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…

A Step In Time

On the countdown to Christmas there’s always one very important marker which signals the end of summer, the beginning of autumn and highlights that advent isn’t so very far away. It’s nothing to do with the weather, or leafs changing colour. It’s BBC starting to show Strictly Come Dancing…

The Little Flower Shop By The Sea

We’re now well into October and the weather has unsurprisingly taken a turn towards the autumnal. In fact it’s a bit cold at times. Time to be planning those long nights in with hot chocolate and a good book. I’ve got a wee pile of Christmas themed books to read …

A Proper Family Adventure

I have a wonderful friend who works in the cruise industry who has occasionally invited me to join him on the ocean waves. For one reason or another I’ve not yet been able to take him up on the offer, even though I’ve always wanted to experience a cruise holiday…

Top Ten: 2015 Reads (So far…)

We’re now half-way through the year and time to have a look back at some of the great books I’ve read this year. I’ve been very lucky – so far the lowest rating I’ve given a book is 3/5 so it’s definitely been a success. About half of the books I’ve read have been 2015 releases…

It’s Not Me It’s You

I try not to judge a book on its first few pages, I like to get into the narrative before I make any judgments. Of course there are some books where this doesn’t work – I couldn’t read more than the first four or five pages of Anne Enright’s The Gathering…

Little Beach Street Bakery

If you like romantic novels with wonderful settings, likeable characters and evocative descriptions of food this is the perfect book for you. Jenny Colgan is an author at the very top of her game and an undoubted master of her genre…

The Midnight Rose

I love getting review copies of books through the post – no matter how many I receive there’s still a real excitement when they arrive. Someone wants me to read their book and give my opinion to other people. It’s a true thrill. I’d be lying though if I said there aren’t days that I look at my post and sigh…

The Summer House

It’s been a busy old couple of months, I’ve moved home from Surrey, which I adored, to Somerset. In that time my reading and film-going have taken a back seat to packing, unpacking, fighting with BT and trying to remember to change addresses with all of the appropriate companies. Things are settling down now…

The American President

There are no four better words in entertainment than “Written by Aaron Sorkin” – you know if Sorkin has written the script then a quality watch is ahead. His credits are strong…