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
19 November 2015 by Leave a Comment
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
18 November 2015 by Leave a Comment
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
17 November 2015 by Leave a Comment
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
16 November 2015 by Leave a Comment
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
11 November 2015 by 2 Comments
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
9 November 2015 by 2 Comments
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
7 November 2015 by Leave a Comment
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…
Spooks: The Greater Good
4 November 2015 by Leave a Comment
I’ve always been a big fan of the BBC TV series Spooks, the first few series with Matthew MacFadyen and then Rupert Penry-Jones were sublime and even when it got a little bit silly in its later years, the appeal was still strong. Part of that appeal was the brilliance of Peter Firth …
Bella’s Christmas Bake Off
2 November 2015 by Leave a Comment
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..