Amanda Ross is an average twelve year old Canadian girl. So what is she doing thousands of kilometres from home in the United Arab Emirates? It’s her own fault really, she wished for adventure and travel when she blew out those candles on her last birthday cake. Little did she know that a whole different world awaited her on the other side of the globe, one full of intrigue, mystery and folklore. A world with a beautiful princess, a dangerous desert and wonderful friends. Join Amanda on her first adventure as she discovers the secrets behind The Perfume Flask.
My review
Such a cute middle grade book about Amanda venturing to the United Arab Emirates. It is educational too, various aspects of living in the desert and the culture and customs of the people are explained in an interesting way throughout the book. It is descriptive, fun, and amusing too. I particularly loved the sections with camels and how the author explained different types of camels and how wonderful the camel is especially in a sand storm!
What a great way to educate youngsters about the diversity of cultures in this world.
It transported me away for a while, and made me smile, which I’m grateful for particularly at the moment when we can’t go anywhere.
From Colleen’s blog –BADGER HEXASTICH: The Badger Hexastich is syllabic and written in six lines with a 2/4/6/6/4/2 structure. It is unrhymed with optional rising and falling end-words, which I think is an interesting twist.
My latest book a collection of poetry, is due out on February 26th.
BLURB
Lockdown Innit is a poetry collection of eighteen poems about life’s absurdities and frustrations during lockdown. Wherever you live in this world, this is for you. Expect humour, a dollop of banter and ridiculous rants here and there. Amongst other delights, witness the strange antics of a swan posing by a bin and two statuesque horses appearing like arc deco pieces in a field. Check out the violin player on a tightrope, or the cheeky unmentionables wafting in the lockdown breeze!
It is available to preorder now:
Some advanced readers quotes:
Hope you enjoyed the poem about the waterfall. I have a fondness for waterfalls and all things water!
Book blurb: From the international bestselling author of If you love me, I’m yours, Ninja School Mum and Babe Driven.
Genie’s family is in crisis. Their seafront business is failing with the loss of Genie’s grandmother and her legendary ice cream flavours. Genie is determined to be the one to save her family’s heritage, but suddenly her mother wants to sell to developers and leave their shared history behind.
Buying the business and taking on a sixty-eight year old business partner, Ada, with a mysterious past and a gorgeous but distracting grandson, Genie sets out to prove her parents wrong.
Ada’s grandson, Cal, wants to protect his gran from ‘pensioner persuader’, Genie, but soon realises that living in a little seaside town and away from the paparazzi in Hollywood can actually give him time to heal. Hiding in a seafront business with its fiery owner and working as kitchen staff, is the only way he can think of to keep his ex-Hollywood glamour-puss, gran from harm.
But his meddling might also ruin Ada’s second chance at love.
Hiring a private detective and learning about Genie’s parent’s past makes Cal regret his own impulsiveness. The information he has unearthed could destroy their blossoming romance and turn Genie’s world upside down.
Genie soon discovers that friends can become enemies and your closest family can have lied to you for your whole life.
Author Bio
International bestselling author and award-winning inventor, Lizzie Chantree, started her own business at the age of 18 and became one of Fair Play London and The Patent Office’s British Female Inventors of the Year in 2000. She discovered her love of writing fiction when her children were little and now works as a business mentor and runs a popular networking hour on social media, where creatives can support to each other. She writes books full of friendship and laughter, that are about women with unusual and adventurous businesses, who are far stronger than they realise. She lives with her family on the coast in Essex. Visit her website at www.lizziechantree.com or follow her on Twitter @Lizzie_Chantree https://twitter.com/Lizzie_Chantree.
The Little Ice Cream Shop By the Sea really appeals to me. What’s not to love, ice cream, the sea and romance? Sounds like a perfect book to enjoy. Looking forward to reading and reviewing.
Desperate to find their missing sisters, Michael and Chloe ask investigative journalist Maggie Turner to help them. And what starts as a simple investigation, soon turns into a frantic race against time.
The kidnapper took the girls to replace his sisters; sisters who died seventeen years earlier.
Forced to face traumatic events from the past, Maggie finds herself in the middle of a nightmare that can only get worse…
Tense, fast-paced, and gritty, The Lost Girls is the first novel in the Maggie Turner series. It’s the perfect read for fans of authors like Angela Marsons, Carol Wyer and Helen Fields.
My review
This is the first book I’ve read from Helen Pryke and I am impressed. A confident, engaging psychological thriller that kept me turning the pages wanting to discover what happens next.
The strengths of the story lie in its excellent characters: particularly Maggie the investigative journalist who seeks to discover who abducted the two young girls.
What surprised me most in The Lost Girls was an unexpected feeling of sympathy for the deranged person who abducted these two young girls. As the story progresses I became more aware that this thriller should be praised for its handling of mental health issues. It’s superb in that respect. The ending was fantastic, and makes me keen to read more. This is the first in this series.
This novel is for you if you enjoy psychological thrillers with a dark edge to them. Please be aware that there are distressing themes in this novel: abduction, sexual assault of a minor, and scenes of violence. These are written in such a way as not to prolong, or be too graphic. So, considerable praise to the author for handling these difficult passages in such a sensitive way.
A difficult one to rate, I’ve been mulling over the rating for a few days.
Overall, an excellent psychological thriller: 4.5 stars, highly recommended.
Looking forward to reading more from Helen Pryke.
I am really enjoying reading thrillers at the moment!
Today, I am featuring three wonderful ladies from Canada, Debby Gies (D G Kaye,) Darlene Foster and Christy Birmingham. You might remember that in 2019 I travelled to Canada with my two daughters, Natasha and Georgina for a special girls’ trip! We visited Montreal and I absolutely loved it. Would love to go back one day.
So, I’ve chosen to go with a travel theme for the first two books I’m reading for #ireadcanadian
Debby, Darlene and Christy are all wonderfully inspiring, fantastic supporters of the writing and blogging community. As they say in Scotland, lovely lassies too!
I’ve been meaning to read Darlene and Christy’s books, so I thought here’s an opportunity to do so and have a mini readathan!
Darlene Foster is a Children’s author, traveller, dreamer of dreams, teller of tales. Darlene writes middle grade tales about a young girl, Amanda travelling abroad to exotic destinations. The travel appealed to me especially right now as we are unable to go anywhere! So, I fancied being whisked away to the Middle East, (my dad worked in Abu Dhabhi and Dubai and often reminisces about his time there,) so I chose to read Amanda in Arabia, The Perfume Flask.
D G Kaye is a nonfiction/memoir #author who writes about women’s issues, life & overcoming adversity. I’ve read D G Kaye before, I loved her writing in her memoir, P.S. I Forgive You, a personal account of the author’s experiences of coping and coming to terms with the emotions experienced after the death of a narcissistic mother. This time, I’m taking a look at a different kind of book from D. G. Kaye, I’m reading Have Bags Will Travel which I think will be an absolute scream! I’ve already started it and find it so witty!
The lovely, Christy Birmingham… she has the most informative, inspiring and interesting blog: https://whenwomeninspire.com/
Poetry is a particularly appropriate choice as I am releasing a new poetry book soon. With that in mind, I chose Christy Birmingham’s Versions of The Self, which sounds so interesting, personal and unusual.
Christy’s debut collection is Pathways to Illumination which is available exclusively at Redmund Productions: http://redmundpro.com/book-store/pi/
The book follows one woman’s journey following the end of an abusive relationship. Read how she struggles to rise from darkness, a soul reaching for light, with words that weave hope and despair through the pages.
Christy Birmingham, Owner of When Women Inspire. Taking empowerment and motivation to the next level. Author | Blogger | Copywriter
Thank you so much to James Cudney for this beautifully presented book alert for my forthcoming poetry release. Lockdown Innit which releases February 26th, it is available to preorder via this link: https://mybook.to/Lockdowninnit
Thank you to Robbie Cheadle for this thoughtful review of This Is Lockdown for Rosie’s Book Review Team. I truly appreciate her taking the time to read and review.
The synonyms this week are loose and tough. Sound tricky, thinking, thinking… what to write?
NONET: A nonet is stanzaic and written in any number of 9-line stanzas with the following syllable count per line: 9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 syllables per line
Bless all manner of ingredients
Making something unique and free
Hard to decide what to use
But chili is a must
As is some red beans
By now you’ll guess
What I am
Grab a
Drink!
I’ve been having fun creating new recipes at home with my eldest daughter, Natasha.
The other day I had an urge to make some scones and we did. We weren’t sure what to use, one recipe said eggs, the other one omitted them, so in the end we decided upon adding the eggs (a Mary Berry’s recipe,) and the scones turned out really well.
Recently, we did our own take on the traditional Chilli Con Carne recipe. I’m planning to share this later in the year around Halloween… More about that to come!
We also had great fun making a Chinese Banquet for Lunar New Year, we made Roast Duck and Singapore noodles plus I bought a lot of dim sum. It was so tasty!
Such a fun thing to do. I’m really enjoying trying out new ideas with food at the moment.
Hope you enjoyed the nonet. Happy Valentines, I’m looking forward to my dinner tonight, hubby is making me his signature dish – steak!
I have a new book coming out soon… Lockdown Innit, Poems About Absurdity. It is available to preorder. Make this author really happy by ordering your copy on kindle today!
