From the Book Elf

  The Arrow Garden by Andrew J King The Arrow Garden by Andrew J King was published on 19th January 2023 by Aderyn Press. My thanks to the author and publisher for sending me a copy to review and Random Book Tours for inviting me to take part on the tour.  Synopsis Winner of the Bath Novel Award 2020   Wartime Tokyo based time-slip fiction, for readers of Natasha Pulley, David Mitchell, Kazuo Ishiguru, and Audrey Niffenegger. When lonely and socially isolated translator, Gareth, takes up traditional Japanese archery in 1990s Bristol, he learns that to study Kyudo is to reach out, to another culture, another time, other people… But when one of them reaches back, two lives that should never have touched become strangely entangled. In wartime Tokyo, Tanaka Mie finds herself wandering the burned-out ruins of her dead parents’ fire-bombed home with only hazy recollections of how she survived. Setting out on a hike to a mountain village shrine, away from the charred cit...

  The Monk by Tim Sullivan The Monk by Tim Sullivan is published on 27th April 2023 by head of Zeus/ Aries.     My thanks to the author and publisher for sending me a copy to review and to Random Book Tours for inviting me to take part on the tour. Synopsis To find a murderer, you need a motive . . . THE DETECTIVE DS George Cross has always wondered why his mother left him when he was a child. Now she is back in his life, he suddenly has answers. But this unexpected reunion is not anything he's used to dealing with. When a disturbing case lands on his desk, he is almost thankful for the return to normality. THE QUESTION The body of a monk is found savagely beaten to death in a woodland near Bristol. Nothing is known about Brother Dominic's past, which makes investigating difficult. How can Cross unpick a crime when they don't know anything about the victim? And why would someone want to harm a monk? THE PAST Discovering who Brother Dominic once was only make...

  Isaac and the Egg by Bobby Palmer Isaac and the Egg by Bobby Palmer was published on 13th April 2023 by Headline Review. My thanks to the author and publisher for sending me a copy to review and to Random Book Tours for inviting me to take part on the tour. Synopsis Heartbreaking and heart-stealing, this bestselling modern-day fable is an unforgettable novel about sorrow, joy, friendship and love. When Isaac Addy walks into the woods on the worst day of his life and finds something extraordinary there, he already knows he's going to take it home. A grieving Isaac and his curious new friend are unlikely companions. They don't even speak the same language. But their chance encounter will transform Isaac's life in ways he cannot yet imagine. And maybe he will finally be able to tell the truth. Sometimes, to get out of the woods, you have to go into them. Isaac and the Egg is one of the most hopeful, honest and wildly imaginative novels you will ever read. My review T...

  Go as a River by Shelley Read Go as a River by Shelley Read is published on 13th April 2023 by Doubleday. My thanks to the author and publisher for sending me a copy to review and also Anne Cater from Random Book Tours for inviting me to take part on the Tour. Synopsis I've come to understand how the exceptional lurks beneath the ordinary like the deep and mysterious world beneath the sea. On a cool autumn morning, Victoria Nash heads into her village pulling a rickety wagon filled with late-season peaches. As she nears an intersection, a stranger in town stops to ask her the way. She makes the decision to walk with him. 'Go as a river,' he tells her as they part ways. So begins a mesmerising  story of split-second decisions and considered acts that make up one woman's tumultuous life, as Victoria begins to absorb and follow his words. Gathering all the pieces of her small and extraordinary existence, spinning through the eddies of desire, heartbreak and betray...

 Dust Child by Nguyen Phan Que Mai Moving between the Vietnam war and the present day, Dust Child is a powerful and compelling tale of family secrets and hidden heartache. Dust Child by Nguyen phan Que Mai is published on 20th April 2023 by Oneworld Publications. My thanks to the author and publisher for sending me a copy to review and Random Book Tours for inviting me to take part on the tour.   Synopsis In 1969, two sisters from rural Việt Nam leave their parents’ home to find work in Sài Gòn. Caught up in the war that is blazing through their country they, like many other young Việtnamese women, are employed as hostesses in a bar frequented by American GIs. Soon they are forced to accept that their own survival, and that of their family back home, might mean compromising the values they have always held dear. As the fighting moves closer to the city, the elder sister, Trang, begins a romance with a young American helicopter pilot. Decades later, two men wander the stree...

  Manhattan Ember by Olive Collins Manhattan Ember by Olive Collins was published on 2nd February 2023. My thanks to Olive for sending me a copy to review and Random Book Tours for inviting me to take part on the tour. Synopsis Marguerite Kelley’s childhood home was dominated by the disappearance of her uncle  who vanished into thin air. On a windy morning in November 1905,  she is the first to hear about the discovery of a skeleton tucked under the eaves of  St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Manhattan. Suspecting the remains are that of her uncle who worked on the construction of the Cathedral,  she wants to be the first person to break the news to  Roisin, his widow, and to her father Patrick Kilbane. She hopes the discovery will solve a mystery  that has dominated her family for a quarter of a century. My Review What an incredibly gripping read this was and my first time reading a novel by Olive Collins. This is a deeply powerful story of Friendship, Riva...

  The Power of Trees by Peter Wohlleben The Hidden Life of Trees The Power of Trees : How Ancient Forests Can Save Us If We Let Them by Peter Wohlleben  was published on 20 April 2023 by Greystone Books and is translated by Jane Billinghurst. My thanks to the author and publisher for sending me a copy to review and to Random Book Tours for inviting me to take part on the tour. Synopsis In the follow up to his Sunday Times bestseller, The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben compares tree planting to battery farming ‘In clear, vivid prose with impeccable reasoning, Peter Wohlleben makes a compelling case that almost everything we do in modern forestry management may be dead wrong. What should we do instead? Let the wisdom of the trees quell our human arrogance, heal the forest and restore our sweet, green world’ Sy Montgomery, author of How to be a Good Creature and The Soul of an Octopus TREES CAN SURVIVE without humans, but we can’t live without trees. Even if human-...

  Thirty Days in Paris by Veronica Henry Because Paris is always a good idea... Thirty Days in Paris by Veronica Henry was published on 13th April 2023 by Orion. My thanks to the author and publisher for sending me a copy to review and to Random Book Tours for inviting me to take part on the tour. Synopsis Years ago, Juliet left a little piece of her heart in Paris - and now, separated from her husband and with her children flying the nest, it's time to get it back! So she puts on her best red lipstick, books a cosy attic apartment near Notre-Dame and takes the next train out of London. Arriving at the Gare du Nord, the memories come flooding back: bustling street cafés, cheap wine in candlelit bars and a handsome boy with glittering eyes. But Juliet has also been keeping a secret for over two decades - and she begins to realise it's impossible to move forwards without first looking back. Something tells her that the next thirty days might just change everything... My...

  Preloved by Lauren Bravo Preloved by Lauren Bravo is published on 27th April 2023 by Simon and Schuster. My thanks to the author and publisher for sending me a copy to review and to Random Book Tours for inviting me to take part on the tour. Synopsis A love story about things...  Gwen’s life has stalled. She’s in her mid-thirties, perpetually single, her friends are busy procreating in the country and conversations with her parents seem to revolve entirely around herbaceous borders and the council’s wheelie-bin timetable. Above all she’s lonely. But then, isn’t everyone?   When Gwen’s made redundant from a job she drifted into a decade ago and never left, she realises it’s time to make a change. Over what might be the best – and most solitary – meal she’s ever eaten, Gwen vows to find something meaningful to do with her life, reconnect with her family and friends – and finally book herself a dentist appointment.   Her search for meaning soon leads her to volu...

  Wartime for the Chocolate Girls  by Annie Murray Wartime for the Chocolate Girls by Annie Murray was published on 13th April 2023 by Pan Mcmillan. My thanks to the author and publisher for sending me a copy to review and Random Book Tours for inviting me to take part on the tour. Synopsis April 1941. Almost losing her life in a bomb blast while serving in the Women's Volunteer Service has made Ann Gilby take stock of what's really important - her family. With daughter Sheila back home, and Joy still working munitions at the Cadbury factory and engaged to her soldier sweetheart, home life feels more settled too. Ann has even come to an uneasy truce with her husband, Len, despite her recent discovery of his infidelity and the fact that he has fathered a child with another woman. But what Ann has not reckoned with is, Marianne, Len’s other woman, turning up on her doorstep - a woman with a mysterious past. Only Ann has secrets of her own and one day soon she knows she w...

Stay Daughter by Yasmin Azad  Stay Daughter by Yasmin Azad is published on 30th March 2023 by Swift Press. My thanks to the author and publisher for sending me a copy to review and Anne Cater at Random Book Tours for inviting me to take part on the Book Tour. Synopsis We did not stay in our houses. Not in the way our grandmothers had, or our mothers.  We went out a little more and veiled ourselves a little less…   Suffused with love, humour and compassion, Stay, Daughter gives an intimate glimpse into a traditional Muslim community that has to balance the rules of Islamic orthodoxy with the freedoms and innovations of the Westernized modern world.  The memoir follows the history of a community in Sri Lanka that, in the late 19th century, breaks with the traditions of the time to give girls a secular education and permission to go out of their homes.  Before long, such independence and exposure to foreign ideas brings heartbreak to many families as their dau...