Rhoda Baxter's Blog, page 15

Book Review: The Lost Girls of Foxfield hall by Jessica Thorne

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The Lost Girls of Foxfield Hall is a dual timeline story with part of it set in the present day, where Megan is trying to restore the overgrown maze behind the hall, and the other part set in WW2 where Eleanor is trying to take picture of the Green Lady (the ghost at the heart of the maze). The maze is dark and magical and one day Megan and Eleanor meet. When Megan later discovers that Eleanor went missing, just days after the time when she’d seen her, Megan has to unravel the mystery of wha...

Book review: Home on Folly Farm by Jane Lovering

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I’m a fan of Jane Lovering’s books, so when I spotted this on Netgalley, I immediately requested it.
Dora is a sheep farmer working the family farm in the North York Moors. She works hard and is scraping by. Everything changes when her spoiled sister and her equally spoiled son come to stay, bringing the son’s tutor with them. If all that weren’t enough, the tutor reminds Dora of someone she knew from her teens, where things happened that she’d really rather not remember.

There’s a lot abo...

What’s the difference between a manuscript critique and a beta read?

A few months ago, I wrote a thread on Twitter about how beta reading a book differed from a manuscript critique. It just so happened that I’d read three manuscripts that week. Two were books by established writers, which I was beta reading and one was a manuscript by a new writer, for which I was doing a critique/assessment report.

The two experiences were very different. The two beta reads I read quickly – reading them as a story and making the odd note to myself as if I came across some...

Book Review: Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

The Owens sisters come from a long line of witches. The both try to escape their prescribed fate by rejecting it. Gillian runs away with a man. Sally takes her two daughters and leaves to forge a ‘normal’ life. But normal doesn’t last.
I felt desperately sad for Sally. In all honesty, Sally and her younger daughter were the only two characters I really liked. That isn’t to say the others weren’t compelling -they were. This is a book about families and sisters and magic.
I didn’t know what to e...

Book Review: The Guest List by Lucy Foley

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

A wedding on a remote (and pretty scarily atmospheric) island off the coast of Ireland. A murder.
The book is structured so that we don’t know who had been murdered or how at the start of the book. We see the revelation of the murder and then we see the days leading up to the murder through the eyes of various people.
It’s wonderfully done. Clues are revealed about the problems and preoccupations of the various people in the wedding party until they all coalesce at...

Book review: Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn

I watched the Netflix show and immediately went out and got the book to read. So when I read it the characters in my head looked like the actors in the show.

This book is very Christmassy. Lily loves Christmas. Dash … does not. I loved the contrast between Lily’s upbeat and family orientated voice and Dash’s deeply cynical (snarly?) voice. When Dash finds a red notebook in his favourite bookstore he and Lily begin a correspondence that relies on n...

Silly Lego photos

If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ll know that I like to take silly Lego photos. Since I don’t have a new Christmas novella out this year and I feel I should do something, I thought I’d collect 24 vaguely Christmassy images and make an advent calendar of them.

I’ll post one each day on the Facebook and on Twitter. I’ll post the first one on the 1st of Dec tomorrow.

The post Silly Lego photos appeared first on Rhoda Baxter.

Book Review: Miracle on Christmas Street by Annie O’Neil

Miracle on Christmas Street by Annie O'Neil

Jess has left her much loved job because of a cheese-sandwich related disaster and has moved to Boughton just before Christmas. As she moves into her new house on Christmas Street, she discovers that the street has a living advent calendar – where each of the 24 houses in the close hosts one evening event in the run up to Christmas day. Everyone joins in, apart from the grumpy old man at number 24.

This is a charming story, where you get to know ...

Book Review: Boyfriend Material by Alexis Halls

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall

I picked this book up because I’d seen so many people talking about it. Plus, I love the cover.

Luc needs a very respectable fake boyfriend. Oliver wants someone to accompany him to his parent’s ruby wedding anniversary. It seems like a sensible arrangement for both of them.

I loved Luc’s voice. It was funny and relatable. I thought Oliver, the perfect man with host of insecurities, was adorable. Some of the secondary characters were hilarious (Luc...

Book review: Girl In The Walls by A J Gnuse

Girl in the Walls by A.J. Gnuse

I requested this on Netgalley based entirely on the title.

Elise is an orphan who lives in the walls of the house where the Eddie and Marshall live with their parents. The boys know that there’s something in the house besides their family, but their parents don’t take them seriously. Elise has managed to live there for ages, moving through the house by climbing down the spaces inside the walls. But as time goes on, the boys become more and more convinced th...