Archives for November 2015

Follow Me

I managed to shut my computer down the other night without saving the document I had written. It was a book review and the loss of it was doubly irritating, first because it was a couple of hours work down the drain but more importantly because it meant I have to spend more time thinking about a book…

My TBR Confessions

I’ve seen this post on a number of great book blogs recently and though I haven’t actually been specifically tagged to take part, I’m going to have my say anyway. My TBR (to be read) pile currently stands at an impressive (and terrifying given how slowly I read) 237 books…

The Winter Wedding

I’m in a quandary about my review of Abby Clements’ The Winter Wedding. I’m not sure this has ever happened to me and it’s hard to discuss without getting into spoiler territory. I enjoyed the writing and read the book in just a couple of days but I hated the morals of the story …

Top Ten: Movie Dance Scenes

It’s been a while since I did a Top Ten, it’s not easy to keep coming up with ideas especially when you are a bear of little brain. I’m currently watching Strictly Come Dancing on catch-up and disagreeing completely with the judges (come on – Kellie and Kevin were an absolute mess) and then it hit me…

A Wedding at Christmas

Earlier this year I read and reviewed Chrissie Manby’s third Benson family story, A Proper Family Adventure. As you might recall I enjoyed the book but the snob in me had some problems connecting with the Bensons. They seemed a bit loud, a bit too close a family for my liking…

We’re No Angels

For the past two years we have had a dreadful, dreadful internet connection. Our estate didn’t have fibre and the connection speed was worse than in the bad old dial-up days. No Netflix, no Amazon Prime, no Spotify. It was the very epitome of a first world problem…

The Tea Planter’s Wife

Part of me really wants to spend the next few weeks solely on Christmas books, but then I look at my to be read list and I’m still struggling to catch up with summer reading so over the six weeks or so I’ll probably alternate between Christmas and non-Christmas reading…

The 12 Dates of Christmas

I’ve been getting lots of proofs of Christmas books recently and they all look great fun. This is shaping up to be a fabulous November and December for fans of fun and frothy romance stories. My latest Christmas read is Lisa Dickenson’s The 12 Dates of Christmas…

Unbroken

Today is Armistice Day (Veterans’ Day in the US) and the BBC Festival of Remembrance on Saturday had a focus on the war in South East Asia, including testimony from a British prisoner-of-war who suffered in a Japanese camp. It seems fitting…

The 3rd Woman

Since 2006 Guardian journalist Jonathan Freedland has been publishing thriller novels under the pseudonym Sam Bourne, using the false name to distinguish his fiction work from his journalism. I read a couple of the Bourne books…