Free By Fiona Morgan – Book Review

I’ve read Free by Fiona Morgan* over the last fortnight. Since Izzy started reception I’ve felt less guilty about reading. I’ve always been passionate about reading but with 2 kids I found it hard to make time. Children’s books have been the main reads over the last 8 years! Now I get more me-time I’ve spent my afternoons enjoying a few chapters with a hot chocolate! 

Free By Fiona Morgan

Fiona Morgan is a lovely author who I chat to on Twitter, I wanted to show her some support by giving her books a read. I have her first 2 books which you can buy as paperbacks from Amazon or download on Kindle.

Free & What's Mine by Fiona Morgan

Free

Free is the first book Fiona has written and I have to admit I was a little sad to finish it! It’s one of those books where you get to know the characters so well you actually miss them. 

Ava’s boyfriend Nathan has convinced her she is useless, incapable of being independent in anyway and regularly beats it into her. She seems to push his buttons whatever she says or does and causes Nathan to get angry! After a chance meeting with a guy called Neil who is completely different and so understanding, Ava plucks up the courage to leave Nathan. One day after a beating she calls Neil and makes her escape. 

You can’t leave me!

Leaving an abuser is never easy and Nathan is extremely persistent when it comes to pursuing Ava, causing both Ava and Neil mental anguish. Nathan is adamant Ava is his and she can’t leave him or live without him. The long-buried memories of Neil’s father are brought back in to focus as he helps Ava. Caught up in uncertainty and physical violence, Ava and Neil’s growing tender love is put to the test! 

Perfectly Captured

Fiona captures every angle so perfectly throughout the book and you can’t help but feel the storyline. For someone who has lived with an abuser and witnessed it on several occasions. I’ve seen and heard so many similar stories that Free feels like real life. From thoughts & feelings to actions, everything is spot on. I’m not usually a fan of Romance Thrillers. I prefer thrillers but Free doesn’t go overboard on the romance side and I found myself wanting to see how their relationship developed! 

I’m looking forward to the girls going to school tomorrow so I can start reading What’s Mine! I’ve managed 7 books so far this year and hoping to make it 8. With captivating storylines like Fiona’s, I may even top that!

Fiona Morgan - Author of Free

Do you like romance thrillers? Have you heard of Fiona Morgan’s books before? 

*This is not a sponsored post. 

New Series! – Our Favourite Books This Week

We decided to start a new series of Our favourite books this week back up for summer! The girls are always discovering new books at the library as well as books we are sent to review and those we discover in shops.

New Series! Our Favourite Books This Week

New Series!

Things got a little busy over the last year so we haven’t had much time to cover our favourite books each week. Everything has finally calmed down and we have plenty of time for a new series again. We love to discuss and share our thoughts on the books we find again! We decided it was the perfect time to start a new series of ‘Our Favourite Books This Week’.

 

Eva’s Favourite Books This Week

With the library holding the summer reading challenge it has inspired Eva to look for a new series after reading all of the Harry Potter books. We came across the Araminta Spook series which Eva was instantly drawn to. She is very much like me and enjoys anything with magic, vampires, ghouls etc.

Araminta Spook Book Series

Eva picked up 3 books she had spotted from the Araminta Spook series to try. When we got home she quickly read them all, one after the other! She managed 2 in one night and the 3rd the next morning. Eva’s favourite book from this series was Skeleton Island because they find jewels and trick Nosey Nora!

You might also be interested in St Grizzle’s School for Girls, Gremlins and Pesky Guests

Eva was also sent a few books to review from Little Tiger this month and she has already read St Grizzles School For Girls, Gremlins And Pesky Guests which you can read a full review here. Eva absolutely loves the St Grizzles Series and eagerly awaits the next book!

Izzy’s Favourite Books This Week

Izzy’s favourite book this week is Let’s Dance by Ann Bryant and Jakki Moore. Izzy finds it funny that Dolly’s dancing makes Harry excited which annoys Meg, his owner. Eventually, Dolly convinces Meg that dancing is fun and she joins in!

Let's Dance

 

Our Favourite Books This Week

Cock-a-doodle-poo! is by far our favourite book this week. Eva has taken to reading the story exactly how Steve Smallman read it on stage! This has Izzy in hysterics every single time and it even has adults giggling away. I honestly never thought I’d find a book that talks about poo the whole way through so amusing but it is written fantastically.

Cock-a-doodle-poo! by Steve Smallman

Octopants is our second favourite book this week, it’s another funny book about an octopus hunting pants! Have you ever seen octopants in shops before? This book is so colourful and well illustrated as well as fun to read which the girls have been reading together repeatedly!


Octopants written by Suzy Senior & Illustrated by Claire Powell

What are your children’s favourite books this week? Have you read any of these?

 

Our Favourite Books This Week – Week 3

The girls have picked out their favourite books this week again and have had lots of fun reading different books to pick from.

We missed the library last weekend so we went yesterday to return the books the girls previously borrowed and pick out a few more. After almost an hour the girls #LoveGrays tote bag was loaded up with quite a few books! Along with the other books we’ve picked up this week in town we’ve been quite busy reading through new & old books.

 

Izzy’s favourite books this week:

Izzy has been loving discovering a range of books at the library & this week chose a few lift the flap books & chose 2 of them as her favourites!

Busy building site is one of Izzy’s choices this week as she loves anything to do with building! She loves watching the digger’s & cranes when we go out so it was no surprise this was a favourite! Izzy loved the fact they build a school and you can see the classroom at the end. There were a ton of flaps to lift so it kept her quite busy especially pointing out all the things she recognised!

 

Izzy also chose Who lives a here? A lift the flap Gruffalo book discovering where each animal lives. Izzy loves lifting the flaps and telling me who she had found. We had to read this quite a few times! Her favourite part was finding the Gruffalo who is apparently her favourite out of all the animals in the book.

 

Eva’s favourite books this week:

Eva chose Abracazebra this week as her favourite book. She picked it up at the library at the last minute but seemed to enjoy it the most. Her favourite part was when Abracazebra came back on the boat. Eva loves reading stories like this to Izzy, they enjoy looking at the pictures together too.

 

Eva also chose The  Rabbit Who Want’s to fall asleep.. although she didn’t fall asleep haha! She loved it when Roger Rabbit met Uncle Yawn & loved that the picture from that page matched the front cover too! This one is off of our bookshelf and she’s read it quite a few times over the last month or so.

Our Favourite Book This week:

“Slowly, Slowly, Slowly,” Said the Sloth by Eric Carle was the girls favourite book & I had to read it to them  a few times although Izzy does get rather impatient at the end and likes to skip back to see what the Sloth does “Slowly, Slowly, Slowly,”. Eva likes that the Sloth is slow and doesn’t mind being slow.

What have your kids being reading this week? Have you picked up any new books?

Our Favourite Books This Week – Week 1 

I love reading a fun book to the girls. Although we don’t read every night before bed we read most days. Eva now reads independantly quite a lot of the time but still likes to read out loud to anyone willing to listen. Izzy loves to be read to and is able to ‘read’ a book to us looking at the pictures.

The girls having such a passion for reading is something I’m extremely proud of to be honest. I think it’s brilliant for children to fall in love with reading and get lost in the magic of a good book. I try to keep their bookshelf filled with a variety of books and try to take the girls to the library too when I’m feeling up to it so we decided to start sharing some of our favourite books each week starting with this post!

So here are Eva’s favourite books this week:

Eva chose 2 books from ber bookshelf this week. She really enjoyed reading Disney’s The Aristocats and Bambi Grows up.

Eva says she loves the end of The Aristocats when Duchess & O’Malley get to live together, she really likes the pictures throughout the book too especially all the cute kittens! What’s your favourite part of The Aristocats?

 

Bambi being born was Eva’s favourite part of Bambi Grows up. She thinks he looks cute all curled up when all the animals come to see him.

Izzy’s Favourite books this week:

Izzy chose 2 books she borrowed from the Library. Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom – Magic School and Mr Men & Little Miss – Shapes

Izzy loves the Jelly flood in Magic school and giggles her head off! She asked Eva to read it several times this week. The girls have loved sitting up at the table reading this together and it’s lovely to watch and listen to.

 

Her absolute favourite was the Shapes book though as she learnt all the names of the Mr Men & Little Miss aswell as learning to recognise shapes well enough to ‘read’ the book to someone herself. She also gets up at the end to dance and sings the ‘I am a shape’ song from Mister Maker haha!

Our favourite book overall to read together this week:

Tinga Tinga Tales Why Monkeys Swing in The Trees is a bo0ok .y girls absolutely love! The Tinga Tinga Tales books are always fun and colourful and both girls love to read along shouting excitedly when the crocodile goes ‘SNAP!’. I will definitely be looking for more in the series to read to the girls as we all enjoy them.

Reading can be so much fun for kids with such a huge variety of books available. What are your kids favourite books to read? Do you like any of the books the girls have chosen this week?

Spreading The Joy Of Reading This Christmas

I have always loved to read and reading was my favourite thing to do as a child so I love the idea of spreading the joy of reading this Christmas by giving 3 amazing Penguin Random House Children’s Books (teamed up with Britmums) I received to Izzy as Christmas presents.

Izzy is really enjoying reading books with all of us and as we did with Eva, we intend to encourage her love of reading. We sometimes go to baby rhyme time at the local library and always come back with a stack of books which we read over and over at home. The girls have an ever growing book shelf too & these books will make a lovely addition!

Max & Bird

Max & bird looks like quite a funny book about a kitty who wants to be friends with Bird. He also wants to chase and him as a tasty snack . But that’s not what friendship is all about… is it? I can’t wait to read this to Izzy, I know she will love the illustrations as she loves cats!

 

The Little Elephant Who Wants To Fall Asleep

 

The Little Elephant who want to fall asleep is a the latest book from the author of The Rabbit who wants to fall asleep which is a global best seller! It’s aimed at helping children fall asleep.  Following Ellen the elephant on a journey through a magical forest that leads to sleep! This sounds like a brilliant book and I’ll definitely be trying it out on those nights the girls just can’t sleep.

 

The Dinosaur That Pooped Christmas

 

I can’t wait to read the dinosaur that pooped Christmas! We’ve read the dinosaur that pooped the world which the girls absolutely loved. This time Danny’s new dinosaur eats Christmas!! I wonder what happens next!?

 

 

They all sound like brilliant books, I can’t wait to read them to Izzy!

I loved books growing up and The Secret Garden was always my favourite as a young child! I have saved a copy for the girls to read. Hopefully one day it becomes a favourite for them, getting lost in the beautiful secret garden and storyline.

What was your favourite book as a child? Do you read it or plan to read it to your child/ren?

Are you giving books as gifts this year? Which ones?

*I’ve been sent these books by Britmums and Penguin Random House as part of their children’s books Christmas present challenge.

Jungle Jam Book Review

We were really excited to receive such a captivating & colourful story book aimed at children aged 0-5 years to review with the girls, Written by Louise & Noam Lederman & it’s called Jungle Jam.

We recieved the book, a magnet & a puzzle, I was impressed with the bright and colourful cover, it’s eye-catching but not too in your face, even the Mr agreed it looked good!
As it arrived whilst Eva was at school, I decided to see what Izzy thought of it first as it’s mostly aimed at her age group.

We sat and read it to see what Jungle Jam was about. We met Mikey the Monkey who was off on an adventure to make it big! Along the way he meets several friends in the Jungle but refuses to join them, intent on making it big by himself until eventually he decides to join them all and make it big together!

Izzy (2) sat and listened intently, pointing out all the new characters we met along the way, with her favourite being Ella the elephant and her drums.

 

Izzy spent the rest of the afternoon looking through the pages & claiming the magnet as hers and adding it into her magnet collection on the storage heater haha..

Eva (6) was just as impressed when she got home and loved that she was able to read it to her sister who sat & listened to the story again..several times!

The book is beautifully illustrated and the girls really loved reading it over and over and over… Eva loved it so much that she wanted to talk about it on her first video! She was a bit sniffly as she’s coming down with a cold & unsure of what to say but she wanted to do the video so badly, so here it is.

We definitely recommend ordering yourself a copy of Jungle Jam here on Amazon for just £5.99 to add to your bookshelf. It’s such a fun book to read with all the colourful pictures and characters and the lovely storyline, I can see this book being a favourite for quite some time! The last few pages have some awesome musical craft’s for you to make too!

Pink Pear Bear

A Positive Start In Year 2

Last year we had quite a few problem’s with Eva’s school and to be honest it made me quite nervous about her going back as last year got so stressful & we strongly considered moving her to a different school but we decided to ride it out and see how things went.

a positive start

I’m pleased to say I don’t think we will be having anywhere near as many issues this year. Her new teacher seems great, she seems to be friendly and rather jolly yet at the same time strict enough to not let Eva get away with too much silliness.
Eva has been changing her reading books regularly so she is happy she’s earning her reading air miles as she loves reading and her confidence is growing with each book which is so lovely to see as  last year seemed to really make her feel like she wasn’t good at anything as none of her achievements were being mark down. She came home several times upset as she had been told to just get on with her work when she needed help so she started just giving up.

Whilst I think she’s doing amazingly learning at her own pace, she feels she has to have these marks & awards like everyone else, so I try to support her in that as much as I can whilst also pointing out she’s always learning and doing well regardless of marks. However now she is earning her air miles & getting stickers and a lot more praise she seems a lot happier and I am pleased for her.

 

We sat with her Math & English homework books on Saturday and she flew through them with confidence whilst still making sure her letters and number were written the right way and neatly, it was amazing to see the change, she finished 5 sheets of work in 10 minutes! 10 MINUTES it takes her 15 to put on her shoes!!! I’m really pleased she’s enjoying it again as I love getting involved in her learning and helping her find a way to work out the answers.

It’s been such a postive start to the school year for Eva and I really hope it continues as she seems a lot happier in herself and is coming home happy again instead of moody or in tears.

How did your kid/s get on for their first week back at school? Have their been any improvements/issues compared to last year?

You Never Forget A Good Book

It’s true that once you read a good book you never forget it. I’ve been a keen reader since I was quite young and people used to joke about the fact I would prefer to sit and read the Evening Echo (Our local paper at the time) at the age of 5 over a childrens book. I remember my mother had quite a few books on shelves around the house which is where I discovered a few of my favourite authors. I haven’t picked up a book in a while which I intend to do more of over the coming months so I thought I’d share with you some of my all time favourites!

You never forget a good book
The Misery front cover I read and the books currently on my shelf!

Stephen King’s Misery is a book I definitely read far too young but as I loved to scare myself silly with physchological horrors like this it’s a book I read several times growing up and is still my absolute favourite book of all time. I love the way Stephen King writes and how twisted & clever the storyline is. Whenever I fancy something a bit darker I go for a Stephen King books and I’ve read quite a few. I currently have a few on my bookshelf at the moment that I need to read, what’s your favourite?

As you can see my copy is quite worn!

This is a set of books rather than just one but I think most people will agree that C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia is an amazing set for children and adults. I still have the original box-set I had as a child, unfortunately they are quite sun-faded but I cant wait to start reading them to the girls! I always got so lost in these books that I would spend most of a school holiday re-reading the whole set just because.

 

On my bookshelf

Another one that is probably on most peoples lists is J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the rings Trilogy. I read this when I was about 11 and I remember being superglued to my bed for 5 days reading the entire book & then went on to read The Hobbit. I was gutted when I finally watched the films as they had just missed out far too much as usually happens when books are turned into films. I still have the same copy of Lord of the rings but lost The Hobbit years ago.

Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret garden us another classic I absolutely loved reading over and over again. I loved the idea of escaping to such beautiful gardens.

The only image of the front cover I remember reading as a child!

One book I fell in love with as a child has bugged me for years as I hadn’t been able to find it ANYWHERE! Seriously, I have searched & searched the internet & libraries and only just discovered I was right all along! It is called Wild Child  and I am pleased to share I finally know the Author’s name – Monica Furlong! (Thanks to Goodreads!) I remember being completely enchanted by this book and re-reading it several times.

In a remote Scottish village, nine-year-old Wise Child is taken in by Juniper, a healer and sorceress. Then Wise Child’s mother, Maeve, a black witch, reappears. In choosing between Maeve and Juniper, Wise Child discovers the extent of her supernatural powers—and her true loyalties.

Patricia cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta series was another favourite throughout my teens, I began at the start with Post-mortem and read every book up to The Book of the dead which is still sat on my bookshelf waiting to be read!
I’m definitely going to start working through my book shelf again and then go on a hunt for some new ones, so help me out! Who’s your favourite author? What book’s would you recommend reading? What books are laying unread on your bookshelf?