Posted in Book Reviews, Excerpt

Wednesday Treat: Heart Swarm by Allan Watson @allanwatson12 @BOTBSPublicity

Posted on by Meggy | Chocolate'n'Waffles

Happy hump day everyone! No This Week In Books meme today as I have more interesting things to share! This morning, you get the chance to read an excerpt of Heart Swarm… And another surprise will be waiting for you tonight!

Thank you yo Book On The Bright Side for this blog blitz!

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Heart Swarm – Prepare to be Scared…

It feels like history is repeating itself when out-of-favour detective Will Harlan gets summoned to a crime scene in the village of Brackenbrae after a young girl is found hanging in the woods.

Five years ago Harlan headed up the investigation of an identical murder in the same woods; a mishandled investigation that effectively destroyed his credibility as a detective. The new case immediately takes a bizarre twist when the body is identified as the same girl found hanging in the woods five years ago.

The following day a local man commits suicide and the police find more dead girls hidden in his basement. The case seems open and closed.

Until the killing spree begins.

Harlan finds himself drawn into a dark world where murder is a form of self-expression and human life treated as one more commodity to be used and discarded.

The only clue that links everything is a large oil painting of ‘Sagittarius A’ – a massive black hole at the centre of the galaxy orbited by thirteen stars daubed in blood with the words –

Heart Swarm

Continue reading “Wednesday Treat: Heart Swarm by Allan Watson @allanwatson12 @BOTBSPublicity” →

Posted in Book Reviews

Membership Needed: The Ancient Nine by Ian Smith @DrIanSmith @StMartinsPress #BlogTour

Posted on by Meggy | Chocolate'n'Waffles

I am publishing this from the 24/7 McDonalds near my new house as my Internet provider has cut my connection two days earlier than planned!

This review is my unbiased opinion and thank you to St Martin’s Press for inviting me to be part of this blog tour and providing me with a copy of the book.

the ancient niceTitle: The Ancient Nine
Author: Ian Smith
Date of publication: September 18th 2018
Publisher: St Martin Press
Format: E-copy

Spenser Collins
An unlikely Harvard prospect, smart and athletic, strapped for cash, determined to succeed. Calls his mother—who raised him on her own in Chicago—every week.

Dalton Winthrop
A white-shoe legacy at Harvard, he’s just the most recent in a string of moneyed, privileged Winthrop men in Cambridge. He’s got the ease—and the deep knowledge—that come from belonging.

These two find enough common ground to become friends, cementing their bond when Spenser is “punched” to join the Delphic Club, one of the most exclusive of Harvard’s famous all-male final clubs. Founded in the nineteenth century, the Delphic has had titans of industry, Hollywood legends, heads of state, and power brokers among its members.

Dalton Winthrop knows firsthand that the Delphic doesn’t offer memberships to just anyone. His great-uncle is one of their oldest living members, and Dalton grew up on stories of the club’s rituals. But why is his uncle so cryptic about the Ancient Nine, a shadowy group of alums whose identities are unknown and whose power is absolute? They protect the Delphic’s darkest and oldest secrets—including what happened to a student who sneaked into the club’s stately brick mansion in 1927 and was never seen again.

Dalton steers Spenser into deeper and deeper recesses of the club, and beyond, to try to make sense of what they think they may be seeing. But with each scrap of information they get from an octogenarian Crimson graduate, a crumbling newspaper in the library’s archives, or one of Harvard’s most famous and heavily guarded historical books, a fresh complication trips them up. The more the friends investigate, the more questions they unearth, tangling the story of the club, the disappearance, and the Ancient Nine, until they realize their own lives are in danger.

Continue reading “Membership Needed: The Ancient Nine by Ian Smith @DrIanSmith @StMartinsPress #BlogTour” →

Posted in Book Reviews

I’m Coming Home: A Little Bird Told Me by Marianne Holmes @MarianneHAuthor @AgoraBooksLDN @ollypenderghast #HappyPublicationDay #LittleBird

Posted on by Meggy | Chocolate'n'Waffles

A very very happy publication day to Marianne Holmes and her wonderful novel A Little Bird Told Me. I apologize for publishing this review so late but Gatwick didn’t want me to use its WiFi!!!

A big thank you to Agora Books and more particularly Olly for sending me a beautiful copy of the book and for letting me celebrate this special day. This review is unbiased.

a little birdTitle: A Little Bird Told Me
Author: Marianne Holmes
Date of publication: September 13th 2018
Publisher: Agora Books
Format: paperback
Rating: 🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️ and a half

Besides, if you were one half evil, wouldn’t you want to know about the other half?

In the scorching summer of 1976, Robyn spends her days swimming at the Lido and
tagging after her brother. It’s the perfect holiday – except for the crying women her mum
keeps bringing home.
As the heatwave boils on, tensions in the town begin to simmer. Everyone is gossiping
about her mum, a strange man is following her around, and worst of all, no one will tell
Robyn the truth. But this town isn’t good at keeping secrets…
Twelve years later, Robyn returns home, to a house that has stood empty for years and
a town that hasn’t moved on, forced to confront the mystery that haunted her that
summer.
And atone for the part she played in it.

Continue reading “I’m Coming Home: A Little Bird Told Me by Marianne Holmes @MarianneHAuthor @AgoraBooksLDN @ollypenderghast #HappyPublicationDay #LittleBird” →

Posted in Book Reviews

The Longest Night of Your Life, and More: Don’t You Cry by Cass Green @carolinesgreen @HarperCollinsUK @HarperFiction

Posted on by Meggy | Chocolate'n'Waffles

Happy Monday!!!

… Those words don’t go well together, don’t you think? I’m team ‘I hate Mondays’. But to make it better, I’m posting the review of a book I couldn’t put down!

I would like to thank Harper Collins UK for providing me with a copy of Don’t You Cry in exchange for an honest review.

don't you cryTitle: Don’t You Cry
Author: Cass Green
Date of publication: 2018
Publisher: Harper Collins UK
Format: e-copy
Rating: 🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️

One stolen baby. Two desperate strangers. One night of terror.

The USA Today and Sunday Times top ten bestselling author returns with a dark and twisty psychological thriller.

She saved your life.
When Nina almost dies during a disastrous blind date, her life is saved by a waitress called Angel. But later that evening, Nina is surprised by a knock on the door. It’s Angel – and she’s pointing a gun at her.

Now she’ll make you pay.
Minutes later, Angel’s younger brother Lucas turns up, covered in blood shielding a stolen newborn baby in his arms. Nina is about to endure the longest night of her life – a night that will be filled with terror and lead her to take risks she would never have believed herself capable of…

Continue reading “The Longest Night of Your Life, and More: Don’t You Cry by Cass Green @carolinesgreen @HarperCollinsUK @HarperFiction” →

Posted in Book Reviews

Lazy Saturday Review: Zero by Gine Cornelia Pedersen trs @rosie_hedger @nordiskbooks

Posted on by Meggy | Chocolate'n'Waffles

Between two yawns and a walk with the dogs, it is my pleasure to introduce you to Zero!

Big hugs to Rosie Hedger for my copy of this book. This review is my thank you to her.

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From Lipsyy : I started doing ‘lazy Saturday reviews’ as a way of getting reviews done in just 30 mins, and they proved to be quite popular. They are quick and snappy, and concentrate less on the plot (or content) and writing and more on my overall feelings about said book. They generally end up being a bit of a rant. My fave!

Ps: My lazy reviews are more often good ones than rants, haha!

41070374Title: Zero
Author: Gine Cornelia Pedersen
Translator: Rosie Hedger
Date of publication:  July 2018
Publisher: Nordisk Books
Format: Paperback
Rating: 🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️

I tell her I’ve stopped taking my pills
I write that I’m still not well, that it’s making day-to-day life difficult
That I often do things I regret, and that there’s some sort of membrane between what I want to do and whatever I end up doing
That I really want to be an actor, but that it’s a dream that seems all too distant for the time being
I tell her I use and abuse alcohol and drugs, and that I’ve got a death wish that sometimes becomes difficult to ignore
That I don’t know who I am
That I change my mind as frequently as I change my socks
That I’m horrible to the people around me
That my sex life is depraved

Continue reading “Lazy Saturday Review: Zero by Gine Cornelia Pedersen trs @rosie_hedger @nordiskbooks” →

Posted in Book Reviews

Shadow From The Past: The Vanishing Season by Joanna Schaffhausen @slipperywhisper @TitanBooks

Posted on by Meggy | Chocolate'n'Waffles

Hello! Don’t disappear right now, I have a review for you!

This post is my thank you to Titan Books for sending me a review copy of The Vanishing Season.

the vanishing season
Title: The Vanishing Season
Author: Joanna Schaffhausen
Date of publication: 2018
Publisher: Titan Books
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 380
Rating: 🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️

Ellery Hathaway knows a thing or two about serial killers, but not through her police training. She’s an officer in sleepy Woodbury, MA, where a bicycle theft still makes the newspapers. No one there knows she was once victim number seventeen in the grisly story of serial killer Francis Michael Coben. The only victim who lived.

When three people disappear from her town in three years, all around her birthday—the day she was kidnapped so long ago—Ellery fears someone knows her secret. Someone very dangerous. Her superiors dismiss her concerns, but Ellery knows the vanishing season is coming and anyone could be next. She contacts the one man she knows will believe her: the FBI agent who saved her from a killer’s closet all those years ago.

Agent Reed Markham made his name and fame on the back of the Coben case, but his fortunes have since turned. His marriage is in shambles, his bosses think he’s washed up, and worst of all, he blew a major investigation. When Ellery calls him, he can’t help but wonder: sure, he rescued her, but was she ever truly saved? His greatest triumph is Ellery’s waking nightmare, and now both of them are about to be sucked into the past, back to the case that made them…with a killer who can’t let go.

Continue reading “Shadow From The Past: The Vanishing Season by Joanna Schaffhausen @slipperywhisper @TitanBooks” →

Posted in Book Reviews

Let The Sound of the Waves Lull You: How To Be Brave by Louise Beech @LouiseWriter @OrendaBooks

Posted on by Meggy | Chocolate'n'Waffles

Let’s start this day and this month with one of the most beautiful novels ever written…

How To Be Brave A/W.indd
Title: How To Be Brave
Author: Louise Beech
Date of publication: 2015
Publisher: Orenda Books
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 320
Rating: 🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️

All the stories died that morning … until we found the one we’d always known.

When nine-year-old Rose is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, Natalie must use her imagination to keep her daughter alive. They begin dreaming about and seeing a man in a brown suit who feels hauntingly familiar, a man who has something for them. Through the magic of storytelling, Natalie and Rose are transported to the Atlantic Ocean in 1943, to a lifeboat, where an ancestor survived for fifty days before being rescued. Poignant, beautifully written and tenderly told, How To Be Brave weaves together the contemporary story of a mother battling to save her child’s life with an extraordinary true account of bravery and a fight for survival in the Second World War. A simply unforgettable debut that celebrates the power of words, the redemptive energy of a mother’s love … and what it really means to be brave.

Continue reading “Let The Sound of the Waves Lull You: How To Be Brave by Louise Beech @LouiseWriter @OrendaBooks” →

Posted in Life in General

A New Blank Page: Self-Care September

Posted on by Meggy | Chocolate'n'Waffles

After a full year with no break, no stop, no *red card, get your bottom to the bench*, September eventually arrived.

I have given everything I had during the last twelve months, for better or for worse. I have had the most amazing times, and the worst ones. The circle is complete.

I am a new person. Some might say I am an adult, but right now I am in my PJs and listening to Taylor Swift while eating cake, so I disagree.

I have put my studies, others’ needs, work, and a lot of things before my own needs for 365 days. No, I am not complaining, I am happy about most of it! But it’s time for some self-love, self-care, and fun. Sometimes we forget what we do all of these things for. I decided to remind myself of what’s important (and it is okay if most of what I write is about me!)

What I’m going to do this September…

  • Celebrate my birthday without cringing and without expecting anything but a nice and cool normal day.
  • Stop saying yes to blog tours

holy shit

  • Enjoy my one-day trip to London
  • Listen to my anti-agoraphobia program again
  • Move house (and lose a few fingers, get crazy, start screaming when things will get messy… The usual consequences of a move)
  • Make the most of Bloody Scotland
  • Change my glasses
  • Resume watching Suits
  • Create the flamingo dance!

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  • Keep fighting mental illnesses with gentleness
  • Relax
  • Give Krav Maga a new try
  • Blog for fun only
  • (this is valid from now until 31th December) Empty my NetGalley queue and the author review requests I have let pending for way too long.

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  • Wear my Orenda nail polish every day
  • Sing
  • Resume my vocabulary-building routine
  • Tell myself I am beautiful

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  • Keep making it happen
  • Make appointments for the dogs to be groomed again
  • Be awesome

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  • Be silly with my speaking English practice

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  • Stop worrying about money
  • Give love to my friends

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  • Reduce social media to one hour per day (watch me fail at this!)
  • Stop waiting for approval from people. I know what I have achieved and what I am capable of.

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  • Keep being kind but not stupid
  • Buy new underwear
  • Be happy
  • Care more about what’s important, throw away the rest!
  • Have fun with the self-care challenge from Jenny
  • Be thankful for my friends and the support I receive.

That’s it. A wee post to welcome September! I hope you have a great month, filled with books, of course!

I am here should you need a laugh, a shoulder (or at least a venting friend cos I can’t send my shoulder away on its own), or just a chat.

Ps: not sorry for the Suits gifs spam.

Let’s make September a good one!