13rebecca13's reviews
500 reviews

I didn't realise before I started reading this that it was the third book in a series and I wish I had read those first! I don't feel like I needed to but I always think it's adds more background to the story.

Cecelia is a wealthy woman who has a five month old baby with her partner Evan. She throws him out after having enough of his laziness when it comes to looking after their daughter Peyton and finding out that he is having an affair with someone at work.

Cecelia was previously married to Paul, who is currently imprisoned, and he has now reached out to her via letter. I believe the previous two novels focus more on him so I will definitely be going back and reading those!

Meanwhile, Lizzie is the nanny for the Johnsons who live next door to Cecelia. Their children are teens and preteens and Lizzie is fed up with their spoiled attitudes and how the Johnson parents treat her. She has been watching Cecelia, eager for a nanny job with her and is delighted when Cecelia finally contacts her offering her the role of Peyton's nanny.

I remember reading Favourite Daughter by Kaira Rouda back in 2019 and I loved it. I felt the same reading What The Nanny Saw. Rouda is fantastic at popcorn thrillers, I flew through the pages, gripped from the beginning. I love unreliable narrators and dark female characters, add the amount of tension and you have a great thriller. I would definitely recommend! 

I love when I read a book completely out of my comfort zone, it's a genre I wouldn't normally pick up and end up absolutely loving it.

The Fortunes Of Olivia Richmond is a gothic historical fiction novel which follows Julia Pearlie who takes a job at Mistcoate coaching a young lady, the titular Olivia Richmond, for a move to London. Upon Julia's arrival she discovers that the townspeople are quite afraid of Olivia, referring to her as The Witch of Mistcoate. She also has the ability to read tarot cards and has psychic abilities, holding séances and the like.

Julia Pearlie also has something that she has been hiding that happened in her previous employment that Olivia can see. Olivia is a wonderful character and I felt for her due to the behaviours of her father towards her and his "experiments" as he believed she was suffering from hysteria.

I know nothing about tarot cards and each chapter is titled after one so the glossary at the end was very helpful.

I really love the chilling and spooky aspect combined with the historical setting. It really made the whole book feel so atmospheric. This is one that will keep you gripped from the beginning! 

I listened to this on audio because I'd heard about it on BookTok. I have a love/hate relationship with BookTok and their recommendations but I am glad I listened to this one.

Lessons In Sin follows eighteen-year-old Tinsley Constantine who comes from a wealthy family and is expected to perform as her family sees fit, this means an arranged marriage with another business tycoon's son, resulting in the ultimate merger. 

Tinsley has been a little rebellious as of late and her mother enrolls her in Sion Academy of the Sacred Heart, a Catholic boarding school, to finish her studies.

Sion Academy is run by Father Magnus Falke. He is stern, devoted to his faith and, as we learn, has his dark reasons for becoming a priest nine years prior. Tinsley is determined to get herself expelled from the school and sees Fr Magnus as her way out.

Um, wow. This is a dark, forbidden romance and I would say don't go reading this if you are a devout Catholic. The plot was decent enough but those scenes between Tinsley and Magnus and the build up of their relationship is wonderfully written but performed incredibly by the narrators, especially J. Tipstone. I didn't know where the ending was going to go but it felt perfectly full circle considering Magnus's life prior to priesthood.

I am obsessed with Sophie Snow's books so I will read anything she writes, and although I thought the Santa thing wasn't for me. My mind has been changed. I feel like Rora. 

Twenty-eight year old Rora Stanley returns to her hometown of Wintermore after her best friend Noelle calls in a favour. Rora is a photographer and Noelle needs someone to take the photographs in the grotto at her family's toy shop. Charlie, Noelle's dad, usually plays the role of Santa but after an accident he enlists the help of his brother Henry.

Rora is very anti-Christmas while Noelle's family are the complete opposite and go all out for Christmas. But when Rora meets forty-seven year old Henry for the first time in his Santa attire, her mind might be changed.

I absolutely ate this story up and finished this novella in a matter of hours. If you're looking for a festive setting with an age gap/best friends uncle romance, this is for you. Henry is a dream of a man and I didn't doubt that for a second because I love all of Snow's male main characters but I absolutely adored not only Rora but Noelle too. I really love the friendships and family dynamics in Snow's books. It was fantastic in the Spicy in Seattle series and continues through in Naughty or Nice too.

If an author is going to include a trope that I dislike (keeping quiet as I don't want to give slight spoilers for the ending!) and still get five stars from me, then bravo! 

Get this on your Christmas TBRs. Oh, and the spice be spicing too.

This book has been all over Booktok and I had a little bit of FOMO. I'd heard the audiobook was good so I decided to listen to it whilst I read on my Kindle. I am very glad I did. If I was solely reading this book, I probably would have given it three stars but the narration bumped it up one.

Little Stranger is a taboo, dark romance between Olivia and Malachi Vize who have been raised as foster siblings. Please read the content warnings if you want to read it. I have zero triggers but even I had moments where I thought, "what the hell am I reading?" There are a lot of scenes that I felt were clearly written for shock factor and I did have moments where I thought the writing wasn't great and a bit cringey. There are some quite obvious nods to Haunting Adeline which I felt could have been changed more to differentiate.

As I mentioned, I'm glad I listened to the audiobook. Joe Arden added extra depth to Malachi, especially in part two, and there were a lot of comedic elements there. I felt his narration helped me understand his character more. All in all, it was entertaining and I will be reading the second in the series for sure! 

I have been a fan of Against Me! since about 2008 when I was little sixteen year old discovering punk music. (Evelyn was even my top name for my daughter but my husband was not on board, unfortunately!) I have followed the band's music, I remember Laura Jane Grace's Rolling Stone article announcing her plan to transition and live life as a woman and feeling utter delight watching (on YouTube) a video of her singing The Ocean for the first time as Laura in 2012.

I finally have tickets to see her play for the first time at the end of this month so I knew I had to read her book. I opted to listen to the audiobook, read by Laura herself. As a fan who already knew a surface level amount, this book was just wonderful. 

Taken from journal entries that Laura kept throughout her life, we hear about her childhood travelling around as an army kid, her parents divorce and when her thoughts of gender dysphoria begun. It feels as though there are two main focuses of the book that run parallel.

The first being Laura discovering punk music, her run ins with the police as a then teenage boy, realising an anarchist philosophy, which kickstarted the band Against Me! and the trials and tribulations when it came to touring, record labels, changes in band members, making money and being seen as sellouts in the punk scene. All the while, Laura is fighting these feelings of dysphoria, calling times when she would dress in women's clothes as "binges" and eventually coming to terms with who she is, sharing this with her family and bandmates when she is still trying to understand it herself.

It is a very open and honest memoir and very blunt in some ways. Laura does not shy away from sharing her honest opinions and thoughts but at the same time is very reflective of herself and her behaviours. As a fan, it was a really good insight into what was really going on behind the scenes.

Did I read this book in less than a day? Yes, yes I did. I just couldn't put it down!

This is the sixth book in the Castleby series and I have loved every one of them, so when I heard there was a Christmas one coming, I was very excited. I would recommend going back and reading the other books in the series because they are fantastic.

Griff Jones is returning to the seaside town of Castleby, following his mother's death. Griff has had a tough few years and is looking to start over. At the same time, Tess has been roped into coming to help her sister Lorraine at her restaurant over the busy Christmas period. Tess has had a couple of heartbreaks recently, plus leaving her stressful job as a nurse.

The two cross paths when Tess takes over the restaurant for an injured Lorraine and is in need of a chef. Enter, Griff. But when Griff starts receiving threatening texts and letters about something that happened in his past, culminating in attacks both on him and his house, he realises he needs to tell Tess, but how will she react?

One thing I love about the Castleby series, is that going back to them feels so comforting. Griff and Tess are new characters but are very much welcomed by the locals who we came to love in the previous books (I'm looking at you Foxy and Maggie!). 

This is a shorter book than the rest but I always enjoy the pacing, tension and guessing that Simpson delivers. I just love the mix of small town vibes with some crime that keeps you on your toes! 

I genuinely don't know how to put into words how much I love this book. 

I read Face Off, the first book in this series, back in May and I instantly fell in love with Maverick and Emmy, but also with Curto's writing style. I loved it so much that I then went and read her 'Love Through A Lens' series. I had built up so much anticipation and excitement for Power Play and it still managed to exceed my expectations.

Power Play focuses on Liam Sullivan who is the goalie for the NHL team, the DC Stars, and Piper Mitchell, the in-game reporter for the team.

As soon as I read the Author's Note at the beginning with regards to women in sport, I knew this was going to be special. Yes, it is a romance book with plenty of spice (bedroom lessons in this case and Curto writes these VERY well), but the tackling of important topics are always brought to the forefront too. Women in what are seen as "men's spaces" was a big part of this one and it felt refreshing to read about a man calling out another man's behaviour even when the woman wasn't there. Isn't that something all men should be doing?

At the beginning we very quickly learn that Liam is a bit of a grump with Piper being sunshine. She has however gone through a rough time with a divorce so she does have things she is hiding too. As time goes on you can feel the two change with each other in the most beautiful way. There is no 0-100 here. It is a really gorgeous natural progression with Liam really boosting her confidence and Piper bringing out something deep inside him that he didn't know he was missing. It is tender, it is emotional. I felt so many feelings.

Curto does characterisation like no other. I always feel like I know these people and it's enthralling. Not even just with Liam and Piper but the supporting characters too. It genuinely excites me to know that we are going to delve in on each person as the series progresses.

Liam Sullivan. Wow. I thought Maverick Miller in Face Off couldn't be knocked off the top spot but now I am unsure. Perfection with a little bow on top and I think I just smiled and swooned like a lunatic at my Kindle. If you like Liz Tomforde and Hannah Grace, you'll be blown away by Chelsea Curto's books.

I felt like I had a bit of FOMO with this book and I was super intrigued by the creepy drawings so I knew I had to add it to my October reads.

Mallory Quinn is a twenty-one-year old ex-addict who has been clean for eighteen months. She lands a job as a nanny for Caroline and Ted Maxwell through her sponsor who vouches for her.

The job entails looking after their five-year-old son Teddy during the summer before he starts school and Mallory lives in a renovated cabin in their grounds. Teddy has a tendency to draw unnerving pictures depicting some strange things and they get more and more detailed. Mallory knows there is no way a five-year-old is capable of drawing like this.

There are rumours that someone died in her cabin and Mallory is convinced that this woman is trying to contact her through Teddy.

I didn't know where this book was going to go. It is very much like a mystery with us following Mallory trying to piece together what the drawings mean. It went along at one pace for around 80% of the book then everything turned on its head for the last 20%. 

I love when I genuinely am surprised and don't guess the ending! The illustrations were absolutely fantastic and I love that there is a little interview at the end with the author and the two people who drew the illustrations too. It was a nice little behind the scenes glimpse.

This book feels part autobiography and part self-help but works so well. I think all men would do well to read this, especially the parts on toxic masculinity.

I have never watched an episode of The Only Way Is Essex in my life so I will hold my hands up and say everything I knew about Pete Wicks came from the press. I know - horrible. Pete talks about tabloids in this book! As a fan of MasterChef however, I became a fan of Pete's after he took part in the celebrity version because he seemed so genuine and nice.

I then followed him on social media and like everyone else, I love his persona and friendship with Sam Thompson.

This book starts with humour (and does have a lot of funny quips throughout) but it does get into some deep topics. It made me a little sad how Pete can be self-deprecating. 

He writes about his beautiful relationship with his nan, the effect that his parents divorce and dad leaving had on him, working in the public eye, his friendships (I remember tearing up when he surprised Sam in the jungle!).

I learned things about Pete. For example, I knew about his charity work with animals but not CoppaFeel, and that he hates the smell of Febreze in an Uber when he's hungover. Who knew? But I also had my eyes opened about aspects of my own life.

There is a chapter in this about a situation with his mum which brought me to tears. I have a twelve year old son, the age Pete was, and it broke my heart to think of a child at that age going through something like that. I don't know how he got through the narration of that for the audiobook. 

Kudos for lots of great helplines and resources at the end for those struggling. I know fans of Pete's will read this but I definitely suggest that those who don't know much about him or have a negative opinion of him should give this a read.