The Overflowing Library

July my favourite month of a the year! It's been a busy one but I have managed to get a few books in Books Read 109) Some Girls are by Courtney Summers 110) Downside Up by Hayley Long (British Books Challenge) 111) After Tomorrow by Gillian Cross (British Books Challenge) 112) First Term at Malory Towers by Enid Blyton (British Books Challenge) 113) The Last Letter from your Lover by Jojo Moyes (British Books Challenge) 114) The Night Itself by Zoe Marriott (British Books Challenge) 115) Half Lives by Sara Grant (British Books Challenge) 116) Carnaby by Cate Sampson (British Books Challenge) 117) Dead Jealous by Sharon Jones (British Books Challenge) 118) The Evil Gazebo by Bernie Mojzes 119) Firefly: A Celebration by Joss Whedon 120) Dirty Little Secret by Jennifer Echols 121) Faking it by Cora Carmack 122) The Killing Woods by Lucy Christopher (British Books Challenge) 123) Have a Little Faith by Candy Harper (British Books Challenge) 124) Little White Lies by ...

Even in the darkest of times— especially in the darkest of times—there is room for strength and bravery. A remarkable memoir from Leon Leyson, one of the youngest children to survive the Holocaust on Oskar Schindler’s list. Leon Leyson (born Leib Lezjon) was only ten years old when the Nazis invaded Poland and his family was forced to relocate to the Krakow ghetto. With incredible luck, perseverance, and grit, Leyson was able to survive the sadism of the Nazis, including that of the demonic Amon Goeth, commandant of Plaszow, the concentration camp outside Krakow. Ultimately, it was the generosity and cunning of one man, a man named Oskar Schindler, who saved Leon Leyson’s life, and the lives of his mother, his father, and two of his four siblings, by adding their names to his list of workers in his factory—a list that became world renowned: Schindler’s List. This, the only memoir published by a former Schindler’s List child, perfectly captures the innocence of a small...

Flynn is making every effort to stay in control of his hot temper, while River feels more content than she's ever been. Together the two of them make big plans for the future, but powerful secrets lurk in the shadows, ready to threaten their happiness. My thoughts A very short review on this one because I don't have huge amount to say. The book is written in classic Sophie McKenzie style meaning it was easy and fast to get through as it flowed quite happily from one page to the next and I found myself done with in within a matter of hours. This particular instalment carries on with the story established in book one and two of River and Flynn and sees them struggling to have their relationship accepted by those around them. I must admit in this instalment I started to see the point of those around River telling her to stay away from Flynn and I did find I didn't actually like him at all in this book. I found him quite arrogant and bit too full of it which ...

Welcome to No Books Allowed. This is a new monthly feature for me hosted by Raimy from Readaraptor , which is used to discuss things things in life which aren't connected to books. This post can be used to talk about days out, music, TV, video games, films etc for all those book bloggers out there who do occasionally do stuff other than read and go to book events! July is always my favourite month of the year. I always have loads going on during it but it's always all brilliant stuff. Work School broke up yesterday. I cannot tell you how much I needed term to be over. It's been a weird year for me having had the best part of a term off but it was still manic . I now have six weeks to cram in all the things I haven't had the chance to do yet this year like sorting out the house , catching up on my reading pile and eating lots of icecream on the beach. I spent a week this month in Bude on a school trip. It was exhausting but all kinds of fabulous as th...

Meet Rochelle Evans: pretty, popular--and never been kissed. Meet Noah Flynn: badass, volatile--and a total player. And also Elle's best friend's older brother... When Elle decides to run a kissing booth for the school's Spring Carnival, she locks lips with Noah and her life is turned upside down. Her head says to keep away, but her heart wants to draw closer--this romance seems far from fairy tale and headed for heartbreak. But will Elle get her happily ever after? My Thoughts I'll put my hands up now and say my rating is probably more due to my current reading mood which has been a little bit faddy of late. The kissing booth is a nice effort at a YA  novel. The story revolves around good girl Elle and the romance between her and Bad Boy Noah who also happened to be Elle's best friend's elder brother. The story was nice enough and easy to read meaning I finished in in a few hours. Noah was indeed quite hot and the romance between the two o...

I moved from the UK to Los Angeles a couple of years ago, and the one thing that broke my heart was leaving most of my books behind! I allowed myself a single box of my most-beloved reads, and left the rest in storage in my mum’s attic. Oh, for my Sweet Valley Highs… I’m a big fan of books as décor (what else do you need in an apartment?!), so I like to arrange them by color, and display them with my favorite shoes and purses. Books I will reread forever are Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie, and Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos: they’re my go-to feel-good books on a bad day. In the blue stack, you can see my childhood loves A Dream of Sadler’s Wells series (which I bought up on amazon for a twitter bookclub re-read) and The Swish of the Curtain, an amazing book from the 1940s about a teen theatre company which Pamela Brown wrote when she was just 15! Some more of my YA faves on this level: Shadow and Bone, and the amazing follow-up Siege and Storm, which I borrowe...

Violet thought she’d made peace with her unique ability to sense the echoes of the dead and the imprints that cling to their killers…that is until she acquired an imprint of her own. Forced to carry a reminder of the horrible events of her kidnapping, Violet is more determined than ever to lead a normal life. However, the people who run the special investigative team Violet works for have no intention of letting her go. When someone close to Violet becomes a suspect in a horrific murder, she finds herself pulled into a deadly hunt for a madman with an army of devoted followers. Violet has survived dangerous situations before, but she quickly discovers that protecting those closest to her is far more difficult than protecting herself. My Thoughts Just a quick review for the last book in the body finder series. This final instalment is a nice read and a good book to round off the series. I won't say too much but if you have enjoyed the series so far you are bound ...

Eden Anfield loves puzzles, so when mysterious new boy Ryan Westland shows up at her school she's hooked. On the face of it, he's a typical American teenager. So why doesn't he recognise pizza? And how come he hasn't heard of Hitler? What puzzles Eden the most, however, is the interest he's taking in her. As Eden starts to fall in love with Ryan, she begins to unravel his secret. Her breakthrough comes one rainy afternoon when she stumbles across a book in Ryan's bedroom - a biography of her best friend - written over fifty years in the future. Confronting Ryan, she discovers that he is there with one unbelievably important purpose ... and she might just have destroyed his only chance of success. My thoughts A really sweet love story and a nice UK YA novel which is easy to read and nice to follow. I must admit I don't have huge amounts to say about this book. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it because I did and happily read it in a...

It's Spring Break of senior year. Anna, her boyfriend Tate, her best friend Elise, and a few other close friends are off to a debaucherous trip to Aruba that promises to be the time of their lives. But when Elise is found brutally murdered, Anna finds herself trapped in a country not her own, fighting against vile and contemptuous accusations. As Anna sets out to find her friend's killer; she discovers hard truths about her friendships, the slippery nature of truth, and the ache of young love. As she awaits the judge's decree, it becomes clear that everyone around her thinks she is not just guilty, but dangerous. When the truth comes out, it is more shocking than one could ever imagine... My thoughts I can't say too much about this book as I am so scared of ruining it for someone else so this review will be brief to say the least. Dangerous girls completely and utterly hooked me in. I literally could not put it down to the point where I was ignoring ...

Being a 16-year-old safecracker and active-duty daughter of international spies has its moments, good and bad. Pros: Seeing the world one crime-solving adventure at a time. Having parents with super cool jobs. Cons: Never staying in one place long enough to have friends or a boyfriend. But for Maggie Silver, the biggest perk of all has been avoiding high school and the accompanying cliques, bad lunches, and frustratingly simple locker combinations. Then Maggie and her parents are sent to New York for her first solo assignment, and all of that changes. She'll need to attend a private school, avoid the temptation to hack the school's security system, and befriend one aggravatingly cute Jesse Oliver to gain the essential information she needs to crack the case . . . all while trying not to blow her cover. My thoughts I have made a huge mistake leaving it a week before doing this review meaning all the things I was going to ramble on about are no longer in my h...

Time Capsule My new novel Half Lives considers what we are leaving behind for future generations.The story hinges on a time capsule of sorts. While writing Half Lives, I often wondered what archaeologists might say if they unearthed a time capsule created by my teen self. How would they interpret the flotsam and jetsam of my teenage years spent in a small town in the United States? Would they ever imagine that twenty-something years later I'd be a writer living in London? More likely they’d predict that the lovesick teen who collected teen mags and wrote angsty poetry would either still be working at McDonalds or committed to an institution with a straight jacket dress code. I have very few keepsakes from my teen years. They are stored in an old wooden toy chest in the basement of my sister's house. When I visited the US recently, I opened up this time capsule. Here are a few items I uncovered: My complete Rick Springfield collection – Rick was a pop idol ...

The History Behind Stormbringers Stormbringers is set in 15th century Italy so the geography and appearance of the setting is that of medieval Italy. The little town of Piccolo is imaginary, but it is based on what Rimini would have been like. The children's crusade which the team see as they come into town is based on the many stories of children's crusades. Historians now think that these may have been little more than short-lived risings of younger workers who marched around and caused a little local trouble, but some give credit to the suggestion that there was an uprising of young people around 1220 behind a young leader either Stephen of Cloyes or Nicholas of Germany which attempted to get to the Holy Land to convert the advancing Muslims to Christianity.  Like the Children's crusade in the novel, these attempts failed but the motif of an army of innocents is a powerful and haunting one. The tsunami which follows the earthquake in Piccolo is of co...