Love For Books

East of the sun by Julia Gregson

In the autumn of 1928 the Kaiser-I-Hind is on its way to Bombay, India.  In one of the cabins is Viva Holloway, who is an inexperienced chaperone, she starts to feel like she has made a mistake. She placed an advert in The Lady which resulted in three young people who are to be escorted to India.

One of the girls being chaperoned is Rose, she is a beautiful but very naive English girl who is about to marry the cavalry officer whom she has only met a few times previously. Rose’s bridesmaid is Victoria, who is determined to lose her virginity on the journey, after which she wants to find herself a husband. The third person travelling is the dangerously malevolent Guy Glover.

The real reason Viva decides to take the voyage is to be able to lead an independent life as a writer; she also wants to be able to confront her own past.
Each of the passengers has their own reasons for leaving their homes and travelling to India, but none of them are prepared for what is to come.
An excellent read, which I loved, I would highly recommend this book.

A Penny a Day by Lillian Harry

Jess and Frank Budd are planning the wedding in April Grove Portsmouth it is December 1952. Jess and Frank really want to bring all their family, friends and neighbours together to celebrate. Stella Simmons and her sister Maddy who now live in the village of Burracombe, Devonshire even receive an invite.

When Dan and Ruth Hodges arrive, with Dan’s son Sammy, he immediately falls in love with Maddy who was his childhood playmate. But he has some competition on his hands as Stephen Napier, who is the Squire Burracombes son has the same idea and also wants Maddy; however Maddy is not nearly ready to make such a big decision about her future.

Lizzie (Ruth’s niece) and her husband Alec have struggled a lot since Alec returned from the Prisoner of War camp, but they seem to have overcome the problems which nearly broke Alec, and seem to be happy again but as someone appears from Lizzies past turning their lives upside down and threatening their recent happiness.

This book links the characters from Lillian’s April Groves books to the characters from her Burracombe books in a wedding.
A lovely book. Which I really enjoyed.

HOLD TIGHT by Harlan Coben

The book begins with a woman who has her drink spiked in a bar; she is then kidnapped and beaten to death by two strangers who appeared to be nice normal people in the bar, although we don’t find out for sometime if or why this is connected to the story in the book. We then visit the Baye family, Tia, Martin and there two children Jill and Adam.

Adam is sixteen and has turned into a very dark, mysterious person; he lost all interest in playing hockey and other things he used to love doing. A few months previously Adams school friend had committed suicide, which obviously had an affect on Adam, but he started turning quiet and moody before Spencer’s death.
Adams parents Tia and Martin are extremely worried about there son and see no alternative but to spy on him. They get the computer guy from Tia’s work to come and put spy ware on Adams computer, they can now see his every move, read his emails, see which sites he visits, although they feel bad doing it, they are only doing it to protect their son . A gripping read , keeping you guessing and in suspense.

I heard that song before by Mary Higgins Clark

When Kay Lansing married the wealthy widower Peter Carrington, she was more than aware of the all the rumours about the mysterious death of his first wife Grace. Ten years ago grace was found dead in the family swimming pool, she was pregnant.
Married to Peter, Kay discovers that he is also a chronic sleepwalker and suffers from terrible nightmares.
 
The police turn up at their doorstep to arrest Peter in connection with a murder that happened twenty-two years ago, the murder of a woman that Peter had taken to a high school senior prom. Kay starts to doubt peter and starts to think that she has married a murderer; she is determined to find out the truth behind the mysterious murders. She wonders if the two deaths are really linked
Kay also has another mystery, why does a melody that she doesn’t know keep playing in her head whenever she enters the family chapel.

Another excellent gripping novel from Mary Higgins Clark, a real page turner which keeps you guessing until the end.

Other novels from Mary Higgins Clark that I would recommend are;
No Place like Home
Two Little Girls in Blue
Daddy’s Little Girl
The Second Time Around

Night time is my time by mary Higgins Clark

College dean and historian Jean Sheridan returns to her hometown in Cornwall-on-the-Hudson, New York. She is attending the twenty-year reunion of Stonecroft Academy. Jean and six other women, who were members of her class, will be honoured. There is a bad feeling in the air, one of the women in the group, Alison Kenall, was found just a few days earlier, she was drowned in her swimming pool. She was a beautiful, Hollywood agent, and the fifth women from the group who had been found dead.

When she attends the award dinner, she is introduced to detective Sam Regan, who has been obsessed for many years by the murder of a young woman which was never solved. Sam may also be the one who can solve the mystery of the Stonecroft killer. Amongst the people at the awards party is the ‘owl’, who is counting down the murders of the Stonecraft women who used to mock and embarrass him; Jean is the last on his list.

An excellent read, probably one of the best Mary Higgins Clark books I have ever read! One of those books that you just can’t put down, no matter how tired you are a real page turner.

Slumdog millionaire by Vikas Swarup

Ram has grown up in the slums of India, he enters to take part in a TV quiz show which is like “Who wants to be a millionaire”.  Having had no formal education, no one thinks he will get very far in the show. However Rams many life experiences have given him all the answers he needs. Because of his background the show’s producers think that he must definitely have cheated and make him explain how he was able to answer every question. Ram gets sent to jail for correctly answering all the questions in the show. The show would go bankrupt if they had to pay out the winning prize money.

Ram has to go through each question that he answered and explain how he knew the answer; every answer is a flashback of his life. Ram has experienced so much in his short life, from being abandoned at birth he has been through hell and back. The orphanage where the children were deliberately crippled and forced to beg, he has lived with an Australian army colonel, fallen in love with a prostitute, been a servant to an old Bollywood star, plus many tragic situations he has found himself in have all given him knowledge which helped him answer the questions.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard by JK Rowling

The Tales of Beedle the Bard is the first new book from J. K. Rowling since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The Tales of Beedle the Bard played an important role in helping Harry, Hermione and Ron, to finally beat Lord Voldemort. Harry Potter fans will be delighted to be able to read these tales. There are five different tales in the book: ‘The Tale of the Three Brothers’, which is appears in Deathly Hallows, also ‘The Fountain of Fair Fortune’, ‘The Warlock’s Hairy Heart’, ‘The Wizard and the Hopping Pot’, and ‘Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump’.

Each of the five tales features its own magical character which brings laughter and pleasure to the reader. The stories are translated from the original runes by Hermione Granger. All the tales are introduced and illustrated by J. K. Rowling. Also included in the book are the notes written by Professor Albus Dumbledore, which appear by permission of the Hogwarts Headmasters’ Archive.

Written with the same adventure and humour as Harry Potter, a lovely read. I would definitely recommend this book to any Harry Potter fans, or even if you haven’t tried the Potter series yet this would be a good place to start.

Spoilt by Terry Denby

Terry Denby spent the first six years of his childhood living with his mother and her many boyfriends in a first floor flat that was filthy, there were rats, cockroaches and all kinds of insects crawling about living of the scraps of food left to go mouldy. Terry was left to fend for himself whilst his mum and boyfriend ‘Fishy’ went off to the pub for the night, they would drive him at the sweet ship and leave him to make his own way home in the cold, rainy dark night. Everyone said that Terry had the devil in him as he was very naughty and swore like a trooper, but really he was just seeking, his mother never showed him any kind of love or affection. Some of the things that Terry got up to were very bad, he once picked a cat up by the neck and dropped it down the concrete stairwell; he would smash windows for fun and steal whatever he could. When the authorities found out he was taken to court to see if he was suffering neglect or if his mother couldn’t cope with him.

Terry was sent to a children’s home, where he suffered many more years of neglect and abuse.

Down River by John Hart

Having spent the past five years in New York trying to forget his past, Adam Chase as no option but to go back to North Carolina, the place he vowed he would never return to. In North Carolina Adam is remembered as a murderer which doesn’t help his situation.

When Adam arrives back in North Carolina, nothing has changed, it’s just a matter of hours before he is accosted, beaten up and faces the hostility of the ones who were closest to him. Even the young woman Grace, who he will never be able to forget. Shortly after Adams return people start turning up dead, leaving him the number one suspect, because of his terrible past which he cannot get rid of.

His return home does not go down well, he is known for his violent, dark streak. Only just acquitted of murder, how can he clear his name, when nobody trusts him and everyone blames him? Adam has to clear his own name, as no one else believes in him. Having been accused of a murder he didn’t commit and the main defence witness being his stepmother Adam has a lot of work to do. A very gripping read, I thoroughly enjoyed.

Voucher codes for cheaper books

This article is detracting from the usual posts you tend to see here at loveforbooks.co.uk. This article isn’t a book or author review, instead it is an article written to give everyone interested in books some advice.

We are in a time where our money is becoming harder and harder to keep hold of. This can affect our pastimes and hobbies, especially ones such as reading.

Sure we could simply utilise the many local libraries available to almost everyone. But for some that is either:

<!–[endif]–>a) Not an option, or;

<!–[endif]–>b) Less preferable

Many people, including myself, would prefer to purchase a book. That way we own a piece of literature, we can build up collections and access what we want and when we want to.

Unfortunately, the costs of producing books are rising and as an effect, so are the prices of the books themselves. However, it isn’t all doom and gloom in the world of books; online retailers are offering increasingly attractive prices. Add to that the huge wealth of voucher codes that can be used to obtain discounts for websites such as Amazon. You could be saving 50% or more off the retail price, even for newly released books.