See How They Lie Extract and Giveaway

Hello everyone! Today I have an extract of the highly anticipated new book from #ZoellaBookClub author Sue Wallman for you and if you like what you read then you're in luck as I have three copies of See How They Lie up for grabs over on Twitter!

For your chance to win 1/3 copies of See How They Lie head over to Twitter

⭐️GIVEAWAY⭐️
Win 1/3 copies of #SeeHowTheyLie
RT & Follow @JessHeartsBooks to enter
UK only
Ends 17/03/17 https://t.co/x9xFPmX2jO pic.twitter.com/L1pQv2fZRN

— Jess Hearts Books (@JessHeartsBooks) March 10, 2017

Feb Faves: Books, Beauty and Black Girl Magic

It only feels like two minutes ago since I was sat here typing up my January favourites and here I am again back with another batch of things I've been loving this past month. February is typically my least favourite month of the year but this February was actually pretty good to me and there have been lots of good things happening and things I have been enjoying so let's get started shall we?

Favourite Books

   

February was a mostly good reading month for me and I ended up reading a lot of thrillers but between them I decided to pick up The House of New Beginnings by Lucy Diamond for a bit of a lighter read and I absolutely loved it! The book follows Georgie, Charlotte and Rosa who are all living in the same house on the Brighton seafront and each of them has their own story about how they've come to live there and why they have decided to have a fresh start by the sea. I loved all three characters and enjoyed seeing a friendship blossom between them as the story continued. It's a beautiful and uplifting book about friendship, starting over, second chances and is perfect for spring time. The second book that I loved this month was The Breakdown by B.A. Paris, I was a huge fan of Behind Closed Doors when it was released last year and so The Breakdown was one of my most anticipated thrillers of 2017 and it didn't disappoint! B.A. Paris does suspense and tension so, so well and she's quickly becoming one of my favourite crime writers. I wrote a review for The Breakdown here and also interviewed B.A. Paris for the blog tour last month so do check those out if you're interested in the book.

Favourite to Listen to 

When I was growing up I absolutely loved the animated movie Anastasia so my eight-year-old self was bursting at the seams when I found out that it was being adapted into a musical on Broadway and since then I've been following all of the latest news. In February their YouTube channel uploaded this video of Christy Altomare who will be playing Anastasia singing one of my favourite songs from the movie Journey to the Past and she absolutely smashed it! I really hope that the soundtrack gets released so that I can listen to some old favourites plus the new tracks and I have my fingers crossed that it will come over to the UK at some point because I need this musical in my life.

Favourite to Watch

Hidden Figures - where do I even start with this movie!? From beginning to end I sat in the cinema teary eyed, my emotions switching from horror, to anger, to happiness and then finally to pride. As a woman, this was an incredibly empowering and emotional film to watch and so I can't even begin to imagine how it would feel to be a black woman watching this movie. Hidden Figures is pure black girl magic from beginning to end. It made me check my privilege and evaluate the ways in which we have changed, but more importantly it made me think about the ways we have not and the progress that still needs to happen. I'm completely awestruck every time I think about this film. It's essential viewing for all!

Favourite in Beauty

Last month Charlotte Tilbury released two new lipsticks for Valentine's Day and being the lipstick and Charlotte Tilbury fan that I am I knew that I had to invest in them! The first lipstick on the left is called Valentine and is a pretty light pink nude colour. It's made with the glossy K.I.S.S.I.N.G formula leaving a nice sheen on the lips. And on the right is Pillowtalk, my personal favourite of the two, which is honest to God the best nude lipstick I have ever tried! I'm more of a bold lip kinda gal but this month I have been obsessed with Pillowtalk it's the perfect every day go-to lipstick that goes with everything and the matte revolution formula means that it lasts for hours without budging even after eating and drinking. Charlotte Tilbury's lipsticks really are the best of the best and are the only thing I put on my lips these days. If you're considering giving her lipsticks a go then I'd say these are two great, wearable shades to start with that would suit any skin tone.

 Favourite Online 

I've been trying to spend less time online and on my phone in general over the past month or so but one thing that I loved online in February was this collab video featuring two of my favourite YouTubers Laci Green and Ingrid Nilsen talking all things lesbian from stereotypes to sex to coming out. It was such a great and informative video and is well worth a watch.

Favourite Thing

The best thing to happen to me this month was managing to get Ed Sheeran tour tickets! Me and my lovely friend Chelle from Tales of Yesterday tried both the presale and the general sale only to come away empty handed but I finally managed to get us tickets on Valentine's Day via Twickets Ed's official partnership website for the tour. Seeing Ed perform live has been on my bucket list since way back in his + days. He's my favourite artist and I was actually shaking whilst filling in my details I was that excited. I know so many people who struggled to get tickets and so I feel very, very lucky that we'll be going to see him in April.

Favourite Memory

Photo credit to Tales of Yesterday

Last month I went to the Falling in Love and Fandom event hosted by Waterstones Birmingham to support Chelle who chaired the event and to hear authors (left to right) Lauren James, Miranda Dickinson and Maggie Harcourt talk everything romance for Valentine's Day and to get my books signed. It was such a great event and lots of bloggers turned up so it was really good to put names to new faces and to catch up with old friends at the same time.

What were some of your favourite things in February? 

Never Forget Blog Tour

Hello everyone and welcome to my stop on the Never Forget blog tour. Today I have a guest post from author Richard Davis on his top five favourite crime/thriller novels.

Richard Davis's Five Favourite Crime/Thriller Novels 

1.) Stephen King’s The Running Man. Although this is a dystopian novel, it is also the epitome of thriller fiction. An insanely exciting cat-and- mouse tale.

2.) G. K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday. An incredibly bizarre and funny thriller that is both an entertaining story, but also a metaphysical tract. It’s the novel that got me into thriller fiction in the first place.

3.) Patricia Highsmith’s The Glass Cell. Highsmith is interested in the psychology of the people behind crime, and The Glass Cell is probably my favourite of her standalone novels. An intense, disturbing, slow burn of a tale that looks at the horrors of prison, and the circumstances that drive individuals to commit unspeakable acts.

4.) Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy. I’m cheating here, since this is really three short novellas. Although the tone of these stories falls very much into a Chandleresque hard-boiled tradition, Auster – by intentionally undermining the expectations of the detective genre, and thwarting attempts to draw neat conclusions – turns these stories into provocative philosophical meditations. The New York Trilogy, through its subversions, gets you thinking about how the plots to crime and detective novels work.

5.) Lee Child’s Killing Floor. Child’s first book is a cracking read. It builds slowly, shocks frequently, and is always exciting.

Don't miss the rest of the blog tour!

Find Me Blog Tour

Hello everyone and welcome to my stop on the Find Me blog tour! Today I have an extract of the first chapter to share with you.

Don't miss the rest of the blog tour! 

The Breakdown Blog Tour: Q&A with B A Paris and Giveaway

Hello everyone! Today I am very excited to be hosting a stop on the blog tour for The Breakdown the highly anticipated new thriller from B A Paris author of the bestselling Behind Closed Doors. I absolutely loved The Breakdown and if you missed my review yesterday you can check it out here for my full thoughts. Today I have a Q&A with B A Paris to share and I have 3 copies of the book up for grabs over on Twitter.

Q&A with B A Paris 

1) How has your life changed since the release of Behind Closed Doors? Did you ever expect it to be as successful as it was? 
I honestly didn’t have any expectations at all for Behind Closed Doors, all I wanted was to be able to see it on the shelves in a bookshop somewhere. So everything that’s happened this last year has been a wonderful and unexpected surprise. The best thing about its success is that it has bought me the freedom to write, in that I’ve been able to give up most of my teaching. Writing has now become my job.

2) What’s been your best moment as an author so far? 
Being told that HQ/Harper Collins would be publishing my book was a huge moment. Hitting the New York Times bestseller list and receiving the Neilsen Bestseller Award in January for having sold 500,000 copies of Behind Closed Doors were pretty amazing too. But without my lovely agent Camilla Wray none of the others would have happened, so the moment she said she wanted to represent me was definitely the best moment ever.

3) What can fans of Behind Closed Doors expect from The Breakdown? In what ways are they similar or different?
They are similar in that they are both psychological thrillers with a young woman who is going through a traumatic experience as the main character. They are different in that in Behind Closed Doors we know what is happening to Grace, whereas in The Breakdown, even Cass doesn’t know what is happening to her!

4) What sparked the idea behind The Breakdown?
I was travelling home one afternoon through some woods when the sky suddenly became dark, the skies opened and I found myself in the middle of a huge storm, complete with flash-flooding. It was quite scary and I began to wonder what I would do if it was the middle of the night and I saw someone who had broken down at the side of the road. Would I stop and help them? Or afraid for my own safety, would I drive on? I thought it was an interesting dilemma and The Breakdown was born. 

5) Was writing a second novel harder or easier than writing the first? 
Much harder. With Behind Closed Doors I had nothing to prove and had no particular reader in mind. With The Breakdown, I had everything to prove and had the readers who had enjoyed Behind Closed Doors in mind. I didn’t want to let them down, so the pressure was huge.

6) Do you have any advice for aspiring writers? 
Never, ever give up. Each time I received a rejection letter it made me determined to write a better novel. I allowed myself to feel dejected for about two minutes, then it was back to the drawing board, with a new idea and the conviction that I could do it.

7) What books would you recommend to fans looking for similar stories to your own?
Any novel by Mary Kubica. She has a fourth novel coming out this year and it’s brilliant.

8) Can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on next?
It’s another psychological thriller but I don’t want to say too much about the plot just yet.

9) And finally, what three words best describe The Breakdown?
A gripping read – I hope!

For your chance to win a copy of The Breakdown head over to Twitter 

⭐️GIVEAWAY⭐️
Win 1/3 copies of #THEBREAKDOWN by @BAParisAuthor
RT & Follow @JessHeartsBooks to enter
UK only https://t.co/NF9HeE9r0j pic.twitter.com/Yu64hZuNMS

— Jess Hearts Books (@JessHeartsBooks) February 16, 2017

Don't miss the rest of the blog tour!

Review for The Breakdown by B A Paris

The Breakdown by B A Paris
Publisher: HQ
Release: 9th February 2017
Genre: Thriller, Crime, Mystery
Source: Copy received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review



Synopsis:

"If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust?

It all started that night in the woods.

Cass Anderson didn’t stop to help the woman in the car, and now she’s dead.

Ever since, silent calls have been plaguing Cass and she’s sure someone is watching her.

Consumed by guilt, she’s also starting to forget things. Whether she took her pills, what her house alarm code is – and if the knife in the kitchen really had blood on it.

Bestselling author B A Paris is back with a brand new psychological thriller full of twists and turns that will keep you on the edge of your seat."

Review
When you write a debut as good as Behind Closed Doors there’s a lot of pressure for your next book to live up to the same high standard. Behind Closed Doors was one of my favourite Thrillers of last year so naturally I was worried that The Breakdown wouldn’t live up to it but I needn’t have been because The Breakdown was every bit as good as its predecessor proving that B A Paris is so much more than a one hit wonder and has a promising career ahead of her.

One stormy night our heroine Cass takes a detour through the woods eager to get out of the storm and home to her gorgeous cottage and partner. As she drives she notices a breakdown on the side of the road but despite her concern doesn’t stop to help. The next morning she wakes up to the news that the woman in the broken down car from the night before has been found dead. Wracked with guilt, Cass can’t get the woman out of her head and since that night has been forgetting things and receiving silent phone calls. As Cass breaks down into a spiral of guilt and paranoia she begins to suspect that what happened to the woman in the car is somehow connected to her and that the murderer is coming for her next.

The Breakdown is quite a different read compared to Behind Closed Doors. With Behind Closed Doors we knew what was happening whereas The Breakdown is more of a mystery that really keeps you guessing. I love an unreliable narrator and we certainly get that with Cass, you’re never sure if what she says happened is the truth or the fantasies of a paranoid woman on the verge of a breakdown. The suspense and tension throughout the book make it impossible to put down. Like Cass, I was never sure what to believe or who to trust.

The Breakdown is the kind of book that has you jumping at the slightest noise and looking behind you as you walk home. B A Paris is a hugely talented writer and I’m already anticipating what she writes next.

The Elisenda Domenech Investigations Series Blog Tour

Hello everyone and welcome to my stop on The Elisenda Domenech Investigations Series blog tour today I have a guest post from author Chris Lloyd on the journey from draft to finished copy.

 From Draft to Finished Copy by Chris Lloyd

The process of writing a book is not an exact science. Not the way I go about it, anyway. I’m still learning the best way for me to write, but this is pretty much how I do it now.

The idea for the next book is always swirling around inside my head while I’m writing the current one, so much so that I have to fight the temptation to make a start on it until I’ve finished the one I’m doing. I just have to be happy with making notes as stories or characters occur to me. I’ve got a rotten memory, so I’m an obsessive note-taker; you can’t imagine the number of brilliant plot twists I’ve thought of in the shower that have gone by lunchtime.

The first month or so of a new book I spend on getting the story straight in my head, getting an idea of the characters who are going to appear, trying to think of the key moments and picturing a sequence. I don’t always worry about the ending just yet, as that usually comes into focus after I’ve started writing. It’s also a good time to be really critical and try and find holes or inconsistencies in the idea and in the way the sequence is coming along. That way I don’t have to backtrack so much to unpick something after I’ve started writing. The next step after that is a short time putting the key scenes into some sort of an order. I usually end up giving up on trying to find the later ones as I know they’ll change in the writing, and I’m starting to get impatient to get on with writing it. What that means is that I know the first three or four major moments in the story and I have a rough idea of how things will develop after that; the rest will fall into place later.

Then it’s the scary bit: writing. The blank screen is pretty daunting, but getting the first few words down is just the best. I don’t know if other writers do this, but I normally start with the second chapter. I write a few notes and a couple of ideas for opening lines for the first chapter, but I like to leave it at that until I’ve finished the book so I know exactly what the opening has to do once I’ve got the whole story in place. As I’m writing, the later key scenes start to take shape and I sketch them out. These scenes are useful as they show me what needs to happen between one key moment and the next – I usually have a couple of pages of notes for each of these sections, which I add to as I write. I use Scrivener for the first draft, by the way. It takes a bit of setting up, but then it’s great for taking care of the structure and format, leaving me to get on with telling the story.

Once the first draft is down, including the first chapter, I export it to Word and start working on redrafting. That’s when I see all the bits of fluff or the most glaring inconsistencies and I can get rid of them. In an ideal world, I like to be able to leave a couple of weeks between drafts, but there’s this thing called a deadline… After this bit, I print the manuscript and go through it with a red pen and make notes all over the pages. I’ve learned to make proper notes that I’ll be able to understand a few weeks later – I can’t count the number of times I’ve looked at a scrawl in the margin and wondered how much I’d had to drink that day. This is usually the stage when I have to delete long sections and add bits that I haven’t made clear. I nearly always have to trim the dialogue a fair bit. Another thing I’ve learned is that the quicker I write a scene at first draft stage, the more I have to cut in subsequent drafts – you can get on too much of a roll; and the longer a passage takes me to write, the more I have to add to it, as I’ve given myself the false impression that it’s going on too long.

That whole redrafting process is repeated until it looks like something I wouldn’t be too afraid to send to my publisher. I email it to both my editor and my agent, and then I sit back and stare feverishly at my inbox for a week or so. They both then send the manuscript back with notes and suggestions, which I stare at glumly for a while and then start working out how to go about doing the redraft. Oddly, I love this stage. So much of the first drafts was done in solitude that I find I enjoy this collaborative aspect. There are always doubts in my mind about scenes or strands, and their feedback normally ends up confirming what I’d thought, but they also find ways of improving the book that I’ve missed. It’s easy to get too caught up in it and I need someone else’s vision to help me sharpen the story. The final part of this stage is the copy-edit, which is also perversely enjoyable. The copy editor sees all the repetitions and clumsy phrases that have slipped through the net so that I can put them right – it’s very satisfying honing your words.

Now we get to the sexy bit. One of the best moments of all is seeing the cover design. There are lots of emails back and forth about what should be on the cover and some sample images, but even though I have an idea of what it’s going to look like, there’s still nothing like the thrill of seeing the finished piece. Something that’s strangely exciting is seeing the lettering – the three Elisenda books have a very strong cover font and it’s the coolest thing to think it’s how my books are identified.

And then, finally, the really scary bit: publication. It’s great fun getting lovely messages from readers, bloggers and other writers, but it’s still a daunting moment when your darling is released into the wild and you wait for the first comments to come back. It’s still worth every minute of everything that came before it, though. And, of course, there’s the bottle of red wine to celebrate it. That feels pretty good too.

Lastly, thank you Jess for hosting me on Jess Hearts Books today.

Thank you so much for being on the blog today Chris 

 Don't miss the rest of the blog tour!

Who's That Girl? Blog Tour: Q&A with Mhairi McFarlane and Giveaway

Hello everybody and welcome to my stop on the Who's That Girl? blog tour! I'm a huge fan of Mhairi McFarlane and absolutely loved Who's That Girl? when I read it in hardcover last year, if you missed it you can check out my review here. To celebrate the paperback release I have a Q&A with Mhairi herself and am giving you the chance to win a copy of the book over on Twitter.

Q&A with Mhairi McFarlane

1. Who’s That Girl? is your fourth novel what can fans of your previous books expect from this one?
I was talking to a friend the other day who said I dish worse and worse things out to my heroines, so, trauma, it seems! Who’s That Girl? is about 30something Edie, who becomes a social pariah after an incident at a wedding and is thrown out of her Instagrammable London life, back home to Nottingham, where she has to contend with unfiltered reality. Whereupon she meets hot new star, actor Elliot, who’s handling being famous, while Edie is coping with being infamous. Antics ensue.

2. One of my favourite things about your books is your heroines. Which of your characters is the most like you? 
Ooh that’s a good question. Probably Rachel in You Had Me At Hello, if that’s not too obvious an answer. I’m an ex journalist who loves Manchester, and like Rachel, an arch procrastinator who can’t make her mind up about anything. Obviously the plot of that book is not autobiography though! When I wrote it, I was somewhat tired of chick lit heroines being lovely angels who are assailed by bad luck, when lets face it, most of the time, we have a big hand in making our bad luck. So I definitely gave Rachel plenty of my flaws. Her habit of getting out of difficult conversations by making crass jokes…yeah…I didn’t stretch a million miles to write that. Like Rachel, I had a great time at university and made some lifelong friends, too. The idea for that book came from me thinking what a powerful nostalgia those years gave me, and wondering: wow, what if you’d met your love of your life during those years, and not seen him since? Imagine THAT. For me, fiction starts in a truth, a jumping off point for playing the What If? game.

3. What’s been your best moment as an author so far? 
Hmmm let’s see. The funny thing is, you spend so long dreaming of getting a book deal and once you have one, you wait for it to ‘land.’ I’ll be honest, I thought there’d be a key moment – possibly holding a cocktail, on a villa balcony, watching a setting sun – where it’d dawn on me ‘OMG! I AM AUTHOR!’ but it never happened. I still don’t quite believe it and fully expect to wake up and find myself late for a shift on my old job (I still have that anxiety dream.) I can’t pin one best moment, really: a call from my agent to say I’d had a pre publication offer for my first book from Germany was an absolute ‘I don’t believe this happening’ swoon. I ran home and shouted up the stairs to my boyfriend ‘We can get the fridge!!’ (I had an obsession with getting a green Smeg. Yes, I am a dreadful person.) I hope that answer doesn’t make it sound like it was all about money because it absolutely wasn’t, but knowing I had enough funds for a while to call it my official job? That was incredible. And seeing the cover artwork for You Had Me At Hello, with my name on it. My editor emailed me it and I was screaming at the thumbnail photo before I’d even opened it. And then there’s the day you get a box of books…your own book. Best job in the world.

4. You’re known for writing smart, funny women’s fiction are there any authors who influenced your writing style? 
Thank you! Oh God, plenty. Marian Keyes is the don, of course, for humour, storytelling smarts, and that wonderful voice you could read all day and night. Oddly, also, I’d have to say Joss Whedon made all the difference to me. Watching Buffy was when I realised that genre could tell really impactful, adult stories: so many people dismissed Buffy as teen fluff and it was a total Trojan horse for some stunningly inventive, mature ideas. It gave me the confidence to bend a few of chick lit’s unofficial rules.

5. Where do you get the ideas behind your books? 
I start with a challenge or question that interests me. So for example, with Edie in Who’s That Girl, it was, what if someone good at managing her image, found it all crashing down in one day? You know, so much of our self worth is now bound up on these social media sites which we look at constantly on glass computers in our pockets. What if you had all that torn away and had to confront who you were, without all that superficial affirmation? When I plan a book, it doesn’t start with ‘who’s the boy?’ Although that question follows shortly behind…

6. Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?
I have so much I never know what to pick! The most basic I can find is: never write ‘into the market,’ ie, try to second guess what will sell. Always, always start with the story that grabs your guts and won’t let go. If yours doesn’t do that, scrap it and find the one that does. Enthusiasm is palpable in the writing, and contagious: if you love your book then so will other people. NB: I am talking about the initial concept, NOT the process itself. You will hate your own writing five times a day and tell yourself you’re useless and awful. I’m afraid the self doubt never goes away.

7. What’s the last great book that you read?
Right now I’m reading Sarah Pinborough’s new thriller Behind Her Eyes and it’s a belter. So, so tense! Will be a film I reckon, I’m calling it now.

8. Can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on next? 
My fifth novel! Readers can expect: a northern city setting. A big shock. Loss. Lots of messy emotion. More social media and mobiles messing up our lives. My first BLONDE heroine, a barmaid with attitude called Georgina. Probably the same amount of swearing. A love interest or two. No spoilers.

Thank you so much for being on the blog today Mhairi!

For your chance to win a copy of Who's That Girl? head over to Twitter 

⭐️GIVEAWAY⭐️
Win a copy of #WhosThatGirl by @MhairiMcF
RT & Follow @JessHeartsBooks to enter
UK only https://t.co/6E31qiVWiI pic.twitter.com/02NUbfu63j

— Jess Hearts Books (@JessHeartsBooks) February 8, 2017

Don't miss the rest of the blog tour

Who's That Girl? is available to buy in paperback in all good bookshops as of the 9th February

January Favourites: Life, Books, Blogs and More!

Hello everyone and welcome to my very first monthly favourites post! This is my new, more personal way of wrapping up each month that allows me to include some of my favourite things outside of books and blogging. I hope that you like the new format as much as I do! Here are the things I have been loving in January...

 Favourite Books 

 

Out of the ten books that I read in January my absolute favourites have to be Wing Jones by Katherine Webber and My Sweet Revenge by Jane Fallon. Wing Jones is a YA book set in the nineties that follows a biracial teenage girl who takes up running after her brother is in a car accident. It's a gorgeous debut about about losing your way, finding your feet, and chasing your dreams and was the perfect book to start the year off with! My Sweet Revenge follows a lady called Paula as she sets out to make her husband fall back in love with her after finding out that he's been having an affair so that when she leaves him it hurts him as much as he's hurt her. This is such an entertaining and fun read and is perfect if you like smart and sassy Women's Fiction. I reviewed both books this month so if you'd like to read more of my thoughts you can check out my review for Wing Jones here and my review for My Sweet Revenge here.

Favourite to Listen to

   

I'm a huge Ed Sheeran fan and have loved his music and followed his career since the very beginning so when he dropped two new singles at the start of the year it's safe to say that 2017 was already off to a good start for me. I love both songs so much and have been playing them on repeat ever since they came out, I think they show two totally different sides to Ed's music and demonstrate just how diverse his range of talents are as a songwriter and musician. If I had to pick one I'd say Castle on the Hill is my favourite although I absolutely love the Shape of You music video. Roll on the 3rd March, I already have my copy of Divide on pre-order!

Favourite to Watch

So last year I discovered the absolute joy that is Brooklyn 99 on Netflix and since then it's become one of my all time favourite shows. The 4th season is currently airing in the UK on Thursday nights on E4 so needless to say Thursday nights have become my new favourite. This show never fails to cheer me up when I'm feeling down or have had a bad day and it goes from strength to strength with each season. It's funny, witty and silly with a great cast of characters who at this point have honestly come to feel like friends. If you haven't watched this show yet and want to watch something guaranteed to make you laugh and feel good this is the show to watch!

Favourite in Beauty

After the indulgence of Christmas my skin has been breaking out like crazy so for my birthday I asked for a few new skincare products to help clear it up. After doing a lot of research on my favourite beauty blogs I decided to try out the Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser and the three L'Oreal Paris Pure Clay Masks and I absolutely love them, they've definitely helped balance out my sensitive, combination, acne prone skin. I use the Liz Earle cleanser daily followed by a toner and moisturizer, I absolutely love the smell of this product and how using it feels like having a treatment at a spa. It's so gentle on my sensitive skin and has lots of skin loving ingredients that make my skin feel really clean and clarified after use. I use the face masks two to three times a week, each mask does something different so I apply them on the areas needed as a multimask. Once a week I use the detox mask all over, the charcoal in it is really good for drawing out impurities in the skin helping to avoid the breakouts that I am prone to. The combination of these products has left my skin looking healthier and clearer and all without drying out or irritating my sensitive skin - perfect!

Favourite Online

Being a blogger I absolutely love January, everyone always comes back to blogging after Christmas refreshed and ready for a new year and there are always so many brilliant posts and videos to watch. This month saw the return of one of my favourite book bloggers Vicki at Cosy Books, Vicki is one of the very first book bloggers I started to follow so I am thrilled that she is back. We have very similar taste in books so if you don't already I'd definitely recommend giving Vicki a follow! Over on YouTube I have been absolutely loving watching Fabulous Book Fiend's vlogs she features a good selection of Women's Fiction, YA and Non-Fiction and does lots of different types of videos. My recent favourite has to be her review of The One We Fell in Love With by Paige Toon it made me finally decide to pick it up and I ended up really enjoying it. A blogger who I always love reading is Jim from YA Yeah Yeah but I especially loved his post in January all about jealousy and not feeling good enough it's a topic I could really relate to and if you haven't read it already I'd recommend checking it out here.

Favourite Thing

I received a 2017 Happiness Planner for Christmas and I have been absolutely loving it! This isn't just your typical planner, if you couldn't guess from the title it is a planner with a focus on fitting more of what makes you happy into your life. The first section of the planner has a series of questions to help you figure out what makes you happy, what makes you sad, your goals and the obstacles in the way of you achieving them. It then helps you formulate a plan to help you get the most out of the year ahead. After using this for a month I'd say this planner is helping me live a more balanced life focused in the present. It's perfect for personal goals, work goals and to help you create a schedule that balances what you need to do and what you want to do. It's kept me so organized and the gratitude section at the bottom of each page to fill out at the end of every day has really helped me to change the way I think and to actively seek out the good things that would usually get overshadowed by the bad things. Already this planner has massively changed my life from the way I think, to taking the time to do the things that make me happy, to helping me work towards my goals every single day. I can't recommend this planner enough.

Favourite Memory

This month me and two of my best friends visited one of my favourite places in the world for my birthday, Astley Book Farm. It's the largest second hand bookshop in the Midlands and I am lucky enough to live a ten minute drive away. I'm not exaggerating when I say that you can spend a whole day there and that's exactly what we did lost in the corridors of books, eating large slices of their delicious cake and chatting on one of the squishy sofas in front of a burning log fire. It was absolute bliss. I wrote a whole post about why it's my favourite bookshop for Books are my Bag here if you haven't been yet and live close enough I'd definitely recommend a visit!

 I hope you had a great start to the New Year! 

What were some of your favourite things in January?

Perfect Remains Blog Tour: Who Killed Helen Fields? Clue Number 10

Hello everyone and welcome to my stop on the Perfect Remains blog tour! Today I have the next chilling clue to help you find Helen Fields' killer. Make sure you follow the rest of the blog tour to discover all of the clues and solve the case!

Follow the rest of the blog tour!

Perfect Remains is available to buy now from all good bookshops

The One Blog Tour: Extract and Giveaway!

Hello everyone and welcome to my stop on The One blog tour! Today I have the first chapter of the book to share with you and if you just can't wait to read more then you're in luck as I have 3 copies to give away to 3 lucky readers!

CHAPTER 1 

MANDY

Mandy stared at the photograph on her computer screen and held her breath.

The shirtless man had cropped, light brown hair, and posed on a beach with his legs spread apart with the top half of his wetsuit rolled down to his waist. His eyes were the clearest shade of blue. His huge grin contained two perfectly aligned rows of white teeth, and she could almost taste the salt water dripping from his chest and onto the surfboard lying by his feet.

‘Oh my Lord,’ she whispered to herself, and let out a long breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding. She felt her fingertips tingle and her face flush, and wondered how on earth her body would react to him in person if that’s how it responded to just one photograph.

The coffee in her polystyrene cup was cold but she still finished it. She took a screengrab of the photograph and added it to a newly created folder on her desktop entitled ‘Richard Taylor’. She scanned the office to check if anyone was watching what she was up to in her booth, but no one was paying her any attention.

Mandy scrolled down the screen to look at the other photographs in his Facebook album ‘Around the World’. He was certainly well travelled, she noticed, and he had been to places she’d only ever seen on TV or in films. In many pictures he was in bars, trails and temples, posing by landmarks, enjoying golden beaches and choppy waters. He was rarely on his own. She liked that he seemed the gregarious type.

Curious, she looked back further into his timeline, from when he first joined social media as a sixth former and through his three years at university. She even found him attractive as a gawky teenager.

After an hour and a half of gawping at nearly the entirety of the handsome stranger’s history, Mandy made her way to his Twitter feed to see what he felt the need to share with the world. But all he ranted about was Arsenal’s rise and fall in the Premier League, occasionally broken up by retweets of animals falling over or running into stationary objects.

Their interests appeared to differ greatly, and she questioned exactly why they had been Matched and what they might have in common. Then she reminded herself she no longer needed the mindset required for using dating websites and apps; Match Your DNA was based on biology, chemicals and science – none of which she could get her head around. But she trusted it with all her heart, like millions and millions of others did.

Mandy moved on to Richard’s LinkedIn profile, which revealed that since graduating from Worcester University two years earlier, he’d worked as a personal trainer in a town approximately forty miles from hers. No wonder his body appeared so solid, she thought, and she imagined how it might feel on top of hers.

She hadn’t set foot in a gym since her induction a year ago, when her sisters insisted she should stop lamenting her failed marriage and start concentrating on her recovery. They’d whisked her away to a nearby hotel day-spa where she’d been massaged, plucked, waxed, hot-stoned, tanned and massaged again until any thought of her ex had been pummelled out of every back and shoulder knot and each clogged pore of her skin. The gym membership had followed along with a promise that she would keep up with the workout schedule they’d set up for her. Motivating herself to work out regularly had yet to become part of her weekly routine, but she paid for the membership regardless.

She began to imagine what her children with Richard might look like, and if they’d inherit their father’s blue eyes or be brown like hers; whether they’d be dark haired and olive skinned like her or fair and pale like him. She found herself smiling.

‘Who’s that?’

‘Jesus!’ she yelled. The voice had made her jump. ‘You scared me to death.’

‘Well, you shouldn’t have been looking at porn at work then.’ Olivia grinned, and offered her a sweet from a bag of Haribo. Mandy declined with a shake of her head.

‘It wasn’t porn, he’s an old friend.’

‘Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. Keep an eye out for Charlie though, he’s after some sales figures from you.’

Mandy rolled her eyes, then looked at the clock in the corner of her screen. She realised that if she didn’t start doing some work soon she’d end up taking it home with her. She clicked on the little red ‘x’ in the corner and cursed her Hotmail account for assuming the Match Your DNA confirmation email was spam. It had sat in her junk folder for the last six weeks until, by chance, she had discovered it earlier that afternoon.

‘Mandy Taylor, wife of Richard Taylor, pleased to meet you,’ she whispered. She noticed she was absent-mindedly twiddling an invisible ring around her wedding finger.

 Want to keep reading? For your chance to win a copy of The One head over to Twitter! 

⭐️GIVEAWAY⭐️
Win 1 of 3 copies of THE ONE
RT & Follow @JessHeartsBooks to enter
UK only #MatchYourDNA https://t.co/dODPwJVKA6 pic.twitter.com/WUUJMjXdjs

— Jess Hearts Books (@JessHeartsBooks) February 1, 2017

 Don't miss the rest of the blog tour

The Things I Should Have Told You Blog Tour

Hello everyone! Today I'm so excited to be kicking off The Things I Should Have Told You blog tour. I absolutely love Carmel Harrington and am thrilled to have her on the blog today sharing a guest post on the time she met one of her own favourite authors, Jilly Cooper.

Meeting Jilly Cooper by Carmel Harrington 

I’ve always been a self professed, proud, book geek. As a child my favourite place to visit was our local library and every night I transported myself to new and exciting worlds, with just a flick of a page. Then, one rainy Sunday afternoon, when I was fifteen, I picked up a copy of Rider’s, by the author Jilly Cooper. I had to hide this one from my mother, who wouldn’t have approved. That cover, with the cheeky hand! By the end of the first chapter, I was hooked. I couldn’t get enough of the shenanigans of Rupert Campbell Black. Like a child given just one chocolate button, I craved more. You see, Jilly Cooper’s raucous romps set in the beautiful English countryside, are glorious. Her writing is witty, funny, romantic, corny, sexy and unputdownable.

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that one day I’d get to meet her. But guess what? I did! Brace yourselves, there’s no way around this, I’m going to have to get all boasty mcboasty for a bit….

You see it all came about because I was shortlisted for a BGE Irish Book Award in 2016, for The Things I Should Have Told You. I can’t explain how much that meant to me. But then, to top that, news leaked that Jilly Cooper was being honoured with a LifeTime Achievement Award and my giddiness levels skyrocketed.

On the awards night, holding Charlotte Ledger’s hand, (my gorgeous editor), we made our way to Jilly’s table. A crowd had formed around her, as other writers and publishing folk took their turn to say hello.

L-R, Carmel Harrington, Jilly Cooper, Charlotte Ledger

Finally she turned to us. I think we both curtseyed. I know I did. We were meeting book royalty after all.

I breathlessly told Jilly how much I adored her books, how I devoured them as a young adult, how loved she was here in Ireland, how much I loved her.

And do you know what she did?

She leaned down and kissed my hand, then said in that beautiful, terribly posh, lilting voice, ‘Oh you are heavenly.’

Me. Heavenly. Words that she would have used to describe beloved characters like Taggie. I shall never forget that.

I didn’t win an Irish Book Award on the night. But I didn’t walk away empty handed.
I met one of my heroines and she didn't disappoint one tiny bit. 
To rob her phrase, she was heavenly.

 Don't miss the rest of the blog tour!

Review for My Sweet Revenge by Jane Fallon

My Sweet Revenge by Jane Fallon
Publisher: Penguin
Release: 12th January 2017
Genre: Women’s Fiction
Source: Copy received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review




Synopsis:

"I want to make my husband fall back in love with me. 

Let me explain. This isn't an exercise in 1950s wifeydom. I haven't been reading articles in old women's magazines. 'Twenty ways to keep your man'. That couldn't be further from the truth. 

I want him to fall back in love with me so that when I tell him to get the hell out of my life he'll care. He won't just think, 'Oh good'.  
I want it to hurt.

Paula has had Robert's back since they got together as drama students. She gave up her dreams so he could make it. Now he's one of the nation's most popular actors. And Paula's just discovered he's having an affair.

She's going to remind Robert just what he's sacrificing. And then she's going to break his heart like he broke hers. It will be her greatest acting role ever.

Revenge is sweet. Isn't it?"

Review 
I’ve been hearing great things about Jane Fallon’s books for years so when My Sweet Revenge dropped through my letterbox for review I was so excited to give it a go. I’m an absolute sucker for stories about revenge and this book, true to its title, is one of the sweetest, most satisfying revenge stories that I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.

When Paula finds out that her husband is having an affair she has two options:

1.) Confront him, get a divorce, and watch him ride off into the sunset with his mistress

or

2.) Make her husband fall back in love with her before telling him to sling his hook for good

Paula has already sacrificed so much for Robert and their marriage, hurt and angry she decides that she’s going to show Robert exactly what he’s missing so that when she leaves she’ll hurt him like he’s hurt her. It’s time to give her darling husband a taste of his own medicine. After all, revenge is a dish best served cold.

My Sweet Revenge is the most entertaining book that I’ve read in a while. Paula is such an easy character to love and you root for her from start to finish. This book has so many twists and turns that it could give a thriller a run for its money! It’s an incredibly moreish read that I found myself returning to at any spare moment because I just had to know what would happen next.

The only thing that stopped this book from getting a 5 star rating from me was the fact that Paula lost weight to make Robert fall in love with her again. It’s a trope that I’m tired of seeing and made this book slightly less enjoyable for me personally. I’d much rather Paula have got her revenge staying exactly as she was, because even at her heaviest she deserved better than Robert.

That being said, I still thoroughly enjoyed My Sweet Revenge, so much so that I immediately went out and bought Jane Fallon’s Strictly Between Us after finishing this one.

My Sweet Revenge is smart and sassy women’s fiction at its best. Jane Fallon has a new fan in me!

Wing Jones Blog Tour: Photo No. 37 - Significant Life Events

Wing Jones is the much anticipated debut novel from Katherine Webber, publishing 5th January 2017 in the UK.

With a grandmother from China and another from Ghana, fifteen-year-old Wing is often caught between worlds. But when tragedy strikes, Wing discovers a talent for running she never knew she had. Wing's speed could bring her family everything it needs. It could also stop Wing getting the one thing she wants…

Katherine Webber was born in Southern California but has lived in Atlanta, Hawaii, Hong Kong and now in London. For several years she worked at the reading charity BookTrust, where she worked on projects such as The Letterbox Club which delivers parcels of books to children in care, and YALC, the Young Adult Literature Convention. You can find her on Twitter @kwebberwrites 

Throughout January, over 40 bloggers will be participating in the #WJphototour – a photo blog tour documenting Katherine’s path to publishing her debut novel. From childhood memories that inspired her writing to her time living in Atlanta and Asia that influenced the book to authors she’s met over the years right up to receiving her first finished copy of the book, follow along to see Katherine’s author life unfold! Keep an eye on the hashtag to see the latest photos!

Today I am so excited to be hosting a stop on the brilliant Wing Jones Photo Blog Tour! I absolutely loved this book, you can check out my review here for my full thoughts on it. Today's photo features three of my favourite authors and I am so excited to share it with you as part of this tour.

Photo No. 37 - Significant Life Events

I love a book launch. And I especially love a book launch for author friends! Getting to celebrate my friends’ successes is one of my favorite parts about being in this community. This was at Sara Barnard’s launch for her beautiful debut, Beautiful Broken Things. I love that book, and I love the idea of a Significant Life Event. Getting a book published is certainly one of my biggest Significant Life Events!

Make sure that you check out the rest of the blog tour stops here

Wing Jones is available to buy in all good bookshops across the UK now

Chasing Shadows Blog Tour

Hello everyone and welcome to my stop on the Chasing Shadows blog tour. Today I have a guest post from author T.A. Williams on writing a blind character.

T.A. Williams On Writing a Blind Character 

I’m not sure when or why I decided to make the main protagonist of Chasing Shadows blind. Normally with my books I can recall some seminal moment in which an idea occurred, but with this one, nothing. It just sort of happened. I think it makes the book a lot more powerful as a result, but, for a writer, it certainly threw up a load of unexpected problems.

Firstly, there’s very little body language or non-verbal communication that doesn’t involve the power of sight. Yes, there are squeezes on the arm, clicks of the tongue, murmurs of approval and whistles of surprise, but so much revolves around visual clues. In a story where one person is blind, there are no nods of the head, no shrugs of the shoulders, no knowing looks. In fact, as I wrote it, I found myself realising for the first time just how difficult it must be for blind people not just to find their way around, but to interact with other people. In Chasing Shadows, Amy, the blind heroine, reflects on this point.

Her mind strayed to the Welsh nurse. What was her name? Nicky? Jackie? She couldn’t remember exactly, but she recalled the occasion. It was when she was sent home from hospital. Or, more precisely, when she was sent back to a near empty house, echoing with the memories of her family who would never again share the house with her. The visiting nurse had told her the problems she was encountering with her boyfriend, Wayne or Duane or some such. 

Throughout the whole sad story, Amy had listened sympathetically, while deep inside her she would have given a lot for a Wayne or a Duane of her own. But when you’re blind - or at least recently blinded - there are very few occasions to meet Waynes and Duanes. And even if you ever did, the chances of them treating you as a normal girl are as good as non-existent. The chance meeting, the casual coffee, the proverbial glance across the crowded room were all things of the past. And as for a casual affair… Being visually handicapped, she had learnt early on, could also mean being physically handicapped in other ways.

The other difficulty that Amy’s blindness threw up as far as the writing is concerned, was the whole question of description. Luke, her companion on the journey, has to describe everything to her as they go along, and that includes such vitally important matters as where the toilet paper is situated in the bathroom and how hot the food looks. Of course, it also gave me the opportunity to imagine myself in the position of a blind person, using her enhanced senses to locate a car even though the engine is turned off, find a coal shed in a blizzard or try to determine what sort of wood a table is made of, by touch alone. It was a fascinating, and sobering experience and I am greatly indebted to Darren from local sight loss charity Devon In Sight for his input.

In the course of the book, Amy seeks to establish some sort of equilibrium in her life and to come to terms with her handicap. As I wrote Chasing Shadows, I learnt a lot about just what it means to be blind. So, next time you see one of those lovely Labradors wearing a hi-viz jacket walking down the road, spare a thought, and some time, for the person holding the reins. That person could be you.

 Don't miss the rest of the blog tour!

Review for The Dry by Jane Harper

The Dry by Jane Harper
Publisher: Little Brown
Release: 12th January 2017
Genre: Crime Fiction
Source: Copy received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review



Synopsis:

"After getting a note demanding his presence, Federal Agent Aaron Falk arrives in his hometown for the first time in decades to attend the funeral of his best friend, Luke. Twenty years ago when Falk was accused of murder, Luke was his alibi. Falk and his father fled under a cloud of suspicion, saved from prosecution only because of Luke’s steadfast claim that the boys had been together at the time of the crime. But now more than one person knows they didn’t tell the truth back then, and Luke is dead.

Amid the worst drought in a century, Falk and the local detective question what really happened to Luke. As Falk reluctantly investigates to see if there’s more to Luke’s death than there seems to be, long-buried mysteries resurface, as do the lies that have haunted them. And Falk will find that small towns have always hidden big secrets."

Review 
In the small dried up country town of Kiewarra Australia, three gunshots are fired on another blisteringly hot day. Three lives are taken and the smoking barrel is found next to the corpse of Luke Hadler, the husband and father of the other two victims. All evidence points to Luke Hadler killing his family before turning the gun on himself.

When policeman Aaron Falk returns to his hometown for his childhood best friend Luke’s funeral he can’t help but get caught up in the case, but Kiewarra is a ghost town of bad memories for Aaron after him and his father were run out of town many years ago when Aaron was a suspect in the death of local teen girl Ellie Deacon.

Despite being hounded by the locals upon his return, Aaron is determined to find out what really happened to the Hadler family, because in a town as desperate as Kiewarra everyone has a motive to kill.

The Dry was such an accomplished crime debut, Jane Harper’s writing is so vivid that I could almost taste the dirt and feel the heat of the sun on my skin as I was reading. The setting was so clear and vivid to me that it made the reading experience feel cinematic. The farming town of Kiewarra practically becomes a character in itself, it’s a place where desperation hangs heavy in the air making you feel like anything could happen.

The plot is incredibly well crafted intertwining the build up to the death of Ellie Deacon all those years ago and the fall out of the Hadler murders in the present day with effortless ease. Every character in this book felt so well developed with their own agendas and secrets which made me suspect everyone at some point or another.

Overall The Dry was an atmospheric and compelling study on what people are capable of when they’re pushed to the brink.

Review for Wing Jones by Katherine Webber

Wing Jones by Katherine Webber 
Publisher: Walker Books
Release: 5th January 2017
Genre: UKYA, Contemporary, Diverse YA
Source: Copy received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review



Synopsis: 

"With a grandmother from China and another from Ghana, fifteen-year-old Wing Jones is often caught between worlds. But when tragedy strikes, Wing discovers a talent for running she never knew she had. Wing's speed could bring her family everything it needs. It could also stop Wing getting the one thing she wants."

Review
Wing Jones was easily my most anticipated YA debut of 2017 so my expectations for this book were already sky high to begin with and yet I was still taken aback by how much I loved this book – it’s seriously that good.

The story follows Wing Jones, a biracial teenage girl with a huge heart and a loveable family. With a grandmother from China and another from Ghana, Wing doesn’t feel like she fits in anywhere and is content to stand in her big brother Marcus’s shadow cheering him on from the sidelines as he wins game after game as the star quarterback.

When Marcus is involved in a drink driving accident that kills two people and leaves him in a coma, Wing has to deal with her brother’s fall from grace in their community, her family’s mounting medical bills, and the possibility that her big brother might not wake up.

To deal with her problems Wing takes up running and to her surprise finds that she’s good at it, better than good. Wing started running to escape but as word of her talent gets out she’s suddenly the one thrust under the spotlight.

When a life changing opportunity presents itself Wing has to decide: does she continue to run away from her problems? Or find the courage to run towards her dreams?

Wing is one of the most inspirational young heroines that I’ve ever read about. Her voice is incredibly well written balancing the right amount of uncertainty and quiet inner strength of a young woman coming into her own for the first time. Despite not being interested in running in the slightest I connected strongly with Wing’s passion and determination, I’m sure that her story will spark a fire in the heart of every reader who has ever took the lemons life has handed them and made lemonade.

One of my favourite aspects of this book was Wing’s family life. Every character in this book sparkles in their own special way but none more so than Wing’s grandmothers Granny Dee and LaoLao. Despite coming from two different backgrounds and cultures the two women are more alike than they realize sharing a love for food and their family. I really appreciated this subtle and timely message from Katherine Webber on how we’re all more alike than different where it matters.

Wing Jones has sprinted on to the YA scene with a heroine whose heart leaps off the page touching the readers own. This debut novel about losing your way, finding your feet, and chasing your dreams is not to be missed!

5 Unmissable Books to Look Out For in 2017

Since October I have been working my way through the 2017 proofs that I've been sent and let me tell you, 2017 is looking great for books! Today I wanted to share with you five of the best 2017 releases I have read so far that you won't want to miss this year!

The Girl Before by J.P. Delaney
Publication Date: 26th January 2017
Synopsis: "Jane stumbles on the rental opportunity of a lifetime: the chance to live in a beautiful ultra-minimalist house designed by an enigmatic architect, on condition she abides by a long list of exacting rules.

After moving in, she discovers that a previous tenant, Emma, met a mysterious death there - and starts to wonder if her own story will be a re-run of the girl before. As twist after twist catches the reader off guard, Emma's past and Jane's present become inexorably entwined in this tense, page-turning portrayal of psychological obsession."

Why It's Unmissable - I'm a huge fan of psychological thrillers and this is the freshest, slickest thriller I've read for some time. The story is told in alternate chapters between Jane the current tenant of One Folgate Street, and Emma the girl who lived there before. One Folgate Street seems to have a presence of its own with its cold, minimalist style and odd set of house rules enforced by the architect who designed the house. As Jane and Emma's chapters become more and more entwined you can't help but wonder what happened to Emma? And is Jane destined to follow in her footsteps?

Wing Jones by Katherine Webber
Publication Date: 5th January 2017
Synopsis: "With a grandmother from China and another from Ghana, fifteen-year-old Wing Jones is often caught between worlds. But when tragedy strikes, Wing discovers a talent for running she never knew she had. Wing's speed could bring her family everything it needs. It could also stop Wing getting the one thing she wants."

Why It's Unmissable - I have been anticipating Wing Jones for the longest time and it surpassed my already very high expectations. Wing Jones has sprinted on to the YA scene with a heroine whose heart leaps off the page touching the readers own. It's a book about losing your way, finding your feet and having the courage to chase your dreams. This is the kind of book that makes my heart feel all warm and fuzzy whenever I think about it and I am already craving a re-read, it's that good.

This Is How It Always Is 
by Laurie Frankel
Publication Date: 9th February 2017
Synopsis: "Rosie and Penn always wanted a daughter. Four sons later, they decide to try one last time - and their beautiful little boy Claude is born. Life continues happily for this big, loving family until the day when Claude says that, when he grows up, he wants to be a girl.

As far as Rosie and Penn are concerned, bright, funny and wonderful Claude can be whoever he or she wants. But as problems begin at school and in the community, the family faces a seemingly impossible dilemma: should Claude change, or should they and Claude try to change the world?"

Why It's Unmissable - This Is How It Always Is is such a special and important book following Claude, a little boy who wants to be a little girl. It's a book about family, acceptance and having the courage to show the world who you truly are. I loved Claude/Poppy, I loved his/her rambunctious, supportive family and I loved the messages about living in the middle, not conforming and being kind. A timely book for 2017 and a must read for all.

Everything but the Truth 
by Gillian McAllister 
Publication Date: 9th March 2017
Synopsis: "It all started with the email.

It came through to her boyfriend's iPad in the middle of the night. Rachel didn't even mean to look. She loves Jack, and she's pregnant with their child. She trusts him. But now she's seen it, she can't undo that moment, or the chain of events it has set in motion.

Why has Jack been lying about his past? Just what exactly is he hiding? And doesn't Rachel have a right to know the truth at any cost?"

Why It's Unmissable - We've all Googled a new boyfriend, but what if you found something sinister? Something that didn't add up. Something they can't explain away. Something that makes them a monster. What if you were pregnant with his child? This is the situation our heroine Rachel finds herself in. This book kept me guessing throughout, I constantly felt on uneven footing and was never sure what or who to believe. Everything but the Truth is a brilliant psychological thriller that makes you question everything you think you know about these characters and asks the impossible question: how well do we ever really know those we love?

The Upside of Unrequited 
by Becky Albertalli
Publication Date: 11th April 2017
Synopsis: "Seventeen-year-old Molly Peskin-Suso knows all about unrequited love-she's lived through it twenty-six times. She crushes hard and crushes often, but always in secret. Because no matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her to woman up, Molly can't stomach the idea of rejection. So she's careful. Fat girls always have to be careful.

Then a cute new girl enters Cassie's orbit, and for the first time ever, Molly's cynical twin is a lovesick mess. Meanwhile, Molly's totally not dying of loneliness-except for the part where she is. Luckily, Cassie's new girlfriend comes with a cute hipster-boy sidekick. Will is funny, flirtatious, and just might be perfect crush material. Maybe more than crush material. And if Molly can win him over, she'll get her first kiss and she'll get her twin back. 

There's only one problem: Molly's coworker, Reid. He's an awkward Tolkien superfan, and there's absolutely no way Molly could fall for him. Right?"

Why It's Unmissable - I absolutely loved Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda so when I received Becky's new novel The Upside of Unrequited I had to read it straight away and dare I say I loved this even more than Simon!? Once again Becky writes with her trademark warmth and humor this time following Molly Peskin-Suso an overweight teenager who has fallen in unrequited love one too many times. When her twin sister Cassie finds the girl of her dreams, Molly is left behind, that is until Cassie sets her up with her new girlfriend's super cute best friend Will. But this time Molly isn't content to tag along in her twin sister's shadow. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to carve her own path in life, even if it means letting Cassie go. I loved every single thing about this book and know that fans of Simon vs will not be disappointed in this new offering from Becky Albertalli!