Tag: COVID-19

Release Day Review: Lockdown on London Lane by Beth Reekles

Lockdown on London Lane
Author: Beth Reekles

To Be Published: TODAY: February 1, 2022
352 Pages

Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: January 7-19, 2022
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars

Book Description:

For the inhabitants of London Lane, a simple slip of paper underneath each of their doors is about to change their lives in a hundred different ways.

URGENT!!! Due to the current situation, building management has decided to impose a seven-day quarantine on all apartment buildings on London Lane.

With nowhere else to go . . .

Ethan and Charlotte wonder whether absence really does make the heart grow fonder when they end up on either side of a locked door.

A fierce debate over pineapple on pizza ignites a series of revelations about Zach and Serena’s four-year relationship.

Liv realizes rolling with the punches is sometimes much harder than it looks after her bridesmaids’ party goes off the rails, leaving the group at each other’s throats.

Isla and Danny’s new romance is put to the test as they jump ten steps ahead on the relationship timeline.

And Imogen and Nate’s one-night stand is about to get six do-overs they never really asked for—not awkward at all.

Through make ups, breakups, love-ins, and blowouts, friendships are tested as everyone scrambles to make it through the week unscathed. Amidst all the drama, one thing remains constant: life is full of surprises.

Jessica’s Review:

Lockdown on London Lane takes place at the beginning of our current pandemic in the UK, without mentioning the dreaded ‘C’ word that we constantly hear now.  The reader knows it is CoVid with the mentioning of certain mainstays throughout the novel.  Though a serious issue with how life had forever changed for us all, Lockdown  is an entertaining read with the unique situations that are occurring in each apartment. 

From a one-night stand trying to sneak out but then forced to stay a week, to a bridal party stuck together for all chaos that could and will happen.  We also have an entertaining debate on pineapple on pizza that a long-term couple faces.  There is a fun and entertaining climax that involves the whole apartment complex that just brings a smile to your face. 

I enjoyed reading this light take on our current world situation. Would you want to find yourself stuck in any of these situations?  Would you be able to handle staying in your apartment for a week with your special or not so special someone?  Will you survive or tear each other apart?  These days it is still happening daily. 

Lockdown is a fun read that takes a variety of circumstances in each apartment and puts the reader in a ‘fly on the wall’ situation to see what happens. This is an entertaining read that we all may need after two years of a seemingly never-ending pandemic.

Many thanks to Bookish First for granting me an arc copy to read and review. 

Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK

Book Review: The Hush by Sara Foster

The Hush
Author:  Sara Foster

Published: November 2, 2021
Audiobook

Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: November 17-23, 2021
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars

Book Description:

Six months ago, in an English hospital, a healthy baby wouldn’t take a breath at birth. Since then there have been more tragedies, and now the country is in turmoil. The government is clamping down on people’s freedoms. The prime minister has passed new laws granting authorities sweeping powers to monitor all citizens. And young pregnant women have started going missing.

As a midwife, Emma is determined to be there for those who need her. But when her seventeen-year-old daughter Lainey finds herself in trouble, this dangerous new world becomes very real, and both women face impossible choices. The one person who might help is Emma’s estranged mother Geraldine, but reaching out to her will put them all in jeopardy …

The Hush is a new breed of near-future thriller, an unflinching look at a society close to tipping point and a story for our times, highlighting the power of female friendship through a dynamic group of women determined to triumph against the odds.

Jessica’s Review:

In a post-COVID Britain, babies are now being born without taking a breath. These incidents have slowly risen over time where it is nearing one in two babies being born stillborn, even with healthy mothers and pregnancies.

In this dystopian world, citizens have slowly been giving up their freedoms without much concern (down to pregnancy tests monthly for those females starting at age 14!). And now young pregnant girls have started to go missing. Emma is a midwife who has seen the instances of still birth babies rise dramatically, and now her own daughter Lainey is pregnant. Because of this, both of their worlds have changed to the frightening unknown.

This novel gives a realistic feel for how things could actually happen if COVID worsened and spread to the unborn and affect the population in a grand scale.  But here in the US, the fallout from a rise in governmental power and lack of general freedoms would cause anarchy and chaos on the grand scale. 

The Hush gives the reader a great deal of things to think about in terms of the British government and our actual world.  This novel leaves you thinking are we actually headed in this direction, pandemic or not?  Book clubs would have quite the conversations in regards to this novel.

The Hush is recommended.

Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK 

 

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Book Review: Hello (From Here) by Chandler Baker and Wesley King

Hello (From Here)
Authors:
Chandler Baker

Wesley King
Published:  September 7, 2021
Audiobook

Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: October 1-7, 2021
Jessica’s Rating: 4 stars

Book Description:

A witty and thought-provoking YA love story set during the COVID-19 quarantine, written by two NYT bestselling authors, with shades of Five Feet Apart and Anna and the French Kiss .

Maxine and Jonah bump into each other in the canned goods aisle of the grocery store just as the state of California is going into lockdown, when everything changes completely. Could there be a worse time to meet? Max’s part-time job at a supermarket is about to transform into a hellish gauntlet. Jonah’s preexisting anxiety is about to become an epic daily struggle. As Max, Jonah, and their friends live together but apart through hijinks, humanity, and heartbreak, Hello (From Here) cuts across urgent matters much bigger than a teenage crush. Differences of class, privilege, mental health, and sacrifice are thrown into stark relief by the profound and personal stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic. As thoughtful, probing, and informed as it is buoyant, romantic, and funny, Hello (From Here) looks at the first two months of the quarantine and adds falling hopelessly in love to the mess.

Jessica’s Review:

A lot of reviews have focused on the fact that this novel came ‘too soon’ and was ‘too much’ for us still being in the COVID-19 pandemic. For those that say it was ‘too real’, this is the point of the story!  The description clearly states that this takes place in the pandemic, so of course it will be the heavy focus!  It’s a bit of a YA romance taking place during the pandemic.  If a pandemic story will feel ‘too real’ for you, then stay away from it and any other book that may be about COVID-19! 

For me I enjoyed listening to the audiobook, and what Jonah and Max face was and is still happening.  We just get the plus of a possible romance that may or may not bloom.  This novel is about so much more than Max and Jonah: it deals with class and privilege, mental health and even the previous AIDS pandemic in the 1980s-90s.

I was not too attached to Jonah or Max, in fact I was more attached to Arlo and his story and the mystery associated with him. I was 1000% invested in Arlo. The novel handles Jonah and his anxiety and panic attacks with perfection!  Max also seems real with her life situation in being of the lower middle class and having to work to help out her mother. 

This is definitely a YA novel, where the characters just a bit immature for me, but I still enjoyed the novel.  The grim realities of COVID-19 are also faced with hospitalization and death of characters.  For some readers this could be a trigger warning as it might be a bit too much reality to happen in a fiction novel, but it is part of the pandemic we still face.

I did enjoy Hello (From Here) and listened to the audiobook version, and surprise to me when I started it: Michael Crouch is one of the narrators!!!!  And I have to say I love the cover of this novel too!  It’s perfect!

Hello (From Here) is recommended, though you might want to proceed with caution of the potential triggers.

Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK

 

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