Monday 21 November 2016

'Christmas at the Little Wedding Shop' by Jane Linfoot (Review)

Good Evening and Welcome to blog post no. 2.

Today I will be reviewing, ‘Christmas at the Little Wedding Shop’ by Jane Linfoot.

I have been desperate to join a book club in so long. So when @WriterlyYours got in touch on Twitter to take part in the Christmas Readathon, excited is an understatement.

As you may have seen from my Twitter description box, I am getting married (really?) in May 2018 and so when I saw this book on the Writerly Yours Twitter page, I just had to read it. 

Christmas is one of my favourite times of year and after reading, ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ by Khaled Hosseini (which I absolutely loved, may I add. The review is up already), I wanted something a little more 'light hearted' to get my teeth stuck into and what better than a Winter romance.






Seraphina East is a Wedding Dress designer who lives in a quaint little sea side town in Cornwall. Sera works alongside Jess, the ‘Brides By The Sea’ shop owner who keeps Sera on her toes with her bossy big sisterly ways (which Sera actually very much appreciates). Sera is mortified when her big sister ‘bridezilla’ Alice asks her to take charge of her wedding planning. Sera unwillingly agrees. 
The first task on Sera’s Wedding list is to meet the Best Man, Quinn. 
One day, as Jess is pushing Sera to try on her bridesmaid dress for Alice’s big day, there is a knock at the shop door. Sera hears a familiar voice that makes her stomach turn. It’s her ex- crush (I think 'crush' is the appropriate word), Johnny, from uni who Kate seems to remember completely ignoring her when she tried to contact him a few years ago. What is he doing here? 
I enjoyed this read as it was just what I needed at the time and it made me feel very excited to start planning my own wedding and for Christmas.
If you would like a light hearted, wintery warmer of a romance novel then here it is!

3.5/5 stars.


S x




Tuesday 15 November 2016

'A Thousand Splendid Suns' by Khaled Hosseini (Review)


Hello everyone,

 A huge welcome to my very first (argh!) Book Review. 

This review contains no spoilers (like I'd do that to you!)

I managed to find myself in such a book slum a few weeks back and I decided to reach out to the people of Twitter and ask for a book recommendation. I received a couple of replies but one recommendation that stood out to me was via @PowersMolinar  who recomended,  
'A Thousand Splendid Suns' by Khaled Hosseini and I had previously seen Khaled Hosseini's 'The Kite Runner' and loved it, I felt I'd be onto a winner, and boy, I was not disappointed. 

About the Author: 

Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965. In 1970 Hosseini and his family moved to Iran where his father worked for the Embassy of Afghanistan in Tehran. In 1973 Hosseini's family returned to Kabul.

In 1976, when Hosseini was 11 years old, Hosseini's father obtained a job in Paris, France, and moved the family there. They were unable to return to Afghanistan because of the Saur Revolution in which the PDPA communist party seized power through a bloody coup in April 1978. 

Instead, a year after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, in 1980 they sought political asylum in the United States and made their residence in San Jose, California.





'Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry Rasheed. Nearly two decades later, a friendship grows between Mariam and a local teenager, Laila, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter. When the Taliban take over, life becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear. Yet love can move people to act in unexpected ways, and lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with startling heroism' - Now with a blurb like that, is there any wonder I wanted to read further?

From start to finish, this book gripped me and wouldn't let go until the very end (a tear was shed, many a tear!)

This book is everything I had wished for. It was Gripping, Emotional, Unforgettable, and educational. It contained lots of love, but lots of heartache and at times, unfathomable brutality. 

This book truly opened my eyes to the true victims of war, the locals and their families who are so very often, forgotten.

I will never forget this book and I will be talking about it for years to come. 

S x