Mrs Cooke’s Books

Here is the Beehive by Sarah Crossan

Hello bookish friends! Today it’s my absolute pleasure to be sharing my #WhatsTurningMyPages review of Here is the Beehive by Sarah Crossan with you! ✨

Synopsis

Ana and Connor have been having an affair for three years. In hotel rooms and coffee shops, swiftly deleted texts and briefly snatched weekends, they have built a world with none but the two of them in it.
But then the unimaginable happens, and Ana finds herself alone, trapped inside her secret.
How can we lose someone the world never knew was ours? How do we grieve for something no one else can ever find out? In her desperate bid for answers, Ana seeks out the shadowy figure who has always stood just beyond her reach – Connor’s wife Rebecca.
Peeling away the layers of two overlapping marriages, Here is the Beehive is a devastating excavation of risk, obsession and loss.

My Thoughts

🐝

I adored Toffee when I read it last year so I’ll freely admit to doing a little scream when this landed on the doormat. I started reading almost immediately and I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN and after finishing it, I COULD NOT STOP THINKING ABOUT IT. Here is the Beehive really got under my skin.

🐝

I fell totally in love with Crossan’s poetic prose and being the theatrical nerd I am, actually found myself reading it aloud in parts: this book really is an immersive experience.

🐝

Pain screams out of the first sentences and we are battered by wave after wave of grief as we hear Ana’s story of her affair and it’s abrupt ending. This is a tale littered with lies that reads like a long, angry and rageful love letter. Regret and disbelief lace each line; sadness seeps from the pages and there is a quiet devastation in Crossan’s words that builds and builds and builds and then…

🐝

I held my breath as the emotions came crashing down with noise like a roaring tidal wave; and read through half closed eyes as the inevitable car crash unfolded. I was dying, cringing, horrified and mortified, yet Crossan pushed on and let Ana tighten the noose; push her finger on the self destruct button; forced her to flip that switch.

🐝

The drama! The stress! The anxiety! The palpitations! I finished Here is the Beehive with my breath held, my jaw dropped, my eyes streaming and my nerves jangling. Here is the Beehive is intense, explosive and stirred up a cacophany of emotions that at times were difficult to manage whilst reading. Crossan has created a powerful, poetic masterpiece and I am left stunned. What. A. Book.

🐝

Here Is The Beehive is out on 20 August in hardback And you can pre-order it here My thanks go to Amy Donegan and Bloomsbury Publishing for my beautiful finished copy.

Until next time! Have a wonderful day!

@mrscookesbooks

Goodnight World by Nicola Edwards and Hannah Tolson

This week we’ve been reading Goodnight World by Nicola Edwards and Hannah Tolson, together ✨

Synopsis

When the day’s at an end, up to bed we will go,

The sky becomes dusky and so the night grows.

When the bright golden sun sheds the last of its light,

We turn to each other and we say, “Goodnight!”

Learn how to say goodnight in a variety of world languages as you share this gentle rhyming bedtime read with your little one.

Our Thoughts

🌜

What a lovely looking book! The cover depicts diverse families who look ready for bed, under a dark and twinkly night sky, saying goodnight to each other in multiple languages.

🌜

Goodnight World is full of gorgeous bedtime illustrations, featuring families from all over the world going about their bedtime routines before saying “goodnight” to one another. My Littles really enjoyed pointing out familiar parts of their routines and discussing parts that were different to their own bedtimes.

🌜

With its lovely lilting, rhyming text throughout; Goodnight World is great to read quietly at bedtime. For us, this book is an absolute winner because the Littles loved loved LOVED repeating “goodnight” in the eleven different languages used in this book. Goodnight World is such a fun introduction to the different languages of the world and the inclusion of phonetic spellings ensured that Mummy and Daddy were pronouncing things properly!

🌜

An educational and beautifully illustrated bedtime must-read; Goodnight World is requested time and time again in the Cooke House and it is always a pleasure to read it.

🌜

Goodnight World is out now in paperback and you can buy it here. Our thanks go to Little Tiger Books for our beautiful review copy.

Until next time! Have a wonderful day!

@mrscookesbooks

The Revolt by Clara DuPont-Monod

Happy Friday Book Lovers! Today I’m excited to share my thoughts (as part of a blog blast) on The Revolt by Clara DuPont-Monod and translated from French by Ruth Diver.

✨

Synopsis

It is with a soft voice, full of menace, that our mother commands us to overthrow our father . . .

Richard Lionheart tells the story of his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine. In 1173, she and three of her sons instigate a rebellion to overthrow the English king, her husband Henry Plantagenet. What prompts this revolt? How does a great queen persuade her children to rise up against their father? And how does a son cope with this crushing conflict of loyalties?

Replete with poetry and cruelty, this story takes us to the heart of the relationship between a mother and her favourite son – two individuals sustained by literature, unspoken love, honour and terrible violence.

My Thoughts

👑

The Revolt begins with a great first line that really hooked me in to this story of an epic family feud, and of a formidable woman who was a feminist before there were even feminists.

👑

I was completely and utterly lost in the beauty of the language of this piece of historical fiction and was utterly transfixed by the menace and sheer power commanded by Eleanor of Aquitaine.

👑

This is a story of loyalty, cruelty and and honour and the relationship between a mother and her favourite son. Love, violence, volatility; The Revolt has it all and I’d really recommend it to anyone interested in this fascinating period of history.

👑

Thank you to Corinna Zifko, Quercus Books and Maclehose Press for the invitation to the blog blast and for my gorgeous finished copy of the book. The Revolt is out now and you can buy it here

Until next time! Have a wonderful day!

@mrscookesbooks

The Love Square by Laura Jane Williams

Happy Wednesday booklovers! I hope everyone is having a lovely week and not melting as there is a heatwave in the UK at present ☀️ .

Today I’m excited to share my thoughts on The Love Square by Laura Jane Williams!

✨

Synopsis

She’s single. But it can still be complicated…

Penny Bridge has always been unlucky in love.

So she can’t believe it when she meets a remarkable new man.

Followed by another.

And then another…

And all of them want to date her.

Penny has to choose between three. But are any of them The One?

My Thoughts

🟦

I was excited to read The Love Square because I was looking forward to reading something fun and funny, and whilst it was both of these (in abundance!), Williams hits the reader hard with a number of serious themes, including life after breast cancer, fertility, and the question of women starting a family without the pre-requisite of a relationship. It also has almost as many heartbreaking moments as it does belly laughs: This is not mindless chic lit (which of course there is nothing wrong with, but this isn’t it).

🟦

HOWEVER, I did for the most part find poor Penny’s predicament to be pant-wettingly funny and it was exciting finding out what (or who 🤣 ) was waiting round the corner at each new stage of her path! Warm, tender, and such a fun, feel good read; I really enjoyed this book and was sad to leave Penny and her friends behind.

🟦

The Love Square had me snorting and wheezing with laughter like a chain smoking Walrus – it was just brilliant and I loved it.

🟦

Thanks to both Avon Books and Sabah Khan for my copy of the book – The Love Square is out now and you can buy it here

Until next time! Have a wonderful day!

@mrscookesbooks

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Hello bookish friends! Today it’s my absolute pleasure to be sharing my #WhatsTurningMyPages review of The Midnight Library by Matt Haig with you! ✨

Synopsis

Between life and death there is a library.

When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.

The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren’t always what she imagined they’d be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger.

Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?

My Thoughts

📚

I’m a huge fan of Haig’s writing, so when I heard that he had some new contemporary fiction coming out, I just had to be one of the first to read it; and I was not disappointed!

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It is a well known fact in the bookish world that Matt Haig is a huge proponent of mental health welfare and wellbeing and his energy really shines through in The Midnight Library. BUT this is not a story of empty platitudes and cliches – you can look elsewhere for those. THESE pages are teeming with raw, honest, human emotion. They are plastered with a fixation on regret, and they sag from the weight of infinite decisions, however minute, and how they can can cause cataclysmic changes to any given situation and seismic shifts between hopes, dreams and aspirations and what you actually end up with.

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It’s rather difficult to review this book without giving too much away; but for Nora it begins at rock bottom and turns into what can only be described as a book lovers dream: a books about books! It is also a book which makes you think; providing headspace and written triggers for self evaluation and assessment. The Midnight Library really got me thinking about life and love and gratitude.

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Despite sobbing at only 20 pages in, Haig’s affirmative and wise words in The Midnight Library were the PERFECT tonic for me during #LockdownUK and I don’t doubt that they’ll continue to be a huge source of comfort to many others who are looking for an entertaining yet moving story to immerse themselves in. Haig’s valuable life lesson is delivered perfectly and succinctly and is particularly relevant in the challenging times in which we currently find ourselves.

📚

Uplifting, endearing and abundant in wonderful storytelling; The Midnight Library is a book that I’ll be telling everyone to buy.

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The Midnight Library is out on 13 August in hardback and you can buy it here. My thanks go to Canongate Books for my beautiful finished copy.

Until next time! Have a wonderful day!