Author: emmasbibliotreasures

I can’t quite believe that 2019 is about to be over and we are entering not only another year, but also another decade. It’s a cliche, but it really feels like the years are flying by more quickly the older I get. 

This has been one of the best, yet also one of the hardest years of my life. I’m going to focus mostly on the reading and blogging, which has been nothing but incredible. I started my bookstagram page on August 9th, 2018 and this blog a month later. When I did, I thought maybe I’d get 500 followers if I was lucky but was happy with any, as I only started the account to share my love of books and had no ambitions beyond that. In the new year I reached 1,000 followers and am in awe of how my page has grown since, reaching 3,000 earlier this month. I feel incredibly blessed to have made so many wonderful friends and receive so many books from kind authors and publishers. I still feel like a kid at Christmas every time I receive bookmail and know I’ll never take it for granted.

My personal highlights in my blogging life this year:

• Meeting Sara Collins and Elizabeth Macneal in May at their book event in Leeds.
• Meeting one of my book besties, Beth, for the first time in person in July. 
• Attending the Women in Literature event at Haworth and introducing my Mum to the delights of book events. 
• Attending the VIP launch of The Foundling in September. This was also a highlight as The Familiars is my book of the year and I was thrilled to meet the author as well as many other lovely people.
• Meeting Jessie Burton and Laura Purcell at Jessie’s event in Nottingham in October.

A big change for me this year was beginning to take part in blog tours. I took part in my first one on January 16th for The Illumination of Ursula Flight by Anna-Marie Crowhurst. I didn’t get the chance to take part in any more for a while after that, but I’ve been lucky enough to take part in them regularly since July. The only problem is that I want to say yes to them all but I don’t have time! I have been fortunate to work with some wonderful blog tour organisers and publishers this past year and am excited for more to come in 2020.

In terms of reading, I set a reading goal of 100 and surprised myself by reaching it in August and reading a total of 150 books this year. Needless to say, reading so many books has made choosing my favourites of the year more difficult and I decided to stop trying to make them fit into the traditional mould of ‘top ten’ and instead just see how many favourites I actually had. The answer was twenty. You can read about these in my previous post about my favourite books of the year. As I mentioned earlier, my overall favourite was The Familiars by Stacey Halls, which was also my 100th read. 

There is so much I’m excited for in 2020: meeting more book friends and authors, taking part in blog tours and reading the fantastic books coming out (or even some of the ones sitting on my shelves). 

I would like to thank every person who has followed my page, the authors and publishers who have taken the time to comment and all the friends I’ve made this year. You have all helped make this a fantastic year and helped this blog become something more than I ever dreamed. 

Thank you to Sara , Carol, Carla Laura, Rowan, Stacey, Jackie and Emma for being simply amazing authors and encourages. 

Thank you to Anne, Tracy, Sarah, Kim, Noelle, MidasPR , Karen, Paper Charm, Darkroom Tours, The Tandem Collective and all the fantastic people who work so hard organising blog tours and promotion.

Last but certainly not least, to these fab ladies who have been there for me as more than just blogger friends at the high and low points this year – Beth, Claire, Claire, Janis, Kirsty, Shell, Clare, Jackie, Clare, Eva, Meg, Sonia and Lisa – I appreciate you and your friendship more than you will ever know. 

With thanks, Emma xx

SYNOPSIS:

The Richard & Judy Book Club Pick and Sunday Times Bestseller.

London, 1941. Amid the falling bombs Emmeline Lake dreams of becoming a fearless Lady War Correspondent. Unfortunately, Emmy finds herself employed as a typist for the formidable Henrietta Bird, the renowned agony aunt at Woman’s Friend magazine. Mrs Bird refuses to read, let alone answer, letters containing any form of Unpleasantness, and definitely not those from the lovelorn, grief-stricken or morally conflicted.

But the thought of these desperate women waiting for an answer at this most desperate of times becomes impossible for Emmy to ignore. She decides she must help and secretly starts to write back – after all what harm could that possibly do?

Irresistibly funny and enormously moving, Dear Mrs Bird by AJ Pearce is a love letter to the enduring power of friendship, the kindness of strangers, and the courage of ordinary people in extraordinary times.

 MY REVIEW:

This delightful novel transported me to 1940s London – a time of the dichotomy of being surrounded by the devastation and fear of the raging war versus the mundane ordinariness of daily life. The rich descriptive prose painted a vivid picture of the era that had me fully absorbed in the story from the first page right up to the last.

Emmeline Lake dreams of being a Lady War Correspondent so she is thrilled when she is offered a job with The Evening Chronicle. She’s finally on her way to doing what she’s always wanted to do. But on her first day she is horrified to discover she isn’t working for them, but for Woman’s Friend, a weekly magazine owned by the same publisher. Being a typist for agony aunt Henrietta Bird is not the job she wants at all but she decides to make the best of it.

But she is soon left feeling despondent about Mrs Bird’s rules that mean she isn’t helping those who are most in need. Any letters containing unpleasantness are to go straight into the bin, but Emmeline can’t bear the thought of people in need being left without assistance so she vows to secretly write back. Though she knows she’d be fired if she was discovered, she is sure that nothing can go wrong.

This delicious story was just what my spirit needed earlier this year when I immersed myself in it’s pages. It still lingers in my mind eight months later and is one of the most engaging, funny, uplifting and tender books I’ve read this year. It is both harrowing and hopeful, portraying the stark reality of war but remaining focused on things like small acts of courage in the midst of terror and the beauty and solace that can be found in friendships and love.

I really liked Emmeline. She was living in a time of great change where women were still expected to fulfill traditional roles but were also carving out careers and working for the war effort. She was likeable, kind and ambitious but although she meant well she has to do things like lie and sneak around to do it and didn’t always make the best choices. Mrs Bird was a formidable, spiky character who was entertaining to read. Her list of unpleasant subjects and words or phrases is so long that I’m amazed there were any letters left to answer.

Dear Mrs Bird is a heartwarming, funny and poignant story that was a joy to read. It is a book I loved from the first pages and would recommend to anyone in need of a book that will make them smile.

Out now.