The Cancer Ladies’ Running Club By Josie Lloyd

Posted on June 4, 2020 by Catherine Balavage

I was tremendously excited about reviewing this book because it is written by Josie Lloyd. I have read a number of books from Josie and I love them all and – although we have never met- I love her. After feeling sad that she has had such a tough time I dived into the book.

The first thing I saw when I opened my advanced copy were some reviews and I loved the one from Joanne Rose, divisional marketing directing: ‘This isn’t a (whisper it) “cancer book”. This is a book for book lovers, everywhere.’ Oh how right she was indeed. The book is uplifting, happy, sad and raw. The Cancer Ladies’ Running Club lets us know that even when bad things happen and times are tough, we can rebuild ourselves and triumph over adversity.

The Cancer Ladies’ Running Club is a great book to read right now. Yes, it has its sadness, but now more than ever we need to know that beauty can come from sadness, and that we will win in the end.

Sometimes we need our friends to help us find our feet…

When Keira first receives her breast cancer diagnosis, she never expects to end up joining a running group with three women she’s only just met. Totally blind-sided, all she can think about is how she doesn’t want to tell her family or step back from work. Nor does she want to be part of a group of fellow cancer patients. Cancer is not her club.

And yet it’s running – hot, sweaty, lycra-clad running in the company of brilliant, funny women all going through treatment – that unexpectedly gives Keira the hope she so urgently needs.

For Keira will not be defined by the C-word. And now, with the Cancer Ladies’ Running Club cheering her on, she is going to reclaim everything: her family, her identity, her life.

One step at a time.

The Cancer Ladies’ Running Club is available here.

Her Husband’s Mistake By Sheila O’Flanagan

Posted on June 4, 2020 by Catherine Balavage

There are few things more satisfying to me than reading a book with a layered, well-written female character. Of course, Sheila O’Flanagan is known for writing amazing characters but the pay off remains. Her Husband’s Mistake takes a tale as old as time- a cheating husband- and writes about it in a way that is both satisfying and complex.

Her Husband’s Mistake has more pages than the average book I read and I found myself able to really dive into the story. Women tend to give more of themselves to others and end up in the role of the carer. I found this book picks up on so much about being a woman, how hard it is and how you can lose your identity. It takes strength to find it again. I recommend this brilliant book to anyone who loves to read books about people finding their feet and flourishing.

Dave’s made a BIG mistake. What’s Roxy going to do about it? The riveting new novel from No. 1 bestselling author Sheila O’Flanagan. Perfect for readers of Marian Keyes and Catherine Alliott.

Roxy’s marriage has always been rock solid.

After twenty years, and with two carefree kids, she and Dave are still the perfect couple.

Until the day she comes home unexpectedly, and finds Dave in bed with their attractive, single neighbour.

Suddenly Roxy isn’t sure about anything – her past, the business she’s taken over from her dad, or what her family’s future might be. She’s spent so long caring about everyone else that she’s forgotten what she actually wants. But something has changed. And Roxy has a decision to make.

Whether it’s with Dave, or without him, it’s time for Roxy to start living for herself…

Her Husband’s Mistake is available here.

SISTER SCRIBES’ READING ROUND UP: MAY

Posted on May 25, 2020 by Jane Cable

Kitty

The Book of Us – Andrea Michael

Oh my goodness, this book. This book won my heart over, filled it with joy and then smashed it into itty-bitty pieces. A story of friendship, loyalty and love, it explores many issues, particularly how perception and truth can be very different things as well as how some bonds are so strong they can never be broken.

I found it to be written with an emotional insight, depth and honesty that lifted it apart. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Beautiful.

Cass

A Borrowed Past – Juliette Lawson

What would you do if you discovered your whole life was built on a lie? This is the question a teenage William Harper has to face up to on more than one occasion in this excellent, page-turning story.

William dreams of being an artist, something his strict father is strongly against, but when a shocking family secret is uncovered, William takes his chance, running away from home to start a new life… but even as the years pass, and he grows from boy to man, further challenging truths emerge, showing the past is never far behind him.

I do love to pick up a book, not really knowing what to expect beyond what the blurb has told me, and my enjoyment of this story was definitely enhanced by the settings (as much a heart and soul of the story as the characters) in the northeast of England.

Having lived near York for seven years, it was a delight to tread the well-known streets with William, and the settings of Seaton Carew and Scarborough were also fascinating backdrops to this historical saga.

The writing was beautifully evocative of the era and the story skilfully documented, painting the page with words much as William longed to spill the images in his mind onto paper with a brush.

Ms Lawson writes captivating descriptions, strong narrative and relatable and believable dialogue between her well-drawn characters. She has a wonderful ability to draw the reader inside the pages of the book, to feel as though they are living the moments alongside William, and I cannot wait to read more in the Seaton Carew saga series.

A Borrowed Past is a compelling, wholly enjoyable read and I highly recommend it.

Jane

Her Mother’s Secret – Jan Baynham

This impressive debut transported me to Greece. The ability to weave a setting from words without the descriptions overtaking the story is a real skill and this book shines because of it.

The characters are fascinating too. For me, the 1969 ones in particular, when Elin spends her father’s legacy to attend an art school on a Greek island. Each person is carefully drawn and none of them are wasted in what they bring to the plot. I was pulled into Elin’s story, the friendships she forms, the enemies she inadvertently makes and the love she finds; the shocking reason it doesn’t all end as she would have wished.

For a dual timeline (Elin in 1969 and her daughter Alexandra in 1991) the structure is unusual in that after a few opening chapters straight after Elin’s death the book tells first her story and then Alexandra’s. But I can see it needed to be that way for the story to unfold in the correct manner. And it was refreshing not to be hopping about in time too.

I would thoroughly recommend Her Mother’s Secret. It was published by Ruby Fiction last month as an ebook across all major formats.

Just My Luck by Adele Parks | Book Review

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Catherine Balavage

I have loved Adele Parks’ books for years now. Which is handy, as she writes one a year and has done for the past twenty years. Impressive.
Just My luck is another triumph. It has a great premise which is beautifully executed. We have all dreamt of winning the lottery. This book explores what happens when people become rich beyond their wildest dreams. It may be a novel, but it is a cautionary tale that money does not buy happiness. I loved the characters, even the ones I was loving to hate. The twists at the end are hugely satisfying. I find Adele Parks is an expert at picking up on the beautiful details of life, as she is at finding the complexities of the human character. Just My luck is the perfect escapist novel that will leave you hooked until the very last page.

It’s the stuff dreams are made of – a lottery win so big, it changes everything.

For fifteen years, Lexi and Jake have played the same six numbers with their friends, the Pearsons and the Heathcotes. Over dinner parties, fish & chip suppers and summer barbecues, they’ve discussed the important stuff – the kids, marriages, jobs and houses – and they’ve laughed off their disappointment when they failed to win anything more than a tenner.

But then, one Saturday night, the unthinkable happens. There’s a rift in the group. Someone doesn’t tell the truth. And soon after, six numbers come up which change everything forever.

Lexi and Jake have a ticket worth £18 million. And their friends are determined to claim a share of it.

Sunday Times Number One bestseller Adele Parks returns with a riveting look at the dark side of wealth in this gripping take on friendship, money and betrayal, and good luck gone bad…

Just My Luck is available here.

Bird Summons: Light, Lyrical Lockdown Reading

Posted on May 7, 2020 by Nadia Tariq

I’m almost ashamed to say that I had never heard of the multi-award-winning author Leila Aboulela. Bird Summons – her fifth novel – can be described as both Scottish and Muslim fiction; and yet, as a Scottish Muslim who loves to read, she had not been on my radar at all.

What a treat I had in store.

Bird Summons hinges upon a simple enough premise. Three beautifully, realistically flawed Arab-Scottish women embark upon a journey – a pilgrimage, of sorts – to the remote Highlands, ostensibly to visit the grave of Lady Evelyn Cobbold: “the first British woman to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca, to educate themselves about the history of Islam in Britain, to integrate better by following the example of those who were of this soil and of their faith”.

Ostensibly is a good word. Bird Summons is so much than first presents itself. What begins as a nuanced bildungsroman of three immigrant women spanning their forties, thirties and twenties – Salma, Moni and Iman – soon becomes something much more. Into this blend Aboulela seamlessly incorporates ancient folklore stemming from the storytelling traditions of Scotland, India and the Arab world, creating something altogether more enchanting and thoroughly unique. As the threads of the three friends’ lives began to unravel, it was this new thread of allegory and parable that heightened the intrigue for me.

Be prepared: what starts as a story pleasantly grounded in realism, becomes increasingly, thoroughly and enjoyably weird. And yet it never jars. Aboulela makes it easy to embrace the fantastical.

Bird Summons also reads as a sort of love letter to Scotland, and the Highlands in particular. Aboulela’s sympathetic descriptions of the physical landscape her characters traverse certainly evoked a nostalgic, somewhat patriotic twinge for my homeland.

Special thanks to my childhood best friend for gifting me this novel and introducing me to this ‘new’ canon of work. You always promised you’d take me to Stonehaven, and I consider this a promise fulfilled. When they all converged on Dunnottar castle, I thought of you.

Bird Summons, by Leila Aboulela, was published in 2019 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. It was a Guardian Best Book of 2019; shortlisted for the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year 2019; and longlisted for the Highland Book prize 2019.

Reviewed by Nadia Tariq

Read An Extract From Adele Parks New Book Just My Luck

Posted on May 5, 2020 by Catherine Balavage

Lexi

Saturday, 20th April

I can’t face going straight home to Jake. I’m not ready to deal with this. I need to try to process it frst. But how? Where do I start? I have no idea. The blankness in my mind terrifes me. I always know what to do. I always have a solution, a way of tackling something, giving it a happy spin. I’m Lexi Greenwood, the woman everyone knows of as the fxer, the smiler (some might even slightly snidely call me a do-gooder). Lexi Greenwood, wife, mother, friend.
You think you know someone. But you don’t know anyone, not really. You never can.
I need a drink. I drive to our local. Sod it, I’ll leave the car at the pub and walk home, pick it up in the morning. I order a glass of red wine, a large one, then I look for a seat tucked away in the corner where I can down my drink alone. It’s Easter weekend, and a rare hot one. The place is packed. As I thread my way through the heaving bar, a number of neighbours raise a glass, gesturing to me to join them; they ask after the kids and Jake. Everyone else in the pub seems celebratory, buoyant. I feel detached. Lost. That’s the thing about living in a small village, you recognise everyone. Sometimes that reassures me, sometimes it’s inconvenient. I politely and apologetically defect their friendly overtures and continue in my search for a solitary spot. Saturday vibes are all around me, but I feel nothing other than stunned, stressed, isolated.You think you know someone.
What does this mean for our group? Our frimily. Friends that are like family. What a joke. Blatantly, we’re not friends anymore. I’ve been trying to hide from the facts for some time, hoping there was a misunderstanding, an explanation; nothing can explain away this.
I told Jake I’d only be a short while; I should text him to say I’ll be longer. I reach for my phone and realise in my haste to leave the house, I haven’t brought it with me. Jake will be wondering where I am; I don’t care. I down my wine. The acidity hits my throat, a shock and a relief at once. Then I go to the bar to order a second.
The local pub is only a ten-minute walk away from our home but by the time I attempt the walk back, the red wine had taken effect. Unfortunately, I am feeling the sort of drunk that nurtures paranoia and fury, rather than a light head or heart. What can I do to right this wrong? I have to do something. I can’t carry on as normal, pretending I know nothing of it. Can I?
As I approach home, I see Jake at the window, peering out.I barely recognise him. He looks taut, tense. On spotting me, he runs to fing open the front door.
‘Lexi, Lexi, quickly come in here,’ he hiss-whispers, clearly agitated. ‘Where have you been? Why didn’t you take your phone? I’ve been calling you. I needed to get hold of you.’
What now? My frst thoughts turn to our son. ‘Is it Logan? Has he hurt himself?’ I ask anxiously. I’m already teetering on the edge; my head quickly goes to a dark place. Split skulls, broken bones. A dash to A&E isn’t unheard of; thirteen-year-old Logan has daredevil tendencies and the sort of mentality that thinks shimmying down a drainpipe is a reasonable way to exit his bedroom in order to go outside and kick a football about. My ffteen-year-old daughter, Emily, rarely causes me a moment’s concern.
‘No, no, he’s fne. Both the kids are in their rooms. It’s… Look, come inside, I can’t tell you out here.’ Jake is practically bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. I can’t read him. My head is too fuzzy with wine and full of rage and disgust. I resent Jake for causing more drama, although he has no idea what shit I’m deal- ing with. I’ve never seen him quite this way before. If I touched him, I might get an electric shock; he oozes a dangerous energy. I follow my husband into the house. He is hurrying, urging me to speed up. I slow down, deliberately obtuse. In the hallway he turns to me, takes a deep breath, runs his hands through his hair but won’t, can’t, meet my eyes. For a crazy moment I think he is about to confess to having an affair. ‘OK, just tell me, did you buy a lottery ticket this week?’ he asks.
‘Yes.’ I have bought a lottery ticket every week of my life for the last ffteen years. Despite all the bother last week, I have stuck to my habit.
Jake takes in another deep breath, sucking all the oxygen from the hallway. ‘OK, and did you—’ he breaks off, fnally drags his eyes to meet mine. I’m not sure what I see in his gaze, an almost painful longing, fear and panic. Yet at the same time there is hope there too. ‘Did you pick the usual numbers?’
‘Yes.’
His jaw is still set tight. ‘You have the ticket?’ ‘Yes.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes, it’s pinned on the noticeboard in the kitchen. Why?
What’s going on?’
‘Fuck.’ Jake lets out a breath that has the power of a storm. He falls back against the hall wall for a second and then he rallies, grabs my hand and pulls me into the room that was designed to be a dining room but has ended up being a sort of study slash dumping ground. A place where the children sometimes do their homework, I tackle paying the household bills, and towering piles of ironing, punctured footballs and old trainers hide out. Jake sits down in front of the computer and starts to quickly open various tabs.
‘I wasn’t sure that we even had a ticket, but when you were late back and the flm I was watching had fnished, I couldn’t resist checking. I don’t know why. Habit, I suppose. And look.’ ‘What?’ I can’t quite work out what he’s on about, it might be the wine, it might be because my head is still full of betrayal and deceit, but I can’t seem to climb into his moment. I turn to the screen. The lottery website. Brash and loud. A clash of bright
colours and fonts. 1, 8, 20, 29, 49, 58. The numbers glare at me from the com- puter. Numbers I am so familiar with. Yet they seem peculiar and unbelievable.
‘I don’t understand. Is this a joke?’
‘No, Lexi. No! It’s for real. We’ve only gone and won the bloody lottery!’

Just My Luck by Adele Parks is published by HQ, HarperCollins in hardback, eBook and audiobook, and is available to buy here.

The Rise of Digital Babysitters Is Helping Stretched Parents Cope With Lockdown

Posted on May 1, 2020 by Catherine Balavage

Stretched UK parents are increasingly turning to family members and carers as ‘digital babysitters’ as they struggle to cope with jugging workloads and childcare during lockdown.

A survey from Ladybird children’s books has found that 81.6% UK parents with nursery age children said they had, or were looking in to, arranging a few hours of digital babysitting a week with a family member such as a grandparent, uncle or aunt, or a non-family carer to help them out with the childcare, giving parents valuable time to deal with their increasing workload, or even have uninterrupted time just to mop the kitchen floor or make the beds.

The activity most parents (52%) said their children would benefit from most was online storytelling, with arts and crafts second (26%), and spelling practice third (10%). With 61% parents admitting they are struggling to balance work life with homeschooling their youngsters, enlisting the help of family members to help takes some of the burden off each week whilst helping children with crucial skills in their developement.

Ladybird commissioned the survey to discover how they could best help parents in these difficult times.

This week they launch an initiative, Little Big Moments, to help connect children with those family members who they can’t see right now: whether that’s an isolated grandparent, a cousin, aunt, uncle, a parent who lives in a different home or a key worker family member. Every day, Ladybird is sending a pair of matching books to a separated duo so they can still settle down for storytime together, over the phone or on a video call.

All people need to do is head to www.ladybird.co.uk/littlebigmoments and enter their child’s name to be in with a chance of winning a story, and thereby creating a virtual hug with a loved one, even when apart.

Pablo thinks differently! Pablo is an autistic boy who sees the world in different ways

Posted on May 1, 2020 by Catherine Balavage

In a wonderful moment for neurodiversity Ladybird have two Pablo books out now and another two out soon. These empathetic and heartwarming books are written by writers on the autistic spectrum, and are grounded in the real-life experiences of autistic children. Pablo will help readers understand that not everyone thinks the same way.

These books are essential reading for atypical and typical children. They are wonderfully illustrated and have great stories that will keep children entertained, as well as educated. They are cleverly done. Get your hands on a copy now.

Pablo is the first animated TV series to star an autistic character and the first TV programme with an all- autistic core cast. Pablo is shown on CBBC, RTE and Netflix, won Best Preschool Programme at the 2019 Broadcast Awards. It was nominated at The 2018 Children’s BAFTAs.

Pablo and the Noisy Party written by Andrew Brenner and Sumita Majumdar

Pablo is invited to a birthday party, but the noise makes it hard for him to go.

Pablo’s friends , the Book Animals , help him recognise what is worrying him and to feel OK about not wanting to go.

Out now: £6.99 | 9780241415740

Goodnight Pablo written by Andrew Brenner and Sumita Majumdar

Pablo and his friend Wren don’t want to go to sleep because they think they will disappear.

With the help of the Book Animals, Pablo finds a way to calm himself and get to sleep.

Out now: £6.99 | 9780241415245

Pablo uses his ‘magic’ crayons to overcome everyday challenges. He brings the viewer into his ‘art world’where he bravely takes on real -world challenges , turning them into fantas tic adventures , and communicates unfamilliar feelings by drawring these colourful characters into life. These characters are his imaginary friends, who each carry traits typical to those on the spectrum.

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Coming in August 2020: Pablo Picks his Shoes and Pablo’s Feeling.

About Ladybird:
Ladybird is an imprint of Penguin Random House , the world’s number one publisher representing a vibrantcommunity of publishing houses marked by unparalleled success.

Ladybird has been publishing expertly crafted books for young children for over 100 years and stands at the forefront of children’s publishing as one of the most iconic and well-known children’s brands. Ladybird encourages kids to explore the world around them. It answers questions for children, and answers a need for parents, grandparents and carers, whether that’s bedtime, starting scho ol, exploring nature or potty training. Our books are trusted by parents the world over and include playful, design -led books; beautiful, highly illustrated non-fiction; classic stories made contemporary; current licensed brands plus a selection of fun nov elty titles for little hands. Some of our most popular brands and series include Peppa Pig, Hey Duggee, Baby Touch, Little World and Ten Minutes to Bed.

From birth through to confident young readers, at every age and every stage, we offer books and apps f or your young child’s every need.

We make growing up the best story ever.
For more information, please visit our website www.penguin.co.uk/ladybird Or follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram: @LadybirdBooks

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