KJK Reads

Rating: 4 Stars Themes: Historical Fiction, Short Story Thoughts: What a cute story for the creation of the friction match and also the origins of the Stockton International Riverside Festival (SIRF). I didn’t actually know that the friction match was invented in Teesside until I saw a display in the library and the local knowledge helps with some of the streets (though since I only shop there I didn’t know them all). I loved the idea of tying in the origins of SIRF as it is a beautiful celebration and added some colour to the end of the book. I also think it’s a great book to teach a little history and instill pride in their area to children too. Favourite Quote: “It is a restless river, the Tees - it always has been.”

Rating: 3 Stars Themes: Romance, Short Story, Found Family Thoughts: This is a cute short story emphasising the importance of found family over the case of a week. It seems like I’ve jumped in in the middle or at the end of a story so I think I need to go back and read more from the series but seeing the bakery come to life over the space of a week and the interactions between the friends that feel like family are a happy and cozy read. The cookie flowers as chapter breakers between days is also a cute touch. Favourite Quote: “I looked around at these faces - my people, my family. None of them were related to me by blood. I had spent most of my life believing that family was something that happened to other people something determined by birth, by luck. But this table proved otherwise. Family was a choice.”

Rating: 4 Stars Themes: Romance, Halloween  Thoughts: I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. I love Carlisle’s romances because they feel like they’re focused on a theme or aim alongside the romances, and this one is a fun one with a Halloween decorating competition. I’ve always loved Halloween and decorating for the holiday so it was fun to watch Lila and Grady construct the elaborate scenes. The small town element also feels relatable as someone who’s family is from small towns with everyone knowing everyone else’s business and I liked the banter between all the townspeople as well as Lila and Grady. I also loved Beetlejuice with the judgy looks and the perfectly terrible timing, he added an extra element to the romance.  Favourite Quote: “A good scare is a gift. It's the safest fear you'll ever feel. You scream, and then you laugh, because your body just found out the monster was foam, and for one second, everything that's a...

Rating: 4 Stars Themes: Thriller Thoughts: This book has quite an interesting story, the wintery small village makes an eerie setting for a murder as it feels more idyllic and romantic than violent and scary. Seeing the murder of Bakary through the murderers’ wife instead of the victim or the murderer themself gives the book a different feel and also leads to us as outsiders considering what we may have done in those circumstances. The crime itself is unsettling as there’s layers of race, and prejudice as well as crime and finances. It’s also interesting that the further into the facts of the case we go the more the murderer also becomes a victim of another crime. Reading the authors note, I didn’t know anything about the case before and I’m not sure how much of the book is supposed to be true to the real crime and how many are fictionalised to make the story up. Favourite Quote: “I don't know if we're all capable of killing with as much as savagery as you had. I still don'...

Rating: 1 Star Themes: True Crime  Thoughts: With such a plain cover I seem to have been tricked into reading an AI book. Davidson has written 523 books according to Goodreads and some have much more obviously AI covers. The format did seem a little repetitive despite being so short (but I’ve seen that in human writers covering crime cases too). It irritated me how often the book mentioned finding the boy's name and giving his name back but it never actually mentioned his name (Cairo Jordan) and even worse when looking into the case facts, it gets the cause of death wrong. The book keeps mentioning asphyxiation but all the news coverage on the case states an electrolyte imbalance being the likely cause of death. 

Rating: 4 Stars Themes: Children's Fiction, Alcoholism Thoughts: This is an amazing little book. Alcoholism can be such a difficult illness for even adults to understand so knowing how to explain it to children is especially difficult. This book does an excellent job of explaining in a child friendly and understanding way of both addressing the illness and counteracting children’s tendency to internalise the problems, reinforcing that it isn’t their fault and they don’t have to fix daddy. Favourite Quote: “So you are already doing something to help your dad. You have shown him time after time you love him, even when he is late or doesn't show up. He wants to be a better dad for you two, and that is going to be an enormous help in him getting better.”