Review: My Friend's Husband - Rupa Mahadevan - June 2026 Pour yourself something warm, settle into your favourite reading nook, and let me tell you about the book that kept me up far too late this week. I'm thrilled to be part of the virtual book tour for My Friend's Husband by Rupa Mahadevan, organised by the lovely folks at Zooloos Book Tours. This one had me curled up on the sofa, blanket forgotten, completely unable to put my phone down between chapters. At its heart, this is the story of a woman trying to rebuild her life after years of bad choices and bad luck, finally given a fresh start by her best friend-  a job, a place to live, a reason to believe things could be different. Then her friend disappears, leaving behind only a frantic, unfinished phone call for help. The police think our narrator knows more than she's letting on. But she's certain the answers lie much closer to home, with the husband everyone assumes is simply a grieving, devoted partner. ...

Review: Sounds Like Love - Ashley Poston - June 2025 You know how there are just some authors you will always read, no matter what they write next? For me, Ashley Poston is one of those authors. Every single one of her books feels like it was written to be a movie, and honestly, I'd give anything to see them on the big screen one day. This little gem found its way to me as a bookstagram birthday gift from the lovely @nzbookfae, and what a gift it turned out to be. If I had to describe the vibe, I'd say it's a cosy mash-up of What Women Want crossed with Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist equal parts magic, music, and heart. We meet Joni Lark and Sebastian McKellan, two people who couldn't be more different. Joni's a songwriter quietly battling writer's block, and Sebastian's a singer with the whole world watching him. They're polar opposites, right up until a surprise Kiss Cam moment throws a spark between them that neither of them sees coming. Suddenl...

Review: Gone But Not Forgotten - Sabrina Jeffries - January 2008  You know how it is when you're scrolling through your Kindle at midnight, not really looking for anything, and then a title just reaches out and grabs you? That was me with Gone But Not Forgotten by Sabrina Jeffries. Something about it gave me immediate vibes of Nicholas Sparks' Remain wrapped in a M. Night Shyamalan twist - emotional, atmospheric, and quietly unsettling in the best possible way. Reader, I downloaded it immediately. Sunny is dead. Not in a tragic, drawn-out way  she and her husband are simply gone, the victims of an accident, and now she finds herself in that strange limbo between worlds, tethered to the living by one ferocious, unfinished piece of business: her twin babies. A mother's work, it turns out, is never done  not even from beyond the veil. Not while Sunny has a ghost of a chance. Her sister Honey and brother-in-law Bert step up as guardians, good-...

Review:  Junie B. Jones and Her Big Fat Mouth - Colleen AF Venable and Honie Beam -  May 2026 There are books you read, and then there are books that read you right back  cracking open a chapter of your childhood and handing it to you with a grin. Junie B. Jones and Her Big Fat Mouth, now reimagined as a full-colour graphic novel, did exactly that to me. Here's my confession: I was seven or eight years old when I first fell headlong into the world of Junie B. Jones. Barbara Park's junior fiction series was pure joy on a page ,  chaotic, hilarious, and narrated by a kindergartner with absolutely zero filter. I tore through those little chapter books like they were going out of fashion. Now, thirty-something years later, I find myself sitting down with the graphic novel adaptation and laughing just as loudly. Possibly louder. My family thinks I've lost the plot. Maybe I have, but I regret nothing. In this story, Junie B. has made one of her classic, spectacular blu...

Review: Chess for Babies - Levy Rozman - March 2026 I'll be honest with you: when this ARC landed in my hands, I laughed. Chess for Babies? My first thought was that it had to be a novelty gift , the kind of thing you buy for the chess-obsessed uncle who already has everything. But then I sat down with it, and I completely changed my tune. Levy Rozman  better known online as GothamChess, International Master and one of the most beloved chess educators on YouTube has done something genuinely clever here. He's taken a game that intimidates grown adults and distilled it into its purest, most joyful form. The board book walks tiny readers through the names of the pieces, the basics of how each one moves, and the concept of what it means to win. That's it. No openings, no tactics puzzles, no commentary about the Sicilian Defence. Just the beautiful bones of the game, served up in a format a baby can hold with both chubby fists. What makes this book work , really work  is the...

Review: Little Ghost's Summerween - Maggie Edkins Willis - April 2026  Little Ghost has attended his very first birthday party and decides he wants one of his own. His friend Anya gives him the most beautifully simple advice: the party should celebrate what Little Ghost loves most. And of course, what Little Ghost loves most is Halloween - bats, black cats, candy corn, pumpkins, the whole gloriously spooky lot. The small snag? It's the middle of summer. What unfolds is a genuinely delightful little story about identity, creativity, and the joy of refusing to be boxed in by expectations. Maggie Edkins Willis has a wonderful instinct for the interior logic of childhood like of course you can have Halloween in summer. Why wouldn't you? The solution Little Ghost lands on (a "Summerween" party) is exactly the kind of lateral thinking that picture books do best: it validates kids who feel like they don't quite fit the calendar of normal celebrations. The illustr...