The House on Willow Street

The House on Willow Street by Cathy Kelly

Paperback, 464 pages

Expected publication: 13th September 2012 by Harper Collins

My shelves: abuse, arc-or-review, better-than-expected, blog-tour, chick-lit, christmas-books, coming-up-next, currently-reading, medical-conditions, read-in-2012, realistic-fiction

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Description via Goodreads:

Tess used to be happy with her lot: she lives in the idyllic Irish coastal village, Avalon, with her teenage son, Zach and nine-year-old Kitty, and works in the local antiques shop. Her only regret in life is that everything went so horribly wrong with her first love. Then her marriage falls apart and her first love returns to Avalon.

Suki, Tess’s sister, fled Ireland years ago to marry politician Kyle Richardon, but when Suki discovers that a biographer is planning to tell all, there is only one place she can go to ensure that her secrets stay hidden.

Danae is the village post mistress in Avalon and she’s worked very hard to make sure nobody knows where she came from or who she is… Her past is her business and that’s the way she would like to keep it.

In Galway, Mara sits with a smile glued to her face at a wedding; she only wants to ask the groom one thing: why did he tell her he loved her? Needing to put her past behind her, Mara packs up her life and gets ready for a fresh start.

Can these four women lay their pasts to rest? Or do they need to look back before they can begin to live for the future

Buy this book:

The Book Depository / Amazon (US/INT) / Amazon UK

My thanks go to Harper Collins for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is the first Cathy Kelly book that I have read, despite my mothers bookshelves being full of her books! I am always up for reading something a little different to my usual YA tastes, and it's usually nice to read something less 'dark'. I picked up The House on Willow Street, just expecting a quick, simple read. I have to admit that I was very pleasantly surprised when I was faced with a whole lot more.

I was intimidated by the prologue of The House on Willow Street - in a few pages, over 10 different characters were mentioned and I thought that I was going to get crazily confused! Thankfully, when the main story began, despite the multitude of characters, the book was very easy to follow. We follow four main characters, Tess, Suki, Danae and Mara who all have some connection to Willow Street. All of the characters connect in some way, directly or indirectly and it's nice to see how everyone ties together in the community. Everyone was very distinct and despite the amount of characters, they all felt individual, strong and well developed. Willow Street truly felt like a real, thriving village.

As I've said, all of the characters were very well written - they so obviously have a history and we get to explore this history with them as the story progresses. All of the characters are interesting and different, but one stuck out in particular for me and that was the story of Danae. I will not mention what the revelation was, but a when we finally got to discover the big 'secret' of her past, I was taken back - it just felt as though it all made sense, though it was shocking. For me, this added a whole other element to the book - something that made it so much more mature, more serious and effective. 

I really enjoyed each story and learning about each individual. Though a lot of the story is actually based around the Powers family and their old house, I was actually less interested in Suki than the rest of the characters - sometimes I found her sections a little long winded, but they weren't boring and didn't distract from the rest of the book. The relationships between all of the characters and their interactions were spectacular. Simply, everything about this book had a great sense of realism and it was so easy to connect with, come to relate to and love the characters.

Overall, I was shocked by this book, in the best possible way. This isn't just a piece of chick-lit, it is women's fiction with some very complex issues thrown in yet it is a feel good book in places. I am so glad that I finally got around to discovering this author and her talent... it's needless to say that this will not be the last book I read by this author. Strongly recommended.

Stacking the Shelves and Showcase Sunday (18)

Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews. Showcase Sunday is hosted by Books, Biscuits and Tea.

These memes are a replacement of The Story Siren's In My Mailbox.

Stacking the Shelves and Showcase Sunday make a place to showcase your new books,

whether you obtained them through the post or otherwise.

I received three adult/erotica books this week - They are With My Body, Bride Stripped Bare and Beauty's Punishment. I am really hoping to have some success with at least one of these books. I'd really like to read a well written book in this genre and so I hope one of these will be for me. I am also very excited to read Florence + The Machine: An Almighty Sound as I love her! 

I was very pleased to be announced as the winner of a giveaway in which I won a copy of The Blessed which looks absolutely fantastic. Thank you to Sam for sending me a copy!

What did you all get this week?

The Diary of a Submissive

The Diary of a Submissive by Sophie Morgan

Paperback, 320 pages

Published 30th August 2012 by Penguin

My shelves: arc-or-review, books-i-own, currently-reading, disliked, erotica, memoirs-biographies-etc, non-fiction, read-in-2012

My rating: 1.5 of 5 stars

Description via Goodreads:

Sophie Morgan is an independent woman in her thirties with a successful journalism career. Intelligent, witty and sarcastic, she could be the girl next door. Except that Sophie is a submissive; in the bedroom she likes to relinquish her power and personal freedom to a dominant man for their mutual pleasure.

In the wake of Fifty Shades of Grey, here is a memoir that offers the real story of what it means to be a submissive. From the endorphin rush of her first spanking right through to punishments the likes of which she couldn't begin to imagine, she explains in frank and explicit fashion the road she travels. But it isn't until she meets James that her boundaries are really pushed. As her relationship with him travels into darker and darker places the question becomes: where will it end? Can she reconcile her sexuality with the rest of her life and is it possible for the perfect man to also be perfectly cruel?

Racy, controversial, but always warm, fun and astoundingly honest this is a fascinating and thought provoking look at a seemingly paradoxical side to human nature and sexuality that no man or woman will be able to put down.

Buy this book:

The Book Depository / Amazon (US/INT) / Amazon UK

My thanks go to Penguin for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review.

Okay, I'll admit that I feel bad for giving a book such a low rating, but I don't do it unless I really don't like the book, and this was one of these books. I'm not a prudish person, I'm quite open and taboo subjects don't put me off, they interest and intrigue me. However, something about this book didn't feel right to me.

I went into this book with an open mind - in fact, I was excited to read it and to see what it was like. After the roaring success of Fifty Shades of Grey, I am sure that a lot of people will want to see what the BDSM lifestyle is really like. Sophie Morgan gives us a look into her life in this memoir, describing her life as a submissive.

The book opens with a very vivid description of the author and her partner on a street, with someone watching them. The scene is obviously meant to look very abusive, and it's successful in that way - it did seem abusive and to be honest, it did make me feel a little disgusted, there was certainly nothing appealing about  the situation to me, anyway. I understand that this was probably the point, but after reading that small section, I already wanted to put the book down. A lot of people do simply see this lifestyle as abusive and if you do, I really don't think this is a book that will change your mind. I do not find the thought of BDSM abusive, but I have to say that I did feel that at points in this book, Morgan was in a somewhat abusive situation.

Some people will enjoy this book and the insight that it gives you into BDSM relationships and lifestyles, but to be honest, I didn't learn anything new from this book. It's not to say I know a lot about BDSM, just the things that most people know. I was hoping to really get behind some of the thoughts and emotions, some of the issues behind this somewhat taboo subject and I was glad to see that Morgan was recognising some of the emotional issues related to acting as a submissive and acknowledging them, but I still would've liked to explore this further. Of course, to please those who are simply reading it for the sex scenes, there are lots of those - similar situations with a few different men. 

One of my main problems was that I simply couldn't bring myself to care much about Sophie. She is very defensive and full of contradictions which really infuriated me. Her insistence on labelling herself a feminist and grammar fascist were grinding - especially when on the next page the wrong your was used! I certainly didn't hate her, but the problem was that I didn't like her either - I couldn't connect with her in any way as I felt she was always trying to make herself appear to be above others, living some elitist lifestyle, which ironically she is making appear quite common.

Despite Morgan being a journalist, I wasn't impressed with the writing in this book and some of the language that she used in this book was anything but sexy - instead quite crude. As you may be able to tell, this isn't a book that I enjoyed nor was it one that I would particularly recommend. I don't regret reading this book, but it's not a book that will stay with me for any of the right reasons.

From the Review Pile (18)

From the Review Pile is a meme hosted by Stepping Out of the Page every Thursday.

The aim of this meme is to showcase books that you've received for review (or if you don't receive review books, any book that you own and really want to read/review) but haven't yet got around to reading, in order to give the book some extra publicity.

I know that a lot of you have a huge pile of books that you want to read/review, but it understandably takes a while to get around to reading them all - here you can give a book (or two!) some of the publicity that it deserves, even if you haven't read it yet!

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This week, I'm going to showcase The Raven Boys!

There has been so much hype surrounding this book and I really, really want to read it to see how I find it for myself. Unfortunately, I wasn't a fan of Shiver and Linger, but I'm hoping that this one will be better! I will certainly have to read this one soon.

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Paperback, 496 pages

Expected Publication 19th September 2012 by Scholastic

Blue has spent the majority of her sixteen years being told that if she kisses her true love, he will die. When Blue meets Gansey’s spirit on the corpse road she knows there is only one reason why – either he is her true love or she has killed him.

Determined to find out the truth, Blue becomes involved with the Raven Boys, four boys from the local private school (lead by Gansey) who are on a quest to discover Glendower – a lost ancient Welsh King who is buried somewhere along the Virginia ley line. Whoever finds him will be granted a supernatural favour.

Never before has Blue felt such magic around her. But is Gansey her true love? She can’t imagine a time she would feel like that, and she is adamant not to be the reason for his death. Where will fate lead them?