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Yesterday by Felicia Yap: Crime and Science Fiction in One Book

10th August 2017 by Gemma Leave a Comment

Yesterday by Felicia Yap

Summer 2016: I hear about a book written by a female author from Southeast Asia with a very interesting concept:

There are two types of people in the world: those who can only remember yesterday (Monos), and those who can also recall the day before (Duos). You have just one lifeline to the past: your diary. Each night, you write down the things that matter. Each morning, your diary tells you where you were, who you loved and what you did.

Today, the police are at your door. They say that the body of your husband’s mistress has been found in the River Cam. They think your husband killed her two days ago.

Can you trust the police? Can you trust your husband? Can you trust yourself?

Felicia Yap grew up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and studied biochemistry at Imperial College London, then earned a doctorate in history at Cambridge University. …

Subscription Box: Illumicrate August 2016 Unboxing

4th September 2016 by Gemma 4 Comments

In case you have been living under a rock this year, themed subscription boxes are now all the rage, and I’ll just direct you to the wiki page to read all about it.

Illumicrate is a book-themed subscription box curated by Daphne, who has established herself as a UK book blogger over at Winged Reviews. It’s a quarterly service, which I must admit is the basis of its appeal for me, since I figure she gets time to really source out which books are coming out to include in the boxes, as well as speaking to various creatives and independent retailers about bookish merchandise.

This is also my first ever subscription box, and I was very impressed with the contents! And so without further ado…

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From the Publisher’s Desk: The Girls

30th August 2016 by Gemma 3 Comments

Who has not heard of this book? Written by Emma Cline, her debut novel The Girls has been dubbed as the book to read this summer, and even the UK cover starkly reflects the idea of summertime — sun-streaked hair, loose summer dresses, and bright blue skies. One of the ladies from a book club I’m part of actually took it along as one of her beach reads!

Unfortunately, if your definition of a beach read does not involve cults and murders, then you might prefer to not bring this book along. On top of this, if your idea of a holiday read does not involve a lot of introspection and analysing and should, instead, contain quick-paced plotting, then I might suggest scheduling The Girls for another time.

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From the Publisher’s Desk: This Must Be The Place

17th May 2016 by Gemma 2 Comments

This Must Be The Place is the seventh novel by Irish author Maggie O’Farrell. Her novels are renown for their delicate exploration of relationships, whether it be familial or romantic, and her elegant prose adds more to the charm, making her novels well-loved by readers.

Unfortunately, I have been living under a rock — I have never read a Maggie O’Farrell novel before this one. The big initial sell of This Must Be The Place for me was that it involved travelling, and I was only too happy to delve into a book that contains my other favourite activity. The fascinating premise supplemented my interest: it purports to be a book that “crosses continents and time zones [..]” and “at its heart, [..] an extraordinary portrait of a marriage, the forces that hold it together, and the pressures that drive it apart.”

The primary characters are Daniel Sullivan, an American linguistics living in a remote corner of Donegal, Ireland, and his wife, Claudette Wells, a famous ex-actress who had disappeared from the public eye at the height of her popularity, and is since determined to live a hermitic life with her children. The novel details their present lives, their lives in their youth before they met, how their marriage came to be, and the challenge of keeping it together compounded by past history and personal demons.

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From the Publisher’s Desk: Shtum

6th April 2016 by Gemma Leave a Comment

Jem Lester is a former journalist and secondary school English and Media Studies teacher. Shtum is his first novel, and is a result of his experience of being a parent to a severely autistic son, also named Jonah¹. It is marketed as “perfect for fans of David Nicholls, and anyone who loved The Shock of the Fall, The Rosie Project, and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time². A friend who has read it sang praises about it, and even said it made her cry.

Everything in that previous paragraph actually made me feel disinclined to read this book. The only David Nicholls novel I’ve read is Us, and I wasn’t a big fan. I quite enjoyed The Rosie Project, but it was not heartbreaking, nor did I feel like shedding tears at any part of that book. I have not read The Shock of the Fall or The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time so I have a half-informed impression. Most of all, I know autism can be heartrending, and it is not a topic that I think of lightly. But read it I must, and with a reluctant heart, I soldiered on.

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