Book-Mad-Mum

  Algernon is a 97 year old widower living in Essex. His life is routine based, punctuated by the carriage clock which he got as a retirement present from his office job. However, his 15 year old granddaughter Anna lives in an offbeat world where colour and body art are her main survival aids. Anna and Algernon have never met, but soon their very different lives will collide. When Anna’s Mum Helene splits up with her partner Harry, they find themselves homeless and having nowhere to live, they relocate to Essex to stay in Algernon’s small home while they get their lives back on track. Anna “the child” is told to sleep in “the shed” but this turns out to be a sanctuary and not the dog kennel that she originally thought it would be. This heart-warming story is told through three generations of one family, granddad Algernon, daughter Helene and granddaughter Anna and the journey they all go on to get to know each other and to try and face the demons that their past threw at them. ...

  MY FAVOURITE READ OF 2022 SO FAR... After 17 years of an unhappy marriage, Anna finally leaves husband Conor and moves in with James, but both have “baggage” - Anna has two children, Jack and Grace and James has a teenage daughter called Bella. The “blended” family isn’t exactly the Brady Bunch that Anna and James had hoped for - the kids hate living in their new set up but just how do they all live together in harmony?   I absolutely loved this book but I think it resonated with me, because I am a Step Mum, and when I first met my partner’s daughter she was a teenager and my own son was Jack’s age so there were a few similarities, but not that many and my son certainly didn’t share our bed!!   Anna’s ex husband Conor was an absolute idiot, a man-child and I hated him from day one as he used his children to get back at Anna, and his behaviour at Jack’s birthday part was just unforgivable. Anna also annoyed me at times as she was constantly making excuses fo...

  It’s the 1990’s, Pulp, the Verve and The Stereophonics are in the charts, the National lottery was launched and the internet for most people, was just a twinkle in the eye. The order of the Sisters of Saint Philomena are down to just three last nuns and the convent needs a lot of repairs. With no money and no new novices coming in they face a dire future. Sister Cecilia, a 90 year member of the convent starts praying for a lottery win and after that a series of small miracles start to unfold. I loved this book, but think it was helped by the fact that my grandma worked in a convent in Ireland, and so I was always around nuns from a young age, and was fascinated by their lives, so for me this felt like a trip down memory lane. There were some occasions in the book when I was really surprised by the behaviour and attitude of Sister Margaret, but then you discover why and it all fits into place, and the intertwined story of Matthew and George was a delight to read.

    The Love Of My Life – Rosie Walsh   Emma is married to Leo and together they have a young daughter Ruby who they both adore. They are a perfect family unit…or are they? Almost everything that Emma has told Leo about her life is a lie! When Emma suffers a serious illness, Leo, an obituary writer for a newspaper, copes by doing what he knows best – researching and writing about his wife’s life. But as he starts to unravel the truth, he discovers the woman he loves doesn’t really exist. Even her name isn’t real. When the very darkest moments of Emma’s past finally emerge, she must somehow prove to Leo that she really is the woman he always thought she was . . . But first, she must tell him about the other love of her life. This book for me was a slow burner – up until 50% of the way through I couldn’t quite engage with it – we knew from the get go that there were secrets in Emma’s life and I wanted things ...

  When Eliza’s children grew up and flew the nest she downsized to a smaller house. Little did she know that eventually they would all come back to live with her! With an online college deadline looming, Eliza needs to get her final essay written but there just isn’t the room or the head space to do it at home. When she sees an advert for a house sitter, Eliza regards this as a chance to escape her noise, hectic life and find peace and quiet in rural Spain. However, things don’t quite go to plan, and she finds herself looking after the owners’ pigs as well as his finca and his dogs – but it’s given Eliza a new zest for life.   Jo Thomas has done it again! She never disappoints when it comes to story telling – she reels you in from the first page and together you go on a wonderful journey with your new found friends within the pages of the book. If you are a fan of Jo’s you will know that she has an absolute passion of food and cooking, and her love for it is infectious – t...

  Ella works at Frills, Frocks and Fairy Tails as a seamstress for a nightmare boss called Wanda. She continues to work there because she wants to help every bride find their dream dress. Outside of work, Ella is about to be a bridesmaid AGAIN! This will be the eighth time, but this time, her friend has chosen dresses which are a shade of muddy brown and could possibly be the worst bridesmaid dresses that Ella has seen! I absolutely loved this – it was a very short read and felt like a long story in a magazine rather than a book. I was also left hanging at the end which made me really excited for the next part of the book. I think personally I would prefer to buy this in the complete novel form rather than in parts. I love Bella’s relaxed writing style and the way that she draws you into the lives of the character which feels so natural.

  Thrown tells the story of four women Becky, Louise, Jameela and Sheila who all live on the Inventor’s Housing Estate. As manager of the local community centre, Becky is constantly looking for new ways to bring the community together and to also raise vital funds to keep the centre open. The new pottery class draws all four women together, and we get to peek behind the net curtains of their homes and their lives. As they work the clay into vases and pots, we discover what made these women come to the classes…whether it be heartache, secrets or relationships that have lost their spark. As a debut novel, I thought this was amazing and, on many occasions, I heard her voice in my head so it really felt like she put a lot of herself onto the pages. The characters were interesting, warm and friendly – although sometimes I thought Sheila was a little bitchy to Louise but I soon got over that the occasional barbed comment! I’ve never done pottery, and so was concerned before I read ...