Emma's Review: The Ops Room Girls by Vicki Beeby

  Reviewed by Emma Crowley

When Evie’s dreams come crashing down, she’s determined to still make something of herself in these trying times…

It is 1939 and working class Evie Bishop has received a scholarship to study mathematics at Oxford when tragedy turns her life upside down. Evie must seek a new future for herself and, inspired to contribute to the war effort, joins the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force as an Ops Room plotter.

Posted to a fighter station on the Sussex Coast, Evie befriends two other WAAFs – shy, awkward May and flirty, glamorous Jess. Faced with earning the approval of strict officers and finding their way in a male dominated world, the three girls band together to overcome challenges, navigate new romances and keep their pilots safe in the skies.

But the German bombers seem to know more than they should about the base’s operations, and soon Evie, May and Jess are caught up in a world more dangerous than they ever imagined…

Book Links: Kindle or Paperback 

Extract from You Don't Need Therapy: 7 Steps to Sort Your Sh*t Out by Alan Lucas

Today I’m pleased to share an extract from You Don't Need Therapy: 7 Steps to Sort Your Sh*t Out by Alan Lucas. 

The SYSO System is a one-stop self-improvement system that can be applied wherever you are on your journey. You can change your life by following 7 simple steps and the book's 70 practical exercises help you DO the changing, rather than just read about it.

You'll learn how to expand your awareness, manage your mind, take charge of your emotions, meet your needs in healthy ways, have a crystal-clear philosophy for the purpose of your life, understand that everything is interconnected, and how to make your life more enjoyable by enhancing the lives of others. You'll light up and lighten up, leading more from your heart than your ego, being focused on feeling fulfilled by being useful. By following the steps, you will change the filter through which you experience life and by changing the filter, everything will look different.

Changing your life isn't that complicated when you know how, and when you know how, you don't need therapy.

In Western society, we’re generally encouraged to be achievers and achievement is seen as the high marker of success. We celebrate people who we identify as having made great achievements and this is commendable in many ways and has a huge part to play for society and for the individual, but ‘achievement’ and ‘fulfilment’ are very different. Most of us are striving for achievements in our life. We have goals for our career, our finances, and the possessions we want, and achievement in this sense is just a science. It follows certain steps and if we apply the steps, we’ll increase the probability of ‘achieving’. However, for all the achieving and all the progress we have made as human beings, we seem to be unhappier than ever. Statistics on depression and unhappiness show no precise link to money or material achievement, and we regularly hear about the high-flying career executive, business person or celebrity who seemingly has everything they wanted to achieve, but who is deeply unhappy and ‘depressed’. 

Emma's Review: Hidden Lies by Rachel Ryan

 Reviewed by Emma Crowley 

All children have imaginary friends. It's perfectly normal.But when Georgina's young son Cody tells her about his 'New Granny', a mysterious friend from the park, the words send shivers down her spine. Georgina's beloved mother died only months ago.

Her husband Bren is certain the woman is an invention, Cody's way of grieving for his grandmother, but there's something in the way Cody talks about his new friend that feels so real.Is someone out there, watching Georgina's family from the shadows?

Is Cody's imaginary friend not so imaginary after all?

Book Links: Kindle or Paperback

Emma's Review: The German Girl by Lily Graham

 Reviewed by Emma Crowley

‘Our parents were taken. And if we go home, the Nazis will take us too…’

Hamburg 1938. Fifteen-year-old Asta is hurrying home from school with her twin brother Jurgen. The mood in the city is tense – synagogues have been smashed with sledgehammers, and Asta is too frightened to laugh as she used to.

But when she and Jurgen are stopped in the street by a friend, her world implodes further. Her Jewish parents have been dragged into the streets by German soldiers and if she and Jurgen return to their house, they will be taken too.

Heartbroken at the loss of her parents, Asta knows they must flee. With her beloved brother, she must make the perilous journey across Germany and into Denmark to reach their only surviving relative, her aunt Trine, a woman they barely know.

Jammed into a truck with other refugees, Asta prays for a miracle to save herself and Jurgen. Crossing the border is a crime punishable by death, and what she and Jurgen must embark on a dangerous crossing on foot, through the snowy forest dividing Germany and Denmark. And when barking dogs and armed soldiers find Jurgen and Asta escapes, she must hold on to hope no matter what. One day she will find her twin, the other half of herself. Whatever the price she has to pay…

Book Link: Kindle

Giveaway: Win a digital copy of The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins

My thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for inviting me to take part in the blog tour for The Wife Upstairs, the latest novel by author Rachel Hawkins. I really liked the sound of this one but sadly I wasn't able to fit in a review this month, but have bought a copy to read at my leisure at a later date, so instead thanks to Rachel's publishers Harper Collins I have a digital copy to give away instead. 

A girl looking for love…

When Jane, a broke dog-walker newly arrived in town, meets Eddie Rochester, she can’t believe her luck. Eddie is handsome, rich and lives alone in a beautiful mansion since the tragic death of his beloved wife a year ago.

A man who seems perfect…

Eddie can give Jane everything she’s always wanted: stability, acceptance, and a picture-perfect life.