Eilidh Reads

  I have followed Emma on Bookstagram for a while now and kept meaning to pick up one of her books, Guided being the most recommended starting point.  Guided follows Macey who is struggling after a girl in her Guide group died during a camp and as people are starting to ask questions about what really went down that night. This had a strong mystery throughout but felt like a good contemporary reflection of British teenagers and how guilt and grief can affect someone.  We follow Macey’s perspective throughout the story, jumping between the past, the night of the event and the aftermath of the death in the present. There are a couple of diary entries too. Being in Macey’s head was a really interesting way to hear the story because you get to see how she is affected by everything going on around her and how over the course of the story her mental health and perspective changes.  We see quite a wide cast of characters due to following multiple time periods. In the present we see Macey’s sc

  The Baby Plan By Emma Bennet follows Sophie who has just found out that her sister has died in a car accident and now needs to look after her sister's baby, Alana, whom she has never met before when Samson, Alana's father, turns up. They agree to have Sophie and Alana move in with Samson and they slowly but surely settle into a routine together.  I enjoyed this story and had a good time reading it, it was short, sweet and full of emotions. I enjoyed reading from Sophie's perspective and understanding how she felt throughout the story as well as seeing her feelings towards Alana and Samson develop and how much they most meant to her by the end of the story.  During the story, I would say the only characters that we see frequently throughout are Sophie, Samson and Alana, but we do see some of the friendships that are developed and Samson's family members which I really liked. I really liked it as we saw both Sophie and Samson develop as characters throughout the story,

  I have been working my way through Tricia Levenseller’s backlist and the first books by her that I picked up was The Daughter of the Pirate King and The Daughter of the Siren Queen so when I heard about this book I knew that I would have to read it, ideally straight away but that didn’t end up having for multiple reasons, however I did recently decide to finally read it and loved doing so.  Vengeance of the Pirate Queen follows Sorinda, Alosa the pirate queen’s most trusted assassin, who has been trusted to captain a dangerous rescue mission and when the King of the Undersea is awoken and wants to claim her, she realises just how bad of a situation her and her crew are in.  Tricia Levenseller is fast becoming one of my favourite YA fantasy authors and this was just as good as I anticipated it to be. This followed some great strong characters, some great pirating and a world I love to explore and I could not put the last 35% down.  Throughout the story we follow Sorinda’s perspective

  This is my second Hannah Bonam-Young book and after loving the first one I read this did not disappoint.  Next to You follows Lane and Matt who we have previously met in Next of Kin, and have a strong friendship. Lane has just bought a school bus that she plans to turn into a home with Matt’s help and even though they know they are both attracted to each other they also know that nothing more than friendship will work between them.  This book is a standalone companion to Next of Kin so you have no need to have read Next of Kin but takes place afterwards so if you want to read both it will spoil Next of Kin in a few different ways.  We follow Lane’s perspective throughout the story and really get to know her and understand what has happened previously in her life that has led her to behave how she does. At times it is hard to read and you wish that things had been easier for her but you do get to understand her and are happy with the way things start to change in the later part of the

  The Bookshop by the Loch follows Lexie who has recently gone back to her home town for a break from work to discover that the local bookshop is being sold and knows that she has to do something about it. Lexie decides to take on the bookshop as a trial for a year and see if she can turn it around, only to discover that an artist is determined to turn the building the bookshop is in into a gallery.  Throughout the story, we follow and get Lexie’s POV, but we also see a lot of Tobias, Lexie’s family and some locals from the town. I really liked the characters that we followed how their stories came together and how much of a focus on families that comes too. There are many reveals around these families but also many discussions about how important family is and what this means to the characters.  The stories were all engaging and I really enjoyed learning more about all of these different characters, especially Celeste’s past.  I really liked the Scottish setting of this book which is

  I may be posting this a month after I promised I would on my bookstagram but better late than never. If you want to see more of my immediate thoughts on this conclusion to a series I have been reading for years my booksta post is here .  The Eternal Ones is the final book in the YA fantasy Deathless series by Namina Forna which follows Deka as she discovers more about the world and who she is. We follow on quickly after The Merciless Ones ended with no major plot points happening in between. As with the previous two books, there are many content warnings that come with the story, it doesn’t have any new strong ones so if you have read and been fine with the previous two you should be fine but if you are new to the series then I would recommend checking them out.  Throughout the books we continue to follow Deka’s POV which works really well for the story as we discover so much and being in Deka’s head means we are kept in the know nd see how things and discoveries unravel.   Since we

  The Girls I’ve Been by Tess Sharpe is a YA thriller that I read a few years back now and really enjoyed, it was fast paced, had me hooked and characters that were easy to root for so when I heard this book was coming I knew I would need to pick it up.  The Girl in Question again follows Nora, Wes and Iris who we know from the bank robbery from the previous book but instead this time after graduating high school they are going on a backpacking trip in the woods when Wes’s new girlfriend gets kidnapped dure to a borrowed flannel. Most of this book takes place over about a week while the characters are in the forest but there are flashbacks to weeks and years previous.  This is a series I would recommending checking out the content warnings for as there are a lot of things discussed and it’s better to be safe.  I really like how this book is written, it’s not something I find in a lot of the books I read but I don’t think the story would work without it. Unlike the previous book we get

  I have been a massive Rachael Lippincott fan for years so every time she announces a new book I immediately know I need to pre-order and read it and that’s what I did with this one.  Pride and Prejudice and the City is a Pride and Prejudice retelling that primarily takes place in 1812 but also includes time travel and points in 2023. We follow Lucy and Audrey as Audrey finds herself transported to 1812 and has to figure out how to get back home along with both her and Lucy figuring out how to fall in love with the men they’re meant to. It is a YA love story both set in the past and the present with some fantastic scenes you would expect from a regency love story.  We get both Lucy and Audrey’s perspectives throughout the story and something I really liked was each chapter was dated for when it occurred which isn’t something I often see but it helps me understand the timeline and when a book takes place over 200 years it's nice to have.  Along with Lucy and Audrey, we frequently s

  Last week I reviewed In the Weeds so of course this week it has to be Mixed Signals. I genuinely love this series so much, and cannot wait for the last book even if it does mean I won't have any more to read. Mixed Signals is the third book in the Lovelight Farms series by B.K. Borison and this time we follow Layla who is the third partner at Lovelight Farms who owns and runs the Bakehouse and Caleb who used to be the deputy but was fired for being too nice. Layla never seems to find the right guys and Caleb can never get past the first date so they decided to do a month of fake dates to see what each can do better.  We get both Layla and Caleb’s POVs during the story which I always love in a romance book so we can see how it develops and who falls first, which is not new to the series and something that has made me love all the characters.  It was really nice to get to know Layla more after reading about both Beckett and Stella as well as seeing glimpses of her but not getting t

  I read Lovelight Farms at the start of this year and loved so was very excited to continue with the series of interconnecting romance novels based in the small town of Inglewild. In the Weeds is the second book in the Lovelight Farms series and it completely blew my expectations of it. There were so many things about these characters that I related to and was not expecting going into to the point where I do not know if I will love any other romance book as much as I did this one for the rest of the year. Once I have read Mixed Signals I also will 100% be going back and annotating this.  In the Weeds follows Evelyn, a social media influencer who is trying to find what makes her happy and Beckett, a farmer who can’t say no to taking in animals and has not been able to forget the amazing two nights with Evelyn in Maine.  We get both the perspectives of Beckett and Evelyn over the course of the story which I loved and felt like the best way to tell the story. At the start of the book inc

  Over the past few months, I have found myself active on bookstagram and adding many more books to my want to read list and one book I have repeatedly come across and found myself wanting to read is Out on a Limb by Hannah Bonam-Young so when I saw a different book by her up to request on Netgally I thought I might as well give it a go and I was not disappointed.  Next of Kin follows Chloe who has recently discovered she has a younger sister but to be able to qualify to be her kinship carer, she has to join with households with another guardian who just missed passing social services evaluation. When Warren and his deaf younger brother move in they initially clash but agree to put their differences aside for the 5 months until Chloe can reevaluate. This is a highly enjoyable romance book that I loved so much more than I was expecting.  At the start of the book I wasn’t so sure about Warren but I warmed up to him and loved reading about these two characters learning to get along and he

  Extra middle of the week book review today because why not. Noah Frye Gets Crushed is a new Middle Grade by Maggie Horne releasing on May 28th 2024 from Firefly Press in the UK (who I love as a publisher) and I was fortunate enough to get a free e-arc in exchange for an honest review through Netgally.  Noah Frye Gets Crushed is a Middle Grade contemporary story that follows Noah who comes back from summer camp excited to tell her best friends all about the new friend she made who is moving to their school but instead finds them discussing the boys they kissed and are crushing on. Noah feels out of place during these discussions and for potentially the first time that she doesn’t fit with Zoey and Luna so to combat this she pretends she has a crush too.  During the story, we see quite a mix of characters including Noah and her friends, her parents, her sister and Lydia who runs the animal centre where Noah volunteers at weekly. Noah herself felt like she was twelve and while at times

 I’m the sort of person always looking for new Christmas books to read and this one piqued my interest for many reasons and even with it being just after Christmas I still knew I needed to read it and see what I ultimately thought of it.  A Concert for Christmas follows Sophie, a primary school teacher, who is organising the Christmas Concert for her choir this year but soon enough disaster strikes and problems start to appear for Sophie to deal with all while coping with her past and a possible new budding romance.  While this is not one of my new top festive romances from this year it was still very enjoyable to curl up with and root for these characters. Our characters have gone through a lot and in many ways are still learning how to manage all that they have gone through as well as in Sophie's case organise this concert and for both Liam and Sophie care for those around them as much as they want to.  We follow Sophie who I really liked as a character, you could understand how

  Lovelight Farms follows Stella who owns a Christmas tree farm currently facing some issues, so she enters an influencer competition to try and win some money and publicity but on the application, she lies and says she has a boyfriend. Luca, her best friend of almost a decade, agrees to fake date her for a week. For most of the book we follow Stella’s perspective but there is the odd chapter from Luca’s perspective.  Along with Stella and Luca, we frequently see Beckett and Layla who also work at the Christmas tree farm and I look forward to learning more about them in their books. I liked the characters and enjoyed reading as they moved from friends to something more. There were a couple of things that I wasn’t a massive fan of surrounding the characters but it was a five star read and when surrounded by everything else they were easy enough to let slide.  I was a massive fan of the setting and just loved the Christmas vibes, I can only imagine that while they are based on different

  Carpe Jugulum is the final book in the Discworld Witches subseries and the last book with Witches characters I needed to read. We follow witches and vampires, and the chaos that comes with them interacting. Pratchett takes vampires and makes them modern, flipping everything everyone knows about them all on its head meaning no one actually knows how to deal with them. In Carpe Jugulum we follow the three we have come to know well Margrat, Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax but since Margrat is off Queening we also follow Agnes who has taken over Margrat’s cottage. Along with the witches we obviously see a lot of our key ‘vampyre’ family but also the Priest Mightly Oats and we are introduced to the Pictsies we love drinking, fighting and stealing cows.  I love Pratchett’s Witches and I think I always will but I also enjoyed meeting some fantastic new characters like Igor and seeing some I know from other books like  The Nac Mac Feegles. What I like about our Witches books is that we get t