Andrew works for the local council and has an unusual job of identifying if people who lived and died alone had a next of kin. The irony of the situation is that Andrew himself is estranged from his family, single and lives alone. Due to a misunderstanding during the job interview his boss thinks that Andrew has a loving wife and two children. When a new employee Penny joins the department, an unusual friendship is born, which changes the way Andrew views himself and other people.
While the subject of the book is not light at all, the way the author deals with the topic is original, thought-provoking, and yes, life-affirming. I feel this is an important book in this day and age when loneliness has become so widespread for a variety of social reasons.
I loved Richard Roper's writing style, humour and unusual depth of the characters, both main and secondary.
Definitely recommended.

Thank you to Edelweiss and Penguin Group Putnam for the ARC provided in exchange for an honest opinion. lick here to edit.

I just loved ' Reading Quirks' Javier García del Moral, Andrés de la Casa Huertas and Laura Pacheco and couldn't help sharing this discovery with my bookloving tribe.

This is a series of vignettes on strange things we do for the love of books. The characters are cute and come from all walks of life. You are bound to find the situations described in this collection all too familiar: waxing lyrical about the merits of a book to a total stranger who might or might not be interested, the despair of having lost a book you were just about to finish, loving the smell of a new book and so on.

For some of them I thought: No, surely, not. Actually, let me think..Yes, I did check the pockets of my new shirt were wide enough to hold my Kindle before handing my credit card to the shop assistant...

My favourite quote from this collection :

Thank you to Edelweiss and Deep Vellum Publishing for the ARC provided in exchange for an honest opinion.

Title: Reading quirks
Authors:Javier García del Moral, Andrés de la Casa Huertas, Laura Pacheco (illustrations)
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
Expected date: October 8th 2019

This sweet and thought-provoking romance is the second book in the series brilliantly started by 'The Kiss Quotient'. 'The bride test' focuses on the story of Khai Diep, who is on the autism spectrum, and Esme, an adorable, honest, brave woman from Vietnam, who is doing her best to give her family the best chance to have a new life in America.
Khai lost his best friend in an accident. As he was struggling to understand his emotions during the funeral, he became convinced that he was different from other people as he couldn't feel love or grief. Ten years later, his loving mother, who is a strong character herself, travels to Vietnam to find Khai a suitable bride. Convinced that honest and hard-working My (Esme) is the right match for her son, Co Nga persuades My to come to California for summer and try to make Khai fall in love with her. What happens after is an unusual love story of two very different characters who are forced completely out of their comfort zone to forge a new, better, more independent, and more accepting self.
Helen Hoang's writing is exceptionally good and I will definitely be looking forward to the third book in the series.
Thank you to Edelweiss and Berkley for the DRC provided in exchange for an honest opinion.