JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

Dear Mrs Bird by AJ Pearce

London, 1940. Emmeline Lake and her best friend Bunty are trying to stay cheerful despite the Luftwaffe making life thoroughly annoying for everyone. Emmy dreams of becoming a Lady War Correspondent and when she spots a job advertisement in the newspaper she seizes her chance – but after a rather unfortunate misunderstanding, she finds herself typing letters for the formidable Henrietta Bird, the renowned agony aunt of Woman’s Friend magazine.

Mrs Bird is very clear: letters containing any form of Unpleasantness must go straight into the bin. Emmy finds herself dismissing problems from lovelorn, grief-stricken and morally conflicted readers in favour of those who fear their ankles are unsightly or have trouble untangling lengths of wool. But soon the thought of desperate women going unanswered becomes too much to bear and Emmy decides the only thing for it is to secretly write back . . .

Dear Mrs. Bird by AJ Pearce is a warm, moving, funny tale about female friendship, courage, heroism and life in in 1940s wartime.

Emmeline Lake is a plucky young girl who desperately wants a career as a Lady War Correspondent. She’s determined and she’s confident, and she’s hired by Woman’s Friend magazine to help Henrietta Bird type letters to her readers. It’s not her ideal job, but it’s a start. The problem is that Henrietta doesn’t like ‘unpleasantness’ and so Emmeline is forced to discard the majority of the letters that they receive.

“She won’t. Oh, Bunts, you should see some of them,” I said. I really wanted her to understand. “They’re so sad. People are ever so worried about things — you’ve just said yourself about the war. Everyone’s trying their best, but some of them are in a fix. And Mrs. Bird just throws their problems in the bin. It’s not fair.”

Dear Mrs. Bird puts women in the foreground — it sheds a refreshing light on the women of wartime.

Emmeline is moved by the stories she’s hearing, and the women who are reaching out for help. Emmeline has a kind heart and wants to help others, and I think a lot of readers will find her a thoroughly enjoyable protagonist.

Dear Mrs. Bird is a really touching tale. The friendship between Emmeline and Bunty is really beautiful, and its their chemistry that drives this novel. The war does not consume these ladies’ lives — they’re concerned, yes, and cautious, but they’re also career-driven and they’re seeking a fulfilled life.

This book was (surprisingly) a favourite of mine. I loved Emmeline’s voice and her determination, and I loved the wonderful cast of characters that AJ Pearce has created.

“On nights when there wasn’t a raid, we were allowed to sleep in the volunteer room so we’d sit on our bunk beds and drink cocoa and talk nonsense. And on the nights when the raids were bad, if we had any breaks we’d talk nonsense even more to take out minds off it. Finding me a husband was perfect on that front.”

Unfortunately, the pacing is rather inconsistent — the first half of the book is really slow-moving, with the reader unsure where the story is headed. The romances are drawn out. However, the final third of the book is where most of the action happens. There’s heartbreak and tragedy and Emmeline and Bunty’s lives are turned upside down.

And then everything is resolved in a short amount of time. I think the first half of the book could’ve been trimmed or quickened, and the climax of the novel could’ve been drawn out a little more so that the reader didn’t feel like everything was moving too fast.

“In the middle of Europe being battered by a derange madman and Britain doing its best to keep the hope of a free world alive, the three of us were playing like children in the snow. For these moments it was as if nothing had changed from a time when everything was simple and Mother and Father could make anything horrid just go away.”

I’d recommend this to those of you who love women’s fiction — romance, rural romance, historical fiction. Dear Mrs. Bird is moving and fun, but it’s also got a lot of heart and romance as well. This is a story you’ll devour.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Dear Mrs. Bird
AJ Pearce
April 2018
Pan Macmillan Publishers

The Greek Escape by Karen Swan

Working at a luxury concierge company, Chloe Marston makes other people’s lives run perfectly, even if her own has ground to a halt. But a terrible accident forces her to step into a new role, up close and personal with the company’s most esteemed and powerful clients.

Charismatic Joe Lincoln is one of them and his every wish is her command, so when he asks her to find him a secluded holiday home in the Greek Islands, she sets about sourcing the perfect retreat.

But when Tom, her ex, unexpectedly shows up in Manhattan and the stability of her new life is thrown off-balance again, she jumps at the chance to help Joe inspect the holiday house; escaping to Greece will give her the time and space to decide where her future truly lies.

Tom is the man she has loved for so long but he has hurt her before – can she give him another chance? And as she draws closer to Joe, does she even want to? As magnetic as he is mysterious, there’s an undeniable chemistry between them that she can’t resist.

But whatever her heart is telling her, she’s in over her head – another client’s wife has mysteriously disappeared and seriously allegations about Joe threaten more than just her happiness. Who can she trust? And will Chloe uncover the truth in time?

The Greek Escape by Karen Swan is a thoroughly enjoyable novel — the protagonist is a young British girl who has escaped to New York in an effort to leave her toxic relationship behind. She’s there for a fresh start. But when her colleague and friend Poppy is injured in a car accident, Chloe’s life takes a dangerous turn.

There is so much inside this novel. It’s not just the romance that the cover suggests. There’s mystery, adventure, drama and plenty of sexual tension.

Chloe steps up when Poppy is hospitalised; she takes on Poppy’s five clients and keeps her focus on her work. But when a sixth client shows up wanting Chloe to find him a secluded getaway in the Greek Islands, it forces her to reevaluate her life and tackle what she really wants in a relationship.

“Didn’t Jack tell you? The CCTV shows the driver deliberately swerving.” Rosalind shook her head, as though baffled, mystified, the words not making sense. “How could anybody do that?” she whispered. “To my little girl?”

This is my favourite Karen Swan novel so far. The whole scenario felt so unique and different to fiction that I’d normally read. I really did feel like I was reading something from another world — are there people out there who actually have Chloe’s job? Is it exactly like it reads in the book?

Karen Swan has captured the sexual tension between Chloe and her client Joe incredibly well. I kept reading because I felt so invested in their connection, but I was also desperate to solve the mystery of Poppy’s accident and how that fed into the disappearance of another client’s wife. The plot is a convoluted one, but it’s also incredibly satisfying.

Chloe closed her eyes, trying to push him from her thoughts. Blah, blah, blah, the same old story. He’d been giving her this patter for the last four years and she knew only too well about Lucy’s problems.

I have to admit, I picked the twist at the end because there was a bit too much foreshadowing throughout the novel. The Greek Escape is quite long, and so by the time I got to the concluding chapters, I had a pretty confident guess about what was going to happen.

The prose is incredibly polished, the language evocative. The characters all seemed so real and relatable, that I found myself really invested in their storylines and their futures.

When she rounded the corner onto Perry Street and saw him sitting on the steps of her building, it wasn’t surprise that she felt. Deep down, she had known he would come looking for her, just as he had probably known that she wouldn’t go to the drinks. They knew each other too well.

The Greek Escape is so much more than the cover implies. The story is full of mystery and intrigue, and the characters will have you flicking through the pages desperate to get to the end. At times the pace seems to lull, but Karen manages to keep the reader’s attention all the way to the very end.

I recommend this to readers who love romance, mysteries and exotic locations — The Greek Escape is the perfect blend of all three.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Greek Escape
Karen Swan
May 2018
Pan Macmillan Publishers

When the Mountains Roared by Jess Butterworth

When Ruby’s dad uproots her from Australia to set up a hotel in the mountains of India, Ruby is devastated. Not only are they living in a run-down building in the middle of the wilderness surrounded by scorpions, bears and leopards, but Ruby is sure that India will never truly feel like home – not without her mum there.

Ever since her mum died, Ruby has been afraid. Of cars. Of the dark. Of going to sleep and never waking up.

But then the last remaining leopards of the mountain are threatened and everything changes. Ruby vows to do all she can to protect them – if she can only overcome her fears…

When the Mountains Roared is Jess Butterworth’s second middle-grade novel, following on from Running on the Roof of the World. It’s a vivid, warm and atmospheric adventure set in the mountains of India.

Jess Butterworth is really skilled at capturing setting — I could feel the warmth of that blazing sun and the silence of the mountains. I could sense the seclusion and the danger that lurked. The language is descriptive and engaging, simple enough for young children to understand but detailed enough so that readers of all ages will be lured into this story.

“The mountain is covered in pieces of shiny grey slate. The same slate the roofs in the village are made of. I climb down and with a chalky stone I write a message to Praveen on some slate, before propping it against a branch in the tree.”

Ruby is a determined, courageous young girl, not afraid to face danger to save the defenceless. She does have more spine and more confidence than her father, who actually felt like a really weak, naive character.

He felt a little underdeveloped — a cardboard cut out of a character. He disregarded his daughter and while he cared for her, he didn’t come across as a very smart man. I think the reader is supposed to sympathise for him, but really I just pitied him and disregarded his character altogether.

“I see that his face is now drawn and worried. And I realise that’s the problem. I don’t trust him. No matter how hard I try, after everything that happened in Australia with the moneylenders, there’s still a part of me that doesn’t. A big part.”

When the Mountains Roared explores hope, courage and family. It also illustrates the importance of identity and the discovery of one’s place in the world.

Jess has blended so many different emotions into Ruby’s characterisation — grief, loss and wonder. Ruby is forced to navigate this new life, whilst also learning how to let go of her old life. She has to understand that she can enjoy life without her mother being in it, and even though life will never be the same again, that doesn’t mean it won’t be enjoyable and full of wondrous experiences.

Any children who have experienced loss will really relate to Ruby.

“My stomach twinges as I recognise the buildings and criss-crossing roads outside.
Perth.
It was where we had Mum’s funeral.
She died on a Friday, the same day the roses bloomed. She’d been watching and waiting for them to open every day.”

Jess Butterworth has crafted a fast-paced, entertaining story for children, set within the beautiful Himalayan mountains.

When the Mountains Roared teaches young readers about Tibetan and Indian culture. It also educates readers on animal protection and poaching, but that education feels like osmosis. Jess isn’t beating readers over the head with information, but rather, allowing children to learn the culture and the importance of animal protection slowly as the plot develops. This is fantastic for a children’s novel, because the last thing kids want is to feel like they’re *learning* when reading a fictional novel.

This is a really great book for middle-grade readers, and I actually think it’s a lot stronger than her debut. The characters are more evocative and three-dimensional, and the story is much richer and much more pacy. Young readers will love this story. Animal lovers will devour it.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

When the Mountains Roared
Jesse Butterworth
April 2018
Hachette Book Publishers

As She Fades by Abbi Glines

On the night of her high school graduation, Vale McKinley and her boyfriend Crawford are in a terrible car accident that leaves Crawford in a coma. They were supposed to spend the summer planning for college, for a bright future full of possibility. Together. Instead, Vale spends long days in the hospital, hoping Crawford will awaken.

Slate Allen, a college friend of Vale’s brother, has been visiting his dying uncle at the same hospital. When he and Vale meet, she can’t deny the flutter of an illicit attraction. She tries to ignore her feelings, but she’s not immune to Slate’s charm. Slowly, they form a cautious friendship.

Then, Crawford wakes up . . . with no memory of Vale or their relationship. Heartbroken, Vale opts to leave for college and move on with her life. Except now, she’s in Slate’s territory, and their story is about to take a very strange turn.

As She Fades is a young adult novel that explores love, relationships, family and friends. It captures that time in a person’s life when they’re forced to move on from someone because they’re no longer the same person that they were when they met.

Set in America, Vale struggles with the decision to venture to college because her boyfriend Crawford is in a coma and it doesn’t look like he’s going to wake up anytime soon. She tries her hardest to live her life, and this includes sparking up a friendship with the mysterious Slate.

“I’m not sure what happened that day in the library, but something unspoken was said. Things were not the same. Slate started texting me regularly. Not simple Good night texts, either. We had actual texting conversations. About classes, Everly’s obsessive issues, coffee, the fact I’d had coffee with Charlie again, and even what we were eating.”

When people go through a traumatic event in their life, it causes them to reevaluate things. You often hear about people splitting up or people moving house because of a wake up call.

In As She Fades, Crawford’s accident makes Vale realise that their relationship wasn’t as perfect as she once thought it was, and it forces her to really think about what she wants. I think Abbi Glines portrayed this really well. She illustrates how the trauma affected both Vale and Crawford, and how their relationship needed to be reevaluated. These may be teenagers, but I think adult readers would be able to relate to this situation.

The novel is separated into two parts, with a really surprising twist that completely upturns the plot. It was something I wasn’t expecting, but it was something I found refreshing. Too many novels follow a stereotypical structure and storytelling, but As She Fades genuinely stumped me with that twist.

“She straightened her shoulders that were now so often slumped over. ‘I’m not your mother and I can’t force you to do anything. But when Crawford wakes up, he will not want to know you wasted your life up here waiting on him. He’ll blame himself for it. I don’t him to awaken to anything that will upset him. Think about him instead of yourself for a change. You always did make him do what you wanted. He never got to make his own decisions if he wanted to keep you happy.’

Vale is a considerate teenager who is quite self-aware. At times she’s too self-aware, considering how young she is. This novel is quite heavy with internal dialogue, but I think that’s important given what Vale has been through.

I really loved Slate. I found him mysterious, but also funny and intriguing and engaging. I was completely sucked into his and Vale’s budding relationship, and I found myself desperately turning the page to find out what would happen with them.

The pacing in the novel is inconsistent. The first half of the novel — before the twist — is really well-paced, but the second half is too rushed — we didn’t have enough time to adjust to the new direction that the novel was taking us on, and the climax of the story was not realistic. The reader needed time to understand what was happening, and instead we were thrown into the final chapters of the book.

Something else that bugged me about this book is that the blurb isn’t entirely accurate. Crawford wakes up but doesn’t remember Vale or their relationship? That’s not what happens, and I can’t explain it too much without giving away that twist.

This is a quick read and a book I’d recommend to young readers — tweens would be the perfect readership for this novel. If you love romance novels or stories about childhood sweethearts, then you’ll be intrigued by this story. It has its flaws but I did really enjoy the read, and I read the entire book in one sitting.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

As She Fades
Abbi Glines
January 2018
Pan Macmillan Publishers

The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton

I am a Belle. I control beauty.

In the opulent world of Orleans, the people are born grey and damned, and only a Belle’s powers can make them beautiful. Camellia Beauregard wants to be the favourite Belle – the one chosen by the queen to tend to the royal family.

But once Camellia and her Belle sisters arrive at court, it becomes clear that being the favourite is not everything she always dreamed it would be. Behind the gilded palace walls live dark secrets, and Camellia soon learns that her powers may be far greater – and far darker – than she ever imagined.

When the queen asks Camellia to break the rules she lives by to save the ailing princess, she faces an impossible decision: protect herself and the way of the Belles, or risk her own life, and change the world forever.

The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton explores the dark nature of beauty, and how one’s obsession with being beautiful can be incredibly harmful and can contribute to society’s high expectations for people to look a certain way.

This book is set in the fantasy world of Orleans — a world where a person can change their body however they want. Everyone is born with red eyes and grey skin, but they don’t need to stay that way. They can change the colour or texture of their skin, they can change their hair colour, eye colour, thigh size, waist size, and pretty much anything else they can think of. And the only people who can successfully help people change their appearance are women known as the Belles. It is their job to fulfil the wishes of their clients, each and every time they book in an appointment.

“You are to act as if you’re an artist floating through this world. Your sole purpose is to beautify, and transform the Gris. You are a Belle.”

People go through immense pain to change their body, but they do it because society thinks they should look a certain way. And this desired look can change every day. Tabloids and news reports are always speculating on what is ‘in’ right now, and then young girls will come in to see the Belles because they once again want to look like what society thinks they should look like. These young girls are never satisfied, and neither is society.

The Belles may be a fantasy novel, but it explores themes of beauty and identity. Any reader who has ever felt disappointed by how they look will relate to this novel. Any person who has ever wished that one small part of their body could be changed will relate to this novel. Because it’s never just one thing. If you were able to change your body however you liked, I’m sure people wouldn’t be able to stop at just one change. The world would be a very different place.

“The rest of the day zips by like in a lightning flash. Women come with their beauty boards, attendants, and friends. I alter bodies, change hair colours and skin tones, give a man a songbird voice, erase age-lines and try to reassure frantic courtiers about how beautiful they are.”

Admittedly, it did take me at least 50 pages to fully understand how the Belles’ power worked and how they were able to change appearances, but once I could wrap my head around the world I was really mesmerised by the originality of the premise and the depth of the world that Dhonielle has built.

The Belles is both haunting and enchanting — Dhonielle straddles the two throughout the book and as a result, readers go through a range of emotions when reading this book. Dhonielle’s prose is very polished, with poetic lyrical sentences that entice the reader. The world-building, whilst talking a little while to be fully explained, is very unique and intriguing and something I hadn’t yet come across in a novel.

“Bree wheels over a cart of chafing dishes. Triangular color blocks sit on tiered trays like a series of sugary petit-cakes. They melt in glass skin-tone pots creating every pigment imaginable: ink black, sandy beige, eggshell white, desert brown, lemony cream, soft sable, brown sugar syrup, and more.”

Dhonielle Clayton presents an unlikely villain in this story, but it is rather satisfying. Princess Sophia is at first friendly and trustworthy, but you soon learn just how manipulative and calculating she is. The characterisation of Princess Sophia is one of the strengths in this book.

Unfortunately, I felt that the relationship in the book wasn’t developed as much as it could’ve been. I didn’t feel like there was any chemistry between Camellia and her love interest, and so I wasn’t really that invested in their story.

Young readers will love this book, enticed by the beauty, magic and obsession that fills the world and the dark, sinister twists and turns. There’s plenty of murder and betrayal to maintain interest.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Belles
Dhonielle Clayton
February 2018
Hachette Book Publishers

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