YOURS CHLOE: February 2023

Review: The Paris Notebook by Tessa Harris*

*I received a copy of this book in eBook format via NetGalley in return for this review. All reviews published on Yours, Chloe are completely honest and my own, and are in now way influenced by the gifting opportunity.

Title: The Paris Notebook
Author: Tessa Harris
Genre: Historical Fiction

Trigger warnings: War, Antisemitism, Gun Violence, Violence, Suicide, Parental Mental Health, Parental Loss, Death Of A Parent, Child Death

Rating: ★★★★★

The Paris Notebook is set in 1939 and is the story of Katja, a young woman from Hamburg who is hired as a typist by a local psychiatrist Doctor Viktor. She finds herself tasked with copying the top-secret medical records of a patient treated by Doctor Viktor in 1917 and that patient was none other than Adolf Hitler. The records declare Hitler unfit for office and have the power to change the course of the war if exposed so Katja and Doctor Viktor travel to Paris with the aim of finding someone to publish them. There they meet Daniel, an Irish journalist living and working in Paris, who is determined to help them. But the Nazis have discovered their plan and will stop at nothing to destroy the records.

From the second I read the synopsis of Tessa Harris’ latest historical fiction novel I was hooked and the story itself only exceeded my expectations. The Paris Notebook is an utterly gripping and perfectly crafted piece of historical fiction which is a must-read for fans of the genre. It was clearly meticulously researched as, despite being a fictitious account based on true events, history just seeped through the pages.

The Paris Notebook is mostly told through a split narrative, flitting between Katja’s story in Hamburg and Daniel’s story in Paris, and these two stories are eventually interwoven when their paths cross in Paris. It is perfectly paced and gripping from the very beginning, with so many twists and turns that it was nearly impossible to predict what would happen next.

I was expecting the prologue to be merely a slow-paced world-building exercise but this couldn’t have been further from the truth. The prologue is intense, dramatic and throws you straight into fast-paced action. I don’t think a book has ever had me on the edge of my seat so quickly; two pages in is no mean feat so props to Tessa Harris.

Katja is a wonderful protagonist with such depth to her character. We see her grow in courage and strength as the novel progresses, determined to do all she can to fight against the Nazis. I found the character of Daniel to be my favourite and his character development as he begins to rebuild his life following the deaths of his wife and daughter was a really well-executed aspect of the story. Tessa Harris also writes antagonists exceptionally well and both the characters of Doctor Ulbricht and Commodore Flebert made my skin crawl.

At the heart of both of the characters of Katja and Daniel is a love of literature. Their love story very much centres around this shared passion for reading as they meet in a bookshop and then initially bond over book recommendations. References to literature are featured throughout the narrative and I particularly enjoyed the references to the story of Frankenstein to symbolise the role Doctor Viktor views himself as having regrettably having played in the creation of Hitler as the evil dictator we know him to be.

The Paris Notebook has strong mental health representation and features vivid descriptions of the reality of experiencing depression and anxiety. It also beautifully captures the way in which books can transport you to new worlds, away from the difficult emotions and mental health struggles you may be experiencing in the real world, and this really resonated with me as someone who uses reading as exactly that. In the story we also get a raw exploration of grief, shown both through Daniel’s anguish at the loss of his wife and young daughter and through Katja’s devastation at the loss of both of her parents at the hands of the Nazis.

I did find a couple of the decisions made by the characters to be beyond infuriating, particularly the decision to give the manuscript a very incriminating name and the decision for Katja to continue openly working in a shop the Nazi spies were monitoring in attempts to track her down. But ultimately as both these points added to the drama and tension of the story I can let them slide.

It’s rare I find a book which physically makes tears stream down my face but The Paris Notebook did just that. It is a really powerful piece of historical fiction and definitely has the potential to be one of the standout books of 2023.

Review: What the World Doesn't See by Mel Darbon*

Title: What The World Doesn't See
Author: Mel Darbon
Genre: Young Adult

Trigger warnings: Parental Loss, Death Of A Parent, Parental Abandonment

Rating: ★★★★

What The World Doesn’t See is the story of Maudie and Jake, two siblings who lost their Dad a couple of years previously. Their Mum had been really struggling with grief following the death of her husband and one day vanishes. As Jake is autistic, their aunt makes the choice to put him into foster care and Maudie, completely disagreeing with this choice, takes things into her own hands and kidnaps Jake in an attempt to force their Mum to come back to them.

The story is told through a perfectly paced dual POV narrative, alternating between the perspectives of Maudie and Jake. The character of Jake provides a really authentic representation of autism and one of my favourite things about the book is the inclusion of chapters written from Jake’s perspective as it gave Jake his own voice in the story. It’s explained in the author’s afterword that she did this intentionally “because I wanted to give my brother a voice that he couldn’t have for himself” and as an advocate for amplifying autistic voices in literature, this choice and the reasoning behind it was really special to me. We don’t see enough books putting autistic characters at the centre of their own narratives so I think this really sets What The World Doesn’t See apart from other books.

We also have neurodivergent adult representation through the character of Jiera and I found this to be a really important inclusion as it reminds readers that neurodivergent children become neurodivergent adults and therefore it’s not just children who may experience some of the difficulties explored through Jake’s character.

The story provides a moving exploration of the grief experienced by both adults and children following the death of a loved one. I particularly found the exploration of Jake’s understanding of death really interesting and it was really moving to see his understanding of where his Dad had gone building as the book progressed.

I adored the sibling bond between Maudie and Jake and how fiercely Maudie advocated for Jake. The blossoming relationship between Maudie and Gerren was also very sweet. It was arguably rather juvenile at times when you think about the ages of the characters but this is understandable given the age range the book is targeted at.

I did struggle in parts with the maturity of the character of Maudie as in some aspects of the book she clearly had a mature head on her shoulders (demonstrated through how well she looks after Jake) but in others she seems to not have the grasp on reality that a 17 nearly 18 year old would have. For example, she thinks that the police won’t be involved in the case of the abduction of a vulnerable child from their foster home. To a degree I can understand that this could be linked to the trauma of parental loss and then parental abandonment not making her think rationally, but I do still think that it didn’t feel like the actions someone approaching adulthood would think appropriate.

What The World Doesn’t See is a must-read for young adult and mature middle grade readers to build empathy and educate on neurodivergence and the experiences of neurodivergent individuals. It’s a powerful story with so much heart to it and I know it will really stay with anyone who reads it.

Review: The Polish Girl by Gosia Nealon*

Caution - This review does contain spoilers.

Title: The Polish Girl
Author: Gosia Nealon
Genre: Historical Fiction

Trigger warnings: War, Antisemitism, Violence, Guns, Rape

Rating: ★★★★★

The Polish Girl is a renamed republishing of the first book in Gosia Nealon’s Secret Resistance Series: ‘The Last Sketch’. It tells the story of Wanda, a young Polish woman who is working for the Polish resistance in memory of her late Father who was murdered by the Gestapo. Whilst completing a resistance assignment she comes face to face with the man who killed her father and is immediately sickened but he quietly tells her “I am not who you think I am” and reveals himself to actually be Finn, the identical twin brother of the Gestapo officer, who is impersonating his evil brother in an undercover mission for the Allies. The story follows Wanda and Finn’s fight for survival, and fight for each other, amongst the events of the final year of the Second World War.

The Polish Girl is perfectly paced; starting off with a slow pace to world-build, establish the characters and build relationships between them and then progressing onto something which is fast-paced with lots of tension. I was hooked from the first page and finished the book in a single sitting as I simply couldn’t put it down. Despite being a work of fiction, there’s a lot of historical accuracy in the book through accurate depictions of key historical events, such as the Warsaw Uprising and the experiences of Polish citizens during the Red Army advance into Poland.

All of the characters in The Polish Girl were beautifully complex. We have a really strong female protagonist in Wanda who is a real force to be reckoned with. She’s incredibly clever, passionate, brave and determined and the exploration of her challenging relationship with her mother was a really interesting addition to the story which really added an extra layer to Wanda’s characterisation. In the love story of Wanda and Finn we have a good example of the enemies to lovers trope in the non-traditional sense as Wanda initially misidentifies Finn as her enemy when in fact he’s actually his twin brother. They experience an instant connection and it’s really interesting to see the character of Wanda conflicted between the way she finds herself drawn to him and her feelings of utter hatred towards the man she thinks killed her father.

My track record of instantly falling in love with the love interests in historical romances only continued with the character of Finn, who had me truly captivated from his first entrance into the story. I could give you a long list of quotes from the things he says/does to Wanda which really cemented this and the interactions between him and various children he spends time with during the novel made me just melt. I found the concept of Finn and Stefan following two completely different paths in life, with one joining the Nazi party and one fighting against them, despite being twin brothers really interesting and it’s something which was brilliantly explored.

My one gripe with the character of Finn was that he began to believe that Wanda had betrayed him. This was a complete 360 from his original intense trust in the woman he loves and suddenly moved away from his initial (correct) assumption that Wanda’s disappearance was at the hands of Gerda. Not having any contact with Wanda – or even trying to find out if she survived the war – for so many years seemed completely out of character from the Finn we’d seen for the rest of the novel but I do appreciate that doing this enabled us to have the heart-warming reunion between Finn and Wanda in the closing chapters of the book. I was also slightly infuriated that he’d not had the foresight to use his FBI connections to keep track of his brother but I do appreciate that nobody would have predicted that someone who had committed such atrocities would be released from prison so quickly.

I also did find it slightly unbelievable that Finn could ever capture the mannerisms, speech patterns and behaviours of Stefan (someone he’d not seen for many years) without detection, but this is something that is picked up on by the character of Gerda so it’s a potential plot hole I can let pass. I definitely would have liked for us to have had a chapter which focused on Finn assuming Stefan’s identity and integrating himself into his life and Gestapo role, as I think that was a particularly crucial part of his mission. Seeing how Finn recovered from the potential little slip ups he is likely to have made whilst adjusting to his new persona could have supported the realism of the plotline.

I thought that Gerda (Stefan Keller’s fiancé and the daughter of the man in charge of the Gestapo in Warsaw) was a really well written character who perfectly captured the generation brainwashed by Nazi ideology. Whilst I’m not normally a fan of a last-minute redemption arc for an antagonist, I was really satisfied by the inclusion of this as we did see snippets of good in her character throughout the book and there were hints that she may be beginning to have doubts regarding the ideology being fed to her by the Nazi regime. This was particularly explored through her letters to her mother and I also found the exploration of her experiencing abuse at the hands of both her father and her fiancé to be really interesting.

Although most historical fiction novels end somewhere around the end of the war, The Polish Girl rather uniquely takes us up to 1950. As someone who often finishes novels set in this era craving an insight into how the characters lives played out in the aftermath of the war as Europe started to rebuild and recover, I absolutely loved that Gosia Nealon made the choice to do this. Covering the five years post-war period allowed us to not only explore the post-war lives of the main characters, it also allowed us to get a little update on each of the supporting characters we’d met throughout the narrative. Although I did notice that Mateusz, Wanda’s brother, wasn’t included in this and that was initially confusing, I am predicting this is intentional to not give us any hints towards the second book in the series ‘The Polish Wife’ which will focus more on Mateusz and his love story with Anna.

Overall, The Polish Girl is an incredible historical fiction work which is as heart-warming as it is heart-breaking. It’s fantastically paced and contains gripping moments of real tension which will have readers on the edge of their seats. Fans of World War Two historical fiction will love the story and it’s feature of an Enemies to Lovers romance will also make it a good introduction to the genre for other readers who enjoy the trope. I am eagerly awaiting the publication of the next book in The Secret Resistance series ‘The Polish Wife’ as it will give us an opportunity to return to some of the much-loved characters we met within The Polish Girl.

Review: The Headmaster's List by Melissa de la Cruz*

Caution - This review does contain spoilers.

Title: The Headmaster's List
Author: Melissa de la Cruz
Genre: Young Adult Crime Thriller

Trigger warnings: Car Accident, Gambling Addiction, Stalking, Drugs, Underage Drinking, 'Troubled Teen' Behaviour Camps (including suggestions of child abuse), Cheating

Rating: ★★★★

The Headmaster’s List centres around a car crash involving four high school students. One is killed, one seriously injured and one of them is arrested for death by dangerous driving. Spencer was seriously injured in the crash and her ex-boyfriend Ethan is the one facing the charges but Spencer is not convinced he is guilty and decides to work to prove his innocence, despite having no memory of the events. She enlists the help of Jackson, Ethan’s best friend, and together they work to try and uncover the truth of the crash.

The Headmaster’s List is a really interesting concept and it is delivered through a fast-paced story. I wanted to love the book and it did keep my interest but overall, it just wasn’t executed as well as I would have liked. The plot seemed to move quite far away from reality in a lot of aspects and this was disappointing. For example, simple details about the crash seemed to be completely ignored by the police and the lawyers involved in the case and a teenager run true-crime podcast was able to get hold of confidential police documents that they wouldn’t even allow one of the victims to see. Spencer also recovers from a traumatic brain injury and returns to school only a week later and she is expected to recover from PTSD brought on by the crash without any proper therapy and just with the use of a therapy dog.

The narrative is broken up with extracts from other things which provide more context and support the world-building within the story. This includes podcast transcripts, extracts from the police report and extracts from Spencer’s bullet journal and it overall was a real asset to the story.

I did really like the protagonist, Spencer. She was a really likeable character who was well written and has really good morals, evidenced by her determination to prove her ex-boyfriend’s innocence despite him cheating on her for over a year. The character of Jackson also had real depth to him but – apart from therapy dog Ripley who has my whole heart – that’s about as far as likeable characters go. The Headmaster character gave me beyond creepy vibes (framed pictures of his favourite students in his office is a red flag and don’t even get me started on the elitist list of his), Spencer’s parents make practically no appearances in the story and the Detective character gives police everywhere a bad name. I did think his behaviour hinted towards some kind of involvement in the accident or in the threats towards Spencer but it never went anywhere. There are a lot of other characters introduced during the story which can be a lot to get your head around. The author’s intention may have been to build the tension by adding in additional potential suspects but I think for any of them to be considered viable suspects they needed to be properly introduced and developed rather than just mentioned in passing, like in the case of Ethan’s stalker. I would also have liked the character of Olivia to play a more prominent role in the story. Despite being Spencer’s best friend, she’s scarcely mentioned for most of the narrative, so much so that I’d even forgotten she existed until Spencer forgot her birthday party towards the end of the book.

One of the aspects of the story I struggled with is the fact that we find out very little about Chris, the teenager who died in the crash, and what we do find out doesn’t make us warm to him as he’s a pretty dodgy character. Partially this may be down to the fact that the crash opens the book so we don’t encounter the character at all when he was alive but it ultimately made it difficult for us to truly care about getting justice for him, as harsh as that may sound.

We do have non-binary representation through the character of Tabby but it honestly felt like Tabby was only pointedly identified as nonbinary as part of a diversity box ticking exercise. They are misgendered multiple times during the narrative and it’s disappointing this wasn’t spotted during the editing process.

There are big twists in the closing chapters and I won’t lie, it did make me scream and threaten to lock the book in my cellar to think about what it did. I was infuriated and it did ultimately ruin the book for me. I considered how to write this review without including any spoilers but ultimately as it was the twists which decreased my star rating, I thought it only right that I acknowledge them. Two of the big twists were predictable from very early on in the story but the third twist ultimately didn’t make sense. Nick being the person guilty of threatening Spencer was predictable as he was always a shifty character and from the opening chapters I could have told you that it was going to end up being Spencer that had been driving the car but it’s Jackson’s involvement in the car accident and his actions in the closing chapters which infuriated me beyond belief. Although I had considered Jackson’s involvement in the accident at the very beginning of the story, the character development we saw in him, the blossoming relationship between him and Spencer and the focus on him not being like his dad (a criminal serving a long prison sentence) really veered me away from this theory and made me hope the book would follow a different direction. It was ultimately really disappointing that they chose to make the character do a complete 180 just so it was something the readers didn’t see coming.

In the closing chapter we also get hints towards Spencer forgiving and reuniting with Ethan which was beyond frustrating and really went against Spencer’s character development. Whilst taking the blame for the accident might have been a very nice thing to do (if not just completely bonkers on Ethan’s part but don’t even get me started on that), it does not excuse him cheating on her.

Overall, The Headmaster’s List is a really interesting concept but it was disappointing overall. It was an easy read which did hold my attention and I did find myself desperate to have the crime solved but the book was ultimately taken in a direction which I don’t think was in keeping with the characters or story overall so I can’t rank it any higher than 3*.

The Headmaster's List by Melissa de la Cruz will be published on 2nd March.

Review: The Gossip Games by Allie Sarah*

Title: The Gossip Games
Author: Allie Sarah
Genre: Young Adult Romance

Trigger warnings: Biphobia & Characters Outed By Others.

Rating: ★★★

The Gossip Games is a Young Adult romance which combines both the fake dating trope and the best friend’s sibling trope. Dean is Gracie’s best friend’s brother and when a rumour about them dating starts up around their boarding school, they dare each other to go along with it to see who would give in and reveal the truth first. This really takes a different spin on the usual fake dating stories and sets The Gossip Games apart from other YA novels featuring that trope.

Allie Sarah has done a fantastic job of creating some characters which are far more complex than we often see in YA fiction, which is no mean feat in a debut work. There were other characters which were under-developed but I think this was down to the battle between a lack of page space and the very large number of characters introduced throughout the story, many of whom weren’t really relevant to the overall narrative. I understood the need to world-build somewhat given that it is the first book in the Trinity High Series but it ended up coming across like random characters were being thrown into scenes simply so we’re aware of them prior to a feature in a later story in the series. I’d rather the focus have been more on fully developing the characters that were relevant to this story and a choice made to only introduce other characters as and when they were relevant in later books.

We have strong bisexual and gay representation in the supporting characters and the book explores teenage experiences of coming out in a brilliant way. There is a storyline surrounding a character being outed by a member of their family, which is worth noting if that content is likely to be triggering for you as a reader. We also see a real diverse range of family types which is an important inclusion in the story. There is some good mental health representation through Gracie experiencing panic attacks and my heart melted for the incredible way Dean supported her through them.

I liked Trinity High as the setting for the book – despite the baffling lack of teachers supervising anything the students seem to do – and will be really interested to see how the school is further explored in later books in the series. On top of this, I also thought the Ashcroft family dynamic was a really interesting one and it added a unique element to the story. I would have loved further exploration of the inner-family workings and relationships as all interactions between the Ashcroft adults and teenagers seems rushed but hopefully this is something that can be further explored in later books in the series. With the next book focusing on Jesse, I did wonder if we were going to see a book focusing on each of the Ashcroft teenagers and I do think this would be a lovely direction to take the series in.

The romance between Gracie and Dean was very sweet and a good exploration of first love. Outside of the fake dating plot, their love story is a good example of a slow burn romance and I was really rooting for them. It did feel at times like their romance would have been more fitting in 14/15 year old characters rather than 17/18 year olds as it was quite juvenile at times. I’ve spoken before in previous YA reviews about my passion for the inclusion of sex in YA romances where fitting to the story and I do feel like it was missing from The Gossip Games, particularly given the age of the characters and the number of times in the story that they’re away together without adult supervision. Potential exploration of a first sexual relationship was suggested at the very beginning of the story as the fake dating stems from rumours that Gracie and Dean are sleeping together and Gracie briefly mentions being a virgin in response to this but it’s the last time that sex is really mentioned at all. Whilst this may have been intentional to market the book at younger YA readers, I think a book focusing on the lives of characters on the cusp of adulthood naturally navigates itself towards the older end of the YA demographic who are at a point in their lives where they’re starting to explore sex and relationships. It is therefore important that these themes are also explored in the books they’re reading and a story like The Gossip Games could have been a good platform for this so it is a shame it was completely missed out.

The Gossip Games is a short novel and in trying to keep it short and sweet I think we do miss out on getting an in-depth exploration of some aspects of the story. The fake dating plot is introduced to the story really quickly and it probably would have worked better to have at least a few chapters worth of character development and build up first. Time could also jump forwards suddenly in the middle of the chapter – moving the story on by days or weeks at a time – and this on top of the frequent paragraph breaks mid-conversation to change character perspective really effected the overall flow of the story and made it hard to follow at times.

The writing style and plot points could be quite juveniles at times and some aspects of the plots – such as the storyline involving Blake – were very predictable. I did find some interactions between Dean and Gracie frustrating as they seemed to realise their feelings for each other and then convince themselves they were just friends repeatedly over the course of the story. We had repeated kiss scenes which were clearly just for them and not to further their fake dating story, yet they kept returning to the idea that they had no feelings for each other at all. Although some of this could be put up to teenagers experiencing love for the first time and not knowing what it all means, it did become quite repetitive and I was begging them to just hurry up and realise their feelings.

Overall, The Gossip Games is a good debut YA romance which I know teen readers will love. More mature fans of the YA genre may struggle with some aspects of the storytelling as I did, but if you’re just after a fake dating story which is an easy read and features a cutesy romance than this is the book for you. I teetered between rating the book 3* and 4* as I know that many of the issues I had with the story stem from the fact that I am an adult reader of YA fiction and I do know that teenage Chloe would have adored the book. I’m definitely keen to see where Allie Sarah takes the series and do look forward to reading future works by her.

The Gossip Games by Allie Sarah will be published on 18th April 2023.

Review: Six Times We Almost Kissed (And One Time We Did) by Tess Sharpe*

Title: Six Times We Almost Kissed (And One Time We Did)
Author: Tess Sharpe
Genre: Young Adult / LGBTQ+ Fiction

Trigger warnings: Parental Loss, Abuse/Neglect by a parent, Cancer, Parental Illness, Death, PTSD, Suicide Ideation, Anti-Therapy and Anti-Medication Attitudes (from a parent, including therapy denial).

Rating: ★★★★★

Six Times We Almost Kissed (And One Time We Did) tells the heart-warming coming of age story of Penny and Tate, two girls who have always clashed but whose lives constantly overlap through their mothers who have been best friends since childhood. When Tate’s mum needs a liver transplant, Penny’s mum volunteers to be a live donor and they choose to combine households so the families can support each other physically, emotionally and financially. This means that Penny and Tate are living under the same roof and are forced to address the one thing they keep ignoring: the fact that they keep almost kissing.

Penny and Tate’s story is a beautiful slow burn romance, perfect for fans of the enemies to lovers trope. In Penny and Tate’s love story we also really see the everyone can see it trope as not only do their friends see a spark between them but their mums do too. The book is structured into multiple parts, with each part telling the story of an individual time the pair has almost kissed, gradually building up to them actually kissing and becoming a couple. Structuring the story in this way gave us as readers an insight into the full complicated story of their relationship and how shared experiences have brought them closer together. We also have occasional pages which share text feeds between different characters, particularly between Penny and Tate and between Meghan (Penny’s best friend) and Remington (Tate’s best friend). This breaks up the narrative in quite a light-hearted and often humorous way so was a nice addition to the story.

In Six Times We Almost Kissed we have a story which goes beyond the typical light-hearted love story you’d expect from a YA romance novel. Both girls have had to grow up incredibly quickly and I think Tess Sharpe explores this really well. Tate has had to manage having a single parent with a long-term illness and this has included taking a role in managing the family finances despite only being a teenager. Penny is recovering from the trauma of the water sports accident which injured her and killed her father and interjected within the narrative are occasional chapters which provide a flashback to the events surrounding the accident. This really helps readers to understand the trauma Penny has as a result and the way it has impacted on her relationship with her mum. We see real character development in the character of Penny throughout the story as she learns to stand up to herself against her Mum and demand what she needs in order to be able to start to heal from her trauma. The mental health representation we have in the book through the exploration of the PTSD and trauma Penny has is truly fantastic and a really sets Six Times We Almost Kissed apart from other YA books. As it covers so many hard-hitting topics, the book does have a number of content warnings and I have listed what I consider to be the key ones in the information above. Tess Sharpe posted an in-depth content warning list on her blog, which you can find here.

We have two really strong female leads in Penny and Tate and I instantly warmed to the both of them. Whilst I adored Penny’s love of bullet journalling and the real journey of character development she goes on throughout the book, Tate was my personal favourite character. I found her character really endearing and found it so sweet that she would drop everything whenever Penny needed her. I do wish we’d had more exploration of her passion for swimming though as it became a bit of an insignificant detail in the story.

Although it doesn’t take away from it being a five-star read for me, I did struggle with the structure of the narrative. The story is told through a dual perspective narrative and although I really enjoyed having both Penny and Tate’s perspectives as they provided really distinctive takes on the story, I didn’t like that was no pattern to whose chapter was whose. Whilst traditionally in a dual perspective narrative you might see the chapters alternate, in Six Times We Almost Kissed it flits between perspectives quite willy-nilly. I’m conscious that this is just something which goes against my personal preference and I did get used to it as the book progressed, which is why it hasn’t impacted on my star rating.

Overall, Six Times We Almost Kissed (And One Time We Did) is a beautiful queer love story which is incredibly heart-warming whilst also not being afraid to tackle some really hard-hitting topics. Although it’s a YA novel, I feel that adult readers such as myself can take so much from the story.

Have you read Six Times We Almost Kissed (And One Time We Did)? What did you think?

Review: Lightkeepers by Kennedy Plumb*

Title: Lightkeepers
Author: Kennedy Plumb
Genre: Young Adult Romance / Retelling

Trigger warnings: Cults, Forced Self Harm, Verbal Sexual Harassment, Emotional Abuse, Physical Abuse, Child Abuse, Kidnapping, Guns

Rating: ★★★★★

Lightkeepers is a modern retelling of the Disney movie Tangled told through a dual perspective narrative following our two main characters: Zella and Ryder. Seventeen-year-old Zella is trapped in a dangerous cult, kept in isolation in a lighthouse since birth as the first “Child of the Lighthouse” and the daughter of the program’s leader. Ryder is in the foster care system and has been moved around from family to family his entire life. One night, Ryder is seeking shelter and he climbs through the window of a remote lighthouse, straight into Zella’s bedroom. He introduces Zella to life outside the lighthouse and a connection starts to grow between the two of them.

The events of the story take place over the course of a matter of days so the book is fast paced and relatively short. There is a wild twist at the end of the story which I really wasn’t expecting so props to the author. Despite the story taking place over such a short timeframe, there’s still so much character development in both our protagonists and it was a joy to see the characters grow as they spend more time together and start to bring out the best in each other. Despite covering some dark themes, there’s humour woven throughout the story, particularly in the interactions between Ryder and Zella.

Breaking up each chapter is a page sharing something relating to the events of the chapter just gone, utilising a range of different forms of media. This includes documentation about the cult Zella is trapped in, newspaper reports, social media comment streams and little lists Ryder has made. This inclusion is very in keeping with the YA genre and does a wonderful job of supporting world building without taking too much away from the narrative.

I enjoyed the little nods to the Disney film sprinkled throughout the book, such as the use of Eugene as Ryder’s new surname after he’s adopted and the naming of Zella’s cat as ‘Pax’ in tribute to Pascal the chameleon.

Although this may be a retelling of a Disney story, it is quite dark and does covers some difficult subject matter. As a result of this, there are a number of important content warnings I want to signpost people to before reading and you can find these listed at the top of the post.

Both Zella and Ryder are instantly loveable characters who are really genuine and easy to connect with. Between them a beautiful romance blossoms which is the perfect wholesome exploration of first love. Through Ryder’s story we get a really powerful insight into the American foster care system and I particularly enjoyed watching him grow and mature throughout the story.

Our antagonist was ‘Mother’ - aka Zella’s mum and the leader of the cult – and the evil of her character was explored through initially subtle detailing which became more apparent as the book progressed (and as Zella became more disillusioned with the program), building a sense of mounting menace over time. It was a tad easier for Zella to overcome her than I would have liked but it was ultimately in keeping with the genre.

This was my first experience of the world of fairy-tale retellings but I absolutely devoured the story in one sitting and it’s definitely got me hooked on the genre.

Have you read a good fairy-tale retelling? Leave your recommendations below!

Review: The Last Letter From Paris by Kate Eastham*

Caution - This review does contain spoilers.

Title: The Last Letter From Paris
Author: Kate Eastham
Genre: Historical Fiction

Trigger warnings: Miscarriage, Infertility, Cancer, Physical Abuse, Violence, Implied Sexual Assault

Rating: ★★★★

The Last Letter From Paris tells the story of Cora Mayhew, a First World War foundling who has been adopted by Evie (the nurse who found her) and her husband. All Cora knows about her birth mother was that they shared the same flame red hair, she was French and that she had left Cora with a distinctive necklace. Now an adult, Cora makes the journey from America to France in search of her mother but shortly after arriving the second world war breaks out and she ends up trapped in Nazi occupied France.

One thing that Kate Eastham does do incredibly well in the book is her exploration of the complexities of adoption and also female experiences of miscarriage, stillbirth and infertility. Whilst a historical fiction novel might not be the most obvious setting for exploration of these topics, it’s done in a really clever and powerful way whilst maintaining the main focus of the story. This is primarily explored through occasional chapters focusing on Evie’s experiences stuck in America unable to have any contact with Cora whilst she’s in France. I also really enjoyed the feature of strong female characters connected by shared challenging experiences, through Iris, Evie and Francine and the bond they built working as nurses on different ships. I didn’t realise this until I was researching the book for the purpose of this review but Evie and Iris are actually both characters from another of Kate Eastham’s books ‘The Sea Nurses’ and I’m sure fans of this previous work will appreciate a return to the characters and their stories after the first world war.

We get a fantastic exploration of Paris in the immediate aftermath of the Nazi occupation and I think having our protagonist being an American citizen added a really interesting aspect to the story. Cora is staying with Iris, her mother’s best friend from their time as nurses, but when Iris is arrested by the Nazis on the first day of their occupation, Cora refuses to leave France for the safety of America until Iris is safe. Whilst awaiting news about Iris, Cora gets involved with the French resistance and this leads to a series of events which see her having to flee Paris whilst wanted by the Nazis.

One aspect of the book I struggled with is the lack of closure. We have a beautiful sequence of scenes where Cora finds a newborn baby in a bombed out house and takes on the care of the child, mirroring the scenes of her adoptive mother Evie finding her as a newborn and taking her in. I really enjoyed this plot point as I felt it added a new dimension to the story, setting it apart from the typical ‘resistance member fleeing the Nazis’ storyline that has been done many times before in other historical fiction works. But unfortunately, this aspect of the plot didn’t last very long as Cora leaves the baby with a French woman, in the hope she can get in contact with the baby’s father who is in a POW camp. Whilst I appreciate Cora’s reasoning for doing this, I was disappointed that we’d so quickly lost such a unique aspect to the story and I think that, although it would have taken the story in a completely new direction, the concept of the child being adopted by Cora and taken to England would have been really interesting. Instead, we’re left with the knowledge that the baby is in France and never really hear about her again, which was disappointing to me.

During her escape, Cora meets German soldier Max Heller who offers to help her. Max has family in America and this helps him to form a connection with Cora so he helps to shelter her and the baby she has found and ultimately romance blossoms between them. Whilst I found the idea of Cora, a resistance member and American citizen on the run from the Nazis, falling for a German soldier to be really interesting, I did struggle with aspects of their romance. Ultimately, they spend only a matter of days together yet we’re meant to believe they’ve fallen madly in love, enough that (big spoiler alert) Max would come and find Cora in America after he’s discharged from the army. Their love felt incredibly superficial and I don’t think this was helped by the fact that their time together was squashed into merely a couple of pages, despite Max’s prominent feature in the blurb making us think he’s a key character. This meant that we as readers weren’t granted sufficient time to explore their blossoming relationship and in turn start to root for them. Again this is another plot point which I think is a really interesting concept and could have turned into an interesting book in its own right, but it just wasn’t given the attention it deserved within this story.

I also struggled with the fact that the plot veered so far away from the focus on her finding her birth mother. The opening chapters and blurb of the story focus so significantly on the importance of finding Cora’s birth mother but this is quickly forgotten as the rest of the story plays out. Whilst the resistance work she did and her subsequent arrest by the truly evil Nazi officer Karl Hesser was a really interesting plot point, it felt like a completely different book entirely to the one we’d started about a foundling trying to find her birth mother. The attention was so focused on Cora’s experiences at the hands of Hesser that we don’t hear much about her mother until a casual mention in the closing chapters in what felt like an afterthought attempt to close the storyline. And this mention actually leaves us with more questions rather than answering them. I wish that the story had actually been split into two separate books: one focused on a foundling’s attempt to find her mother and one focused on an American woman working for the French resistance in Nazi occupied France.

The scenes where Cora has been imprisoned by Karl Hesser and is both drugged and physically assaulted were gripping but slightly fantastical as it seemed incredibly unlikely that the one officer who has a vengeance against Cora would happen to show up in the location she had fled to. Cora’s survival was ultimately completely down to the help of other people and this was a shame as earlier points had hinted towards some strong character development from the rather naïve young woman she was at the beginning of the book. It would have been less of an underwhelming ending had Cora escaped the hands of Hesser of her own accord.

Overall, The Last Letter From Paris is an easy-to-read novel which is well paced and definitely packed full of action, if you can by pass the fantastical elements and underwhelming lack of overall closure. I really wanted to love this book and felt it had such potential but it unfortunately missed the mark for me.

Pages