On Bee's Bookshelf

  Love is a highly artistic, engaging and powerful collection of poems about the complicated nature of love in all it's forms. The writing is full of desperation, longing, obsession - offering a beautiful journey into the bittersweet chaos of falling deeply in love and falling even further into the fear of losing it. Whether it's consuming romantic love, friendship, familial love or confusing love; there's something so very human about the way these micro-poems and how they find the small details that make love something we crave and chase. Lou's other poetry collections delve into trauma and death, and they all blend together here by gently exploring how love is shaped by hard things, how they interact and how healing or destructive love can be. A beautifully written, moving and tender from the heart collection - a literal definition of the big thing that comes in small packages.  ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Love is available from many online bookstores; I received a reviewers of this title.

  Amane is ten years old when she discovers she's not like everyone else. Her school friends were all conceived the normal way, by artificial insemination, and raised in the normal way, by parents in 'clean', sexless marriages. But Amane's parents committed the ultimate taboo: they fell in love, had sex and procreated. As Amane grows up and enters adulthood, she does her best to fit in and live her life like the rest of society: cultivating intense relationships with anime characters, and limiting herself to extra-marital sex, as is the norm. Still, she can't help questioning what sex and marriage are for. But when Amane and her husband hear about Eden, an experimental town where residents are selected at random to be artificially inseminated en masse (including men who are fitted with artificial wombs), the family unit does not exist and children are raised collectively and anonymously, they decide to try living there. But can this bold experiment build the brave n...

Yuki and Sam are soulmates. They are destined to spend the rest of their lives together. They are supposed to love one another, forever. But when a miracle drug is released which can extend a human's life indefinitely, Sam chooses to live forever, instead of loving Yuki forever - and the world they know is spun inside out. Review: I was not ready for this. Romantic, breathtakingly bittersweet, time bending and beautifully poetic - Who Wants to Live Forever is a timeless tale about humanity, love and loss. Starting with immediately crafting the most stunning settings - a cool spring in Tokyo, 2039 or a rainy London afternoon in 2019 with such vivid intensity that I could smell the cherry blossoms and wet grass; and it only got better, with tiny details that created in-depth scenes, small notes that fully immersed us in the story. The story moved weirdly, but it works — almost dreamlike, moving easily from scene to scene and slipping from the past and future and across continents wit...

  Born with a congenital muscle disorder, Shaka Isawa has severe spine curvature and uses an electric wheelchair and ventilator. Within the limits of her care home, her life is lived online: she studies, she tweets indignantly, she posts outrageous stories on an erotica website. One day, a new male carer reveals he has read it all – the sex, the provocation, the dirt. Her response? An indecent proposal… Review:  Hunchback is a lot of things — authentic, oddly funny, and above all so, very real. Unflinchingly daring to delve into female sexuality and even more so, the sexuality of a disabled woman when society has deemed it to be inappropriate. It explores the dehumanisation, defeminisation, desexualisation that disabled people experience and stares the reader right in the eyes to challenge the ableism that is almost reflex. At points, Shaka thinks about being pregnant and getting an abortion just because other women can do it too - an extreme example but one that shows her fee...

When Elijah suggests going to OneMind to celebrate their ten-year anniversary, Anna is dubious about getting the implant that will allow them to hear each other’s thoughts. However, eager to please him, and to make up for the fact she can’t give him what he really wants, she agrees to take this step towards the ultimate intimacy. And at first things are great. Anna feels closer to her husband, and the novelty of communicating mind to mind is a thrill. But then she develops a strange side effect and begins having dreams that aren’t dreams, but memories. Memories that aren’t hers. And if Anna is now seeing Elijah’s memories, what if he can see hers? Will he discover what she's kept buried in her past? Desperate to keep the truth from her husband, Anna's mind becomes a prison she can't escape. How long can she keep the traitorous thoughts at bay before she drives herself mad? Review: A toxic, suffocating and obsessive tale about love when it takes over everything, showcasing t...

Chloe has spent months planning the murder of her husband, Scott. Everything is ready, but first she must create the perfect alibi to avoid any suggestion of her involvement in his death. And what better way to avoid suspicion than playing the loved-up wife on an extravagant holiday with their extended families? A luxury villa on the Greek island of Mykonos should provide the ultimate setting for her week of make-believe married bliss. But as the sun sets on their first evening in paradise, the cracks in Chloe’s plan begin to show. Family rivalries bubble to the surface. Scott’s sister, Tori, begins to ask awkward questions, suggesting she might know more about Chloe’s plans than she should. Then there’s the villa concierge, Grace, who is watching her guests’ every moves. As tensions rise, can Chloe manage to keep her murderous intentions hidden? And can she stop herself from adding a few more people to the body count along the way? Review:  After the devilish delight I found in of...

Legendary mystery author J. R. Alastor’s books are sold all over the world, but no one knows his real name. After years hiding in the shadows, he has sent out six invitations to an exclusive murder mystery retreat on his private island.   Mila del Angél has been hired to ensure the week runs smoothly. She has yearned for revenge on a ghost from her past for years – and this could be her chance to get it. The six bestselling thriller writers accept their invitations without question – it’s an opportunity any author would kill for.  What should have been a week of trope-filled games takes a sinister turn when one guest is found dead, and the others find themselves in the midst of a nightmare drawn from Alastor’s dark imagination. They may have written thrillers – but now they and Mila must survive one... " I've rarely written about literal months; I'm much more fascinated by the monster within."  Review:  A decadently dark modern thriller with a gothic twist. Comb...

Every cat contains multitudes…  When a young couple accidentally comes into possession of a playful kitten, their daily routine (and cramped apartment) is turned upside down. Soon they find their existence forever altered. Charting the couple’s ever-evolving relationship with cats – some they live with, others who exist only in their imagination –  Invisible Kitties  is a meditation on the quiet moments of everyday life and a celebration of cats in all their many forms. --------------- Whimsical, warm and wonderful, this is a delightful story wrapped up with delicately beautiful illustrations to make it a whole reading experience . I adore stories about the magical influence cats can have our lives, but most stories I can find come from Japanese writers and folklore so I was intrigued to read one originally written in Chinese - and it was done so with excellent translation. It was dreamlike, imaginative, full of metaphorical imagery that stuck in my mind in a beautiful wa...