Tag Thursday – The ABC Book Challenge: I

It’s time to move another letter down the alphabet for The ABC Book Challenge!

Every couple of weeks I’ll be sharing at least one memorable book with a title beginning with the letter of the week, and one (or more) books currently on my TBR.

I’ll be ignoring any As etc at the beginning of titles

The ABC Book Challenge – I

A Memorable Book…

If Birds Fly Back by Carlie Sorosiak

About the book

Linny has been living life in black and white since her sister Grace ran away, and she’s scared that Grace might never come back. When Linny witnesses the return to Miami of a cult movie star long presumed dead, she is certain it’s a sign. Surely Álvaro Herrera, of all people, can tell her why people come back – and how to bring her sister home?

Sebastian has come to Miami seeking his father, a man whose name he’s only just learned. An aspiring astrophysicist, he can tell Linny how many galaxies there are, how much plutonium weighs and how likely she is to be struck by a meteorite. But none of the theories he knows are enough to answer his own questions about why his father abandoned him, and why it left him in pieces.

As Sebastian and Linny converge around the mystery of Álvaro’s disappearance – and return – their planets start to collide. Linny’s life is about to become technicolor, but finding the answers to her questions might mean losing everything that matters.

I read this over the Easter weekend back in 2017 and it was a wonderful read. I fell in love with the characters and it was one of the titles that got be back reading YA fiction after too many years

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A Book On My TBR…

I Hold Your Heart by Karen Gregory

About the book

‘You make me feel like there’s something good in the world I can hold on to,’ Aaron says. He kisses me again, draws me so close it’s almost hard to breathe. ‘I love you, Gem. And I promise I’ll hold your heart forever.’

When Gemma meets Aaron, she feels truly seen for the first time. Their love story is the intense kind. The written-in-the-stars, excluding-all-others kind. The kind you write songs about.

But little by little their relationship takes over Gemma’s life. What happens when being seen becomes being watched, and care becomes control?

Told in both Gemma’s and Aaron’s words, this is a raw, moving exploration of gaslighting in teenage relationships that skewers our ideas of what love looks like.

I was a big fan of Karen’s debut novel Countless, I felt it dealt incredibly sensitively with a difficult topic and while I’ve not yet read her second novel Skylarks, I Hold Your Heart sounds as though it is firmly in the same category as her first. I full expect this to become a must read for teenagers everywhere.

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I Invited Her In by Adele Parks

About the book

‘I invited her in… and she took everything.’

When Mel hears from a long-lost friend in need of help, she doesn’t hesitate to invite her to stay. Mel and Abi were best friends back in the day, sharing the highs and lows of student life, until Mel’s unplanned pregnancy made her drop out of her studies.

Now, seventeen years later, Mel and Abi’s lives couldn’t be more different. Mel is happily married, having raised her son on her own before meeting her husband, Ben. Now they share gorgeous girls and have a chaotic but happy family home, with three children.

Abi, meanwhile, followed her lover to LA for a glamorous life of parties, celebrity and indulgence. Everything was perfect, until she discovered her partner had been cheating on her. Seventeen years wasted, and nothing to show for it. So what Abi needs now is a true friend to lean on, to share her grief over a glass of wine, and to have some time to heal. And what better place than Mel’s house, with her lovely kids, and supportive husband…

A friend very kindly gifted me a copy of this book, it sounds like it has the potential to be delightfully dark and twisted and I really should get around to it sooner rather than later!

One memorable and two to be read I books! Let me know yours in the comments and be sure to come back on the 19th to discover my J books!