Zealand and her family back in London. The story from Cassy’s point of view and her mother Diana is also interspersed with extracts from a cult leaders manual with the steps to get your recruit fully on board with the cults beliefs.

MY THOUGHTS

I was hooked from the first page as the author took me on an gripping journey with Cassy and her family. The setting of the community was idyllic, and I even though it’s a fictional community I could see why Cassy was drawn to it. The descriptions of the farm along with the initial acceptance and positivity from the members sounded the perfect place to escape modern life and it’s technological entrapments.

As a mother of a teenager I really felt for Cassy’s family back home in London and completely sympathised with their fears and desires to rescue her. They felt like a real family who only wanted the best for their daughter before it was all too late.

This is my first book by this author but definitely not my last. I’ll be recommending this to family and friends on my blog and social media.

First Line Friday

Tags

firstlinefriday, meme, New Zealand, paperback

My choice for this week is from See You In September by Charity Norman that I’m currently reading courtesy of Reader’s First.

“It doesn’t look like a scene of death. It looks like paradise.”

“Cassy blew a collective kiss at them. ‘See you in September,’ she said. A throwaway line. Just words, uttered casually by a young woman in a hurry. And then she’d gone.

It was supposed to be a short trip – a break in New Zealand before her best friend’s wedding. But when Cassy waved goodbye to her parents, they never dreamed that it would be years before they’d see her again.

Having broken up with her boyfriend, Cassy accepts an invitation to stay in an idyllic farming collective. Overcome by the peace and beauty of the valley and swept up in the charisma of Justin, the community’s leader, Cassy becomes convinced that she has to stay.

As Cassy becomes more and more entrenched in the group’s rituals and beliefs, her frantic parents fight to bring her home – before Justin’s prophesied Last Day can come to pass.

A powerful story of family, faith and finding yourself, See You in September is an unputdownable new novel from this hugely compelling author.”

It’s hooked me but does this first line draw you in?

 

 

THROWBACK THURSDAY

Tags

dark, England, family drama, favourites, meme, paperback, Throwback Thursday

Throwback Thursday meme is hosted by Renee@It’s Book Talk and is a way to share some of your old favourites as well as sharing books that you want to read that were published over a year ago. You know, the ones waiting patiently on your TBR list while you continue to pile more titles on top of them 🙂 These older books are usually much easier than new releases to get a hold of at libraries and elsewhere. If you have your own Throwback Thursday recommendation feel free to jump on board, you’re welcome to use Renee’s pic as well. If you’d just link back to her @ It’s Book Talk she’d so appreciate it.

My choice this week is: Daughter by Jane Shemilt

Published 2014 by Penguin

From Goodreads:

“Jenny is a successful family doctor, the mother of three great teenagers, married to a celebrated neurosurgeon.

But when her youngest child, fifteen-year-old Naomi, doesn’t come home after her school play, Jenny’s seemingly ideal life begins to crumble. The authorities launch a nationwide search with no success. Naomi has vanished, and her family is broken.

As the months pass, the worst-case scenarios—kidnapping, murder—seem less plausible. The trail has gone cold. Yet for a desperate Jenny, the search has barely begun. More than a year after her daughter’s disappearance, she’s still digging for answers—and what she finds disturbs her. Everyone she’s trusted, everyone she thought she knew, has been keeping secrets, especially Naomi. Piecing together the traces her daughter left behind, Jenny discovers a very different Naomi from the girl she thought she’d raised.”

This was a fantastic read that had me hooked from the first few pages. The writing was beautiful and the characters very real. I could probably read this again in a few years time even though I know the story. It was such a joy to read even though the subject matter was dark.

 

First Line Friday

Tags

firstlinefriday, library book, meme, paperback, Paris

My choice for this week is from The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George, a book I picked up from the second-hand book sale a couple of weeks ago.

” How on earth could I have let them talk me into?”

“There are books that are suitable for a million people, others for only a hundred. There are even remedies–I mean books–that were written for one person only…A book is both medic and medicine at once. It makes a diagnosis as well as offering therapy. Putting the right novels to the appropriate ailments: that’s how I sell books.”
Monsieur Perdu calls himself a literary apothecary. From his floating book store in a barge on the Seine, he prescribes novels for the hardships of life. Using his intuitive feel for the exact book a reader needs, Perdu mends broken hearts and souls.

The only person he can’t seem to heal through literature is himself; he’s still haunted by heartbreak after his great love disappeared. She left him with only a letter, which he has never opened.
After Perdu is finally tempted to read the letter, he hauls anchor and departs on a mission to the south of France, hoping to make peace with his loss and discover the end of the story. Joined by a bestselling but blocked author and a lovelorn Italian chef, Perdu travels along the country’s rivers, dispensing his wisdom and his books, showing that the literary world can take the human soul on a journey to heal itself.”

Would this first line draw you in?

 

 

THROWBACK THURSDAY

Tags

favourites, food, italy, meme, nicky pellegrino, paperback

Throwback Thursday meme is hosted by Renee@It’s Book Talk and is a way to share some of your old favourites as well as sharing books that you want to read that were published over a year ago. You know, the ones waiting patiently on your TBR list while you continue to pile more titles on top of them 🙂 These older books are usually much easier than new releases to get a hold of at libraries and elsewhere. If you have your own Throwback Thursday recommendation feel free to jump on board, you’re welcome to use Renee’s pic as well. If you’d just link back to her @ It’s Book Talk she’d so appreciate it.

My Pick this week is: The Italian Wedding by Nicky Pellegrino

 Published February 5th 2008

“Settled in London and with their own delicious slice of home in the form of Beppi’s restaurant, “Little Italy,” the Martinelli’s are a typical Italian family—fighting, eating, and loving in equal measure.Now, Pieta’s sister Addolorata is getting married. Since Pieta is a bridal designer it falls to her to make the wedding gown. But she is distracted by a series of family mysteries. Why is her father feuding with another Italian in the neighborhood? Why is her mother so faded and sad? And could the man she’s always held a torch for really be getting married to someone else? As Pieta stitches and beads her sister’s wedding gown she uncovers the secrets that have made her family what it is and that stand between her and happiness. The Italian Wedding is a feast of food and love. It’s about discovering who your family really are. And who you really want to be.”

This was a random library read from 2011 that I loved and thoroughly recommend if you enjoy family mysteries and mouth-watering descriptions of delicious Italian food.

 

First Line Friday #11

Tags

firstlinefriday, library book, meme, paperback, Robert Harris, The Vatican

My choice for this week is from Conclave by Robert Harris his latest thriller.

“Cardinal Lomeli left his apartment in the Palace of the Holy Office shortly before two in the morning and hurried through the darkened cloisters of the Vatican towards the bedroom of the Pope.”

The Pope is dead.

Behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, one hundred and eighteen cardinals from all over the globe will cast their votes in the world’s most secretive election.

They are holy men. But they have ambition. And they have rivals.

Over the next seventy-two hours one of them will become the most powerful spiritual figure on earth.

 

 

I’ve been looking forward to reading this since it was published last year and I’ve managed to get the first loan of the new paperback from the library.

Have you read this yet and what did you think?

 

 

THROWBACK THURSDAY

Tags

1950s, favourites, friends, Gillian Morgan, Honno, knitting, Long Island, meme, non-fiction, paperback, single mother, travel, Wales

Throwback Thursday meme is hosted by Renee@It’s Book Talk and is a way to share some of your old favourites as well as sharing books that you want to read that were published over a year ago. You know, the ones waiting patiently on your TBR list while you continue to pile more titles on top of them 🙂 These older books are usually much easier than new releases to get a hold of at libraries and elsewhere. If you have your own Throwback Thursday recommendation feel free to jump on board, you’re welcome to use Renee’s pic as well. If you’d just link back to her @ It’s Book Talk she’d so appreciate it.

My Pick this week is:

The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs

Juggling the demands of her yarn shop and single-handedly raising a teenage daughter has made Georgia Walker grateful for her Friday Night Knitting Club. Her friends are happy to escape their lives too, even for just a few hours. But when Georgia’s ex suddenly reappears, demanding a role in their daughter’s life, her whole world is shattered.

Luckily, Georgia’s friends are there, sharing their own tales of intimacy, heartbreak, and miracle making. And when the unthinkable happens, these women will discover that what they’ve created isn’t just a knitting club: it’s a sisterhood.

 

 

 

This is the first in a trilogy about a group of women who meet on a Friday night to knit and share their lives together. Going by my review on Goodreads it took a while to get into but I really enjoyed it in the end. In fact I have the withdrawn copy from my local library right in front in of me. It’s chicklit with knitting, perfect for a cosy weekend read maybe beginning on Friday Night? 😉