The Overflowing Library

Another month has flown by. It has been a busy one for me workwise so I've not read as much as I normally would. I have managed to read a lot of awesome books though. Books Read Lottery Boy by Michael Byrne (4 stars) Hook's Daughter by Heidi Schultz (4 stars) Under my Skin by James Dawson (4 stars) The Beloved by Alison Rattle (5 stars) Monster by CJ Skuse (5 stars) Remix by Non Pratt (5 stars) Gypsy Girl by Kathryn James (3 stars) Open Road Summer by Emery Lord (5 stars) Geek Drama by Holly Smale (4 stars) Pea's Book of Holidays by Susie Day (5 stars) Catching Jordan by Miranda Kenneally (3 stars) Ways to Live Forever by Sally Nichols (3 stars) Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella (4 stars) Book of the month I literally cannot choose this month. Three of the books I read I adored for different reasons Firstly I managed to get my hands on a very early copy of Monster by CJ Skuse and I loved it entirely. Really exciting teen thriller which I couldn't pu

I am delighted to host a stop on the Violet and the Hidden Treasure Blog Tour and very excited indeed to offer my readers the chance to win a copy of Violet and the Hidden and a copy of Violet and the Pearl of the Orient. I love the Violet Books. They hook me from the first page with the mystery element and I love how the stories are illustrated all the way through. To enter either leave me a comment below with a way to contact you or tweet me @overflowingklc to let me know you want to enter with "I want to win a set of Violet books"

It's not easy being the daughter of Captain Hook. Twelve-year-old Jocelyn dreams of following in his footsteps - but her grandfather sends her to finishing school instead. When her father meets his unfortunate end, Jocelyn sails to Neverland to avenge his death. But she hadn't bargained on ticking crocodiles, lazy pirates and a troublemaking boy called Peter Pan. My thoughts I'm not into fantasy books at all but from a very early age I have always had a soft spot for Peter Pan. If I had to pick one fantasy world to visit Neverland would probably be it. I've also always had a soft spot for the pirates in the story.  This book therefore was a perfect read for me. It is utterly charming catching that neverland magic perfectly. I loved having a new story set in that world and it totally hooked me from that point of view. The story is focused on Hook's daughter. She is a brilliant new character from the outset when she is trying to fit in at finishing scho

Escape from a bullying mother takes one young woman to an even more dangerous place. Alice Angel has known only a life of rules, restriction and punishments as she strays from the rigid path of Victorian proprietary that her mother has set out for her. A constant disappointment to all but her doting father, she longs for the day that she might break free from the stifling atmosphere of her mother's rule. After a chance encounter with a charming stranger, and a final incident with her family that sees her condemned to the madhouse, Alice sees her opportunity to run and grasps it with both hands. She escapes to join the Agapemonites in their Abode of Love, where ex-Reverend Henry Prince rules his isolated colony of women as their Beloved. Prince ignites a passion in Alice that she never knew existed, and she dares to think she might be free at last. But as Alice becomes more deeply drawn into the life of Prince's strange religious sect, secrets are revealed that s

I'm back with another list of books I can't wait to read. I tend to write this list by scrolling through my goodreads wishlist and seeing what new covers have popped up and this month loads of them have appeared. Some of these are quite new finds whereas others I've had my eye on for a good long while. The Start of Me and You by Emery Lord (released March 2015) It’s been a year since it happened—when Paige Hancock’s first boyfriend died in an accident. After shutting out the world for two years, Paige is finally ready for a second chance at high school . . . and she has a plan. First: Get her old crush, Ryan Chase, to date her—the perfect way to convince everyone she’s back to normal. Next: Join a club—simple, it’s high school after all. But when Ryan’s sweet, nerdy cousin, Max, moves to town and recruits Paige for the Quiz Bowl team (of all things!) her perfect plan is thrown for a serious loop. Will Paige be able to face her fears and finally open herself

Meet Molly Sue. Once she's under your skin there's no getting rid of her... Seventeen-year-old Sally Feather is not exactly a rebel. Her super-conservative parents and her treatment at the hands of high school bullies means that Sally's about as shy and retiring as they come - but all that's about to change. Accidentally ending up in the seedier side of town one day, Sally finds herself mysteriously lured to an almost-hidden tattoo parlour - and once inside, Sally is quickly seduced by its charming owner, Rosita, and her talk of how having a secret tattoo can be as empowering as it is thrilling. Almost before she knows what she is doing, Sally selects sexy pin-up Molly Sue, and has her tattooed on her back - hoping that Molly Sue will inspire her to be as confident and popular as she is in her dreams. But things quickly take a nightmareish turn. Almost immediately, Sally begins to hear voices in her head - or rather, one voice in particular: Molly Sue

Meet Violet Remy-Robinson, an amateur Sherlock Holmes in the making...Violet has spent her Easter holiday exploring India with Godmother Celeste, including visiting Celeste's good friend the Maharajah and meeting his very special parrot. And when she returns home, only to get a visit from the Maharajah's butler, asking her to look after the parrot, Violet couldn't be more surprised (and her cat Pudding couldn't be less pleased…). But as Violet discovers, the parrot holds the key to the Maharajah's fortune, and someone is trying to parrot-nap her! Can she discover who the culprit is before they succeed? Violet is on the case… With a beautiful hardback package complete with two colour illustrations throughout by emerging talent, Becka Moore, everyone is bound to fall in love with Violet and the colourful characters that make up her world.  I love this series entirely. I don't read huge amounts of MG titles but those I do often find I adore and th

He Walks in Hottiness Like a Panther Before I became a writer, I taught English at a secondary school and sixth form college for many years. I always loved reading with my classes, but found it curious that students who would merrily leap around the classroom reciting Shakespeare would then declare that they ‘ hated poetry’. Teenagers should love poetry! It’s a snapshot of intense emotional feeling, a bit like many teens’ Instagram messages. As I write this, I can’t stop my mind from planning a lesson using lines of poetry, images and Instagram – once a teacher, always a teacher – which is probably why I included some of my favourite lines of poetry in Love Bomb. Betty, Love Bomb’s love-struck narrator, has a best friend, Bill, who owns a copy of ‘The Greatest Love Poems of All Time’.  As Betty has just fallen head over heels in love with ‘hot vampire’ Toby she decides this book will help her to become ‘an expert on love’. Bill cherry picks lines of poetr

It’s an ordinary school day, but Lily is about to step into a nightmare. The girl rushing out of the Tube tunnel tells a crazy story about an underground community and a charismatic leader with an evil plan. How can Lily trust her? It’s only when Lily finds herself in the labyrinth beneath London that she learns the horrific truth – about the Farmer, the Crop and about herself. My thoughts I wasn't too sure what to expect from this book when Nosy Crow kindly sent it to me and had no real expectations for it having never read anything by the author before. I was treated to an exciting and fast paced read which hooked me from the first page. It was a really nice mix of contemporary and dystopian which worked well. It had some really clever ideas which are quite frightening when you think about them too hard about how our world could turn out in the future. Well worth a look.

Perfect Valentine's reading for fans of Geek Girl and Louise Rennison. Betty Plum has never been in love. She's never even kissed a boy. But when H.O.T. Toby starts school it's like Betty has been hit with a thousand of Cupid's arrows. It's like a bomb has exploded – a love bomb! More than ever Betty wishes her mum hadn't died when Betty was a baby. She really needs her mum here to ask her advice. And that's when she finds hidden letters for just these moments. Letters about what your first kiss should feel like and what real love is all about … Is Betty ready to fall in love? Will she finally have her first kiss? I am really struggling with series at the moment but I adore companion novels entirely. This series is one that found its way to me quite unassumingly and I loved book one as soon as I read the first few chapters. I was very excited therefore to get my hands on this one. For me I struggled with this book to start with. Betty is almos

A story of survival, subterfuge, espionage and identity. Rhoda and Delia are American stunt pilots who perform daring aerobatics to appreciative audiences. But while the sight of two girls wingwalking – one white, one black – is a welcome novelty in some parts of the USA, it’s an anathema in others. Rhoda and Delia dream of living in a world where neither gender nor ethnicity determines their life. When Delia is killed in a tragic accident, Rhoda is determined to make that dream come true. She moves to Ethiopia with her daughter, Em, and Delia’s son, Teo. Em and Teo have adapted to scratching a living in a strange land, and feel at home here; but their parents’ legacy of flight and the ability to pilot a plane places them in an elite circle of people watched carefully by the Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie, who dreams of creating an air force for his fledgling nation. As Italy prepares for its invasion of Ethiopia, Em and Teo find themselves inextricably entangle

The poetry of the Greenworld By Anna McKerrow In Crow Moon , the UK is split into the Greenworld – Devon and Cornwall, an eco-pagan community run by witches – and the Redworld, which is everywhere else and is corrupt, polluted and controlled by criminals. The Greenworld is still a relatively new community, and like many new nation states, utopias and/or ideological communities, it has a set of rules – or tenets, as it likes to call them: a manifesto based on its agrarian, goddess-loving principles: ·          Save it, hive it, share it ·          We are called the Greenworld as green is the colour of life, regeneration and purity. ·          Knowledge comes from the earth more than any book. Listen to the songs of the trees, the beat of the soil, the caress of the wind on wheat if you would be wise. ·          The moment is all we have and the one thing we cannot keep. ·          Love the land; share its bounty; grow with love; harvest well. ·          An

Thoughts on a ‘challenging’ read… You know how, when you pick up a book and read the blurb on the back, there are certain words which act as flashing red lights warning you that this one’s not for you? For my son, it’s any mention of the word ‘vampires’; my Dad found it impossible to read a book that contained dragons or elves, while for my wife, phrases like The Galactic Federation is under threat… mean it will be put quietly to one side. It’s not that any of these are bad books, just that we all have our preferences. For me, the warning words are things like urban, gritty, hard-hitting or, the real give-away, challenging . They tell me that the story inside will probably cover things like bullying, alcoholic parents, sexual abuse, the gang culture… and that reading it is likely to bring on a serious case of the glums. While hugely admiring the authors (and readers) who cover these topics, I avoid them myself. I am far too liable to succumb to the glums already, wi