I love an Audible bargain and this is one of my best purchases of recent times!
The book covers 24 hours in the life of Ancient Rome, with each ‘hour’ focusing on a different person who lives in the city. We see a diverse selection of people over the course of the day, as well as learn a lot about how the inhabitants of Rome lived. This is clever and entertaining social history.
Continue reading (Audio)Book Review: ’24 Hours in Ancient Rome’ by Philip MatyszakWelcome to my stop on the blog tour for ‘The Ethical Stripper’ by Stacey Clare.
Thanks to Random Things Tours and Unbound for inviting me onto the tour and the copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
From the Publisher:
Forget everything you’ve heard about strippers: this book is an antidote to stigma, shame and stereotyping.
How can a feminist also be a stripper? Is stripping sex work? What makes sex work “ethical”?
In this powerful book, Stacey Clare, a stripper with over a decade of experience, takes a detailed look at the sex industry – the reality of the work as well as the history of licensing and regulation, feminist themes surrounding sex work, and stigma. Bringing her personal knowledge of the industry to bear, she offers an unapologetic critique and searing indictment of exploitation and raises the rights
of sex workers to the top of the agenda.
‘The Ethical Stripper’ rejects notions of victimhood, challenges stigma and shame, and unpacks decades of confusion and contradictions. It’s about the sex-work community’s fight for safety and self-determination, and it challenges you to think twice about every newspaper article, documentary and film you have seen about stripping and sex work.
‘The Ethical Stripper’ takes a comprehensive look at sex work, balancing the lived experience of the author with an examination of the different legal frameworks for sex work around the world.
Continue reading Blog Tour: ‘The Ethical Stripper’ by Stacey ClareNot a great reading month for me in terms of volume – but some brilliant books, so I can’t complain!
This month, I read 8 books which isn’t great for me but keeps me (just!) ahead of my 10 books a month target (Goodreads 21/120).
Two of my 8 books were an easy FIVE STARS from me…read on to see which ones!
Links in this post are affiliate ones - thanks for supporting my blog with any Amazon purchases (at no extra cost to you).Continue reading February 2022 Wrap-Up and March TBR
Thanks to Penguin for inviting me onto the blog tour for ‘The Perfect Escape’ by Leah Konen and for the book for review. As always, opinions are my own.
This book is published in February 2022 by Penguin.
The story is about three friends who leave New York in search of a perfect getaway in Saratoga Springs. All three are newly single, with Sam particularly needing some TLC after a recent marriage failure. When car trouble forces them to stay overnight en route, it seems coincidental that they find themselves in Sam’s ex-husband’s town – where an impromptu night out will have far-reaching consequences…
Continue reading Blog Tour: ‘The Perfect Escape’ by Leah KonenReading Terry Pratchett books nowadays is a bittersweet experience. On the one hand, they are brilliant and funny and clever, but the flipside is that they remind you what a talent was lost with Pratchett’s passing.
It’s been a while since I read any of the Discworld books so I jumped at the chance to read ‘Soul Music’ which features some of my favourite Discworld characters but had – up to this moment – slipped my attention. Thanks to NetGalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review.
Continue reading Book Review: ‘Soul Music’ by Terry PratchettThanks to Killer Reads for my copy of this book, published by Harper Collins in January 2022. As always, opinions are my own.
This is the story of Rachel Reeves who seems to have an enviable life – she lives in luxury, wants for nothing, has a wealthy husband and a daughter heading off for university. However, Rachel seeks fulfilment and begins to search for it in a new job and an ill-advised fling with an ex-flame. When sinister things begin to happen, Rachel is left trying to solve the mystery of who is trying to ruin her perfect life…
This book is told from Rachel’s first person perspective, so the reader is immediately thrown into her world and understanding of situations. This allows the tension to build as the reader is working alongside Rachel to try to make sense of the strange events, from mysterious text messages to nosy neighbours, from unwanted gifts to incriminating photos.
The tension is well managed throughout so that Rachel’s situation becomes more and more precarious and dangerous – it’s cleverly managed that one indiscretion then has so many consequences and I did race through the book to get to the bottom of the mystery.
The only niggle that I had was that Rachel is not always a sympathetic figure – although she seems to be paying a high price for her single transgressive action, it was difficult to relate to someone who otherwise seemed to have everything. In the (slightly misquoted) words of sitcom ‘Friends’, it did sometimes feel a bit ‘my diamond shoes are too tight and my wallet is too small for my fifties!’
That aside, this is an enjoyable thriller that has moments of real tension and some surprises along the way. I (as usual) fell for every red herring and accused pretty much the entire cast of this novel of being behind Rachel’s downfall. Wrong every time.
Read if you like fast-paced domestic thrillers that will keep you reading long into the night.
If you’d like a copy of this book, please use my affiliate link below – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases.
Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for ‘The Love that Dares’, a collection of letters by LGBTQ+ writers throughout the ages.
Thanks to Random Things Tours for inviting me on to the tour and for my copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
This book was published on 27th January 2022 by Ilex Press.
Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for ‘Blood Games’, the fourth book in the excellent DI Nikki Parekh crime series.
Thanks to Rachel’s Random Resources for inviting me onto the tour and for providing a copy of the book for review. As always, opinions are all mine!
Continue reading Blog Tour: ‘Blood Games’ by Liz MistryWelcome to my stop on the blog tour for ‘The Language of Food’ by Annabel Abbs, a fabulous historical novel out on 3rd February, 2022.
Thanks to Random Things Tours and Simon and Schuster for my place on the tour and my copy of the book for review. As always, opinions are entirely my own.
I’m really sorry that I let this one sit on my NetGalley shelf for so long! Thanks to NetGalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review.
The story opens in 1980 with the chance meeting of two women on Hampstead Common. Elise Morceau is young and naive and immedialtely falls under the spell of Constance Holden. Connie is older, already a successful writer and confident in ways Elise isn’t. When Connie’s book gets made into a Hollywood film, Elise accompanies her to Los Angeles and the pair fall into a glamorous party lifestyle.
This 1980s story – essentially of the relationship between the two women – is interspersed with a present day story in which Rose Simmonds is looking for her mother. When she learns that Connie was part of her mother’s life, she decides to ask some difficult questions of the writer – now in her 70s and a recluse…
Continue reading (Audio)Book Review: ‘The Confession’ by Jessie Burton
