Drowned Promises by Sara Simic

TW Alcohol abuse and violence. Growing up in an abusive household witnessing alcoholism turn into violent outbursts and hearing her father beat her mother, Rose escapes at night and meets a kind young fisherman, William, who's straight talking and kind to her. An aspiring artist, Rose gets through life dreaming of escaping to Paris to become a famous artist, yet, the pull to William is a strong bond she doesn't want to say goodbye. With a serious undercurrent to the whole book about abusive households and addiction, where love is not always displayed in a healthy way and showing to have passion to follow your dreams despite adversity is possible. There was also clever cover imagery and choice of colours tying in the plot line nicely and I enjoyed the characters soulmate style intertwined story too.

Bunnies On The Bus by Philip Ardagh

In this book, bunnies are loose after taking control of the bus causing mayhem around town this is a crazy adventure with fun vibrant bunnies that will make kids laugh and want more I'm sure!

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

Silence Is Goldfish by Annabel Pitcher

This book made me want to give Tess, the novel's protagonist a huge hug so, so bad.

Tess has just discovered a huge, life altering secret courtesy of her dad's secret blog. The six hundred and seventeen words she reads turn her life upside down and make her question everything. Thus, she becomes silent, to everyone.

She speaks in her mind only to Mr Goldfish, her small torch from the petrol garage that she carries around with her.

Its a great novel to encourage young girls to undoubtedly be themselves and like their body at what size they are and never listen to the voices of the pupils around them.

It was a great read and cleverly and clearly written.

The Giant Jumperee by Julia Donaldson & Helen Oxenbury

This lovely book is the latest children's book from author of the famous Gruffalo children's book and illustrator of famous children's book from my younger days, We're Going On A Bear Hunt. Quite a team!

The story is short and beautifully crafted with simple language for children but enough mystery at who the Giant Jumperee is to keep them wanting you to read on!

The drawings are gorgeous and simply show the best work of Helen's talents encouraging children to ask and learn about the animals involved in the story.

As a huge animal fan myself, owning a rabbit, having a frog who lives in our garden, cat's roaming in our street and a love of elephants, personally the drawings were great for me too as the characters are a mix of them plus a bear!

I'm sure any child who loves animals will fall in love with this book and remember it fondly for years too come.

This book was sent to me for review from the publishers and I'm so happy and sure any young child would love this book!

Royce Rolls by Margaret Stohl

The Royce's are a famous family, name and wealth = status and fame.

Currently:
Bentley Royce is presumed dead alongside her future brother in law after reports of their car going off the edge of a high cliff edge.

Flashback:
The Royce family are alike to our real life Kardashians.
Outrageous and all named after cars, Mercedes, Porsche, Bentley etc they juat scream watch me as they attend glitzy events and selfie to their hearts content.

Bentley is now used to the limelight, growing up alongside her family under its constant glow despite being shy and quiet when she was younger.

Now, the show is under threat of cancellation and Bentley can't help but think so what? She hides at Hollywood parties still and whilst doing so meets Asa, with whom she has a lot of common interests as they get talking and he doesn't know who she actually is. This fuels her dream of going to college still.

Her crazy mum Mercedes then on camera adopts a duck of all things! Porche's lippie's line isn't selling well and so the family need to rethink how they can rescue themselves put of debt and their show from being cut.

So, Bentley takes matters into her own hands, appearing at every club, store opening etc. Meanwhile, her brother, Bach, is gambling too much and her sister has got engaged to a wannabe rap star, Whitey. As the drama unfolds, Porches dangerous driving alerts all the family and she and Mercedes argue and clash a lot over the impending wedding, an engagement with a laugh out loud moment and Bentley finding out a huge secret about Whitey which see's her team up with her brother to try and stop the wedding!

Also from the beginning flashback, are they alive or are the reports true and not just over eager press lying about the truth?!

Drama filled and sure to leave you wanting more, Margaret Stohl has written a book I think I love more than her her Beautiful Creatures series! Thanks to the publishers allowing me to review it for them!

I Have No Secrets by Penny Joelson

Jemma's fourteen and has cerebral palsy, all the children are adopted in their house and they all deal with separate issues such as autism and behavioral based problems too.

Ryan from their road was murdered, a teenager stabbed one night by an unidentified hooded figure.

Sarah her carer is seeing both horrible Dan and kind and caring Richard. Yet Dan is always turning up, wants Sarah to quit her job and whispered in Jemma's ear, he killed Ryan.

So for poor Jenna, who has also been hit by the fact she has a long lost twin Jodi to meet, dealing with going away to college, she now has a suspected murderer in her house and dating her carer!

Yet, the harsh reality is she can't tell anyone, Dan presumes as parts of her don't work or work right, nothing does in her like her mind. We witness that Jenna is a highly intelligent character and is very caring about those around her she loves.

This book is a read you can't put down, it's gripping and thrilling whilst also eye opening in a life with cerebral palsy.

Thank you to the publishers for allowing me to review this book!

The Great Cat Cafe Rescue by Katrina Charman

In honour of Valentine's day today, I have reviewed this lovely animal themed children's book set around the time of Valentine's day. This book was sent to me kindly by the publishers for review.

Isla's mum runs Abbey Park Vets as well as them owning a Cat cafe called Poppy's place after their cat. Tilda is Isla's sister who helps out and runs the website whilst Isla writes most of the blog posts for it. Milo is their younger brother who loves his cat Dynamo to pieces, he is also hard of hearing and uses a hearing aid to help him. This is a great feature purely because it can help children understand some disabilities easier and more clearly from an early age.

In this book, which is the third in the series so far, the cafe is struggling with rehoming the cats and finding them their 'forever homes'. Isla has the idea to have a 'Great cat-tacular event and advertise all the cats they have available to adopt in order to hopefully find them long term loving homes.
Isla also has her friends to help her plan the event when they're not preoccupied thinking of the upcoming Valentine's disco at school.
After an accident at the cafe which is the conservatory attached to their home, plans are put on hold and a cat, Milo's favourite, Dynamo, has gone missing.
Will the cat-tacular be able to go ahead and will they make the disco? One thing's for sure, they have an action packed Valentine's day.
I don't want to spoil the book, so you'll have to read it to find out what happens yourself, but I enjoyed it and it made me reminisce on when I was younger and read Lucy Daniels, Anna Wilson and Linda Chapman animal themed books.

The book also features simple yet detailed sketches to help the book come to life and will stimulate children's imagination and keep them engaged. The story flows very well and is full of action and animals. It also entertains the idea of young relationships becoming more than friendships, the girls are pre-teens by around a year, but two of the girls have dates to the disco. It shows how each young person feels at the age when feelings start to change as you enter the beginning of your teenage years.

Angel Dust by Sarah Mussi

I have had this book on my wishlist for so long when I randomly found this novel in my local Poundshop with its gorgeously dark angel cover, I picked it up and was super happy.

Upon reading the whole book, I did enjoy it but as I always find with most fantasy novels, I can't ever a hundred percent feel engaged with the story.

With this book, we join Serafina who is an angel sent to collect the souls of the dying and can for see the events occurring. Upon going to earth to collect one soul in particular, from a young gangsta character called Marcus, its a classic case of love at first sight. Though we don't quite know what she sees in him fully. Serafina can't let Marcus die and so takes out a contract with Larry the devil which is unknown to her at first, to keep Marcus alive to allow her time to try to save his soul.

After seeing Marcus tempted by crime again after a threat to his family's safety Serafina fall from heaven to hell and finally to Earth in an attempt to become human and show Marcus love is more powerful in a last attempt to get him to repent his ways and send his soul to heaven.

Overall this novel focusses on the lessons of love and loss, how both can effect us and how our lives can change from having and giving it. It was a good read but the once was enough for me as often is with books of the fantasy genre.

Thief! by Malorie Blackman

The first book I ever picked up by Malorie Blackman was not like most people who usually have read the Noughts and Crosses series. Instead, I read Boys Don't Cry and I was hooked into reading her books that way.

In this book, we meet Lydia who is in a new school and unsure whether to fit in, which any teen wants, but means risking getting into trouble as the group she wants to join requires her to steal to get in. Immediately I didn't like the character of Anne who is a bully towards Lydia as she is a tgret to Anne and her best friends, Frankie's friendship.

After a lot of action I'm not going to spoil here for you, we find ourselves in an almost sc-fi, dystopian event of what has become of the town, the group of children Lydia wanted to fit in with and what happened to Lydia and her family after the main events of the book.

Overall Malorie explores the events of peer pressure and fitting in extremely well and shows us how events can make life altering decisions for us and how every action we take sets off a trail of future events.

Tape By Steven Camden

I was looking forward to reading this and even though the story wasn't as I expected how I'd imagined, I did really enjoy the twists and turns the two interwoven characters ensued through.

The story is set two decades apart with Ryan in 1993 and Ameliah in 2013. Ameliah finds a set of cassette tapes in her Nan's house where she lives now her mum has passed away.
On the tapes she hears a voice and discovers the person talking knew her mum and now Ameliah wants answers as to who this person is who knew her mum so much.
Ryan in 1993, starts talking into his tape recorder after having to adapt and put up with a new stepmum and a stepbrother joining his family. He copes by making mix tapes of his favourite songs as well. Then he meets a girl and his life changes...

I'm not going to spoil the story, its extremely well written and a great story in the style that we are exploring two lives and what has happened in the twenty years between them.

I would recommend you read this boy or girl and share it with your friends too!

Candy by kevin Brooks

What a book!

The story opens us to life of Joe. 

A teen whom is on his way to a doctor’s appointment on a pretty normal day, that is until he catches the eye of Candy.                             Joe is smitten, the feelings so strong he stumbles over his words and ends up buying her a meal in McDonald’s, like most teenagers do.   But no teenager is like Candy in that she is known by Iggy.                     A large man whom ‘owns’ Candy as she fu ds her drug habit with prostition thanks to Iggy. Iggy could easily kill Joe as he so threatens in the McDonald’s and take him away from Candy. Joe perseveres despite the threat to his life and so we further intsee his struggles at home with his parents dating again, his mum hasn’t visited him or his older sister, Gina in years. As well as his dad hating the fact his daughter is dating a black man. This hilights quite a severe problem which society still suffers with unfortunately. 

Throughout the story we see Joe and Candy still being friends and at times more than friends a but never quite a couple. Joe tracks Candy down and tries to help her get away from Iggy and the squat she’s living in which creates a suspenseful and thrilling end to the novel as Iggy tracks them down as well as having Gina held hostage.

Its a page turner, well worth a read and is definitely one book full of dramatic twists that you won’t forget about!