The Overflowing Library

This month has been insane for reading. I've been poorly with a cold and then the dreaded flu bug and had a week of Easter holiday so I've had a lot of reading time. Read in March Highly Illogical Behaviour by John Corey Whaley (4 stars) Carry on by Rainbow Rowell (3 stars) Out of sight, Out of time by Ally Carter (3 stars) Radio Silence by Alice Oseman (3 stars) Head over Heels by Holly Smale (4 stars) More of Me by Kathryn Evans (4 stars) Superhero Street by Phil Earle (5 stars) Needlework by Deirdre Sullivan (3 stars) The Moonlight Dreamers by Siobhan Curham (4 stars) Chasing Charlie by Linda McLaughlin (4 stars) The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson (5 stars) Jolly Foul Play by Robin Stevens (4 stars) The Leaving by Tara Altebrando (3 stars) This Song is (Not) for you by Laura Nowlin (4 stars) Dumplin by Julie Murphy (4 stars) Royal Scandal by Meg Cabot (3 stars) Bad Heir Day by Meg Cabot (4 stars) Crowning Glory by Meg Cabot (4 stars) Consumed by ...

Meet Vivi and Jonah: A girl and a boy whose love has the power save or destroy them. Vivi and Jonah couldn't be more different. Vivi craves anything joyful or beautiful that life can offer. Jonah has been burdened by responsibility for his family ever since his father died. As summer begins, Jonah resigns himself to another season of getting by. Then Vivi arrives, and suddenly life seems brighter and better. Jonah is the perfect project for Vivi, and things finally feel right for Jonah. Their love is the answer to everything. But soon Vivi's zest for life falters, as her adventurousness becomes true danger-seeking. Jonah tries to keep her safe, but there's something important Vivi hasn't told him. I adore this book. I loved Emery's previous novels and have been dying to get my hands on this. I am so glad I did. Firstly I adore Jonah. Jonah is the perfect teenage boy. He...

Gloria is tired of her ordinary life. She barely recognizes the free-spirited girl she used to be in the unadventurous teenager she has become. So when a mysterious boy bent on breaking the rules strolls into her classroom, Gloria is ready to fall under his spell. Uman is funny, confident and smart. He does whatever he likes and doesn't care what anyone thinks of him. The only people for him are the mad ones, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn, burn, burn. He is everything Gloria wishes to be. He can whisk her away from the life she loathes and show her a more daring, more exciting one, in which the only limits are the boundaries of her own boldness. But Uman in not all he seems and by the time she learns the truth about him, she is a long way from home and everyone wants to know, Where's Gloria? I really enjoyed this book. It is told over the course of a series of interviews given by Gloria after a series of events. You know somethin...

‘I would like to make things beautiful, but a tawdry and repulsive kind of beauty. A braver sort than people have from birth. Sexy zombies on a bicep. That sort of thing.’ Ces longs to be a tattoo artist and embroider skin with beautiful images. But for now she’s just trying to reach adulthood without falling apart. Powerful, poetic and disturbing, Needlework is a girl’s meditation on her efforts to maintain her bodily and spiritual integrity in the face of abuse, violation and neglect.  Needlework was a book I knew nothing about when it arrived through my letterbox. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting when I picked it up but I'm not quite sure I was ready for what I was about to go through. This book is so very sad. Ces is such a lonely neglected character. It takes her a while for her to open up and tell her story and it comes in snippets but as you start to piece together both what she has gone through but also the state in which she currently lives it ...

So I've managed to clear my TBR pile. I'm not quite sure how it has happened but it has and I'm in that werid position I find myself in a lot as a blogger who reads a lot of books prior to publication in that everything they'll have in the shops currently will be things I've already read. Therefore I am desperately going to be wishing my life away waiting for for new stuff to be published. These are the ones that have caught my eye of late whilst browsing goodreads. Cuckoo by Keren David Jake is an actor - a teenager who had a regular role in one of the UK's best-loved soaps until his character, Little Riley, went upstairs to his bedroom and never came down again. . . Jake clings to the hope that the writers will bring his character back (they didn't kill him off after all); but as time passes, and finances dwindle, reality starts to dawn. His family situation is hard. His dad has anger issues that have led to his recent redundancy, his mum ...

Love hurts ... but should it hurt this much? Reeling from her mum's sudden departure, Anna finds the comfort she needs in her blossoming relationship with Will. He's handsome and loving, everything Anna has always dreamt of. He's also moody and unpredictable, pushing her away from her friends, her music. He wants her to be his and his alone. He wants her to be perfect. Anna's world is closing in. But threatening everything is a dark secret that not even Will can control... Eve Ainsworth's gripping second novel is a pitch-perfect exploration of love at its most powerful, addictive and destructive I really did enjoy Eve's previous book and was very much looking forward to seeing what she did next. I think this latest title is stronger and made me even more excited for what she writes next. For me the thing I like about Eve's books is that they are so authentic. The characters feel real and their experiences feel genuine. It did mean that in...

It’s been five years since the events of City of Heavenly Fire that brought the Shadowhunters to the brink of oblivion. Emma Carstairs is no longer a child in mourning, but a young woman bent on discovering what killed her parents and avenging her losses. Together with her parabatai Julian Blackthorn, Emma must learn to trust her head and her heart as she investigates a demonic plot that stretches across Los Angeles, from the Sunset Strip to the enchanted sea that pounds the beaches of Santa Monica. If only her heart didn’t lead her in treacherous directions… Making things even more complicated, Julian’s brother Mark—who was captured by the faeries five years ago—has been returned as a bargaining chip. The faeries are desperate to find out who is murdering their kind—and they need the Shadowhunters’ help to do it. But time works differently in faerie, so Mark has barely aged and doesn’t recognize his family. Can he ever truly return to them? Will the faeries really al...

Following on from Flirty Dancing, Love Bomb and Sunkissed, Jenny McLachlan's next book is perfect for fans of Geek Girl and Louise Rennison. In a huge fantastic final hurrah to our lovable heroines - Bea, Betty, Kat and Pearl - Jenny McLachlan's latest book tells Pearl's story. Pearl is the 'bad girl' of the group - she drinks, she smokes, she swears - and she's mean to Bea and Betty. But she did fly halfway round the world to rescue Kat in Sunkissed. If there's one thing Pearl knows deep down, it is how to be a friend. And now, more than ever, she could really use a friend . There will be laughter, there will be tears and there will definitely be kissing. Most importantly, Pearl will be keeping it fierce Oh this book. I can't say I was all that fussed initially when I found out about it. I've never been a Pearl fan and now I've finished it I can honestly say it was my favourite book of the series so far. Pearl is one of those g...

I have a couple of bookcases, one in my office which contains some of the books I’ve worked on, mixed with some of my all-time favourite children’s books (including some very tatty ones that I recently rescued from my parents’ attic as you see here!) I have another bookcase in my living room where I keep my favourite novels and guilty pleasures. As a child of the 90’s, I of course own the full set of Harry Potter books, and I still listen to the audiobooks now. The hardbacks hold so many memories of hours spent curled up on the sofa, or waiting eagerly at the front door for my mum to get back from shopping with the next instalment from WHSmiths, and trying to read it faster than my sister so I could find out what happened first. I also have the full set of The Lord of the Rings as well as The Hobbit which were gifted to me by a family friend before he passed away, so they’re very special to me – and as you can see, a bit knackered!  There’s a c...

Is it me or is Mother's day really early this year? It is has come along out of nowhere and taken you by surprise this year like it has me I have some ideas of some really lovely books that might make nice gifts for your mum. To be fair my mum is easy to buy for. If I get her a bunch of flowers she is very happy. My Mother in Law however often proves a bit tricky. She's not a drinker, she's not a huge chocolate fan and she reacts to flowers much like Phoebe in Friends where she just gets upset when they've died. She's quite glam but also no fuss and her taste in trinkets for the home or accessories is wildly unpredictable. As a result it's always a challenge each year to think of something for her but this year I think I've cracked it. Luckily a couple of days ago I was sent by Octopus Publishing their Mother's gift featuring a huge range of beautiful non fiction books. I love a non fiction book (and don't spend enough time talking about them on he...

Two women. Two love affairs. One unforgettable story. Kings Cross station, 1943. Rose arrives in London hoping to swap the drudgery of wartime for romance, glamour and jiving with GIs at Rainbow Corner, the famous dance hall in Piccadilly Circus. As the bombs fall, Rose loses her heart to a pilot but will lose so much more before the war has done its worst. Las Vegas, present day. A beautiful woman in a wedding dress walks into a seedy bar and asks the first man she sees to marry her. When Leo slips the ring onto Jane's finger, he has no idea that his new wife will stop at nothing to get what she wants. So when Jane meets Rose, now a formidable older lady, there's no love lost between them. But with time running out, can Rose and Jane come together to make peace with the tragic secrets that have always haunted their lives? After the Last Dance is an extraordinary story of two women, separated by time but connected by fate, that will make you believe in the red...

Onto March already! Welcome to month three of the British Books Challenge. I'm 22 books into my challenge for the year and hoping to get to at least 100 by the end of the Challenge. How far are you all through your challenge? First up the winner of February's prize pack of a copy of How to disappear was Chrissi from Chrissi Reads for her review of Juno Dawson's mind your head This month up for grabs is a copy of waiting for callback as I have a spare proof and loved it so much that I need it to go to someone else rather just being added to my pile of "books I have two of"