Review: The Half Sister - Sandie Jones - June 2020 There are certain themes that will always pull me straight off the shelf, and this book had two of them: a secret sibling, and DNA testing. I'm a sucker for both, but the second one hits especially close to home. A few years ago, I did my own DNA test on a whim, never expecting it to lead anywhere. It ended up leading me to my dad's family , people we had no idea existed, uncovered after 65 years of not knowing. One test, a lot of late-night rabbit-hole searching, and suddenly a whole branch of family history opened up that had been hiding in plain sight all along. So when a novel promises a knock on the door and a DNA result that turns a family upside down, I'm already sitting down with a cup of tea, ready to be pulled in. That's exactly how The Half Sister opens. Kate and Lauren have their Sunday lunch ritual down to a comforting art , a tradition that's meant even more since losing their dad. It's the kind ...

  Review: Our Dream Home - Jessica Huntley - February 2026 You know those books you pick up on a quiet evening, maybe with a cup of tea in hand, and before you know it the tea has gone stone cold and you've missed your bedtime by two hours? "Our Dream Home" by Jessica Huntley is absolutely one of those books, and I am not even a little bit sorry about the lost sleep. At the heart of this story is Fiona, and I have to say from the very first chapter, I felt her. She is stuck in one of those ruts that creeps up on you slowly, the kind where your husband has somehow become more of a "world's greatest dad" performer than your actual partner, and your teenagers look at you like you're a mildly irritating piece of furniture. What makes Fiona's situation cut even deeper is the shadow of her past , having survived breast cancer and chosen a mastectomy for the sake of her family, she now finds herself quietly wondering whether any of it was even worth it. Th...

Review: Don't Open Your Eyes - Liv Constantine - June 2025 October has been a whirlwind—work deadlines, blog updates, and not nearly enough reading time. But when I found myself craving a thriller to shake off the stress, I stumbled across Don’t Open Your Eyes by Liv Constantine . I hadn’t read anything by her before, but the premise hooked me instantly: dreams that bleed into reality and a race against fate. We meet Annabelle, a woman whose life takes a surreal turn after she has a dream that feels eerily real. At first, she brushes it off as coincidence—who hasn’t had a vivid dream that lingers into the morning? But when the dreams keep coming, and the details start to manifest in her waking life, it’s clear something deeper is at play. Is she losing her grip on reality, or is this the same “gift” her Nana once had? The tension ratchets up when Annabelle dreams of a man—handsome, mysterious—and then he walks into her workplace. The dreams aren’t just symbolic—they’re premoniti...