Seventeen-year-old Mercedes Ayres has an open-door policy when it comes to her bedroom, but only if the guy fulfills a specific criteria: he has to be a virgin. Mercedes lets the boys get their awkward fumbling first times over with, and all she asks in return is that they give their girlfriends the perfect first time-the kind Mercedes never had herself.
Keeping what goes on in her bedroom a secret has been easy - so far. Her mother isn't home nearly enough to know about Mercedes' extracurricular activities, and her uber-religious best friend, Angela, won't even say the word "sex" until she gets married. But Mercedes doesn't bank on Angela's boyfriend finding out about her services and wanting a turn - or on Zach, who likes her for who she is instead of what she can do in bed.
​When Mercedes' perfect system falls apart, she has to find a way to salvage her own reputation -and figure out where her heart really belongs in the process. Funny, smart, and true-to-life, Laurie Elizabeth Flynn's Firsts is a one-of-a-kind young adult novel about growing up.

Firsts is one of those Marmite novels. You're either going to love it or hate it, due to its honest and possible somewhat taboo(?) subject matter. There are very few YA novels that deal with sex in such an in your face way, and I don't think I've ever met a female MC like Mercy. Mercy is a Marmite character herself, and not a lot of people are going to appreciate her frankness, and the way she deals with everything in her life, not just sex. She's very forthright about everything. 

I'm still not 100% sure how I felt about Firsts. Did I like what Mercy did, with those guys? No. Regardless of why she thought she was doing it, what she essentially was doing was cheating, as all of the guys had girlfriends. And you'd have to be pretty bloody naive to think it wasn't going to come out at some point, and it was like waiting for a car crash to happen; or to wait for that one guy who wanted nothing but revenge on Mercy, though I will say, it surprised me who was the one who sought out revenge. But, saying that, it's not as if Mercy deserved what happened when it all came out, that's not what I'm saying at all. It was just the kind of thing that was always going to cause trouble for Mercy. 

But I actually liked Mercy. I didn't like what she did, and her reasons for doing it (I knew from almost the first page what had happened to Mercy to make her the way she is, and I kinda hate it when MC's use past incidents as the reason they are the way they are). Aside from all that, I did like her. I especially liked her when she was around her friends - Angela, Zach and the new, and very bouncy, Faye. Faye just came bouncing into the novel like a ray of sunshine, and she intrigued me because I wasn't sure for a long, long time if she was genuine or not. But I liked her, I liked Faye, and I loved Zach. Zach was like a little puppy, so eager and lovely, and his relationship with Mercy was very much like the one in The DUFF, a novel I LOVED. 

This was only an okay read for me. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it. It never really got that spark for me. Like I said, it wasn't a bad read. And I liked Faye, Zach, I liked Mercy at times, but I wish she'd had a bit more emotion in her. There was no real explanation for her lack of emotions. And the way she treated her mom was unreal. I'd be slapped if I spoke to my mam like that, or called her by her real name. Maybe her mom wasn't there for her, but whenever she did try, Mercy wasn't interested and it was so frustrating, because she complained about her mom not trying, then complained when she tried and it was like ARGH. So, yeah, the book was basically okay. I applaud Flynn for the topic, it was very brave, but it wasn't executed enough for me to love it. Although I'm not sure how you can ever love a plot like that, so who knows what I'm saying. A more emotional, softer side of Mercy might have helped. 

When your name is Lizzy Bennet and Mr Darcy lives next door, romance is anything but simple…
Especially since a film crew has just arrived to shoot Pride and Prejudice at the Darcy estate! And when Hugh Darcy, the one who got away, arrives home after 8 years absence, Lizzy can’t help but think it’s fate. Until, that is, he introduces her to Holly – his fiancée…
What can Lizzy do but try not to feel too prejudiced against Hugh’s new woman – a city girl who knows nothing about country life, and seems more concerned with her film star ex than her current fiancé?
There’s no denying that there’s something suspicious about Holly’s interest in Hugh…and when he begins to have doubts about his high-maintenance fiancée, it seems a break up is on the cards. But is it too late for Lizzy to swallow her pride and get her Austen ending after all?

Katie Oliver seems to have made it her authorly mission to bring Jane Austen into the twenty-first century. She's written seven novels up to now, and all have revolved around Jane Austen in some way. In her newest trilogy, she's taken the names of Austen's characters and made them her own, in a very confusing manner, since there's also a Jane Austen adaptation being filmed next door to the Bennet house, in the Darcy Manor. To be perfectly honest, the novel would have worked just as well with simple characters not named after Austen characters, it would have worked if Lizzy was plain old Sarah, or something. 

I quite enjoyed What Would Lizzy Bennet Do? it was a harmless piece of fiction, and I whizzed through it at quite a pace, although I did roll my eyes many times at the way the characters spoke and acted. Lizzy was in love with Hugh Darcy, simply because he helped her with her grief in regards to her mothers death EIGHT YEARS PREVIOUSLY? When she was sixteen? It wasn't love, it was infatuation, the kind of thing you get with doctors when they help you, and it kind of irritated me that she was so obsessed, it wasn't as if they met up weekly in London (where they both lived for a time!!!!). It just didn't really make sense. 

Will I read the other books in the series, I do not know. It was an okay read, I read it, but I do think it would have been a far superior novel if it wasn't a re-telling of Austen. Loads of people do re-tellings of Austen, and that's fine, but there's only one Jane Austen, ya know? It seems to be Katie's USP, though, which is up to her, but I would definitely read something different, like the love story of the very normal Samantha and Ben, or something. I tell you which character was my favourite of What Would Lizzy Bennet Do? and that was Harry. Harry was awesome, and reminded me of a certain ginger prince. This wasn't a bad read by any means, I enjoyed it and it whiled away an evening full of cold.

Crime thrillers are the in genre at the mo, and Try Not To Breathe is my first one of 2016, and boy was it a good one. It took me three days to complete, but I never stopped thinking about the story and probably my only disappointment is I knew very early on who the baddie was. Was that intentional? Did anyone else guess, who knows? I reckon Alex might have twigged sooner if she was a little less drunk. 

The novel was told in a very interesting fashion, third person, but from the perspectives of Alex, the interested journalist; Jacob, Amy's childhood boyfriend and Amy herself. Alex was obviously the main character, but it was young Amy who struck a chord, because how awful must that be? Stuck in your own body, with no way to communicate with the outside world, and no idea what's actually going on. That is so, so scary. Of anything, that's what scared me most reading the book, imagining being in Amy's shoes, and I loved that Jacob visited her, and then so did Alex. It made me want to run out to my nearest hospital and just start talking to patients like Amy, it was that profound.

Alex was such an intriguing character. She's your typical thriller heroine, drunk chic, for reasons unknown (it was never actually explained, which was a shame), with very little to be happy about because she's lost everything, until she latches on to Amy's tale. It was so good to see Alex pull herself away from the brink, to use Amy's story and Amy's life as a way to try and get her life back together, because it wasn't a good life. Jacob was also very interesting, because you do wonder why someone would still be so attached to someone who's been stuck in a hospital bed for so long, but it was very nice of him to care, even if it did seem a teensy bit strange.

This was such a good read. Sure, I guessed who did it, but the story itself was so gripping, it was great seeing into Amy's thoughts - and sad, too and watching Alex and Jacob unlock the puzzle, because hey, they didn't have the full picture, they didn't know what Amy was thinking and they had to work it out pretty much for themselves and seeing it all come together was something special. I really enjoyed Try Not To Breathe, Holly Seddon has a fantastic storytelling voice, and hopefully this is the first of many books from her as this was amazing, I really enjoyed it and even when I wasn't reading the book, I was still thinking about it. 

The warm and witty new novel from Alexandra Brown, bestselling author of The Great Christmas Knit Off. Perfect for fans of Jenny Colgan and Carole Matthews.
Tindledale is in a tizzy . . .
The Village Show competition is coming around again and after last year’s spectacular failure, the villagers are determined to win. Meg, teacher at the local school, is keen to help and to impose some much-needed order.
After a terse encounter with a newcomer to the village, Meg discovers that it is celebrity chef and culinary bad boy, Dan Wright. Meg thinks he is arrogant and rude but rumour has it that Dan is opening a new restaurant in the village which could really put Tindledale on the map.
As things come together, villagers old and new all start to come out of the woodwork, including new arrival Jessie who seems to have it all. But first impressions can be deceptive and Meg discovers that when it comes to Tindledale – and Dan – nothing is ever quite as it seems . . .

This was an interesting read for me. I tried to read it when it first came out, but I couldn't got the life of me get into it. I don't know why, I think I just didn't click with the book, really. But I spotted it in my library and picked it up, determined to give it another go in case it was just tiredness that stopped me reading before, and it must have been, because I quite enjoyed it this time around. Yes, I still had some issues - mainly the fact that the thirty-something Meg seemed very fuddy-duddy, very prim and proper, and a bit too old for how old she actually was, but I eventually warmed to her. It was actually Jessica's story that kept me reading, because I was so intrigued by it, and I kind of wish there had been more made of it, as there's only very sporadic chapters from that third-person point of view.

The Great Village Show is a sequel to Alex's first Tindledale book The Great Christmas Knit-Off, but you could very easily read it as a stand-alone as it features brand new characters, and while Sybs does pop up, it's not completely spoiler-y if you hadn't read the first book. I actually like that in sequels because if you read the sequel so long after its prequel, you forget stuff, so to be introduced to new characters eases that a little bit I find. 

Meg took a bit for me to warm to her, but I did. I loved her passion for her school, for her village, for the kids at her school. That really shone through the pages, and I was desperate for her to succeed in her mission, anyone with such a passion deserves a payoff, because people like Meg make the world go around, and without such passionate people, the world would be a duller place, with much less things to enjoy. Dan, on the other hand, baffled the living daylights out of me. He was written like a Katie Fforde hero - arrogant, rude, but with none of the charm, and I truly didn't understand what his appeal was. More time needed to be spent explaining it. One minute, Meg can't stand him, the next they're fake-kissing in front of her mother, and it just didn't make sense, because Meg didn't like him! At all! Maybe he was a lovely fella, and he did try to explain himself, but it was too late for me. With a hero you need to be on board from the offset, and Dan just didn't excite me in the slightest, sadly. 

Overall, I quite enjoyed the book. As I said, it was Jessica's story that kept me reading, and I'm slightly curious why she got shoe-horned into Meg's book, instead of her own story because that could have been a pretty powerful novel (maybe that's why - as Alex is more known for her lighter reads), but I would have read it. Meg was lovely, don't get me wrong, and as I said, I loved that she had a cause and she was willing to go down fighting for her school, that's some pretty amazing spirit right there, and that's why I'm glad I kept reading, because I love to read about passionate characters, and the whole village of Tindledale really impress me actually because they're all so passionate about their village. I'm curious who is next up in the upcoming The Secret of Orchard Cottage, I reckon the lovely Kitty deserves a book at some point, she's certainly got a story to tell.