Eilidh Reads

  I discovered Chloe Liese for the first time this year and have since May read her entire backlist and loved all of them. The Mistletoe Motive was no exception to this and another one I read within 24 hours.  Over the course of The Mistletoe Motive we get to know Gabrielle and Jonathan who have worked together at Bailey’s Bookshop for about a year but don’t find themselves getting along. They have recently learned that the bookshop is at risk of closing though and set a challenge of whoever sells the least books in December has to resign and through this challenge Gabrielle meets a new side of Jonathan that she didn’t expect.  This is a novella of under 200 pages so while going in I knew I love Chloe Liese as an author I wasn’t sure what I would think of it with it being so short and having less time with the characters. However I was not at all let down by this book and absolutely loved reading it.  Gabrielle was a character I connected to from early on in the stor...

  This year I have found middle grade and teen books quite hit or miss for me however The Highland Falcon Thief was definitely a hit and I look forward to reading more of the series. I was quickly invested and genuinely wanted to pick it up and keep reading.  In The Highland Falcon Thief Harrison and his Uncle Nat are enjoying the final journey of the Highland Falcon when a thief strikes and Harrison finds himself needing to investigate who this thief is before it is too late.  As I mentioned I haven't loved all the middle grade books I have read over the past year and often have found that I don’t want to pick up and continue reading them however it was the exact opposite of this for The Highland Falcon Thief. Going into it I was hoping to enjoy my read but nothing much more and I was really pleasantly surprised once I started reading it.  I really enjoyed meeting and getting to know both Harrison and Lenny, who Harrison meets on the Highland Falcon, during the stor...

 This was my fourth festive Sarah Morgan book and for the first 50 pages I was worried that I wouldn’t enjoy this as much as I’ve previously enjoyed her books, however there was no need for me to worry because I loved this and really wanted to keep reading.  The Christmas Cottage is Sarah Morgan’s 2024 Christmas release following Imogen who loves her job and by keeping herself busy she can keep her painful herself busy she can keep her painful history out of her mind. When Imogan realises she needs a break and her client Dorothy invites her to her place for Christmas it sounds like the ideal getaway until long-buried secrets resurface and Imogen’s peace is threatened.  One of my favourite things about this book is the family bonds and relationships that are featured. It was really nice to see how close Sara and Dorothy were throughout the story, you could tell that they were really close and wanted the best for each other even when the other didn’t appreciate it when they...

  Sarah Morgan is an author I have found I can always trust to write a festive book with all the Christmassy feelings that I can get lost in. The first Sarah Morgan book I read was Snowed in for Christmas in 2022 which I loved and have reread yearly since.  Snowed in for Christmas follows both the Miller siblings, Ross, Alice and Clemmie, who all have secrets they are trying to hide from their family and Lucy who is dealing with a Christmas on her own and potentially losing her job so is determined to get business from Ross. When she goes to deliver a proposal to his family home however she is mistaken for Ross’s girlfriend and by the time she can leave she is snowed in and stuck in Scotland with the Millers for Christmas.  There are so many parts of this book that I love and each time I read the book I find more things that I love and my enjoyment grows.  I love spending time with all of these characters and for different reasons too. Nanna Jean has to be my favouri...

 I am a massive fan of Bea Fitzgerald’s YA mythology books so will happily read whatever she publishes, meaning when she announced Then Things Went Dark I knew I would need to pick it up. I did however have slightly lower expectations for this book as it is not the sort of book I gravitate towards as much. That being said I did really enjoy my reading experience of Then Things Went Dark.  Then Things Went Dark is a thriller following six characters, Araminta, Isko, Jerome, Kalpana, Theo and Rhys, who are making their reality show debut on a desert island. But 3 weeks in twelve million people in the world are watching when Rhys Sutton dies, the day after he was the most hated man on television.  I was hooked into the story from page one by the format of the story, the plot and the very much unlikeable but interesting characters. Everything about this book was built up to be a really tense book that I was unable to put down.  In the conversation with Bea at the end of ...

  Throughout November and December I really really enjoy reading festive books so I am always looking for new recommendations. This year I discovered Zoe Allison who is an author based in Scotland writing contemporary romance books and I just knew that I had to give her a go over this festive season. The first Zoe Allison book I decided to give a shot was The Ex-Mas Holidays.  The Ex-Mas Holidays follows Maya who is shocked when she bumps into her ex, Sam, wearing nothing but a tiny apron as a waiter at her friend’s Christmas party. She also gets roped into working with him at the local ski resort and Sam may be exactly the distraction that Maya needs.  There were parts of the book that I really enjoyed reading. This included the Scottish setting, festive elements and characters who were just enjoyable to see.  As someone from Scotland I love reading books set in Scotland and the Scottish setting in The Ex-Mas Holidays was really well written. It felt like a Scottish...

 A Merry Little Christmas is the third book in Cathy Bramley’s Christmas series following Merry, who we have followed in all three books, and her best friend Nell who we have known since book 1. This year Merry is preparing for her new baby while also feeling terrified of being a mother and Nell is struggling with infertility and doesn’t know what to do after discovering something about her husband’s past that could change everything. I would recommend checking out the trigger warnings as infertility, death of a parent and pregnancy are all widely discussed throughout the story.  I would say that as the series has gone on the tone of the books has stayed consistently festive however the stories have gradually moved from fully romance, to part romance, part contemporary, to in this one a fully contemporary story. I have continued to enjoy them however my favourite is definitely book 1 and if it is a series you are considering becoming invested in I would bear in mind.  The...

  This year me and my sister decided to read and annotate a book for each other as a Christmas present and I picked Wild About You for her.  In Wild About You we follow Natalie who within the last year has lost her merit scholarship and gained a diagnosis of anxiety and instead of taking out student loans she decides to apply for Wild Adventures, an outdoor reality program. While this is not what she would typically pick to do, the scholarship money prize will massively change things for her but her teammate Finn is not currently being overly welcoming to her… Over the past year and a half I have found that with YA romance I need it to have something more that appeals to me otherwise I tend to not have a massively great time reading them. This was something that Wild About You had for me in a couple of ways with anxiety representation and an outdoor setting, which I hope will also work for my sister like it did for me.  I think that the anxiety rep was done really well th...

  I have wanted to read this book for quite a while now but just haven't gotten around to doing so. This didn't disappoint me in any way and I was desperate to see where it was all going to go over the course of the story. This book was creepy and had some unpredictable twists but was also an enjoyable read in many ways.  House of Hollow follows three sisters who went missing for a month as young children and now Iris's eldest sister, Grey, has gone missing again and it'a up to Iris and her other sister Vivi to find her and save her from whatever has taken her and maybe took them when they were young.  I don't think I have ever read a book like this before and I was a bit unsure going into it because I wasn't sure if I would enjoy the creepy, horror elements of it or whether they would creep me out too much. They weren't my favourite thing ever but I didn't find them to be anything like what I was scared to. I enjoyed the mystery part more and I will be ...

  Emily Henry is an author whose new releases I pretty much always read within a month of its release and Funny Story was no exception. I loved it and had a great time reading and annotating it.  Funny Story follows Daphne who was dumped by her fiance for his childhood best friend and has now moved in with the childhood best friend’s ex-boyfriend, Miles.  Emily Henry’s characters are always one of my favourite things about her books and this was no exception. Daphne and Miles were really interesting to follow and I was continually interested in learning more about them and seeing where the story was going to take them. I liked seeing Daphne grow and face more realisations about her life and what she wanted. Miles is probably also within my top 3 Emily Henry book boyfriends even if Funny Story doesn’t quite make the top 3. Once you understood Miles’s past that made his actions make sense it was amazing to see just how much he did for Daphne and how much she meant to him. W...

  I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book, it was a story I was anticipating having a good time with but I couldn't put it down and really really enjoyed.  Imogen and Olly were fantastic characters to follow, I loved learning more and more about them as the story went on and understanding who they were as people as they discovered more about themselves. We had a diverse cast that were both supportive of everyone and great friends. This was a book that celebrated joy and friendship and discovering who you are which I really loved. Not only did we have a large variety of characters who were a part of the LGBTQ+ community we also had disabled, neurodivergent and characters of different races, who had their own experiences which was something that was really nice to see. I connected to so many of the things Imogen felt about being neurodivergent and how that impacted her which was what pushed me to pick this up in the first place but wasn't the only thing about the book I ...

  I am a massive Katherine Rundell fan and have been for years so when she announced a new fantasy series I was so excited because I have not had new Katherine Rundell to read for I want to say 3 years and this didn't let me down.  I love fantasy, great characters and adventure so this had so many reasons that I would love it which is exactly what I did, love it. I started it a few months back and was planning on reading it with someone but that didn't quite work out and I hadn't gotten around to picking it back up however when I did pick it back up I was hooked and desperate to find out what was going to happen.  Christopher was a great character that I loved following and exploring a new world with. His reactions to the creatures and the questions he asked about them were the exact questions that I wanted to ask to learn more about these animals. The concept was a really intriguing one that has me really interested in the rest of the series that is yet to be released....

  Beg, Borrow or Steal is the third book in the Rome, Kentucky series by Sarah Adams and I think my favourite so far. This time around we follow Emily, the oldest Walker sister, whose nemesis and fellow second-grade teacher is now her neighbour Jack. And to make matters worse after accidentally sending her romance manuscript to her school’s principal he is the best person to help her get it back.  As I previously mentioned I think this may be my favourite Sarah Adams book yet for so many reasons. I especially connected to Emily as a character and just loved the plot and story that we follow.  I loved seeing more of the characters we met in previous books, both those who live in Rome and just create the chaos that is small town life and the couples who we have previously followed in this series. It is really nice to be able to continue to see these characters relationships develop after their books have finished and that was particularly true for Annie and Will in this boo...

  Pirates of Darksea by Catherine Doyle follows Max who's brother, Christopher, introduced him to the story of Captain Thorn O'Malley of the Stolen Sunrise two years ago. Now two years later Christopher, is stuck in hospital his latest treatment not working and getting sicker, and Max is offered the chance to visit Darksea and Captain O'Malley's ship, just without his brother.  I have read from Catherine Doyle's co-written teenage books before so was excited to read from her with a younger target audience and as a solo writer and she did not disappoint.  I was hooked from the prologue and could not put the book down desperate to know how everything would go for Max. I read it over two sittings in one day due to a prior commitment but if I had the chance it would have been all at once.  I loved nearly everything about the book, including the pirates, magic, adventure and characters. Max was an extremely likeable young boy who you couldn't help but root for and ac...

  Last year I read all three A Good Girls Guide to Murder books and loved them so I was excited to read more Holly Jackson and see what I thought of it.  I decided to read Five Survive over the course of a day as that is how the book takes place but instead of reading it overnight during the day and I managed it! I was hooked from page one and desperate to find out who was going not to make it out alive. The idea of everyone having a secret had me wanting to get to the end and find out what the shooter was after.  I loved many of the characters, I don't think I was meant to like the one I didn't due to his actions (and I'm not disappointed by his fate), and wanted them to get out safe and be able to continue to live their lives. I still have questions about some characters but I don't think I will ever get those answers and I'm fine with that even if I wish I did know.  Red was a character I constantly wanted to learn more about and as she learned more during the st...