I told myself I would get through more of my ridiculous to be read pile before I bought any more books but apparently, I am my own worst enemy and I just can't help myself. I had some time to myself last week so had a nose in Waterstones before heading for a coffee and the next thing I know - I have a bag of books to take home with me.
All five of the books I bought have been doing the rounds on social media for some time and curiosity finally got the better of me. They each have fabulous reviews and I can't wait to get stuck in.
This is the pick for this month's Beth's Book Club and it is one I've wanted to read for ages! It's recently come out on paperback so it was the perfect time to pick it up.
Tiffy Moore needs a cheap flat, and fast. Leon Twomey works nights and needs cash. Their friends think they're crazy, but it's the perfect solution: Leon occupies the one-bed flat while Tiffy's at work in the day, and she has the run of the place the rest of the time.
But with obsessive ex-boyfriends, demanding clients at work, wrongly imprisoned brothers and, of course, the fact that they still haven't met yet, they're about to discover that if you want the perfect home you need to throw the rulebook out the window...
I've never read anything by Mike Gayle before but since sharing this book on Instagram so many of you have said how fab he is. I read the back of this in Waterstones and it sounded right up my street but I put it back on the shelf. I found it half price on Amazon that same evening and quickly ordered it. I'm really excited to read this one, I'm intrigued to see what his writing is like.
Strangers living worlds apart.
Strangers with nothing in common.
But it wasn't always that way...
Kerry Hayes is single mum, living on a tough south London estate. She provides for her son by cleaning houses she could never afford. Taken into care as a child, Kerry cannot forget her past.
Noah Martineau is a successful barrister with a beautiful wife, daughter and home in fashionable Primrose Hill. Adopted as a young child, Noah never looks back.
When Kerry contacts Noah, the sibling she lost on the day they were torn apart as children, she sets in motion a chain of events that will change both of their lives forever.
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
This was part of the February vote for Beth's Book Club but didn't get picked but as I wasn't keen on what was picked, I ordered this anyway. It's set to become a huge motion picture so I'm hoping for big things.
For years, rumors of the 'Marsh Girl' have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life - until the unthinkable happens.
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
This bestseller has had a lot of praise over the last year and I've hung on for that paperback before I bought my own and boy am I excited to get started. Waterstones had five different coloured covers too but I didn't realise until I'd left the shop - boo!
Meet Queenie.
She just can't cut a break. Well, apart from one from her long term boyfriend, Tom. That's just a break though. Definitely not a break up. Stuck between a boss who doesn't seem to see her, a family who don't seem to listen (if it's not Jesus or water rates, they're not interested), and trying to fit in two worlds that don't really understand her, it's no wonder she's struggling.
She was named to be queen of everything. So why is she finding it so hard to rule her own life?
Tidelands by Philippa Gregory
I know they say not to judge a book by its cover but I kinda fell for this one and because it was the Waterstones half-price book of the week - it came away with me. The story does sound like my kinda thing though and I'm hoping it's as magical as it sounds. A few replied to my Instagram stories saying how much they loved this so fingers crossed I love it just as much.
Midsummer’s Eve, 1648, and England is in the grip of civil war between renegade King and rebellious Parliament. The struggle reaches every corner of the kingdom, even to the remote Tidelands – the marshy landscape of the south coast.
Alinor, a descendant of wise women, crushed by poverty and superstition, waits in the graveyard under the full moon for a ghost who will declare her free from her abusive husband. Instead she meets James, a young man on the run, and shows him the secret ways across the treacherous marsh, not knowing that she is leading disaster into the heart of her life.
Suspected of possessing dark secrets in superstitious times, Alinor’s ambition and determination mark her out from her neighbours. This is the time of witch-mania, and Alinor, a woman without a husband, skilled with herbs, suddenly enriched, arouses envy in her rivals and fear among the villagers, who are ready to take lethal action into their own hands.
What have you been buying recently?
