Must Read Releases 8th February 2018
Morning all - A big day for releases again today so here is my pick of them!
(Adult General Fiction, SciFi/Fantasy)
Do you remember when you believed in magic?
It is 1917, and while war wages across Europe, in the heart of London, there is a place of hope and enchantment.
The Emporium sells toys that capture the imagination of children and adults alike: patchwork dogs that seem alive, toy boxes that are bigger on the inside, soldiers that can fight battles of their own. Into this family business comes young Cathy Wray, running away from a shameful past. The Emporium takes her in, makes her one of its own.
But Cathy is about to discover that the Emporium has secrets of its own…
A dark enchanting, spectacularly imaginative novel perfect for fans of Jessie Burton's The Miniaturist and Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus
It is 1917, and while war wages across Europe, in the heart of London, there is a place of hope and enchantment.
The Emporium sells toys that capture the imagination of children and adults alike: patchwork dogs that seem alive, toy boxes that are bigger on the inside, soldiers that can fight battles of their own. Into this family business comes young Cathy Wray, running away from a shameful past. The Emporium takes her in, makes her one of its own.
But Cathy is about to discover that the Emporium has secrets of its own…
A dark enchanting, spectacularly imaginative novel perfect for fans of Jessie Burton's The Miniaturist and Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus
How Your Stuff is Keeping You Stuck
(Non-Fiction, Self-Help)
Get to the Heart of Why It's So Hard to Let Go of Your Stuff
What's your clutter actually covering up? Once you're aware of the real issue, letting go is simple and decluttering can happen immediately. Using step-by-step instructions and easy-to-understand explanations, Tisha Morris shows you how to move into a new phase of life by ridding yourself of all that's holding you back. Everything in your home is an extension of your identity, and when you keep old stuff for too long, you get stuck in the past.
Clutter Intervention teaches you about the psychological, emotional, and energetic components underlying your possessions, making it easier for you to let go and live authentically. Discover ways to clear out items associated with your past relationships, jobs, and unhealed grief. Learn how to handle blind spots, common excuses, and overcompensation. This book isn't about living with less. It's about living in alignment with the life you want.
What's your clutter actually covering up? Once you're aware of the real issue, letting go is simple and decluttering can happen immediately. Using step-by-step instructions and easy-to-understand explanations, Tisha Morris shows you how to move into a new phase of life by ridding yourself of all that's holding you back. Everything in your home is an extension of your identity, and when you keep old stuff for too long, you get stuck in the past.
Clutter Intervention teaches you about the psychological, emotional, and energetic components underlying your possessions, making it easier for you to let go and live authentically. Discover ways to clear out items associated with your past relationships, jobs, and unhealed grief. Learn how to handle blind spots, common excuses, and overcompensation. This book isn't about living with less. It's about living in alignment with the life you want.
(Teen/YA)
Goodbye, Perfect is a beautiful and emotional contemporary YA novel, with a powerful friendship at its heart, by bestselling author Sara Barnard.
When I was wild, you were steady . . . Now you are wild - what am I?
Eden McKinley knows she can’t count on much in this world, but she can depend on Bonnie, her solid, steady, straight-A best friend. So it’s a bit of a surprise when Bonnie runs away with a guy Eden knows nothing about five days before the start of their GCSEs. And it's the last person she would have expected. Sworn to secrecy and bound by loyalty, only Eden knows Bonnie’s location, and that’s the way it has to stay. There’s no way she’s betraying her best friend. Not even when she’s faced with police questioning, suspicious parents and her own growing doubts. As the days pass and things begin to unravel, Eden is forced to question everything she thought she knew about the world, her best friend and herself.
Llewellyn's Little Book of Spirit Animals
(Non-Fiction, Spirituality)
When I was wild, you were steady . . . Now you are wild - what am I?
Eden McKinley knows she can’t count on much in this world, but she can depend on Bonnie, her solid, steady, straight-A best friend. So it’s a bit of a surprise when Bonnie runs away with a guy Eden knows nothing about five days before the start of their GCSEs. And it's the last person she would have expected. Sworn to secrecy and bound by loyalty, only Eden knows Bonnie’s location, and that’s the way it has to stay. There’s no way she’s betraying her best friend. Not even when she’s faced with police questioning, suspicious parents and her own growing doubts. As the days pass and things begin to unravel, Eden is forced to question everything she thought she knew about the world, her best friend and herself.
Llewellyn's Little Book of Spirit Animals
(Non-Fiction, Spirituality)
Explore the world of spirit animals and how they can guide you to live your best life. Llewellyn's Little Book of Spirit Animals is the perfect, pocket-sized tool to connect you to your spirit animals, whether they are lifelong companions or sent to deliver a single, specific message.
Spirit animals can help you feel more balanced, peaceful, and confident in everything that you do. This convenient, hardcover reference book features more than 200 entries for wild, domestic, and mythical animals, allowing you to understand what each one symbolizes, how it may appear to you, and how to best use its guidance and energy. You'll also find tips throughout the book and information on colour and element meanings for each animal.
Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson
Spirit animals can help you feel more balanced, peaceful, and confident in everything that you do. This convenient, hardcover reference book features more than 200 entries for wild, domestic, and mythical animals, allowing you to understand what each one symbolizes, how it may appear to you, and how to best use its guidance and energy. You'll also find tips throughout the book and information on colour and element meanings for each animal.
Piecing Me Together by Renee Watson
(Teen/YA)
Jade is a girl striving for success in a world that seems like it's trying to break her. She knows she needs to take every opportunity that comes her way. And she has: every day Jade rides the bus away from her friends and to a private school where she feels like an outsider, but where she has plenty of opportunities.
But some opportunities Jade could do without, like the mentorship programme for "at-risk" girls.
Just because her mentor is black doesn't mean she understands where Jade is coming from.
Why is Jade always seen as someone who needs help? Someone people want to fix?
But with a college scholarship promised at the end of it, how can Jade say no?
Jade feels like her life is made up of hundreds of conflicting pieces.
Will it ever fit together? Will she ever find her place in the world?
More than anything she just wants the opportunity to be real, to make a difference.
But some opportunities Jade could do without, like the mentorship programme for "at-risk" girls.
Just because her mentor is black doesn't mean she understands where Jade is coming from.
Why is Jade always seen as someone who needs help? Someone people want to fix?
But with a college scholarship promised at the end of it, how can Jade say no?
Jade feels like her life is made up of hundreds of conflicting pieces.
Will it ever fit together? Will she ever find her place in the world?
More than anything she just wants the opportunity to be real, to make a difference.
(General/Women's Fiction)
Munro House is the new start Stella needs. But it will also draw her back to a dark past…
Devastated by a broken engagement, Stella Jackson leaves her old life behind for a new start in rural Scotland. But when she arrives in the remote coastal village of Arisaig, nothing is what she expected.
At the edge of Arisaig sits Munro House; grand, imposing and said to be cursed by a string of tragic deaths. No less intriguing is its eccentric and handsome young owner, Jamie Munro, who hires Stella as his assistant while he pursues a seemingly impossible aim. Working through the great house’s archives, Stella soon finds herself drawn in by a cache of increasingly erratic letters from a young Victorian woman about her husband, Dr James Lockhart, a man whose single-minded ambition has strange parallels with Jamie’s.
Just as Stella begins developing feelings for Jamie, she discovers that the connection between the Lockharts and the Munros could have sinister repercussions for them both. She’s finally found the life she wants to live—but is it all an illusion?
See my FULL What I Learned Review of Beneath the Water HERE
Sunflowers in February by Phyllida Shrimpton
Devastated by a broken engagement, Stella Jackson leaves her old life behind for a new start in rural Scotland. But when she arrives in the remote coastal village of Arisaig, nothing is what she expected.
At the edge of Arisaig sits Munro House; grand, imposing and said to be cursed by a string of tragic deaths. No less intriguing is its eccentric and handsome young owner, Jamie Munro, who hires Stella as his assistant while he pursues a seemingly impossible aim. Working through the great house’s archives, Stella soon finds herself drawn in by a cache of increasingly erratic letters from a young Victorian woman about her husband, Dr James Lockhart, a man whose single-minded ambition has strange parallels with Jamie’s.
Just as Stella begins developing feelings for Jamie, she discovers that the connection between the Lockharts and the Munros could have sinister repercussions for them both. She’s finally found the life she wants to live—but is it all an illusion?
See my FULL What I Learned Review of Beneath the Water HERE
Sunflowers in February by Phyllida Shrimpton
(General Fiction, Teen/YA)
For fans of John Green and The Lovely Bones
Lily wakes up one crisp Sunday morning on the side of the road. She has no idea how she got there. It is all very peaceful. and very beautiful. It is only when the police car, and then the ambulance arrive, and she sees her own body, that she realises that she is in fact . . . dead.
But what is she supposed do now? Lily has no option but to follow her body and see her family - her parents and her twin brother start falling apart.
And then her twin brother Ben gives her a once in a death-time opportunity - to use his own body for a while. But will Lily give Ben his body back? She is beginning to have a rather good time . . .
A moving, startlingly funny yet achingly sad debut novel from a stunning new talent.
Lily wakes up one crisp Sunday morning on the side of the road. She has no idea how she got there. It is all very peaceful. and very beautiful. It is only when the police car, and then the ambulance arrive, and she sees her own body, that she realises that she is in fact . . . dead.
But what is she supposed do now? Lily has no option but to follow her body and see her family - her parents and her twin brother start falling apart.
And then her twin brother Ben gives her a once in a death-time opportunity - to use his own body for a while. But will Lily give Ben his body back? She is beginning to have a rather good time . . .
A moving, startlingly funny yet achingly sad debut novel from a stunning new talent.
(Teen/YA)
Every year on St Stephen’s Day, Wren Silke is chased through the forest in a warped version of a childhood game. Her pursuers are judges - a group of powerful and frightening boys who know nothing of her true identity. If they knew she was an augur - their sworn enemy - the game would be up.
This year, the tension between judges and augurs is at breaking point. Wren’s survival, and that of her family, depends on her becoming a spy in the midst of these boys she fears most and using her talent, her magic, to steal from them the only thing that can restore her family’s former power for good. But Wren’s talent comes with a price. The more she uses it, the more she loses her grip on reality and soon she’s questioning everything she’s ever known about her family, about augurs and judges, and about the dangerous tattooed stranger who most definitely is not on her side ...
This year, the tension between judges and augurs is at breaking point. Wren’s survival, and that of her family, depends on her becoming a spy in the midst of these boys she fears most and using her talent, her magic, to steal from them the only thing that can restore her family’s former power for good. But Wren’s talent comes with a price. The more she uses it, the more she loses her grip on reality and soon she’s questioning everything she’s ever known about her family, about augurs and judges, and about the dangerous tattooed stranger who most definitely is not on her side ...
(Romance, Women's Fiction)
Mia Flanagan has never been told who her father is and aged ten, stopped asking.
Haunted by this, she remains a dutiful daughter who would never do anything to bring scandal or shame on her beautiful and famously single mother.
So when Archie Fitzgerald, one of Hollywood’s favourite actors, decides to leave Mia his Irish estate she asks herself, is he her father after all?
That Summer at the Seahorse Hotel is a tale of passion, jealousy and betrayal - and the ghost of a secret love that binds this colourful cast yet still threatens, after all these years, to tear each of them apart.
A Battle Plan for Raising Heroes
(Christian, Parenting/Families)
Hey, Mama
This world feels like it's spinning faster every day.
This world feels like it's spinning faster every day.
This generation needs heroes of the faith and your child can be one of them, but that will require you to be strong and BRAVE. You and I must help them face the unknown future with divine confidence.
Brave Moms, Brave Kids is an equipping tool that will help you identify the qualities present in true greatness, reject "mommy fears" and replace them with immovable truth, learn strategies for praying for and training your children more effectively and develop seven key lessons we must teach our children to live for Jesus
Courage starts with you, Mama. If you're going to raise a hero, you must become a hero - because brave kids need brave moms. Let's do this, together.
Love,
Lee
Brave Moms, Brave Kids is an equipping tool that will help you identify the qualities present in true greatness, reject "mommy fears" and replace them with immovable truth, learn strategies for praying for and training your children more effectively and develop seven key lessons we must teach our children to live for Jesus
Courage starts with you, Mama. If you're going to raise a hero, you must become a hero - because brave kids need brave moms. Let's do this, together.
Love,
Lee
(Romance)
He's always been a haven:
For the lost. The sick. The injured.
But when a hunted woman takes shelter in his arms, this gentle giant swears he'll do more than heal her battered spirit - he'll defend her with his life.
K9 Officer Otto Gunnersen always had a soft spot for anyone in need. As Monroe's very own Dr. Doolittle, he dedicates himself to rehabilitating the injured souls that cross his path - but for all his big heart, he's never been in love.
Until he meets Sarah Clifton's haunted eyes. Until he realises he'll do anything to save her.
All Sarah wants is to escape a life caught between ambitious crime families, but there's no outrunning her past. Her power-mad brother would hunt her to the ends of the earth...but he'd never expect Sarah to fight back. With Otto and the whole of Monroe, Colorado by her side, Sarah's finally ready to face whatever comes her way.
It's time to take a stand.
For the lost. The sick. The injured.
But when a hunted woman takes shelter in his arms, this gentle giant swears he'll do more than heal her battered spirit - he'll defend her with his life.
K9 Officer Otto Gunnersen always had a soft spot for anyone in need. As Monroe's very own Dr. Doolittle, he dedicates himself to rehabilitating the injured souls that cross his path - but for all his big heart, he's never been in love.
Until he meets Sarah Clifton's haunted eyes. Until he realises he'll do anything to save her.
All Sarah wants is to escape a life caught between ambitious crime families, but there's no outrunning her past. Her power-mad brother would hunt her to the ends of the earth...but he'd never expect Sarah to fight back. With Otto and the whole of Monroe, Colorado by her side, Sarah's finally ready to face whatever comes her way.
It's time to take a stand.
A Psychiatrist's Guide to Nursing Homes, Dementia, and End of Life
(Parenting/Families, Health/Mind/Body)
Karen Severson, M.D., has spent the last twenty years as a Geriatric Psychiatrist wandering the halls of those dreaded destinations called nursing homes. She became mentally exhausted from watching people with Alzheimer's disease decline and suffer. She wrote about the unnecessary suffering caused by doctors, nurses, and families who are on totally different pages regarding end-of-life issues. She realised doctors tend to avoid these conversations and families can remain in extended denial of dementia. This book is intended to help families understand dementia and its associated behaviours in a down to earth manner. Dr. Severson uses a great deal of humour as not to scare people from the subject. She also discusses several other important issues, but mainly how we can better allow families to learn to let go of those with end-stage illness. Dr. Severson hopes to prevent unnecessary and potentially harmful medical interventions as well as allow more geriatric patients to die in peace
...and Other Confessions About Relationships, Reality TV, and How We See Ourselves
(Christian)
If there is one thing Lincee Ray has learned over the years, it's that the majority of women on the planet struggle with insecurities. Our skinny jeans mock us. Our just-trying-to-help mothers are just driving us crazy. Our social media feeds taunt us with everyone else's picture-perfect lives. It's enough to send you on a gummy-bear bender while binge-watching Friends reruns and not showering for a week. Lincee knows. She's been there. Right there, in fact. Gummy bears and all.
For every woman who's ever wondered if she's unlovable, uninteresting, or unattractive, Lincee offers her particular brand of hilarious (and hard-hitting) self-reflection. Like a true friend, she shows us that the fastest way to happiness is to embrace ourselves in all our imperfection, trust that God knew what he was doing when he made us, and maybe go buy a new tube of mascara. Walk alongside Lincee as she discovers that her identity is not found in her job, her relationship status, her bank account, or her social circle. It's found in Christ.
For every woman who's ever wondered if she's unlovable, uninteresting, or unattractive, Lincee offers her particular brand of hilarious (and hard-hitting) self-reflection. Like a true friend, she shows us that the fastest way to happiness is to embrace ourselves in all our imperfection, trust that God knew what he was doing when he made us, and maybe go buy a new tube of mascara. Walk alongside Lincee as she discovers that her identity is not found in her job, her relationship status, her bank account, or her social circle. It's found in Christ.
(Biography/Memoir, Historical Fiction)
When her parents marry off Kansas-born Nellie Belle to the ranch foreman, she never questions that motherhood will follow. But at the dawn of the progressive era, dissatisfied Nellie seizes an opportunity to move west and start a new life. Desperate to find a sense of self-worth, Nellie leaves behind her husband and son and takes her two daughters to the Northwest. She charges forward to become the first woman court reporter to travel the circuit in the region.
In small-town makeshift courtrooms and growing cities boasting new halls of justice, Nellie touches many lives: independent-minded lawmen, enterprising women, hard working immigrants, and a number of cads. But when her prodigal youngest returns home with a babe in arms, Nellie must do what she can to pull together the remains of her scattered family.
In small-town makeshift courtrooms and growing cities boasting new halls of justice, Nellie touches many lives: independent-minded lawmen, enterprising women, hard working immigrants, and a number of cads. But when her prodigal youngest returns home with a babe in arms, Nellie must do what she can to pull together the remains of her scattered family.
Using Transformational Art, Meditation and a Joyous Mindset to Face the Challenge
(Health/Mind/Body)
Combining the personal and the practical, this book mixes the author’s own cancer story with the tools she discovered and adapted to support her treatment.
Dancing with Cancer focuses on the creation of a positive and proactive mindset with which to face the specific challenges and stages of cancer. It combines the author’s own experience of using what she calls Thought Work (including creative self-expression, healing energy work and meditation) with conventional cancer treatment in order to connect her intentions for healing to the everyday reality of a diagnosis of incurable bone-marrow cancer. The book offers guidance and inspiration not only to cancer sufferers as they undergo the various stages of treatment but also to those supporting them, enabling them to understand better the experience of the cancer patient as well as the possibilities of mind–body empowerment.
Part 1 allows the reader to gain inspiration and reassurance from Judy’s personal cancer story, as well as put into practice her Thought Work suggestions, which include revelatory questionnaires and journaling, creative exercises (such as drawing healing mandalas) and guided meditations. Part 2 gives a more detailed description of the Thought Work tools, including instructions for setting healing intentions, for using mindful breathing and for cultivating an attitude of gratitude, as well as meditations for a range of cancer situations and step-by-step instructions for creating artworks. Throughout the book are examples of Judy’s own transformative artworks, which she offers along with the reminder that any creative self-expression can be healing – it is not the outcome but the physical process of doing that matters, enabling multi-level transformation.
Dancing with Cancer focuses on the creation of a positive and proactive mindset with which to face the specific challenges and stages of cancer. It combines the author’s own experience of using what she calls Thought Work (including creative self-expression, healing energy work and meditation) with conventional cancer treatment in order to connect her intentions for healing to the everyday reality of a diagnosis of incurable bone-marrow cancer. The book offers guidance and inspiration not only to cancer sufferers as they undergo the various stages of treatment but also to those supporting them, enabling them to understand better the experience of the cancer patient as well as the possibilities of mind–body empowerment.
Part 1 allows the reader to gain inspiration and reassurance from Judy’s personal cancer story, as well as put into practice her Thought Work suggestions, which include revelatory questionnaires and journaling, creative exercises (such as drawing healing mandalas) and guided meditations. Part 2 gives a more detailed description of the Thought Work tools, including instructions for setting healing intentions, for using mindful breathing and for cultivating an attitude of gratitude, as well as meditations for a range of cancer situations and step-by-step instructions for creating artworks. Throughout the book are examples of Judy’s own transformative artworks, which she offers along with the reminder that any creative self-expression can be healing – it is not the outcome but the physical process of doing that matters, enabling multi-level transformation.
I can't wait to read and review these books so watch this space!
Have a look at my complete list of Reading Lists.
Happy Reading!
Comments