Yet again I’m annoyed that I simply cannot read every book that appeals to me. However, I am delighted to share a spotlight on The American Woman by RJ Gould today, even if I haven’t been able to fit in reading it. It gives me particular pleasure to join in with Rachel’s Random Resources to celebrate The American Woman because it’s so rare to find a man writing romantic fiction and I think we should be celebrating RJ Gould as a result!

The American Woman is available for purchase on Amazon UK and Amazon US.

The American Woman

When it’s impossible to forget is it possible to forgive?

Jennifer is stuck doing dead end waitressing jobs, her naïve dream of Hollywood stardom in tatters. Gareth, an IT consultant on a temporary contract, is the unlikely customer at Giulio’s Diner in the downbeat part of Los Angeles where she is now working.

It shouldn’t be a perfect match, the attractive, outgoing waitress from Idaho and the shy, good looker from Wales, but when it comes to relationships nothing is predictable, is it?

They move from state to state and when Gareth’s work in America dries up Jennifer follows him to Britain. Everything changes. What is she supposed to do when she discovers that she’s been fed a pack of lies?

Now living alone in Muswell Hill, Jennifer is a regular at the popular Dream Café with a great job and a lovely set of friends, but it’s impossible to cast aside the wonderful memories of her time together with Gareth.

Were his lies justified? Are they forgivable? And most importantly, should she be giving Gareth the second chance he so desperately wants?

[This is a stand-alone novel in the ‘at the Dream Café’ series] 

****

Doesn’t that sound enticing?

About RJ Gould

R J Gould writes contemporary fiction about relationships using a mix of wry humour and pathos to describe the tragi-comic life journeys of his protagonists. The American Woman is his ninth novel and follows The Engagement Party, Jack and Jill Went Downhill, Mid-life follies, The Bench by Cromer Beach, Nothing Man, Dream Café, Then and now, and Darren, Andrew and Mrs Hall. He has been published by Headline Accent and Lume Books and also self-publishes. Before becoming a full-time author he worked in the education and charity sectors. In addition to his addiction to telling stories, he has somewhat milder addictions to playing tennis, watching film noir cinema, completing Wordle and eating dried mango slices. He is a member of Cambridge Writers and the Romantic Novelists’ Association UK and lives in Cambridge, England.

For further information, visit RJ Gould’s website, follow him on Twitter/X @RJGould_author and find him on Facebook and Instagram.

There’s more with these other bloggers too:

I cannot believe how long it is since I featured Elaine Everest on Linda’s Book Bag. I’m delighted to rectify that omission by sharing my review of Elaine’s latest book in her popular Woolworths Girls series, Celebrations for the Woolworths Girls and I’d like to thank Chloe Davies for sending me a copy of the book in return for this honest review. 

Published by Pan Macmillan on 12th October 2023, Celebrations for the Woolworths Girls is available for purchase through the links here.

Celebrations for the Woolworths Girls

It’s 1952 and with a new Monarch about to ascend the throne, The Woolworths Girls will face fresh new challenges . . .

At The Erith Store there is a new temporary Manager and Sarah is getting more than a little concerned by problems he seems to be creating. The whole mess is enough to make her want to resign.

Meanwhile, Ruby is extremely worried about her friend Vera, and with illness causing a problem from her past to come flooding back, Vera knows it’s going to take a lot of strength and willpower to do what needs to be done.

Then there is Freda, looking forwards to the birth of her first child but sick with worry that her Tony won’t have returned home in time for the birth of his child, let alone to be back to run the Erith store.

As Coronation Day for young Queen Elizabeth ll approaches, the girls from Woolworths celebrate friendship, family and overcoming anything that life can throw at them . . .

Celebrations for the Woolworths Girls is the ninth novel in Elaine Everest’s bestselling Woolworths series.

My Review of Celebrations for the Woolworths Girls

The Woolworth Girls have made it to 1952.

I’ve been meaning to catch up with Elaine Everest’s Woolworth Girls series for ages and I am delighted to do so with Celebrations for the Woolworths Girls because the setting and era are so brilliantly conveyed. Set at the time my sister was born, all the things I associate from the era are woven into the story so that it felt almost as if it had been written especially for me. The food, fashions, technology like Bakelite telephones, and values and attitudes seemed pitch perfect. 

I did need to concentrate to establish who was who because this is such an established series and I’ve missed some of the back stories, but the characters are so realistic that it didn’t matter at all. I found I cared about what happened to them as they faced personal, professional and national problems. Even (or possibly, especially) the more waspish Vera gained my sympathy and I was very definitely enamoured of Bob. 

The plot of Celebrations for the Woolworths Girls is well-planned and engaging. Indeed, one of the aspects I liked so much was the way real historical events impacted the people in Celebrations for the Woolworth Girls, giving a genuineness to the narrative, without detracting from the real lives of these ordinary and appealing people. 

Elaine Everest’s community encompasses a microcosm of society with characters of all ages as well as relatable, universal themes. Family and friendship are at the heart of the story, but so too are themes of marriage, ambition, deceit, feminism and sexism, so that any reader can find an aspect to draw them in.

Entertaining story with believable characters aside, I think the greatest enjoyment to be had from Celebrations for the Woolworth Girls is the reinforcing of the importance of pulling together, of being kind and of being part of a community. In a world where it’s all too easy to lose sight of such values, Elaine Everest reminds us just how much we need those values in a lovely story.

About Elaine Everest

Elaine Everest, author of Sunday Times best selling series, The Woolworths Girls and The Teashop Girls, was born and brought up in North West Kent, where many of her books are set. She has been a freelance writer for twenty-seven years and has written widely for women’s magazines and national newspapers, with both short stories and features. Her non-fiction books for dog owners have been very popular and led to broadcasting on radio about our four legged friends. Elaine has been heard discussing many topics on radio from canine subjects to living with a husband under her feet when redundancy loomed.

For further information visit Elaine’s website, or you can follow Elaine on Twitter/X @ElaineEverest and find her on Facebook. You’ll also find Elaine on Instagram.

Having loved Kate Thompson’s The Little Wartime Library when I reviewed it here for My Weekly, it gives me enormous pleasure to welcome Kate to Linda’s Book Bag today to chat with me not only about her writing but a very exciting new project too.

Let’s find out more:

Staying in with Kate Thompson

Welcome to Linda’s Book Bag Kate and thank you for agreeing to stay in with me.

Tell me, which of your books have you brought along to share this evening and why have you chosen it?

If it’s not too greedy Linda I’d love to bring two with me.

I think I can allow that!

Strictly speaking one is a book and one is my new podcast. I dislike that word podcast though, what does it actually mean? It’s very sterile. I prefer instead to think of it as ‘talking stories’ It’s just another way of indulging our love of stories and helping to press pause on life!

I must admit, I don’t often listen to podcasts so tell me more.

This is an illustration a friend painted for From The Library With Love. I wanted to summon up the warmth, magic and possibility that a library contains.

That’s a lovely illustration.

Wonderful, transformative things happen when you set foot in a library. In 2019 I uncovered the true story of a forgotten Underground library, built along the tracks of a Tube tunnel during the Blitz. As stories go, it was irresistible and the result was, The Little Wartime Library, my seventh novel.

And a wonderful book it is too Kate. Even my Mum loved it and she’s VERY hard to please!

Bethnal Green Public Library, where the novel is set was 100 years old in October 2022, and to celebrate the centenary of this grand old lady, funded by library philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, I set myself the challenge of interviewing 100 library workers. Speaking with one library worker for every year this library has been serving its community seemed a good way to mark this auspicious occasion. Because who better to explain the worth of a hundred-year-old library, than librarians themselves!

Absolutely.

I wanted to explore the enduring value of libraries and reading. I quickly realised that librarians have the best stories.

My research led me to librarians with over fifty years of experience and MBEs, to the impressive women who manage libraries in prisons and schools, to those in remote Scottish islands. From poetry libraries overlooking the wide sweep of the Thames, to the 16th century Shakespeare’s Library in Stratford, via the small but mighty Leadhills Miners’ Library.

You should have come to our Deepings Library Kate. Threatened with closure in the cutbacks it’s now one of the most successful libraries you can find! 

This podcast was born out of those eye-opening conversations, because as Denise from Tower Hamlets Library told me: ‘If you want to see the world, don’t join the Army, become a librarian!’

Or a reader! So as well as librarians, who will be guests on your podcast?

I’ll also be talking to international bestselling authors and some remarkable wartime women. This is my way of celebrating and documenting the remarkable stories I have found whilst researching my books.

For those that love an actual book… The Wartime Book Club is coming out in the UK in hardback February 15th 2024 and paperback August 2024. In Australia and New Zealand, paperback February 15th 2024 and In Canada and the US, paperback April 9th 2024.

I can’t wait to get my hands on that one Kate.

The novel is inspired by the true events of the women who joined the resistance in Jersey during the German Occupation in WW2. From enchanting cliff tops and white sandy bays to the pretty cobbled streets of St Helier, Jersey is known as the land of milk and honey. But for best friends Bea Rose (the local postwoman) and Grace La Mottée (who works in the island’s only library) it becomes the frontline to everyday resistance when their beloved island is occupied by German forces in 1940. Inspired by astonishing true events, The Wartime Book Club is an story of everyday bravery and resistance, full of romance, drama and camaraderie and a tribute to the joy of reading and the power of books in our darkest hour.

Is the Wartime Book Club a follow on to The Little Wartime Library?

Not so much a follow on from The Little Wartime Library, as a companion book, based on another remarkable group of librarians in wartime. Channel Islanders didn’t have to contend with repeated bombing attacks and rockets, but they did have to live under the heel of the Nazi jackboot. Five years of privation, fear, censorship and starvation! ‘Reading was the only true form of joy and solace, the only intellectual freedom we still possessed,’ a lovely gentleman by the name of Leo told me, which sparked the premise for this novel. With censorship on the rise around the world once again this book feels timely. I’m very proud of this one, shaped and informed by the many conversations I had with wartime islanders on my visits to Jersey, sadly many of whom are no longer with us. As always I share these fascinating social histories at the back of the book.

I’m so looking forward to this. I used to head to Jersey every six weeks or so as a consultant in the schools so I’m sure you’ll take me back there. 

Books aside, what can we expect from an evening in with From The Library With Love.

Every Saturday evening I’ll be sharing a new episode. Already up on the site here are:

Christy Lefteri, author of The Beekeeper of Aleppo, talking about how she  researches her incredible novels.

Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, discussing how she used the art of active listening to unlock a decades old secret.

100-year-old Betty Webb, a former Bletchley Park codebreaker, sharing the details of her remarkable wartime work.

Gill Paul, author of many historical novels including her latest A Beautiful Rival chatting about rivalry and scandal.

Anna Stewart, best selling author of The Midwife of Auschwitz.

That sounds fantastic. I must catch up with the podcasts.

What else have you brought along and why have you brought it?

I’d love to bring along every single guest I’ve interviewed for From the Library With Love…we might take up some space and it will be lively (imagine all those authors, librarians and wartime women, many of whom are great raconteurs) We can crack open my favourite tipple, a bottle of red and set the world to rights! Is that ok with you Linda? What time would you like us?

Erm. I’m not sure all 100 librarians and your author guests will fit in but we can give it a go! Thanks so much for staying in with me Kate. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed our chat. 

Me too Linda!

The Wartime Book Club

From enchanting cliff tops and white sandy bays to the pretty cobbled streets of St Helier, Jersey is known as the land of milk and honey. But for best friends Bea Rose (the local postwoman) and Grace Le Motte (who works in the island’s only library) it becomes the frontline to everyday resistance when their beloved island is occupied by German forces in 1940.

Inspired by astonishing true events, The Wartime Book Club is an unforgettable story of everyday bravery and resistance, full of romance, drama and camaraderie and a tribute to the joy of reading and the power of books in our darkest hour.

Publishing in 2024, The Wartime Book Club is available for pre-order here.

From the Library With Love Podcasts

Librarians, bestselling authors and our wartime generation sharing their love of books, reading and some extraordinary stories. All episodes can be listened to here.

About Kate Thompson

Kate Thompson was born in London and worked as a journalist for twenty years on women’s magazines and national newspapers. She now lives in Sunbury with her husband, two sons and two rescue dogs. After ghost writing five memoirs, Kate moved into fiction. Kate’s first non-fiction social history documenting the forgotten histories of East End matriarchy, The Stepney Doorstep Society, was published in 2018 by Penguin. She is passionate about capturing lost voices and untold social histories.

Today Kate works as a journalist, author and library campaigner. Her most recent books, The Little Wartime Library (2022) and The Wartime Book Club (2024) published Hodder & Stoughton focus on two remarkable libraries in wartime. Her 100 libraries project, celebrates the richness and complexity of librarians work and the vital role of libraries in our communities.

For further information, visit Kate’s website, follow her on Twitter/X @katethompson380 or find her on Facebook and Instagram.

It’s a little over a year since I had the privilege of interviewing Iain Hood in a post you can find here. Then we were discussing Iain’s Every Trick in the Book. Today I’m delighted to feature an extract from Iain’s latest novel My Book of Revelations.

My Book of Revelations is published by Renard Press and is available for purchase here.

My Book of Revelations

The countdown to the millennium has begun, and people are losing their heads. A so-called Y2K expert gives a presentation to Scotland’s eccentric Tech Laird T.S. Mole’s entourage in Edinburgh, and soon long hours, days, weeks and months fill with seemingly chaotic and frantic work on the ‘bug problem’. Soon enough it’ll be just minutes and seconds to go to midnight. Is the world about to end, or will everyone just wake up the next day with the same old New Year’s Day hangover?

A book about what we know and don’t know, about how we communicate and fail to, My Book of Revelations moves from historical revelations to the personal, and climaxes in the bang and flare of fireworks, exploding myths and offering a glimpse of a scandal that will rock Scotland into the twenty-first century. As embers fall silently to earth, all that is left to say is: Are we working in the early days of a better nation?

An Extract from My Book of Revelations

15 decades to go

By the year 1850, developments in travel and communication made apparent that local time usage, by which all geographical points defined noon as the time at which the sun reached its highest point overhead, could no longer be sustained. Up until about then, no one moved fast enough nor far enough for time differences to matter. But, for example, the first temporary train terminus of the Great Western Railway had been opened at Paddington in 1838, and since 1840 GWR had used portable precision time pieces, chronometers, set to Greenwich Mean Time, to help with the running of their trains, expected periods of time for the train to travel east or west counted with a single point of reference and therefore the times at which the train would reach intermediate stations and a final terminus. By 1847 most railway companies in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland – we’ll use the terms of the time – were using GMT as the time throughout the nation for their own purposes and on their timetables. Yet local time still prevailed in many people’s minds over the curious London-centric imposition of GMT, what people who cared to be bothered by it called ‘railway time’. Similarly, the development of telegraphy meant that, by 1852, the Post Office could transmit the time from the Observatory at Greenwich, and soon most if not all public clocks, or noting of the time via other public means, such as church bells, were using GMT, though often with secondary means of noting the local and therefore ‘real’ time. Some realised it could only be a matter of time before the whole world would require such standardised time. And it was a whole new world. Momentous events were taking place in all areas of life. For example, in 1859, Darwin finally published… Yes, OK, we all know that side of things.

(It’s possible you’re pushing it.)

In 1868, New Zealand, at the time still governed as a colony, even though the Constitution Act of 1852 had established a fairly independent New Zealand parliament, adopted a standardised time of GMT+11.30. By 1880 the bulk of the British Isles were using GMT rather than local times, spreading out to the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey, and, finally, Ireland, which in 1880 set Dublin Mean Time, measured at the Dunsink Observatory as GMT minus 25 minutes and 21 seconds. In 1916, GMT superseded Dublin Mean Time. The first inklings of time zones were being established.

During these same years a number of schemes for a worldwide system of time zones were proposed. The foremost of these was developed by the Italian mathematician Quirico Filopanti in the 1850s, whose system went unrecognised and was never adopted, and then in 1876 by Kirkcaldy-born Scots-Canadian Sir Sandford Fleming, who was instrumental in the invention of twenty-four one-hour time zones, and the setting of Greenwich as the prime meridian – the zero degree by which each part of the earth relates longitudinally by degrees. Not to say he was alone in this endeavour, and indeed there were a number of learned committees and political appointees who took a more or less useful part in these developments. In one sense, Fleming might be considered one of the great obliterators of time: he banished all the other GMT+ and GMT-s of interim minutes – the GMT-s of 5.45, 1.23, 9.58 and the GMT+s of 7.38, 3.46, 6.21 – leaving only 1, 2, 3, et cetera.

It was this eminent Victorian, Sir Sandford Fleming FRSC KCMG, who, travelling in Ireland in 1876, missed a train in Dublin one day, due to an error on the timetable between a.m. and p .m. that obviously irritated the illustrious gentleman greatly. The already reputed ‘most distinguished Canadian of his age’ was then forced to spend a night at the train station. He arrived with twenty minutes to spare for the scheduled 5:35 p .m. train. Unfortunately the train had arrived on schedule too, at 5:35 a.m., the p .m. printed in the timetable being the offending error. As he was left waiting for the next available train, Fleming conceived of a simpler world with a simpler clock, one that would consider all twenty-four hours of the day without the fraught-with-risk possibilities of double-counting the hours in the day. As he thought it through it became clearer and clearer to him that it was only stupidity that kept us from counting past the number twelve in this particular instance.

In time, he would go on to not only proposing a twenty-four clock, but also a twenty-four hour terrestrial time that would map over the earth in twenty-four hour intervals, beginning with a prime meridian, proceeding by fifteen longitude degrees around the globe, and define the hour in these geographical locales relative to… oh, let’s say… the time at the zero hour at Greenwich.

(Well, there you go – a ripple of applause and laughter, and in a job-interview presentation, of all things.)

Thanks.

****

Hmm. Intriguing. So what happens after this presentation I wonder…? I think I’m going to have to read My Book of Revelations to find out!

About Iain Hood

(PHOTOGRAPH © JEREMY ANDREWS)

Iain Hood was born in Glasgow and grew up in the seaside town of Ayr. He attended the University of Glasgow and Jordanhill College, and later worked in education in Glasgow and the West Country. During this time he attended the University of Manchester. He now lives in Cambridge with his wife and daughter. This Good Book was his first novel.

You can follow Iain on Twitter @iain_hood and find him on Instagram.

Today I’m delighted to share detail of another of my online My Weekly reviews, this time of Country Secrets by Fiona Walker.

Published by Head of Zeus on 13th August 2023, Country Secrets is available for purchase here.

Country Secrets

Can you ever have a second chance at first love?

When Ronnie Percy’s gorgeous on-off lover Blair is forced to deep-freeze their affair for the sake of his sick wife, she’s delighted to be distracted by charismatic neighbour, Kit Donne, and – more surprisingly – finds herself drawn into a fight for the future of the village. But then the return of someone from her distant past threatens to expose long-buried secrets.

Meanwhile daughter Pax – already besieged by her controlling estranged husband – has started to suspect that new beau ‘the horsemaker’ Luca still loves somebody else. The last shoulder on earth she should cry on is Bay Austen’s, but his marriage is crumbling and he’s lost none of his dangerous charm. Moreover, Bay knows the way to her heart is through her horses…

Old friendships, new loves, jealousies, gossip and beautiful horses – these are the classic ingredients for Fiona Walker’s latest gripping, sexy novel, set in the Cotswold village of Compton Magna and laced with her trademark humour.

My Review of Country Secrets

My full review of Country Secrets can be found on the My Weekly website here.

However, here I can say that Country Secrets is a real canter of a novel that holds intrigue, secrets and more than a touch of naughtiness that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Do visit My Weekly to read my full review here.

About Fiona Walker

Fiona Walker is the best-selling author of eighteen novels. Plucked out of the slush pile at twenty-three with her first novel, French Relations, Fiona’s unique brand of sharp-eyed romantic comedy and never-want-to-leave setting was an immediate hit, and her books have gone on to sell millions of copies worldwide. The sassy big sister of chick lit, dubbed ‘the Jilly Cooper of the Cosmo generation’, she’s grown up alongside her readers from nineties London party-animal to dog-walking country mum, and her knack for story-telling remains as compelling as ever.

Fiona lives in Shakespeare Country with her partner Sam, a dressage coach, their two daughters and a menagerie of horses, dogs and other animals.

For more information, visit Fiona’s website and find her on Twitter/X @fionawalkeruk, Facebook and Instagram.

I so enjoyed Jackie Frasers’ The Bookshop of Second Chances, reviewed here, that when the amazing Sara-Jade Virtue offered me the opportunity to be part of the blog tour for Jackie’s new book, The Beginning of Everything, I was thrilled. It’s a real privilege to share my review on publication day.

Published by Simon and Schuster today, 28th September 2023, The Beginning of Everything is available for purchase through the link here.

The Beginning of Everything

For fans of The Keeper of Stories, The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes and A Thousand Roads Home, The Beginning of Everything is the story of Jess and Gethin, whose paths cross in the most unexpected way.

Jess is running, leaving all she knows and everyone she loves behind her, with just a few treasured belongings in her rucksack. She’s escaping from the pain and trauma of a bad relationship with a bad man, gone very badly wrong.

Gethin’s kindness and care takes her breath away. They become friends.

But with so much hurt in her past, can Jess learn to love and live again?

My Review of The Beginning of Everything

Jess is living in a tent.

The Beginning of Everything is just fabulous. Steeped in humanity, understanding and friendship The Beginning of Everything is a book not just to entertain, but to restore one’s faith in other people. I thought it was brilliant.

The plot is relatively uneventful because much of the drama has already happened before Jess reaches Wales. This technique is so effective, because very often when we meet a new person, as Jess and Gethin do, we have absolutely no concept of what may be in their past, what they might have endured and how circumstances have brought them to this point in their lives. What Jackie Fraser does so poignantly is to illustrate that we can escape our past, we can start again and that trust is possible. What happens in The Beginning of Everything is a gradual unfolding of friendship that is authentic, emotional and affecting. Jackie Fraser made me feel everything that Jess feels – not least because the narrative style is as if Jess is addressing the reader directly.

There’s an intimacy created through the fact that much of the book has a focus entirely on Jess and Gethin. I loved the fact that Gethin is a straightforward, open character rather than a brooding hero whose façade Jess needs to penetrate before they can be friends or potentially more than friends. This had the effect of letting me see right inside their minds and allowing me a real insight into who they are as people. And people is the correct word. No characters here, but rather rounded, authentic and vivid people who leap from the page and whom I felt I had had as friends for years.

However, alongside the gentler aspects of The Beginning of Everything, as Jess and Gethin get to know one another, Jackie Fraser subtly and effectively weaves in much bigger themes and aspects of modern life and society that make the book profound as well as a gorgeously entertaining read. She considers abusive relationships, homelessness, the impact of losing everything and starting life again, and the way life can turn suddenly and a person can lose everything. I especially loved her exploration of materialism and what it is that makes for true happiness.

I’m aware this review feels slightly vague, but it’s hard to convey the way it moved me without spoiling the story for others. What more can I say about The Beginning of Everything? It’s a wonderful book that I absolutely adored and won’t forget in a hurry. Read it.

About Jackie Fraser

Jackie Fraser is a freelance editor and writer. She’s worked for AA Publishing, Watkins, the Good Food Guide, and various self-published writers of fiction, travel and food guides, recipe books and self-help books since 2012. Prior to that, she worked as an editor of food and accommodation guides for the AA, including the B&B Guide, Restaurant Guide, and Pub Guide for nearly twenty years, eventually running the Lifestyle Guides department.

She’s interested in all kind of things, particularly history, (and prehistory) art, food, popular culture and music.

She reads a lot, (no, really) in multiple genres, and is fascinated by the Bronze Age. She likes vintage clothes, antique fairs, and photography. She used to be a bit of a goth. She likes cats.

You can follow Jackie on Twitter @muninnherself and Instagram. You’ll find Jackie on Facebook.

There’s more with these other bloggers too:

As Sharon Gosling’s The House Beneath the Cliffs was one of my books of the year in 2021 (reviewed here) and her The Lighthouse Bookshop was another book of the year in 2022 (reviewed here) you can imagine how delighted I was when Sara-Jade Virtue sent me a copy of Sharon’s The Forgotten Garden in return for an honest review. Somewhat later than intended, I’m delighted finally to share that review today.

The Forgotten Garden was published by Simon and Schuster on 27th April 2023 and is available for purchase through the links here.

The Forgotten Garden

A novel of second chances and blossoming communities from the author of The Lighthouse Bookshop. 

Budding landscape architect Luisa MacGregor is stuck in a rut – she hates her boss, she lives with her sister, and she is still mourning the loss of her husband many years ago. So when she is given the opportunity to take on a parcel of land in a deprived area, she sees the chance to build a garden that can make the area bloom.

Arriving in the rundown seaside town of Collaton on the north-west coast of Cumbria, she realises that her work is going to be cut out for her. But, along with Cas, a local PE teacher, and Harper, a teen whose life has taken a wrong turn, she is determined to get the garden up and running.

So when the community comes together and the garden starts to grow, she feels her luck might have changed. Can she grow good things on this rocky ground? And might love blossom along the way…?

My Review of The Forgotten Garden

Louisa’s life is in a rut.

Right. I have come to the conclusion that Sharon Gosling is fast becoming one of my favourite writers. Having loved her previous books, I had high, possibly unrealistic, expectations of The Forgotten Garden and the author exceeded every single one.

What I found so appealing about The Forgotten Garden was the fact that whilst there is a realistic, appealing and compelling potential for romance that hooks the reader immediately that they, and Luisa, meet Cas, there is such a sense of community and society here that the book feels universal and special. The Forgotten Garden begins in opulent surroundings, but quickly leads the reader into the real world of a challenging estate where crime and deprivation rub alongside pride and effort, so that the narrative feels true to life, gritty and still wonderfully uplifting. The plot is totally believable and convincing as a result and I loved it.

The characters in The Forgotten Garden are fantastic. They are fully formed and impactful even if they are more minor like Kath, illustrating how interactions between us affect us often more than we can imagine. The major players like Luisa, Cas and Harper are so vividly drawn that I can’t stop thinking about them and wondering what is currently happening in their lives. I felt strong emotions about them all, because I was so invested in their lives.

There’s such skill in Sharon Gosling’s writing. Her descriptions in The Forgotten Garden enable the reader to picture her settings with total clarity so that I felt as if I were in the gym or community garden. But that is just a small fraction of how she engages her readers. The research and interest that has gone into mushrooms (read the book to find out more), science, education, crime, horticulture and so on creates a fascinating foundation for themes of family, grief, friendship and community. Little Max’s behaviour, Louisa’s own trauma and the underpinning metaphor of a garden to create literal and emotional new life, resilience and growth is so skilfully handled. This is grown up, intelligent and fulfilling writing whilst still being entertaining, uplifting, emotional and romantic. I just adored it. 

The Forgotten Garden is, quite simply, wonderful. I loved everything about it and cannot recommend it highly enough. Don’t miss this one. And yes, Sharon Gosling is on my books of the year list for the third time in a row!

About Sharon Gosling

Sharon started her career as an entertainment journalist, writing non-fiction books about film and television. She is also the author of multiple children’s books. Sharon and her husband live in a small village in northern Cumbria.

When she’s not writing, she creates beautiful linocut artwork and is the author of multiple children’s books. The House Beneath the Cliffs was her first adult novel.

You can follow Sharon on Twitter @sharongosling and Instagram or visit her blog for further information.

As I’m a huge fan of Harper North’s writing different genres under other pen names, I was excited to receive a surprise copy of her debut contemporary novel Divorced Not Dead. My enormous thanks to Gabriella Drinkald for sending it to me. It’s my pleasure to share my review of Divorced Not Dead today

Published by Avon on 28th September 2023, Divorced Not Dead is available for purchase through the publisher links here.

Divorced Not Dead

We’re going to need a bigger drink…

Meet Frankie: fifty, divorced and getting back on the horse.

After leaving Twatface – her husband of twenty years – she’s starting again from scratch. And when her son also flees the nest for university, Frankie decides it’s time to throw herself back into the dating game with a vengeance.

On best friend Bel’s recommendation, Frankie signs up to two dating apps: one for love, another for casual hook-ups (because why the f**k not?!).

However, as she navigates this new frontier of catfishing, kittenfishing, ghosts, GILFs and everything in between, she realises the whole dating thing has changed quite a bit – and it really is a bloody jungle out there…

Will Frankie find love on the apps? Or the perfect shag?

Or – if there’s any justice in the world – both?

My Review of Divorced Not Dead

Fifty year old Frankie is back dating!

I was struggling with a book that felt turgid and plodding so I set it aside and picked up Divorced Not Dead and was immediately transported into a witty, snappy (or should that be SnapChatty?) world that grabbed my attention and simply didn’t let go.

Now, let me say at the outset, if you are offended by frequent expletives and references to sexual activity, read something else! Divorced Not Dead is not the book for you. If, however, you want to read about the real life of a newly single woman who is learning to be herself in the dangerous waters of online dating, Divorced Not Dead is absolutely perfect.

I thought the quilting group and Frankie’s shop were inspired as they give a unity of place and character that anchor the narrative even as Frankie free-wheels through various dates and relationships. We get to know the members of the hotbed of quilters gradually at the same time Frankie does so that it feels like a true-to-life establishing of friendships. Despite Frankie’s manic and often self destructive behaviour, it is friendship that underpins the action in Divorced Not Dead, so that whilst her experiences are way beyond those of the majority of Harper Ford’s readers (I assume!), the story feels relatable and engaging for all.

And Frankie is a glorious creation. She’s a multi-layered and contrary mix of vulnerability and strength, diffidence and confidence that depicts her as a real woman. As she learns the terminology and practicality of online dating (and thank heavens for the brilliant glossary of dating terms at the end of the book) there’s wonderful humour. I found her repartee with the cat-fishing scammers hilarious. I have a feeling Frankie has encountered some of the men who turn up unannounced and unwanted in my own online (not dating) accounts!

Whilst the plot of Divorced Not Dead essentially revolves around Frankie’s relationships with romance at its heart, there’s a surprising depth too. Harper Ford explores coercive and controlling relationships, how we can lose sight of ourselves as we try to accommodate others, how financial insecurity impacts lives, and how true friendship endures. She also looks at post-natal depression, parenthood and body image but with a lightness of touch that never detracts from the enjoyment in reading the story whilst making it feel adult and mature too. This is a book that surprises as well as entertains.

Sweary, sassy and sensational, Harper Ford’s Divorced Not Dead will be a book that shocks some and amuses others. Some will no doubt feel it is not for them, but either way, it is not to be missed. I loved it! 

About Harper Ford

Harper Ford is an author, much of the time. She started out as a writer of historical novels, then found out she was funny during lockdown so decided to write contemporary romcoms too. She’s also a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund, based at the University of Lincoln and has a Masters in Writing. She writes historical fiction as Rebecca Mascull and Mollie Walton.

For further information, visit Harper’s website or find her on Instagram and Facebook.

It’s a real pleasure to welcome back Nancy Boyarsky to chat with me again today. Nancy was last here when we discussed her thriller The Moscow Affair and with another new book on the horizon, I thought it high time she paid a return visit.

Staying in with Nancy Boyarsky

Welcome back to Linda’s Book Bag Nancy! Tell me, which of your books have you brought along to share this time?

I’ve brought my latest Nicole Grave’s mystery, The Big Shakeup, number seven in the series. The publication date is tomorrow, September 26^th.

How exciting. Happy publication day for tomorrow. What can we expect from The Big Shakeup?

It’s set in Los Angeles, but it’s a bit of a departure. Two murders take place during and in the wake of the massive earthquake that’s been long predicted for Southern California. Our PI, Nicole, has the bad luck to be on the scene of the first murder. She becomes the prime and only suspect in the eyes of the police. So the mystery takes place in a broken city, which puts our heroine in even greater danger than she’s encountered before.

Sounds great! I love the sound of The Big Shakeup. Tell me more about it.

P.I. Nicole Graves arrives early at work just as Los Angeles is hit with the “Big One,” the long-predicted, devastating earthquake. When the building stops shaking, Nicole finds Jerry, her boss, in his office dying of a gunshot wound. It appears to be suicide.

Nicole is shocked to learn that the police have decided Jerry’ s death was murder and even more shocked that she’s their only suspect when there’s no shortage of people with motives. And there’s the question of why the detectives are pursuing this case when city workers, including the police, are in an all-out search and rescue operation for survivors. Soon she realizes that the killer is on her trail. All she can do is hide and evade capture long enough to prove her innocence and catch the real culprit.

It must be quite challenging keeping a series going with all the AI swirling around now Nancy. What are your thoughts?

Yes, AI and its threat to authors like me, writers of all kinds, and people in other creative fields. The current Hollywood strike points to AI as an enormous threat to the livelihood of writers and actors. Then, by some quirk in the cosmos, I was benefitted by AI. Apple Books recently released audio versions of my last three mysteries, which had not been recorded previously. They used voices created by AI.

Crikey. That sounds a bit different.

My publisher submitted them, and the project was very hush-hush. So I didn’t learn, nor did they, that my books had been accepted until the recordings were up for sale on Apple Books. At first I was delighted. It’s very expensive to create an audiobook. But Apple’s AI-produced recordings means that more people will have a chance to hear my stories, especially since they’re available for the rock-bottom price of $2.99. But as I listened to them, I noticed how uncannily human the voices sounded. That made me consider what impact AI could have on narrators who depend on this work. And for authors and all kinds of writers, AI is an existential threat.

Hmm. Split opinions there then!

Before this, I’d toyed with AI tools available on the web. I asked one to rewrite an excerpt from my book in the style of Dickens. The result was pretty silly and not at all Dickensian. So I was under the impression that any real threat from AI would be years, maybe decades in the future. My eyes are certainly open now!

I agree. My husband asked AI to write a review of a book in my style. Apart from a couple of incorrect plot references and a couple of phrases that were not my style, it produced a creditable effort of over 400 words in about 40 seconds. I found it most disconcerting!

Thank you so much for staying in with me to chat. You put the kettle on and I’ll give Linda’s Book Bag readers a few more details:

The Big Shakeup

Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, or so they say.

P.I. Nicole Graves arrives early at work, just as Los Angeles is hit with “the Big One,” a long-predicted, devastating earthquake. When the building stops shaking, Nicole finds Jerry, her boss, in his office dying of a gunshot wound. It appears to be suicide.

Nicole is shocked to learn that the police have decided Jerry’s death was murder and even more shocked that she’s their only suspect when there’s no shortage of people with motives. And there’s the question of why the detectives are pursuing this one case when all city workers, including the police, are in an all-out search and rescue operation for survivors. All she can do is evade capture long enough to prove her innocence and catch the real culprit.

Published tomorrow, 26th September 2023, The Big Shakeup is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Robo, Bookshop and Apple books.

About Nancy Boyarsky

Nancy Boyarsky coauthored Backroom Politics, a New York Times notable book. She has written several textbooks on the justice system and contributed to political anthologies, including In the Running, about women’s political campaigns and The Challenge of California. She has also written articles on a variety of subjects for the Los Angeles Times, West magazine, Forbes, McCalls, Playgirl, Westways, LA Observed and others.

Nancy’s mysteries include, The Swap, The Bequest, Liar, Liar, The Ransom, The Entitled, The Moscow Affair, and The Big Shakeup.

Aside from writing mysteries, Nancy is director/producer/sound engineer of the podcast Inside Golden State Politics. She lives in Los Angeles with her journalist husband, Bill Boyarsky.

You can find out more about Nancy by following her on Twitter @NancyBoyarsky, visiting her website, or finding her on Facebook.

Having loved all Hannah Gold’s previous children’s books I was thrilled some months ago when a copy of her latest, Finding Bear arrived in surprise book post from the lovely team at Harper Collins’ children’s books. It’s taken me months longer than intended, but I’m delighted finally to share my review of Finding Bear today.

Published by Harper Collins on 28th September 2023, Finding Bear is available for purchase through the links here.

As well as my review of Finding Bear, you’ll find my thought on Hannah’s The Last Bear here (making it one of my 2021 Books of the Year) and of The Lost Whale here (which was another Book of the Year for me in 2022)

Finding Bear

The unmissable follow-up to the phenomenal bestselling and award-winning The Last Bear. Beautifully illustrated by Levi Pinfold and perfect for readers 8+

April Wood has returned home from her adventure on Bear Island. But, over a year later, she can’t stop thinking about Bear.

When April hears that a polar bear has been shot and injured in Svalbard, she’s convinced it’s her friend and persuades her dad to travel with her to the northernmost reaches of the Arctic. So begins an unforgettable journey across frozen tundra and icy glaciers.

But along the way, she discovers much more than she bargained for – a tiny polar bear cub, desperately in need of her help. In freezing temperatures, April must navigate the dangerous Arctic terrain and face her deepest fears if she’s to save him.

Beautifully illustrated by Levi Pinfold, Finding Bear is a stunning story of survival and a heartwarming tale of love that shows us how hope is born from the smallest of beginnings.

My Review of Finding Bear

April isn’t entirely settled in her new life.

Now, when I read The Last Bear by Hannah Gold I thought it was pretty close to perfection and would be impossible to beat. How wrong could I be? Finding Bear is a magnificent sequel that is absolutely wonderful. It’s the kind of book that touches a reader – heart and soul – regardless of their age, experience or interests. I adored it.

The fabulous April Wood is a little older and a little taller, but her passion for wildlife and the environment is as deep as ever and it is this aspect of the text that illustrates what a brilliant writer Hannah Gold is. She teaches her young readers about the environment, climate change and the natural world by seamlessly weaving in these aspects to her story. Starving polar bears, melting ice and the delicate balance between humans and animals are fabulously researched aspects, but they are presented without ever patronising young readers, drawing them into the story and lighting a fire in their imaginations. There are difficult moments here presented with compassion and sensitivity but I won’t spoil the story by saying more except that this reader who is around half a century older than the target audience was reduced to a sobbing wreck in more than one occasion. 

Descriptions in this fast paced plot are simply wonderful, conveying the Arctic temperature and inhospitable, threatening environment with razor sharp accuracy so that any reader can experience the cold and dark alongside April. Add in the truly amazing illustrations by Levi Pinfold and Finding Bear is a very special book indeed. 

I absolutely loved the way that Finding Bear is an adventure story and can be accessed on that initial level, but is so multifaceted in the themes presented that the relatability for all readers is astounding. There are family dynamics as April uncovers her real emotions about Maria arriving in her Dad’s life, the sense of loneliness and the need to belong arises out of April’s difference from her fellow pupils, and the realisation of what creates abiding and enduring love at all levels permeates the entire story, especially through April’s relationship with Bear. 

It’s quite difficult to convey what a truly gifted writer Hannah Gold is. Her books are realistic and magical. Finding Bear is a shining beacon of hope, love and friendship in a world where such values can be sorely missed. Indeed, I think Finding Bear is astounding. You’ll struggle to find a better children’s book and I don’t have the vocabulary to convey how wonderful it is. Just buy it! 

About Hannah Gold

Hannah Gold grew up in a family where books, animals, and the beauty of the outside world were ever present, and is now passionate about writing stories that share her love of the planet. The Last Bear was her children’s debut which became an instant classic and international bestseller upon release in 2021. A Saturday and Sunday Times Book of the Week, it went on to win both the prestigious Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and The Blue Peter Book Award and has been translated into 25 languages.

The Lost Whale is Hannah’s critically acclaimed second novel which tells an incredible story about the connection between a boy and a whale and the bond that sets them both free. It won the Edward Stanford Children’s Travel Book 2022 and has been shortlisted for a number of regional awards.

In September 2023, Finding Bear, the highly anticipated sequel to The Last Bear, will be released. All novels are illustrated by renowned artist Levi Pinfold.

Hannah is also an ambassador for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Charity. She lives in the UK with her tortoise, her cat and her husband.

You can find out more about Hannah and join her popular ‘Bear Club’ newsletter on her website, or you can follow Hannah on Twitter @HGold_author, or find her on Facebook and Instagram.