Nisha Katona is the real deal. She gave up her successful career as a barrister and used all her savings to launch the Mowgli Street Food restaurants and the Mowgli Trust charity. I visited her Bold Street restaurant in Liverpool not long after it opened. And became hooked. She now has 21 restaurants and the Trust raises over £500k each year for charities and sponsors a child in need for every full-time employee.
Also the author of five cookbooks including the bestselling Mowgli Street Food, 30 Minute Mowgli and Meat Free Mowgli, Bold is her latest foray. And wow what a ... View Full Review
Helen Lederer has been around a while (in the nicest possible way) and has got the scars to prove it. A comedy writer with an extensive portfolio that includes writing and performing her own material, not only as a stand-up comedian but also as a comedy novelist and contributor to various publications. For the first time she opens the door to a full account of her life, and I loved sharing her journey.
With one of the most recognisable faces in comedy, Lederer has shared stages with comedy pioneers like Ben Elton and John Hegley, and TV screens with Rik ... View Full Review
Thanks to Emily Katy, Girl Unmasked delivers a remarkably powerful insight into what it’s like be Autistic, pre and post diagnosis. The older she got, the more Katy realised she was very different until at 16 she was diagnosed as Autistic. This memoir is the story of how she got there and how she very nearly didn’t. It contains themes of self harm, suicide, institutional harm and filicide. This book is at times upsetting but incredibly important. I was shocked, indignant, the pages wet with my tears, I scribbled, and made notes, wanting to press it into ... View Full Review
I must confess I am a little bit obsessed with the anthologies by Batsford Books. Their collection of poetry anthologies is absolutely stunning, offering wisdom, laughs, solace, inspiration, and everything in between, for every day of the year. My favourite: A Poem To Read Aloud Every Day of the Year is well loved, well thumbed, and the perfect dip in dip out bundle of joy for any poetry lover.
So you can imagine my excitement when I saw their new addition to the collection: Shakespeare for Every Night of the Year. The Bard is the most studied writer in the ... View Full Review
Tessa Ensler is a brilliant defence barrister. She came from nothing and fought tooth and nail to get to where she is. The Scouse accent she brought to Luton with her when her mum moved them from Liverpool lingers. Does she mask her accent or does it just soften automatically? She educated herself out of her old world, via Cambridge no less, but it takes more than brains to belong in this new world. The best of the best, she's now in the tough world of criminal law, where they ride the lifts up to the criminal courts, trained and ... View Full Review
The book opens in 1965 with Frances Adams having her fortune told by Peony Lane. She takes in every word as if it’s gospel and spends the next sixty years as a detective trying to prevent her fate, trying to stop the crime she is sure to befall.
Under her breath, she repeated her fortune again and again until it was burned into her memory.
"Your future contains dry bones. Your slow demise begins right when you hold the queen in the palm of one hand. Beware the bird for it will betray you. And from that, there's ... View Full Review
Sophie McCartney of Tired and Tested fame has built a cult following for her no-holds-barred approach to parenting. She is a hoot. And this debut is an absolute page-turner if I ever read one.
Potty mouth Cara Stringer is 37 years young. And I bloody love her. Her dark humour. Her penchant for profanity. Her crazy-ass family. Her girls, her gorgeous girls who've been best friends since their catholic high school days.
Her bestie is about to get married and it looks like they are finally going to make it to the white island, the place at the top of their ... View Full Review
For most autistics existing in a world not built for them, anxiety is the baseline and constant background hum that their daily life has to play over. Brady had always displayed autistic traits, had meltdowns, had difficulty understanding the thoughts and feelings of others but she'd never been diagnosed. Until now.
Brady tells us: "If you've ever been on a night out where you got blackout drunk and have laughed the next day as your friends tell you all the stupid stuff you said, that's what being autistic feels like for me: one long blackout night of drinking, except there's ... View Full Review
We first met Rhiannon, everyone's favourite serial killer, in CJ Skuse's adult debut Sweetpea and blimey, did it hit all the right buttons.
This is the fourth book in the Sweetpea series but it could be read as a standalone. I myself wouldn't recommend it though, why deprive yourself of the previous three outings, the deep depravity of Rhiannon complemented by such humour and sarcasm. She really is a treat, albeit not for the faint-hearted.
Rhiannon 4.0 is an all improved model, more self-control, better self-awareness (thanks to the notes on her phone which help her navigate her emotions and ... View Full Review
If you've continued to read this review then perhaps you’re interested in changing your relationship with alcohol. Kayla Lyons is the founder of Join Soberish and 1,000 Hours Dry (The Dry Club), inclusive online communities dedicated to those looking to change their relationship with alcohol.
She is also a founding team member of Reframe App and co-host of the Generation Dry podcast. Kayla started her journey to being "soberish" in 2015 after trying different programmes and reading a bucketload of literature; this is her story. Soberish is jam-packed with the pearls of her wisdom. Following her journey she guides on ... View Full Review
Dr Nora Thomas has been found dead and the last people to see her alive were her colleague and lover Dr Sam Anderson and his nineteen year old daughter Adeline. They're now being accused of killing her, and the evidence is irrefutable.
Sam and Nora are two of the six scientists who have aided world peace through the creation of a machine that sends the world's worst convicted criminals back in time. They go into the Absolom chamber and in a flash they’ve gone from this world, sent back in time hundreds of millions of years in the ... View Full Review
Olaide and Michael. They seem like the perfect couple. Madly in love. We meet them just 28 days 'til their wedding and no doubt, it'll be the wedding of the year.
They met three years ago at a media networking event. Ola is a senior editor at Womxxxn where she heads up the Current Affairs desk, the women's lifestyle brand that releases an agenda-setting digital issue every quarter. And the day #TheList drops Michael starts at CURated.
What began as a crowdsourced collection of names on a Google doc became an expose of the UK media's most prolific abusers, live ... View Full Review
