Date Started – 28th February 2023 Date Finished – 11th March 2023 Rating: 4 out of 5. Blurb A family gathering This Christmas the Miller siblings have one goal—to avoid their well-meaning family’s endless stream of prying questions. Ross, Alice and Clemmie have secrets that they don’t intend to share, and they are relying on each other to deflect attention. An uninvited guest Lucy Clarke is facing a Christmas alone and the prospect of losing her job. Unless she can win a major piece of business from Ross Miller, the season promises to be anything but festive. She’ll just deliver her proposal ..read more

Date Started – 11th February 2023 Date Finished – 22nd February 2023 Rating: 5 out of 5. Blurb Salama Kassab was a pharmacy student when the cries for freedom broke out in Syria. She still had her parents and her big brother; she still had her home. She had a normal teenager’s life. Now Salama volunteers at a hospital in Homs, helping the wounded who flood through the doors daily. Secretly, though, she is desperate to find a way out of her beloved country before her sister-in-law, Layla, gives birth. So desperate, that she has manifested a physical embodiment of her fear in the form of her i ..read more

Date Started: 27th December 2022 Date Finished: 31st December 2022 Rating: 5 out of 5. Blurb Krystle didn’t have a normal childhood and longed for warm family Christmases with presents under the tree. Now she makes sure everyone else has the perfect Christmas she never had, bringing beautiful decorations to cheer as many people as possible. With her festive business booming, she decides to celebrate by renting a secluded house in the Lakes, with a plan to make this the ultimate yuletide getaway. But fate immediately throws a spanner in the works in the form of a broken-down car, a flood ..read more

Date Started: 22nd December 2022 Date Finished: 27th December 2022 Rating: 5 out of 5. Blurb Four friends Twenty-five years ago, Freya and her three best friends created a bucket list. The future seemed bright, full of hope and most importantly guaranteed . . . One promise Now they are travelling to Iceland in memory of the friend they’ve lost, determined to fulfil her dream of seeing the Northern Lights at Christmas. A life-changing adventure They didn’t count on an avalanche leaving them stranded! Handsome local, Pétur, comes to the rescue, showing them how the community survives the hard ..read more

Date Started – 16th November 2022 Date Finished – 30th November 2022 Rating: 5 out of 5. Blurb A princess in exile. Six enchanted cranes. An unspeakable curse. A beautiful and immersive YA fantasy retelling of the Grimm brothers’ The Six Swans fairy-tale, set in an East-Asian inspired world, by the author of Spin the Dawn. Shiori’anma, the only princess of Kiata, has a secret. Forbidden magic runs in her veins. And on the morning of her betrothal ceremony, Shiori loses control. At first, her mistake seems like a stroke of luck, forestalling the wedding she never wanted, but it also catches ..read more

Date Started – 4th November 2022 Date Finished – 13th November 2022 Rating: 4 out of 5. Blurb The 1990s are proving tough for the convent. The order of the Sisters of Saint Philomena is down to its three last nuns. The place that Sisters Margaret, Bridget and Cecilia call home is in dire need of repairs and, with no savings and no new recruits, they are facing the prospect of having to sell up and leave behind the friends and neighbours in the parish community that they love. That is, until ninety-year-old Cecilia decides to play the newly launched National Lottery and a series of small mira ..read more

Date Started – 8th December 2022 Date Finished – 14th December 2022 Rating: 5 out of 5. Blurb For years Jeanette Winterson has loved writing a new story at Christmas time and here she brings together twelve of her brilliantly imaginative, funny and bold tales. For the Twelve Days of Christmas—a time of celebration, sharing, and giving—she offers these twelve plus one: a personal story of her own Christmas memories. These tales give the reader a portal into the spirit of the season, where time slows down and magic starts to happen. From trees with mysterious powers to a tinsel baby that talks ..read more

Date Started – 28th October 2022 Date Finished – 4th November 2022 Rating: 3 out of 5. Blurb One woman. One island. A bookshop in need of revival… Jenny has never been a risk taker. But when her best friend takes off on an American road trip, Jenny finds herself saying yes to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of her own and accepts the role of a bookseller in the Maldives. The island of Bounty Cove Cay is everything she’d hoped for: white sandy beaches, glistening turquoise waters and palm trees bursting with coconuts. But it’s not all plain sailing… The resort bookshop is far from thriving a ..read more

Date Started – 4th October 2022 Date Finished – 11th October 2022 Rating: 4 out of 5. Blurb Eliza has a full house! When her three children grew up and moved out, she downsized to a smaller property… but now they’re all back. Every room in the house is taken and Eliza finds herself sharing her bed with her eldest daughter and her daughter’s pug. Combined with the online course she’s trying to finish, plus her job to fit in, there just isn’t the peace and quiet that Eliza needs. So, when an ad pops up on her laptop saying ‘house-sitters wanted’, Eliza can’t resist the chance to escape. She en ..read more

Date Started – 24th September 2022 Date Finished – 4th October 2022 Rating: 4 out of 5. Blurb On 21 January 1804, Anne Sharpe arrives at Godmersham Park in Kent to take up the position of governess. At 31 years old, she has no previous experience of either teaching or fine country houses. Her mother has died, and she has nowhere else to go. Anne is left with no choice. For her new charge – twelve-year-old Fanny Austen – Anne’s arrival is all novelty and excitement. The governess role is a uniquely awkward one. Anne is neither one of the servants, nor one of the family, and to balance a posi ..read more