Happy publication day (3rd August) to ‘I Did It For You’ by Amy Engel!
Having enjoyed ‘The Roanoke Girls’, I was pleased to be granted an early copy of ‘I Did It For You’ for review. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, HQ Stories – as always, opinions are my own.
This story follows a young woman, Greer Dunning, who returns to her small home town in Kansas. She has been away for over a decade, having left after the murder of her sister, Eliza, for which crime a man was executed. Greer finds her home unchanged in many ways – her family and close friends are there, the town’s rhythms are the same – but a new murder has shaken the inhabitants. The slaughter of a young couple in the same place as Eliza’s murder 14 years previously has raised the prospect of a copycat killer – and Greer finds herself wondering whether justice was truly done for her sister’s death.
I loved the sound of this book – I was especially drawn to the idea of a young woman grifting her way around glamorous Long Island during a hot summer (given that I’m living a chilly and distinctly non-glamorous British springtime!) Thanks to NetGalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review.
Thanks to Kallie at Penguin Michael Joseph for inviting me on the blog tour for ‘The Birdcage’ by Eve Chase. Thanks too for my review copy of the book – as always, opinions are entirely my own.
This book was published by Penguin Michael Joseph on 28th April, 2022 in hardback, ebook and audio formats.
Hi and welcome to my stop on the blog tour for The Write Reads. This YA thriller is to be published on 3rd December, 2020 by Penguin.
My Review
I’d not read any books by Karen McManus before this one, but I know they are hugely popular (even with my own son) so I thought I would give this one a try. Huge thanks to Dave at The Write Reads, Penguin Books and Karen McManus for giving me the opportunity to join this blog tour and a free copy of the book for review.
This is the story of three eighteen-year-old cousins who don’t know each other when the book begins – they come from different branches of an estranged family, the Storys. However, they all get an invitation to go to spend the summer working at their grandmother’s holiday resort on a beautiful East Coast island. This in itself is mysterious, as their grandmother disinherited all her children (the cousins’ parents) by letter years before. The letter simply said ‘You know what you did’, something none of the siblings claim to understand.
Arriving on the island, the it soon becomes apparent that the three cousins are not especially welcome and that there are family secrets to uncover…
The story is told from the perspective of the three cousins in turn – Milly, Aubrey and Jonah – with some flashbacks when we also hear the voices of the parents during their time at Gull Cove Island in the 1990s (when they are a similar age to their children in the present day). This is a clever way of revealing information gradually as the different perspectives gradually come together to reveal the full picture.
I definitely found it easier to connect to some of the characters more than others. In particular, I liked the character of Aubrey who seemed the most relatable of the three main voices – she had several of her own problems to work through as well as dealing with the family issues surrounding her grandmother. She seemed a much more developed character than either Milly or Jonah, both of whom were interesting but not quite as engaging for me.
The plot is cleverly woven so that the reader is kept guessing throughout – there were several twists along the way that I could never have predicted! The plot moved at a good pace and kept me reading as I wanted to find out the secrets behind the Story family and it is fair to say I was not disappointed.
One of the things I liked most about the book was the portrait of a small American community – there was a real sense of the history of the resort with various generations of families and their entwined lives and hidden secrets. This was evident not only in the Storys themselves but also with Kayla’s family and the Baxters. I really felt that the narrative was rooted in a complex and interesting tangle of multi-generational characters.
I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys a thriller with plenty of twists and turns. It would probably be best for older teens and adults as there is some swearing and mature themes. This is one that lulls you in with a false sense of security before winding an intricate and engaging plot – you won’t want to put it down.
After publishing yesterday’s review of the absolutely brilliant ‘This is Shakespeare’ by Emma Smith, I had a think about books that have really helped me to get my head around Shakespeare for teaching.
As a self-confessed Shakespeare geek, it’s fair to say I’m not short of a Shakespeare book or two. However, few make it into my teaching toolkit.
I thought I’d share some of my favourites in case anyone is brushing up their Shakespeare this summer.
‘Essential Shakespeare Handbook’ by Leslie Dunton-Downer and Alan Riding (published by Dorling Kindersley) is always my first go-to when I’m approaching any Shakespeare play or production. It’s so clearly presented with scene-by-scene breakdowns of the play, plot summaries, character information, key quotations, context…if I had to pick one book only for my Shakespeare information, this would be it! ‘The Shakespeare Book’ (again published by Dorling Kindersley) does something similar with some lovely infographics.
For more detailed analysis into individual plays, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you about the York Notes for GCSE and A Level series which are brilliant for students. For an engaging jaunt through the plays for you though, I’d recommend Ben Crystal’s series, ‘Springboard Shakespeare’. There’s separate books on ‘Macbeth’, ‘Hamlet’, ‘King Lear’ and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and they are suitably detailed and very readable. Ben Crystal’s ‘Shakespeare on Toast: Getting a Taste for the Bard’ is another accessible but really useful guide.
Rex Gibson’s ‘Teaching Shakespeare: A Handbook for Teachers’ has also proved useful to me over the years, especially in terms of approaching Shakespeare as plays to be performed rather than texts to be read. It has lots of ideas about how to bring Shakespeare alive for pupils.
If you’re more interested in reading around the subject of Shakespeare to give you a boost in the classroom, I can recommend Bill Bryson’s ‘Shakespeare’ and Catharine Arnold’s ‘Globe: Life in Shakespeare’s London’. Both are extremely engaging and full of snippets of information that will definitely help you in contextualising Shakespeare.
Finally, for your entertainment (but not for the faint-hearted or easily embarrassed), Pauline Kiernan’s ‘Filthy Shakespeare: Shakespeare’s Most Outrageous Sexual Puns’ is worth a look. It will help you understand all those double entendres and lurid allusions that are often lost on modern audiences – but probably isn’t one to use in the classroom! Great background knowledge though!
I hope you’ve found this useful – I’d love to hear your own Shakespeare recommendations too on my Twitter account @thequickandthe4 as I’m always looking for ideas.
