Never Kiss A Man In A Christmas Jumper

This week I’m pretty much focusing on Christmas books. I’ve spent the past few days reading nothing but Christmas stories and I might actually be overdosing on sweetness and festive fun. I’m taking a break for a bit after this week for Christmas, my 40th birthday, New Year and a holiday to Egypt…

The Silent Dead

Last year I reviewed Claire McGowan’s The Dead Ground, the second in her Paula Maguire series about a forensic pathologist who returns to Northern Ireland from London and works with a Missing Person’s Unit to solve crimes. I enjoyed The Dead Ground…

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…

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 …

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…

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…

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…

Talk of the Toun

Most people can’t pin down exactly when they made up their minds about contentious issues such as the death penalty or abortion. They are opinions that, for the most part, develop over time or in some cases are just so deeply ingrained that they seem to have been there forever…

Bella’s Christmas Bake Off

Given we’re now in November it’s probably an acceptable time to start reading Christmas books. I have a number of Christmas review copies waiting to be read and hope to give over a chunk of November/Early December to festive fare..