📖 Favourite Read of the Month ~ The Secret Diary of Rome by M A McLaughlin

Joffe Books
Choc Lit
1 September 2026

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

 

A hidden diary. A story that’s waited a hundred years to be told…

1960, New York.

Emilia Rinaldi restores broken books for a living. She knows how to bring lost stories back to life.

The one story she cannot repair is her own.

Then an unexpected gift from her late mother arrives — an antique music box containing a faded photograph and a torn page from the diary of Lizzie Siddal, the tragic Pre-Raphaelite muse and wife of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Emilia follows the clues to Rome. To an abandoned villa left by a grandmother she never knew. To a collection of rare and beautiful books, hidden in a church crypt through the war . . . And a secret buried for generations.

As Emilia pieces together her own past, Lizzie’s diary reveals another story. Two Rossetti paintings. One genuine. One a flawless forgery.

Separated by a century, the two mysteries are bound together. And when Emilia finally discovers the truth, she must decide whether some stories are meant to be preserved . . . or buried forever.

📖 My Review..

I’ve always been fascinated by the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and have been to several art exhibitions, with Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s works being amongst my favourites. To have a dual time story which features Elizabeth Siddal has been a real treat as not only does it give a little insight into the life of this enigmatic young woman who was Rossetti’s muse for over twenty years but it also takes us on a fascinating journey to 1960s Rome and Emilia Rinaldi’s quest to discover more about  her family’s past and the connection to an old diary which once belonged to Elizabeth Siddal.

Combing art, and antiquarian books, with a human interest story, is a fascinating idea and I enjoyed the way the story unfolded especially as Emilia starts to get drawn into her family history and begins to question her own life choices. The author writes well, bringing 1960s Rome to life and with old animosities still simmering Emilia has a difficult time trying to discover the faults of the past. The sadness of the fictional diary is handled well and brings Lizzie Siddal to life in an uncomplicated way, sharing snippets of her time with Rossetti,  his troubled genius, and her growing dependence on laudanum. 

The Secret Diary of Rome initially attracted my attention because of its colourful cover but the slow and subtle storytelling approach soon appealed to me and I became swept up in Emilia’s life, her uneasy relationship with her fiancé, Oliver, and the added mystery surrounding a couple of Pre-Raphaelite paintings all made for an enjoyable read and for that reason I’m happy to make it my Favourite Readof the Month for September.

About the Author

Marty Ambrose-McLaughlin is an award-winning, multi-published author of four historical mysteries set mostly in Italy, drawing on her background in nineteenth-century literature. Marty completed her M.Phil. at the University of York (England) and teaches creative writing at Florida Southwestern State College. She has also given numerous workshops in the U.S. and abroad on all aspects of creating/publishing a novel; her new novel, The Secret Diary of Rome is published by Joffe Books in 2026.

Website 

X @ JoffeBooks 

#TheSecretDiaryOfRome

📕One from the Shelf ~ The Girl in the Red Coat by Kate Hamer

In an attempt to get my ‘to be read pile’ to a more manageable level over the following autumn months, I’m going to share my reviews of books which have lingered for far too long on my digital book shelf.

I’ve had The Girl in the Red Coat since it was first published back in 2015…

Faber and Faber 
2015

Thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

She is the missing girl. But she doesn't know she's lost.

Carmel Wakeford becomes separated from her mother at a local children's festival, and is found by a man who claims to be her estranged grandfather. He tells her that her mother has had an accident and that she is to live with him for now. As days become weeks with her new family, 8-year-old Carmel realises that this man believes she has a special gift...

While her mother desperately tries to find her, Carmel embarks on an extraordinary journey, one that will make her question who she is - and who she might become.

📖 My Review..

I try to steer away from missing children stories which is why this book has languished in my kindle library for the last eleven years however, I’ve always had the intention of reading it one day as it received such rave reviews when it was first published.

Eight year old Carmel Wakeford and her mum visit a local children’s festival where in the blink of an eye Carmel goes missing, kidnapped at the fair by a man purporting to be her estranged grandfather. With a story about her mum having an accident Carmel goes willingly with this man and that’s when the story takes a dark and unexpected turn. 

The story emerges in two different voices, that of Carmel herself whose eight year old personality shines through with a tenacity and stoicism which belies her age and that of Beth, her distraught mother, who counts the days of her beloved daughter’s disappearance with all the heartache of a mother who fears she will never see her beloved daughter again. The story is beautifully written , so much so, I couldn’t put it down for more than a minute as I desperately wanted Carmel’s lost and lonely life to come good. I was almost scared to read on in case there was never any resolution for her and her mother, and hoping against hope that the perpetrator of this heinous crime, however intentioned, would eventually get their comeuppance. 

Fascinating characterisation make this book into something quite special and I’m really glad after 11 years I’ve finally met The Girl in the Red Coat for myself.

*There is a sequel which picks up the story a few years on from where this book finishes. The Lost Girls was published by Faber and Faber in 2023. I’ve since gone on to read the sequel, which I enjoyed very much and thought it wrapped the story up nicely.

About the Author

Kate Hamer grew up in the West Country and Wales. She studied art and worked for a number of years in television. In 2011 she won the Rhys Davies short-story prize and her short stories have appeared in various collections. Her debut novel The Girl in the Red Coat was published in 2015.

X @FaberBooks

X @kate_hamer #TheGirlInTheRedCoat

📖 Book Review ~ Ten Poems about Beer from Candlestick Press 🍺

Candlestick Press
September 2026

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this pamphlet

 

There’s something companionable about the question “Do you fancy a pint?” It sounds somehow homely – an invitation to share time and exchange news as much as to have a drink.

In these entertaining and warm-hearted poems, we encounter all kinds of beer – everything from real ale to Mexican Pacifico and from home brew to Guinness. We watch as pints are poured and experience the delivery of the week’s supply of barrels, each rolled down into the cellar in what becomes a skilful dance.

In one poem a village pub on a country lane casts an unexpected spell as soon as the travellers cross the threshold:

“… to pass out of the dark

and into a room of flickered malty brown

like the glint of a full pint glass.”

from ‘The Swan’ by Sally Goldsmith

These are poems to be enjoyed in the company of a quiet pint, or as a reminder of the simple pleasure of entering a favourite pub.

Poems by Sally Goldsmith, AE Houseman, Khadijah Ibrahiim, Grevel Lindop, Tom Marioni, John McCullough, Kathy Pimlott, Edgar Allan Poe, Martha Sprackland, and Marjorie Sweetko.

🍺 My Review

There’s something comforting about the smell of beer, for me it conjures up experimenting with home brew or sampling the delights of a malty bitter in the garden of a country pub and even though beer is no longer my drink of choice, I do still appreciate its pungent aroma which is so much part of our heritage. We are a nation that has brewed beer for hundreds of years, from tiny malt houses, to the brewing giants, beer production is part of our landscape.

The feeling a of a well earned stop on a Friday night…

“A Friday feeling ,half way home,

Rain’s drummed you off the motorway, 

good news from London aches for telling..”

From the Regulars by Marjorie Sweetko

To the poignant in..

“ In the front room, whether indigo skies

or rainy grey covered the afternoons

Grandad hammered bottle caps onto homemade brew,

welding metal caps onto brown glass bottles 

As he listened to Beethoven’s symphonies..”

From Grandad’s Home Brew by Khadijah Ibrahiim 

This reminded me of waiting expectantly for a pint of Guinness to be poured in a bar in Dún Laoghaire..

He never tired of explaining from his stool

the route to an immaculate Guinness.

Tilt your glass at forty-five degrees

to kill the splash. Hold it close

to the spout, avoiding contact. Take the brew

three-quarters up, then leave to settle..”

From Masterclass by John McCullough

Like a well-poured pint of beer I found much to enjoy in sampling the ten very different poems on offer in this collection. From its evocative cover, with its hops and barley and the glistening amber of the pint pot of ale, Ten Poems about Beer will make a lovely gift instead of a card for anyone who enjoys a quiet drink in a country pub or a noisy night down the local. There is something different to be found and each of the poems celebrate our companionable connection to beer - drinking safely, and responsibly, of course.

Cheers 🍺

About the Publisher 

Candlestick Press is a small, independent press publishing sumptuously produced poetry pamphlets that serve as a wonderful alternative to a greetings card, with matching envelopes and bookmarks left blank for your message. Their subjects include Mountains, Clouds, Walking, Birds, Wine and Happiness. Candlestick Press pamphlets are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, galleries and garden centres nationwide and available to order online.

Twitter/X @poetrycandle 

Blue Sky @candlestickpress.bsky.social

📖 Book Review ~ Ten Poems about Sewing from Candlestick Press

Candlestick Press
August 2026

My thanks to the publisher for the copy of this pamphlet 

Sewing isn’t just one thing – it can be patchwork, quilting, cross-stitch, darning, upcycling, sewing by hand or by machine. It can also be embroidery, as in the Bayeux Tapestry with its vivid scenes depicting the medieval world. A poem here celebrates a group of nineteenth century women who made a copy of that remarkable artefact:

“…We have sewn

ourselves into the woof and warp of cloth, thread by thread…”

from ‘The Ladies of the Leek Embroidery Society Copy the Bayeux Tapestry’ by Susan Utting

The selection captures the quiet pleasures of all kinds of sewing. There are moments of thoughtful recollection: a mother who takes in evening piecework and a father sewing buttons onto his army uniform. What emerges is the powerful idea that sewing is a profoundly human activity – one that connects us to each other, to our families and friends and also to the past.

Poems by Jane Austen, Ravan Borland, Lucille Clifton, Fred D’Aguiar, Rita Dove, Robert Hamberger, Robert Seatter, Edna St Vincent Millay, Susan Utting and Jackie Wills.

Cover illustration by Jessica Caldwell.

📖 My Review

With the recent arrival of the Bayeux Tapestry to London and the final of The Great British Sewing Bee on television it would seem that sewing is having a much needed revival. My mother was a fine seamstress but sadly she did not pass her needleworking skills on to me however, I remain impressed by those talented people who can take a piece of cloth and turn it into something wonderfully creative. The skill of the embroiderers back in the 11th century, who created the masterpiece that is the Bayeux Tapestry, can only be looked upon with awe.

This collection of Ten Poems about Sewing celebrates the skill of needleworking in all its many guises.

This lovely poem reminded me of my mother who left school at fourteen to work in a Lancashire sewing factory and who used a singer sewing machine at home to make the family’s clothes and who would also lick the thread …

“ You think you are a bird and your station is the sky

Lick the thread and feed it through the needle’s eye.”

Granny on her Singer Sewing Machine by Fred D’ Aguiar

I am reminded of my love of pocket handkerchiefs in this lovely poem which is so reminiscent of a bygone era …

“Cambridge - with grateful blessings would I pay

The pleasure given me in sweet employ;

Long mayest though serve my friend without decay,

And have no tears to wipe but tears of joy”

To Miss Bigg, previous to her marriage, with some pocket handkerchiefs I had hemmed for her by Jane Austen

This fascinating collection of ten poems about sewing is another great example of finding beauty in the ordinary events of life, be it in the feel of fabric or a piece of embroidery, in quilting or plain stitching, in top stitching or simply hemming handkerchiefs, there is something to enjoy for everyone who loves sewing. From its colourful cover, with its upright manikins and old fashioned sewing machines, to its similarly designed endpapers, Ten Poems about Sewing would make a splendid gift instead of a card for anyone who has an interest in stitching either professionally or as an enthusiastic amateur.

About the Publisher 

Candlestick Press is a small, independent press publishing sumptuously produced poetry pamphlets that serve as a wonderful alternative to a greetings card, with matching envelopes and bookmarks left blank for your message. Their subjects include Mountains, Clouds, Walking, Birds, Wine and Happiness. Candlestick Press pamphlets are stocked by chain and independent bookshops, galleries and garden centres nationwide and available to order online.

Twitter/X @poetrycandle 

Blue Sky @candlestickpress.bsky.social

📖 Book Review ~ Serenity Falls by C J Tudor

 

Michael Joseph 
10 September 2026

Thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

Welcome to Serenity Falls – the most idyllic, and safest, town in the US – a place to grow up, grow your family and grow old together. For Dan and his daughter, Sadie, it’s the perfect relocation option. A fresh start, thousands of miles from their troubled past in the UK.

But their idyll is shattered when they find a dead body in the swimming pool of their new house – a house Dan’s late mother kept secret from him all his life.

It’s just the start of a series of disturbing discoveries. Abandoned houses where people have seemingly just upped and left. The strange woman Sadie sees around town putting up ‘missing’ posters for a child who drowned almost thirty years ago. An ice cream van that drives around at night making sure residents are asleep...

As plans gear up to celebrate Serenity Falls’ fiftieth anniversary, something is stirring beneath the surface of the blissful façade. Is Serenity Falls really the perfect town or is it founded on something far darker? And is someone so desperate to keep its secrets that they’d resort to anything to preserve.

📖My Review 

After an unexpected inheritance, Dan and his teenage daughter Sadie relocate to Serenity Falls in Florida. Leaving Manchester and everything they have previously known is no easy feat and once arrived at Serenity Falls they both soon realise that all is not well in this seemingly idyllic town. Mysterious events soon start to happen and a dark and brooding atmosphere helps to make Serenity Falls into one of those stories that you stay up long and late to finish.

I enjoyed way the story unfolded, the slow build up, observing how Dan and Sadie are pulled into a very different lifestyle and there’s a definite undercurrent of unease with a few surprise twists and turns along the way. The arrival of the decidedly creepy ice cream van which is featured on the front cover made the hair on the back of my neck stand up and I’ll never hear ice cream musical chimes in the same way again.

Reminiscent of Stephen King, and with Serenity Falls as its lead character, this is a thriller / horror story which ticks all the right boxes and has all the necessary elements of fear, surprise and nail biting edginess.

About the Author 

C. J. Tudor’s love of writing, especially the dark and macabre, started young. When her peers were reading Judy Blume, she was devouring Stephen King and James Herbert. Over the years she has had a variety of jobs, including trainee reporter, radio scriptwriter, dog walker, voiceover, television presenter and copywriter.

She is now the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Chalk Man, The Taking of Annie Thorne, The Other People, The Burning Girls, The Drift and The Gathering. All of her books are in development or optioned for TV. The Burning Girls is available on Netflix. 

She is also the author of a short story collection, A Sliver of Darkness.Darkness

📖 Book Review ~ The Echo of Loss by Katherine Webb

Lake Union
15 September 2026

Hallewell #2

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

 

A long-buried crime. A marriage built on lies. Could the truth be a second chance?

England, 1902. More than a decade has passed since a wrongful accusation sent a young man to the gallows, an injustice that shattered the lives of those left behind—including Theodora Hallewell and Toby Meriwether, whose chance at love died that same day.

Trapped in a violent marriage to an eminent doctor, Theo has endured the years in silence, while secretly pursuing a dangerous obsession with the past. Toby, burdened by guilt and grief, has built a respectable life as a journalist and prison reformer, though his own marriage has crumbled under the weight of things he cannot forget.

When their paths cross again, both are drawn back to the tragedy that shaped their youth. As Theo uncovers long-buried secrets about that fateful night, she discovers a truth more dangerous than she ever imagined. A truth that could destroy her—or finally set her free.

Spanning two decades from the dawn of the Edwardian era to the Great War, The Echo of Loss is a sweeping story exploring love, forgiveness and the courage to seek justice at any cost.

📖 My Review..

In this second book of the Hallewell trilogy we meet again with Theo Hallewell and Toby Meriweather some fourteen years after the momentous events of the first story. Both are now very different people, Theo, with a young son, is in an abusive marriage to an eminent surgeon and Toby is pursuing his  journalistic career but is seemingly without purpose. This emotional second book explores their lives in detail, separated by circumstances and time, Theo and Toby are unable to put the past to rest.

Primarily, it’s a love story about two lost souls who seem fated never to find each other and yet it also encompasses the traumatic years of the First World War with unbearable episodes of loss, trauma and grief. Theo feels she is being punished over and over and certainly the traumatic events of her marriage show that she is a victim of tragedy and yet she is also strong and stoical and is, undeniably, the pivot on which the books turns. Toby, comes across as less likeable, his indecisive nature is a burden he carries, and yet he is as deeply traumatised by past events as Theo.

Beautifully written, with a fine eye for historical detail and fascinating characters, it’s perfectly possible to read The Echo of Loss without having first read The Promise of Wonder however, as with any series it’s best to start at the beginning to appreciate the complexity of the story arc and to learn more about the central characters although the author does a great job of explaining what has gone before. The ending of this second book certainly lends itself to a fascinating conclusion as there are still a few loose ends to tidy up.

About the Author

Katherine Webb was born in 1977 and grew up in Hampshire before reading History at Durham University. Her eight novels include three Sunday Times Top Ten Bestsellers, and have been translated into twenty-six languages around the world. Katherine also writes crime fiction under the pen name Kate Webb. She lives in a farmhouse in Devon.

Website 

📖Book Review ~ The Raven by Susan McCauley

Celtic Sea
8 September 2026

Thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

As illness tightens its grip, something darker begins to stir.

England, 1665. As plague ravages London and fear spreads north to York, Martin Blake, a humble cobbler, struggles to protect his family through a bitter, death-shadowed winter. When the parish rector, his wife’s domineering uncle, forces orphaned children from London into their already meager home, Martin’s fragile world begins to unravel.

Grief, illness, and the weight of buried sins close in. Ravens gather. Martin’s reason begins to slip. Whispers spread—of misused alms, of spirits that roam at night, of faith twisted into something monstrous. As snow blankets the land and the dead lie unburied, Martin must confront a chilling truth: is he haunted by guilt, or by something far more sinister?

A gothic tale of illness, obsession, and the perilous border between loyalty and madness.

📖My Review..

Even the small villages around York in 1665 are not safe from the effects of the great plague which is ravishing the south of England. In the quiet hamlet of Acaster Malbis, Martin Blake ekes out a meagre living as a humble cobbler because without the funds to join the prestigious Guild of Cordwainers, Martin must continue to make his shoes in secret, this pleases his wife’s uncle, the local church rector, who begrudges the expense of new leather. 

Martin’s wife, Susanna is a gentle soul, who cossets the ravens which come to her for food but there is a deep underlying sadness which makes her yearn for more children of her own. When her rector uncle asks Martin and Susanna to take in a family of London children who have been orphaned by the pestilence, Martin reluctantly agrees as the family are poor enough without extra mouths to feed, this change in circumstances brings devastating tragedy to the family and the start of Martin’s mental health problems.

The Raven is an atmospheric story and it must be said is rather creepy in places, filled with an undercurrent of menace and a creeping sense of dread. The sense of history is palpable and although only a shortish story the characters come across well, especially Susanna’s uncle who is an ambitious man with no sense of Christian compassion. The ravens too are as much a part of the narrative as the humans and I could hear their incessant cawing and sense their malevolent presence. Martin’s tumble into insanity is harrowing and deeply disturbing which all adds to the bleakness of the story. 

Overall, The Raven works as a chilling and atmospheric read, interesting enough to read in one sitting and with a Gothic inspired cover, which is what piqued my interest in the first instance.

About the Author

Susan McCauley is an award-winning author who writes gothic horror, ghost stories, and folklore-driven fantasy for middle grade, YA, and adult readers, exploring faith, fear, and the darker costs of history.

Website