Reviewed by Tanya Phillips
Sometimes the best Christmas presents are the ones you aren't expecting ...
When Kat James exchanges the city for a solitary Yuletide in a Cornish fishing village she's fully expecting a quiet time. What she isn't prepared for is a little meddling from her well-meaning best friend and a visit from the Ghost of Boyfriends Past. Romance, festive or otherwise, isn't on Kat's Christmas list. The last thing she is looking for is love.
Is coming to Cornwall for Christmas a big mistake for Kat? Has her broken heart set harder than the granite cliffs? Or will Polwenna Bay and its inhabitants work a little festive magic after all?
Reviewed by Tanya Phillips
The heart is a deep ocean of treasure…
For twenty-two years Issie Tremaine’s wild behaviour has driven her family to distraction. Now, with the future she’d dreamed of in tatters, she’s returned home to try and forget the past. When a huge winter storm and the arrival of a handsome stranger cause upheaval in the village there is an even greater tempest in Issie’s heart. Dare she trust again? Or will she only face more betrayal?
As a professional treasure hunter, American Luke Dawson can’t risk any distractions. With his reputation hanging in the balance he’s staking everything on a major find in England and daren’t let anyone get in his way. Not even the passionate and free spirited girl he can’t stop thinking about.
Alice Tremaine’s world has been her family. Since the death of her daughter-in-law she’s single handedly raised her grandchildren, often at the expense of her own happiness. Now they are grown up, Alice is resigned to a quiet life in Polwenna Bay until her past returns to challenge her and awaken a love she’d thought long lost…
Reviewed by Tanya Phillips
Hannah’s holidays are normally spent nibbling chocolate coins with her daughter and praying she’s not too old for a stocking on Christmas morning. But this year, she’s been offered the dressmaker’s job of a lifetime: creating a one-of-a-kind a gown for her friend Annie’s Christmas wedding on the picture-perfect Cherry Pie Island.
Many mince pies and one hot-pink organza dress later, Hannah is set to snuggle back into her old routine…until she discovers that there are three more weddings to come – and not a dress in sight!
Four themes, four brides and four parties spent avoiding chef Harry Fontaine, whose cynicism is as much a wedding day guarantee as confetti and cake. Hannah has her work cut out for her! Yet, with a sprinkling of snowflakes and Christmas magic, it could be that this is the year when miracles really do happen…if Hannah will let them.
Reviewed by Tanya Phillips
After her latest breakup, Imogene Hart decides to quit searching for a husband and embrace the single life. Her widowed father and two married sisters tell her she's crazy. Infuriated by her family's attitude, Imogene launches a singles pride group called Solo Power.
When a women's cable network announces a call for proposals for a new reality show, the Solo Power members find themselves battling against a group of Bridezillas to get their pro-singles reality show on the air. The leader of the Bridezillas, celebrity wedding planner Lindsay Saga, will be tough to beat…
It's a Singles vs. Bridezillas smackdown! Who will win?
Reviewed by Tanya Phillips
Is there ever a right time for love?
Feisty horsewoman, Morwenna Tremaine, has always known what she wants from life and success as a three day event rider is all she’s ever dreamed of. Mo has neither the time nor the inclination for love. Even if she did it wouldn’t be with a man who stands for everything she despises…
Beneath a tough and determined exterior, businessman Ashley Carstairs harbours a dark secret that threatens to destroy everything he holds dear. Although aware that he is heading for trouble, he finds himself increasingly drawn to the one woman he knows he should stay away from – for both their sakes.
As the autumn nights draw in and the trickling sands of time gather speed, emotions run higher than the tides and Mo finds herself unable to step away. What is Ashley hiding? Is there more to him that meets the eye? And will his secret destroy everything she now holds dear?
Reviewed by Tanya Phillips
Does true love come along more than once in a lifetime? Maddie Kershaw doesn’t think so. She lost the love of her life in the 9/11 attacks, and since then has hopped from one casual fling to the next. But when she delivers an erotic cake to a one-hundredth birthday party by mistake, she meets Evan and starts to believe in second chances … until she realises there’s a risk of getting hurt all over again. Evan Quinn is serially single, yet when he meets Maddie he feels an instant connection, so much so that he confesses on their first date that he may have testicular cancer. Was it a mistake to tell her? He wants Maddie more than he has ever wanted any other woman. But he doesn’t want her pity. With the odds stacked against them both, finding love won’t be easy. But beneath the Australian sun, a Happy Ever After could be worth fighting for.
Reviewed by Tanya Phillips
Sent to live with her cousin Elsie in the Yorkshire countryside, Rose has only one thing on her mind; joining her friends as a club rep in Mexico.
When she hears about a council incentive offering the promise of free flights to the person who clocks the most volunteering hours at the local care home, she’s got her plan set.
But she doesn’t plan on bonding with the old ladies, going after the village bad boy and trying to persuade Elsie not to become a Nun.
Soon she’s questioning who her real friends are and whether her old life is one she wants to return to.
Can the village win her over and will she win the chance to leave it behind? Will she even want to?
Reviewed by Tanya Phillips
Meet The Vintage Cinema Club….
Izzy is a wow at making unwanted things pretty, but with three brothers and her shabby chic furniture business to run she doesn’t have time to date. Could a fabulous French proposal change her mind?
Single mum Luce’s vintage bridal dresses are exquisite, but there’s no way she’s ever going to wear one or walk down the aisle for that matter. She’s a strictly no romance, one night kind of woman – or so she thinks…
Dida seems to have it all – a chocolate and banana cake recipe to die for, lovely kids (most of the time!) and a great lifestyle. But what good is a fabulous home, when your marriage has more cracks than a pavlova and your husband is having it off with half of Lithuania?
Three retro fabulous friends, in love with all things vintage, run their dream business from the faded grandeur of a rescued cinema. When that dream comes under threat, they’ll do whatever it takes to save it.
Reviewed by Tanya Phillips
Jo Longford's life takes an unexpected turn when her bosses wrongly accuse her of stealing from a client. Suddenly, she needs to find a new job and a new home for herself and ten-year-old son, Tom. Not to mention their small menagerie of badly behaved pets.
Her selfish mum isn't much help; obsessed with keeping up appearances, nothing her daughter does is ever good enough for her. But at least Jo can rely on best friend Val for support. They've been getting themselves into mischief since they were teenagers, and that includes joining a cringeworthy dating agency and an eventful school reunion. Some things never change!
Life certainly doesn’t get any easier for Jo. Will she be able to fend off her sex-mad landlord – a retired businessman who struts around in Lycra and thinks he’s God’s gift to women? Are her new employer and quirky clients at the Handy Jobs Domiciliary Care Agency all they seem?
And will Jo ever be able to sort out her chaotic love life when two equally unsuitable men gatecrash her world?
Reviewed by Tanya Phillips
Doesn’t Everyone Have a Secret? is about three very different people, each with a secret, whose lives collide in unexpected ways.
Steph is a harrassed mum who’s considering an affair with her children’s sexy headmaster. Penny is trying to deal with a crush on her boss, OCD and a sad secret from her childhood. And Mike is a vicar who is being blackmailed for his secret, although it’s not all that it seems!
Meanwhile, all three are being watched over by their own guardian angels, who try to push them in the right direction and help move their lives along – but not always successfully…
Reviewed by Tanya Phillips
What if you found The One, then lost him again?
Or not so much lost him as became the neurotic, needy girlfriend from hell. The girl who tried to make him choose between her and his job, and got seriously paranoid about his relationship with his female best friend...
Zoë Kennedy knows she doesn't deserve another chance with David Fitzgerald. But if there's the tiniest possibility of making things right, she'll snatch it. Even if it means breaking the laws of physics to do so...
Reviewed by Tanya Phillips
When is enough not enough?
Bella's career and relationship are her life's foundationwear: not glamorous and perhaps a bit binding, but supportive enough... until she realizes that they are not enough. Her life is sagging badly. She's never been in love with her boyfriend, despite a decade together. And somehow she stopped being a musician-with-a-day-job and became a consultant-who-was-musical. So she takes a terrifying leap of faith, leaving her relationship and resolving to follow her musical dreams no matter what.
But the life you walk away from doesn't always let you walk away.
With a wonderfully warm and witty cast of friends, all navigating between their ideals and the realities they face, together they'll find out what love and compromise really mean in this empowering tale about grasping life with both hands.
Reviewed by Tania Phillips
When celebrities need a crime solving quickly and discreetly they call in the specialists, the Celebrity Crimes Investigation Agency, otherwise known as the CCIA…
One desperate phone call is all it takes to turn Amber’s day from boring to completely crazy.
The call? Her old university boyfriend Ennis, now a heartthrob actor, begs for Amber’s help.
His brother Joel is dead and Ennis has to discover the truth about his death before the world’s media hear about it and batter his door down demanding answers.
The CCIA has already assigned its top agent, Charlie Huxton, to the case.
Amber’s mission? Ennis doesn't trust a stranger to keep quiet so he pleads with Amber to shadow and help Charlie throughout the investigation. Ennis was her first love and she still has a soft spot for him – how can she refuse?
Scarily out of her depth Amber knows she needs to somehow get Charlie on side with her involvement in the case – and fast.
Plunged into the world of crime Amber’s battling something darker and far more dangerous than she’d imagined – and it has nothing to do with the equally scary chemistry fizzing between her and Charlie.
Will Charlie agree to work with her to find out how and why Joel died?
Can she help uncover the truth before word gets out and an already distraught Ennis is hounded by story-hungry journalists?
Just as importantly, can she keep her sanity and manage to still be alive when the mystery is finally solved?
Reviewed by Tanya Phillips
“Maybe he wasn’t here because of the lights – maybe they were here because of him…”
It’s been over eighteen months since Molly Gilchrist has had a man (as her best friend, Caro, is so fond of reminding her) so when she as good as stumbles upon one, lying comatose, on the moors one bitterly cold morning, it seems like the Universe is having a laugh at her expense.
But Phinn Baxter (that’s Doctor Phinneas Baxter) is no drunken layabout, as Molly is soon to discover; with a PhD in astrophysics and a tortured past that is a match for Molly’s own disastrous love life.
Finding mysterious men on the moors isn’t the weirdest thing Molly has to contend with, however.
There’s also those strange lights she keeps seeing in the sky. The ones she’s only started seeing since meeting Phinn…
Reviewed by Tanya Phillips
When Serenity Holland proposes to her long-time boyfriend Jeremy, she’s certain ‘forever’ is a perfect fit. As the wedding train steams forward, though, Serenity starts to wonder if they really are an ideal match. From a crusty old ring to a dilapidated house she’s left to renovate on her own – not to mention the appearance of Jeremy’s clingy ex-fiancée – engagement feels more like disengagement.
Even worse, wedding planning’s like a bad hangover as Serenity juggles the wishes of family and friends with her bossy mother-in-law-to-be, resulting in a Frankenwedding nothing like the simple ceremony she envisioned.
Can Serenity knit her relationship back together and fashion a celebration that suits, or will ‘I do’ become ‘I don’t’?
Well when I volunteered to write a Christmas Post for Sharon I thought it would be easy but there are so many great Christmas’ to choose from. Christmas for me means time spent with people I love, we play card games and board games together and of course over indulge in food. We are also lucky/unlucky enough to celebrate many birthdays within 6 days of Christmas.
Three Christmasses really stand out for me. Two of them being the girls first Christmas with us in 2002 and 2005. I remember watching Sian (now 12) feeling her stocking at the end of her cot with the biggest smile on her face. We were sat downstairs watching her on the TV monitor as we couldn’t sleep any longer and was so excited we got up to have a coffee and open our stockings to each other. I am still like that now and hardly sleep Christmas Eve as I can’t wait to see the girls’ faces.
Reviewed by Tanya Phillips
Are we in control of our own life, or will fate always win in the end?
When Catherine Harvey's marriage ends in divorce, she finds solace with her best friend Jessica in Belfast. Seven years on, she has her material and physical needs covered, but her heart is firmly locked away.
After the death of her ex-husband, and lustful designs on a sexy stranger, Catherine feels ready to share her life with a special man, all she needs to do is find one.
Connor Maxwell returns to his home town, after twenty years in emotional exile, to rebuild his life after suffering a devastating loss. As his world begins to heal, it brings him far more than he bargained for.
How many times will destiny cross their paths before it gives up?
Reviewed by Tanya Phillips
Widowed a year ago, thirtysomething Angela has retreated into her shell, reluctant to dip a toe back in the job market – let alone the dating game. Between them, her bossy mum and her best friend gently nudge Angela back to life, persuading her to find a job and even try a solo holiday – which ends with a luggage mix-up and an encounter with a rugged Irishman called Conor.
Back home, Angela resolves to take her new romance slowly, particularly as Conor’s (non-holiday) baggage includes the original ‘child from hell’ and a temperamental ex-wife with Pre-Raphaelite hair. Since Angela’s never liked winging it, is a future with Conor too uncertain to contemplate?
But as she’s about to discover, her old life was far less secure than she thought. And the past won’t let go until she confronts its long-buried secret.
Reviewed by Tanya Phillips
Iris Brown is a single parent doing her best to raise her beautiful two-year-old daughter, Paola. But when Sergio, Paola’s father, a dashing-but-arrogant Spanish businessman comes back on the scene, everyone’s lives are thrown into chaos. She fears he may take Paola away from her. Iris must decide what’s best for her and her daughter, and whether she can ever trust Sergio again.
He broke her heart once. Will she let him do it again?
Reviewed by Tanya Phillips
Christmas is coming . . . and so is the biggest day of Kate's life.
While choosing a vintage dress for her Christmas Eve wedding, Kate finds a cryptic note pinned to the inside of a 1930s gown. As doubts about her own ceremony loom, Kate is determined to track down the dress' owner and determine what became of her - and the marriage.
Will Kate find the answers she's seeking to propel her down the aisle, or will her discovery prompt her to call off the wedding for good?
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