I adored school dinners. No, really. Ok, maybe not the semolina with jam. But the rest I loved. The fish Fridays. The chocolate sponge and chocolate custard. My friend Teresa and I were even known to be brandishing a sign saying "leftovers here" on the very special days. Oh to have that sort of metabolism today.
Well this book is a terrific trip down memory lane, where you'll find an array of recipes that will fling you back a few decades. They'll take you back to your school days while also offering a murmur of modern flair.
From break-time bites ... View Full Review
For anyone going through the menopause, you know what a challenge it is finding the right balance of everything, as you are flung off your usual axis. Everything that has ever worked for you before, everything that you previously knew about yourself is off kilter and it's terrifying. As the brain fogs diminish who we are and we start to lose our hard-gotten confidence, we reach out, trying to find a new way forward.
Dr Linia Patel is a women's health dietician who works with women on a daily basis from her London-based clinic. Too many women in their forties ... View Full Review
The Life Impossible is the story of Grace Winters, a retired maths teacher, a crotchety old Brit from Lincoln, who at 72 receives a heartfelt reach out from a very lost ex-pupil. Maurice feels everything is impossible and unburdens himself.
This book is Grace's response. At 72 she had felt alone for more than 30 years, with a lack. A lack of feeling, a lingering sadness, anhedonia. She was just existing. Until Grace received a letter out of the blue bequeathing her a house in Spain for an act of kindness long ago.
"I can’t promise that my story will ... View Full Review
July 2003. It was a case that shocked the nation and shook their little town Carlsbad to its core. The Turtle Lake Teen disappeared from a party four days ago. Three 13-year old best friends had sneaked out to the party - but only two came home. Then hikers made a grisly discovery: the word LIAR on a tree trunk near the lake, scrawled in blood. And so it begins. A breathtaking rollercoaster of epic twisty-turny proportions. I've not read Victoria Selman before, but after All The Little Liars she goes firmly on my list of authors to look out for. ... View Full Review
Through Akilah's vibrant, fresh and eloquent pen, we meet her cast of characters dealing with a multitude of real-world, real-life challenges facing young people in London today. Following the Black Lives Matter protests taking place across the world in 2020, we dive into a selection of stories across a gamut of themes including Covid, love, loss, mental health, racism, grief, regret and friendship.
It's a beautiful, visceral read about equality, community, comradeship, galdem and mandem, sliding doors and about what could have been.
Friends from University united by how this country kills them in so many ways. The girls who bonded ... View Full Review
Clementine Monroe is in a bit of a pickle. Things haven't quite been going to plan for her lately. Her job, her home, her relationship have all come crashing down, thankfully her sisters are there, champagne bottles in hand to help her pick up the pieces. And pick up the pieces they do. Unleashing a decades-dormant break up spell to get Clemmie's life back on track, it works better than any of them could have expected.
Gee, Laura Wood, you absolutely nailed it. This is a humdinger of a holiday read, or a perfect pick me up. I wanted to ... View Full Review
Every year as I select my holiday reads, there just has to be one sizzling Summer thriller, and Our Holiday by Louise Candlish fitted the bill perfectly for my 2024 leave.
Set in idyllic Pine Ridge, a small coastal village off the South Coast, somewhere near Bournemouth it's THE place to be for well-heeled DFLs (Down From London) looking for their second home by the sea.
Charlotte, Perry and kids and Mango, their fox-red labrador arrive for their usual 4 weeks of bliss at their Cliff View home of fifteen years, to be attacked by the #NJFA (Not Just for August) crew, ... View Full Review
In the preface of this beautiful little book, Rodrigo and Gonzalo Garcia Barcha share a memory of their father in his final years suffering with huge memory loss. He said “Memory is at once my source material and my tool. Without it, there’s nothing.”
Until August was the fruit of one last effort to carry on creating against all odds, a race between his artistic perfectionism and his vanishing mental faculties.
Ten years on they ignored Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ judgement to destroy the book as with fresh eyes they realised what a feat it ... View Full Review
On the face of it Grace and Maddy had it all. The Stoll girls. Two sisters with a closeness most of us would dream of. Educated in an exclusive private school. Until we begin scratching beneath the surface and page by page we are enlightened. We uncover secrets. We find the skeletons in the closet. And with every twist and turn we find truths but are in the dark until the final page.
Maddy's portfolio for the writing scholarship was submitted months ago. In secret. Her parents didn't know she wanted to attend Trinity University. She was hopeful it would ... View Full Review
I remember my sister saying to me years ago when I was in the throes of toddlerdom that parenting a teen was a whole different level. I couldn’t comprehend it. Worse than the terrible twos? Never.
And then my kids hit the teenage years and I felt her pain. Her strain. Lordy, how did my parents cope with the four of us? How was I ever going to cope with our two?
As their needs flit between wanting to be grown up and yet still needing our support, teenagers veer wildly from one end of the spectrum to ... View Full Review
It was the Summer of 1979 in suburban Ridgefield in Australia when four-month-old Megan vanished. Her parents were at a dinner party in a neighbouring house in Wattlebury Court and when her father Frank went to check on her, the crib was empty. It decimated the family. It decimated the close-knit community. Their little slice of paradise turns sour. And you feel their pain, totally hooked on the sad story and their search for answers.
When the foundation set up in Megan's honour funds a podcast to investigate the case forty years on, the sands start to shift. Ruby Costa tells ... View Full Review
According to the Economic and Social Research Council middle age happens between thirty eight to sixty years old. At this halfway stage of your life have you ever wondered what happens to people to send them in different directions at the midpoint crossroads of life? Inspired by The Midpoint podcast which has now published more than 100 episodes, Gabby shares openly, honestly and comprehensively the pearls of wisdom she's gleaned along the way.
The Midpoint Plan covers topics from love and sex, midlife crises, mental health, sleep, ageing and beauty, hormones, style, alcohol, family and friends. Quite simply, it's an ... View Full Review
