Easter picks from Joffe’s amazing basket of goodies …

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Joffe Books ‘book of the week’, which they know their readers will appreciate, is BURIAL GROUNDS by the ever popular bestselling author Bill Kitson. This totally absorbing new crime thriller is out now for 99p | 99c, and filled with great characters, (so important), breathtaking twists and an atmospheric North Yorkshire setting (which, living in North Yorkshire, I must insist is a winning setting)

A pregnant woman is knocked down by a couple in a car. They don’t stop.  Months later, Detective Mike Nash is called out to the local cemetery. A body has been found, placed face down on a grave. The dead man was Andrew Derrick. Quiet, well-mannered, he kept himself to himself. Who would want to kill him?

DI Nash pieces the clues together . . . and finds himself on the trail of a ruthless killer with a deadly agenda.

CLICK HERE TO BUY BURIAL GROUNDS BY BESTSELLING AUTHOR BILL KITSON FOR 99P | 99C.

So, what else is new?

                         

Detective Monika Books 1 – 4. This is a belter of an  offer at a mere 99p/99c   FOUR Books 1-4  I repeat – all  absolutely gripping crime mysteries from author Sally Spencer. Yes four!  Discover your next crime fiction obsession with this amazing offer on four unputdownable mysteries . . .

“Outstanding.” Booklist     “A thrill ride.” Publishers Weekly    “A tour de force.” Kirkus

Next: here we go with The Portchester Castle Murders by Pauline Rowson.

It’s Friday the thirteenth and Detective Inspector Andy Horton’s luck is about to run out.  His Harley Davidson is vandalised, his nit-picking boss has returned to work early, and a convicted murderer out on licence has disappeared.

Then to top it all off a decomposing body washes up on shore. Crikey, can Horton connect the dots before anyone else dies? Well worth a read, and a snip at 99p/99c

Constable on Trial by Nichola Rhea

Well, OK, this author is one of my favourites, and yes, the setting is Yorkshire again. But it is really cosy crime at its best, and this brilliant prequel completes Nicholas Rhea’s beloved Constable Nick series, featuring Britain’s best-loved bobby.     Published to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the first episode of the smash-hit TV show it inspired, Heartbeat, don’t miss this delightful feel-good read.

“It’s original, it’s funny . . . one of life’s little pleasures.” Yorkshire Post

 

 

 Oh, Woop Woop… THE WAIT IS OVER – NO EXIT MOTION PICTURE STREAMING NOW!

Since 2019 Joffe Books has been waiting with rising anticipation as every little snippet was revealed . Now, the wait is … over. Adapted from Taylor Adams’s bestselling thriller, the No Exit film has finally arrived.

Directed by Damien Power and starring Havana Rose Liu and Dennis Haysbert, the film is now available to watch on Hulu and Disney +.    Although there won’t be a glamourous Hollywood style screening party, the Joffe Books team, will be celebrating No Exit appearing on the big screen with the usual: tea and doughnuts.

Congratulations to Taylor Adams! One of Joffe’s  first bestsellers and their first on the silver screen.

Get your copy of No Exit here.

For more information on all that Joffe Books has to offer, go and take a peek here

The Storytellers by Caron McKinlay Book Review

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I have reviewed many books in my life but I have struggled to review The Storytellers by Caron McKinlay. This book blew my mind. It is so clever and so essential. Every women should read this book and I hope they do.
I do not want to give too much away, and yet I feel like this book has encapsulated the insecurities we have as women, the problems with the patriarchy, and distilled it into one glorious perfect book.

The Storytellers, caron McKinlay Every character in this book is well-rounded and unique. You cannot help but root for these women. McKinlay is an outstanding writer. Her writing flows perfectly and is so natural. The book is unique and I did not see the twist coming. The Storytellers is not just a fantastic and unique idea; that idea is perfectly executed.

You can tell this book came from McKinlay’s soul and we are all privileged to be able to read it. The Storytellers is a fun, entertaining feminist novel for our time. This is a must read. Preorder it now. Out May 16th.

https://amzn.to/3JC6fDR

Trapped between life and the afterlife, three women meet and share their stories while discovering the truth about the men in their lives—and about themselves.

Suspended in an eerie state of limbo, an entity called the Gatekeeper tells Nikki, Ronnie, and Mrs. Hawthorne they are on the cusp of entering the afterlife—but only if the women can persuade him that in their earthly lives, they knew the meaning of love.

Fragments of their memories return, plunging them back into their pasts, and forcing them to face the desires, disappointments, addictions, lies, and obsessions they battled in life.

But before time runs out, will they find the answer to the ultimate question: what is love?

 

 

Delicious Easter Treats at Fantastic Prices

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The Easter Bunny is feeling generous this year, or was he just savvy with his money this year.
If you are looking to save cash while keeping your loved ones happy this easter then head over. The money savers at Wholesale Sweets have a huge range of tasty, themed sweets at bargain wholesale prices.

The amazing offers allow parents across the country to stock up on wholesale boxes of easter eggs, up to 3kg bags of pick & mix and large quantities of gifting products to share with family and friends.

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Playmobil’s New Hero Product

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Duck on call? You heard correctly! For the first time, a duck is the main character in a brand new PLAYMOBIL theme world and animated series. Ducklas, a cheeky boy in a duck’s body, leads exciting missions together with his three young friends – a firefighter, policewoman, and emergency doctor. The new PLAYMOBIL sets are full of innovation and tons of fun for kids ages 3-5 years.

Welcome to Playmoville!

Playmoville is a unique place where kids are in charge and fabulous things happen. This is where the young rescue heroes Freddy Fire, Polly Police, and Mikey Medic embark on exciting missions as they help the townspeople with their problems. But the team would not be complete without Ducklas, who was transformed into a duck by the mysterious Mr. Hans as a result of all his shenanigans! To become a boy again, he must complete a heartfelt act of kindness. The four friends work around the clock to help the people of Playmoville and Queen Mayor in all kinds of emergencies. If only Ducklas would stop accidentally messing things up…!

Freddy Fire, Polly Police, and Mikey Medic are ready for action with their cool emergency vehicles whenever help is needed. The emergency vehicle play sets feature a new modular design that makes it easy to mix and match, creating new variations depending on the accessories and gadgets used – so they will suit any mission. Whether an unlucky racecar driver needs help, a cat needs rescuing or a thief is on the loose, the team (together with Ducklas) is always prepared. In their compact Mobile Operations Center, the young heroes are one call and ready to respond! The engaging DUCK ON CALL theme world will expand further with additional play sets launching this summer for more exciting, complex missions. In the large Headquarters with a freefall slide and elevator, Ducklas and his friends are ready to receive incoming emergency calls from all over Playmoville. The powerful fire, police and ambulance trucks, as well as two mini cars, ensure that the team is equipped for any mission.

An animated CGI series takes Ducklas’ fans on adventures throughout Playmoville, including lots of action and humour. The pilot episode will premiere in March, introducing Ducklas and the young rescue team to the world. Further episodes will be launched in June.

Child-friendly fun with the fire, police, and rescue services

Even when unpacking and assembling the sets, children’s ergonomics were taken into account so that younger children can start playing optimally. During the development of all DUCK ON CALL playsets, special focus was placed on children’s ergonomics and motor skills, so that also younger children (ages 3-5 years) will enjoy the experience. For example, the weight-shifting steering in the three emergency vehicles allows children to steer them using only one hand. Additionally, easy-to-use features such as the water cannon, rotating ladder, and slides, as well as interactive light and sound effects, provide tons of fun. Even young rescuers can master changing the modules of the emergency vehicles, too.

Built to the standard PLAYMOBIL quality, the playsets include only high-quality materials. Individual parts are packaged together in bags made of environmentally-friendly, recycled PCR film (post-consumer recycled material). With younger children in mind, the inclusion of small accessories was reduced or avoided entirely. Of course, all DUCK ON CALL sets can be combined and expanded with the figures and accessories of classic PLAYMOBIL toy sets.

With DUCK ON CALL, all kids can become real heroes. By following the adventures in Playmoville, they will learn about the meaning of friendship, helping others, team spirit, and self-confidence. After following the series’ stories, children can join the adventures first-hand with the extensive toy range.  These role-play experiences will stimulate social, cognitive, and motor skills, while also offering limitless fun. And in time for the holidays, kids can count down the days to Christmas with the DUCK ON CALL advent calendar, available beginning of September.

The DUCK ON CALL play theme from PLAYMOBIL at a glance:

Roleplay within the popular worlds of fire, police, and rescue services | great stories with four young rescue heroes | for the first time, a PLAYMOBIL theme world is centered around an animal, as well as kid characters  | headquarters with freefall slide, elevator, and helipad (L 58.5 x D 50 x H 18.5 cm) | modular emergency vehicles allow for mixing and matching | cool trucks and other playsets with age-appropriate play functions | adapted to children’s ergonomics | simple assembly experience | animated CGI series available |

recommended for ages 3-5 years.

Duck on Call is available at Playmobil.co.uk prices from £14.99

 

How to Protect Your Business

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As a business owner, your main focus is probably succeeding. However, as important as making a profit, there are other factors that are equally important, including safeguarding your investment. Whether someone is injured on your property or someone wants to back out of a contract, lawsuits can happen. Lawsuits not only tarnish your reputation, but can also put you out of business. Thankfully, there are ways to protect both your reputation and business. Read on to learn some of the best ways to safeguard your business.

Learn the Legal Requirements

One of the easiest ways to protect your business is by setting up the right legal entity. How you register your company is crucial to your longevity. You can choose to register as sole provider, LLC, or corporation. As a sole proprietor, you aren’t protected from legal liability claims. Your personal assets will not be protected if you’re sued. If you register as a corporation, you can separate your business and personal finances, which safeguards your personal property and finances. As an LLC, you can protect your personal assets and investments. Most new startups usually choose this entity and if the time arises, then go on to become a corporation or partnership.

Protect Your Equipment

If your company involves heavy equipment or a fleet, you need to ensure you protect those as well. You can install AI video dash cams in all of your trucks for an extra layer of protection. AI dash cameras monitor drivers’ behavior in real time. If they’re involved in an accident, you’ll be able to see the exact actions they took prior to the incident.

Get it in Writing

Whether it’s between you and a customer or you and your vendors, all business matters should be in writing. Although some verbal agreements can stand up in court, not all do. Oftentimes, it becomes a battle of what you said and what the other party claims you said. Save yourself the stress and put everything in writing. Especially in business where there is constant evolution and you are striving to make positive changes, it is best to have everything written down to minimize confusion and maximize protection.

Understand Your Rights

As a business owner, you need to understand your rights. Each legal entity has its own set of rights, so it’s important to research what they are in your specific state.

Pay Your Taxes

Always pay taxes on time and in full. If you owe money and can’t pay it all at one time, you still need to file and request a payment arrangement. The worst thing you can do is avoid filing and then end up owing money. At least with a payment arrangement, you can create a budget to pay it off in monthly increments. If you can’t file on your own, hire an experienced tax accountant to do them for you.

Hire a Lawyer

Regardless of niche, you should have a lawyer on retainer. Even if you never need their help, you’ll feel better knowing you have one on board, just in case something happens. Even having one to answer questions about your business can help protect your investments.

collaborative post with our brand partner.

Lizi’s Low Sugar Maple & Pecan Granola – No Guilt Today – by Award Winning Author Dr Kathleen Thompson [LS Maple & Pe

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Processed and refined sugars are one of the worst curses of modern day cuisine. They’re sneaked into so many manufactured food products – even savoury ones – and they cause obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, dementia and stroke. Sorry to be so blunt but, despite a choice of foods of which our parents and grandparents could only have dreamed, our modern diet frankly leaves much to be desired. Our taste buds have been trained by the food industry to crave high sugars in excessive quantities, and we don’t eat nearly enough wholesome grains and good fats.

OK rant over, because thank goodness for companies like Lizi’s who help reinstate the wonderful healthy and delicious diet which nature intended.

Lizi’s is the brainchild of Mick and Lizi. They’re a married pair of science enthusiasts, organic farmers and country bed-and-breakfast owners, so perfectly qualified to create high quality, tasty and satisfying cereals.

The key feature of all Lizi’s cereals is their low Glycaemic Load (GL). I’ve explained Glycaemic Load before – basically low GL foods release sugar slowly into our blood stream, unlike processed and refined sugars, which is so much better for our long-term health and happiness.

Lizi’s produce an incredible range of granolas and mueslis, always from natural ingredients – mainly oats, nuts and seeds, but with numerous natural flavour combinations suitable for all ages, diets and lifestyles. Their current range includes High Protein, Digestive Health and Low Sugar options.

I particularly love Lizi’s Low Sugar Maple & Pecan Granola. Normally I steer well clear of granola, which tends to be oozing with sugar, but not Lizi’s. It’s a mixture of wholegrain oat flakes, pecan nuts, almond pieces, walnut pieces, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, coconut, chicory fibre, and just a little maple syrup. You can probably tell from the ingredients that this tastes as delicious as a naughty indulgence, and yet absolutely no guilt needed – because it’s actually doing your body good – providing important slow-release energy and healthy oils. It will also leave you feeling nourished and satiated – so you won’t be tempted by those naughty fattening snacks mid-morning.

So give your body a treat and take a look at the full range on Lizi’s website. Your body will thank you.

By Dr K Thompson, award-winning author of From Both Ends of the Stethoscope: Getting through breast cancer – by a doctor who knows

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01A7DM42Q http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01A7DM42Q

http://faitobooks.co.uk

Note: These articles express personal views. No warranty is made as to the accuracy or completeness of information given and you should always consult a doctor if you need medical advice.

SUNDAY SCENE: JEN GILROY ON HER FAVOURITE SCENE FROM THE SWEETHEART LOCKET

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My latest book is The Sweetheart Locket, released in ebook in March from Orion Dash with a paperback following later this year. Inspired by the ‘sweetheart jewellery’ members of the armed forces gave to loved ones at home, it’s a Second World War dual-time novel of love, loss and family secrets, wrapped up in courage, loyalty and hope.

Spanning four countries and two continents, most of the story is set in England in places which have shaped my own life. Although I now live in Canada, I lived in England for many years, first to undertake postgraduate studies at University College London in the heart of Bloomsbury.

From student days long ago, London became my favourite city—the red double-decker buses and black taxis I’d seen in films; buildings, roads and parks familiar from my bookish childhood; and several thousand years of history under my feet.

In both the historical and contemporary strands of The Sweetheart Locket, London, and Bloomsbury in particular, have a starring role. Maggie, the heroine of the historical story lives in a hostel in Bloomsbury near where I once did, and important scenes take place in Russell Square Gardens, Russell Square Underground Station and Cartwright Gardens.

When Willow, the forty-something granddaughter Maggie never met, arrives in London from San Francisco for a work trip, she marvels she’s ‘finally here where her gran had once lived and walking along streets she might have known.’

My favourite scene comes from the historical story. It takes place in September 1939, soon after Maggie, a Canadian who’d been sent to school in England, defies her family, tears up her ticket home and decides to stay in London and ‘do her bit’ for the war effort.

Maggie crossed the road by the stately Hotel Russell and turned towards Russell Square where men piled sandbags around nearby buildings. One of the many signs that London was a city at war.

At eighteen, Maggie finds an office job and makes new friends, Evie and her brother, Will. This friendship sets Maggie’s life on a new path—one that later shapes Willow’s life too.

[Maggie] turned into [Russell] Square and found a bench in a sunny corner near a horse chestnut tree, spiny seedpods almost ready to split and scatter mahogany-brown conkers onto the path below.

…Although she’d escaped from her old life, at night in the hostel she couldn’t escape from herself and the thoughts that swarmed in her head like incessant insects. Unlike the men stacking sandbags, she wasn’t doing something useful for the war…Albeit in a different way, it was a kind of prison like her family and school had been.

As she talks with Evie and Will, Maggie realizes that for the first time in her life she’s an independent adult who can make her own decisions.

Will’s gaze was warm, and Maggie’s tummy lurched in a new but not unpleasant way.

Along with those fragments of her ticket, she’d thrown out the girl she used to be but who was the woman she might become?

Maggie in 1939 and Willow in 2019 are both at turning points in their lives. Connected by Maggie’s wartime Royal Air Force sweetheart locket, they’re on a quest discover who they are, what they want and, ultimately, find the courage to follow their dreams.

‘The three of us will be good friends, I know it.’ Evie tucked her arm into Maggie’s.

Maggie knew it too. Her old story was over and the new one had begun.

 

 

Connect with Jen: www.jengilroy.com

 

 

 

 

 

Margaret decided on some exercise. Hard facts were faced…

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Margaret thought she’d go into town to the studio, where her friend was holding a Strolling half hour.
‘And what is a Strolling half hour?’ wondered Margaret. Margaret decided that the definition of To Stroll was to walk in a leisurely way. This seemed rather lovely. ‘Me, me’ she said.
Margaret arrived, hot and a tad sweaty, if we can be rude for a moment, as she had hurried one and a half miles, plod plod, not stroll stroll, to the Studio. Margaret’s friend Lyn was there too. ‘Oh Goody,’ thought Margaret, ‘We can go on the back row together.’
Margaret then noticed the ballet mirrors, a whole wall of them. She looked, she saw, she thought: ‘Who is that woman in clothes like mine with the big, no – enormous bum?’
My friends, Margaret was the proud owner of that bum, she  realised. Her day was ruined. Really really it was. All those biscuits eaten before they reached a plate had no calories, she was sure that was correct.  Margaret is wrong. Very very wrong.
So, the half hour began.  Strolling is not to walk in a leisurely way. Strolling is to do line dancing at what seems great speed. The legs go up, legs are pointed, heels tapped, legs slide gsideways, step step,  along the floor. Lots and lots of times all a bit different, but yes,  Margaret swears it is line dancing but perhaps a teeny weeny bit slower. Puff Pant as Teacher strolled us through it, and again.
Then on came the music.  Margaret repeated to herself and anyone who would listen:  Strolling is not only not slow, there is no back row, because everyone keeps turning and turninguntil  the figures in the mirror were a blur, and the music raced, and Margaret quite lost her mind, her memory, and finally all control of her feet.
The key, Margaret realised, is to have the weight on the right foot. Margaret did not often have her weight on her correct foot. Margaret’s feet and legs got muddled. Margaret decided she would stay in the corner, and do her own thing, in time with the music.   At the end, Margaret tottered home, having had fun, oh yes she did, really she did. She will be better next week, really she will.
She reached home. She put cushions on the seat in the garden. She made two coffees. She took hers, and eventually Dick joined her, in the sun, by the Monkey Puzzle Tree, while Margaret explained about Strolling, but she didn’t mention the mirror. Certainly not. That is best kept between Margaret and her friends.
 Margaret Graham writes novels  under her own name, and as Milly Adams and Annie Clarke. Margaret maintains this is the reason she frequently seems confused. It has nothing to do with her age.