Friday, 13 February 2026
Wednesday, 11 February 2026
Sectioned: This Is A True Story by Debbie Ross
About the book: This is a true story about mental health. It goes really deep into mental health, to the point of being sectioned.
It contains content of child abuse. So please be aware before reading it.
It is also about how someone with huge mental health issues was treated by the police while in their care. It also relates and goes into detail about bank fraud, how a vulnerable person was taken advantage of with thousands of pounds and the police did absolutely nothing about it. Her life was threatened, and nothing was done, she was treated like an animal and yet still nothing was done.
Sectioned: This is a True Story (2025) contains pictures, screenshots and emails between herself and Police Scotland and is independently published and available on Amazon UK and eBay UK.
About the author: "I (Debbie Ross) am just an ordinary girl telling stories. I write them the same way I would tell them. There are no fancy words or perfect grammar in my books. I call a spade a spade in real life and that is the exact same way I write. If you are looking for a book with perfect grammar that describes how blue the sky is and the shapes of the clouds, you will not like my books. I get straight to the point. If I was on TV, half of it would be bleeped out. This is how I write. It is most definitely not for children. I do a mixture of novels and short stories - some will be funny - some will be sad - I hope you enjoy reading them."
Tuesday, 10 February 2026
LIFELINE by Darren Ryan
About the book: FROM FRONTLINE TO LIFELINE, YOU CANNOT UNSEE WHAT YOU HAVE SEEN.
I joined the police to keep people safe.
I didn't join to become a broken man.
After decades as a Serious Crime Detective, I found myself battling PTSD, trauma and addiction - the hidden cost of hunting predators online.
In LIFELINE: How a former detective survived PTSD and how you can too (2025), I share my true story: the darkness faced, the toll it took and the long road to healing. Because no one makes it through alone. Others became my lifeline.
Whether you're a first responder, a family member or fighting your own silent war, I hope my story becomes more than just words. I hope it becomes your lifeline. And maybe, you'll become someone else's, too.
I wish I'd had this book when I hit crisis. I want to help others protect their mental health before it's too late.
This book might save your life.
About the author: Darren Ryan is the Founder of Lifeline Coaching and Mentoring, a mental health speaker, a risk management consultant and an author. He was a former UK undercover police detective (Detective Inspector) investigating some of the most serious and complex crimes including child abuse investigations.
Find out more about Darren Ryan on https://www.lifelinecoachingandmentoring.com/about.html.
Monday, 9 February 2026
Rogue Royal by Lady Colin Campbell
About the book: Rogue Royal is The New York Times and Sunday Times best selling writer Lady Colin Campbell's second published novel.
Inspired by the antics of many of the household names who have been a part of the social set on both sides of the Atlantic, Royal Rogue (2025) takes the reader behind the scenes to what life was really like for the rich and famous in the heyday of the 20th century, when the elite lived lives whose details and reality were seldom accessible to the general public.
Arising from the ashes of the horrors of the Nazi regime in the Second World War, Rogue Royal follows its characters through into their consequent and consequential life events in the 60s, 70s and early 80s. Featuring vivid descriptions of the scandalous adventures and escapades of the female protagonist and her international lovers and friends within a stunning high-class set of aristocratic and royal characters from Britain, Romania, Jamaica and America, Rogue Royal is a revelatory page turner from beginning to end.
About the author: Lady Colin Campbell lives between London and Castle Goring with her two sons. Through marriage and common ancestors, she is connected to all the Royal Families of Europe and has been a fixture in Society and gossip columns on both sides of the Atlantic for the last four decades.
She wrote the London Times and New York Times bestseller Diana in Private (1992), which lifted the lid on the state of the Wales marriage as well as revealing a host of firsts, including that Diana had an eating disorder; that she and Prince Charles led separate lives; that she had asked for a divorce; and that both she and her husband had lovers. Her acclaimed posthumous biography The Real Diana (1998/2004) was called the ‘most believable Diana biography’ by People magazine, and Royal Book News noted that ‘Lady Colin Campbell’s books are now must haves.’ Her 2005 novel Empress Bianca became an international cause célèbre, and was described by Alexander Waugh of the Literary Review as ‘brilliant’.
She is also the author of Guide to Being a Modern Lady (1986); The Royal Marriages (1993); A Life Worth Living (1997); Daughter of Narcissus (2009) and she ghosted With Love From Pet Heaven by Tum Tum the Springer Spaniel (2010). In 2012, her acclaimed biography, The Untold Life of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, was published, and in 2018, The Queen’s Marriage.
Rating: 5/5
Sunday, 8 February 2026
Time Bombs Of The Second Vatican Council: Conference by Fr Franz Schmidberger
1) Not clearly defining Catholic Truth
2) Failing to definitively reject error
3) Adopting ambiguous, contradictory language
4) Establishing teachings very close to heresy
Chapters include:
The Church after 1945
Prophets of gloom
A reform of the Church
Opening Speech of Vatican II
Two modern errors
Vatican II
Decree on Ecumenism: Unitatis Redintegratio
No Salvation outside the Church
Ecumenical practices
Who is to blame?
Decree on the Church: Lumen Gentium
Decree on Non-Christian Religions: Nostra Aetate
Hinduism
Buddhism
Islam
The Jews
Spirit of Indifferentism
Declaration on Religious Liberty: Dignitatis Humanae
Decree on the Church in the Modern World: Gaudium et Spes
False solution
True solution
"Keep the Faith"
Pray
Fr Schmidberger proves his points by specifically examining five harmful decrees of the Second Vatican Council. An understanding of these decrees is crucial to seeing that the root of the crisis in the Catholic Church is not simply an accumulation of abuses since the Council, but is to be found in the Council itself.
Our Lady Of Champion: Prayer Book For Pilgrims by Father Edward Looney
About the book: In 1859, the Virgin Mary appeared as the Queen of Heaven to Adele Brise, a 28-year-old Belgian immigrant living in Northeast Wisconsin.
Today, the National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help commemorates this Marian apparition - the only approved apparition to have taken place on United States soil.
One need not visit Lourdes or Fatima to pray at the site of a Marian apparition. The Mother of God has blessed our own country (USA) with her presence. More Catholics, especially American Catholics, need to know what happened in Wisconsin, to learn its message, and to enter into a time of prayer.
This Pilgrim’s Prayer Manual, Our Lady of Champion (2019), will
1) Guide the devotee on a pilgrimage to the National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help
2) Help increase devotion to Our Lady
3) Serve as a spiritual pilgrimage for those not able to physically go
4) Introduce the faithful to Adele, the visionary
5) Offer the fascinating history of the United States only approved Marian Apparition
Through the rosary, the stations, novenas, and other prayers, Pilgrim’s Prayer Manual serves not only as a beautiful memento for pilgrims, but it will also help those unable to go to Champion, to foster their own devotion to the Blessed Mother from the comfort of their own home as a pilgrim from afar.
About the author: Fr Edward Looney is a Marian theologian and Catholic author and speaker who serves as a parish priest in the Diocese of Green Bay. He hosts the podcast How They Love Mary. Looney is the author of several books, including A Heart Like Mary's. He has contributed to numerous publications, including Catholic Digest, Catholic Exchange, Aleteia, and Homiletic and Pastoral Review. He also has appeared on EWTN TV and radio, Relevant Radio, The Catholic Channel on SiriusXM, Spirit Radio, Mater Dei Radio, and Radio Maria. Looney earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Conception Seminary College. He also received a bachelor's degree in sacred theology and a master's degree in divinity from the University of St Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary. In 2011, Looney was the youngest person to present a paper at the annual meeting of the Mariological Society of America. In 2015, he was elected to the administrative council of the organization and, in 2020, became vice president.
How To Protect Independent Bookstores And Why by Danny Caine
About the book: Can independent bookstores save the world?
As bastions of culture, anchors of local retail districts, community gathering places, and the source of new ideas, inspiration, and delight, maybe they can. But only if we protect them and the vital roles they fill in our communities.
Danny Caine, author of the bestselling sensation How to Resist Amazon and Why (2022) and former co-owner of Raven Book Store in Lawrence, Kansas, makes a powerful case for the in this serious, nationwide survey of the US's vital independent bookstore scene.
At once an urgent call to action and a deep appreciation of everything bookstores can do, Caine's new book features a brief overview of 20th century bookselling and how it got that way, plus case-study profiles of the most interesting, creative, and progressive bookstores of today.
Through examples, analysis, and vibrant and well-informed advocacy, Caine offers a cohesive roadmap for a sustainable future of bookselling, from policy suggestions to business strategies to tips on what consumers can do to help.
A captivating read for any lover of books, patron of independent bookstores, or anyone who champions their survival, How to Protect Independent Bookstores and Why: The Present and Future of Bookselling (2023) makes the strongest possible case for a resilient, inclusive, and progressive landscape of independent bookstores.
About the author: Danny Caine is the author most recently of Jewish American Dream, winner of the inaugural Sarabande Chapbook Prize. He has also written four poetry collections as well as the books How to Protect Bookstores and Why and How to Resist Amazon and Why. He is a former owner of the Raven Book Store, winner of Publishers Weekly's 2022 Bookstore of the Year award. His poetry has appeared in The Slowdown, LitHub, DIAGRAM, HAD, and Barrelhouse. He lives in Ohio.
Caine's next book, How To Defend Books And Why, will be released on 2 June 2026.
The Loft by Marlen Haushofer
About the book: An Austrian housewife sits in her loft intent on her drawings of birds and insects.
The loft is a retreat where she can work undisturbed. It is also a retreat from her dull and dissatisfied husband, a man who sighs unhappily even when she sneezes. Their grown-up children are living independent lives and the house is very quiet. Her dreams are filled with domestic drudgery.
Then one day, a package arrives containing extracts from the narrator's diary, written twenty years before. Back then she had been sent away to a remote cottage in a bid to 'cure' her from unexplained sudden deafness. More mysterious packages containing old diary entries arrive.
Who is sending them?
And what did happened all those years ago in the forest?
The Loft (1969, 2025) was translated by Amanda Prantera in 2011.
About the author: Marie Helene Haushofer was born in Frauenstein, Austria in 1920. Following the Second World War, she worked in her husband's dentistry practice. She began publishing short stories in magazines from 1946. She enjoyed success with her novella The Fifth Year, which was published in 1952 but her most enduring work was The Wall, first published in 1963 and now considered a classic of dystopian fiction. She died in 1970.
About the translator: Amanda Prantera was born in Newmarket, Suffolk, UK, in 1942. She went to a series of 'finishing' schools in Oxford, France and Italy, officially studying languages and history of art. She was married, at twenty-two, to a brave Italian doctor and has lived with him in Rome ever since. When her daughters, Sofia and Costanza, were in their teens, she embarked on a tardy programme of study: took A levels, learnt German, got a degree in philosophy, read voraciously and then set about writing novels of her own. To date, her proudest productions are her four grandchildren: Tegan, Nye, Matty and Milou.
Rating: 5/5
Saturday, 7 February 2026
The Bridge To Heaven: Interviews With Maria Esperanza of Betania (Revised and Updated) by Drew J Mariani and Michael H Brown
About the book: In the great eruption of mysticism, in the din of locutionists and visionaries, in the current chaos of private revelation, one voice has managed to stand out. It is the voice, and the vision, of a matronly woman named Maria Esperanza de Bianchini, from the hillside outskirts of Caracas, Venezuela.
During the past several years, I have met dozens of reputed visionaries and have visited more than thirty sites of supposed apparition. I do not like to draw comparisons, but with the exception of the seers in Medjugorje, none have left as deep and lasting an impression as Maria Esperanza.
As you will discover, this is not your standard "visionary." The phenomena go far beyond those normally associated with apparition sites. Maria is a stigmatist, a prophet, a healer. She has been seen in bilocation, and dozens of competent observers have themselves witnessed the Virgin while in Maria's company at a place called Betania.
Others have watched as a Host miraculously appears in her mouth, or as strange luminous clouds appear.
Like some of the more remarkable saints, she has also been seen to levitate in ecstasy.
The bishop himself has witnessed phenomena, and so respected is Maria by the local episcopate that she is allowed to have the Blessed Sacrament in a chapel in her own home, which overlooks the wavering lights of Caracas.
Perhaps the most remarkable event to take place in Betania occurred on 8 December 1991 on the feast of the Immaculate Conception. During the celebration of the Holy Mass, a consecrated Host began to bleed.
No, this is not just another seer. Nor, as far as I can tell, is this the product of imagination, exaggeration, or hysteria. If but half of what they say is true, Maria Esperanza de Bianchini is one of the major mystics of this century.
(The Authors)
The Bridge To Heaven: Interviews With Maria Esperanza of Betania (Revised and Updated) (1993) was republished in 2003.
Village Voices by Odile Hellier
About the book: Village Voices: A Memoir Of The Village Voice Bookshop (Paris, 1982-2012) (2024) is a celebration of the legacy of the Village Voice bookshop in Paris, founded by Odile Hellier in 1982. This collective memoir brings to life a literary history of a heady time in Paris, capturing a myriad of voices for whom “literature was not just a pastime but the very stuff of life.”
Village Voices is a collective memoir that brings to life the authors, publishers, and friends who frequented one of the most famous English-Language bookshops in Paris - the Village Voice bookshop.
Founded by Odile Hellier in 1982, Village Voice was a hub for artists, writers, and anglophone literary life for over three decades. Told through the voices of artists that were reckoning, preserving, challenging, and archiving the time and languages that they lived in, this carefully curated collection, organized thematically, encapsulates some of the most important reflections and debates of 20th century literary history. From Allen Ginsberg to Toni Morrison, Michael Ondaatje, Raymond Carver, and Amy Tan, Hellier preserves the decades-long vibrant readings and dialogues that took place in this tiny bookshop on the Rue Princesse.
Hellier mines decades of archival footage to present anecdotes and insight from the spontaneous and informal exchanges that occurred among generations of literary and cultural icons. These artists present a multidimensional landscape of Parisian literary history in dialogue with American and global literary conversation.
The book is a life-long curatorial project, a conversation across time, and a historical archive, created by a bookseller seeking to preserve the history of her much-loved bookshop.
Village Voice bookshop is now permanently closed.
About the author: Odile Hellier was born in the South of France during World War II and raised in the two different regions of Lorraine, near the German border still haunted by past wars, and Brittany fronting the Atlantic Ocean. After advanced studies in Russian language and literature, she taught high school for two years and then decided to broaden her scope and work in world organizations.
During the fall of 1968, Hellier enrolled in a professional school in Paris that trained translators and interpreters in international relations. Hellier is the founder and owner of the Village Voice Bookshop - a hub of Anglophone literary life and culture that operated in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Prés in Paris for over thirty years. This book is Hellier's archival project and personal memoir.
P/S Charles Kenneth "C. K." Williams (introduction) was an American poet, critic and translator. Williams won many poetry awards. Flesh and Blood won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1987. Repair won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, was a National Book Award finalist and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.
Friday, 6 February 2026
Chinese Parents Don't Say I Love You by Candice Chung
About the book: After a thirteen-year relationship came to an end, food journalist Candice Chung found herself losing not only her first love but also her most reliable restaurant review partner. And so when her parents offer to be her new plus-ones, she faces a dilemma: Is it better to eat together in polite silence or to try to broach how, for the past decade, they have managed to drift so profoundly apart?
Through shared meals and culinary adventures, Candice and her parents begin to break their silence. Yet when a new relationship begins to bloom, it forces her to try to address what still remains unsaid. To do so, she must find a new vocabulary - a way to unscramble what her family has been trying to express all along. Not through words, but with food.
Set against the backdrop of this burgeoning new relationship, grasped-at date nights mid-pandemic, and an uncertain future across seas, Chinese Parents Don't Say I Love You (2025) is packed with heart, humour, and those bright-hearted moments around a dinner table that bring us together.
Chinese Parents Don't Say I Love You: A Memoir of Saying the Unsayable with Food is a Financial Times Best Summer Book and LoveReading’s Best Books of the Year 2025.
About the author: Candice Chung is a Glasgow-based writer and editor. Her work has appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald, Good Food, The Australian Gourmet Traveller, The Guardian, Gutter, and more. She is a founding member of Diversity in Food Media Australia, which supports and promotes underrepresented voices in food. Her story ‘Why Chinese Parents Don’t Say I Love You’, first published on The Sydney Morning Herald, generated more than 2 million page impressions.
Three Wee Bookshops At The End Of The World by Ruth Shaw
About the book: Following the international bestselling success of The Bookseller at the End of the World (2022), Ruth Shaw continues her remarkable story in this charming sequel.
Having found love with Lance, Ruth shares their sailing adventures, world travels, conservation efforts, and the joy of running their beloved bookshops together.
Written in Ruth’s characteristic style, this absorbing memoir weaves together extraordinary people, laugh-out-loud funny situations, and tales from the bookshops, all interwoven with expert book recommendations.
Despite life’s challenges, Ruth’s story traverses the highs and lows of a life lived to the full, creating another deeply satisfying and heartwarming read.
About the author: Ruth Shaw runs a cluster of three wee bookshops in remote Manapōuri in the far south of New Zealand. She lives with her husband, Lance. In 2022, she published her first memoir, The Bookseller at the End of the World, which has since become a critically acclaimed national and international treasure. It has been translated into Italian, Dutch, German, Turkish, Chinese, Swedish, Russian, Slovakian, Korean, Spanish and Arabic. Her second book, Bookshop Dogs, came out in October 2023, and instantly became a New Zealand bestseller. It was published in both the UK and in the US in late 2024 and is translated into Italian and Russian.
Three Wee Bookshops at the End of the World is Shaw's third book published in 2025.
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