Mini-Reviews: Christmas Chick-Lit!

Christmas at Lilac Cottage, Holly Martin

25^th September|350|Bookouture

Synopsis

Welcome to the charming seaside town of White Cliff Bay, where Christmas is magical and love is in the air…

Penny Meadows loves her home – a cosy cottage decorated with pretty twinkling fairy lights and stunning views over the town of White Cliff Bay. She also loves her job as an ice carver, creating breathtaking sculptures. Yet her personal life seems frozen.

When Henry and his daughter Daisy arrive at the cottage to rent the annex, Penny is determined to make them feel welcome. But while Daisy is friendly, Henry seems guarded.

As Penny gets to know Henry, she realises there is more to him than meets the eye. And the connection between them is too strong to ignore.

While the spirit of the season sprinkles its magic over the seaside town and preparations for the ice sculpting competition and Christmas Eve ball are in full swing, can penny melt the ice and allow love in her heart? And will this finally be the perfect Christmas she's been dreaming of?

Mini-Review

I’m really glad I picked Christmas at Lilac Cottage for my first festive read of 2015! It’s funny, warm and charming.

I’ll be upfront and say that there’s nothing special about this novel; the writing is average and the characters have great spiels of back story mid-conversation, but it was a quick, easy and fun read that got me in the Christmas spirit.

I really loved the relationship between Henry and his daughter, sixteen-year-old Daisy. He’s a single dad and is fiercely protective of Daisy, terrified of her getting hurt and she's the centre of his world. They were kind of adorable together. The teasing, the banter, the openness and easy affection was all really lovely and there’s no way you wouldn’t want to be a part of that family. Penny was the perfect antidote to Henry’s fire and a great mum figure to Daisy and I championed them from the start!

The only issue I had with Henry and Penny’s relationship was the sheer speed of it. Henry constantly talks of protecting Daisy from his love life and not wanting her to feel let down or abandoned if things go wrong etc, but him and Penny were declaring their love for each other loudly and proudly a week after meeting. There was a whole host of instalove and definite instalust in Christmas at Lilac Cottage and it was a little strange for me as I so rarely read adult women’s fiction anymore and those that I do read rarely feature it at all.

Holly Martin’s first Christmas offering of this year (Snowflakes on Silver Cove is set in the same town!) was a lovely, if forgettable read, to get me in the festive mood.  

The Twelve Dates of Christmas, Lisa Dickenson

22^nd October 2015|384|Sphere

Synopsis

At thirty, Claudia’s life is stale and the romance with long-term boyfriend, Seth, has disappeared. Determined to inject some festive spark back into their love-life, Claudia and Seth go on their first date in a very long time. But when the night ends in disaster, Claudia suddenly finds herself facing life – and Christmas – alone.

Life alone is exciting, scary and full of soon-forgotten exercise regimes and ill-advised attempts at crafting sexy underwear. It's also filling up with dates, surprisingly. With best friend Penny and Nick at her side, a surplus of festive markets, mulled wine and Christmas tunes, Claudia attempts to face all this change with gusto. One thing’s for certain: this year, Christmas is going to be very different.

Mini-Review

Though The Twelve Dates of Christmas is my least favourite of the Christmas novels I've read this year, it's still a quick, fun, easy read.

This novel was originally released in twelve parts – one for each of Claudia’s dates – and this is the first release of it as a complete novel. It didn’t feel segmented at all and flowed seamlessly, though I really felt that it would have been more suited to first person narration as every time I noticed it was in third I was thrown out of the story and Claudia’s life. It would have felt so much more natural and immediate and I wonder if I would have enjoyed The Twelve Dates of Christmas more if that had been the case.

I carried on reading for Nick. He’s completely and utterly adorable. Tall, super-hot, goofy and ridiculously sweet – he's pretty much the perfect guy. I loved the bumbling, teasing, easy interactions between him and Claudia and though it was obvious that they would be endgame from very early on, I still enjoyed watching the ifs, buts and near misses between them. But sadly, it wasn’t enough to carry the entire novel. But around 60% I was bored and I ended up skimming the rest, eager to just get it finished.

If you’re looking for something cute and humorous to devour quickly after a stressful family Christmas, this is your book, just don’t expect anything particularly special from it.  

Never Kiss a Man in a Christmas Jumper, Debbie Johnson

5^th November|186|Harper Impulse

Synopsis

You’ve seen Mark Darcy in the reindeer jumper his mother gave him, now meet Marco Cavelli in this season’s hottest knit!

For single mum Maggie, Christmas has always been a family occasion – her daughter Ellen filling the house with her bubbly warmth and mistletoe, her dad Paddy having one too many festive tipples, and the traditional family Christmas tree looking like a drunken elf vomited a rainbow all over it.

But this year, with both Ellen and Paddy away for the holidays, Maggie’s facing a truly blue Christmas – alone with nothing but a bottle of Baileys and an M&S turkey dinner.

Until walking the snowy streets of Oxford, Marco Cavelli quite literally crashes into her life – and, complete with a broken leg, becomes her unexpected houseguest. All dreamy brown eyes and 6’5” of gorgeousness, the man is hotter and more delicious than a freshly baked mince pie.

Though Maggie always thought it’s a truth universally acknowledged that you never kiss a man in a Christmas jumper?

Mini-Review

Though Never Kiss a Man in a Christmas Jumper comes in at under 200 pages and I devoured it in only a few hours, I really connected with this festive feast.

This novel has a completely lovely set up. Maggie is a single mother to a loud-mouthed teenager called Ellen. They live in Oxford and it's blanketed in gorgeous thick snow and Maggie is running around perfecting the wedding dresses she made for a couple of Christmas weddings. It’s delightfully English. Then Marco literally coms crashing into her life and she finds a gorgeous man suddenly invading her life.

Marco and Maggie had really good chemistry and I completely bought their growing attraction to each other and the feelings that came along too. I mean, it was a bit clichéd with Marco being a gorgeous Casanova and Maggie having practically been a nun since having Ellen when she was sixteen – it’s not a trope I like. In a genre that should celebrate sexuality and powerful women it tends to just play up to the you’re ‘either you’re a nun or you’re a slut’ thing while the man has enjoyed casual sex without thought. But nonetheless, I liked the level of emotional baggage Maggie’s past brought to the table.

This was a quick, festive read that had me longing for a gorgeous Italian American man like Marco to walk around a snowy Christmas market with.

Sophie 

Leap of Faith, Candy Harper

Pages: 266

Publisher: S&S

Release Date: 31^st December 2015

Edition: UK paperback, review copy

Other Titles by this Author: Have a Little Faith, Keep the Faith, Perfectly Ella

I haven’t had a very good Easter holiday. It's hard to hop about like a happy bunny when the boy you like has started seeing someone else. And while we’re on the subject, why is it always the wrong boy who ends up confessing his undying love to you? Talk about awkward.

My BFF is being weird and refusing to come on the French Exchange – when she should know that this is exactly when I need her the most. Mrs RamsBOTTOM is trying to sabotage my plans to be prefect, my arch nemesis Icky is still intent on ruining my life and I’m pretty sure exams shoed. I'm going to have to work pretty hard if I want to spend several hours a day lounging about, eating biscuits…

I completely love Faith so I got very excited when a copy of her third adventure, Leap of Faith, dropped through my letterbox and I read it within two days of receiving it.

Within a few pages I was thrown back into the chaos of Faith’s life, her madcap friends and hilarious misadventures and I couldn’t help but think again how much she reminds me of Georgia Nicolson in her earlier diaries. I found myself laughing aloud so many times when I was reading that I started earning very worried looks from my sister and the cat…

There’s not a single character in Leap of Faith that I didn’t love completely. Faith, Megs, Westy, Ethan, Angharad, Lily, Josette – all of ‘em. I loved the focus on friendship, particularly navigating hiccups those friendships. It was all handled realistically with the heart of the characters kept intact. This really extended into Harper’s portrayal of Faith’s family. I love how present and fully-formed they are; they’re not just accessories to Faith, they’re part of the story too.

A huge part of the Leap of Faith was the many ups, downs and near misses with Ethan. They’re just so perfect together that I was on the verge of jumping up and down shouting ‘KISS!’ for most of the novel. They share a sense of humour, approach life with the same sense of trouble and they just have a genuine connection! There were lots of warm fuzzies in this book.

I completely loved Leap of Faith and I really hope there’s more from Faith as I really felt like this was an ending…

Thanks to S&S for the review copy.

Sophie 

Letterbox Love #116

Letterbox Love is a way to give all of the books I receive for review some exposure. Summaries are taken from the cover, or Amazon/NetGalley/Goodreads in the case of e-books, unless otherwise stated.

Leap of Faith, Candy Harper (paperback)

I haven’t had a very good Easter holiday. It's hard to hop about like a happy bunny when the boy you like has started seeing someone else. And while we’re on the subject, why is it always the wrong boy who ends up confessing his undying love to you? Talk about awkward.

My BFF is being weird and refusing to come on the French Exchange – when she should know that this is exactly when I need her the most. Mrs RamsBOTTOM is trying to sabotage my plans to be prefect, my arch nemesis Icky is still intent on ruining my life and I’m pretty sure exams should be outlawed. I'm going to have to work pretty hard if I want to spend several hours a day lounging about, eating biscuits…

Yay! Thanks S&S!

The Reluctant Journal of Henry K Larsen, Susin Neilsen (paperback)

‘Everyone has their secrets. But mine can't be shared. The psychologist says I should talk about it. And he wants me to keep this journal. I’ll keep the stupid journal. But it stays a secret.’

Henry used to have a normal life. But one day, 7 ½ months ago, everything changed.

Now he's moved with his dad to a new city, where nobody knows their name. living off a diet of pizza, hiding from the nosy neighbours, Henry just wants to stay under the radar and keep his family’s secret.

Then he meets Farley and Alberta, fellow social misfits who just will not leave his alone. And little by little, the past begins to come out.

I adored We Are All Made of Molecules so I’m super excited for this. Thanks Andersen Press!

The It Girl: Team Awkward, Katy Birchall (paperback)

There are good ways of starting back at school after half term as an ‘It Girl’, but hiding in the loo because the video of you falling bottom first into a paint pot has gone viral is not one of them.

If everything Anna does is going to be seen by more than 10 million people, then she's determined to find something that she's really good at. Everyone else seems to have a ‘thing’ – especially the new girl at school distracting Connor with their shared love of art. Luckily the school sports day is looming and Anna is limbering up!

What could go wrong?

I was so pleasantly surprised when I read this earlier in the year so I’m looking forward to more of Anna’s antics. Thanks Egmont!

Dumplin’, Julie Murphy (hardback)

Self-proclaimed far girl Willowdean Dickson (dubbed “Dumplin’ by her former beauty queen mom) has always been at home in her own skin. Her thoughts on having the perfect bikini body? Put a bikini on your body. With her all-American beauty best friend, Ellen, at her side, things have always worked…until Will takes a job at Harpy’s, the local fast-food joint. There she meets Private School Bo, a hot former jock. Will isn’t surprised to find herself attracted to Bo. But she is surprised when he seems to like her back.

Instead of finding herself new heights of self-assurance in her relationship with Bo, Will starts to doubt herself. So she sets out to take back her confidence by doing the most horrifying thing she can imagine: entering the most Miss Clover City beauty pageant – along with several other unlikely candidates – to show the world that she deserves to be up to there as much as any twiggy girl does. Along the way, she’ll shock the hell out of Clvoer City – and maybe herself most of all.

With starry Texas nights, red candy suckers, Dolly Parton songs, and a wildly unforgettable heroine – Dumplin’ is guaranteed to steal your heart.

I am SO looking forward to this! Thanks Harper 360!

Judged, Liz de Jager (e-proof)

Kit’s job description includes solving crimes – the supernatural kind…

Glow, a fae-created drug, is rapidly going viral and the suppliers have to be shut down. Teaming up with Aiden and Dante, Kit follows leads across London, tracking down dealers. They stir up trouble, making themselves a target for the gang they're trying to stop.

In the Otherwhere, Thorn stumbles across a secret that could destroy both the human and Fae worlds. The Veil that separates our human world from the fae realms is weakening and the goddess is dying. And if she dies and the Veil falls, madness and chaos will wreak unstoppable havoc upon both lands.

Thorn turns to the only person he knows who’ll be able to help him: Kit. Torn between working the Glow case and her loyalty for the young prince, Kit is propelled headlong into a world of danger. She faces enemies from both the Otherworld and our world. And as the stakes are raised, the consequences of failure for both Kit and Thorn, and two realms, could be devastating.

I’m so looking forward to seeing how this all ends! But I’ll also be sad to see Kit go. Thanks Tor and NetGalley!

Walk the Edge, Katie McGarry (e-proof)

Razor knows his family is haunted by secrets of the past.

High school senior Thomas ‘Razor’ Turner knows his family has a dark history as part of the Reign of Terror motorcycle club, especially when it comes to the secrecy surrounding his mother’s death. When Razor starts to dig deeper into his mum’s case he turns to the unlikeliest source for help: classmate Breanna Miller, the shy, smart girl he's never looked twice at. But the more time they spend together, the more they realise they actually have in common, and how attracted to each other they really are.

When secrets from the past are revealed, can their new found feelings survive?

I love Katie McGarry’s books. They’re quick, fun effortlessly involving. Thanks MiraInk and NetGalley!

Sophie 

Celebrating Jane Austen: A Cultural Legacy

Jane Austen’s legacy has extended far beyond her beloved novels and the adaptations that provide comfort to so many. Particularly in Bath (which, incidentally, Austen hated) and Hampshire where she lived, there are so many places to visit and see which allow you a glimpse into Austen’s world in Georgian England and what remains of her personal life. So here are a few cool things to do around the UK:

Jane Austen Tours

During the summer, the Jane Austen Centre put on a 90 minute walking tour of Jane’s Bath. Led around the city by either Lizzie or Darcy, you’ll visit places important in her novels and her time in the city.

 

Source: Jane Austen

Jane Austen Centre

Situated in a Georgian townhouse in the centre of Bath, just a few minutes’ walk from the Circus and Royal Crescent, the Jane Austen Museum is a permanent exhibition that displays Jane’s experience of Bath and the bearing it had on her work, as well as lots of history about the city that will paint a portrait of what it would have been like in the early 19^th Century.

The Jane Austen Centre also houses a gorgeous Regency Tea Room and a gift shop that I personally visited a good many times during my time at university in Bath. It’s a Janeite’s dream.

Source: Jane Austen Festival

Jane Austen Festival

The Jane Austen Festival is a 10-day celebration of all things Austen in Bath. It runs every year in September and features a full programme of events featuring, talks, readings, screenings, walking tours, dances, workshops and the famous parade. When I lived in Bath I loved to watch the troupes of men, women and children marching through the city streets in full Regency dress. It’s a glorious sight and Bath is filled with a magical zeal throughout the promenade. There’s also a grand summer ball every year.

Grave at Winchester Cathedral

In 1816, when Jane was getting increasingly ill, she travelled with her sister Cassandra to Winchester in a bid to get help from the new hospital next to the cathedral. Unfortunately, Jane’s conditioned worsened quickly and she died in July 1817 and was buried in the Cathedral under a simple grave which mentions nothing of her writing.

Source: Jane Austen's House Museum

Jane Austen House Museum

Jane lived in this little cottage in Chawton for eight years along with her mother and sister who continued to live there until the death of Cassandra where it was turned into accommodation for labourers for the next 100 years. It was then bought by a MR TE Carpenter who turned it into a museum celebrating Jane and her life and work. The house contains lots of artefacts of Jane’s and represents the simple lodgings of most early 19^th Century families.

 

Source: British Library

British Library

As per her request, Jane’s sister, Cassandra, destroyed most of Jane’s personal letters upon her death, but a few do still remain. The British Library holds 13 original documents in Jane’s hand, including letters and a few pages of a manuscript detailing an alternative ending to Persuasion which she later revised. I’ll be making a pilgrimage to the British Library next year to see these myself.

Where would you like to visit? Any literary places I should add to my list?

Sophie

Celebrating Jane Austen: Love and Money in Jane Austen by Natasha Farrant

Today I have the lovely Natasha Farrant, author of The Diaries of Bluebell Gadsby (which I love!), talking about love, money and Mrs Bennett!

LOVE AND MONEY IN JANE AUSTEN, AND WHY MRS BENNET IS NOT AS SILLY AS SHE SEEMS

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

In one of the best opening lines in literature, Austen lays out her wares: this is to be a story of marriage.  How brilliant that the line should belong to a character who is rendered almost a caricature in her pursuit of a good marriage for her daughters, and yet that it should also contain so much wry truth.  

​Throughout Pride and Prejudice, Mrs Bennet’s single motivating force is to marry off her daughters, and she is prepared to resort to any means to achieve her purpose: she sends one daughter on horseback to dine with the sisters of a rich bachelor - “because it seems likely to rain; and then you must stay all night.”  She is prepared to marry another off to the utterly ghastly but one day to be rich Mr Collins, and to send her fifteen year old to cavort with a camp full of officersin dissipated Brighton. Time and again, we are reminded of how ghastly she is. What can she understand of marriage, when her own is so unhappy? How awful she is – how shallow, and silly she appears to the modern reader! Shouldn’t she want something more for her girls? Teach them that they don’t need a man, help them to stand on their own feet? Well, yes, ideally.  But as every contemporary reader knew, Mrs Bennet (and Austen) lived in a world in which women could only inherit property if there were no male heir, be he a distant cousin.  A world in which a gentlewoman had no means of making money other than as a governess or teacher, which reduced her to the lowest of the low.  Marriage in the world of Jane Austen is not about romance: it is about survival. 

In order to fully understand Mrs Bennet, I find it helpful to consider another of Austen’s great comic characters, Miss Bates from Emma.  Miss Bates is a gentlewoman, fallen on such hard times that she and has had to send away her beloved little orphaned niece Jane Fairfax, to be raised by wealthy friends of Jane’s late father.  For years, Miss Bates lives and breathes by Jane’s letters, boring everyone with detailed accounts of her niece’s growing list of accomplishments.  Her interminable monologues, punctuated by Austen’s idiosyncratic, breathless dashes, are comic genius. She is a brilliant caricature of a well-meaning bore, but Austen imbues her also with genuine pathos . “She is poor; she has sunk from the comforts she was born to; and, if she live to old age, must probably sink more. Her situation should secure your compassion”, Mr Knightley scolds Emma - and with that line, drives home the dark truth which haunts Austen’s work. Miss Bates is destined to live the rest of her life on a diminishing pittance, looking after her infirm mother, dependent on the charity of others and separated from the niece she adores but cannot afford to support.

With no family or husband to support them, women must face a bleak existence.  When Mr Bennet dies, the Bennet family home will be inherited by a distant cousin. Aside from a small amount settled on Mrs Bennet by her parents when she married, she and any of her five daughters who remain unmarried will be entirely dependent on the mercy of relatives, and with no husband to rescue them, her daughters will suffer the same fate as Miss Bates. That is the reality of their situation, and that is why Mrs Bennet is such a brilliant character.  Yes, she is silly, uneducated and hopelessly vulgar in her attempts to secure husbands for her daughters, but there is real pathos here too, for her efforts are born from pragmatism and fear. 

​“But what of love?” romantics may cry.  Well, of course there is love.  Austen, after all, is the woman who turned down a brilliant offer of marriage – one which would have guaranteed security for her, her sister and her mother for the rest of their days – because she did not think she and her enamoured were compatible.   She was a sensible woman – indeed “sensible” along with “elegant” seems to be her highest compliment.  She knew that marriage without attraction, respect and admiration was an unhappy affair – but she also knew also from her own experience how grinding poverty can be.  And so the novels evolve in a perpetual balance between money and love.  Austen is kind to her heroines, who all make dazzling matches to men they love – but it is notable that not one of them marries a poor man.Money, as much as love, drives her plots.  Anne Elliot is persuaded to refuse Frederick Wentworth when his fortune is uncertain, and accepts him when he is rich. Frank Churchill keeps his relationship with Jane Fairfax secret from his rich aunt for fear of being disinherited.  The outcome of every single love affair in Sense and Sensibility is determined by characters’ relative fortunes.  And when Lydia – who is not a heroine - runs away with Wickham, we get a few passing references to the possibility of their being in love, but meticulous information about how much he was paid to marry her.  The message is clear: without money, romance means very little. 

Though nobody in Pride and Prejudice is actually poor, the fear of poverty is never far away.  Satire survives only so long as it is based on truth.  We love the romance, the dashing heroes, the secret liaisons.  But Austen – and Mrs Bennet – knew that in the marriage market, everyone is looking for a bargain.  This is the bleak reality that faces the Bennet sisters.  It is what makes the outcome of their romances so satisfying, and it is the tension between necessary mendaciousness and socially acceptable behaviour that makes their mother so funny, but also so very right.  That is why she is given the opening line, and that is why her triumph at the end of the book, rings so true. “Three daughters married! Ten thousand a year! Oh, Lord! What will become of me! I shall go distracted” –for once, we laugh with her and not at her, despite her terrible blindness to Lydia’s folly, her hypocrisy towards Mr Darcy and that dreadful line to Jane “I knew you could not be so beautiful for nothing”. She is ridiculous, but she is honest. She knew from the opening line what she wanted, and she got it. She is safe. Her daughters are safe. Now they can get on with the business of being happy.