The Birthday by Carol Wyer

One hot summer’s afternoon, five-year-old Ava Sawyer went to a party. She never came home…

When five-year-old Ava Sawyer goes missing from a birthday party at a local garden centre, the police are bewildered by the lack of leads. That is until two years later, when Ava’s body is found and another little girl, Audrey Briggs, goes missing. Audrey also attended that party …

Leading the investigation is Detective Natalie Ward. A mother of two teenagers, this case chills her to the bone, and is a disturbing reminder of the last job she worked on. One that still keeps her awake at night…

Natalie soon discovers that Ava’s mother has some worrying gaps in her alibi and as she digs deeper, she’s sure Ava’s father is not telling the full story. And what did the owner of the garden centre Elsa see that day? Something that she’s not telling Natalie …

Just as Natalie is facing up to the grim possibility that Ava and Audrey were killed by someone close to home, another little girl from the party doesn’t come home from her ballet lesson. Can Natalie find a way to stop this killer before more innocent lives are taken?

Gripping, fast-paced and nail-bitingly tense, this book will keep you flying through the pages long into the night. Perfect for fans of Angela Marsons, Rachel Abbott and Karin Slaughter. 

Title: The Birthday

Author: Carol Wyer

Published By: Bookouture

Publication Date: 27th Sept 2018

Links:  UK:  Amazon   US: Amazon

Our Review

Carol Wyer has done it again, created a thriller that once you start reading you won’t want to stop.

This is the first in the new series of DI Natalie Ward and it was a great introduction. She is a good detective but flawed in her personal life, it made a change that the female DI is married with children as it throws some other dynamics into the mix because she can’t just drop her family completely to solve a case. However she has the added guilt that her husband is having to deal with the children.

We also find out a little history about Natalie in that an unsolved case hangs heavily over her. I’m wondering whether this thread will follow through the series and maybe one day she will get to solve it.

The storyline is very upsetting and chilling as it involves young girls being preyed on by a serial killer.

The writing is once again fast paced and takes the reader on a time sensitive journey as the killer must be caught.

This will have your heart racing as the adrenaline courses through your veins wondering whether this time she will catch him. 

While you are waiting for the next Natalie Ward book to come out I highly recommend reading Carol's DI Robyn Carter series. They are all amazing.

Another excellent read by Carol Wyer. 

Sincerely

Book Angel x

About the Author

Carol Wyer garnered a loyal following as an author of romantic comedies, and won The People’s Book Prize Award for non-fiction (2015). In 2017 she stepped from comedy to the “dark side” and embarked on a series of thrillers, featuring the popular DI Robyn Carter, which earned her recognition as a crime writer.

The Staffordshire-based writer now has more crime novels in the pipeline, although she can still sometimes be found performing her stand-up comedy routine Laugh While You Still Have Teeth.

www.carolewyer.co.uk
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorCarolEWyer

https://twitter.com/carolewyer

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While I Was Sleeping by Dani Atkins

What if someone else was living your happy ever after? 

When Maddie wakes up in a hospital bed, she can't remember anything about what happened to her or what has changed.
She just remembers she was about to be married and had everything to look forward to.

But it seems life has become a lot more complicated while she has been asleep …

Title: While I was Sleeping

Author: Dani Atkins

Published By: Simon & Schuster

Publication Date: 23rd August 2018

Links:  

UK:   Amazon    Waterstones        WHSmith

US:   Amazon

Our Review

A beautifully written tear jerker about unconditional love and the unbreakable bonds between mothers and daughters.

My heart is hurting after having finished this book.

It tells the tale of Maddie who wakes up from a coma one day to find that her world has changed dramatically. 

The relationships in her life were suddenly fraught with dilemma after dilemma and the characters were all torn as to where their loyalties should lie. 

I put myself in Maddie’s position whilst reading the book and found my heart utterly broken.

But then once I got to know Chloe I found that I really felt empathy for her too even though I was determined not to like her. As much as I did like her I firmly remained team Maddie throughout.

Ryan annoyed me quite a lot even if he was absolutely gorgeous, I suppose he was suffering from confusion after being thrown into the situation he was but I didn't like his attitude to Maddie sometimes and thought he could have handled some situations so much better.

This book has made me cry and shocked me in parts as I really didn’t see some things coming.

It's an emotional rollercoaster that will break your heart. When I woke up the morning after I read it I was very grateful to have my husband's arms around me as I can't imagine how Maddie must have felt to have lost everything that was precious to her.

I really think that Dani Atkins should be sponsored by Kleenex as she sure knows how to write a weepy.

Sincerely

Book Angel x

About the Author

Dani Atkins was born in London, and grew up in Cockfosters, Hertfordshire. She moved to a small village in 1984, where she has lived ever since in a 350-year-old cottage with her husband, two (now grown-up) children, one Siamese cat and a very soppy Border Collie.

Dani has been writing for fun all her life, but following the 2013 publication of her novel FRACTURED (published as THEN AND ALWAYS in the US), has made writing her full-time career. Her other novels include THE STORY OF US (2014); OUR SONG (2016); PERFECT STRANGERS (a standalone eBook novella published in December 2016) and THIS LOVE (2017). In 2018 THIS LOVE won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award at the RoNAs ceremony in London. Her new novel, WHILE I WAS SLEEPING, publishes in August 2018.

Connect with Dani on Facebook at www.facebook.com/daniatkinsauthor or on twitter @AtkinsDani

The Summer of Impossible Things by Rowan Coleman

If you could change the past, would you?

*As seen on ITV in The Zoe Ball Book Club*

'Beautiful, well-written...I got goosebumps' Alex Jones

'Portrayed 1977 so brilliantly...it would make an amazing movie' Zoe Ball

-----------------------------------------------

How far would you go to save the person you love?
Luna is about to do everything she can to save her mother's life.
Even if it means sacrificing her own.

A beautiful novel about family, courage, sacrifice and love in all its guises from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Memory Book

Title:  The Summer of Impossible Things

Author:  Rowan Coleman

Published By: Ebury Press

Publication Date: 3rd May 2018

Links:  UK: Amazon    US: Amazon

WHSmith    Waterstones

Our Review

Beautiful, Breathtaking and Mesmerising

When I was younger I used to love the video for ‘Take on Me’ by A Ha and even now if I see it I still get a flutter in my heart and dream that I could be that girl that the gorgeous Morton Harkett takes by the hand and pulls into another world.

With The Summer of Impossible Things I feel the same way, as though Luna the protagonist has grabbed my hand and taken me with her as she travels back in time to try to fix the wrongs that have happened in her mum's life.

I will admit that the thought of time travel didn’t appeal to me at all when I first heard about the book but after having seen it on the Zoe Ball book club my interest was piqued when I saw the short video which brought the book to life. Here's the clip I watched.

I’m so so glad I didn’t miss out on this story as it is the most beautiful book I’ve ever read.

In the 70’s Luna’s mum lived in Bay Ridge New York which was a quiet little unassuming place until the famous film Saturday Night Fever was filmed there and she met the man who was to become her husband as he was a photographer for the show.

After her mum dies, Luna and her sister Pia take a trip to New York to sell off a building that belonged to her. Whilst there Luna has a number of strange happenings that she would have previously thought of as Impossible. But these events seem very real and she has to be ever so careful when she finds herself going back in time as anything she does could alter the future as she knows it.

Having lost my mum I found the thought of being able to go back in time to meet the younger version of her so beautiful and the descriptions of how Luna feels really encompass so strongly the pure love that a daughter has for her mum.

I had to pause quite a few times whilst reading this book because the beauty of it literally took my breath away. I’m actually struggling to describe how wonderful it is because I really don’t think my words can do it justice.

There was an element of mystery throughout and a lot of second guessing as the story almost has a life of its own and morphs around what happens each time Luna visits the past.

It reminds me of a film I really enjoyed which was called Frequency starring Dennis Quaid, like this book it was captivating and so cleverly written. 

It seems a shame when we read a book by an author that we are then desperate for the next one and the author has to knuckle down and begin another creation, I just hope that they allow themselves some time to bask in the glorious afterglow of a book like this.

This beautiful amazing life affirming book about a daughter’s unquestioning love for her mother should be made into a film. I adored this story so much. 

Sincerely

Book Angel x

About the Author

Rowan Coleman’s first novel Growing Up Twice was a WHS Fresh Talent Winner. Since then, Rowan has written fifteen novels, including The Memory Book which was a Sunday Times bestseller. It was selected for the Richard and Judy Bookclub and awarded Love Reading Novel of the Year, as voted for by readers.

Her latest novel, The Summer of Impossible Things, is a Zoe Ball TV Book Club selection.

Rowan lives with her husband and their five children in a very full house in Hertfordshire, juggling writing novels with raising her family. She really wishes someone would invent time travel.

You can find out more about Rowan at www.rowancoleman.co.uk or follow her on Facebook or Twitter @rowancoleman

The Memory Collector by Fiona Harper

Heather Lucas lives her life through other people’s memories.
Heather doesn’t want to remember her childhood, not when her mother’s extreme hoarding cast her family life into disarray.

For Heather’s mother, every possession was intimately connected to a memory, so when Heather uncovers a secret about her past that could reveal why her mother never let anything go, she knows there’s only one place she’ll find answers – behind the locked door of her spare room, where the remains of her mother’s hoard lie hidden.

As Heather uncovers both objects and memories, will the truth set her free? Or will she discover she’s more like her mother than she ever thought possible?

A powerful, uplifting story about love, loss and the things we leave behind, perfect for fans of Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and The Keeper of Lost Things.

Title:  The Memory Collector

Author: Fiona Harper

Published By: HQ

Publication Date: 6th September 2018

Links: UK:  Amazon     US: Amazon     

WHSmith     Waterstones

 

Our Review

What a beautiful poignant story.

Heather had a rough childhood as she was bullied at school for being scruffy. Her mother was a hoarder and held on to everything she ever had and bought lots of things she never needed. The consequences of that though meant that Heather very often didn’t have the things she needed when growing up.
She also didn’t quite know what was normal and so after her mum died she stuffed her belongings in her spare room and tried not to let them spill into her clinically tidy flat.
Many of the chapters started with a description of an item which she had found in the room and the memory that was behind it.
I did feel empathy for her mum even though she had made Heather’s young life very difficult. It must be so hard to have a compulsion such as hoarding which takes over and ruins your life. So much so that it becomes more important to you than your own children and I think that Fiona had captured this really well. However that didn’t stop me disliking her mother and feeling angry because of what she did.

Heather is an absolute darling with such a lovely sense of innocence about her and watching her go through her journey of clearing out her mum’s things really touched a nerve for me because she was grieving for the loss of her mum and so many things that happened in her childhood too.

The book is uplifting as Heather comes through the other side of her journey a much stronger person and more grown up. It was such a pleasure to read and is the sort of story that stays with you for a long time afterwards. 

Sincerely

Book Angel x

About the Author

As a child, Fiona was constantly teased for two things: having her nose in a book and living in a dream world. Things haven’t changed much since then, but at least she’s found a career that puts her runaway imagination to use!

Fiona lives in London with her husband and two daughters (oh, the drama in her house!), and she loves good books, good films and anything cinnamon flavoured. She also can’t help herself if a good tune comes on and she’s near a dance floor – you have been warned!

Fiona loves to hear from readers and you can contact her through her website fionaharper.com, her Facebook page (Fiona Harper Author) or Twitter (@FiHarper_Author).