On Bee's Bookshelf

  Genre: Literary Fiction | Fiction Release Date: Expected 3rd June 2021 Translated from Japanese  Everybody knows the Woman in the Purple Skirt - she appears neither old nor young, she is not attractive or successful, but she is oddly familiar and people notice her. But nobody notices the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan. Nobody notices as she watches the Woman in the Purple Skirt sitting on her reserved bench in the park every day, eating the same cream bun. Nobody notices when she lures the Woman into working as a housekeeper in the same hotel as her and documents her affair with the manager as it spirals. The Woman in the Purple Skirt is being watched at all times - and now you're watching her too.  This story was eeily comforting and darkly intrusive all at once - it is a story in which nothing really happens and nothing is resolved - but it was so uniquely charming that I finished this fairly short novella in one sitting.  We watch our pseudo-celebrity along with o...

  Genre: Womens Fiction Release Date: 3rd June 2021 Saturn Return. It marks the time in a womans life when Saturn returns to exact place it was on the day she was born, when they're 29.5 years old. And according to Krystals best friends and many legends it's the time that life spectacularly falls apart. Usually Krystal wouldn't believe in that stuff - but now on her 29th birthday things aren't looking too great.  Her boyfriend of six years finally proposed - only for it to come out that he doesn't believe in monogamy and hasn't this whole time.  She's finally got her dream home - only for the pipes to explode and leave her homeless. She's landed her dream job as a writer - only for the company to close two weeks in.  It looks like the universe is really out to get her. So it's time to align her chakras, bring out the lucky crystals and fight back. If the stars got into this mess, they can get her out of it.  This was an exceptionally bright and funny...

Genre: Fiction | Mystery | Thriller Release Date: 10th June 2021 Twenty-Three years ago, Girl One was born. She was named Josephine - in honour of Dr Joseph Bellanger, the Doctor who figured out how to allow women to concieve children entirely of their own DNA. It was a miracle - and just the first of many. Josie and her Mother lived together happily at the Homestead for years with the others, until everything went wrong one fateful night and the Homestead scattered around the country. Now, Josie is a medical student, walking in the footsteps of her mentor and the only man she ever cared for and she's living in relative normality - until it happens again. Her mothers house went up in flames, the whole place trashed and her Mother is missing. Josie will need the help of her estranged former family to find her; but looking back can sometimes reveal things you didn't see before. I loved the concept of this story - the idea of being able to create your own child without any male in...

  Release Date: Expected 27th May 2021 Genre: Adult Fiction | Contemporary Trigger Warnings: Death, References to Y2K + 9-11, Sex, Self-Harm, Drugs, Alcohol.  What do you do when someone saves your life? Do you hate them? Feel grateful? Fall in love with them? Maybe all of them?  New Years Day - 2000. A New millenium and a new start (As long as Y2K doesn't end the world of course!)  Kerry thought the worst of her worries would be finding a midnight kiss or her best friend Tim getting too drunk - until Joel drops dead with no warning right in the middle of the Brighton Lawns. Desperately trying to get him breathing, fireworks and celebration continue around them - unaware that the worst is happening.  Joel woke up eventually - a miracle. He was going to be pro footballer. A star. But his heart stopped - and now he's a bar man.  Kerry was going to be a Doctor, but now she's working in 999 dispatch. Things are looking good for Tim, finally dating Kerry and a f...

  Genre: Adult Fiction | Womens Fiction Release Date: Expected 22nd July 2021 Jane is trying. She's trying to get to grips with her (hopefully) temporary job in the book store. She's trying to figure out when it's too late to be living rent-free in her parents house. She's trying to convince herself her anxiety is totally under control. And she's trying to forget her cheating ex-fiance and just how desperate she is to be a Mother. Jane is Trying is charming, funny and down-to-earth story about starting over when the past just won't leave you alone. It definitely strikes a chord with any woman who feels like they've grown up but never grown.  Dealing with anxiety and how it can come to be in a sensitive matter, this book really highlighted those  fatalistic intrusive thoughts that are often out of our control but become all-consuming.  There were some delightfully funny moments scattered throughout the gloom and absurd bad luck Jane has to deal with but unfor...

  Genre: Young Adult | Fiction Release Date: 13th May 2021 TW: Bullying, Abusive Relationships, Mental Health Issues, Illness, Mentions of Cancer and Cancer Recovery.  Most likely to be forgotten: Paige Vickers. Paige is the quiet one. The one you never really notice, but who notices everything. She knows all the secrets and lies you've told but never tells anyone. Not a word to the bullies in the classrooms, to her agressive father or her passive mother. But now, that's all going to change.  One day she does the unthinkable and makes a scribble in the margin of a library book; just a small reminder that she existed in this place, in this time. But there, in bright red ink, someone has done the same and they begin a journey through the library with their secret notes. When her new confidant comes into the real world, she realises that books are always the perfect place to tell her story - the yearbook maybe?  Oh, look, I gave five stars to a Holly Bourne book again. ...

Genre: Young Adult | Dystopian | Fiction Release Date: Expected 15th April 2021  The Suprema of Afalia has fled the city. The entire city of Praesto is in imminent danger of flooding and destruction, and now their leader is gone. Left behind is her maid, her husband and her dog - and they may be the only ones who know the situation deeply enough to try and fix it. Convinced by Madame Supremas husband, her maid Gloria agrees to wear the Veil of the Suprema and pose as their leader - the city needs to believe they have a leader if they have any hope of surviving.  Soon, the evacuation begins - pets are rounded up in the streets, the children are sent to safer places, businesses are closed and the politicans continue to do as they always have - lie. For Gloria, the answers are simple - do the right thing for the people. But she hasn't accounted for how just how corrupt and twisted the systems put in place to protect her really are.  This book is technically Young Adult ficti...

  Genre: YA Fiction Release Date: Expected 1st June 2021 Trigger Warnings: Drugs, Alcohol, Addiction, Debt, Injury, references to death.  "Twenty-six letters and some punctuation marks and you have infinite words in infinite worlds ... how is that not a miracle?"  Aaron is used to the bad things in his life being inevitable. In the last year, everything has changed. His mum is gone, his brother is gone, and his dad Ira might still be physically there but mentally he's been gone a long time too. While all of his friends have gone off to college to start their lives, Aaron finds himself the reluctant owner of Bluebird Books - his families failing and debt-ridden business. But the most he reads these days are credit card statements and overdue notices. It might have even been inevitable that one day, he bumps into Chad, someone he hated in school but started a chain reaction of events that led him to Hannah. It felt like they were supposed to meet that day, that something wa...

  Genre: Adult Fiction | Romance | General Fiction Release Date: 27th May 2021 Millie Jones in on track. She's so close to being promoted, working on the worlds leading hook-up app, she's surrounded by an amazing group of friends and a very cute but very grumpy cat to keep her company. Blissfully single, Millie knows there is no lonliness in being alone. Now the opportunity of a lifetime has fallen in her lap and she's working on something that's going to change the world - Oxytoxin. A pill scientifically proven to block your brain from falling in love. It sounds perfect, this could be the key to her success - until she starts working with Ben. In a world where romantic relationships are viewing as not only inconvenient but shameful and just odd - can Millie seperate her heart and her head and figure out if love could ever be worth it? The universe that Helly Acton has created here is just amazing - throwing our world in the trash and showing us one where not being sing...

  Genre: Literary Fiction | LGBT+ Fiction | Adult Fiction Release Date: 8th July 2021 Trigger Warnings: Anxiety, Panic Attacks, Addiction, Injury, References to death, murder and suicide.  Gilda doesn't want to die - but she can't stop thinking about death. How it works, how inevitable it is, and most of all about how one day something is going to kill her and everybody she cares about. And seeing as she's on first-name basis with most of the local emergency room, she is keenly aware of the many things that could do it. Existential dread aside, Gilda is breaking under the pressure of her own growing anxiety and of her overbearingly repressive parents and their expectations. On a whim, she decides to attend a free therapy class at a local choice and finds herself in the peculiar situation of accidentally replacing their recently deceased receptionist, Grace. Not the most ideal job for a lesbian atheist but she needs a job anyway and she has gotten very good at pretending. ...

  Genre: General Fiction | Adult Fiction Release Date: Expected 5th August 2021 If there was ever a time Hannah wanted to call her Mum, it was now. But she can't, and she never will again.  All it took was an unexpected fall and she's gone. She'll never get to watch that new show with her, never eat her roast potatoes again, never be able to call her and ask how she's supposed to get through this without her. Hannah has never lived in a world without her Mother and now everything is different.  Along with her new counsellor, also named Hannah, she tries to start her new life. Is she greiving right? Is she grieving at all? Why isn't everyone else sad enough? How do you live your life when your compass is suddenly gone? 'Definitely Fine' is an honest and heartbreakingly real story about how we're expected to deal with death and loss and the reality that it's never that simple. We see Hannah going through the many faces of despair - of course there'...

Release Date: 22nd April 2021 Genre: Young Adult | Fiction | Historical Fiction Who is Henry? An orphan, a theif, an outcast.  And a boy with extraordinary gifts.  Living in a quasi-elizabethan London, Henry lives with his cousins Mary and Matthew in the slums after being abandoned by his Mother who could be anywhere. Haunted by the dreams of a mysterious dark lady, Henry has to navigate his newfound gifts, his power over words and language while still trying to navigate the racial and societal prejudices threatening to erase him.  Henrys story started off as a slow-moving, leisuirely stroll through days long in the past, gaining momentum with every turned page until I was thrown into a new world. The narration was full of slang and shakespearean dialogue which may confuse some readers but only pulled me in deeper.  I had high expectations opening up this book, Akala is a master wordsmith and I wasn't disappointed at his first foray into the written world. The Dark L...

Genre: Romance | Womens Fiction | General Fiction  Release Date: Expected 24th June 2021 Paige is not having a good day - her ex-boyfriend and his new fiancee have just walked into her bakery to order their wedding cake ... from her. She may spend her days making peoples dream cakes for their dream days - but largely thanks to Chris she is most definitely not thinking about getting married or even trusting another man for a very long time, if ever.  As an anti-wedding enthusiast stuck in the body of wedding cake baker , she's stayed still while Chris has moved on with his life. By chance, at a party her friend points out the perfect guy for her - a total no-strings-attached distraction who likes to be with girls for a good time not a long time - the guy at the bar in the black shirt.  This guy is gorgeous, he doesn't get attached and you should never fall in love with him ... but this guy isn't the one Paige is talking to. She's talking to Noah, an ENT Doctor, great kis...