Love For Books

No place like home by Mary Higgins Clark

Celia is a happily married 33 year old, with a four year old son ,Jack, from her previous marrage. Her new husband Alex decides to buy her a very genourous suprise for her 34th birthday, a gorgeous two storey mansion in the Mendham neighbourhood. Alex is sure that Celia will love house ,and suprises her on her birthday by taking her and Jack to see it. Celia is suprised to say the least, more shocked and stunned, how could Alex have chosen the very same hous in which she spent her early childhood? Was this some kind of sick joke? Surley not. Alex could never have known the secret past that Celia has been hiding from the world. Her first husban, Larry, on his deathbed made her promise that she would never reveal her secret, he didn’t want his son to grow up knowing the dreadful events that happend in her childhood home.

The day that they move to the new home, someone has vandalised the property, in red paint on the front lawn are the words ‘Little Lizzies place beware’  and a skull and crossbone engraved in the door. The events turn Celia into a nervous wreck and she is dying to tell the world the truth,who she really is, and what really happend on that tradgic night 24 years ago.

Ruth Rendell

Ruth Barbara Rendell was born on 17 February 1930, she also writes under the pseudonym Barbara Vine, she is an acclaimed English crime writer, known for her many murder mysteries and psychological thrillers.

She was born in South Woodford, London, the daughter of teachers, she was educated at the County High School for Girls in Loughton, Essex after which she worked as a journalist for Essex newspapers. Ruth was fired after she wrote an article on the local Tennis Club’s annual dinner, which she had not really attended.

Ruth also won of the 1990 Sunday Times Literary award, as well as the Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger. In 1996 she was awarded the CBE and in 1997 became a Life Peer.
She has won lots of awards, including the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger for 1976′s best crime novel with A Demon in My View; a second Edgar in 1984 from the Mystery Writers of America for the best short story, The New Girl Friend; a Gold Dagger award for Live Flesh in 1986.

Ruth’s books are loved worldwide and have been translated into twenty-two languages; they are also published to great acclaim in the United States.

Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend by Jenny Colgan

Sophie has always had it all. She was living the perfect party life, doing as she pleased with her dad paying the bills. When Sophie gets caught up in a scandalous affair, unfortunately for her, she gets kicked out of her family home and left to look after herself on the dark, cruel streets of London.

Sophie manages to get a job as a cleaner in a photographic studio, she barley manages to scrape a living. She lives in a bedsit on the Old Kent Road, far from the life she was used to. She had to get buy on the bare minimal eating baked beans from the can. As well as living in squalor she has to put up with being photographed every time she leaves her flat, harder still her so-called friends are all laughing at her fall from grace. Sophie has to step in at the studio, in a crisis, and discovers that she is quite good with a camera this is where her new career begins.

Sophie is hired to take photographs for a society wedding,  where she can witness her old lifestyle, she soon discovers that money really can’t buy happiness .

Do not disturb by Tilly Bagshawe

Most people would love to spend a night in one of the world’s most luxuries hotels. To own one is a completely different thing. Honor Palmer is desperate to save her families hotel, which is of course named after her family. Palmers, is a beautiful building which is right on the coast of the Hamptons. The hotel used to be one of the most luxurious, glamorous hotels in the world. With all kinds of rich and famous guests staying.
Honor has decided she would love to restore the hotel to its former glory; she wants to bring back its magnificent reputation and all the glitz and glamour.

Unfortunately for Honor, there is a new man in town, Lucas Ruiz, who managers a new hotel. He too wants to have the most sought have to hotel in the world; Lucas is trying to bring modern boutique-chic to the States.

Honor and Lucas are desperately competing with each other to try and get the rich and famous to stay at their hotels whilst the locals are busy gossiping. An excellent read, full of glitx,glamourl, adultery, blackmail and some very dirty tricks. I would definitely recommend this book; it’s highly entertaining, a great read.

The importance of being married by Gemma Townley

Jessica Wild was never big on commitment. She always used the motto ‘Don’t depend on anyone’. While visiting her grandmother at the nursing home she meets a lovely old lady named Grace. Grace doesn’t believe Jess when she says she is happy to be on her own. Finally Jess gives and tells Grace that she does have a boyfriend, Anthony Milton, who is also her boss. Gradually Grace Falls for Antony and dreams of him becoming her husband, Grace is really happy for Jess. Grace thinks so much of Jess that she leaves her an inheritance. But there is a catch. The inheritance is in the name of Jessica Milton.

Grace thought a lot about Jess and she trusted her to look after the house she loved. For Jess to keep Graces trust after she is gone, it means that she has to turn her Little Lie into a Big Wedding. To do this she must make Anthony to fall in love with her. She enlists the help of her best friend Helen and Gloria. Right when it appears that Anthony is about to ask the big question, Jess starts to wonder if she should say ‘yes’ for all the wrong reasons. Fabulous read, I really did enjoy this book

Husbands and lies by Susy McPhee

This book is about the perfect family life, wives and children all happily getting along until tragedy strikes for Alison. She is terminally ill with cancer, and wants to find a new wife for her husband for after she dies. She enlists the help of her good friend. Alison wants to find her husband a new wife, and make sure her daughter has a new mother. Fran finds the idea very uncomfortable, but how could she refuse her best friend who is dying and has one final wish.

So Fran decides she must help her dying friend, she logs on to the internet and joins up to a dating site, where she comes across a very familiar profile.  Named ‘Footloose’, he describes himself as divorced, but when she looks at his photo he looks exactly like her husband, Max! What should she do, she can’t bear to confront him face to face?  She decides to pose as ‘Sassy’; she sends a reply to ‘Footloose’ and plans to date her own husband. Frans crazy plan makes max start having doubts of his own. How complicated can things get. An excellent read, making you laugh and cry

The other side of the stars by Clemency Burton-Hill

This is an unforgettable story of a woman who is striving to find herself; she is in the middle of all the glitz and glamour of world of film. Lara Latner is an actress who is enjoying a lovely hot summer; her latest play is bets of London’s West End, Lara and her boyfriend Alex are currently setting up home together. When her agent calls her with an excellent opportunity, which could be her potential break into Hollywood, what should she do? She is plunged head first into confusion. The part is the lead part in an American remake of a classic French film. The same role that made her mother Eve Lacloche a legend many years ago.

Lara can’t decide what to do. How would she ever be able to leave Alex and their beautiful home for the many months of shooting? And would she ever measure up to her mum’s flawless performance? Maybe it is the only way she can truly understand her mother, and to put the past to rest.

A really good read, a real page turner, I could not put the book down and managed to finish it within a few days.

Thanks for the memories by Cecelia Ahern

Every night Joyce Conway dreams of a little girl with blonde hair, who she doesn’t know. Joyce remembers things that she shouldn’t. She remembers places that she has never been, like the little cobbled streets in the city of Paris.
Justin Hitchcock is divorced, restless and lonely. When he arrives to give a lecture on is in Dublin to meets a beautiful doctor, who somehow persuades him to donate his blood.  This blood donation is the only thing that has come straight from his heart in a very long time. After a terrible accident Joyce leaves hospital to recover, her whole life and her marriage is in now in pieces, Joyce moves back home to live with her elderly father. All the time, Joyce senses déjà vu all the time it starts to get overwhelming but she can’t figure out why.

A magical story with twists and turns that you would never imagine. Very funny, an excellent read.
Cecilia’s first novel, PS, I Love you turned out to be the number one bestseller. Her other successful bestsellers include Where Rainbows End, If You Could See Me Now, A Place Called Here and Thanks for the Memories. PS, I Love You

With my lazy eye by Julia kelly

As Lucy is growing up in the 70’s in a semi-detached house in Dublin with her big family, she is dreaming of becoming somebody else someone her father would be proud of.

Her father is an internationally renowned academic, her brothers and sister are high achievers, unfortunately Lucy is rather lazy, she doesn’t seem to have a direction and whatever she does she never manages to follow through on it or succeed. Maybe it’s because she never really tries. She never has the energy or desire to spend hours revising for exams; she isn’t even bothered about coming last. She heads off to London to find the perfect job but still she seems destined to fail.

Lucy seems to be going nowhere fast. A family crisis finally makes Lucy to grow up and take responsibility She comes to realise that if she wants to succeed and make a better life for herself then she will have to do it for herself, she’ll have to find the desire to succeed and then maybe when she works at it, maybe her dreams will finally come true.

An excellent read that will have you in stitches and in tears. I would highly recommend this book.

Sophias Secret by Susanna Kearsley

Carrie McClelland is a bestselling author, she visits the ruins of Slains Castle in Scotland to research for her next book, she isn’t prepared for the strange pull the area has on her and decides to set her latest novel at the castle. She moves into an old cottage next to the ruins.

In 1708, an invasion fleet of French and Scottish soldiers almost succeeded in landing the exiled James Stewart in Scotland to reclaim his crown. Carrie realises that one of her own ancestors, Sophia Paterson, was alive around the same time, Carrie then makes up a fictional life for Sophia. The characters in her story come alive with and seem real and she is shocked when she learns that Sophia was actually a resident at the castle at the time. More coincidences confirm that her story is actually fact. The memories of Sophia attract Carrie more deeply into the happenings at the castle in 1708, she soon comes to realise that a bond with her ancestor, Sophia is giving her with a window into the true events of Sophia’s life. It turns out that Carrie and Sophia have more in common than anyone knew.