One For Sorrow By Helen Fields

One for Sorrow by Helen Sarah Fields
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - 2.5 days

Pages - 400

Publisher - Avon

Source - Review copy

Blurb from Goodreads

One for sorrow, two for joy
Edinburgh is gripped by the greatest terror it has ever known. A lone bomber is targeting victims across the city and no one is safe.

Three for a girl, four for a boy
DCI Ava Turner and DI Luc Callanach face death every day – and not just the deaths of the people being taken hostage by the killer.

Five for silver, six for gold
When it becomes clear that with every tip-off they are walking into a trap designed to kill them too, Ava and Luc know that finding the truth could mean paying the ultimate price.

Seven for a secret never to be told…
But with the threat – and body count – rising daily, and no clue as to who’s behind it, neither Ava nor Luc know whether they will live long enough to tell the tale…



Mt Review

Dear Lord. We are traumatised. Burst. Emotive. We need to go eat our feelings but it is also 04:32 and we need 😴 sleep. Those were the words I typed after I finished the book and I did indeed go and eat my feelings despite the time! This is book seven in the series, if you haven't read the previous, do yourself a favour and go read them. There is so much you have missed and the intensity of the relationships/friendships you just need the back story.

We have a bomber in Edinburgh and not just planting a bomb and causing chaos, the nature of the bombs are horrific and some add in some kidnappings just to make things worse. The killings are brutal, we have seen some sadistic killers before but this is another level.

I was horrified but couldn't put it down I had to know why dear lord why and what was coming next because you knew this was just the beginning. I have rooting for Luc and Ava every single book, they are work colleagues, they are friends, the are room mates looking after their bestie, they are attracted but one thing or another always gets in the way. This case is going to push them and the team to their limits. The killer isn't going to stop until someone stops them but how do you stop someone who is so random and deadly.

We also have the before and meet Quinn, such a nice girl, family orientated who we follow through a relationship of control, manipulation and a different kind of horror. It is a busy book, the investigation, Ava dealing with a personal loss and trying to pull through one of the toughest cases ever and the before with the young woman and a different thread of horror, the worst side of humanity and whilst the book is fiction we know the issues very much exist! 4.5/5 for me. This book will knock you sideways - it covers a lot of the worst sides of humanity, it is dark, gruesome, gory, horrific, soul destroying, page turning and brilliant, say goodbye to your day. Hope Fields hurries up and pens the next, I NEED TO KNOW WHAT IS COMING NEXT!

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The Mother of all Christmases by Milly Johnson

The Mother of All Christmases by Milly Johnson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Time taken to read - in and out over 2 days

Pages - 400

Publisher - Simon & Schuster

Source - Bought signed edition from the author

Blurb from Goodreads

THE MOST PERFECT CHRISTMAS FEEL-GOOD READ!
'Every time you discover a new Milly book, it’s like finding a pot of gold' Heat

Eve Glace - co-owner of the theme park Winterworld - is having a baby and her due date is a perfectly timed 25th December. And she’s decided that she and her husband Jacques should renew their wedding vows with all the pomp that was missing the first time. But growing problems at Winterworld keep distracting them …

Annie Pandoro and her husband Joe own a small Christmas cracker factory, are well set up and happy together despite life never blessing them with a much-wanted child. But when Annie finds that the changes happening to her body aren’t typical of the menopause but pregnancy, her joy is uncontainable.

Palma Collins has agreed to act as a surrogate, hoping the money will get her out of the gutter in which she finds herself. But when the couple she is helping split up, is she going to be left carrying a baby she never intended to keep?

Annie, Palma and Eve all meet at the ‘Christmas Pudding Club’, a new directive started by a forward-thinking young doctor to help mums-to-be mingle and share their pregnancy journeys. Will this group help each other to find love, contentment and peace as Christmas approaches?




My Review

Eve, Annie and Palma all end up in the "Christmas Pudding Club" a new group supporting mums to be. Finding their feet as their bodies change they happen upon friendship which helps as they each battle with things in their personal lives. Palma was a womb for hire for a well to do couple who desperately want a baby. Annie had all but given up hope for having a baby, facing menopause she throws everything into her cracker factory with her hubby Joe. Eve and Jacques have all their focus on a winter theme park and have no time for extending their family, every focus is getting the park up and running yet things seem to be going wrong at every turn!

We meet each of the characters and glimpses into their lives and how they come to be in the club. Each has their own issues in life and we see how they deal with it and how their relationships blossom, struggle and interact.

It is a moving story you can't help but get invested in the characters and end up on a very emotive rollercoaster. Good guys and bad guys, kindness, dregs of humanity, greed, corruption, love, the circle of life it is a busy wee book and it was interesting to read about the cracker process, well I thought so. Each of the women are different and those they meet in the club, it is an interesting bunch of characters and I would have liked to have read more on each of them, the ones who don't play a huge part. The characters however well involved or little flashes all bring something to the tale and are carved out to make the reader want more, well I did. Humour, happiness, fun, sad, quirky and even some hard hitting serious issues dealt with respectfully. I do enjoy Johnson, I have yet to read one of hers I didn't like and I think this is one of her top books, 4.5/5 for me this time!

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