The Essential Guide To Bulbs by Jenny Rose Carey

The cover of this book drew me in as someone who does enjoy photographing nature, I was hoping and was happily so surprised by some beautiful detailed photo's of flowers blooming from bulb. Packed with chapters of detail about how to plant and nurture bulbs as a beginner with only a few mere daffodils, a pineapple plant and a passionflower in my garden so far this was a great guide for learning more about how to plant and nurture the bulbs to be strong beautiful flowers definitely a handy book to refer to.

Jog On How Running Saved My Life by Bella Mackie

In this book, Bella talks all about her living with anxiety and how it manifested though her life and how jogging has helped her to manage the feeling of it a lot better than before it got terrible.

From discussing how her own anxiety and OCD was approached, diagnosed and how she felt dealing with it for so many years, Bella takes us through many great facts about mental health and cases over the years gone by and the generational issues past and present today in both sexes too.

It was a good book about how running helped her to manage the events happening in her life, however, at the same time it felt like we kept going over the same things chapter by chapter and the same facts being used repeatedly. It may have just been me as I read this book in bits unable to stay hooked into it. It was an inspiring story though and Bella should be proud of her journey.

Buttercream Flowers For All Seasons by Valerie Valeriano and Christina Ong

This beautifully laid out book showcases the best of cake decorating with natural and real looking flowers ranging across a spectrum from fake sugar made Rose's to Dahlia's and even little leaf detailing and more.

Filled with tips on how to get the perfect shape flowers with step by step sentences accompanied by beautiful photographs of the author's work on their cake's which are marvelous creations.

The book is also filled with tips on how to get the perfect colour of icing and the best essential tools to try your hand at cake decorating too as well as a guide to baking and icing your cake too of course!

The girls truly captured their artistry within this book and is a kitchen essential for any keen baker or crafter in my opinion.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Sensational Butterflies by Ben Rothery

In this book we explore the life cycle of the butterfly, moths and the various types that there our out in the world from rare to common and how each one varies too.

With fantastic illustrations of the butterfly types throughout, this book will educate kids and get them looking into nature rather than their screens as you can encourage them to spot the types out in the garden!

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Whimsical Cross Stitch by Cari Buziak

This book includes many different cross stitch charts from ones with pets, fantasy creatures, food, hobbies and quotes.

Each with easy to follow colour coded charts you can create your own cute little designs, with an array of colour and time!

Perfect for even beginner's this is a book anyone can create from.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Happy Mail by Eunice Moyle, Sabrina Moyle and Alex Bronstad

This book is a work of art, beautiful illustrations and plenty of tips and guides to have a go at creating your very own gorgeous handwritten happy mail!

Full of bright pastel colours popping against a pure write background to add colour the a page of text, images of letter designs are clear and simple with the guides for how to achieve them yourself.
There are loads of letter/card/envelope designs you can copy and print off yourself to use as well as colour in cards you could colour for someone or send plain to give them some fun too.

I'm going to get plenty of use from this book, there's something amazing about sending a letter the classic way not just an email!

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Potted by Annette Goliti Gutierrez & Mary Gray

This book drew me in originally because of the flower image on the cover as well as the subject overall as our house loves plants, flowers etc.

The writing is laid out in paragraphs and columns with large images to view and steps to follow. It utilizes space in the garden by introducing the idea of planters built into the wall not just plain designing pots.

The book is definitely for older readers as the use of saws and drills are required for a lot of the projects. Though there are some more simple plain to amazing design ideas for standard terracotta pots, family can pitch in and help there with supervision I'm sure.

Overall it was an interesting read and I with be trying these ideas with my mum in the future. I was intrigued to find out too that the authors owned between them a Pot shop and it's a unique idea because we can only ever find our pots we need in retail shops that are well known and obviously mass produced too.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me a copy to review!

Secret Houses Of The Cotswolds by Jeremy Musson

Large homes have always been interesting to me alike museums too, in this guide to some of the hidden homes in the Cotswolds, we learn years of history the homes hold and continue to honour. Whether it's finding dated furniture to upkeep the old style way of the house or just keeping the original features of the house in great condition, the owners allow us in to their lives by sharing why they care and love their homes so much.

Each home also is accompanied by a large, vast area of garden complete with many plants, features such as statues or possibly stables for owners horses as well as some having moat like water surrounding them giving the already large manor homes the essence of being castle like in their design.

Hugo Thomas has captured the houses vast size with clear photography throughout of the outsides and insides of each home we are invited to explore with crisp photography showing off the features throughout each area explored.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Ten Step Drawing Flowers by Mary Woodin

In this book we discover tips and tricks to drawing flowers which may seem hard, but are broken down into small manageable parts to deal with slowly.

Building up our flowers of choice to draw, we can develop and adapt out skills with the help of the pictures diagrams and examples provided which allow a good visual aid to us beginning to try and perfect out flower drawing skills.

It was handy and a good guide to get me drawing flowers way better than I have ever done so! I appreciate the guide drawings and it was laid out beautifully and easy to follow.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Baking With Kim-Joy by Kim-Joy

In this beautiful baking book Kim shows us some amazing creations of which my favourite is an Easter cake featuring a rabbit theme in pastel colours.

With easy to follow instructions and lists of ingredients we can get hold of easily to make each cake to bake too.

It's a delightful uplifting and inspiring fun read with beautiful bakes and photographs of each marvellous creation she has created!

I Am Definitely Probably Enough by Tori Press

In this quick mini book, Tori packs in her story of life with depression, anxiety and struggling with her so called imperfections which really, make us all unique and different in our own way!

We see how Tori's self love journey has been for her as she went through therapy with lovely hand drawn illustrations and simple but effective captions too.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Can You Hear Me? By Jake Jones

As a paramedic we see how Jake and his fellow paramedics have had to deal and cope in certain situations such as car crashes, births, drug abusers, time wasters, hoarders, asthmatics, copd sufferers, deaths, car accidents, babies, suicide attempts and psychotic episodes too the book is full of drama filled real life experiences and tough situations Jake has been forced into facing.

I have always been intrigued into life as a paramedic as we hear all too often of them getting abused on the front line of care which to me is horrifying. I wanted to be a paramedic or midwife growing up and personally having been helped by paramedics previously have had my eyes opened with this book how horribly they can be treated and the awful situations they can have to be in. Jake has written a fantastic raw book about life as a busy paramedic in this demanding role and hope more people will pick this up to see what life can be like as a paramedic too.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

I Hope My Voice Doesn't Skip by Alicia Cook

As a new poet to me, I really enjoyed this collection of work. I knew basics around the themes including mental health, death, beauty, acceptance, love and more.

The layout, part as poetry, black and white then switching to vinyl format of a tracklist followed by more emotional song lyrics.

For me, these subjects are relatable and drew me more into the power of Alicia's poetry. They start off as basic observations that become a mostly saddening reality which bred these beautiful, moving poems.

Each situation was imaginable and immersed me into a world through the art of Alicia's words, truly moving, captivating and inspiring.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Chocolate Cake by Michael Rosen and Kevin Walden

This book is a short picture book all about a boy's love of chocolate cake and having an insatiable appetite for it! Unable to get enough he tell of his a midnight chocolate cake feast, only not to clean up his mucky trail of it afterwards! Mum's always figure what happened after all!

Short and highly entertaining, it's a funny little book that will make young children giggle a lot as well as be drawn to the colourful drawings of his tale!

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Make In A Day: Modern Wreaths by Victoria Hudgins

Filled with colourful wreaths designed for an array of ages and abilities, wreath making is made fun!

Made with everyday items from shops such as straws, embroidery threads and craft polystyrene balls as well as simply coloured card, these wreaths are an everyday twist on a usually Christmas only decoration.

The wreaths may look complicated but the guide is clear and they really aren't as hard to make as they look on first glance, many folding techniques and threading helps to achieve their look.

Set with an easy to follow and read layout, you can make these alone or aided by someone else and can enjoy making something fun together!

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

If My Body Could Speak by Blythe Baird

In this collection of poems the main themes are eating disorders, anorexia and rape and the culture surrounding it. There are also poems relating to sexuality, self worth and image as well as the usual self doubts being raised too.

Utterly raw and relatable we can feel the emotion seen between the lines of each poem and I found so many of them relatable especially the ones focusing on Anorexia as I too have suffered in the past it was a true collection of heartfelt work.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

Starry Skies by Samantha Chagollan

This is a short and sweet look for children into constellations they may witness at night. In the hope of drawing children into star gazing, each child in the book notices a constellation inspired by their activities they're doing.

The book is obviously based during the night time and is so obviously in black and white for effective night time effect.
A nice way to get children interested in the night sky and space in general.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!

A Shape Of My Own by Grace Bowman

In this book we meet Grace the author as she takes us through her past to present story of her life with anorexia and all the stages she went through with it.

From losing boyfriends and friends to losing control over her life as good became the main focus of her life and things like socialising and enjoying university became mixed up with varying emotions over her battle with food. We see what a toll or took on her parents as they watched her lose weight and regained too as well as when she finally managed to get to university and break free into the world on her own with a proper graduation job and finding her new love.

Grace's story is one that is honest and raw with all emotions splayed out page by page in her effectively captivating writing. It was a truly brutal battle and a hard one Grace pushed to try and overcome but I was truly blown away by her account of becoming herself again after losing her way.

Beautiful Bodies by Kimberley Rae Miller

In this memoir about lifestyle, nutrition and bodies, Kimberley opens up on her life and opinions about how harmful so called diet culture can be in modern day.

Talking openly about her struggles with weight and anorexia like behaviour, to gaining all the weight back after another restrictive and dangerous diet.

Talking about diet culture and media influence, as well as her own early modelling days and adults telling her younger self to watch her weight, we learn how damaging and worrying it plants itself into youngsters and still happens nowadays too.

She also talks about refeeding syndrome and how it takes time to repair metabolic damage once it has occurred, it can take months to repair properly a damaged metabolism.

Kimberley has opened her life to us for judging, relating and commiserating with through every high and low all women face she is brave and beautiful for doing so, any girl who has struggled will appreciate this book.

Women In Sports by Rachel Ignotofsky

When I saw this book I was so super happy. As a girl, I've actually always preferred male sports and been parts of Cricket, Golf, Football, Badminton and now weight lifting groups as well.

We often get judged for it and unfairly so and a book about women doing great in sports is just what is needed in society to be celebrated more.

The book goes through a timeline of history as well as including a wide range of sports. It talks of the challenges the women faced and some consequences were even death in past times!

This book would be brilliant for schools, in modern day we need women and young girls to not give up on sports and think its for boys and it's a subject I am passionate about greatly. An empowering and inspiring book with many modern athletes we know doing great today from Serena Williams to Simone Biles and Nicola Adams.

Thanks to the publishers for allowing me a copy to review!