Book-Mad-Mum

Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris My rating: 5 of 5 stars OH MY DAYS!!!! I am going to start this review by saying that you absolutely MUST read this book...I promise you won't be disappointed!!! Grace and Jack appear to have it all...he is a well off lawyer defending Domestic Abuse victims and Grace gave up a good job as a fruit buyer for Harrods to keep house when they married and also to prepare their home for Millie, her sister who has Downs Syndrome. The plan is that when Millie reaches the age of 18 she will leave her residential school to live with Jack and Grace. In the meantime, they entertain friends at dinner parties, and have exotic holidays, but all is not what it seems when the front door closes. Jack is actually a very sinister character and he is written in such a chilling way, that at times I honestly forgot to breathe when I was reading about him. Grace's character is very plausible, the way she initially gave in to his dema...

The Cake Shop in the Garden by Carole Matthews My rating: 5 of 5 stars I absolutely adored this book, and when I sat down to read it, sometimes it felt like the pages were turning themselves...I couldn't read it quickly enough!! Fay Merryweather runs a café from her home, and a cake shop aboard her narrow boat moored at the bottom of the garden in Milton Keynes. She has a domineering mother who has taken herself to her bed and runs poor Fay raged. She is in a completely dead-end relationship with Anthony and her sister who lives in New York is constantly begging for both emotional and financial support. When Danny Wilde strides up the garden one morning looking for work as an odd-job man, Fay's life starts to move in a different direction. I sometimes got frustrated that Fay just couldn't seem to use the word "no" and was used by everyone as a doormat. Saying that I loved her, and really wanted things to go her way. I was so dis...

The Pink Suit by Nicole Mary Kelby My rating: 2 of 5 stars This book seemed to have so much promise but sadly it failed to deliver. The story is based around the suit that Jackie Kennedy wore the day that JFK was assassinated and the fictional part of the book was the story of the young dressmaker who copied the original Chanel design in raspberry pink for the First Lady which became iconic but for all the wrong reasons. Before I read the book, I knew nothing about what actually happened to Jackie on the day of the assassination, I didn't know that she insisted on wearing the blood stained suit when her husband's successor was sworn in on Air Force One, declaring "let them see what they have done." The book was really just a narrative about sewing, Chanel, and now and then a few references to then references to Maision Blanche. I wouldn't recommend this book, it didn't really go anywhere, the story was the run up to the assa...

The Headmaster's Wife by Thomas Christopher Greene My rating: 4 of 5 stars I picked this book up from the Quick Choice section in my local library, and if I'm completely honest, I chose it simply because of the title. I seem to have a passion about reading books about Schools, which I think stems back to my childhood when I read and fell in love with the Mallory Towers books. I didn't know what the story involved, and so fell into the unknown, which was a lovely treat and I wasn't left disappointed. The book is in three parts, Acrimony, Expectations and After. When I read the first part, which tells the story of Arthur Winthrop, a middle aged Headmaster, who is found wondering Central Park naked, I loved him as a character and felt great sympathy for him. I must admit, that I did figure out one little twist in the first part straight away, but the other one at the end of that part of the book made me gasp! Then came Expectations, whic...

At Christmas I resigned from my job. For 18 months I worked as an Admin Assistant at a primary school...I adored working with children and the teaching staff blew me away with their commitment, creativity and the extremely long hours they put in to the education system. But, after working in the entertainment industry for 28 years prior to that, a school environment wasn't the correct fit for me, so I decided to jump ship. I've never walked away from a job, not knowing where I'm going next and it was a scary move, but I had to do it as I wasn't enjoying life at work, and when my other half told me that "I'd lost my sparkle" I knew it was time to move on and try something else. I had already decided in my head that I would take the month of January off, after all, who wants to work that month, it's dark, cold, dreary and depressing after the wonder of Christmas! January became February, and when February became March and I was living off my savings I ...

My Husband's Wife by Jane Corry *** (Three Stars) Lily and Ed are recently married and martial life isn't going as well as Lilly thought it would. Ed is an artist while Lily is a defence lawyer and finds herself defending Joe Thomas,  a man who drags her into his web of deceit but who also reminds  Lily of her late brother, Daniel. Lily and Ed  live next door to  Francesca and her daughter Carla who are Italian. Little Carla is subjected to bullying at school as she is "different" to the other children.  But as Francesca works hard,  Lily and Ed take to caring for Carla on Sundays and it is through this connection that Carla becomes parts of their lives permanently but not in a nice way. When a secret that Francesca has been holding is uncovered by Lily, Carla's life is pulled apart. I liked this book, and just when I thought I'd guessed what was going on, it then turned in a completely different direction, but it still all made sense....

When I Was Invisible by Dorothy Koomson My rating: 1 of 5 stars Was I pleased to finish this book?!!! It has to be one of the worst books I've read this year, and it was a complete and utter slog to get through. On paper, I should have loved it, because it featured lots of things that I like to read about-ballet, nuns and celebrity lifestyles, but what I found so annoying was the constant to-ing and fro-ing of the year, the location and the person in the story. The two main characters are both called Veronica Harper who meet at school aged 8 years old...one is Roni and the other calls herself Nika, and they soon become best friends, sharing a love of ballet, and it is at their ballet lessons, that a wedge appears that will change the course of both their lives forever. I think I would have loved this book if it hadn't kept leaping around, one chapter went from 1988 to 2012 to 2016 and covered Birmingham, London and Brighton. If you can read t...