Rhoda Baxter's Blog, page 15

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...

Book review: Crazy, Stupid Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams

Crazy Stupid Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams

I was delighted to see there was another book in the Bromance Book Club series. This time it’s Noah (the tech guy) and Alexis (who runs the Toe Beans cafe). As with the other books in the series, Noah is a (very reluctant) recruit to the book club. As always, the scenes where the guys are together are very funny.
The emotional themes in this book run quite deep. Grief being the main one. Seeing Alexis, who is a quiet but strong person, being rent apart ...

Book review: Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade

Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade

I spotted this was on UK Netgalley and requested an eARC . Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the review copy.

April Whittier is a geologist by day and fan-fic writer and cos-player in secret. She’s also fat. This is a major part of the her character (and her character arc). When she moves to a new job, she decides she’s not going to hide who she is anymore and posts a picture of herself in costume on Twitter. Predictably, the trolls come out to comment ...

Book review: A Lady Awakened by Cecelia Grant

A Lady Awakened by Cecelia Grant

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This book is delightful.

Martha has to be with child within the month, in order to save her house and the women who serve there. So she makes a deal with her neighbour Theo Mirkwood – infamous cad that he is. She will buy his services, every day for a month, in order to get pregnant. To her, it is a business deal. She will take no pleasure from it. To Theo, it’s a challenge to make her take pleasure from him.
For a book that’s about two people whose enti...