Shelley's Book Nook

☆☆☆☆1/2 ebook, 355 pages Expected publication: March 20th 2020 by HQ Digital About the Book: Orla is a trainee reporter with a five-year plan: work her way up the career ladder, move to London and secure a job on a big national newspaper. She doesn’t want a boyfriend, he’s only going to hold her back anyway. Aiden spends his life travelling the world and living in a tent. He knows his goal: to photograph animals and raise awareness of global warming and wildlife conservation. He’s definitely not looking for a relationship past the odd casual hook-up! So when Orla and Aiden’s lives collide, they do everything to not fall for each other – with the opposite effect. But they stick to their plans, and go their separate ways...Five years later, they meet again. With everything going on in the world because of covid-19, I really needed something light and fun to turn my frown upside down, and this book certainly did that! I loved reading about Orla and Aiden meeting, becoming friends a...

☆☆☆☆ Kindle Edition, 340 pages Expected publication: March 20th 2020 by Bookouture About the Book: All she wanted was the life they had. It is the day of Erin’s fortieth birthday party. Pink and silver balloons drift through her garden, the platters of food are empty and the recycling is overflowing with empty wine bottles. As Erin mingles with groups of family and friends, surrounded by love and laughter, she feels like the luckiest woman alive. She has no idea what fate has in store. Then a little red envelope lands on the doormat and everything changes. Inside is a birthday card from somebody she never dreamed would get in touch. Its message is a chilling reminder of the dark past that Erin has worked so hard to bury, a past that could put her precious family in terrible danger. Well, this one kept me guessing pretty much all the way through. I really thought I had it all worked out quite early on but, although I was partly right about some things, I was way off the mark with...

☆☆☆1/2 Kindle Edition, 265 pages Expected publication: March 18th 2020 by Bookouture About the Book: When Sophie’s life falls apart, she accepts an invitation from a childhood friend, Caroline, to visit her family’s beautiful beach house, situated at the mouth of an isolated cove, miles from the nearest town. The silence is broken only by the rhythmic crash of the waves against the jagged black rocks below. But when Sophie arrives, she finds her friend much changed. Caroline – who used to be so warm and confident – is secretive and on-edge, spending long, unexplained hours away from her family. And then there’s Caroline’s little daughter Lucy – who stopped speaking soon after they moved in. Caroline assures Sophie that it’s only a phase, but Sophie thinks Lucy looks a little uncared for, a little afraid. Then one night Sophie is woken by a scream and runs to find Lucy, out of bed and at the attic window, staring in terror at the view below. When Sophie goes to look, her blood runs...

☆☆☆☆☆ Kindle Edition, 368 pages Expected publication: March 17th 2020 by Minotaur Books About the Book: For more than two centuries, Winterbourne Hall has stood atop a bluff overseeing the English countryside of Cornwall and the sea beyond. In 1947, Londoner Alice Miller accepts a post as governess at Winterbourne, looking after Captain Jonathan de Grey’s twin children. Falling under the de Greys’ spell, Alice believes the family will heal her own past sorrows. But then the twins’ adoration becomes deceitful and taunting. Their father, ever distant, turns spiteful and cruel. The manor itself seems to lash out. Alice finds her surroundings subtly altered, her air slightly chilled. Something malicious resents her presence, something clouding her senses and threatening her very sanity. In present day New York, art gallery curator Rachel Wright has learned she is a descendant of the de Greys and heir to Winterbourne. Adopted as an infant, she never knew her birth parents or her lineag...

☆☆1/2 Kindle Edition, 354 pages Expected publication: March 16th 2020 by Bookouture About the Book: I was happy my husband died, but I couldn’t admit it, otherwise people might think I killed him. Before: Olivia knows she is lucky. She has a loving husband, Frank, an adorable son, Jake, and a beautiful new home. It couldn’t be more different from her childhood on the outskirts of Whitaker, dirt poor and dreaming of getting out. But at the end of long days with no one to talk to, always feeling like she’s not quite good enough, she starts to wonder if there’s a better life waiting. After: Everyone in Whitaker knows who Olivia is. She’s the woman who left her family for no-good Dane Miller—and the one who most likely shot him. Now, there’s gossip about her everywhere she goes, she’s too scared to leave the house most days, and she barely gets to see her beloved son. How can a perfect life fall apart so quickly? And, when you have nothing to lose, how far will you go to save yours...

☆☆☆☆☆ ebook, 331 pages Expected publication: March 10th 2020 by Amazon Publishing UK About the Book: She ran away from the truth, but she can’t run forever. Seven years after his sister vanished without a trace, Jude is on the road, determined not to return home until he has found her. He wants to reunite his broken family, but more than this he wants to know why Zoe left—what happened when they were kids, on that terrible day when everything fell apart. They’d been enjoying the funfair—grasping a rare moment of happiness following their parents’ divorce—when after a ride together, Zoe had stopped speaking to her mother’s new partner. Though Mandy believed he was the man she’d waited all her life for, her love for her daughter trumped even that, and soon suspicions of an unthinkable betrayal shattered the family. So finding Zoe would be just the start. If Jude can find her, then what happens next will depend on the story she’s been carrying with her all these years. Because when f...

☆☆☆☆☆ ebook, 393 pages Expected publication: March 11th 2020 by BooksGoSocial About the Book: Breeda Looney tells herself she’s happy with her life in a small Irish fishing village. Sure, there are days she talks to no one but the cat, her Aunt Nora considers her a waste of skin, and her panic attacks have become public spectacles. Still, what’s the use in complaining? Then Breeda makes a shocking discovery that flips her world upside down. Her father, said to have died when Breeda was a child, might actually still be alive. Breeda’s search for her father will strain her sanity to its limits, pitting her against her formidable Aunt Nora and threatening everything she holds dear. And as she digs up the family dirt to find him, Breeda will begin to wonder… has she taken a step too far? I loved this novel. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the description - certainly something a little quirky. I didn’t expect the depth of the emotions of Breeda Looney and how much I would root for ...

☆☆☆☆ ebook, 448 pages Expected publication: March 10th 2020 by Atria Books About the Book: Marie-Claire has just made the shocking discovery that her boyfriend (and business partner) is cheating on her. Reeling, she leaves her apartment in Toronto to travel home to Ireland, hoping the comfort of her family and a few familiar faces will ground her. She arrives just in time to celebrate her beloved great-aunt Reverend Mother Brigid’s retirement and eightieth birthday. It will be a long-awaited and touching reunion for three generations of her family, bringing her mother Keelin and grandmother Imelda—who have never quite gotten along—together as well. But then all hell breaks loose. Bitter, jealous Imelda makes a startling revelation at the party that forces them all to confront their pasts and face the truths that have shaped their lives. With four fierce, opinionated women in one family, will they ever be able to find common ground and move forward? I really enjoyed this book. Ev...

☆☆☆1/2 Kindle Edition, 325 pages Published March 3rd 2020 by Relay Publishing About the Book: Laurie Miller is left in utter shock when her husband vanishes without a trace, leaving her with a stack of bills she can’t pay. As the lonely days stretch into weeks with no reappearance or body resurfacing, the stay-at-home mom accepts a photography job from a former sorority sister, and current Instagram sensation, and returns to her Milwaukee roots—and the trauma she thought she’d escaped. Her college days left her with scars no camera can capture, and Laurie’s old OCD coping mechanisms creep in as she navigates the frightening new life of single motherhood. But becoming a personal photographer to a popular Instagram-Mom is helping Laurie provide for her daughter like any good mother should. She just never expected her daughter to become the center of so much attention. As the world of celebrity influencers feed her insecurities, Laurie realizes she’s not only lost her husband but now...

☆☆☆☆ ebook, 491 pages Expected publication: March 10th 2020 by Bookouture About the Book: When Jem writes to her ex Ben, it’s to explain everything. All the secrets she kept from him – from the little lies she’d sometimes tell about how new those shoes really were, or how many glasses of wine she’d had that evening… right up to The Big Thing that happened on the night that changed everything. But she never expects he will actually see what she’s written. She is just writing because she thinks it will help to get the words out. Later, she resolves, she’ll burn the letter, and then the past will be in the past for good. Because Jem is doing fine now. She’s busy: working, spending time with her best friend, and looking after her mother, who’s in remission from cancer. She’s even dating again and has just met a guy who she thinks she could actually fall for. At long last, Jem is really, definitely somewhere close to happy. But her mum finds the letter and thinks she’s doing Jem a favo...

☆☆☆☆ ebook, 345 pages Expected publication: March 3rd 2020 by Penguin Random House Canada and Hamish Hamilton About the Book: It's New Year's Day and the residents of a small fishing town are ready to start their lives anew. Leo takes his two young sons out to the lake to write resolutions on paper boats. That same frigid morning, Vera sets out for a walk with her dog along the lake, leaving her husband in bed with a hangover. But she never returns. She places a call to the police saying she's found a boy in the woods, but the call is cut short by a muffled cry. Did one of Leo's sons see Vera? What are they hiding from the police? And why are they so scared of their own father? In the months ahead, Vera's absence sets off a chain of reverberating events in Whale Bay. Her apathetic husband succumbs to grief. Leo heads south and remarries. And the cop investigating the case falls for Leo's ex-wife but finds himself slipping further away from the truth. I...

☆☆☆☆ ebook, 384 pages Expected publication: March 3rd 2020 by HARLEQUIN - Graydon House Books About the Book: Two years after Grace Kelly’s royal wedding, her iconic dress is still all the rage in Paris—and one replica, and the secrets it carries, will inspire three generations of women to forge their own paths in life and in love. Paris, 1958: Rose, a seamstress at a fashionable atelier, has been entrusted with sewing a Grace Kelly-lookalike gown for a wealthy bride-to-be. But when, against better judgment, she finds herself falling in love with the bride's handsome brother, Rose must make an impossible choice—one that could put all she's worked for at risk: love, security, and of course, the dress. Sixty years later, tech CEO Rachel, who goes by the childhood nickname "Rocky," has inherited the dress for her upcoming wedding in New York City. But there's just one problem: Rocky doesn't want to wear it. A family heirloom dating back to the 1950s, the dre...

☆☆☆☆☆ ebook, 349 pages Expected publication: March 6th 2020 by One More Chapter, HarperCollins About the Book: She had to be able to look back at this as a time that was sacred, magical. There would be pain enough later. Cass and Loll used to be inseparable. They met at university and they made sense, like two halves of a whole. They had planned their lives around each other, writing down their dreams in The Big Book of Our Life – the things they wanted to achieve, the places they’d go after they finished university. But then one night changed everything. Seven years later, Loll receives a letter from her old friend. The coming year will be the year they both turn 30, but Loll might be making it to 30 alone. Cass has cancer. She wants to know if Loll still has The Big Book as her dying wish is to do everything they had planned. Little does Loll know that there is one big difference: Veronica, Cass’s six-year-old daughter, will be coming with them. Time is ticking for Cass, who is ...

☆☆☆☆ Kindle Edition, 179 pages Expected publication: May 14th 2020 by HarperCollins UK and One More Chapter About the Book: What happens when a one-night stand becomes someone's last day on earth? Ivy Eames is a single mother struggling to get by. So, when her friends try to convince her to set up an online dating profile, she initially refuses. She doesn't have time to date; she's too busy keeping up with the bills and her troubled teenage daughter, Delanie. But that doesn't stop her friends from creating a profile for her anyway. Curious, and naturally shy, Ivy finds herself drawn to the idea of one-click-away companionship, and the ability to portray herself as a much more confident, attractive version of herself online. But what if this new-version of Ivy is out of control? When she wakes up with a stranger in her bed, she is traumatized to discover that he isn’t breathing. And when she pushes back the covers…Ivy has little doubt: someone murdered this man. But...

☆☆☆1/2 Kindle Edition, 214 pages Expected publication: March 5th 2020 by Aria About the Book: Verity seems to have it all. A beautiful home, two grown-up sons and a husband who has always been her rock. But one day, the doorbell rings. And it changes Verity's life forever. Saskia has nowhere else to go. Before she died, her mother left her with her father's name and nothing else. The only way for Saskia to take care of herself – and her unborn baby – is to find the father she never knew. And the family that didn't know she existed. This family secret means the end of everything they've ever known. But could it also be the chance for a new beginning? Poor Saskia, everything that can go wrong does go wrong for this young lady. Her mother dies leading to her finding out who her father is...maybe...as another man might be as well. Then she is pregnant and her boyfriend leaves her for a woman, and a job, in the U.S.A. Then there is a fire in the building she is living...