Review: The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Have you heard of Marmite? This salty, yeasty sandwich spread is famous in the UK. It’s a source of national division, nearly on a par with Brexit: People either love it or hate it.

The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet is a Marmite book. Some readers say it’s the best thing ever, others want to spit it out.

I found this story, like Marmite, to be flavoursome and delicious. I’d be happy to spend the day reading it while eating spoonfuls of my favourite, sticky condiment straight from the jar.

Top Ten Tuesday: Characters I’d Love To Swap Places With

Hello readers! Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday. This week’s bookish theme is ‘characters I’d swap places with’ and it’s a tricky one.

From pirates to persecution, betrayal and bereavement, the protagonists I love have a lot thrown at them. Do I admire them? Yes. Would I want to be them? Absolutely not.

Today, I’m looking for heroines with happy endings and stories that only contain ‘mild peril’.

Review: A House of Ghosts by W.C. Ryan

This book makes me want to spontaneously applaud. W.C. Ryan has managed to squeeze at least four genres into a single story. Somehow, he’s combined a spine-tingling supernatural tale with war-time espionage and romance, then plopped the entire plot into a country house murder mystery.

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Places I’d Love To Visit

Hello readers! Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday. This week’s theme is ‘places mentioned in books’. Participants have to pick literary locations they’d love to visit.

I’ve decided to add my own twist and will be looking at my favourite libraries in fiction. These wonderful spots would make any book-lover’s heart beat faster.

Review: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

One of the best books I’ve read this year. Colson Whitehead takes readers through some of terrible injustices heaped upon slaves in America.

The Underground Railroad is a well-written mixture of history and magical realism. The violence, racism and murder mean it isn’t light reading but I’m glad I picked up this story.

Top Ten Tuesday: Underrated Books

Hello readers! Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday. This week, we’ll be looking at books with less than two thousand ratings on Goodreads.

I have to say this was HARD. I kept thinking of great stories that were over the limit but it was good to come up with ten books that need a little more love.

6 Pride And Prejudice Spin-Offs To Read Right Now

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Pride and Prejudice is one of the most famous books on the planet – not bad for an author who never left Britain.

With very little action and absolutely no sex, the plot doesn’t scream ‘modern best seller’ but, like thousands of others, I’ve fallen in love with Jane Austen’s romantic classic.

Review: Unmarriageable by Soniah Kamal

Pride and Prejudice in Pakistan. Who can resist that tag line?

Soniah Kamal has moved Jane Austen’s most famous romance to a brand new setting. The Bennets are now the Binat family living in Pakistan in the early 2000s.

Unmarriageable sticks closely to the original plot: Five impoverished sisters are under pressure to find husbands.

Like the Bennets in the original novel, the Binats are hanging onto their privileged status by their fingernails. Conned out of money by unscrupulous relatives, Mrs Binat is determined to marry her daughters to wealthy men.  

Top Ten Tuesday: Favourite Couples in Books

Hello readers! Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday. This week’s theme is ‘Favourite Couples in Books’.

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature that was launched by The Broke and the Bookish. It has been hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl since January 2018.

If you’d like to find out more, or plan to get involved, simply visit the host website by clicking here. 

Review: Little by Edward Carey

This gorgeously grotesque book features body parts of all shapes and sizes. Go out and pick up a copy today. Just don’t read it while you’re eating.

Little fictionalises the life of Madam Tussaud. Born in the eighteenth century, this famous woman narrowly escaped the guillotine in France before touring Britain with a macabre set of death masks taken from the Revolution’s victims.