August 8, 2026 – SparklyPrettyBriiiight

(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) OOOO OOOO OOOO Photo credit: (c) Gareth and Louise Ward via Penguin Books Australia OOOO OOOO OOOO

Christmas preview: The Secret Holiday Kiss (The Secret Bookshop #3) by Cressy McLaughlin

(courtesy official Cressy McLaughlin newsletter) SNAPSHOTIn a seaside village, where the winter sunset meets the sea, Daisy is coming home … When her perfect life falls apart, Daisy returns to Mistingham, determined it’s a temporary stop until she can find her feet again. She hasn’t counted on the community’s irresistible Continue Reading

Movie review: Spider-Man: Brand New Day

Being different from the mainstream is never an easy road to walk. Oh, it has its wonders and delights, and as a gay man who’s spent much of my life on society’s margins, I know well of what I speak, and you value the sense of liberated perspective and buoyant Continue Reading

New releases August book review: Summer at Flora’s House by Freya North

(courtesy official author site) There is something so deeply, soul-caressingly soothing about the Flora’s House series of novellas by gifted author Freya North. Each perfectly-pitched instalment including Christmas at Flora’s House and Spring at Flora’s House, and which now includes Summer at Flora’s House – the final book, Autumn at Continue Reading

Star Trek Strange New Worlds S4 E1-2 review: “Valles Marineris” and “The Griffin Incident”

(courtesy IMP Awards) Episode 1: “Valles Marineris” Happy days! Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is back for its penultimate season and it kicks off with an episode that ———- SPOILER ALERT !!!!! ———- sends the Enterprise and its crew back 65 million years! Hurrah for fiery galactic anomalies and their Continue Reading

Movie review: Home (Heim) #NordicFilmFestival

(courtesy IMDb) You know what they say – you should never go back. But while that can be sound advice, since where you go back to can never be exactly where you left (with all the attendant disappointment that can cause) sometime you don’t have much choice in the matter. Continue Reading

Christmas in July book review: Big Nick Energy by Kristen Bailey

(courtesy Storm Publishing) When you dive into as many romcoms, festive or otherwise, as this reviewer does, it doesn’t take too long to spot novels which have that extra special something. Maybe it’s dialogue that sounds like it might bounce out of the mouths of actual living breathing human beings Continue Reading

A torrent of TV trailers: Ted Lasso S4, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power S3, Yaga, Neuromancer + Blade Runner 2099

(via Shutterstock) Am I overwhelmed by how many TV-streaming shows are out and about and that I want to watch? YES. Do I want to keep adding to the list anyway, in the feverishly excitable hope that I will one day get to them all? Also YES. I am nothing Continue Reading

Christmas in July book review: A Cozy Kind of Christmas by Ellie Alexander

If you are aficionado of festive romcoms – and if not, why not, and what did the Grinch do to your cold, dead, tinsel-starved heart? – you will be well aware that they’re all about future love. Two would-be lovers who don’t know they needed to fall in love, or Continue Reading

Shift into adventure: Trailer lands for Matchbox: the Movie

(courtesy First Showing) SNAPSHOT🚗 Inspired by the Mattel toys, Matchbox the Movie is an action-packed, globe-trotting adventure about a group of friends since childhood who have their lives upended when undercover CIA agent Sean (John Cena), their long-absent former leader, returns to their small town and unwittingly gets them embroiled Continue Reading

Christmas in July book review: Highland Hearts Holiday Bookshop by Tricia O’Malley

Who among those of us who read books like others breathe and eat – to be fair we all breathe and eat but let’s just go with this overblown comparison for the sake of the review, shall we? – hasn’t dreamed of someone (very distant with their passing causing us Continue Reading