Common Ground by Naomi Ishiguro

Firstly, a huge thank you to Tinder Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Publisher: Tinder Press
Publication Date:
25/03/2021
Length: 432 pages
Genre:
Literary Fiction

CW: Racism

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Did you ever have a friend who made you see the world differently?

It’s a lonely life for Stan, at a new school that feels more ordeal than fresh start, and at home where he and his mother struggle to break the silence after his father’s death. When he encounters fearless, clever Charlie on the local common, all of that begins to change. Charlie’s curiosity is infectious, and it is Charlie who teaches Stan, for the first time, to stand on his own two feet. But will their unit of two be strong enough to endure in a world that offers these boys such different prospects?

The pair part ways, until their paths cross once again, as adults at a London party. Now Stan is revelling in all that the city has to offer, while Charlie seems to have hit a brick wall. He needs Stan’s help, and above all his friendship, but is Stan really there for the man who once showed him the meaning of loyalty?

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Blog Tour – The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex

Welcome to my stop on The Lamplighters blog tour! Huge thanks to Pan Macmillan and Midas PR for giving me the opportunity to take part in this! I was provided a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.

Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Publication Date:
04/03/2021
Length: 368 pages
Genre:
Historical Fiction | Mystery

CW: n/a

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They say we’ll never know what happened to those men.
They say the sea keeps its secrets…

Cornwall, 1972. Three keepers vanish from a remote lighthouse, miles from the shore. The entrance door is locked from the inside. The clocks have stopped. The Principal Keeper’s weather log describes a mighty storm, but the skies have been clear all week.

What happened to those three men, out on the tower? The heavy sea whispers their names. The tide shifts beneath the swell, drowning ghosts. Can their secrets ever be recovered from the waves?

Twenty years later, the women they left behind are still struggling to move on. Helen, Jenny and Michelle should have been united by the tragedy, but instead it drove them apart. And then a writer approaches them. He wants to give them a chance to tell their side of the story. But only in confronting their darkest fears can the truth begin to surface . . .

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Blog Tour – The Shadow in the Glass

Welcome to my stop on the The Shadow in the Glass blog tour! Huge thanks to Random Things Tours for giving me the opportunity to take part in this! I was provided a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.

Publisher: Harper Voyager UK
Publication Date:
18/03/2021
Length: 414 pages
Genre:
Gothic | Historical Fiction

CW: sexual assault, murder

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Once upon a time Ella had wished for more than her life as a lowly maid.

Now forced to work hard under the unforgiving, lecherous gaze of the man she once called stepfather, Ella’s only refuge is in the books she reads by candlelight, secreted away in the library she isn’t permitted to enter.

One night, among her beloved books of far-off lands, Ella’s wishes are answered. At the stroke of midnight, a fairy godmother makes her an offer that will change her life: seven wishes, hers to make as she pleases. But each wish comes at a price and Ella must to decide whether it’s one she’s willing to pay it.

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The Cat with Three Passports by CJ Fentiman

Firstly, a huge thank you to the author for sending me a copy of her novel in exchange for an honest review.

Publisher: Silver Vine Press
Publication Date:
01/10/2020
Length: 234 pages
Genre:
Memoir

CW: n/a

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A girl struggling to fit in. A homeless kitten. An unexpected job offer in an unfamiliar country that changes everything.

CJ had a long history of escaping places and people she wasn’t fond of. But for the sake of a silver tabby, she decided to stay in Japan for a while. This decision helped her open up her heart and mind, revisit her way of thinking, and reconnect with her estranged family.

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Dear Child by Romy Hausmann

Firstly, a huge thank you to Quercus Books and NetGalley for providing me with this copy in exchange for an honest review.

Publisher: Quercus Books
Publication Date:
14/05/2020
Length: 352 pages
Genre:
Psychological Thriller | Mystery

CW: sexual assault, kidnapping, domestic violence

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A windowless shack in the woods. Lena’s life and that of her two children follows the rules set by their captor, the father: Meals, bathroom visits, study time are strictly scheduled and meticulously observed. He protects his family from the dangers lurking in the outside world and makes sure that his children will always have a mother to look after them.

One day Lena manages to flee – but the nightmare continues. It seems as if her tormentor wants to get back what belongs to him. And then there is the question whether she really is the woman called ‘Lena’, who disappeared without a trace 14 years ago. The police and Lena’s family are all desperately trying to piece together a puzzle which doesn’t quite seem to fit.

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Little Gods by Meng Jin

Firstly, a huge thank you to Pushkin Press and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Publisher: Custom House
Publication Date:
14/01/2020
Length: 288 pages
Genre:
Historical Fiction

CW: n/a

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On the night of June Fourth, a woman gives birth in a Beijing hospital alone. Thus begins the unraveling of Su Lan, a brilliant physicist who until this moment has successfully erased her past, fighting what she calls the mind’s arrow of time.

When Su Lan dies unexpectedly seventeen years later, it is her daughter Liya who inherits the silences and contradictions of her life. Liya, who grew up in America, takes her mother’s ashes to China—to her, an unknown country. In a territory inhabited by the ghosts of the living and the dead, Liya’s memories are joined by those of two others: Zhu Wen, the woman last to know Su Lan before she left China, and Yongzong, the father Liya has never known. In this way a portrait of Su Lan emerges: an ambitious scientist, an ambivalent mother, and a woman whose relationship to her own past shapes and ultimately unmakes Liya’s own sense of displacement.

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