We cannot believe that our little lockdown project is 2 years old! For those that don’t know, we created @bookreccos in the first lockdown of 2020 - remember those awful days?!
We’ve been friends for a long time – we bonded over lunch boxes aged 4, they were much simpler times — and over the years, books have always been a conversational point for us. Many a Whatsapp message would start with “Hey, got a recco for you”.
So, when the pandemic hit, we suddenly had a lot more time on our hands and inevitably started reading more; we’d receive lots of messages from our friends and family members asking for reccos on what to read...
Cut to the chase, Jess said to Lauren, ‘wouldn’t it be great if we could just send all of our friends to one place when they ask us for a book to read?’ And so it was, Book Reccos was born.
Lauren’s mate, Vicky, created the most PERFECT logo for us (check out some of her illos @spicychiliyang, her DM’s are always open for requests), and we were suddenly working with some of the UK’s top publishers and authors to support them with sharing honest (non-spoiler reviews).
We firmly believe that if you haven’t got anything nice to say, then don’t say it. So you’ll never see a bad review on our page. If we read a book and don’t like it - then we won’t post about it.
Last year, on our one year anniversary, we launched our very own podcast! Again, Jess said to Lauren, ‘Okay, reviews are great, but not everyone wants to read reviews, they want to hear us talk about them: I think we should have a podcast’. Lauren said ‘absolutely not’, Jess won. Book Reccos: Between the Pages was launched on all streaming platforms!
We worked with a wonderful musician (big up Alex Thomas!) to record our very own jingle (which now feels like the soundtrack to our lives and permanent ear worm), and Vicky returned by creating us a new version of our logo!
The last year podcasting has been so much fun! As soon as we got over the fear of putting ourselves out there (imposter syndrome, anyone?!) we have had the pleasure of interviewing some incredible authors, from Poppy Jamie, Poorna Bell, Coco Mellors and Nikki May, plus so many more.
Now, two years in, we want to find more ways to inspire others to read, and make it easier for our community to connect with us, so here we have it: the Book Reccos blog! Once again, we have another talented friend to thank, Alex Hamilton and we couldn't be more chuffed with what he's created for us! If you are ever in need of a web designer please get in touch because we'd love to share his details with you.
This website will be a place for us to write more in-depth reviews of the books we have loved and some blog posts on what we’re getting up to, brands we’re working with and exciting announcements.
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We didn’t ever imagine that 2 years later, we’d have over 20k followers and a fully fledged side hustle, but we couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve achieved together and are lucky to be part of such a beautiful community.
Happy Reading Lovelies,
Jess and Lauren x