Yes I know it is Saturday well I think it is, I really don’t know which day is which at the moment, they are all blurring into one!  Here in the UK we have not seen the sun for what seems like months and apparently it has rained every day since January 1st and I believe them!  This week it has been grey, overcast and raining and it has been like that for days and days.  Anyway it has meant I have been able to read quite a few books, so that is definitely an upside.  

Since January I have read nine books but two were DNF’s.

*****

Firstly this was Jayne’s and my Cosy Book Club Book for January.  Ed the devoted father of Daughter Abbie must come to terms with her new Fiancé, Ryan,  and their wish to marry quickly because of her Grandmother being so ill.  However Ed has reservations that are not shared by other members of the family.  There is something just not quite with Ryan and Ed cannot put his finger on it and so begins a spiral of events which will lead Ed to do things he has only ever seen in movies but all to protect Abbie.  Can he find any evidence that Ryan is not who he portrays himself to be? 

This is a mystery but not in the traditional sense.  It is well written and the story moves along but the ending is not quite as you hope.  I gave it Five Stars.

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*****

I actually listened to this on BookBeat whilst I was working the other week and it was very good.  Monday morning four people get into an elevator in one of the many high rises in New York City to go to their different floors.  The buttons are pressed and the doors close but the elevator does not stop on any of the floors and just keeps going until it reaches the very top floor where it stops.  The four people cannot get the doors to open and then the elevator drops all the way to the bottom.  Tuesday morning another building, another elevator same thing.  Wednesday morning the same and what appeared to be a tragic accident on Monday has turned out to be a serial killer who is killing people at arms length.  Can Detectives Borgue and Delgado find who is doing this before the body count rises?

First book of Lindwood Barclays I have read and it was well done.  The story moved through the book and was easy to follow their progress of the case to the end with the twist as well.  I again gave it Five Stars.  

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*****

You will see that I first read one of Jane Bettany’s books last month, “Murder on Bluebell Hill” and I really enjoyed it.  They are in the Cosy Crime section of the bookshop and I can honestly say very Agatha Christie.  They are, like her books, not very long but the characters are good and there is generally only one murder and our heroine “detective” Violet Brewster generally finds out who done it with a twist.  They are very easy to read but that does not detract from the stories.  There are currently five in total in the series and I believe a new one is being written.  They areally are very good and of course gave them Five Stars.

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*****

I read this over three days!  It was that good.  Beth is waiting for her Husband, Tom, to get home from work.  She has fed, bathed and put their daughter to bed and is waiting in their expensive kitchen in the cottage they have renovated for him to get home.  There is a knock on the front door and Beth rushes to it ready with a string of abuse and especially as he has also forgotten his keys.  But it is not Tom it is a Detective and some Police officers and they want to talk to Tom.  It is about his old girlfriend from ten years ago and Beth cannot understand why they want to talk to Tom.  As the weeks unfold and more information comes out Beth begins to wonder if she ever knew her husband really at all.

It really is a good book and you do become invested in their lives and as Beth finds out more so, dear reader, do you.  However the twist at the end is very good and that is all I am going to say!

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***

This is my Three Star read for February so far.  I was again talked into buying this by Bookstagram and I am beginning to think that I should not take any recommendations from there at all!  This is about the fourth book I have had this happen to me so am really beginning to think I need to trust my own judgement and not listen to anyone else!  However, of course, that is what I am doing here!!!!!!  It is a conundrum!

Eden Fox and her husband have moved into their forever home, Spyglass, in the seaside village of Hope Falls.  The house needed a lot doing to it but they have managed to update it.  Eden has even had time to go back to her first love of paining and that evening she is having a local exhibition of her work.  She decides to go for a run, to calm her nerves, and sets off on her usual path.  She gets back home and her key will not open the door, when she knocks a woman comes to the door who looks a lot like her and dressed in her clothes.  Eden cannot believe her eyes and demands to know who she is, then her husband, the man she has been married to for a long time, comes to the door and asks this other woman, who he calls Eden, what is wrong.  Eden is confused and demands to know what is going on and the Police are called.  They believe her husband and this woman and Eden has no phone, no idea how to prove who she is, what is she going to do?

To be honest with you I got a littl confused with this book, especially with Eden and Eden and them talking about the situation.  I was never sure which Eden you had talking.  It was okay and some of it was predictable.  The twist at the end was okay but the ending did feel like it was all being wrapped up in a little bow for you.  I think it is one of these books which has been over hyped again, especially by people who have had advance copies sent to them and “LOVED” it!  I have read better!

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*

If I could I would have given this no Stars, oh wait I can here but not on my Goodreads account!  I love a good Fantasy book and I love the building of the world and this book is going to be a series.  However Ms Parker I think swallowed a dictionery and thesaurus and then every sentence decided to fill said sentence with twenty words where five would have done.  Example : “So close I’m struck with a smoky musk pinched with the smell of freshly split stone, softened with notes of something buttery.” I mean what does that even mean?  and every single sentence is like that!  I got to page 50 of 576 and I could not read it anymore!  I really wanted to like it but it was actually unreadable.  I honestly do not know how some of these books get published!

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*

This was another book that did not deserve even one star!  The premise was a good idea ish!  Librarian Anne Adams who lives in Scotland loves her job but then is involved in a serious car crash which kills her twin brother and Anne was driving.  She spends months in hospital recovering and her parents blame her entirely for his death and although she goes back to live with them to continue her recovery they basically ignore her.  Anne cannot go back to the Library and looks around for a new job and finds it cataloguing a private library at Winterbourne on a remote island on the west coast of Scotland, but not all is as it seems!

I started to listen to this on BookBeat but I could not stand it!  The Narrator was particularly dour and to be perfectly honest I did not like the character of Anne, her parents or the story so I DNF’d this too!  

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Looking back so far on February out of the nine books I don’t think I have done too bad by DNF’ing two of the nine!  I still have some books on my shelf that I have bought because of recommendations from Bookstagram but I am going to go through my shelves and have a long hard look at all the books and assess whether they are staying or going.  However certainly with “When The Moon Hatched” you would not have known how bad it was until you started to read it!

I hope you lovely lot have had some time to read and the weather where you are is better than here in Derbyshire at the moment, although we have seen the sun today which was glorious, it was very cold but sunny!  They have forecast some snow overnight of course!    My eye Op is still down for February 23rd at the moment and I will be utilising my BookBeat account for the week afterwards, especially where I have to have my head down for 45 minutes of every hour!!!!  

Have a wonderful week and I am aiming to get back to posting most days now that everything has settled down a bit. 

Hugs & Love, Susie & Coco xx

Happy Valentines Day Too!

This is why this week has been so, so busy!  Little Lady has arrived safe and sound weighing in at 8 pounds, although after an emergency C-section due to her being so comfy, she was not coming out after twenty four hours on the labour ward!  Mom is doing very well even though she is sore and tired of course but so far she is being very good for the new Parents.  All the four legged friends have seen her and they are not too sure she is much use yet for playing and throwing tennis balls for them!  As per the new Parents wishes this will be the only photo of her  but I can tell you she has dark hair like her Mummy!

They came home on Tuesday evening and I have just lost count of what day it is this week!  I did go to Eldest’s on Wednesday working and yesterday got home jobs done which was a relief.  I have a basket of ironing to do this evening as DH is out all evening and all weekend at the County swimming championships at the 50m Pool.  However having got all my jobs done I am able to spend the weekend quilting!  I am hoping I will be able to show you some pictures soon.

Despite the chaos I have managed to keep up with our work too and not got behind which is a relief as I hate being behind with things be it work or home!  

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Susie’s Friday Book Club Extra!

*****

As promised at the beginning of January I wanted to move to doing two book posts per month and here is a book I finished a couple of weeks ago!  I am always on the lookout for a new Author and sometimes I pick a book up and reading the blurb looks good and then, having read half of the book, do not like it!  It is always diffiult and I suppose this is where your local Library is a great help with the try before you buy.  

When I was a little girl my Parents and I went every week to our local Library, above, to pick our books for the week.  It was Saturday afternoon and I loved spending a couple of hours in the Library and picking my books for the week and handing over my tickets.  As I got older the Children’s Library which was the windows on the left of the building did not hold my interest and as I was quite an advanced reader I was allowed to have main Library tickets and then I got six tickets, so I could get six books out!  I did develop a passion when I was a young teenager for the romance novels but then I also discovered the murder/mystery books, mainly Agatha Christie and loved every one of them.  So I used to alternate between murder/mystery, historical fiction, romance and the occasional gothic horror!  

Anyway I found the above book on BookBeat and listened to it whilst I was at Eldest’s work and then listened to it on the way home in the car.  

Monday Mornings can be bad but for these four people getting into an elevator in the middle of Manhatten it is going to get a whole lot worse.  They each press a button for a different floor but one by one each floor goes past without the elevator stopping to let them out.  It reaches the top of the building when it does stop and no pressing of the buttons can get it to open the doors or move.  Suddenly it begins to fall and none of the safety systems kicked in, it did not stop until it got to the bottom when the ground finally stopped it.  

It was a terrible accident but when Tuesday arrives and another elevator in another Manhatten skyrise falls to the bottom , Wednesday the same and for one of the most vertical cities in the World people were starting to avoid using any elevator.  The Police are not convinced there is any foul play but then a body is found on the Highline with no fingers and no face and whilst investigating that they find he was an elevator repair man!  How does this relate to the deaths over the last three days and can the Detectives assigned to the case stop them before any more deaths?

It was a really good book.  The story moved through quite well and the characters were well rounded without there being too much information where you get confused as to who is who etc.  The suggestion of who had done the evil deed does not come out until the end and it is a very good twist.  No blood, guts and gore in it either for those that do not like that sort of thing.  

I really enjoyed the Book and gave it five stars and I will now be looking out for more of Mr Linwood’s books.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend and I will see you here next week.  DH is away all week at a business exhibition so I will have a few hours free on my own this coming week and I am hoping to catch up on all those little jobs that get put to one side!!!

Hugs & Love, Susie & Coco xx

Coco the other morning when it was very frosty!

Here in Derbyshire we have been lucky with the weather and although it has been very, very cold we avoided the heavy snowfall although there was some in the north of the County but we have had some very hard frosts and ice!

Well as I write this I am a week late with Book Club (!) and it is now January 16th where did that go?  At this rate it will be December again soon and Christmas.  

I have been catching up with our work and Eldest’s work, which is now done, and home jobs of course.  We are still waiting for the arrival of the baby but Fiancée’s Due Date is January 22nd so very near now, although she was hoping that the baby would arrive a little sooner. As long as it is not like my Boys who were both ten days late!  However as we all know they come on their time not ours!  I will let you know when it happens.  

Down to Book Club and what I have been reading at the start of the new year.  I did get quite a bit of reading done over the Christmas Holidays as we were quiet and it was great, so although it was the end of the year I am putting them into January as the hooks were so good.

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*****

Not only is the cover of this book absolutely stunning the story is good too and I gave it five stars.  Lillian Delaney is an apprentice book binder in Oxford in 1901.  She takes on her first commission and while she is at her Patron’s home she finds a book which has been burnt in amongst a delivery sent to him.  He gives it to her and Lillian is fascinated with the book.  When back at the workshop she starts to take it apart to repair it when she finds a letter which tells the story of a forbidden love but it ends on half a page and Lillian is determined to find out who the woman is writing the letter and what happened to her.  Lillian sets off on a journey of discovery which takes her to London and other book binders and to several bookshops to try and find the books that the first letter was put in.  Along the journey she meets peopole who help  and others who want to kill her!  

I really enjoyed it.  I love historical fiction anyway, but this was so different to anything I have read for a while so I think that helped.  

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*****

Of course my most favourite of genres is crime/mystery books but sometimes I want something which is not too heavy, so the genre of cosy crime I usually find something to read there.  This book was in that pile.

Violet Brewster has moved to Merrywell, Derbyshire from the city for a new start in the country.  She is running her own marketing business in the village and loving meeting her neighbours and made friends with other business owners.  Violet has a meeting with the owners of the local garden centre to sort out some marketing but she finds him distraught holding the body of his wife by ofn the the diplays of plants.  Violet bends down to see if there is a pulse but sadly she has passed away.  The police arrive and suspect that she slipped on the wet paving stones and banged her head but the more they investigate the more they realise she was murdered, but who did it?

I absolutely loved the story, it was easy to read, it flowed well but did not get bogged down with too much detail on the characters or the story.  Jane Bettany has written four more Merrywell books so I will be looking out for them.  

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***

This book looked like a good one but half way through I sort of lost interest in it!  Grace meets Jack in the park where she is with her sister Millie who is Downs.  Jack dances with Millie and Grace is impressed with his kindness.  As she gets to know him he is the man she has been waiting for; he is kind to her and Millie, he has a very good job as one of the top Barristers in London and when he proposes to her she accepts without a second thought!  However she should have had that second, third and fourth thought!

On their wedding day, Millie falls down the steps of the Registry Office going in and Grace is distraught, she wants to call the wedding off but Jack says no and they should carry on as Millie is taken to hospital with a broken leg .  Millie tells Grace that Jack pushed her but Grace thinks it is just shock until she gets to her Honeymoon destination and finds out that Jack is not kind.  She tries to escape but he has her under his tumb now, will Grace ever be free and can she save Millie?

The story was okay but the story of Grace trying to find a way to escape went on too long without any movement in the story.  When you get to the end of the book the ending is predicatable and a little light on explanations which is why it got three stars from me.

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*****

This was Jayne’s pick for our Cosy Girls Book Club November/December 2025 and it was great and well deserved Five Stars.

Neve is managing the Stardust Lake Hotel on a snowy covered island in Scotland with her brother.  However she is remembering her lost love, Oakley Rey, who loved being with her on the island but left to pursue his dreams of acting when he got a part on a TV show filming half way around the world.  However as Christmas approaches and the hotel guests begin to arrive for the Christmas and New Year Festivities it also brings Oakley.  Neve has a secret and she wants to tell Oakley but is scared of how he will react and she does not know whether she should in light of the success of his show?  Whilst she is coming down the stairs at her cabin she collapses and falls down the stairs and blacks out.  Oakley helps her brother to get her to the mainland via the company helicopter but will Neve be okay and what about the secret?

I loved the story, it was not too sugary and they all sort it out by the end of the book.  It is a very gentle read but the story does move along very well.

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                            *                                                     *****

These two were my choice for December as they were two short volumes as it was Christmas.   

Murder in Advent – It is the Festive season and Litchester is getting reading for carols by candlelight at the Cathedral but there is also an argument happening about the sale of the 1225 copy of the Magna Carter that the Cathedral owns to help pay for the upkeep.  So instead of harmony and the best of the Festive season there is murder and secrets abound.

I got to the end of it but should have DNF’d it !  It was just boring it was rather like reading the Parish Council Minutes!  I honestly don’t know how some books get published!

The Christmas Guest – Now this was a completely different book!  This is a classic Country House murder mystery!  Ashley Smith is working in London and is quite lonely being so far from her home in the US, when her classmate invites her for Christmas at their Cotswold Manor.  She records everything in her diary and is excited to have a traditional English Christmas and she also gets to meet her friends twin brother, Adam.  However when Ashley arrives at the Manor House she realises that things might not be as they seem and will she avoid being caught up in the murder?

I gave it five stars because again it was not a long book but there is a lot packed into it and it had that wonderful Christmas feel.  Definitely one for your shelf.

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I hope you have found something in here that you would like to read and are having a great January and start of the year.

Hugs & Love, Susie & Coco xx

I did rather well with my Reading Aims in 2025.  I re-did my Goodreads account at the start of the year and used that to track my reading as well as my Book Journal too.  Last year for the Reading Challenge I chose to try and read 50 books and actually read 55 so for this year’s Challenge I chose to read 100 books! 

Now there has been a lot of controversy about people saying they are going to read 100 books this year but why?  Like book reviews it is all subjective.  Someone may only read five books this year, whereas someone else will only read 1 and of course there are some who will read more than 100.  It is up to everyone to set themselves whatever goals they like and we should, quite honestly, keep quiet about it!  It is like if you put a review of a popular book up and say you do not like it, people come at you about it.  That is the whole point of a point of view, you are not going to like some books and the ones you do like someone else might not like them.  This is the joy of reading.

The book that I did not particularly like is being talked about at the moment, “The Housemaid” by Freida McFadden.  It has now been turned into a film.  I read the book last year along with another of Ms McFadden’s books.  Firstly the plots are the same and in both books I read there as an “ick” factor!  They were also both predictable even with the twists and by the time you got to the end there were some plot holes.  Now that is my opinion and I know there are a lot of people who love her and her books, 

*****

Of my 55 books last year I had 23 which were Five Star Reads and here they are :

The majority of thm are crime/thrillers which I love as a genre but mixed in are a few different ones; “The Secret Christmas Bookshop” is very much a Christmas read and “A Funny Story” is very much a summer chick book read.  All of them have been reviewed by me for our Friday Book Club in 2025.

To pick my favourite five star read out of the books above is hard as they are all so good, hence the five stars but if I am really pushed my favourite of the year would be “The Wartime Bookshp”  This is definitely a cosy mystery but also about women coming together during WWII and helping each other in an English Village that although far from the war is still affected by it.  There are more books in the series and I am intending on getting them.  

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Here are my 1 Star or DNF books of 2025:

Not too many as I try very hard to not get books that I don’t absolutely love.  However these nine caught me out, although Where The Crawdads Sing was Jayne’s and my Book Club Book, I could not get on with it at all.  The top four I just did not like and DNF’d them.  Yellowface was just dreadful!  The characters were not likeable and the premise was just out there. 

I really wanted to love The Book That Wouldn’t Burn and it is a series of three books which I had all three.  However I got half way through it and it was so boring.  The story was not there are all and the characters were doing everything at a snails pace so that was DNF’s and the other books went with it.  

Verity I was told to read by everyone as they loved it, could not put it down etc.  I read it and finished it but by the end of it I wanted to kill everyone of the characters!  None of them came out of the story in a good light and the whole story was just slightly yuck!  I have since read on line other reviews about Colleen Hoover’s books and they are all written in the same way so I will not be reading any more of hers!

I have saved Message Deleted for last as I cannot believe that this book was ever published!  K.L. Slater needs to do more research as she had police doing things in this book that they would never do!  The story was confused and quite frankly did not know how to end which when it came it was rushed and a mess!  I did not DNF’d it but wish I had, it was one of those books that I was hoping would get better but it never did and to add to all this characters were thin and not likeable at all.  I will never buy another of her books.

Thnere were a lot of other books, 23 exactly, in between the  Five Stars and One Star with all different ratings most of which have appeared on our Friday Book Club.  I hope you have enjoyed  this look at the books I read in 2025. 

Hugs & Love, Susie & Coco xx