So my latest book review is of Wedding Bells at the Dog and Duck by Jill Steeples.

Ellie Browne, landlady of The Dog & Duck, is looking forward to a relaxing Christmas Day before the arrival of her and her partner Max‘s baby in the New Year. But with a snowstorm brewing outside, it seems that things might not go quite to plan.

After the dramatic events of the holiday season, Ellie settles into her new life at Max‘s huge country mansion Braithwaite Manor, juggling work and family as best she can. When she’s asked to help organise a summer wedding for one of her best friends it’s only natural that her mind turns to her own, non-existent, wedding plans!

But with Max decidedly lukewarm on the subject and other family complications threatening to disrupt life further, Ellie fears there’ll never be wedding bells at the Dog & Duck after all.

Firstly I have to admit that I have not read Winter at the Dog and Duck or Summer at the Dog and Duck. If I am entirely honest I think this was a mistake.  Although there are explanations to the many references to previous events, I feel like I really should have read both of those books in the Dog and Duck series before I started on this one.  It’s not a deal breaker, but I think it would have made my reading experience a little better.

However, all that said, do not be put off if you haven’t read the rest of the series! It is just my personal opinion that I should have read them, and I fully expect to go back and read them in the future.

So, onto the story.

Ellie is the very pregnant landlady of the Dog and Duck.  Along with her partner Max, she is looking forward to a relaxing but fun Christmas and New Year before their new arrival joins them in January.  With the onset of heavy snow, a mysterious visitor to the village and an unexpected delivery, Christmas does not happen in the way she expects!

This novel is very much based around family and loved ones.  Ellie is someone that wants to please her friends and family, and make them feel loved which is why she jumps at the chance to arrange her best friend Polly’s wedding.  It does though highlight her own lack of wedding, despite her and Max now having a beautiful son.

This story is full of love and relationships, with Max and Ellie, George and Polly and Ellie’s parents to name just a few.  It explores long term relationships, new relationships, broken relationships and family relationships.  I enjoyed reading about them all, and found all of the supporting characters to be believable and likeable.

At times however I found Ellie frustrating – she clearly adores Max and he adores her yet following events early on in the book (I don’t want to give them away, sorry!), she seems to spend the majority of the book confused as to why he won’t propose to her or agree to marry her!  Personally I found this a little irritating but having had children myself I can fully appreciate that having a baby can often make you a little irrational (us Mums would obviously never admit to this, but it’s regularly true in those first few months!) which would explain where she is coming from.

All in all this is an enjoyable book, and a pleasant way to while away a few hours on a rainy day!

Rating: 📖 📖 📖 📗

Thank you to Netgalley and Aria for providing me a copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

So my latest book review is A Weekend with Mr Darcy by Victoria Connelly.

Katherine Roberts is fed up with men. As a lecturer specialising in the works of Jane Austen, she knows that the ideal man only exists within the pages of Pride & Prejudice and that in real life there is no such thing. Determined to go it alone, she finds all the comfort she needs reading her guilty pleasure – regency romances from the pen of Lorna Warwick – with whom she has now struck up an intimate correspondence.

Austen fanatic, Robyn Love, is blessed with a name full of romance, but her love life is far from perfect. Stuck in a rut with a bonehead boyfriend, Jace, and a job she can do with her eyes shut – her life has hit a dead end. Robyn would love to escape from it all but wouldn’t know where to start.

They both decide to attend the annual Jane Austen Conference at sumptuous Purley Hall, overseen by the actress and national treasure, Dame Pamela Harcourt. Robyn is hoping to escape from Jace for the weekend and indulge in her passion for all things Austen. Katherine is hoping that Lorna Warwick will be in attendance and is desperate to meet her new best friend in the flesh.

But nothing goes according to plan and Robyn is aghast when Jace insists on accompanying her, whilst Katherine is disappointed to learn that Lorna won’t be coming.

However, an Austen weekend wouldn’t be the same without a little intrigue, and Robyn and Katherine are about to get much more than they bargained for. Because where Jane Austen is concerned, romance is never very far away… (Thanks Amazon)

As I have mentioned before, Pride & Prejudice is my favourite book.  What’s not to love?  Especially when it comes with one of the greatest tv adaptations ever!  However I have only recently discovered fan fiction (Check out my review of The Austen Escape by Katherine Reay from last year – my first ever fan fiction)

So I picked up this novel with some excitement, and I was not disappointed!  The novel focuses on Katherine Roberts, Robyn Love and Lorna Warwick, three individuals with very different backgrounds who decide to attend an Austen weekend where they can share their love of Jane Austen with like-minded people.  I was sold as soon as it became clear that they were attending an Austen weekend – do such things really exist? Could I attend without my husband noticing and complaining that I am becoming more of a geek rather than less with age?  So many questions! Anyway back to the novel…

Both Katherine and Robyn have suffered in their love lives and have struggled to move on.  For both of them, the Austen weekend provides some escapism from the monotony of their lives, and it gives them both real pleasure to learn more about Austen, her life and the lives of her characters.  They each have their own disappointments to face on this weekend – for Katherine it is the fact that her new penpal and potential best friend, author Lorna Warwick, has chosen not to attend.  Lorna is notoriously private, never attending book signings or doing any face to face publicity, but Katherine has struck up such a close friendship with her via their letters that she is keen to meet her in person.  For Robyn, her disappointment comes when boyfriend Jace decides to follow her to Hampshire, staying nearby.  She had hoped for a weekend away from her life with him and their somewhat stale relationship, but he clearly has other ideas.

One weekend away really could change both of their lives – will they let it though?

This was such a lovely piece of escapism fiction.  I am fast becoming a fan of fiction such as this, where you can read about much loved characters and find out just how much others love them too.  After a quick google search I was very pleased to discover that Victoria Connelly has a number of novels based around Jane Austen.  I very much doubt that it will be long before I read another!  So, if you love Jane Austen then this is a novel that you should pick up with a glass of wine in front of a roaring fire!

Rating: 📖 📖 📖 📖

Join me for my latest review – Prosecco and Promises by A.L. Michael.

Mia’s dad has always been her idol. Now, she faces losing him and he is insisting that she leave England to visit her mother’s family on the Italian island of Ischia.

Arriving at the island, Mia is embraced by the warm, crazy relatives she hardly knows. Despite her doubts about the trip, it is in Italy that Mia discovers connections to a part of her life that’s been missing, and during the sun-soaked days and steamy nights Mia falls for handsome local Salvatore. But as the day of her departure draws nearer can she risk having her heart broken twice in one summer? (Thanks Netgalley)

Mia is forced to leave the life she knows behind her at the request of her dying father, to join the family that she barely knows in the warm climate of Italy.  That pretty much sums up the premise of this novel, but the story is so much more involved than that.  Mia is heartbroken when her father asks that she leaves him behind to die, and go to discover a whole side of her family that she has spent her entire life being distanced from.  After Mia’s Italian mother passed away, she spent the following years in a little cocoon with her Dad in England, caring for each other in their grief.  However in the process Mia became distanced from her Italian family, and whilst staring at death, her father becomes fixated on her not being alone when he himself passes.

This is a novel about finding yourself in the face of grief.  That grief is so evident throughout this novel – how to deal with grief, how to move on when faced with it, and how to live your life after it.

Thankfully the novel is softened by backdrop of the beautiful Italian countryside, family drama as well as family love, and of course, a little romance.  So don’t be put off the death and grief that runs through the novel – it really is made lighter by the family, scenery and love!

I do recommend this novel – it wasn’t what I was expecting at all based on the cover and title but I certainly wasn’t disappointed about that!  It’s a novel about love, loss and finding yourself.  Go grab yourself a copy and let me know what you think.

Rating: 📖 📖 📖 📖

Thank you to Netgalley and Canelo for a copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

Sorry to all my lovely followers – it has been a slow blogging start to 2018!  However, I am back and my fourth review of the year is of Linda Seed’s Moonstone Beach.

She’s a divorcee who’s still struggling to recover. He’s notorious for his reckless ways with women. What could possibly go wrong?

Kate Bennet owns a small bookstore in the breathtaking Central Coast town of Cambria, California. Two years out from a divorce that left her emotionally fragile, she’s starting to think that maybe she’s ready for love again—or at least for a fling with a hot man. Jackson Graham is a local chef who’s controlling when it comes to food, careless when it comes to love, and temperamental when it comes to just about everything.

When Kate’s friends set things up between Kate and Jackson, she expects some casual pleasure followed by a hasty goodbye, but Jackson’s long-term crush on Kate means that he’s in this one to win. The problem is, neither he nor Kate knows whether he can change the self-defeating habits that usually send women scurrying for the door. (Thanks Amazon!)

So here we have a small town American novel WITH a bookstore thrown in – an ideal book for Chapter and Cake!  Moonstone Beach is the first in the Main Street Merchants series by Linda Seed, and the blurb really sold me the story.

Kate has been put off dating following her divorce from a man who sought to destroy her self esteem.  In order to rebuild her life she moves to Cambria in California, living in the home left to her by her mother and running her mothers bookstore.

Jackson is a talented but temperamental chef who works in a nearby restaurant.  He has had a crush on Kate ever since she moved to the small town but when it comes to women he doesn’t usually manage anything other than short term.

This is a typical small town American romance novel: just the kind that I love.  There are no surprises in the story, it is more about the journey and the obstacles two people have to overcome before they can be together.  I enjoyed learning more about both Kate and Jackson, they were relatable characters who have both had to deal with relatable issues.

All in all this was a successful read – the next time I need a small town American romance fix I will make sure that the Main Street Merchants series is at the top of my list of novels to consider!

Rating: 📖 📖 📖 📗

So book number 3 in 2018 is Turned Up by Erin Nicholas.

Dillon Alexander has been Kit Derby’s nemesis since third grade, when he beat her in the school spelling bee. They’ve been competing ever since, driving each other to be the best at everything from science fairs to bake sales. While working together one night during their senior year, they stopped bickering long enough to share an emotionally charged kiss. But a tragedy that same night left them both racked with guilt, driving Dillon out of town and leaving Kit determined to keep her distance.

Now an emergency room physician, Dillon has returned to their hometown of Chance, Nebraska. Soon he and Kit fall back into old habits, sparring in public while trying to stay out of each other’s arms. But when a blizzard traps them overnight at Kit’s grandmother’s farmhouse, the real competition begins: Who will be the first to give in to the feelings they’ve denied for a decade? (Thanks Amazon)

Turned Up is the third book in the Taking Chances trilogy by Erin Nicholas.  I’ve been meaning to read this for a while as I really enjoyed the first two so was very pleased when I finally got to it in my TBR pile!

Dillon and Kit both appeared in the previous two novels, so it was like coming back to old friends.  It was nice to finally learn a little more about the pair of them, and the reasons why they have been forced apart for so long.  What I really enjoy about trilogies such as this one is the fact that you get to revisit settings and characters – I loved catching up with Avery and Bree too.  I also liked coming back to Chance, a small, all-American town where the inhabitants all look out for each other.  As you all know, small town American romances are a favourite of mine and this one certainly fit the bill.

Dillon and Kit have undeniable chemistry, and its obvious from the outset that they each struggle to contain their feelings when they are around each other.  It was therefore nice to follow their story as they each learned that letting go of their past might not be such a bad thing after all.

If you want to read a light, easy romance then this is the book for you.  Whilst you don’t need to have read the first two in order to enjoy this, I definitely recommend that you do.  Happy Reading!

Rating: 📖 📖 📖 📖

So my latest book review, and second of 2018 is It Started With A Tweet by Anna Bell.

Daisy Hobson lives her whole life online. But when her social media obsession causes her to make a catastrophic mistake at work, Daisy finds her life going into free-fall . . .
Her sister Rosie thinks she has the answer to all of Daisy’s problems – a digital detox in a remote cottage in Cumbria. Soon, too, Daisy meets a welcome distraction there in Jack, the rugged man-next-door.
But can Daisy, a London girl, ever really settle into life in a tiny, isolated village?
And, more importantly, can she survive without her phone? (Thanks Netgalley)

So at a time when social media is everything – I get my childrens school updates, keep in touch with friends, and find new recipes all via social media – this novel is really rather fitting.  Can you cope without your smartphone?

Daisy Hobson cannot cope without her smartphone.  She lives her life via social media, so when she makes one mistake, one catastrophic mistake, she is forced off-line to fulfil an enforced digital detox with her sister.  Having lost her job and potentially her career, Daisy finds herself hidden away in a remote spot in Cumbria living a life she has never dreamed about and has certainly never wanted.  Her smartphone forcibly removed, she finds herself with no internet access and no idea what is going on beyond the outskirts of the small Cumbrian village.  Instead, Daisy has to look up and pay attention to what is going on around her.  She begins to make friends in the local village, including a certain neighbour, but she also starts to see whats happening within her own family.

This novel really does provide a few home truths when it comes to our usage of smartphones, tablets and laptops.  I know not only what my family are up to, but also almost every celebrity on the planet, at any time of day or night.  The question is: do we need to know? Also, is this knowledge stopping us having conversations?  Daisy’s journey from social media queen to a remote villager really highlights these issues.  She knows next to nothing of her sisters life prior to her enforced stay with her, yet she knows all about the lives of random strangers she’s never met.

Daisy and Rosie’s story is a journey, a journey that may become ever more common as all of our realities become more virtual.  I really enjoyed following their story, as they learned to be a part of each others lives again.  It raised some concerns for me, but ultimately I enjoyed the family element, the self-discovery that Daisy is forced to follow and the added fun of a little romance! It was an entertaining, often funny read that I really enjoyed! I definitely recommend!

Sometimes you just need to sit up and look at what is actually around you, rather than just exploring the ever increasing virtual world we all find ourselves in.

Rating: 📖 📖 📖 📖

Thanks to Netgalley and Bonnier Zaffre for a copy of this novel in return for my honest review.