As soon as I read the blurb for My Dark Vanessa I knew it was my kind of book and I was 100% correct. Slipping between present day (well 2017) and various points in the past, the novel explores the relationship between Vanessa and English teacher Jacob Strane which begins when she's his 15-year-old student.

I read True Crime Story without knowing much about it and I think probably that's useful with this book. So, if you think you'll read it, while I'll attempt as always to be spoiler free, I'm not sure how possible/helpful that is in this specific case and you might perhaps want to stop reading this for now.

I loved Emily Henry’s debut adult fiction book Beach Read last year, so I was delighted when her publishers sent me an advanced Netgalley copy of her new one!

Although there’s no need to play favourites, in my January reading wrap up I popped this multi-generational family saga in the number one spot and I have to admit it’s still standing strong two months on.

I assume I must have snapped up Anna Wilson’s A Place For Everything on Netgalley as soon as I saw that it was a memoir about her mother’s late-diagnosis of autism but I have no memory of doing so. However, when I came across it one evening recently I was absolutely hooked within the first few lines.

I have no idea what genre Leave The World Behind is except the ‘excellent novel’ genre that I now hereby award it. I read this for January’s Chapter Chat Book Club but even before that it was already on my list.

Ooooh this book! I’m going to be so careful how I review this because I really loved launching into this novel with a fairly limited idea of what to expect within the pages.

It wasn’t until Stephen King published his non-fiction work On Writing that it occurred to me to read some of his fiction.

Everything I read in 2020!

As someone who just finished a Faber Academy course and is in the process of writing her first novel, I’m both deeply envious and completely in awe of Anna Bailey, the 24 year old author of Tall Bones who finished her novel writing course, the Curtis Brown one, just last year (!) and was quickly published.

After the delight that was Beach Read earlier this year I’ve been waiting for another feel-good romance with a solid, engaging narrative. And, for the most part, I’ve got to say that The Summer Job absolutely delivered.

Mark Watson is, in my opinion, one of the sharpest, funniest and most articulate artists out there.

I do not know how to feel about this book. There I said it. Even while I was reading it I didn’t know how I felt.

Maus is one of those classic ‘one day I’ll read that’ books. Or two books, depending on which version you have. The downside to having a well-stocked bookshelf and a prolific book buying habit is that I’m constantly reminded of how much I haven’t read.

It must be almost impossible for anyone with even a passing interest in books not to be aware of Candice Carty-William’s Queenie. When it came out back in March 2019 it appeared in the windows of Waterstones in an eye catching display, the cover art printed in four different colours: pink, blue, minty green and orange. I, like many other book obsessives loved it, and had no idea which one to buy.

OK, first up, I have to admit that I’m probably the ideal reader for this novel.

Ever since reading Araminta Hall’s previous novel Our Kind of Cruelty, which I thought was a perfect psychological thriller, I’ve been eagerly awaiting her next offering. Here it is, Imperfect Women, a novel told from the viewpoints of its three protaganists: Eleanor, Mary and Nancy, our imperfect women.

It doesn’t matter how many books I buy for myself (and believe me it’s a lot), someone else gifting you a novel will often be the push you need to try something new.

If you’re a regular reader of my book reviews you’ll know that whenever I’m struggling to settle into a read I tend to turn to a thriller.

Released during lockdown, Exciting Times was a book whose cover I kept seeing but it wasn’t really on my radar and I knew nothing whatsoever about it. I finally read it when a friend listed it as one of their top reads and I spent the first few chapters trying to work out if I loved it or was deeply irritated. In the end the love won out.