The Old Man at the End of the World by AK Silversmith

Gerry, an old man, is tending his allotment by planting leeks he had bought from the supermarket when he realizes the Zompocalypse has started.

The blurb says:

The end is nigh.... and Gerald Stockwell-Poulter has had quite enough of it already. Pesky business altogether. All this hiding and running about. Makes Brexit look like a doddle.
After 87 largely well-behaved years as a model citizen, less than four hours into the ‘zompocalypse’ and he has already killed a neighbour, rescued a moody millennial drug dealer and forged an unlikely allegiance with a giant ginger Scotsman. And it isn’t even tea time.
Join Gerald as he and his newfound allies navigate the post-apocalyptic English countryside in their hilarious bid to stay off the menu.

The Old Man at the End of the World is a short comedy, only 68 pages, so took me only an hour to read this morning, but there are chapters if you don’t have the time to dedicate to a book in one sitting. Whilst it wasn’t laugh-out-loud funny, it was very humorous with bizarre situations and Gerry’s stereotypically English response to being chased by flesh eating zombies.

This book is actually the first ‘bite’ of a series, so there is more to read it you wish. I enjoyed the book enough to put the second book on my Amazon Wishlist, but not enough to buy and consume the next one immediately.

Getaway with God by Letitia Suk

Getaway with God is a book aimed at women, to take some time out of our busy schedules and spend it with God. Whether you can carve out only a few hours, a day, a weekend or perhaps a full week, this book will guide you and provide tools to help you get the most out of your retreat.

The book description says:

What if a simple day away could transform your life?

Does spending time with God sound like just one more thing to check off an ever-increasing to-do list? How are you supposed to fit in anything that threatens to be more time-consuming? Too often there's simply no room to experience the intimacy, grace, and peace that God offers us.

Getaway with God does more than invite you to step away from life's pressures to take a personal retreat. It shows you exactly why you must--for your sake and for your family's.

With grace and warmth, Letitia Suk provides step-by-step guidance and the necessary tools to enable any woman on any budget to plan time away, whether it's a quick, half-day break or a weeklong time of restoration. You'll find detailed steps for preparation, including descriptions of different kinds of retreats and how to choose the best one for you, and you'll learn ways to bring the renewal you experience home with you. Practical appendixes identify retreat centers nationwide and provide exercises and prayers to kick-start your getaway with God.

"No matter what your season in life, the time for retreat is now!

Letitia starts by explaining her own journey, from acknowledging the need for a retreat, to actually going on it. She carefully explains the different type of retreats, and emphasises that everybody is different so not to worry if your personal plan is different. There’s also a chapter on the Sabbath, and the benefit of treating the Sabbath as time to spend focussing on God – something I need to remember when I’m running around after the children.

The second section of the book describes in detail a plan for a 5-day retreat, intertwined with remembrances from Letitia’s journal of her experience.

As someone who doesn’t spend as much time in my relationship with God as perhaps I should, this was well-worth the read. It has made me want to go on a retreat with God (which obviously was the point) but also make more of a concerted effort reading the Bible and praying. I do read through the Bible yearly already, but if I’ve got a spare 30min then focussing on a short passage and actually allowing God the time to talk to me is a positive change.

A 2B Christmas

Some people have asked me how to have a 2B Christmas dinner, so I thought I would write this post. The first thing to remember is that 2B really is a mindset and not a set of rules; however we can follow the principles in order to make the festive season happy and positive, rather than bloated and overfull.

As a recap, the first half of the 2 Bunnies are Water First and Veggies Most. These two things alone, will help you control how much you are eating. Drinking plenty of water means you stay hydrated and are less likely to confuse thirst with hunger. Most people do not drink enough water, so when your body is craving H₂O it will not discriminate between food sources. Additionally, by drinking water before you eat, you start to fill your stomach up, so you can feel full and satisfied without having to pig out on a load of carbs. Veggies most makes sense too, because they are nutritionally dense, and we want to fill up on foods that are good for our body. We can eat a good plateful that is appealing to our eyes, whilst not making us feel heavy and tired afterwards.

At this point, I need to remind you of the Plate-It method, so depending on whether you eat your Christmas dinner at lunchtime or teatime, you may want to alter what is on your plate. Roast potatoes, even when cooked in goose fat, are not inherently bad for you, but depending on the time of day will affect how many you choose to eat.

My plan for Christmas dinner is as follows. We always like to have multiple courses with our Christmas dinner, but it will be spread throughout the day, because nobody wants to eat all this in one sitting!

Starter: Prawn Cocktail

King prawns, on a huge bed of mixed salad, covered in homemade thousand island dressing ‘watered’ down with lemon juice and vinegar. My husband will have bread and butter with his, but I don’t need that eating opportunity.

Main: Turkey with all the trimmings

We’ll be having a cook-from-frozen stuffed turkey crown this year, and my husband wants a half leg of lamb too. We’ll have roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding (I’ll have one of each) with pigs in blankets and sausage meat stuffing. I am having a lazy Christmas this year, so many of the items for Christmas dinner will be preprepared, but if you are making your own stuffing (especially if you are actually using it to stuff the turkey), why not use riced cauliflower instead of half (or more) of the breadcrumbs? I have even seen a bag of frozen cranberry and nut stuffing that has cauliflower rice as it’s base – but is only available across the pond, and not in the UK.

I’ll also do a range of vegetables, from sprouts with bacon, roast root veg, carrot and swede mash, cauliflower cheese, peas and sweetcorn. With a spread like this, there is no excuse whatsoever not to achieve Veggies Most.

Pudding: Option of Christmas Pudding or a Mince Pie with Brandy Cream.

It’s Christmas, so I have no intention of watering down any of this, but I only need a taste of each, rather than a pint of each…

Cheese board: Cheese, crackers and chutneys/jellies and grapes/apples.

I love a good cheese board. I love cheese. In reality, though I’ll plan to have it on Christmas day, I feel full just reading everything I’ve got planned, so this will probably move to Boxing Day. I’ll add another salad with it, so we can still have Veggies Most.

And alcohol. In my house, it wouldn’t be Christmas without any alcohol; but by having Water First, and alternating a glass of wine with a glass of water, means we can enjoy the taste without getting drunk or putting on weight from empty calories.

I hope you have a very Merry Christmas, enjoying your food and drink xx

Christmas is getting closer!

Just over a week until Christmas, and things are finally starting to slow down in the Middle-aged Mum household. 

Most of the presents are wrapped and around the tree.  Now the girls are older, the presents are generally getting smaller, and we don't have to worry about them opening any before Christmas.  They still look, of course, and get excited any time they see one to themselves, but they know they can only touch the label and nothing else.

All the admin stuff I had to do before Christmas has been done: I have finished tutoring for the year, I have completed all the forms for a residential trip I'm organising next year, and I have bought various prizes that we have won for winning Beat the Street in our local area - including donations for a local homeless charity.  The girls have stopped any formal Home Ed they have been doing; their classes have stopped, though dancing continues until the end of this week.

So after having a Tesco shop arrive this morning, most of this weeks will be various Christmas activities.  Lots of baking, we have a HE Christmas Party tomorrow, a friend is hosting a party on Thursday, and we are seeing our town's Pantomime in the theatre on Friday.  Next week, my husband only has Christmas Day and Boxing Day off work, so when we visit family afterwards it'll just be myself and the girls driving up and back.

I will be trying to get the balance between Christmas cheer and eating healthily (water first and veggies most), but will not restrict what I eat.  My aim for this Christmas period is to not gain wait and keep practising the basic principles; any loss will be a bonus. I would like to start getting into the habit of Grooving round the house too, when music comes on.

Merry Christmas everyone, and yes, to the eagle-eyed among you, we do still have our homemade Halloween bunting still up.

God Bless xxx

Centrestage: Magnolia Steele Mystery #1 by Denise Grover Swank

I've just spent the weekend caught up in this series.  Pretty much as soon as it starts you get sucked in, and can't put it down.

It's about a woman named Magnolia Steele who returns to her hometown in shame after an incident that occurred on Broadway was filmed and went viral.  Her first night returning to work for her mother's catering company, Magnolia stumbles across the body of a music agent who she had publicly argued with minutes beforehand.

Not only does Magnolia have to prove her own innocence, we walk with her as she starts to remember what happened in the past to cause her to leave home in the first place.

The blurb says:

Ten years ago, Magnolia Steele fled Franklin, Tennessee after an incident that left her with

hazy memories and a horror of the place where she had been born and bred. Though her abrupt departure destroyed most of her treasured relationships, she vowed never to return . . . until she has no choice. When Magnolia’s breakout acting role in a Broadway musical ends in disgrace, there’s only one place she can go. She finds herself on her momma’s porch, suitcase in hand.

Drama follows Magnolia around like a long lost friend. She reluctantly agrees to help her momma’s catering company at a party for a country music star, only to find herself face-to-face with a sleazy music agent from her past. After a very public spat, Magnolia not only finds him dead but herself center stage in the police’s investigation. Now she must scramble to prove her innocence, relying on the help of acquaintances old and new.

But the longer Magnolia stays in Franklin, the more she remembers about the big bad incident that chased her away. The past might not be finished with her yet, and what she doesn’t remember could be her biggest danger.

I really enjoyed this series.  I have read books by Denise Grover Swank in the past and have always become quickly absorbed in the stories.  They are easy to read, but have enough content that keeps you wanting more.  This series is mystery/thriller, but there's a healthy dose of romance too.

How do you choose a book?

After discussing various options for a book cover, it was noticeable that I was the odd-one-out and I'm attracted to different book covers than most other people.  I was asked how I choose a book, and I realised I rarely look at the cover at all.

If I'm in a bookshop (which tbh I try to avoid as they are dangerous places for me! lol), I look at the title on the spine.  Then, if the title grabs me, I'll read the blurb on the back, and more often than no, that book'll end up in the basket for me to buy.  If I'm buying a book for someone else, I tend to look a bit more thoroughly, looking at the font and whether there are any illustrations etc. In this case, I may look at the front cover because I know, for example, my children are a lot more fussy regarding what a book looks like.



If I'm choosing a Kindle book (which I do far more often simply because I've a huge pile of books by my bed, most of my house is covered in bookshelves and they're all at least 2 books deep) then it depends if it was a recommendation or not.  Recommendations get immediately put on my Amazon Wishlist, so I can buy them if I receive vouchers for Christmas or my Birthday. 

Otherwise, the first thing I do is sort by price low-high.  I read the title, and then I read the blurb.  If it's free and I like it, it immediately gets bought and added to my Kindle.  Most of the books on my Kindle are free ones.  I'm not stupid - I know it's a ploy by the author to get you hooked, so you end up buying the rest of the series.  And yet, I still get hooked.  some of the free books are not very good or not to my taste.  Unless it's absolutely awful or objectionable, I won't review it.  For example, it's not fair for me to say such-and-such isn't a good book, when other people may enjoy it, it's just a subject matter that doesn't turn me on.  I do have favourite genres: fantasy, sci-fi, thrillers, mystery and romance, (yes, all those are favourites) but if a book is free I'll give any topic a go.

So, where do I get my free books from?  Sometimes it is a simple Amazon search.  I follow Bookbub on Facebook which promotes free books frequently, and there are other Facebook groups which share and recommend books that are free for short periods of time, such as Christian e-book downloads.  Whilst these are sources of free books, I try not to search out free books too often as I've a huge reading list - I have over 500 unread books on my kindle, that I am slowly working my way through, but I'm trying not to download any more, until I have read a decent number of them.  That is, I'm trying not to download any more starter-books; obviously I need to get the subsequent books in the series! Which reminds me...

Crazy Thoughts

So, since passing the 2B Mindset Mentor Certification last night, I've been having some crazy thoughts.

I would like to help other people, and preferably make money doing it.  However, I'm not sure I want to become a Beachbody Coach.  Whilst I would like to get commission for selling the 2B Mindset, from what I've read, in order to make money as a Beachbody Coach you have to sell a lot of products, not least because you have to pay to be able to call yourself a Beachbody Coach.  Doing the 2B Mindset, I like the fact that anyone can do it, and you don't need any specific equipment (except purchasing the videos in the first instance, and a set of scales to monitor your progress) nor any supplements.  One such supplement is Shakeology, and I know people who absolutely love it, so have no qualms promoting and selling it.  That's not me, however.  If people want to have shakes every day and it suits your lifestyle, great.  But, I don't want to feel that I have to flog endless amounts of something I don't use (I prefer to make a green smoothie from scratch) in order to make a profit.  Not only that, in order to progress through the ranks, you need to recruit people to become coaches themselves, and again, that doesn't sit well with my personality.



As I'm now qualified, I can join the Master Team, which does cost a nominal amount, but I don't know what it involves?  If I can make money through it without being a Beachbody Coach, then it's probably worth it for me. However, if all the Tips, Support and Community are specifically for building up the 2B aspect of being a Beachbody Coach, then I don't think I want it.


Now, this is where my thinking is starting to go a bit silly...


Another Health/Wellbeing/Fitness thing I really like is Body Groove and The World Groove Movement.  Personally, I love dancing.  I like how I feel when I've been dancing; whether that be in a Ceroc Class (which I love, but am not particularly good at), in a club/party or even just dancing
round my living room in my slipper-socks.  I've been following Misty Tripoli on Facebook for a few years now, and it's something that I think fits really well with the 2B Mindset of positivity towards our health and our bodies.

There is training coming to the UK in March!  I don't know if I'm going through a mid-life crisis atm (though of course, I'm not yet middle aged), or if I have more confidence after recently starting an Adult Musical Theatre class, or if I'm finally at the age where I don't give a fuck anymore and want to do what I want, but I'm really really really really tempted to sign up for it.  It's "only" $500, and as it's in London I'll have to pay for transport and a hotel for that weekend.  Ahem, I'm not made of money! And I haven't yet discussed it with my husband, either...

Again, it's one of those things that if I become qualified I'll have to pay annually to be able to use the Groove trademark etc, but is a similar cost to the 2B costs so not too bad.  I've done a basic cost outline, and if I can hire the dance studio my girls go to (which do hire them out for fitness classes) and charge £7 per hour session, for 42 weeks of the year (roughly term-time), then I only need 4 people to come each week to make a profit [excluding the initial training costs].  That also excludes insurance, which I haven't considered at all yet.  But 4 people a week, doesn't seem impossible.  And whilst I don't necessarily feel comfortable dancing in front of loads of people, in this situation everyone is in their own zone, rather than watching/copying each other, so I'd only have to shout out various instructions (and join in), rather than teaching a set routine with all eyes on me.

I think it's do-able, but I don't know if I'm crazy?

I am a Certified 2B Mindset Mentor!

Finally finished the course tonight, and just aced the exam!

Now I can use various logos like these!

I did the course mainly for my own learning, rather than specifically to start a business up, so I will need to make some decisions about where I want to take this, and I have a few questions of my own. 
Not least to consider, is that if I do become a 2B Coach and start mentoring people, I will need to shed my veil of anonymity.  (Though truthfully, I genuinely look like this.)

But, in the meantime, it has made me realise that I need to keep my focus to achieve my goals.
And if I can do it, truly anyone can! 

One thing in particular I need to do is to track more effectively.  I have been tracking on Facebook, and doing a week within a post.  I'm crap at using my phone, so generally have been tracking at the end of the day, when I've forgotten most things that have passed my lips, or simply cba to write the detail.  so, instead, I am going to try tracking daily on FB.  It means there will be more posts from me, but I will be able to add everything at the time, and be truly authentic.
Musings of a Middle-aged Mum Facebook Page

If you are interested in following the 2B Mindset, which really is a lifestyle and not a diet (not least because you are free to eat anything you want) follow this link: https://www.beachbodyondemand.com/nutrition/2b-mindset
And if you want me to be your coach please get in touch via Messenger on Facebook.

So here's to more positivity and more weightloss!

Spiritual Gifts

Growth group over the passed few weeks, unintentionally (from our human pov) the topic of Spiritual Gifts has come up multiple times, and how we should be using them for the church. God has given each of us at least one gift, and it is our responsibility to use it. I do believe this. However, I struggle to identify what my gift(s) are.

As an administrator you have the Spirit-given capacity and desire to serve God by organizing, administering, promoting, and leading the various affairs of the church. … You will put a plan on paper and start delegating responsibility. You may lean toward organizing things, events or programs, ... you usually organize details and have people carry them out. ... You are serious minded, highly motivated, intense, and have an accurate self-image. You tend to be more interested in the welfare of the group than your own desire. 


As a teacher you are one who communicates knowledge, guides, makes known or relays facts. You are likely more in-depth than the average Sunday school teacher. ... As a teacher you live to learn and teach (or perhaps write if you teach through the written medium). ... You love the Word, enjoy reading, may be a little shy of strangers, are creative and imaginative, and prefer teaching groups over individuals. You are generally confident, self-disciplined, and sometimes technical. You probably love charts, graphs, and lists. … The use of a verse out of context upsets you and you question the knowledge of those who teach you. You are organized and enjoy studying.
x

When I was a teenager I used to attend Good News Crusade’s summer camp as part of their Maintenance Team (now called EdgeFest). I used to really enjoy working hard for God, whether it be erecting marquees, setting out chairs, tidying litter, helping in the kitchen, or my favourite job – operating the OHP screen. Not only do I love worship music, but at camp the worship would seamlessly flow as God’s presence became almost tangible amongst us, and the worship band would go off-course and sing songs that they didn’t plan to. My job, then, was to hurriedly look through the lever arch file of acetates with lyrics on them, and find the correct song, hopefully before the end of the first verse.

As the Holy Spirit was moving throughout us, many people were experiencing and enabling various gifts such as speaking in tongues, healing, prophesying etc. I don’t speak in tongues, and one year I cried out to God about it. I am authentic, and yes, I could have babbled “Lalala Alleluia Lala Rum Tum Tugger Alleluia” just to fit in, but that’s not me. And having heard people speak in tongues, it would have stuck out like a sore thumb. Speaking in tongues is clearly a language, even if I can’t understand it, and is so beautiful. Anything I attempt to make up would fail in comparison.

So, I prayed to God. All things are possible with God. So, why couldn’t I?

Anyway, God answered my prayer. I spoke in tongues and couldn’t believe it. It was not me, I was simply letting the Holy Spirit speak through me. And then God said to me that all things are indeed possible for Him; however, speaking in tongues is not the gift he has chosen for me. I’ve not been able to recreate it since, but am happy to know that God is in charge.

One of the books I am currently reading recommended an online quiz that can help identify what your spiritual gifts are. I do enjoy a good quiz, whether it be “what colour nail varnish should you wear?”, “what My Little Pony are you?” or something a bit more serious like “what’s your IQ” or “how neurotypical are you?”. I finally got around to doing this quiz this morning. It was a lot quicker than I expected, helped that each question only had three options – yes, no and maybe. The quiz does ask for your email address, but it did email me my results. The quiz itself is totally free, but if you want to know more information or dig deeper into what the spiritual gifts are, then you would need to pay for that.

The quiz separates spiritual gifts into three categories: Miraculous Gifts, Enabling Gifts and Team Gifts; and is used to determine what Team Gifts you as an individual have – split into service, ministry, task-orientated and activity (such as teaching).

The website says:

Three categories of spiritual gifts exist 

CATEGORY ONE: The Miraculous Gifts, generally known today as Charismatic Gifts (apostles, tongues, interpretation of tongues, healing, and miracles). 

CATEGORY TWO: The Enabling Gifts, which all Christians have the ability to develop (faith, discernment, wisdom, and knowledge -- qualities possessed rather than activities performed). Many scholars combine these gifts with others, based on the similarity of these gift characteristics and the synonyms used by Paul to describe them in Scripture. For example, some scholars combine Discernment with Prophecy, Knowledge with Teaching, Wisdom with Exhortation, and Hospitality with Serving. 

CATEGORY THREE: the Team Gifts, which are service-, ministry-, task-oriented or are activities performed such as teaching. The Team Gifts are functional and involve speaking or ministering. Chances are, you have several of these gifts that vary in degrees and intensity. In many cases, spiritual gifts may complement your secular employment. The Spiritual Gifts Analysis you took identified your dominant TEAM GIFTS, which will help find your place on God's team in your church.

The results are scored according to the following categories so you can see which gift or gifts are dominant for you: Evangelism, Prophecy, Teaching, Exhortation, Shepherding, Showing Mercy, Serving, Giving, and Administration. Now, I don’t know anybody else who has completed the quiz, so I don’t know if it’s considered roughly accurate or not, but I thought I would share my results with you, so at least I now have a starting point.

My dominant gifts are Mercy Showing, Administration and Teaching. The results then give a long paragraph about each gift. I will quote snippets that I think do apply to me, though it may be that there is some sort of bias in the phraseology such that everybody can pick out bits that apply to themselves? I don’t know.

Mercy Showing

As a mercy-shower you have the Spirit-given capacity and desire to serve God by identifying with and comforting those who are in distress. You understand and comfort your fellow Christian. … As a mercy-shower you are willing to deal with and minister to people who have needs that most people feel very uncomfortable working with. You seem to say the right thing at the right time…. You are easy to talk to, responsive to people, a good listener, peaceable, and agreeable. … In your burden to comfort others, your heart goes out to the poor, the aged, the ill, the underprivileged, and so on.

Administration

As an administrator you have the Spirit-given capacity and desire to serve God by organizing, administering, promoting, and leading the various affairs of the church. … You will put a plan on paper and start delegating responsibility. You may lean toward organizing things, events or programs, ... you usually organize details and have people carry them out. ... You are serious minded, highly motivated, intense, and have an accurate self-image. You tend to be more interested in the welfare of the group than your own desire.

Teaching

As a teacher you are one who communicates knowledge, guides, makes known or relays facts. You are likely more in-depth than the average Sunday school teacher. ... As a teacher you live to learn and teach (or perhaps write if you teach through the written medium). ... You love the Word, enjoy reading, may be a little shy of strangers, are creative and imaginative, and prefer teaching groups over individuals. You are generally confident, self-disciplined, and sometimes technical. You probably love charts, graphs, and lists. … The use of a verse out of context upsets you and you question the knowledge of those who teach you. You are organized and enjoy studying. 

My heart does go out to others: I have been technically homeless as a child (we lived in a Women’s Refuge for 6 months), and have had little money, so I do pray for those less fortunate than myself, and give to the foodbank and charity shops when I can. I do love admin; organising events, groups, anything. At this very moment I am organising a residential trip for fellow home educators next year, I am sorting out (and will be purchasing) what people want to do with the vouchers we won for coming first place in Beat the Street, I volunteer for an online home education website that I co-founded; I am admin for multiple facebook groups and a yahoo group, and there’s probably more that I’ve forgotten. I do genuinely enjoy organising (especially if I get to organise other people). And teaching is something I always wanted to do as a child. As I grew up, I went into industry, and now I have gone back to my roots and have been a private tutor for nearly 10 years. Whilst I don’t feel like I’m qualified for teaching within the church (not least because I’m aware that some of my beliefs are not traditional), teaching “through the written medium” aka this blog, does make sense to me and my passions. And researching and studying? Love it!

So what am I going to do with this new found knowledge? I don’t know yet. I will pray some more, asking God for direction. I will also talk to my church leader about how best to use my skills for the benefit of the church, whatever form that takes.

Inner Engineer

If you’re at home, sans kids, and want to watch something on TV, but not long enough for a film, what do you choose?

I think this is my geekiness at play, but atm I’m recording (yes, recording because I’m usually out when it’s on TV) Air Crash Investigation and Engineering Disasters, both on in the middle of the day on Blaze. Similarly, if there are programs on Extreme Weather or Natural Disasters, I’ll be watching.

I find it fascinating the things that can go wrong, especially things we take for granted. How technology advances, often due to accidents in the past (though the recent series of each include disasters as recently as 2014), to make things safer for all.

I enjoy flying, and if given the chance I like to sit next to the window but behind (but close) to the wings, so that I can check that the flaps that aid lift and slowing the plane are working properly (as if I can do anything about it), as well as when they are lifted you can see all the electronics underneath, which is quite cool. The only time that I would get afraid before a flight would be in very cold weather when there is snow, and perhaps ice, on the plane. I’m a Manchester United fan, and though it is well before my time, I still know about the Munich Air Disaster of 1958 when 11 from Man Utd died, including 8 players. One of those players, Duncan Edwards, was allegedly one of the best players in the world ever.

Even when I was younger, I found programs like these to be interesting and wanted to go into it for a career. I have a Masters in Engineering Science, have worked on a building site in Construction, worked in the Aerospace industry and worked for a Semi-conductor Manufacturer, so I do have some knowledge behind my interest, even if my career path has since taken a different direction.

Love me, Crazy by Laura Burton

As I read a fair bit (understatement of the century, lol) a fellow blogger Laura’sBeautiful World has asked me to read and review her book.

The prologue starts just before Sophie’s wedding when her mother Audrey reminisces about how she met Sophie’s father and it wasn’t as simple as ‘meeting him at a party’ as Sophie was led to believe. The main story starts when Audrey was working as a teacher in a private girls’ school in Bristol and she meets Reverend Tom who falls in love and then obsession with her.

I’m not someone who has had a lot of boyfriends (in fact, before my husband, my longest relationship was only 6 weeks) and yet I’ve had not one, but two boyfriends threaten to have my name shaved in the back of their head and I’ve had yet another boyfriend who told me that we were going to get married because he could tell by the look in my eyes. Err, yes, umm, well, this is awkward...

The author describes the book as:

A bride catches a case of cold feet on her wedding day, she’s not sure if she could really have a happy ending. What if things fall apart? Her mother shares her story that things can get pretty ugly but love conquers all. This is Audrey’s story, and prepare yourself for a bumpy ride, things are about to get pretty crazy! 

The book is an easy to read chick lit. It’s very enjoyable, and by halfway through I was addicted. There are some twists and turns, so isn’t a straight romance, but would come under sweet or cosy romance subgenre. I’d recommend it for women of all ages from 18-80+, because no matter where you are in your life, you will either empathise with the protagonist at the age you are, or you will look back on dating, funny experiences and remember your first kiss.

It’s not been released yet (Click here to Pre-Order) BUT you can win a signed copy in this competition here.

Edit: the book has now been released: https://amzn.to/2SJ4OKo

A Cross to Bear by Vince Vogel

This is a detective/thriller/suspense book.  Fifteen years past a cop is murdered, crucified outside his police station and had his throat cut.  Today the cop's daughter is found brutally murdered in similar circumstances.  The story winds around different threads and looks to involve criminal gangs who smuggle sex workers into the country.  Containing adult themes, this is certainly not a book for children or the faint hearted, but draws you in as you try to solve the crime for yourself and see that justice is served.

The blurb says:

Once the star of Scotland Yard, burnt out East London detective Jack Sheridan is now a washed up cop working a low end station, estranged from his family and haunted by his past. The discovery in woodland of a young woman nailed to a wooden cross sends Jack spiralling into a direct confrontation with that past when the woman is identified as the daughter of a murdered cop he once knew. With a serial killer the media are dubbing the ‘Crucifix Killer’ slaying working girls on his patch, Jack must face his own demons and uncover a series of terrible secrets if he is to find the twisted killer.

On his way to the Tunisian border, Alex Dorring is informed that his sister has been murdered. Dorring is Agent 192 of Uriel, a clandestine assassins wing of MI6. With revenge on his mind, Dorring makes his way to London and begins investigating her death in his own special way. As he moves like a ghost through the underbelly of the city, he meets Chloe, a troubled nineteen year old trying to escape the very people Dorring has come to hunt. Could this girl be the key to leading him to the killer?

As both men operate under entirely different rules, the death of one girl sees a bed of lies, sexual violence, murder and corruption come rising to the surface as East London descends into chaos.

This book is actually the start of a trilogy, but I read it as a stand-alone.  I really enjoyed it (and is currently free on Amazon), but a bit heavy/dark for me to read as a trilogy.  I have added the second two books to my wishlist, but will read something lighter in between.