Stories To Make You Smile edited by Fanny Blake (Review)

Stories To Make You Smile edited by Fanny Blake

Blurb

A seriously entertaining collection of feel good stories guaranteed to put the smile back on your face written especially by ten bestselling novelists:

Jenny Éclair

Mark Watson

Veronica Henry

Eva Verde

Richard Madeley

Katie Fforde

Dorothy Koomson

Vaseem Khan

Helen Lederer

Rachel Hore

From a hilarious race against time to a moment of unexpected eavesdropping, from righting wrongs in rural India to finding joy in unlikely places, these stories are all rich in wit and humour, guaranteed to lift your spirits and warm your heart.

Stories to Make you Smile is a co-commission between The Reading Agency and Specsavers as part of World Book Night 2021.

Review

I noticed this book appearing on my bookstagram a great deal this month so I thought I would give it a go. The plus side is that it is free on kindle and I can never refuse a free book.

This book did not take me long to read, I read the first three stories whilst having a nice cup of tea and finished the rest of the book today during the nice sunny bank holiday weather. The book could easily be read in one sitting though and each story takes less than ten minutes to read.

I love the idea of this book and was excited to read it but I will be honest that I was rather underwhelmed with some of stories and actually had to reread two to remind myself what they were about. My favourite story is probably the first one Behind My Fat Back by Jenny Ecalir, I just really wanted to tell the main character ‘good on you!’.

Job Opportunity by Richard Madeley I found rather funny and it made me have a little laugh and it was made even better to find out it was a true story. Some of the stories like The Wrong Cake and Schooled I just found a little ridiculous.

All in all it was a good read that filled a gap whilst having a nice cup of tea and a biscuit. A quick read at only 143 pages long but rather underwhelming that I give 3 out of 5 Dragons.

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The Weekly Brief

Happy Bank Holiday Weekend!

I hope everyone is having a good weekend so far!

Here is what has been happening on the blog this week.

Posts this Week

Currently Reading

Books Acquired

So there is my week. A little bit better on the blogging front this week.

Happy Reading.

If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to make a donation I would be very grateful. Thank you

First Lines Friday: 28/05/2021

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?

Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Finally… reveal the book!

Hello!

I haven’t done one of these for ages so I thought it was high time I took part again.

So here are the opening lines of the book. Remember the answer is below the cats.

No mortal alive had ever seen a Spindle.
Echoes of them lingered, in places remembered or forgotten, in people touched by magic, in creatures descendant of other realms. But no Spindle had burned in an age. The last of them was a thousand years gone. The passages closed, the gates locked. The age of crossing ended.
Get guessing!

Have you guessed the answer?

And the answer is???

A strange darkness grows in Allward.

Even Corayne an-Amarat can feel it, tucked away in her small town at the edge of the sea.

She soon discovers the truth: She is the last of an ancient lineage—and the last hope to save the world from destruction. But she won’t be alone. Even as darkness falls, she is joined by a band of unlikely companions:

A squire, forced to choose between home and honor.
An immortal, avenging a broken promise.
An assassin, exiled and bloodthirsty.
An ancient sorceress, whose riddles hide an eerie foresight.
A forger with a secret past.
A bounty hunter with a score to settle.

Together they stand against a vicious opponent, invincible and determined to burn all kingdoms to ash, and an army unlike anything the realm has ever witnessed.

Please drop me a comment with your First Lines Friday and will head over for a visit.

Happy Reading.

If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to make a donation I would be very grateful. Thank you

Friday Poetry: Maya Angelou

Happy Friday!

I hope you all have some exciting plans for the long weekend ahead. I’m hoping to get some reading done but I also have a lot of studying to do as well.

My chosen poem today is by Maya Angelou (1928-2014) who was an American poet, memorise and civil rights activist.

Life Doesn't Frighten Me

Shadows on the wall
Noises down the hall
Life doesn't frighten me at all
Bad dogs barking loud
Big ghosts in a cloud
Life doesn't frighten me at all. 

Mean old Mother Goose
Lions on the loose
They don't frighten me at all
Dragons breathing flame
On my counterpane
That doesn't frighten me at all.

I go boo
Make them shoo
I make fun
Way they run
I won't cry 
So they fly
I just smile
They go wild
Life doesn't frighten me at all.

Tough guys fight
All alone at night
Life doesn't frighten me at all
Panthers in the park
Strangers in the dark
No, they don't frighten me at all.

That new classroom where
Boys all pull my hair
(Kissy little girls
With their hair in curls)
They don't frighten me at all.

Don't show me frogs and snakes
And listen for my scream,
If I'm afraid at all
It's only in my dreams.

I've got a magic charm 
That I keep up my sleeve,
I can walk the ocean floor
And never have to breathe.

Life doesn't frighten me at all
Not at all
Not at all.
Life doesn't frighten me at all.

Maya Angelou

I know the picture isn’t a Mother Goose on her nest but it is a swan I saw on the nest yesterday.

Happy Friday!

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Mid Week Quote: Frank Sinatra

Happy Wednesday.

Now I was rather naughty and forgot last weeks quote of the week, so my apologies and I promise I will try to do better.

My chosen quote this week is by Frank Sinatra (1915-1998) who was an American singer and actor.

“The big lesson in life, baby, is never be scared of anyone or anything.”
Frank Sinatra

Happy Reading

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Goodreads Monday: 24/05/2021

Goodreads Monday is hosted by Lauren’s Page Turners. All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.

Hello!

I hope everyone has had a good start to the week so far. I sadly have not due to work problems but thankfully I got some research in and other bits and pieces so the day wasn’t a total loss.

The book off my Goodreads TBR that I have chosen to feature this week is…

England 1648. A dangerous time for a woman to be different . . .

Midsummer’s Eve, 1648, and England is in the grip of a civil war between renegade King and rebellious Parliament. The struggle reaches every corner of the kingdom, even to the remote Tidelands – the marshy landscape of the south coast.

Alinor, a descendant of wise women, crushed by poverty and superstition, waits in the graveyard under the full moon for a ghost who will declare her free from her abusive husband. Instead, she meets James, a young man on the run, and shows him the secret ways across the treacherous marsh, not knowing that she is leading disaster into the heart of her life.

Suspected of possessing dark secrets in superstitious times, Alinor’s ambition and determination mark her out from her neighbors. This is the time of witch-mania, and Alinor, a woman without a husband, skilled with herbs, suddenly enriched, arouses envy in her rivals and fear among the villagers, who are ready to take lethal action into their own hands.

I love Philippa Gregory and buy her books as soon as they are published and usually read them pretty quickly as well but for some reason I have not got around to this one yet. I actually tried reading it when it first came out but I wasn’t in the right frame of mind at the time and chose a really easy read instead. Hopefully, this will be the year that I read it because I have also got the next one in the series ready and waiting as well.

Please drop me a comment with your Goodreads Monday and I will head over for a visit.

Happy Reading.

If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to make a donation I would be very grateful. Thank you

The Weekly Brief

Hello!

I hope everyone is having a good weekend so far. It has been another busy week where sadly the blog has suffered again. I will try to be a better blogger I promise!

Posts this Week

Currently Reading

Absolutely loving this so far.

Happy Reading

If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to make a donation I would be very grateful. Thank you

Friday Poetry: Jack Prelutsky

Happy Friday!

I hope everyone has some good plans for the weekend.

My chosen poem today is all about how boredom is a state of mind and that if you choose to be bored you might miss things in life.

Today Is Very Boring

Today is very boring,
it's a very boring day,
there is nothing much to look at, 
there is nothing much to say,
there's a peacock on my sneakers,
there's a penguin on my head,
there's a dormouse on my doorstep,
I am going back to bed.

Today is very boring,
it is boring through and through,
there is absolutely nothing
that I think I want to do,
I see giants riding rhinos,
and an ogre with a sword,
there's a dragon blowing smoke rings,
I am positively bored.

Today is very boring,
I can hardly help but yawn,
there's a flying saucer landing
in the middle of my lawn,
a volcano just erupted
less than half a mile away,
and I think I felt an earthquake,
it's a very boring day.

Jack Prelutsky

Happy Reading