Kiki’s Epeolatry

 Hello! So, I know that it has been some time since I was last writing to you all. But I saw an email the other day and it really got me that I couldn’t not share my thoughts on it.  As we all know it’s that time of year again. The fairy lights are beginning to twinkle, the days and nights are getting darker and colder and we are all starting to look ahead to the next year. But what comes before next year? Well, the Goodreads Book Choice Awards of course. One of the biggest events in a bookworm’s calendar. But personally, I think the whole thing is an insult to the whole book community. Obviously, when I was younger I didn’t think any different to most bookworms. However, I have come to realise that it isn’t necessarily what is the best book of the year but rather a popularity contest. More so now than ever with the insurgence of ‘BookTok’. Honestly, I don’t think we will ever get a book worthy of the title ever again. It has become a pure vanity project. Take me back to the T...

I genuinely cannot remember the last time I picked up a book. It has been an overwhelmingly difficult time. But Forgive or Forget is the antidote I needed. It is quick-paced, thought-provoking and thrilling at the same time. And to top it off, it’s less than 300 pages. We follow the main character Alice, as the story weaves from the past to the present. Her motives and why she did the things she had done.  I must admit I wasn’t too sure of Alice at the beginning. Where we first see her and how she had to reintegrate into society. But the more the story progressed, I felt like I understood her and was cheerleading as a reader.  Friends, when you get the end of this book it feels like a whirlwind. The best kind. It was probably one of the best endings ever.  Everything about this book is unforced and flows so easily. I’m so glad that I have had the privledge to read and review this book. Thank you to LiterallyPR. I started this book as a non-believer, now I’m a convert. Rat...

SYNOPSIS Ben hears noises in his basement and witnesses weird goings-on in his local park. His eight-year-old daughter Imogen starts receiving messages from someone claiming to be her missing mother. And then there is Mr Jones —the man who haunts the imaginations of the children at Imogen’s school. But they are just stories, surely? Ben soon develops a creeping suspicion that someone is out to kidnap his daughter. Are his fears real or a result of his own stress-induced paranoia? REVIEW One of the main ideas that I have taken away from this book is how mind-bending and dark it is. It keeps you guessing until the very end. It keeps you up at night thinking about who the culprit must be, just like the main character, Ben. It questions your own sanity and how certain questions keep popping up in your head, such as who is Mr Jones? why is he doing these things? how can he be stopped? It is a never-ending cycle of trying to figure out what is going on the more that you progress into the boo...

  REVIEW Set in the height of wartime Emma is a qualified nurse who has moved to Singapore with her husband, Ernest and chronicles her life as she enters into a period of unease throughout the world. I have read a few books by Blackthorn, most as you probably would be able to see from this blog, but Emma’s Tapestry is wholly different from what I have read before. I enjoyed it immensely from the historical aspects of the world war to the Spanish Influenza. If you are a history buff maybe you should pick up this book and have a try. You might be pleasantly surprised of the effort of detail. One thing I did like about this tale is Emma herself. She has faced so much with a awful husband and her family background which wouldn’t have been welcoming of the time  , you can’t help but to admire her tenacity. What I love is the links of culture to the story itself, there are many things that I have learnt from this book. It is a history lesson of the things that we must remember and h...

  REVIEW I know what you probably are all thinking... a Christmas story at the beginning of April. What a weird idea to even be thinking of the winter holidays when we are just about to celebrate Easter. But the truth is why do we need a reason to think about one of the jolliest times of the year? Surely we don't need permission? The story follows Holly and her upbringing as a child to the present day as a ruthless tycoon in the logistics world. She has a perfect life, a great job and security. But with every rose comes a thorn... Logistics when delving into its many layers has a great amount of heart, acceptance and the joys that family can bring. Even though we are first introduced to a hardened Holly who has clearly dealt with so much already during her lifetime, she shows that with a little open-mindedness to the possibility of magic, anything can truly happen. This book deals with many themes from abandonment, how workers are treated and to none other than Santa himself. If yo...

SYNOPSIS It's been over a year since that night and Amani hopes that starting all over again will help her move on from the past. So, when she moves to a new city, Amani wants to focus on her new life, her best friends and the boy she's been crushing on but everything is falling apart and Amani finds herself looking for happiness in all the wrong places. Can Amani confront the ghosts of her pasts so she can become the girl she's always wanted to be?

  SYNOPSIS   The shark was beneath my bed, growing large as the room, large as the lighthouse, rising from unfathomable depths until it ripped the whole island from its roots. The bed was a boat, the shark a tide, and it pulled me so far out to sea I was only a speck, a spot, a mote, a dying star in an unending sky...  Julia has followed her mum and dad to live on a remote island for the summer - her dad, for work; her mother, on a determined mission to find the elusive Greenland shark. But when her mother's obsession threatens to submerge them all, Julia finds herself on an adventure with dark depths and a lighthouse full of hope...  REVIEW I have such an affection for this book. It is pretty perfect and not to forget the illustrations are absolutely stunning. There is not really anything that I can say which I didn't like. The only criticism is that I wish I had a book like this when I was a child because I know that I would have loved it. But really I don't think ...

SYNOPSIS  Behind every ordinary day, behind every ordinary story, there's an extraordinary one just waiting to happen... Two people. Simon Sparks hides in plain sight - his astonishing gifts locked deep inside himself, as he dreams of lost potential and extraordinary tomorrows. Jodie Brook hides behind what you think of her - a single mum who can barely make ends meet. But her dreams are filled with the education she wanted and discovering a better life for her and her son. One life. When Simon and Jodie's lonely worlds collide, it upends everything. But as it becomes clear they have so much to learn from each other - Jodie can show Simon how to rejoin the world, and Simon can help Jodie prepare for her greatest challenge yet - they begin to realise that life could be so much more. One ordinary day at a time...

 There has been a lot plaguing my thoughts for the last few months. Despite having quite a lot of things go off in my real life it seems like I’m still pulled back to the same thoughts about the book community. It is the one thing I keep seeing every time I log back into my social media and if I’m being honest, I’m not pleased. When did the book community feel so much like a kid's playground? To put into context it seems like there has been a great divide by what should be considered a good book. let me explain... If you read a book and think that it is amazing, brilliant, rate it five stars and give a good review. But what about the books that you really didn't like? Surely you should be able to give it one or two stars if you feel like this is required? Nope, this is blasphemy. According to some, this counts you as a coward. You should have stopped reading it as soon as you realised that you hated the book. Well, I'm sorry but I strongly disagree.  You can't really ca...

  SYNOPSIS When a scientist falls overboard during a storm he has an underwater encounter with an inexplicable phenomenon. This has a profound and devastating effect. He finds himself in an intimate relationship, not only with the inhabitants of a remote Island who rescue him, but also with the creature he encountered. It begins to pursue him with a vengeance and whilst trying to understand it, he discovers the legend of the Blue Man recounts similar experiences. The narrative swoops from our world to another, revealing the existence of other beings and their cultures. As we become more familiar with these aliens we learn that they are desperately trying to avert a looming disaster on their planet. REVIEW It has been a while since I have finished a book and I don't automatically have something to say. Just like this book, my thoughts have been on a slow burn. This is not obviously a bad thing but has made me think a little more about what makes this book a thought-provoker. It'...