On Bee's Bookshelf

Becky Holmes, the cardiganed crusader, invites us all on her quest to get to bottom of the most internet barrel where the romance scammers live and work, impersonating celebrities to extort money and time out of people looking for love or just feeling a little alone. Thankfully I’ve never fallen prey to a romance scam or a catfish, but damn if I don’t see them everywhere - admittedly I do love to wind them up sometimes which is something I share with Becky. She addresses the seriousness and heartbreak of fraud and catfishing but also has a little mischief along the way as she tries to rile the scammers and get to bottom of their techniques, and their reasons. From the terribly obvious to the terrifying realistic, we see a whole range of scams and frauds from celebrity impersonators , guilt tactics, real life fraudsters and just bad ones that really, really make me happy I’ve never tried finding love online. Her narration was utterly fabulous - it felt so much like a conversation and wa...

It's 1972 and ten-year-old Deborah is living a ten-year-old life: butterscotch angel delight and Raleigh chopper bikes, and Clunk Click, and Crackajack and Jackanory, Layla and the Bee Gees, flares and ponchos. But new girl Sarah-Jayne breezes into school, pretty as a picture and full of gossip and speculation, as well as unlikely but thrilling stories about levitation. The other girls are dazzled but Deborah is wary and keeps her distance. That same week, eighteen-year-old brickie Sonny turns up on her doorstep with a stray tortoise and begins an unlikely friendship with her young widowed mum. That's bad enough, Deborah thinks, but then Sonny starts work on a site opposite the school and Sarah-Jayne decides he's the latest love of her life. Nothing escapes Sarah-Jayne, and Deborah fears what she'll make of her mum. It's good to be different, her mum often says; but not, Deborah knows,  too  different. So, Deborah changes tactics, keeping her friends close and her e...

First things first, although I’m around a 4 on the Kinsey Scale myself — it’s important to recognise this book wasn’t ‘for’ me, so my opinions of it don’t particularly matter but I still encourage you to always read things from other perspectives because it’s always an amazing learning experience. This book not only gave me a little more understanding and insight into life as a bisexual man, particularly those of colour, but actually had some really useful advice for any queer person about dealing with internal biphobia on top of the external rampant biphobia that is pushed further by systemic racism and misogyny - after all, how many times has someone told an LGBTQ+ guy to “be a man” because they’re not following the socially accepted playbook on masculinity or assumed they’re actually just gay? The author was a brilliant storyteller; creating an excellent flow, with a conversational but informative tone that was easy to follow. He took us through his younger years and growing up at a...

Three women. Three secrets. One family torn apart. When 24-year-old Kareela discovers she's pregnant with a child she isn't sure she wants, it amplifies her struggle to understand her place in the world as a person who is half-Black, half-white, and yet feels neither. Her mother, Evelyn, fled to Canada with her husband and their first-born child during the politically charged Jamaican Exodus in the 80s, only to realize they'd come to a place where Black men are viewed with suspicion. Years later, in the aftermath of her son's murder by the police, Evelyn's mother-in-law, Violet, moves in, offering young Kareela a link to the Jamaican heritage she had never fully known. In the present day, Kareela, prompted by fear and uncertainty about the new life she carries, must come to terms with the mysteries surrounding her family's past and the need to make sense of both her identity and her future. There’s only a few things in this life I’m sure about - everyone looks c...

When Sally kills her husband with a cast-iron skillet, she’s more fearful of losing her kids than of disposing of a fresh corpse. That just wouldn’t be fair—not after twenty years of marriage to a truly terrible man. But Sally isn’t the only woman in town reaching the brink. Soon, Sally finds herself leading an extremely unusual self-help group, and among them there are four bodies to hide. Can they all figure out the perfect way to bury their husbands . . . and get away with it? " Even if we get caught and this is it, then it's joy and friendship we wouldn't have had if we'd called the police at the start, and that makes it a gift. No matter what, I'll always see it that way." Well damn, this was a darkly delightful little story that was full of surprises. Somehow both a searing commentary on domestic abuse and femicide, an indulgent foray into female revenge and rage and a witty comedy all rolled into one with a very pretty bow on top. It was strange and unc...

Your father is on death row. You have seven days to save him. But do you want to?  Alice knows her father is guilty of many things. He's guilty of abandoning her. He's guilty of being unfaithful to her mother.  But is he guilty of murder?  Now on Death Row, he has seven days to live. Some people want him released. Others will kill to keep him just where he is.  Alice has only one chance to save him. But should she? Seven Days is a darkly intense thriller with an unusual, engaging concept - we start off immediately with the deadline until Alice’s dad is executed looming over our heads, each day being counted down slowly so we get that extra dose of anxiety watching the clock run out. The story moves a little slowly in my opinion, a little too much time between the action and with each day taking up such a large section and several chapters of the book it does make it drag a bit, but the short, snappy chapters help move from scene to scene. When we edge closer to the e...

When Alice Hopkins' husband dies in a tragic accident, she returns to the small Essex town of Manningtree, where her brother Matthew still lives. But home is no longer a place of safety. Matthew has changed, and there are rumours spreading through the town: whispers of witchcraft, and of a great book, in which he is gathering women's names. To what lengths will Matthew's obsession drive him? And what choice will Alice make, when she finds herself at the very heart of his plan? “I did not sleep that night, or if I did, I dreamed of lying awake, hearing something in the dark.” Whenever I see a book about the Essex witch trials, I immediately need to read it. And this one is a little close to home - literally - with Manningtree being the village next to mine and a castle near my house being a witches goal in years gone by.  This book captures the real life of a witchfinder and adds a pinch of author magic and imagination to transport us back in time and consider what it felt l...

Daphne always loved the way Peter told their story.  That is until it became the prologue to his actual love story with his childhood bestie, Petra.  Which is how Daphne ends up rooming with her total opposite and the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra's ex, Miles. As expected, it’s not a match made in heaven – that is until one night, while tossing back tequilas, they form a plan.  And if it involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their adventures together, well, who could blame them? But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would  actually  start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex . . . right? "You, my girl, are whoever you decide to be. But I hope you always keep some piece of that girl who sat by the window, hoping for the best. Life's short enough without us talking ourselves out of hope and trying to dodge every bad feeling. Sometimes you have to push...

Outside the island there is nothing: the world destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched. On the island: it is idyllic. 122 villagers and 3 scientists, living in peaceful harmony. The villagers are content to fish, farm and feast, to obey their nightly curfew, to do what they’re told by the scientists. Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. And they learn the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay. If the murder isn’t solved within 92 hours, the fog will smother the island – and everyone on it. But the security system has also wiped everyone’s memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer – and they don’t even know it… "She didn't come here to cry. There'll be plenty of time for that in the next few weeks. Her grief will be waiting in the dar...