BLOG TOUR: The Cornish Hideaway - Jennifer Bibby

A beautiful village. An artist who’s lost her spark. And a community who help her find it again.

All Freya has ever wanted to do is paint. So when she fails her Master’s Degree in Art, on the same day that her boyfriend decides he needs a ‘more serious’ partner, to Freya it feels like the end of the world.

 

Luckily, she has a saviour in the shape of best friend Lola, who invites her to the sleepy Cornish village of Polcarrow, to work in her café. With nothing keeping her in London, Freya jumps at the chance of a summer by the sea.

 

Freya needs time to focus on herself. But then dark and mysterious biker Angelo blows into town on a stormy afternoon, with his own artistic dreams and a secretive past, and Freya’s plans of a romance-free summer fly straight out of the window…

Heart-warming, heartfelt and romantic, The Cornish Hideaway is a novel of community, friendship and learning to love again, for fans of Jenny Colgan, Cathy Bramley and Heidi Swain.

 

What did I think?

Now and again you can judge a book by its cover and Jennifer Bibby's debut, The Cornish Hideaway, is as sweet and charming as the beautiful cover suggests.  I enjoyed my virtual visit to the sleepy town of Polcarrow; the only downside of a virtual visit is that I didn't get the chance to try any of Lola's mouthwatering culinary creations.

Freya is such a lovely character and she is dealt such a bad hand at the start of the novel when she fails her degree and gets dumped.  So, Freya heads off to Cornwall to lick her wounds and to help her friend Lola in her café.  The last things on Freya's mind are art and romance but Lola's tarot cards tell a different story...and then a mysterious, handsome stranger turns up at the door.

The book has quite a gentle pace, like waves lapping the Cornish shore, but the characters' storylines keep the reader interested as we see them develop and unfurl like flowers facing the sun.  There's maybe more than one budding romance on the cards too.

The Cornish Hideaway is a lovely debut novel and it would be a perfect holiday read while you warm your toes by the pool and enjoy a virtual visit to Cornwall.

I received an ARC to read and review for the blog tour and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

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BLOG TOUR: All the Little Lies - Chris Curran

Your whole life has been a lie…

One email is all it takes to turn Eve’s world upside down. It contains a picture of her true birth mother, Stella, and proves that Eve’s entire life with her adoptive parents has been a lie.

Now she must unravel the mystery of Stella’s dark past. But what Eve finds will force her to take enormous risks, which put her – and her new-born baby – in immediate danger…

What did I think?

I always get a thrill when a novel is set in my native North East, so I was surprised and delighted when I was reading All the Little Lies as I had no idea that Chris Curran had part set her new novel in Gateshead and Newcastle.

Aside from the amazing location, All the Little Lies is such an intriguing story with Eve trying to find out more about her birth mother, Stella.  She knows her adoptive parents know more than they are letting on and I had a constant question mark over my head as I wondered just what they were trying to hide.  

As Eve digs into Stella's story, we are treated to flashbacks of Stella's life: from her meagre beginnings as a young child in Newcastle to fame as an artist before her life was tragically cut short.  I loved the tempestuous story of Stella and Maggie; best friends or frenemies as I liked to think of them because Maggie was so jealous of Stella's artistic talent and beauty.  I didn't trust Maggie one bit and when she invited Stella to stay with her in Italy, I knew it would all end in tears.

I love reading a fiction book and learning something I didn't know.  I was so surprised to read about an art installation in Gateshead's Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art that I was completely unaware of.  I have visited The Baltic on numerous occasions but I have always taken the supersonic glass lift to admire the views of the Newcastle Gateshead quayside on the way.  Thanks to Chris Curran, next time I visit I will be taking the stairs to experience Mark Wallinger's Heaven and Hell art installation of a staircase that appears to stretch to infinity.

All the Little Lies is not only gripping and intriguing but it has an added hint of danger as Eve's digging into Stella's past unearths secrets that somebody wants to keep well and truly buried.  Where lies are involved, you can always expect twists and turns aplenty and All the Little Lies certainly delivers in the surprising twists stakes, many of which I really didn't see coming.

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

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About the author:

All the Little Lies is Chris Curran’s fourth psychological thriller for Harper Collins Killer Reads. She lives in East Sussex and writes, standing up, in a room with no view. When inspiration falters she finds tea (Earl Grey, hot) and a bout of ironing are very therapeutic. In breaks between books she dusts, cooks, walks by the sea and reads – but mostly reads.

Find her at:

https://chriscurranauthor.com/      

Twitter @Christi_Curran  

https://www.instagram.com/chriscurranwriter/

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Keep You Close - Lucie Whitehouse

They said it was a tragic accident.

She knows better...

The brilliant young painter Marianne Glass is found dead in her snow-covered garden.

Rowan Winter, once her closest friend, knows it wasn't an accident.

Marianne had vertigo, paralysing vertigo.

She never would have gone that close to the edge.

What did I think?

Although I have two of Lucie Whitehouse's three previous novels in my book collection, Keep You Close is the first one I have read.  I did find it a little difficult to get into but it was well worth persevering.

Marianne Glass is a famous artist who is just about to exhibit in America when she is found dead in her garden after an apparent jump from the roof of her house.  With only Marianne's footprints in the snow, the police believe it is suicide but Marianne's family and her estranged schoolfriend, Rowan, know that Marianne had vertigo and would never have gone near to the edge of the roof.  Rowan and Marianne's brother, Adam, try to put the pieces together of Marianne's last movements to prove that she didn't jump.  Rowan, however, has a slightly different agenda as she tries to keep the secret buried that drove her and Marianne apart all those years ago.

I love books with a deeply buried secret and Lucie Whitehouse has brilliantly built up the tension as layer after layer is unwrapped of Rowan and Marianne's friendship.  Rowan was so close to Marianne's family when they were younger, so we wonder what on earth could have happened to drive them apart.  Was it a silly schoolgirl argument or something more sinister?  You will just have to read Keep You Close to find out for yourself.

Keep You Close surprised me at every turn as nothing is quite what it seems.  It is a goosebumpy examination of a friendship and a scary account of just how far some people will go to protect themselves in the guise of protecting those they claim to love.

I received this book from the publisher, Bloomsbury, in exchange for an honest review.

My rating:

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In a True Light - John Harvey

Thriller time!  I have mixed feelings about this book.  It's set in London and New York with a bit of Tuscany in between.  In London, Sloane is released from prison for forging art.  In Tuscany, Sloane's ex and famous artist Jane is dying.  In New York, a woman's beaten body is found by the roadside (although there is a police investigation it is clear who the perpetrator is).

The story does link together nicely - Sloane visits Jane in Italy as she is dying and finds out he has a daughter who is a singer in New York.  He promises Jane on her deathbed that he will find their daughter, Connie.  So he jets off to New York and finds Connie with her controlling partner, Delaney.

There are three parts to the story; Sloane building a relationship with his daughter; the London police using Sloane to build a case against the man behind the art forging that sent Sloane to prison; and the New York cops trying to put Delaney behind bars.

It was an entertaining read but not really a thriller.  Maybe a one to take on holiday.

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