Kelktails: Making cocktails with author Lindsey Kelk

Lindsey Kelk is the author of the I Heart... novels and the recently published About a Girl, an incredibly fun and fabulous first instalment in a brand new series [find my full review here].

To celebrate the launch Lindsey did various signings across the UK as well as some really cool events. Unfortunately I didn't email quick enough to get tickets to a special brunch, so I jumped on the chance when "Kelktails" was announced; a competition where readers could win a place at a cocktail making workshop with Lindsey. We had to come up with a name for a cocktail and in my first try I attempted to persuade her with "The Marc Jacobs", but alas there were much better answers than that and I didn't get in. Luckily for me though, there were some extra places available the night before the event and my cocktail "The Desperado" (because I was desperate to win!) did get picked this time around.

You can find my recap of the evening + some photos below.

Book review: The Trader of Saigon by Lucy Cruickshanks

My edition: Hardcover, published on 4 July 2013 by Quercus, 336 pages.

Description: In the chaos and corruption of post-civil war Vietnam, three seemingly unconnected lives are brought together in greed, fear and hope.

As a US Army deserter, Alexander is a man without country; stuck in a life he no longer controls and embroiled in the dark business of trading women. His latest victim is Hanh, a poor rural girl living in Hanoi who dreams to escaping the inevitability of an impoverished future and for whom Alexander’s arrival seems like the answer to a prayer. Neither of them has ever met Phuc - a Vietnamese businessman who backed the wrong side in the war and is now unable to pay his financial and political debts to the Party. But his struggles are about to change both their lives.

Rating:

Book review: Revenge Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger

My edition: Paperback, published on 20 June 2013 by Harper, 417 pages.

Description: She's back ...and more devilish than ever.

Life has been good to Andy since she quit the job 'a million girls would die for' at Runway magazine. Now, ten years later, she's about to get married and she's running her own successful magazine.

But the night before her wedding, she can't sleep. Is it just normal nerves, or is she having serious second thoughts? And why can't she stop thinking about her ex-boss, Miranda – aka, the Devil?

It seems that Andy's efforts to build herself a bright new life have led her directly into the path of the Devil herself, bent on revenge...

Rating:

Book review: About a Girl by Lindsey Kelk

My edition: Paperback, to be published on 4 July 2013 by Harper, 402 pages.

Description: Tess Brookes has always been a Girl with a Plan. But when her carefully constructed Plan goes belly up, she's forced to reconsider.

After accidently answering her flatmate Vanessa's phone, she decides that since being Tess isn't going so well, why shouldn't she try out being Vanessa? With nothing left to lose, she accepts Vanessa's photography assignment to Hawaii – she used to be an amateur snapper, how hard can it be? Right?

But Tess is soon in big trouble – she isn't a photographer, she isn't Vanessa, and the gorgeous journalist on the shoot with her, who is making it very clear he'd like to get into her pants, is an egotistical monster.

Far from home and in someone else's shoes, Tess must decide whether to fight on through, or 'fess up and run…

Rating:

Sunday post #2

Sunday is when I sit back with a lovely cup of tea and write about all the wonderful new books I've received and purchased in the past week. This post participates in fab memes Showcase Sunday and Stacking the Shelves.

I wasn't home last Sunday to make this post, so the books listed below are the ones I have received in the last two weeks ^_^





• Review books: About a Girl by Lindsey Kelk, Brooklyn Girls: Pia by Gemma Burgess, The Trader of Saigon by Lucy Cruickshanks.

• Competition wins: Revenge Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger, This is How it Ends by Kathleen MacMahon.


I've already finished About a Girl which I absolutely adored (review up soon), Lindsey's books are so much fun! And I'm currently reading Revenge wears Prada (which I'm very much enjoying - I love reading about these characters again after so many years) and Brooklyn Girls (which is unfortunately very disappointing so far, but since I've read great things about this novel on other blogs I'm hoping it will pick up).

Have you guys read any of the books showcased above yet? If so, did you enjoy them?

Theatre event: West End Live 2013

Now in its ninth year, West End Live is a free two-day festival in London which showcases many of the fantastic musicals that currently headline the stages in the capitol, as well as some up and coming and lesser known shows. As an avid theatre-goer and a big fan of musical theatre in particular it is a two-day heaven on earth.

Despite having seen most shows currently on in the West End, I always love seeing my favourites back on stage and each year I'm pleasantly surprised by some new additions or shows I thought were not of interest to me that manage to persuade my opinion in their favour with their fantastic showcase.

Highlights this year for me included Top Hat's old-school tapdance number, the emotional punch of Les Misérables, crowd-pleasers Jersey Boys, new musical From Here to Eternity and the always rockin' We Will Rock You.

I went a bit trigger happy during the weekend and a small selection of my photos (and a handful of videos) can be found with my more elaborate review below the cut.

Rating:

Book review: The Sea Sisters by Lucy Clarke

My edition: Paperback, published on 9 May 2013 by Harper, 388 pages.

Description: There are some currents in the relationship between sisters that run so dark and so deep, it’s better for the people swimming on the surface never to know what's beneath...

Katie's carefully structured world is shattered by the news that her headstrong younger sister, Mia, has been found dead in Bali – and the police claim it was suicide.

With only the entries of Mia's travel journal as her guide, Katie retraces the last few months of her sister's life, and – page by page, country by country – begins to uncover the mystery surrounding her death.

What she discovers changes everything. But will her search for the truth push their sisterly bond – and Katie – to breaking point?

Rating:

Book review: The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls by Anton DiSclafani

My edition: Paperback, published on 6 June 2013 by Tinder Press, 389 pages.

Description: Thea Atwell is fifteen years old in 1930, when, following a scandal for which she has been held responsible, she is 'exiled' from her wealthy and isolated Florida family to a debutante boarding school in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.

As Thea grapples with the truth about her role in the tragic events of 1929, she finds herself enmeshed in the world of the Yonahlossee Riding Camp, with its complex social strata ordered by money, beauty and equestrienne prowess; where young women are indoctrinated in the importance of 'female education' yet expected to be married by twenty-one; a world so rarified as to be rendered immune (at least on the surface) to the Depression looming at the periphery, all overseen by a young headmaster who has paid a high price for abandoning his own privileged roots...

Rating:

Book review: By My Side by Alice Peterson

My edition: Paperback, to be published on 18 July 2013 by Quercus, 376 pages.

Description: Cass Brooks loves her job, her boyfriend Sean, her life. Until, leaving home one morning, distracted and hungover, she steps into the path of a truck.

When she wakes up, she can't walk. And suddenly all her hopes and dreams, the plans she'd made with Sean, the future she thought she'd have, seem out of her reach.

But then fate intervenes again. Cass meets Ticket, a loyal golden Labrador who refuses to leave her side. And on a flight to Colorado, she sits next to Charlie, who believes he can show her a life full of possibilities, if only she'll let him.

Cass wants her life back the way it was. Charlie knows this cannot be. Yet a future beckons all the same...

Rating:

Theatre review: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Synopsis: Christopher, fifteen years old, stands beside Mrs Shears' dead dog. It has been speared with a garden fork, it is seven minutes after midnight and Christopher is under suspicion. He records each fact in the book he is writing to solve the mystery of who murdered Wellington.

He has an extraordinary brain, exceptional at maths while ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. He has never ventured alone beyond the end of his road, he detests being touched and he distrusts strangers. But his detective work, forbidden by his father, takes him on a frightening journey that upturns his world.

Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was originally published in 2003. It was the winner of more than seventeen literary awards, including prizes in Japan, Holland and Italy as well as the Whitbread Book of the Year Award in the UK in 2004.

Rating: