Book Review

Poetry Review: “2 AM: Thoughts in the Quiet After” by Lianna Peryer

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Rating: 4 stars

Headline: Penned with cutting raw emotion, Peryer’s collection explores themes of lust and loss with maximum impact

Review:

Penned by York psychology graduate, now Norfolk-based writer, Lianna Peryer, 2 Am: Thoughts in the Quiet After is a poetry and prose collection with a heavy focus on themes of lust, loss and learning. Over this collection’s 55 pages, Peryer explores the emotional fallout in the wake of traumatic events, utilising different poetic forms and sections of prose to try and make sense of the world around her. It is a collection that delves into some difficult and, at times, troubling content, and feels very true to brand for an author who simultaneously enjoys the darkness of true crime alongside the fun and joy of baking.

While this collection contains a trigger warning at the end of the book, it is worth noting that 2 Am: Thoughts in the Quiet After explores themes including that of depression, anxiety and eating disorders to name but three of the seven self-identified by the author. This list may have been better placed at the start of the book, before the first poem commences, however at least the author has the self-awareness to note them for her readers.

Personal highlights of Peryer’s work within this collection include “Shattered Art”, “The Sparrow” and “The Quiet Truth of Death in the ICU”. Personal highlights may the wrong term, given the bitter sweet and dark nature often contained in Peryer’s work, but these three struck a cord for their observational commentary on life, living and death.

Regardless of personal preference, the writing quality across every poem and section o prose is of a high standard and succeeds in its ability to draw the reader in to the worldbuilding and storytelling of Peryer’s lived experiences. It marries perfectly with the simple line drawn cover design, an image that lures readers in with a sense of security, maybe even seduction, to deliver a sucker-punch of raw emotion. A bit more light in a predominantly dark collection would have been a welcome addition, however sometimes that is easier said than done and maybe something that will be reflection in any subsequent publications Peryer turns to.

Turning to the pen to regain control of one’s mental health and make sense of traumatic events is not something many would dare approach, yet Peryer has more than succeeded in the publication of this collection. Cover to cover, 2 Am: Thoughts in the Quiet After oozes in raw and unashamedly gritty emotion, a unique skillset that is so rarely mastered by writers, let alone poets. As a British reader, reviewing a British-penned collection, it is a privilege to have been given a glimpse into Peryer’s life and growth.

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Book Review: “Keeping the Countess” by Lille Moore

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Rating: 4 stars

Headline: Moore’s debut novel blends historical fiction, romance and mystery effortlessly

Review:

The debut publication from Texan-based author Lille Moore, Keeping the Countess blends the best of multiple writing genres, Historical Fiction, Romance with a strong thread of Mystery weaving the story altogether.

Set in Cumbria (England) in 1878, the story is very reminiscent to that of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, with a switch in gender for the leading roles. When the Rochford estate faces financial jeopardy on account of the vices of Lord Rochford, Lady Faith Rochford steps in to try and save the future of the estate by securing tuition for the Lord’s sole legitimate son, Adam. The seemingly pious Reverend Jonah Sinclair was not her first choice of teacher, but with money in limited supply and a child who is intended for the hights of higher education, Jonah will have to do.

It is not just the human owners who have their cracks. Despite first appearances Jonah’s new home, the once grand Ravenglass Hall, is harbouring many secrets of its own. While teaching the young heir, Jonah is also embarking on a secret quest of his own, to track down the person who murdered his father and bring them to justice. As Faith and Jonah find themselves drifting closer and closer together, it would seem their forbidden love is not the only secret at risk of breaking free.

This 331 page novel centres around its two protagonists, their blossoming relationship and Jonah’s quest to find answers to his father’s murder. This hits all the beats of a classic nineteenth century gothic novel, complete with its characters who all have their faults and chips on their shoulder. This sits nicely along the dramatic scene setting and the moody climate of Cumbria.

As far as storylines go, Keeping the Countess personally feels a bit too close to Jane Eyre. The idea of forbidden love between an upper-class Lady and a lower-class figure being brought in to educate the child of said faulted aristocracy (who also live in a crumbling estate) is not a particularly new idea, be it a gender-switch. While the mystery subplot provides interest and intrigue, the originally can feel a little overshadowed at times.

As a piece of historical romance, Keeping the Countess ticks many boxes of a successful publication. The writing is of a strong standard and the cover attractively designed for the story and audience it is targeting. Given this is currently listed online as book 1 of the “Damsels in Disguise” series, it will be very interesting to see where Moore goes next with her writing career.

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Author Website: https://lillemoore.com/

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Book Review: “Gwendolyn and Eddie” by Michael Seabaugh

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Rating: 5 stars

Headline: A novel that bursts at the seams with bold and colourful personalities and the unexpected antics that come with it

Review:

Written by author Michael Seabaugh, Gwendolyn and Eddie starts its tale in 1957 and finishes in 2016, taking readers across seven decades of its fabulous protagonist, Gwendolyn, as she navigates through life with a capuchin monkey named Eddie. Tumbling into Gwendolyn’s life as a drunken prize won at a game of poker by her equally intoxicated husband, Eddie the monkey quickly becomes an unlikely council to Gwendolyn as she experiences personal highs and lows. All this, set against a turbulent political background of homophobia, racism, and the movement for women’s rights. As perfectly summarised by the author himself, Sabaugh writes, “the story of Gwendolyn and Eddie is ultimately about cages—the ones we are born into, those we construct for ourselves, and the ones we impose on those we love.”

Coming in at 280 pages, cover to cover, Gwendolyn and Eddie is a well constructed book, with a plot that has lends itself to its two striking leads. Gwendolyn is far from perfect, however her relationship with an unpredictable monkey is both unusual and is what will keep readers hooked until the very end. Secondary characters also add three dimensional layers to the story, and often in areas that add greater insight into the actions of Gwendolyn and Eddie within the world they live in.

The story tackles many challenging topics, and demonstrates a careful level of research into the scene setting and political turbulence of America in the latter half of the twentieth century. And while some elements of the story follow a predictable path, there still maintains many twists and turns to engage adult readers of all forms of contemporary fiction set in a bygone age.

As an author, Seabaugh’s skill with the pen radiates across every chapter, making Gwendolyn and Eddie a must read for 2025. With a beautiful cover to match, there is little to find fault with when it comes to this charming story of a woman and an excitable monkey. It is a novel packed full of bold and colourful personalities, and the unexpected antics that come with it.

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Author Website: https://michaelseabaughbooks.com/

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Book Review: “Vatican Daughter” by Joni Iraci

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Rating: 5 stars

Headline: A cat and mouse thriller, filled with lots of twists and turns that will keep you hooked until the very last page

Review:

Vatican Daughter is the new suspense thriller from American author Joni Iraci. Set predominantly in Italy, with brief nods to the cultures of New York City and Magallanes (Chile), the story follows the plight of Sophia as she searches, far and wide, for her long lost daughter Nevaeh. The twist to this tale is that the young Nevaeh is alive and well, secretly living a sheltered life behind the walls of Vatican City under the care of the Cardinal brotherhood. Unknown to Nevaeh, her true father is the pope himself, the American Papa Joseph (cue dramatic dun, dun, duuun!)

When talking about her inspiration for this 274 page novel, Iraci notes the true story of papal kidnappings of Jewish children in 1859. It is why it is also interesting to see this story to hop between different points of view, allowing readers to get close and personal to Sophia’s plight, while also following in the footsteps of Papa Joseph and the internal politics of Vatican City as senior member try to grapple with the situation. Papa Joseph cares of only one thing, stopping Sophia. The implications of either character failing their mission is clear-cut which makes Vatican Daughter very much a cat and mouse thriller, with all the twists and turns that keep readers hooked until the very last page.

The book is a great read, with well developed characters across the board. You get absorbed in the internal conflicts of many of the secondary players alongside the headline cast. Sophia represents a strong female lead who shows incredible strength and determination regardless of the setback. Scene setting also strikes a perfect balance between world building and description dumps, providing an immersive reading experience where readers can absorb all the sights, smells and tastes of the places where the characters are placed.

The fact that Iraci drops the bombshell of Nevaeh’s parentage in the opening chapter perfectly sets the tone for the rest of the book. There is no drawn out delay to the discovery, no intention of using this to boost a saggy middle. Readers learn this alongside Cardinal Roselli in the famous “Crying Room” beyond the Sistine Chapel, moments before Joseph adopts the papacy. This is a bold and clever move, hooking readers from the very first page.

A suspenseful thriller, in every sense.

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Book Review: “Chat Your Way To Startup Success” by Giovanna JC

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Rating: 5 stars

Headline: An easy and understandable guide on using ChatGPT for startup marketing success

Review:

With a strong background as a seasoned marketing director and entrepreneur, Giovanna JC brings her professional experience into print with her newest publication, Chat Your Way to Startup Success. To make the most of this guide, the only tools the reader requires, other than this book, is access to AI generated software (in this case, the popularised platform ChatGPT).

Spanning 95 pages cover to cover, JC’s mission statement is to create a guide that is simple and direct, to provide readers with all the essential information they need to use ChatGPT effectively. It is intended to be consumed within two hours and the guidance applied into the workplace immediately after that. A book of five chapters, the book’s core guidance can be distilled within the central three, “defining your stuartup’s marketing strategy”, “streamlining your marketing strategy with ChatGPT” and “implementing your marketing strategy”.

With Chat Your Way to Startup Success, JC has brought to the market a guide that is well written and very easy to understand. The tone of authorship voice throughout is highly informal and simple to understand, making it perfect for AI novices, looking for easy-to-follow tutorial guidance that avoids overly complex terminology or hours of mindless scrolling on the internet. Visual pops of colour, and infrequent questions throughout keep content engaging by gently challenging readers on their understanding of each topic, as well as frequent author provided examples to demonstrate how to effectively use AI (and how not to!)

Chat Your Way to Startup Success would serve as a great gift to audiences newer to AI, over those who are already experts in the field of ChatGPT and marketing tools in general. Excluding this proportion of the market, JC’s writing results in a great snappy read for those needing a broad introduction to the benefits of effective AI use. It is an engaging and insightful book, written in a way that makes this type of content highly accessible and non-judgemental to those who are less confident when it comes to using AI software.

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Author Website: Goodliving Publishing | Books for the Small Business Owner

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Book Review: “Bricks and Experiments” by Lindsay Whitman Drewes

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Rating: 5 stars

Headline: Bricks and Experiments – a book that is both fun and educational. What’s not to like?

Review:

Bricks and Experiments by Lindsay Whitman Drewes combines two things guaranteed to get any child excited: toy construction bricks and all things gooey, slimy and fizzy. Contained in this colourful book are ten different science experiments to get children engaging with simple chemical and physical reactions, from “the floor is lava” to “sailboat races”. For each experiment, Whitman Drewes, a former middle school science teacher, provides a detailed description of the challenge, recipes for the experiment and then a full explanation of the science underpinning it. Accompanying each challenge are a array of beautifully shot photos, which add to the fun and energy of content.

The end of the book is filled with brick challenge cards of varying levels of difficultly (e.g. “build a house” and “make a marble maze”), alongside space for scientific notes and the chance for smaller hands to create stud art (with visual examples provided for guidance).

It is hard to not enjoy this book, it sets out to achieve and more. And while the Danish brand (the one beginning with L) is not mentioned explicitly in this fun picture guide, it is clear from the title and cover art that ownership of a set of yellow plastic people and multicoloured bricks is essential to engage with the experiments. Equally, the involvement of a responsible adult is also an important feature, as close to all the experiments require the use of chemicals which could be damaging to smaller hands if not used in the appropriate way.

At a push it could be argued that the demographic age range is too broad for marketing this book (it is currently targeted as suitable for ages 4-18 on a popular online marketplace), but hopefully this is something easily rectifiable and an aspect Whitman Drewes will address when she starts marketing this book.

Bricks and Experiments is a great book, one which is both fun and educational. What’s not to like?

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Book Review: “Hallelujah” by Niko Janarek

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Rating: 2 stars

Headline: A twisted coming of age tale, packed with poetic language but lacking structural execution

Review:

*This review contains spoilers*

Hallelujah by Niko Janarek is a short story of a small disfunctional family; brothers Josh and Georgie, their mother and grandfather Bob. Tensions are present from start, particularly between Josh, a rebellious teenager who is artistically-minded and Bob, an alcoholic who would rather see his grandson peruse a career in the army. A heated spat ensues between the two generational alphas, resulting in the off-scene death of Bob, after he stumbles back to his bedroom.

Acts two and three follow closely Josh and the young Georgie, who rapidly try to conceal the body of their deceased grandfather. Appearances of the mother figure become fleeting; her sudden change in personality (including instances of extreme paranoia and denial), suggest a character undergoing severe mental trauma. Her knowledgement of her feather’s death occurs towards the end of act three, when she walks in on Josh attempting to set Bob’s body on fire. Believe it or not, things escalate further from there.

As a reviewer it hurts me to score this book two stars out of five. The writing and poetic language is deployed nicely for some of the early scene setting and during dramatic events, this could have, and shoud have, been a better book. Hallelujah‘s main problem lies in the storytelling itself. Some events happen at too slow a pace while other important areas are seemingly skipped over altogether. Given the lack of transparency around Bob’s cause of death, there is a massive plot hole in Josh’s thought process as to why his instant reaction is to conceal the body.

Other minor details include not establishing Georgie’s age (his mannerisms are that of a very young child, yet he appears capable of manoeuvring a heavy body into a shallow grave) and the heavy use of expletive language in too short space of time. Josh’s frustrations could be shown better through internal monologues and his interactions with the outside world.

Hallelujah, a twisted coming of age tale of one boy’s transition into manhood, has all the creative skill to make it a good read, if only the structural foundations were not as sandy.

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Book Review: “Mastering Classic Cocktails” by C. Townsend Brady

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Rating: 3 stars

Headline: An interesting book, although it is not entirely clear who the intended audience is

Review:

Who doesn’t love a good cocktail? I would slurp on one of these fine beverages any time, any place if I could. Only trouble is, I never seem to be blessed with knowing where to start when it comes to making the delightful things.

To use its full title, Mastering Classic Cocktails: Recipes and Techniques for the Home Bartender is, in truth, more a cocktail bible than a cocktail recipe book. C. Townsend Brady brings his experience as a home bartender with a multitude of professional accreditations and connections on the San Francisco bartender circuit) to give a low-down on cocktails for the slightly less experienced.

Covered in this colourful two hundred page guide are not only recipes for all your cocktail favourites but also finer details around the tasting notes and history of each drink, with a wrap around history on the backstory of the cocktail beverages we know and love today. Beautiful shot photography can be found on every page, further enticing readers into rolling up their sleeves and giving these drinks a go.

Mastering Classic Cocktails itself is a good enough book, although personally I feel there is a little too much content to fully enjoy the nuggets of insight. For example, the introductory “brief history of cocktails” comes in at six pages of dense copy and a number of drink recipes contain somewhat extensive information, more than is needed to get the gist of the drink. The result can be at times a bit overwhelming.

Mastering Classic Cocktails is ultimately deep dive publication for cocktail fans, with bonus recipes. It is not entirely clear who the intended audience is, cocktail novices or cocktail purists, but who those who enjoy reading extensively on the subject there is a lot to take away from Townsend Brady’s insight.

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Poetry Review: “Defining Thoughts Poetry” by Victoria Halton

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Rating: 2 stars

Headline: Poor formatting and overuse of purple prose prevent “Defining Thoughts Poetry” from being the collection it could be

Review:

Defining Thoughts Poetry is the new poetry publication by Victoria Halton. A cross between poetry and storytelling, this eighty-eight page collection aims to, as Halton presents it, transport readers to a world “where extortionary becomes reality”. The book also includes photographic shots, which add flavour and drama towards the written content.

Within this collection, most of Halton’s poems follow a conventional layout of non-rhyming three and four line stanzas and, while there is nothing explicitly linking the poems, patterns soon emerge in Halton’s enchanting descriptions of scenes and locations. The strong writing calibre serves as a strong reminder that this is not Halton’s first entry into the poetry market. The poem “Remember the Scent” was a personal favourite, in its depiction of both a relatable experience, cleverly demonstrating the intertwined link between smell and memory.

The book’s main challenges come, in many ways, within its strengths. While it is an impressive talent, Halton’s over use of purple prose damages the reading experience, leaving readers tangled in excessive flowery and ornate language that loses meaning. It makes Defining Thoughts Poetry confusing, if not impenetrable, at points.

There is also the major issue of book’s formatting. Somewhere along the line Halton and/or her team decided to put the copy of this book onto a bronze ripple effect background. Unfortunately doing this makes the book incredibly hard to read, as the varying backing colours fight against the copy overlayed on top. When the copy already demands a good deal of thought and consideration, the background serves as an additional, and unneeded, distraction. The book should have been published on a standardised white background.

Reading Defining Thoughts Poetry inspires a mixture of conflicting thoughts and feelings. While on the surface this is a book that had every potential to succeed, its failings are difficult to overlook. If Halton reigned in her use of purple prose, this could have had the bones of an exceptional read. The truth is, sometimes you just want a spade to be called a spade.

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Book Review: “The Resilient Scaleup: The CEO’s Guide to Growing a Business Sustainably” by Reginald James

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Rating: 5 stars

Headline: Next time someone has plans for world domination, I know where to send them

Review:

Having worked in digital transformation for well over half a decade, I have seen first hand the raw passion and drive of many new businesses, from those treating it as a side-gig alongside fulltime employment through to individuals who are looking to expand their operation as a means to ultimately become the next big thing.

The Resilient Scaleup: The CEO’s Guide to Growing a Business Sustainably (hereafter The Resilient Scaleup) by Reginald James is the guide that I wish I could have given to my peers in the past. It is a business management guide that is not only unafraid to not only state some of the cold realities of scaling up, but also embrace them. James’ mantra can be boiled down to simplicities, that every year thousands of small business fail and while you may aspire to be an operation with cult-like following, you’re not Apple. At least not yet.

That is what I particularly like about this guide, its no nonsense approach hits you with the truth followed swiftly by reassurance. Take one such example, where the author details how Apple could be classed as a level five firm for employee respect (where employees practically worship the product), most companies fall somewhere between a more modest level two or three. Having low employee morale is not incurable as long as CEOs work rapidly to address the fault lines and, perhaps crucially, do not see recruitment as a cure. In The Resilient Scaleup, James pitches the argument that expansion is not always the answer.

For start-up leaders determined to scaleup, James also covers off in significant detail the right (and wrong) ways to recruit and maintain incoming talent and essential CEO skills to bring existing employees on that scaleup journey. With helpful illustrative drawings peppered throughout, it is a highly consumable guide that can be returned to throughout the scaleup process.

I was a little surprised that, given the title, the content makes no mention of environmental factors (the word “sustainability” presently being synonymous with the climate debate). Despite this, the content in The Resilient Scaleup more than makes up for this oversight and remains a highly recommendable book to business entrepreneurs. Next time someone gushes over their plans for world domination, I know where to send them.

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Author Website: https://www.reginaldljames.com/

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