Maddy Young thought she had it all.

Swanky city apartment? – yep. Fancy car? sorted. High-flying career? – tick.

Even if she’s lost most of her friends because of spending all her time at work, and can’t remember when she last had fun, it’s worth it.

Until she’s suddenly made redundant. Now she’s 37, jobless, and after the breakup with the former love of her life, unhappily single.

Enter Maddy’s childhood friend, Beth, the owner of Growlers, the doggy daycare centre at Giddywell Grange, on a mission to make Maddy see there’s more to life than work.

Soon, Maddy is swapping spreadsheets for volunteer duty at the library, daily Starbucks for cups of tea with elderly neighbours, and her Prada handbag for doggy poo bags… And with Beth’s gorgeous brother, Alex, back from the States, Maddy starts to think that Giddywell Grange might just be her happy place.

But when her old life – and her old boyfriend – comes calling, will Maddy go back to the job she loved so much? Or will she discover that the key to happiness lies in making others happy?

An uplifting romantic comedy that will warm your heart – perfect for fans of Cathy Bramley, Milly Johnson and Katie Fforde.

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

Celine is my idol. She’s elegant, dramatic, stunning and just amazing. She takes no crap from anyone. She’s a badass. If I could be anyone in life, I’d want to be her.

 

We all have twenty-four hours in a day, Mads, even Richard Branson and Beyoncé. It’s what we choose to do with it which makes all the difference.

 

I’m so looking forward to reading these books. I love a good murder, the more gruesome the better. And Lei loves all these bloody daft romances that you’ve brought her too. Hope there’s no saucy books in there. I don’t want her getting ideas and ravishing me. I don’t think my heart is up to it these days.

 

Seeing something pink and white heading towards my face, I reached out and realised, to my absolute horror, that I had caught a pair of false teeth in my hands. I looked over and one of the old ladies in the front row was laughing her head off! I screamed and dropped them, which made her cackle some more. Hayley came over and apologised, saying that she should perhaps have warned me that Betty had a habit of laughing so much that her teeth flew out.

 

My Review:

 

I enjoyed this insightful and amusing British women’s fiction tale told from the first person POV of a designer power suit and high heels wearing corporate workaholic named Madison, “Maddy” to her friends. When her boss told Maddy to come in early before work to talk, Maddy had believed herself to be in line for a big promotion as she had been slaving away by coming in early, staying late, and working weekends for many years. While looking at the desk she planned to be taking over and envisioning how she would organize her own possessions in the space, her boss quickly informed her she no longer had a job at all due to budget cuts or made “redundant” as the Brits say.   A stunned Maddy was immediately released to clean out her desk and informed to leave behind her laptop, phone, and that later the company car would be retrieved. Yikes.

 

Being at loose ends, Maddy found she time to spend with her long-neglected mother and tackle several lingering paternal questions and issues of her childhood, as well as pitch in to help her best friend, Beth, who required surgery. In a vast departure from her Louboutin wearing corporate days, Maddy took on partial duties at Beth’s doggy daycare business as well as several unusual obligations to community projects during Beth’s long recovery. Maddy began to realize she was happier than she had been in years and felt uplifted and fulfilled by completing tasks she would never have considered doing on her own, such as a singing engagement in a care home, delivering books to shut-ins, farm chores, and doggy wrangling – which included poo duty.

 

Maddy’s evolution and eventual life-changing transformation were pleasantly entertaining and cleverly amusing. I enjoyed Ms. Nash’s levity and wit as well as the strengths and skills she bestowed on her characters. The storylines were relatable, easy to follow, and laced with humor and perceptive observations, and populated with an endearing and quirky group of characters.

 

I addition to being delightfully entertained, Ms. Nash provided me with several new additions to my newly renamed “Brit List of Words and Sayings.” Mr. Google and the Urban Dictionary were dutifully consulted for definitions for 1) having it off – which is British informal for having sex which some may consider rather rude; 2) lairy – which is slang for showing a loud or aggressive attitude, picking a fight, or being argumentative; and 3) pull my finger out – which amounts to stop dithering and get busy or “any lack of activity when something needs doing,” and I don’t believe I need to point out where that finger is supposedly lodged… do I? 😉

The first in an all new stand-alone trilogy set in Kristen Proby’s Big Sky world, Enchanting Sebastian will take your breath away!

NOOK / KOBO / GPLAY

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

That was the thing about secrets. Secrets never stayed secret forever.

 She hadn’t analyzed the realization too deeply in the past. Honestly, this was the first time the thought had fully formed in her brain. Ideas and conclusions so very close to that thought had bobbed to the surface of the ocean of others flooding her life lately.

 She closed the bag wondering when she had so thoroughly become her father? He had always chatted with the clients. She vividly remembered walking into the embalming room and hearing him carrying on a conversation with the person on the mortuary table. As a teenager she had thought it was completely bizarre. It was true, she supposed. You did become your parents.

She stared directly at him. Her famous eyes, one blue and one green, were as vivid as if light poured out from them.

 Paranoia. It was spreading inside her like a disease she couldn’t stop.

 

 My Review:

 

As impossible as it may be, I am even more fascinated by this complex and captivating tale than ever, it just keeps turning over and infinitely expanding while tickling my gray matter and provoking my curiosity.   This case is as slippery as an eel and ingeniously plotted. In addition to being well entertained, I’ve also gleaned a considerable amount of knowledge concerning mortuary services, a ghastly yet necessary and interestingly evolved process.

Rowan has discovered that her mother’s secrets were much darker than anyone ever imagined and has uncovered unsettling notations in researching her parent’s journals. But that is just a pittance to the disturbing and hair-raising events that take place throughout the various active and intriguingly nuanced storylines.

I am irrevocably enthralled by and enamored with this author’s well-honed storytelling and am currently coveting all her clever words.   How has she eluded my notice all this time as she has an impressive backlist of over one hundred forty novels?   I am ashamed of myself but determined to make up for my slothful dereliction and have added her to my list of favorite authors.

 

Doctor Rowan Dupont knows death. She grew up surrounded by it in her family’s Victorian funeral home, and it’s haunted her since the day her twin sister drowned years ago. Between her mother’s subsequent suicide and the recent murder of her father, coming home to run the funeral home feels fitting—even if it leaves her vulnerable to an obsessive serial killer.Rowan refuses to let fear keep her from honoring her family. But the more time she spends back in Winchester, Tennessee, the more she finds herself questioning what really happened that fateful summer. Had her sister’s death truly been an accident? And what pushed their mother to take her own life? The dark lake surrounding Rowan’s hometown holds as many secrets as the bodies that float in its chilling depths. But Rowan is running out of time if she’s going to uncover the truth before somebody sinks her for good.

My Rating:

 My Review:

 

This small and typically quiet southern hamlet, with an eighty-year-old veterinarian for a coroner, was suddenly overflowing with murder cases, old and new, and lots of peculiar goings-on. This engrossing tale was extremely well crafted, ingeniously paced, and cast with a full slate of quirky and oddly compelling characters. I was instantly and forcefully yanked into the story and the intrigue and creepy sense of impending peril never let up, what with nightmares, cryptic messages from a serial killer, missing memories, and eerily misplaced objects in the funeral home – yikes.   I devised and cast off myriad hypothesis and was only partially correct, but my little pea brain would never have come up with a fraction of the deviously clever twists and turns this master storyteller has conjured from her brainpan. But wait, there will be more as the killer is still out there, lurking.   Thankfully, I have the next installment locked and loaded on my beloved Kindle.

Dr. Rowan DuPont and the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department are hunting a serial killer. All the victims have one thing in common–they could be Rowan’s twin, except her twin sister is dead.

Rowan grew up in a funeral home, surrounded by death, so her keen insights into homicide cases seldom fall short of the mark. Though growing up as the undertaker’s daughter made her acutely aware of life and all its frailties, she is only human. Will her one mistake in this shocking case be her last one?

Pedalo Pandemonium

 (Scott Family Short Story, Book 4)

by Amanda Paull

 

Amazon US / UK / AU / CA  

 B&N /  Books to Read

Laura and Ben are still together, against all the odds. Laura’s Family the Scotts are adorable – but they wreak havoc wherever they go. The couple has survived first date silicon dog poo, Christmas mayhem, and even dodgy marshmallows.

Their future together may have looked doomed on more than one occasion, but here they are at the airport – eating bacon sandwiches and watching planes take off, as they wait to board their flight to Mallorca.

A whole week in an idyllic Spanish fishing village. Just the two of them. Away from their families and the usual chaos. Wonderful.

What could possibly go wrong…?