View tag: Friday book review

Friday book review – The Queen’s Handbag

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Friday 2nd October 2015

The Queen’s Hat by Steve Antony was one of my favourite children’s books of 2014. I wasn’t the only one to love it either. Children were bewitched by the tale and it deservedly won Oscar’s First Book Prize, a prestigious new award launched by the Evening Standard. Now Steve has created a follow-up, The Queen’s Handbag, and it’s every bit as enchanting as The Queen’s Hat. This time round the ...keep reading

Friday book review – Soldiers’ Daughters

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Friday 27th March 2015

I loved Soldiers’ Wives, Fiona Field’s first book about army life, so I was thrilled to get my hands on the second. And I’m pleased to report that Soldiers’ Daughters is every bit as good as its predecessor. This time round Fiona Field focuses on two young army officers who on the face of it seem to have an awful lot in common. Samantha and Michelle are both motherless, were ...keep reading

Monday book review – Rock War by Robert Muchamore

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Monday 2nd February 2015

With their daring plots and larger than life characters, Robert Muchamore’s books have hooked thousands of reluctant young readers over the years. Former private investigator Muchamore wrote his first children’s novel after his nephew complained he didn’t have anything decent to read. Since then the writer hasn’t looked back – over the last 10 years his CHERUB and Henderson’s Boys series have sold million worldwide. The great news is that ...keep reading

Friday book review – The Life I Left Behind

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Friday 2nd January 2015

Colette McBeth is the TV reporter turned novelist whose debut thriller garnered a plethora of glowing reviews when it was published in 2013. I loved Precious Thing and the good news is that McBeth’s second novel is out this week. In less capable hands The Life I Left Behind could have been a confusing jumble of a book. The action flicks back and forward in time and the story is ...keep reading

Friday book review – Bears Don’t Read!

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Friday 31st October 2014

When it comes to children’s picture books Emma Chichester Clark beats the competition hands down. Her illustrations are exquisite and witty and make readers, young and old alike, smile.  I’ve bought loads of her books over the years and I can’t bear to part with a single one of them. Emma is a prolific artist and writer and this autumn she has two new books out. There’s the wonderful Plumdog, based ...keep reading

Friday book review – Daughter by Jane Shemilt

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Friday 3rd October 2014

Jane Shemilt’s route to publication is every writer’s dream. A GP and mother of five children, she studied for an MA in creative writing at Bath Spa University, was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish fiction prize in 2012 and saw her first novel, Daughter, published in August this year. But if that isn’t impressive enough, Shemilt’s novel immediately soared into the Sunday Times bestseller list. It is one of Richard ...keep reading

Friday book review – Animalium

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Friday 5th September 2014

My family owns so many books that every time we move (which is pretty often, I admit), the removal men take one look at our shelves and immediately start tripling the number of boxes they’ll need. The book collecting gene goes back a long way. In fact my father has probably got even more books than me, including an ancient set of Encyclopaedia Britannica volumes that I always used for my ...keep reading

Friday book review – The Third Wife by Lisa Jewell

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Friday 22nd August 2014

The first time I heard Lisa Jewell’s name was back in 1999. I was watching Late Review on BBC2 and the notoriously caustic critic Tom Paulin (one of my all-time heroes) described Jewell’s debut novel, Ralph’s Party, as “a breath of fresh air.” Tom Paulin’s approval was good enough for me. I hotfooted it round to my local bookshop the next day and read Ralph’s Party from cover to cover. ...keep reading

Friday book review – You Are (Not) Small

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Friday 8th August 2014

At 5ft 4ins tall, I’m used to being the smallest person in my family. My son, who’s a whole foot taller than me, has a tendency to pat me on the head when I’m talking to him and even when I wear heels the rest of them tower over me. So I was thrilled to be sent a copy of a gorgeous new children’s book called You Are (Not) Small. ...keep reading

Friday book review – A Place For Us

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Friday 18th July 2014

New ideas are spinning out of the publishing world at lightning speed. This week David Mitchell (of Cloud Atlas fame) has taken the Twittersphere by storm by releasing a short story called The Right Sort in 280 tweets. Meanwhile Headline Review has decided to serialise Harriet Evans’s new novel, A Place For Us, in four exclusive parts. The first instalment will be out on July 31, with the second, third and ...keep reading