A Parcel for Anna Browne

Title: A Parcel for Anna Browne
Author: Miranda Dickinson
Type: Paperback
Read: 21st September - 26th September 2015
Rating: 5/5
Published: 24th September by Pan Macmillan

Anna Browne is an ordinary woman living an ordinary life. Her day job as a receptionist in bustling London isn't exactly her dream, yet she has everything she wants. But someone thinks Anna Browne deserves more . . .
When a parcel addressed to Anna Browne arrives, she has no idea who has sent it. Inside she finds a beautiful gift - one that is designed to be seen. And so begins a series of incredible deliveries, each one bringing Anna further out of the shadows and encouraging her to become the woman she was destined to be. As Anna grows in confidence, others begin to notice her - and her life starts to change.

But who is sending the mysterious gifts, and why?

Where do i start with this book. Okay, first the cover. Its stunning. I love love love it. So pretty, sparkly and love-y! Secondly I'm fast fast becoming a big fan of Miranda. Seriously, i love her books. Also helps she's a local girl and yes, love her writing.

So this book arrived two weeks early (thank you waterstones) and i couldn't wait to get started. The book is about Anna Browne. A normal looking receptionist who works for the Messanger. A national newspaper. Theres nothing outstanding about Anna, she loves her job and those around her. So when she recieves a parcel to work, she's amazed and excited by such a gift. The parcel, is marked for Anna but with no details of the sender. Que a lot of fun.

The first gift is a gorgeous scarf and by wearing it Anna becomes noticed. She's also given the task of shadowing the utterly gorgeous Ben. A journalist who Anna has adored from afar.

Soon the parcels keep coming, Anna becomes the talk of the building. And the gifts keep getting more and more wonderful. They're truely magical.

Of course with the good, must come bad. Soon Anna's story is worldwide news. She's caught between her work and personal life. Her mother makes an appearance and her best friend gets his wires crossed. But throughout all this, we still have no idea who the mystery sender is. The book does give you two leads.. and it seemed pretty obvious who it was. But i love books that make you back track and rethink everything. Miranda is very good at this. What i think is going to happen, never seems to. Its tourture.

I was up till gone midnight last night reading this and when i found out the sender. I was like what, but it all made sense, really it did.

I loved this book, I loved the magical-ness of it, i loved the mystery. It's super cute but gets you thinking. It's funny and sad.

Plus if you follow Miranda on twitter, you will know that there is currently a treasure hunt on in three of the largest cities in the UK. Find pictures of the gifts Anna recieves... and you too may get a surprise! Very exciting.  

Go Get it From: Amazon UK | Book Depository | Waterstones

Dancing Shoes

Title: Dancing Shoes (Shoes #9)
Author: Noel Streatfeild
Type: Paperback
Read: 14th September - 17th September 2015
Rating: 3/5
Published: 1995 by Hodder & Stoughton

When their mother dies, leaving them orphaned, Rachel and Hilary are sent to live with their aunt, who runs a troupe of dancing girls - Mrs Wintle's Little Wonders. Hilary, a talented dancer, settles there immediately and loves the chance to dance everyday.
Rachel finds it more difficult to fit in. She's also got another worry on her mind. Her mother's dying wish was for Hilary to attend the Royal Ballet School. But Hilary seems to have other ideas!

I got this book free so i won't moan, but I really didn't enjoy the story as much a I had hoped. I know its a childrens book and a very popular series, but this one no. I heard of these books, via the movie 'You've Got Mail' and i loved that film. But i think perhaps the first book Ballet shoes is the most popular.

This book is simple to read, although I thought it wasn't very clear either. It was very stop, start. The story is about Rachel and Hilary who are left orphans after their mother dying. They are not biological sisters with Hilary being adopted when Rachels' father was an actor in Hollywood. However when news comes to their aunt that they are to live with her, she wants to send Hilary away as at those times, if yuo wasn't family, you wasn't really one to have.

But thankfully after finding out Hilary can dance and to avoid having her properly trained Mrs Wintle decides to take both girls to live with her and her daughter, Dulcie, who is a talented dancer. She's special and no-one can or will beat her.

Dulcie is a brat, there is no other word for it. She's nasty, perfect and everyone has to know about it. I don't think its her fault really. Mummy has made her child into this person and therefore she knows nothing elese. We have two very strong characters in Hilary and Dulcie and Rachel is the meek one.

But the book is of learning lessons, which I was glad of. I'm just annoyed at how fickle Mrs Wintle really was. If anyone beat her daughter, got a part, became more popular, then she didn't wnat to know. But i did love uncle Tom. He always had time for all three girls, and knew exactly how to get Rachel to be herself. I felt sorry for Rachel,she wanted to bring her mothers wish to life but had to realise things weren't meant to be. I think she had such a mature way of looking at life, and for a child she shouldn't have had to.

It's a nice story, one you can fly through. I'll probably read or pass this on to my neices when they're old enough to read. It's very much for little girls. I do want to read some of the others in the shoes series, they look interesting.

Go Get It From: Amazon UK | Book Depository | Waterstones 

The Three

Title: The Three (The Three #1)
Author: Sarah Lotz
Type: Paperback
Read: 5th September -  13th September 2015
Rating: 5/5
Published: 26th February 2015 by Hodder Paperback

Black Thursday. The day that will never be forgotten. The day that four passenger planes crash, at almost exactly the same moment, at four different points around the globe. There are only four survivors. Three are children, who emerge from teh wreckage seemingly unhurt. But they are not unchanged. And the fourth is Pamela May Donald, who lives just long enough to record a voice message on her phone. A message that will change the world.
The message is a warning.

I've avoided reading this book for so long. Partly because I read reviews and they were so mixed, I wasn't sure I picked a good book. Rule number one. Never read reviews to decide if you like a book. Even the good ones. Avoid them all.

Turns out I kinda loved this book. A lot.

Black Thursday. It's a day that changed the world. Four plane crashes, hundreds dead. Yet how can four people survive? Three children. One adult, who manages to leave a message for her pastor before she too dies. It's one that sends the world a little more crazier than it already is.

It's not writen in your typical story manner, its written almost as snippets of time. Interviews, articals, recordings, IM chats. It's told from loads of peoples views.

I thought I wouldn't enjoy how it was wrote as so many it seemed didn't like it. But i thought it was well thought out. It really worked with this book. We got to see the inital crashes, then the reality of what has happened, through to finding three of the children alive. From there, it details how their respective families cope with looking after children again, some who never has had them, whilst others who didn't think it would happen again. Yet underneath it all, is the dark side, the crazies, people saying that these children are aliens. The end of the world is near.

It's actually an addictive book. It's one you can fly through, because its so good, and you want to know more, need to know if these children are normal. Jess, the survivor of the UK plane, creaped me out the most. She was scary, sneaky and yet normal all mixed into one. She managed to send her uncle mad. I liked Bobby, he seemed sweet, he gave life back to his grandad. Hiro was inbetween the two. Okay, as he never really spoke and creapy at times.

Rumors of a fourth child that might have survived circled and although in the book we knwo thats true, no-one ever really finds him. Which obviously leads on to the follow up book 'Four'.

The only slight disappointment was the ending, i'm a little unsure of that, but then again, reading it, i'm not sure if the whole lot was a dream. It got me thinking, scared to fly, but thinking nonetheless. I'm glad i decided to read it.

Go Get It From: Amazon UK | Book Depository | Waterstones

Blog Tour: Colette McBeth - The Life I Left Behind

I'm really excited to have the chance to be on the blog tour for 'The Life I left Behind' by Colette Mcbeth. I  read this book recently and could not put it down. It's certainly one of my favourites this year. Today, Colette tells us how she managed to get published.

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How did I get published?
The short answer is that I wrote a book.
The longer one goes something like this; I wanted to be an author from the age of seven and it took me almost thirty years to become one. When people said it was difficult to write a book, and practically impossible to get published, I listened. I worried, (and not without reason) that I didn't know how to write a novel. Where would I start? How would I spin it out? How would I end? Once university was over, I had the idea for a novel and put it to one side. I needed to earn money and then I wanted a career. Before I knew it, I had children, a fat mortgage and a full time job. I had no time whatsoever. And what if I wrote the damn thing, entirely in my own sweat, only to realise that not even my mother - a woman who still had my GCSE art framed on her wall - could bring herself to read it? So I didn't write. I read voraciously, marvelled at brilliance of other novels, thought that maybe one day... but I didn't write.

My luck changed when I changed. I decided to stop boring myself (and others) with my unrealised ambition and just do it. I got a place on the Faber Academy Writing a novel course. I wanted guidance and discipline. I reasoned that after forking out thousands of pounds - paid for on credit card - I HAD to write. I had a great tutor who helped me see what was and wasn't working and why. But perhaps the biggest thing the course did for me was deconstruct the process. It became less terrifying. I wasn't so dwarfed by the scale of the task. I took each day at a time and concentrated on writing a little as often as I could.

I wrote the book and my fears were realised. It was rubbish. Even on a wet afternoon in Newcastle my mother would have struggled with it. But happily, I realised that I could polish rubbish. I could take it apart and put it back together again and again, making it better each time. You can't do that with an empty page. At the end of my creative writing course I read an extract of my 'novel' to a roomful of agents. A handful asked to see more. I said no, because it still wasn't good enough. But I thanked them and kept in touch. Six months later, I finally sent it out. I got an agent, worked on the book all summer, lived it, breathed it, almost went mand with it. In early October it was sent out to the world. A week later I had a book deal.

How did you get published?
You can ask any author the same question and the long answer will always be different, but the sort one, I can say with 100pc certainty, will always be the same. I got published because I wrote a book.

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Former BBC correspondent Colette McBeth is the author of Precious Thing, and this year's The Life I Left Behind, as well as a member of Killer Women.

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'I'm the only one who knows the secrets her friends have hidden,
the mistakes the police have made. 
I'm the only one who can warn her she's still in danger.
I know exactly who attacked her.

He's the same man who killed me.'






More about Colette: @ColetteMcBeth | www.colettemcbeth.com
Find my review here..

Make sure you follow the rest of the tour to find out more!

The Rosie Effect

Title: The Rosie Effect (Don Tillman #2)
Author: Graeme Simsion
Type: Hardback
Read: 28th August - 1st September 2015
Rating: 4/5
Published: 30th December 2014 by Penguin

Join everyone's favourite unconventional couple Don Tillman and Rosie in the next chapter of their love story
With the Wife Project complete, Don settles happily into a new job and married life in New York. But it's not long before certain events are taken out of his control and it's time to embark on a new project . . .

As Don tries to get to grips with the requirements of starting a family, his unusual research style soon gets him into trouble. To make matters more difficult, Don has invited his closest friend to stay with them, but Gene is not exactly a prime example of marital happiness, and as his life with Rosie continues to be unpredictable Don needs to remember that emotional support is just as important as his practical expertise . . 

I read 'The Rosie Project' last year and I absolutely loved it. I've had the sequal on my TBR pile for ages. In this book, the Rosie Effect, we see our unconventional couple Rosie and Don, embark on a new life. Firstly they upped and left Oz for the USA, and now Rosie is pregnant. Don never planned parenthood so soon after marriage and his world once again is turned a little crazy.

The characters development in this book at times seemed very dramatic. I often found Rosie a little hard to like, which was a shame. She was trying to juggle pregnancy, a thesis and trying to figure out her thoughts towards Don and fatherhood. Then we have Don, who's life is dominated, slightly less so now, by routine and he just doesn't know what to think/ feel about becoming a dad. It's not in his mind to feel anything but he can do something. He can research and this is where all the trouble begins.

One character I did not like even at the end was Lydia. I think from meeting her so early on in the book and then her apperance throughout annoyed me. She was just so ignorant. So blantely rude to Don and it really worked me up. I know its just a book, but she was wrong, so very wrong. And it made me think that stuff she said, still goes on today.

Don does get himself into a bit of trouble and thanks to his few friends, Dave, George and Gene, he probably gets in to much worse. Listening to any of them wasn't wise. But I still loved Don, I still wanted everything to work out for him and i wanted Rosie to see sense.

Perfection doesnt' exist and i think Rosie missed her reasoning behind her choices. She knew by getting married to Don, he wasn't perfect and had a structured way of life. Yet that was the thing that her mind was telling her was wrong.

But as a book, it's probably not everyones cup of tea, some may even think why was a sequal even wrote. But i think it showed the next stages of Don's life and his ability to adapt to these, and feel emotions, even small ones, graudally. I love the progress he made.

Overall an excellent follow up. Although it would behard to beat the first!  

Go Get it From: Amazon UK | Book Depository | Waterstones