Charlee and the Chocolate Shop:

A Tale of Two Christmases

by Jessica Redland

Amazon US /  UK / AU / CA

Charlee and the Chocolate Shop is a heart-warming tale of family and friendship.

Master chocolatier, Charlee Chambers, has plenty to be excited about as Christmas approaches. She’s moved in with her boyfriend, Darren, and she’s about to open a chocolate shop, following in her late granddad’s footsteps. If only Darren would show more interest in helping her refurbish Charlee’s Chocolates ready for a December opening.

When water starts pouring through the shop ceiling, and Darren can’t be contacted to help, emergency plumber Matt comes to the rescue. From that moment on, Matt does more to support Charlee in achieving her dreams than Darren ever has, and she finds herself drawn to him. But Matt’s engaged and Charlee loves Darren … doesn’t she? And Darren loves her … or at least, she thinks he does, but he’s been behaving a little strangely recently.

Then Charlee discovers that Darren has a secret. But so does Matt. And so, it seems, does the woman who abandoned her at birth …

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

I’d love to say that I ditched a hot date or a big night out but, let’s face it, my 96-year-old great grandma has a better social life than me.

When they’re all together they act like they’re 16 instead of in their early 30s. It’s as though they’ve just discovered alcohol but the world’s supply is about to run out so they need to consume a lifetime’s quantity in one evening.

What was family? Was it shared genes or was it the people who were there for you no matter what?

Oh my God! This means Satan’s Mistress is your half-sister.

My Review:

I fear Jessica Redland has become an addiction; I adore her sneakily wry and insightful writing style. She has created a picture-perfect scene for Christmas magic with Charlee’s tale; imbuing the story with her lovely descriptions, picturesque details, and emotive word choices that scaled all the feels, several times, while also continually plucking at my curiosity. As with all her poignant books, the characters were intriguingly human, realistically flawed and more than a bit damaged, yet endearingly and admirably shouldering through while working hard and putting their best forward. I aspire to achieve the same but know I fall far short of that goal as I am slothfully lazy and well over my lifetime limit of dealing with difficult people.

Author Bio

Jessica had never considered writing as a career until a former manager kept telling her that her business reports read more like stories and she should write a book. She loved writing but had no plot ideas. Then something happened to her that prompted the premise for her debut novel, Searching for Steven. She put fingers to keyboard and soon realized she had a trilogy and a novella.

She lives on the stunning North Yorkshire Coast — the inspiration for the settings in her books — with her husband, daughter, cat, Sprocker Spaniel, and an ever-growing collection of collectible teddy bears. Although if the dog has her way, the collection will be reduced to a pile of stuffing and chewed limbs!

Her passion for North Yorkshire is shared by fellow-writer and great friend, Sharon Booth and, together, they are the Yorkshire Rose Writers.

Jessica tries to balance her time — often unsuccessfully — between being an HR tutor, trying to re-learn how to play the piano, studying towards a Masters in Creative Writing, and writing itself. Who needs sleep?

Social Media Links

Twitter: @JessicaRedland

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JessicaRedlandWriter/

Website and blog: www.jessicaredland.com

Bear With Me

by Jessica Redland

Amazon US / UK / AU / CA 

Jemma has the job of her dreams as curator for the children’s section of a museum in London. She spends each day surrounded by the one thing she’s absolutely passionate about teddy bears. When boyfriend, Scott, shows a genuine interest in her passion instead of laughing at her for “playing with teddies all day”, she knows he’s a keeper.

Returning home to the North Yorkshire seaside town of Whitsborough Bay to celebrate her birthday, Jemma thinks she’s heading for her happy-ever-after when Scott unexpectedly proposes. So, a few days later, why isn’t he returning her calls or responding to her texts?

Julie has always been a wonderful single mother to Jemma and her little brother, Sean. As the owner of specialist teddy bear shop, Bear With Me, and the creative genius behind the successful range of Ju-Sea Bears, she inspires Jemma with her ability to balance a demanding career with home life. So why is the shop now in disarray and why is Sean so upset?

Sam thought he had his future all worked out. With a promising neurology career, a home, and a devoted fiancée, life was looking good. But now he’s all alone in a strange city, far from everyone and everything he cares about, struggling to rebuild the tatters of his life. Did he do the right thing by running away? What does the future hold and is he strong enough to face it?

Sometimes love finds us when we least expect it. But sometimes love leaves us, just as unexpectedly. When you’ve loved and lost, can you bear to let love in again?

Bear With Me, as all will be revealed …

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Dad hated bears, Mum hated golf, and I was pretty certain they hated each other.

Kirsty begged me to take her back… It was a different technique each time from tears to seduction to pleading temporary insanity because she loved me so much and couldn’t bear being away from me. I never understood that logic. If you miss someone, you send them a text, you look at a photo, you sniff their clothes. You don’t play a game of hide the sausage dressed as a canine.

My Review:

I devoured this engaging and captivating tale, it was full of interesting and heart squeezing storylines that while tragic and angsty, were so well written and expertly tempered with levity and quirkiness that I didn’t seem to mind at all. I adored the main characters although there was a period where I wanted to give Jemma a few hard pinches and a much-needed kick to her posterior to dislodge her cranium. The path of this couple’s relationship was a zigzag route of false starts and bad timing, and I wanted to groan with frustration for them with each near miss. The writing was easy to follow, informative, well-paced, and held my complete attention throughout. I adored the gradual melding of Flash Gordon/Thor/Indiana Jones and the Deputy Head Bear-Keeper. And I scored two fun new additions to my Brit word list with tiddly which is slightly drunk, and nithered which is used in northern UK and Scotland to describe the effects of extreme cold such as intense shivering.

Author Bio

Jessica had never considered writing as a career until a former manager kept telling her that her business reports read more like stories and she should write a book. She loved writing but had no plot ideas. Then something happened to her that prompted the premise for her debut novel, Searching for Steven. She put fingers to keyboard and soon realized she had a trilogy and a novella.

She lives on the stunning North Yorkshire Coast — the inspiration for the settings in her books — with her husband, daughter, cat, Sprocker Spaniel, and an ever-growing collection of collectible teddy bears. Although if the dog has her way, the collection will be reduced to a pile of stuffing and chewed limbs!

Her passion for North Yorkshire is shared by fellow-writer and great friend, Sharon Booth and, together, they are the Yorkshire Rose Writers.

Jessica tries to balance her time — often unsuccessfully — between being an HR tutor, trying to re-learn how to play the piano, studying towards a Masters in Creative Writing, and writing itself. Who needs sleep?

Social Media Links

Twitter: @JessicaRedland

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JessicaRedlandWriter/

Website and blog: www.jessicaredland.com

 Christmas on the Island

by Jenny Colgan

HarperCollins | Amazon | B&N

Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; Reprint edition (October 16, 2018)

On the remote Scottish island of Mure, the Christmas season is stark, windy, and icy—yet incredibly festive and beautiful…

It’s a time for getting cozy in front of whiskey barrel wood fires and enjoying a dram and a treacle pudding with the people you love—unless, of course, you’ve accidentally gotten pregnant by your ex-boss, and don’t know how to tell him. In the season for peace and good cheer, will Flora find the nerve to reveal the truth to her nearest and dearest? Will her erstwhile co-parent Joel think she’s the bearer of glad tidings—or is this Christmas going to be as bleak as the Highlands in midwinter?

Meanwhile, Saif, a doctor, and refugee from war-torn Syria is trying to enjoy his first western Christmas with his sons on this remote island where he’s been granted asylum. His wife, however, is still missing, and her absence hangs over what should be a joyful celebration. Can the family possibly find comfort and joy without her?

Travel to the beautiful northern edge of the world and join the welcoming community of Mure for a Highland Christmas you’ll never forget!

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

…when you grow up somewhere with a population of about a thousand, secret internet shopping came as a boon on par with electricity…

I am definitely and absolutely in the process of considering getting around to telling Joel…

I just wanted to say, if you guys want to keep this secret, you have to stop ignoring everyone else to stare at each other like you want to eat each other up. I mean it, honestly, it’s gross. It’s putting people off their mince pies.

My Review:

This was the third book in the series but my first visit to the island of Mure, so I was unfamiliar with the daunting number of characters residing there, although I quickly grew to adore their individual oddities and the quirkiness of the small community and greedily covet all the previous books as well as all books written by this gifted scribbler. The writing flowed smoothly and easily drew clear visuals across my gray matter as effortlessly as a movie reel. I was transported and felt the chill of their winter and heard the howl of the wind. The storylines were insightfully written and eloquently hit all the feels, although considerable tragedy and real-world problems were front and center despite the season. My eyes may have been stinging and my throat may have closed up a few times, sigh. This author has to have mad skills to have squeezed my cold heart. Her word voodoo is strong.

I was provided with a review copy of this lovely book by HarperCollins and TLC Book Tours.

About Jenny Colgan

Jenny Colgan is the New York Times-bestselling author of numerous novels, including The Bookshop on the Corner, Little Beach Street Bakery, and Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery, all international bestsellers. Jenny is married with three children and lives in London and Scotland.

Find out more about Jenny at her website, and connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

This post was chosen as a Booktastic Link Up

Booktastic Link it up Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by Jo Linsdell where book bloggers can link up their latest book related post.

Christmas at the Lakeside Resort

Adorable Fat Girl and the Mysterious Invitation

by Bernice Bloom

Mary Brown receives an invitation to a funeral. But she has absolutely no idea who the deceased is. She’s told that he invited her on his deathbed, and he’s very keen for her to attend, so she heads off to a dilapidated old farmhouse in a remote part of Wales. When she gets there she discovers that only five other people have been invited to the funeral. None of them knows who he is either.

NO ONE GOING TO THIS FUNERAL HAS EVER HEARD OF THE DECEASED. WHAT IS GOING ON??

Then they are told that they have 20 hours to work out why they have been invited in order to inherit a million pounds.

Who is this guy and why are they there? And what of the ghostly goings-on in the ancient old building?

Featuring Mary Brown, star of the Adorable Fat Girl series of books, in her greatest adventure yet.

This is BOOK NINE in the series but can be enjoyed as a stand-alone book or as part of the series.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

“I met a yogi, banged my head, lay there as some bloke’s tackle fell out of his shorts when he was coming down from downward dog, then came home again.” … “What about the bloke with the runaway testicles?”

He indicated the seat next to him and put the phone on the table in front of us, clicking it onto loudspeaker. We leaned over it like the French resistance and Ted dialed the number.

I am a size 22, I convince myself that I’m 20 but since I can’t get into clothes that are size 20, it’s an entirely inaccurate conviction.

At Llanelli station I was the only person to get off the train, and I stepped onto the deserted platform like I was in some film from wartime… I was half waiting for the steam to clear to reveal my family, running towards me to greet me after I’d been away at war for years.

My Review:

The Adorable Fat Girl series is indeed just that, Mary Brown is sweet, adorable, and a ton of good fun. And so are the scribblings of her talented creator, Bernice Bloom. I am totally enamored with the both of them.   There was a mystery afoot and the taxi driver transporting Mary to the funeral was a tad confused and introduced her as Miss Marple upon arrival. Mary didn’t have a chance of solving the intriguing and well-crafted conundrum, but neither did anyone else. Mary’s sincere attempts and wry observations were highly amusing and entertaining.   And joy, I have two additions to my Brit Word List with faffing about – dithering or wasting time, and bender – slang for a male homosexual.

Author Bio 

My name is Bernice Bloom and I write funny novels about a crazy lady called Mary Brown in my ‘Adorable Fat Girl’ series. 

Mary is funny, gorgeous and bonkers. She’s also about six stone overweight. When she realizes she can’t cross her legs and has trouble bending over to tie her shoelaces without wheezing like an elderly chain-smoker it’s time to take action. But what action? She’s tried every diet under the sun.

This series is the hysterical story of what happens when Mary joins ‘Fat Club’ where she meets a cast of funny characters and one particular man who catches her eye.
The series follows Mary as she goes on safari, on a cruise, to a weekend yoga retreat, and on an incredible adventure when she receives a mysterious invitation to a funeral.

The stories are laugh-out-loud funny and will resonate with anyone who has dieted, tried to keep up with any sort of exercise programme or spent 10 minutes in a changing room trying to extricate herself from a way-too-small garment that she ambitiously tried on and is now completely stuck in. xx

My website is: www.bernicebloom.com

Social Media Links –

https://www.facebook.com/BerniceBloombooks/

https://twitter.com/Bernice1Bloom