Book-Mad-Mum

    E vie Bird is a romance writer whose latest bestseller is being made into a Christmas movie. Behind the scenes, she has a lot on her plate, with her mother in a care home, no relationship with her father and now a new book deadline on the horizon. Duke Carlisle is a world-famous actor who has landed the role of leading man in the film. Fresh out of a relationship with his co-star Daphne, the atmosphere on set is a little fraught. Evie is contractually obliged to appear on set as a consultant, and when she meets Duke it’s a frosty encounter. In fact, the only thing icier than their interactions is the snow that coats the Bavarian streets they are filming on. But after images of them arguing leak to the press and put the movie in jeopardy, they are left with no choice but to fake date until the cameras stop rolling. As the pair start to put their differences aside, gradually, somewhere along the Romantic Road, their feeli

  Christmas is upon us and Kate, a lawyer who wants to change the world, but is stuck working on high profile divorce cases, embarks on a visit home with her partner Ed, a musician who now teaches at a local secondary school. At the start of the road trip while encountering the inevitable holiday traffic, a row ensues, and instead of singing along to their usual cheesy festive tunes their journey is as frosty as the outside temperature and their relationship melts away before their very eyes. Being Christmas, both Kate and Ed decide to put on a brave face and make the heart-breaking decision to go their separate ways after the holiday season but both agree not to tell their respective families and spoil Christmas for everyone. I absolutely adored this book – you can’t help loving Ed, he really has a heart of gold and would do anything for Kate, who seemed a bit harsh at times. Settle down with the Christmas tree lights on, a glass of either mulled wine, or a steaming cup of hot

    Roxborough Hall is a stately home in in Norfolk, and when the current custodian Cecily dies the house goes through its unusual tradition. For this mansion is not automatically left to the next in line, but instead there is a special dinner for the family where each guest receives a letter telling them if the estate has been left to them or not and the reason why. Each member of the Mordaunt family feels they deserve to inherit it from the eldest son David and his wife Bryony to younger brother Grant who always has a different girlfriend on his arm. Or perhaps this time it will skip a generation and one of the grandchildren will take the reins. There is a long list of characters involved in this story, and initially at the start I had to really concentrate on the family linage to remember who was who, but that quickly settled down and you become very invested in the characters and their back story - my personal favourite was Willa who is trying desperately to keep her life on