Eleanor Sharpley has been living a lie…

Needing to escape her London life quickly, Eleanor throws her things into the back of her car and heads to her erstwhile best friend Charlie’s family farm.

But Charlie isn’t there. Instead, she finds Charlie’s grieving brother Daniel, her eight-month-old daughter Hope (a daughter Eleanor had known nothing about), and a crumbling and unloved Damson Farm.

Damson Farm lies at the edge of the village of Ferrington, with the river Maddon flowing at its heart. But Ferrington is a village divided by more than just a river – it is split in two by an age-old feud – between the Old Side and the New Side. Eleanor has run from her problems, straight into a family and a world that has problems of its own.

But Damson Farm has magic too, and as winter gives way to spring, the old farm starts to come to life under Eleanor’s love and care. The orchard starts to blossom with daffodils and bluebells, and the sound of bees busy in their hives fills the warming air. Can Eleanor bring Daniel and the feuding village of Ferrington back to life too, or will her secrets catch up with her first?

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Pastry chef Chloe Mason is always chosen last, so when she has to fill a space for a no-show contestant on the popular reality cooking show The Big Bake-off, she vows to settle for nothing less than first place. With her and Luxe Resorts’ reputations on the line, she puts all distractions aside—that is until fellow competitor Mark McMillan kicks things up a notch in the kitchen. Before she knows it, the attraction between them moves from a slow bake to a full broil!

Baker Mark McMillan is about to lose everything—his home, his business, his self-respect. Winning The Big Bake-off is his last-ditch effort to save it all. Victory should be as easy as pie, but Chloe Mason could ruin everything with her sweet-as-spun-sugar smile. She’s one teaspoon of trouble, a tablespoon of frustration, and a whole lot of competition.

Will rivalry ruin the passion stirring inside them, or will they each bring the perfect ingredient to make a winning recipe for love?

Find out in A Dollop of Delight …

A brilliant counselor at work in York, she is however floundering in her own life. Her romantic track record is woeful, her finances are in a pickle, and she’s back in a house-share after splitting up with her useless ex.

But one thing Ruby is brilliant at is helping other people find a way through their problems, and she excels at the job she loves, doing just that.

Happy-go-lucky, Mr. Positivity, Zac Drewe also loves his job – the trouble is, it’s the same as Ruby’s, and the management has decided to ‘rationalize’ their department. There’s only room for one of them.

As the snow and winter close in on York, Ruby and Zac have everything to lose, and Ruby starts to wonder if the happy face Zac shows the world, might be disguising a sadder secret.

Set against one another, they are unlikely friends. But perhaps, if they could take the time to understand each other, they might discover that rather than rivals, they could be the best thing that ever happened to one another…

An enthralling novel of secrets, second chances, and confronting the past by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of When I’m Gone.

After a series of devastating losses, Chicago journalist Hannah Williamson has landed in Senatobia, Mississippi, to care for her bedridden grandmother and endure grunt work at a small newspaper. But in cleaning out its archives, Hannah discovers a compelling distraction from her life: a series of rejected articles from the 1930s that illuminate a long-hidden mystery.

The articles, penned by a young woman named Evelyn, are haunting accounts of first love, trauma, and surviving a mysterious shooting that left Evelyn paralyzed at the age of fourteen. The articles stir up more questions than answers, and Hannah becomes consumed by what’s left unsaid. Encouraged by Guy Franklin, a local middle school teacher, Hannah’s investigation into Evelyn’s past becomes more personal with each new reveal. For Hannah, as both a journalist and a woman bearing her own emotional wounds, this is a chance to move forward and bring closure to the story of the girl whose secrets are buried in Senatobia.

What Hannah’s about to discover next is that, even after nearly a century, the truth she’s been looking for still has the power to change lives. Especially her own.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

We love Aunt Elizabeth, but she’s a human corset, and a tight one at that. A person needs to breathe after a week of wearing her.

I couldn’t think what she meant—it made no sense. But that’s how it was with Emily. She sometimes said things in a way made me think I should be writing down the words and saving them like gold coins.

Thank you. You always wear the perfume of thoughtfulness.

It’s hard work tending the grieving, for they don’t have their wits about them. And the dead always leave troubles behind for the living to mend.

Haven’t you ever noticed how certain scents flutter around us, Maggie! Like ribbons in a breeze.

She turned and gave me a sad smile. “It’s the transitory nature of life that makes it so sweet, don’t you think, Maggie?” she said. “The knowing each moment that it will never come again.”

I closed the window and drew the curtains so her spirit wouldn’t be coming back and making mischief. For I knew she would try. Emily had a talent for mischief and I wasn’t so foolish to think Death would be stopping her.

It was Emily’s favorite time of day, an hour before sunset when the air turns gold.

My Review:

I enjoyed this insightfully written dual timeline tale weaving fact and fiction about the enigmatic Emily Dickinson. The writing was stellar and true to the period with amusing and profound perceptions of an often-disconcerted Irish maid who was initially coerced into working in the home of the revered family. The engaging storylines crossed several of my favorite genres including women’s fiction, historical fiction, and family drama with descriptions and observations that conjured sharp visuals to my gray matter.

The Dickinsons were an odd family, each one being quite peculiar in their own way, yet Emily’s oddities were the most intriguing and sparked of brilliance. It feels an outrage that her haunting passages and clever wordcraft weren’t appreciated until after her death.

I’d never heard or read of several of the Irish phrases used, such as “wet the tea,” yet the meaning was immediately clear with writing that was easy to fall into and engaged the senses. This was my first exposure to the talented scribe known as Amy Belding Brown, but it certainly will not be my last as I was impressed and consumed by her craft and fell into a Google wormhole looking up the characters and scandals she featured. The research and prep must have been massive, as is my adoration of her mad skills.

Meet Katie: she’s about to marry the most wonderful man in the world. The planning is done, the checklist is checked. The future is set.

Having spent her twenties and thirties enjoying life with good friends, and building a career she loves, it’s taken Katie until her forties to contemplate settling down. And she couldn’t be more delighted she waited.

So, why is her perfect groom standing gawping at her, wearing mismatched socks and sweating buckets? This can’t bode well.

With her special day in tatters, Katie has a decision to make. Does she snatch back the reigns of her old life, and tighten her grip even more? Or should she take a chance on change? Will she find the key to happiness at a Pilates class in a smelly old hall? Or is the curveball heading her way too huge to handle?

If you like British humor and a flawed protagonist on an emotional journey, you’ll enjoy reading Amanda Paull’s latest novel, Colouring Outside the Lines – a heart-warming tale of shattered dreams, self-discovery, and finding true love where you least expect it.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

‘I wish I’d had a cute brother. Our Simon gave my Barbie a crew cut and pinched the wheels off her car.’ She struggled to imagine him ever looking cute, even when he was young. He’d always had a face she felt like slapping. Or perhaps that was only because he’d been such a rubbish big brother. The image of her empty piggy bank flashed across her mind, and she had an urge to slap his grown-up face.

Katie stood in the doorway and gave a loud cough. Her parents both shot around, their expressions frozen in horror. They looked like a terrible photograph, snapped in the night following a rude awakening from a bright torch. The comedic aspect of this scene took the edge off Katie’s growing anxiety, and she had to bite the inside of her cheek not to laugh.

My Review:

I adore Amanda Paull, her unique tales and peculiar casts of players tickle my funny bone in the most merciless manner. She specializes in creating outlandishly obnoxious, selfish, and amusingly hideous family members and characters that are on the edge of vile, yet I have never failed to remain invested and engaged in their tales – if only to see that the one semi-normal family member comes out alive at the end. The humorous storylines annoyed, entertained, and kept me guessing. I wanted to give the main character numerous pinches as well as a few hugs before I reached the end, at least she did apologize for being “a bit deranged.” I am still smirking an hour after finishing and eager to see what Ms. Paull’s magical pen conjures up next.

But, in just one day, everything changes.

In just one day, Flora’s life falls apart.

In just one day, Flora has to learn how to live again.

From the nostalgia of seaside Britain to the breath-taking beauty of Venice, in tears and laughter, join Helen McGinn for this emotional, uplifting and joyful story about love in all its guises. But above all, this is an unforgettable story of one little girl and the brother she adores.

My Rating:

Favorite Quote:

‘I’d rather have Pete than not and, I don’t know, maybe it won’t last forever but I love him, and if that means trusting him when he’s face to face with much bigger tits than mine then that’s what I have to do’… Tilda looked over at Pete. ‘I think it’s time I went and retrieved him.’ She rolled her eyes at Susie. ‘What is it about boys and boobs?’

My Review:

This was my introduction to the stellar word skills of Helen McGinn, and what could be better than finding the main character was a wine specialist as I specialize in drinking it. Her poignant and agile storytelling hit all the feels with humor and profound insight and somehow miraculously maintained a well-honed balance in emotional tone while raising serious family issues and intense grief without being overly dreary. I sank right into the thoughtfully crafted storylines and was ardently and empathetically present with her enticing characters as if I were sharing their air. Helen McGinn has mad skills and a new fangirl.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Why can’t a woman operate outside the kitchen? Why can’t a wife work? She thought that when the war ended, the fighting would be over, but it seems that for her, and so many women like her, it’s only just starting… peace hasn’t turned out to be quite as simple as she’d hoped.

They were all set for me to go home and swan around with Mother, waiting for the season to start so I could put on a ridiculous extravagance of a white dress and catch myself a husband. Their main ambition was for me to get someone “with all their limbs”.

I sometimes think that so many of us gunner girls –and all the other servicewomen and factory workers and land girls –fought harder after the war than we did during it. Society wanted to slot us conveniently back into our kitchen-shaped holes, but we’d grown and we weren’t going to shrink ourselves to fit back inside. ‘It was the same all over Europe. We think of feminism as starting with the bra-burnings in the seventies but, let me tell you, it was the second half of the forties that got things moving.

My Review:

This was dual-timeline and historical fiction done right, and the feminist in me cheered. The storylines were thoughtfully layered and shrewdly paced with family drama, an intriguing mystery, romance, and insightful bits of history while it entertained and hit all the feels.  The overall premise was eye-opening, as silly me, I had not stopped to think about the women of WWII this way.

The book drove home the realization that the post-WWII era was actually the kick-off of women finding their voice and value outside of domesticity on a larger scale across the globe. While the women may not have been all that interested in taking on the vacant jobs and roles of their men at war, they felt differently about themselves for having stepped up and into the fray, yet the returning men and peacetime societies weren’t receptive to women’s efforts to continue moving forward. While the end of the war was a good thing for the world, the war ending had ignited the beginning of women’s personal battles to get out of the kitchen, stay relevant, and hang on to their jobs and self-worth.

Needless to say, this book took me much longer to read as the story threads led me down a rabbit hole of Googling which was ignited by the inspiration of these endearing Ack-Ack characters, with Ack-Ack girls actually being my first inquiry. Anna Stuart was a new name for me when I picked up this book and I now have the deepest respect for her craft and appreciate the lessons learned from her endless hours of research and preparation.