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Maddy's Christmas Wedding by Rosie Green #LittleDuckPondCafeBook37#review

  Here we are at Book 37 in the Little Duck Pond Cafe series! Maddie's Christmas Wedding is the latest novella by Rosie Green.   With the wedding of the year approaching, excitement is running high at the café! But there's just one problem. Maddy is grappling with a secret. Could it derail all of hers and Jack's glorious plans for their big day? Will there actually be a wedding?   My Thoughts In this latest festive story, we are taken out of Sunnybrook, in fact, out of the country and taken for a wintry stay in Lapland. It is Maddy's hen party gathering so some of the Little Duck Pond characters are along too. The story continues on from the earlier Cosy Nights and Snowball Fights . The setting is idyllic and so different to life at home. Everything shimmers and shines in the snow and the temperatures are extreme. Maddy should be having the time of her life but she finds that she has a lot on her mind and a heartbreaking decision to make.     With the men le...
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Jihadi: A Love Story by Yusuf Toropov

 Jihadi: A Love Story is a psychological thriller which I found to be an extremely challenging read. I was reading it at the time that the atrocities in Brussels were occurring and I found it difficult to engage with the subject matter. It is a complicated plot line which cannot easily be skimmed over. It makes the reader evaluate the truth and there are many twists and turns as the story develops.

     It begins in a secret terrorist prison cell where a former intelligence agent is being held and has written his memoir. This memoir is being assessed by a psychologist who annotates the text from her own perspective. The trouble is, it is very difficult to know who is to be trusted. You can't make assumptions about any part of it. Extremists are on both sides. 

     Told through the lives of a range of characters, the story poses questions as to the nature of terrorism, religious fervour, leadership and fanaticism. Moving backwards and forwards in time, different stories are woven together. On  Safen Maken Findley's blog, the author, Yusuf Toropov has posted a guest post on the writing of Jihadi. You can read it here.

 Thanks to Orenda Books for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.





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