Membaca

Nina has always dreamed of being a star. Unfortunately her agent thinks she’s more girl-next-door than leading lady and her acting career isn't going quite as planned. Then, after a series of very public blunders and to escape a gathering storm of paparazzi, Nina is forced to flee from London. Her plan is to lay low with a friend in Devon, in beautiful Brightside Cove. But soon Nina learns that more drama can be found in a small village than on a hectic television set. And when a gorgeous man (and his adorable dog) catch her eye, it’s not long before London and showbiz start to lose their appeal. Will Nina choose to return to the bright lights or has she met her match in Brightside Cove?  Cathy Bramley is taking us on a new adventure to Brightside Cove in Devon. Our main character is Nina, an actress who has just made a terrible mistake and needs to lay low for a while and so she plans to spend time with her brother but life has a different plan for her when she is reunited with a ...

Fiction Painful secrets IDYLL HANDS A Thomas Lynch Novel By Stephanie Gayle 304 pp. Seventh Street Books Stephanie Gayle is back with the third entry (the previous entries are also reviewed on this site) in her Thomas Lynch mystery series set in late 1990s New England and featuring a compelling hero cop protagonist with a refreshing twist. After serving for 15 years as NYPD detective, Thomas Lynch left the mean streets of New York City to become the police chief of the quaint, quiet, affluent, and aptly named New England town of Idyll, Connecticut. Unlike most cops, Lynch has a secret – one that could derail his career in law enforcement. Thomas Lynch is a gay man working in a profession that’s traditionally homophobic – fiercely homophobic. The town’s none too bright and intolerant mayor already made it clear to him that he was only hired because of his impeccable record with the NYPD. So, afraid of being fired for the slightest reason, (and living and working in a conse...

Today it is my stop on the blog tour for The Lost Sister which is the latest release by Tracy Buchanan and I am going to be sharing my review for this book with you. Becky and her mum Selma have had a strained relationship after Selma left Becky when she was younger to go and live in a cave with cave dwellers. When Becky receives a phone call out of the blue from her mum to say she is dying Becky is unsure how true this is due to her mother’s previous elaborations of the truth but when she arrives at the hospital it is clear her mums time is running out and she helps her mum with her last wish of returning back to the cave to live out her final hours but in her dying hours Selma mentions a sister to Becky, a sister Becky has never known about. Becky embarks on a journey to try to find her long lost sister but she makes more discoveries about her mother along the way. The storyline is told from both Selma and Becky’s viewpoints which jumps back and forth in time which did take a little ...

Alex Fox knows there are lots of things she should be. She should be the perfect wife to her chronically ill husband Sam, and the perfect mother to their two daughters. She should be excelling in her high-stress job. And she should be completing the demanding to-do lists she makes to keep herself on track. Even if, just sometimes, she doesn't have time to breathe. When Sam's condition worsens and Alex donates a kidney to save his life, her carefully scheduled existence starts to unravel - eventually forcing her to face up to a past that she has buried for years. As the family she has fought so hard for threatens to fall apart, can Alex finally confront the mistakes that have shaped her - and rediscover what is most important in life? The Rest of Me by Katie Marsh is the second book I have read by this author, I just love the way she writes storylines that are so raw and honest that it feels like you are reading about the family next door. The Fox family have had a heartbreakin...

NONFICTION Not the movie ADRIFT A True Story of Tragedy on the Icy Atlantic and the One Who Lived to Tell about It By Brian Murphy and Toula Vlanou 162 pp. Da Capo Reviewed by Marty Carlock It’s not surprising that a book about the sole survivor of a shipwreck in the North Atlantic in 1856 and a film about a contemporary woman trying to sail boat singlehandedly should bear the same title. But what else can you call stories of determined survival on the sea? The hero of Brian Murphy’s Adrift – the book – is a New Bedford seaman named Thomas W. Nye. He shipped on the packet John Rutledge , out of New York bound for Liverpool, in the winter of 1855. The trip east, with the prevailing winds at its stern, was easy. But returning to the west – this is a sailing ship, hard to tack upwind – with the threat of winter ice, was a disaster. Murphy spends some time chronicling the history of the moment. The habit of leaving port at will, whenever the weather permitted and the craft h...

Non-Fiction Perhaps not so impossible POWER IN NUMBERS: The Rebel Women of Mathematics By Talithia Williams, PhD 224 pp. Race Point Publishing Reviewed by Diane Diekman Talithia Williams wrote Power in Numbers: The Rebel Women of Mathematics to give back. It fulfills her dream of making participation in mathematical sciences a reality for more women, by showcasing these role models and thanking mentors such as the ones who helped her. Williams was a high school student when her math teacher told her she should major in math in college. “It was the first time an older white man affirmed my intellectual ability,” she writes. “Even though I never saw myself as a mathematician, he saw me as one. The conversation changed me. It changed my life.” She went on to earn a master’s degree in math at Howard University and a PhD in statistics at Rice University, where she was the only female and the only African-American in her class. Power in Numbers tells the stories of female mat...