Category: Family drama

Recent Reads: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Posted on by Pam

My review:🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus is set in the 1960s, Elizabeth Zott struggles with the world – she is a briliant chemist in a time where women are overlooked.  She falls in love and through a series of events, she ends up on tv as a cook with a popular tv show.

Elizabeth Zott is a wonderful character, full of zeal and ready to overturn and not accept the norms, or the way people feel she should act.

This is being made into an Apple tv series, starring Brie Larson, and I imagine it’s going to be great!

Lessons in Chemistry was published on 5th April 2022 and is available from Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org.

You can follow Bonnie Garmus on Instagram and her website.

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to Random House.

Recent Reads: Yinka, Where is Your Huzband? by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn

Posted on by Pam

My review:🌟🌟🌟🌟

Yinka, Where is Your Huzband? by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn shows us Yinka’s life.  Her family is Nigerian, and so all the older ladies in her community are her aunties, and they all want to know why she isn’t married yet.  Yinka wants to know that too!

Her cousin gets engaged, and she wants her bridesmaids to work on something for her wedding.  Yinka chooses finding a date for the wedding as her project.

This is a really enjoyable story, with the difficulties of trying to live up to family expectations, and the expectations of the men in her life.

Yinka, Where is Your Huzband? was published on 31st March 2022, and is available from Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org.

You can follow Lizzie Damilola Blackburn on Twitter, Instagram and her website.

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to Penguin.

Recent Reads: Four Aunties and a Wedding by Jesse Sutanto

Posted on by Pam

My review:🌟🌟🌟🌟

Four Aunties and a Wedding by Jesse Sutanto is the second book in the series, and you really need to have read the first one in order to properly enjoy this one!

This is a book that made me cringe and laugh.  Meddy is getting married to Nathan! In Oxford! And her mother and aunts are ready to get into the swing of England!

There is a slight issue on the wedding day, which involves Meddy, her mother and aunts acting like they’re from a comedy of errors.

I really enjoyed this book from it’s culture clash between both sets of parents, to the outfits Meddy’s family wears,a nd of course the wedding day itself!

This is written with humour, and as the author says herself at the beginning, out of first hand experience, which just adds to the feel of it!

It’s a comedy crime book, and I’ll be happy if there’s more in the series!

Four Aunties and a Wedding was published on 29th March 2022, and is available from Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org.

You can read the start of the story in Dial A for Aunties.

You can follow Jess Sutanto on Facebook, Twitter and her website.

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to HQ.

Recent Reads: Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

Posted on by Pam

My review:🌟🌟🌟🌟

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane is set in America, and is the story of two families, who live next to each other, a traumatic event happens, and then they live with the aftereffects over the following years.

Kate and Peter are friends from the two families, who are pulled apart by the events, but have a bond that pulls them together.

It has love, mental illness, living with trauma, forgiveness and is an emotional story.  I did enjoy it, but it is a hard read, with a very moving story line.

Ask Again, Yes was published on 8th August 2019, and is available from Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org.

You can follow Mary Beth Keane on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and her website.

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to Penguin Michael Joseph.

Recent Reads: Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud

Posted on by Pam

My review:🌟🌟🌟🌟

Love After Love by Ingrid Persaud is set on Trinidad and New York.  We follow Betty, her son Solo, and Mr Chetan, who is their lodger.  

The three of them make a family unit, except Betty and Mr Chetan aren’t together. This all works until secrets start to come out.

This is written in the way that they speak in Trinidad (as the author was born there, I’ll believe that), so there are words that I’ve never come across before, but it does work at transporting you to somewhere completely different.  

I enjoyed this book, but I did find that it took a while to read.  The characters are believable and the setting is well written, with descriptions of food that all sound delicious!

Trigger Warning – this book deals with domestic abuse, homophobia, self harm (cutting), and suicide.

Love After Love was published on 2nd April 2020, and is available from Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org.

You can follow Ingrid Persaud on Twitter.

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to Faber and Faber.

Recent Reads: The Missing Sister by Lucinda Riley (The Seven Sisters 7)

Posted on by Pam

My review:????

The Missing Sister by Lucinda Riley (The Seven Sisters 7) has the six sisters finally be given information about their missing seventh sister, and so they start looking for her.  They are given by their family lawyer a clue, an image of a star shaped emerald ring, and this is a search that involves all of the sisters, and goes on all over the world!

The other half of this story is set in Ireland in 1920s, 1950s and 1970s, and tells a tale of sacrifice and love.  It was another sweeping drama, with more reveals that just made me want to read the next book as I’m looking forward to a lot of answers to all the questions I’ve built up over this series!

Lucinda Riley sadly died earlier this year, but the last book in this series is coming out next year.

The Missing Sister was published on 27th May 2021 and is available from Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org.

You can read my reviews of previous books in this series:

The Seven Sisters (book 1)

The Sun Sister (book 6)

Recent Reads: The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller

Posted on by Pam

My review:????

The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller is the tale of Elle, looking back on her life, the day after having sex with her best friend for the first time.  She has a husband, children, and Jonas has a wife, but still she’s not sure what she should do.

This is a heartbreaking, but has beautiful moments in it.  I was swept along by the story, the tales of the family, and how it had gotten to this point.  

The Paper Palace has been chosen by Reese Witherspoon’s bookclub, and is a great and moving read.

The Paper Palace was published on 8th July 2021 and is available from Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org.

You can follow Miranda Cowley Heller on Instagram.

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, and so my thanks to NetGalley and to Penguin Viking.

Recent Reads: Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Posted on by Pam

My review:?????

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid is set in the 1950s and in the 1980s as Nina Riva is getting ready for the Riva family annual party, which has become the place to be

Nina’s professional tennis playing husband has left her for another professional tennis player, and Nina is trying to work out what the point of it all is, and is dreading the party.

People who aren’t dreading it are her siblings – her professional surfer brother Jay and Hud, the professional photographer, who takes Jay’s photo, and her little sister Kit.  They are all good looking, good surfers, and their father, whilst alive, is estranged from them all.

This is a very atmospheric book, with family tensions that made you keep turning the pages so you can learn more about where they started.  Being able to see Mick Riva starting out in the 1950s makes this more poignant, as you follow the family from the start.

Malibu Rising was published on 27th May 2021 and is available from Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org.

You can follow Taylor Jenkins Reid on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and her website.  This was the first of her books that I’ve read, but I’ll be finding her others, such as Daisy Jones & The Six.

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, and so my thanks to NetGalley and to Cornerstone, Random House.

Recent Reads: Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

Posted on by Pam

My review:????

Infinite Country by Patricia Engel is the story of a family torn apart. Mauro and Elena, with their first born, Katrina, go to the US from Colombia, on a temporary visa, but they decide to stay.  They go on to have 2 more children.  

We meet Talia, who is held in a correctional facility for adolescent girls, and she has to get home to her father, where her plane ticket to the US is waiting for her.

This is the story of how these events have happened, and the effect on the family that it has, to be separated for years.

It’s an evocative and timely story, given the immigration issues in the US, and it shows the sacrifices that are made in order to try to survive in a country when undocumented.

Infinite Country was published on 27th May 2021 and is available from Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org.

You can follow Patricia Engel on Twitter, Instagram and her website.

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to Simon and Schuster UK.

Recent Reads: Dial A For Aunties by Jesse Sutanto

Posted on by Pam

My review:????

Dial A For Aunties by Jesse Sutanto is about Meddy Chan, her mother and her aunties.  They work together in a wedding planner business, with one aunt making the cake, Meddy’s mother does the flowers, another aunt does the hair and make up, another is the entertainment, and Meddy is the photographer.  They have a big wedding coming up, and Meddy’s mother is delighted to have gotten her daughter a date with the hotel owner, where the wedding is going to happen, by posing as her online.

Meddy is obviously not that happy, especially when she sees some of the messages.  And then things go wrong on the date and he ends up dead.

This is an entertaining book, with lots of family drama, but also love.  I really enjoyed this book; it’s funny, smart, and lots of twists!

Dial A For Aunties was published on 27th April 2021 and is available from Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org.

You can follow Jess Sutanto on Facebook, Twitter and her website.

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to HQ.