Category: Books
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Alice Broadway – Ink
First book of 2021 and it was a good one! For some reason, despite going to bed at 1am, I woke up at 3.30 and couldn’t get back to sleep. I thought I’d read to make me sleepy, but this book was so gripping that I couldn’t put it down. Leora lives in a world
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Michelle Magorian – Goodnight Mister Tom
I think I read this book a few times in primary school, but I didn’t have many memories of it apart from finding it quite emotional, so I thought I’d try it again, given it’s part of my 100 book reading challenge poster that my sister bought me. Despite it being more than 20 years
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N.K. Jemisin – The Fifth Season
I was recommended this book by a few people at work when I had some money to spend on my Waterstones card, and I’m always glad to find a great new fantasy series to get stuck into. I do have mixed feelings though. The first part dealt with some pretty awful topics that would probably
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Lenny Duncan – Dear Church
This is possibly one of the most passionate books I’ve read in a long time – the subtitle was “A love letter from a black preacher to the whitest denomination in the U.S.”, and that’s exactly what it felt like – a love letter. A book that raises as many potentially ‘controversial’ points as this
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Lindsey Kelk – A Girl’s Best Friend
As seems to be the standard in this series, we start this book with another opening chapter which is a flash forward to the future. It becomes clear pretty quickly that we’re at a wedding. But what is not quite so clear is who is getting married. To start with, I was leaning towards Tess.
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Lindsey Kelk – What a Girl Wants
Following on from the first book in this series, What a Girl Wants starts with another dramatic opening. Tess and Amy are in a prison cell, but we have absolutely no idea what has happened in the lead up to this moment. We’re then transported back in time and left on tenterhooks waiting to catch
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Lindsey Kelk – About a Girl
This book was just what I needed, taking me away to Hawaii for a day and away from the miserable grey rain outside – it genuinely made me feel so happy. The book starts with quite a dramatic opening where Tess’ life seems to be coming to a slight dramatic point and just when you’re
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Austin Channing Brown – I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness
I’ve been trying to make more of an effort to educate myself on topics that are out of my comfort zone. It’s become abundantly clear this year through many things that have happened that it’s not enough not to be racist, but you need to be actively anti-racist too. And the only way I can
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Gail Honeyman – Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
I’ve had this book on my shelf since it came out a few years ago and I’ve kept looking past it because I thought it was going to be similar to other books I’d read. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I thought at the start that I had the measure of the book, socially
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Colin Marshall & Tony Payne – The Trellis and the Vine
I picked up this book on the recommendation of a few people from Church. As is clearly obvious, things are not normal at the moment and of course Church has been affected by that. Almost every activity we do has been cancelled or materially altered in some way, and as we start to look to
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She Reads Truth – Daniel
During lockdown, I thought I’d have so much more time for doing things like reading and digging deeper into the Bible. But I’m sorry to say that I’ve completely lacked any kind of motivation and have struggled to either start or finish any of my She Reads Truth books for the last 5 months. So
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Naomi Graham – Love Surpassing Knowledge
Having seen people I know have to leave a church due to a lack of inclusion and acceptance, I was interested to read this book to figure out what we should be doing better. As the book blurb says “Accessibility is so much more than ramps and physical access”. “When we see someone who is
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John Mark Comer – The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry
I’ve had this book on my shelf for ages, and having read it, I really wish I’d picked it up so much earlier (at the start of lockdown, but ideally way before that), as it has taught me so much about myself. Just a heads up (I finished writing and had to come back to
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Chris & Rosie Ramsey – Sh**ged. Married. Annoyed.
When I pre-ordered this book earlier this year, I didn’t know how much I’d be in need of a good laugh when it finally was released in September. 6 months into lockdown/weird corona times and this book arrived in a week where I was feeling a bit down in the dumps. It proved to be
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Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Illustrated Edition)
I’ve read Harry Potter so many times that more reviews kind of seem pointless now. Each re-read brings me a new bit of joy, combined with a hefty amount of nostalgia. But this is the first time that I’ve ever read the illustrated editions and wow they’re beautiful. My colleagues bought me the first two
Louise Douglas 