Babies. Toddlers. Pre-schoolers. They’re delightful and amazing and awful and infuriating, switching seamlessly from adorable minx to terrible brat – and back again – in a matter of seconds. (“I said say SORRY to your SISTER. Say SORRY TO YOUR SISTER NOW! Oh, what a lovely cuddle. Ah, I’m sure she loves you, too, she […]
Ah, school holidays with young children. It’s an inescapable opportunity to spend hours shouting “stop, NO, don’t touch that, say sorry to your sister” quality time with my little boy, while managing the needs of his even littler sisters, so the immediate question is: what can I do to get us all out of the house? Somewhere fun, […]
Recently I inherited a Kindle. This was lovely for two reasons: 1. I needed a kindle after mine was incapacitated by the twin efforts of a small, impatient child and the relentless force that is gravity; 2. My grandfather and I had always shared a love of words, so it seemed appropriate that I should […]
It’s not often that a book leaves me so uncertain. This was my Mother’s Day gift from my little readers, which was received with pleasure and promoted to the very top of my TBR pile. As the title and blurb suggests, it’s a book about motherhood (very definitely so: the fathers are mostly absent), and […]
I love reading about forensics. Catching a criminal because of tell-tale threads of fibres or revealing smears of vital DNA is at the heart of shows like CSI (Crime Scene Investigation) and many a crime novel. There’s something so compellingly CERTAIN about forensic evidence…even when competing criminalists are arguing that a piece of evidence supports […]
Scandinavian fiction: if it isn’t dominating our TV screens it’s creeping onto our bookshelves. Whether or not you’re a fan of the trend, it’s often appealing to read novels set abroad and learn a little about another culture – and sometimes, a surprising amount about our own! Hélene Fermont’s second novel, We Never Said Goodbye, is […]
Sometimes a book surprises you. Last year that book was David Young’s debut novel, ‘Stasi Child’ – winner of the CWA Historical Dagger award. Despite my vague belief that I don’t really enjoy reading historical fiction, despite my occasional professed boredom with another story focusing on life in post-WW2 Germany, I LOVED ‘Stasi Child’. It’s […]
Sometimes giving books the benefit of the doubt is a Good Thing. Having been underwhelmed by ‘Five Go Parenting’ and ‘Five on Brexit Island’ I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy the latest instalment in Bruno Vincent’s ‘Enid Blyton for Adults’ series: ‘Five Forget Mother’s Day’. What’s it about? George has, somehow, managed to fail to […]
It’s the mother of a missing child’s most cherished wish: the child, returned. But what if you had doubts? What if your long-lost daughter wasn’t being completely honest about the circumstances surrounding her abduction? What if you started to wonder if your daughter – your real daughter – might be dead after all? Who might […]
Mother’s Day is fast approaching. This is an opportunity for hardworking mothers everywhere to receive thanks for their sterling efforts raising the next generation to say please and thank you, wipe their own noses and bottoms, and eat their peas using cutlery, not their fingers. Depending on the ages of any children you possess, you […]