“One minute Lou is happily employed, with a perfect flat. The next, her home and job have gone. Suddenly she has to start over.
The last thing Lou wants is to move to a tiny Cotswolds village. She certainly doesn’t intend to work for curmudgeonly eighty-year-old Edgar Allsopp. But Edgar is about to make her the kind of promise nobody could ignore. In return, she secretly vows to help him fall in love with life again.
Foxwell is also home to Remy, whose charm and charisma are proving hard to ignore. But Lou hasn’t recovered from the last time she fell for a charmer. She needs a distraction – and luckily one’s about to turn up.
Secrets never stay hidden for long in Foxwell, nor are promises always kept. And no one could guess what lies ahead…”
“book”, “read”, “book review”, “book blog”, “new”, “recommended”, “easy read”, “don’t miss out”, “fiction”, “romance”, “what book will get me out of a reading slump”, “entertaining”, “what should I read next”, “book of the month”, “5 star rating”, “what should I have read this month”
Welcome to Top 5 Wednesday! Hosted by Goodreads T5W group this week it is Books To Read When You Are Snowed In. I think that we have had our snow for the year. It is quite rare to snow here in South East England, UK so we were “lucky” to get what we did!
“Sue Trinder is an orphan, left as an infant in the care of Mrs. Sucksby, a “baby farmer,” who raised her with unusual tenderness, as if Sue were her own. Mrs. Sucksby’s household, with its fussy babies calmed with doses of gin, also hosts a transient family of petty thieves—fingersmiths—for whom this house in the heart of a mean London slum is home.
One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives—Gentleman, an elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a naïve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, then they will all share in Maud’s vast inheritance. Once the inheritance is secured, Maud will be disposed of—passed off as mad, and made to live out the rest of her days in a lunatic asylum.
With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Once in, however, Sue begins to pity her helpless mark and care for Maud Lilly in unexpected ways…But no one and nothing is as it seems in this Dickensian novel of thrills and reversals.”
I am on the Blog Tour for this book on 28 November so keep your eyes peeled for my review on here, Amazon, Goodreads, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!
Book Description From Goodreads:
“Ollie Spencer has started a new life in the idyllic Cornish seaside town of Port Karadow. Throwing herself into her job at the town’s bookshop, A New Chapter, is one way to make friends. The shop is glitzing up for first Christmas and Ollie hopes her inspired ideas will give the shop the edge it needs to dazzle the town.
But far from being the Sugar Plum fairy the place needs, Ollie is fast becoming its Christmas pudding. With the bookshop’s success at stake, Ollie turns to twinkly-eyed café owner Max for help. Can he help Ollie to turn the page, and put the sparkle back into her Cornish dream?”
Every season I like to look back and revisit my 5 star reads. As well as trying to read different genres, I also like to try and match my reading to the season as far as possible.
So here were my 5 star reads for the first half of Autumn (click for my reviews):
“book”, “read”, “book review”, “book blog”,”recommended”, “easy read”, “don’t miss out”, “rom com”, “mystery”, “autumn reading”, “fall reading”, “reading slump”, “what should I read next”, “what book do you recommend”, “library”, “what book should I get from the library”, “what books should I read this autumn”, “what books should I read this fall”
“book”, “read”, “book review”, “book blog”,”recommended”, “easy read”, “don’t miss out”, “mystery”, “reading slump”, “what should I read next”, “what book do you recommend”, “popular books”
Welcome to my one word review post! This was inspired by a Top Ten Tuesday post that I took part in earlier in May. Not everyone has the time to read through a whole review, so I think that these one word reviews are an excellent way to get a book across to people in one word.
So that I capture all the books that I have read I have decided that at the end of each month I will do one word reviews for all the books that I have read in that month.
Here are the books that I read in October with links to my full review:
“book”, “read”, “book review”, “book blog”,”recommended”, “easy read”, “don’t miss out”, “reading slump”, “what should I read next”, “what book do you recommend”, “one word review”
When America won the Revolutionary War, its people offered General George Washington a crown. Two and a half centuries later, the House of Washington still sits on the throne.
As Princess Beatrice gets closer to becoming America’s first queen regnant, the duty she has embraced her entire life suddenly feels stifling.
Nobody cares about the spare except when she’s breaking the rules, so Princess Samantha doesn’t care much about anything, either . . . except the one boy who is distinctly off-limits to her.
And then there’s Samantha’s twin, Prince Jefferson. If he’d been born a generation earlier, he would have stood first in line for the throne, but the new laws of succession make him third. Most of America adores their devastatingly handsome prince . . . but two very different girls are vying to capture his heart.”
💭THOUGHTS💭
I have wanted to read this book since last year and eventually got it as a present for Christmas. I have now finally got round to reading it and I loved it! It was proper chick lit and definitely the light read that I needed the last week or so.
The writing was light, entertaining, and despite the different characters stories merging to make the one story, it wasn’t difficult to process or follow. I enjoyed each character’s story and the way that they overlapped each other. The story had an excellent natural flow to it which I enjoyed.
The chapters were based on the views of a single character and were fairly short. They were very cleverly done and even though you weren’t sure whose point of view you were going to read next, each character had such a great storyline that no chapter let the story as a whole down. The shortness of the chapters gave the story a good pace and always left you wanting more!
The characters were excellent. I loved them all. It was interesting to see what it was like to be a royal American and what it was like for a commoner to enter their world. I got quite emotionally invested in them! I loved the morally grey side to a couple of the characters too.
Lastly the settings. These were secondary to the story as it was very much character based, but I loved the descriptions of the parties and royal rooms. I don’t often read books about royalty so I was interested in this take on it.
Overall a great book and I can’t wait to read the next book in the series!
Every season I like to look back and revisit my 5 star reads. As well as trying to read different genres, I also like to try and match my reading to the season as far as possible.
So here were my 5 star reads for the second half of Summer (click for my reviews):
“book”, “read”, “book review”, “book blog”,”recommended”, “easy read”, “don’t miss out”, “rom com”, “mystery”, “thriller”, “summer reading”, “reading slump”, “what should I read next”, “what book do you recommend”, “library”, “what book should I get from the library”, “what books should I read this summer”
📖PLOT SUMMARY FROM GOODREADS 📖 Follow the clues. Find the fortune. Solve the Mystery. This Christmas is to die for. Let the game begin…
‘Endgame has kept our secrets for half a century, now it’s time for it, and its secrets, to have a new owner.’
When Lily returns home to her aunt’s manor house, she discovers that in order to inherit, she and her estranged cousins must stay together over the Christmas week and take part in a family tradition: the annual treasure hunt.
But as they are drawn deeper into the game, the clues seem to point not to the deeds to the manor house, but to the key to a twenty-year-old mystery: what really happened to Lily’s mother?
As a snowstorm cuts them off from the village, it becomes apparent that the game has turned deadly and that Lily is fighting for more than just an inheritance: she is now fighting for her life. Does she have what it takes to survive?
12 clues, 12 keys and 12 days of Christmas for the heirs of Endgame House to find their inheritance, but how many will die before Twelfth Night?
💭THOUGHTS💭 I saw this and had to try and get it read in July. Who doesn’t want to read a Christmas Murder Mystery in the Summer?! Christmas stories are often romances and whilst there was a bit of romance in it, it focused on the mystery. I loved it!
The writing was from the main character’s point of view, but there was also outside narration mixed in which was quite interesting. I had my suspicions as to who it was, but I was still only partly right because the characters were so convincing! I loved how we were with the main character solving the clues and seeing her thought processes. It was an excellent writing style that made me just want to keep on reading!
The chapters were fairly long with the occassional shorter one in there to keep the story moving. I didn’t feel the length of the chapters though as I was so engrossed in the story.
I liked the way that there was a timeline running through together with mini games and bits for us as the reader to play. I also liked the riddles and letters that were in the story to give the format some interest, not that it needed it as the story itself was enough!
The characters were excellent and I loved how they were all suspicious at one point in the book. It was very cleverly written and kept my interest throughout wondering how it all fit together. There was a lot going on, but I never felt lost.
Lastly the settings. I loved the isolated estate covered in snow. The house itself was it’s own character and you were never quite sure whether it was good or bad. There were lots of memories and history running through it which made the story more interesting.
Overall I loved this book. The descriptions, the puzzles and the characters all made for a brilliant read. I highly recommend!
*Budget Tales Book Blog* 