by Charlotte Dibley

Phoebe Henderson may be single but she sure doesn’t feel fabulous. It’s been a year since she found her boyfriend Alex in bed with another woman, and multiple cases of wine and extensive relationship analysis with best friend Lucy have done nothing to help. Faced with a new year but no new love, Phoebe concocts a different kind of resolution.

The List: ten things she’s always wanted to do in bed but has never had the chance (or the courage!) to try. A bucket list for between the sheets. One year of pleasure, no strings attached. Simple, right?

Factor in meddlesome colleagues, friends with benefits, getting frisky al fresco and maybe, possibly, true love and Phoebe’s got her work cut out for her.

by Charlotte Dibley

It’s hard to articulate or even sum up the scale of this book. I’ll let the blurb do the talking:

'The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. The black sign, painted in white letters that hangs upon the gates, reads:

Opens at Nightfall

Closes at Dawn

As the sun disappears beyond the horizon, all over the tents small lights begin to flicker, as though the entirety of the circus is covered in particularly bright fireflies. When the tents are all aglow, sparkling against the night sky, the sign appears.

Le Cirque des Rêves

The Circus of Dreams.

Now the circus is open.

Now you may enter.'

by Charlotte Dibley

Hannah’s smart and funny…she’s also fifteen and pregnant. Aaron is new at school and doesn’t want to attract attention. So why does he offer to be the pretend dad to Hannah’s unborn baby? Growing up can be trouble but that’s how you find out what really matters.

Trouble is an entertaining YA read about discovering your first real best friend through the somewhat complicated medium of unexpected pregnancy.

by Charlotte Dibley

It’s a new year which, for me, means making a load of promises to myself that don’t necessarily happen. It’s good to have plans though, isn’t it? Below are my bookish resolutions for 2015!

I vow to:

by Charlotte Dibley

There’s one good thing about being plunged into the start of 2015: the winners of the 2014 Costa Book Awards have been announced!

With past winners including Roald Dahl, J. K. Rowling, Seamus Heaney, Claire Tomalin, Ian McEwan and Hilary Mantel, the prestigious Costa Book Awards seek to celebrate some of the most exceptional literary achievements of the year by authors who are based in the UK and Ireland.

Prizes are given in the following categories: Children’s Book, Poetry, Biography, Novel and First Novel. At the end of January, an awards ceremony sees one of the five category victors crowned as overall Book of the Year.

So, who came out on top in 2014? (We’ve even included the blurb for each one, aren’t we kind?)

by the IWG Book Team

2014 was a great year for books. Unfortunately, there were so many books that we're sure that you didn't get around to reading everything. Neither did we, but still, the I'm With Geek team diligently selected from what literary delights we had devoured which were our favourite reads of the year. So whether you're looking for recommendations or just wanting to see if your favourite made the cut, come inside and check out our Best Books of 2014.

By Charlotte Dibley

Crossfire fans, raise your hands! Are you having withdrawals from author Sylvia Day’s power couple, Gideon and Eva? Fear not, you don’t have to wait much longer for the fourth instalment in the hugely popular series. Captivated by You is published in the UK by Penguin on 18th November.

by Charlotte Dibley

Frank — no ordinary sixteen-year-old — lives with his father outside a remote Scottish village. Their life is, to say the least, unconventional. Frank's mother abandoned them years ago: his elder brother Eric is confined to a psychiatric hospital; & his father measures out his eccentricities on an imperial scale. Frank has turned to strange acts of violence to vent his frustrations. In the bizarre daily rituals there is some solace. But when news comes of Eric's escape from the hospital Frank has to prepare the ground for his brother's inevitable return — an event that explodes the mysteries of the past & changes Frank utterly.

By Charlotte Dibley

Nine-year-old Bruno knows nothing of the Final Solution and the Holocaust. He is oblivious to the appalling cruelties being inflicted on the people of Europe by his country. All he knows is that he has been moved from a comfortable home in Berlin to a house in a desolate area where there is nothing to do and no one to play with. Until he meets Shmuel, a boy who lives a strange parallel existence on the other side of the adjoining wire fence and who, like the other people there, wears a uniform of striped pyjamas.

Bruno’s friendship with Shmuel will take him from innocence to revelation. And in exploring what he is unwittingly a part of, he will inevitably become subsumed by the terrible process.

A golden opportunity to write a book for children about an important subject which is ultimately squandered. 

By Charlotte Dibley

'Decadent, tantalizing Berlin in a Germany torn apart by war at the turn of the twentieth century…

The illegitimate, orphaned daughter of a cabaret dancer, Lilly Nelly Aphrodite’s early life – and that of her only friend Hanne – is one of reinvention. Transformed from maid to war bride via tingle-tangle nightclub girl, she lands in the heart of the glamorous motion picture world and quickly becomes one of Germany’s leading silent film stars. But when she falls in love with a Russian director, she has no idea that the affair will span decades, cross continents and may ultimately cost her everything.'

In short: a tale of one woman’s life which spans across decades of intense political, social and economic change in the bustling city of Berlin. 

Firstly, the blurb is a little disingenuous. It makes the story sound incredibly whimsical, romance-based and relatively light-hearted, when in reality this book is far from fluffy and upbeat.