A Mother's War

by

Mollie Walton

North Yorkshire, September 1939.

Rosina Calvert-Lazenby, the widowed matriarch of Raven Hall, must be strong for her five daughters as the war approaches. When the RAF come to stay, Rosina is intrigued by their charismatic – albeit young – sergeant. But is there time for love with the war looming?

Grace Calvert-Lazenby is twenty-one years old and ready for a new adventure. Joining the Women's Royal Naval Service, she trades the safety of Raven Hall for exhausting drills and conflicting acts of secrecy. It's not easy, but Grace knows that everyone has a part to play in what's to come.

With so much on the line, will Rosina and Grace have the courage to lead those around them into the unknown?

Review

This first instalment tells the story of Rosina Calvert-Lazenby and her daughter Grace who joins the WRENS at the outbreak of WWII. They have had a privileged life until now and when Grace and her siblings are sent to different parts of the country, it is her mother Rosina who is left to look after the great house with minimal staff to help.

The army ask Rosina if they can use Raven Hall for some of their officers to have their meals and Rosina is only too willing to help the war effort, but also to have company and bring life back into the house. When a dashing young officer called Harry comes to the house, Rosina instantly takes a shine to him and he to her, but she is instantly aware that he is much younger than her and what will people think.

Grace trains to become a morse code breaker and becomes great friends with Nancy, who just happened to be one of the maids at Raven Hall before the war! Together they work hard, but also go to dances together and poor Grace, who isn't very street wise at first, learns the hard way that not everyone is as nice as they seem, even if there is a war on!

This was a thoroughly researched book and kept me interested from the very first page and as I love wartime sagas, this was right up my street! This was powerful, moving, beautifully written and I really can't recommend it enough.

I am off now to read the second instalment, A Daughter's Gift! 

 Queen of Clubs

by

Beezy Marsh

REVIEW

This is the follow up to the fabulous Queen of Thieves and I couldn't wait to catch up on the women of South East London who earned their living thieving from the department stores in the West End of London.

This book starts with Zoe who is evacuated to the country during the war and is so excited to be leaving London and her uncaring mother. She loves her life in the country and when her mother decides it's time for her to come home, she knows she is going to hate it. 

Zoe wants to make a life for herself without her mother and so decides she wants to be a dancer and comes across Nell who is the owner of a nightclub called Rubies. Little does Zoe know that Nell is the leader of the female gang known as the Forty Thieves and it isn't long before Zoe is drawn in to a world which will test her to the very core.

Nell runs the nightclub Rubies (named after her daughter) with her partner Jimmy, who is well known on the London gangland scene. Zoe is smitten with Jimmy and it doesn't take long for Nell to notice this and this can only mean one thing. Trouble.

What a real page turner this book is. Full of suspense and sometimes difficult storylines to read about, but written superbly and with great insight into the world of the forty thieves, so hats off to the author for her thorough research. I said it about the first book (Queen of Thieves), but this would truly make a great film and I am chomping at the bit to read the next instalment!

 Thank you Beezy Marsh for taking me back to my birth place of South East London. It was a real treat!

Snowed In For Christmas

by

Sarah Morgan

She’s snowed in with the family. The only problem? They’re not her family.

A family gathering
This Christmas the Miller siblings have one goal – to avoid their family’s well-meaning questions. Ross, Alice and Clemmie have secrets that they don’t intend to share, and they are relying on each other to deflect attention.

An uninvited guest
Lucy Clarke is facing a Christmas alone, and the prospect of losing her job – unless she can win a major piece of business from Ross Miller. She’ll deliver her proposal to his family home in the Scottish Highlands and then leave. After all, she wouldn’t want to intrude on the Miller’s perfect family Christmas.

A Christmas to remember
When Lucy appears on the Miller’s snow-covered doorstep, she is mistaken for Ross’s girlfriend. But by the time the confusion is cleared up, a storm has hit and Lucy is stuck. As everyone settles in for a snowed-in Christmas, tensions bubble to the surface and suddenly Lucy finds herself facing a big family fallout with a family that isn’t hers…

Review

Lucy Clarke loves her job so much, that she decides to go to Scotland to personally deliver a proposal to Ross Miller who is the CEO of a sports wear company. As she is on her way to the family home that he will be spending Christmas in, the weather decides to make a turn for the worse and Storm Scrooge closes in, promising everyone a white Christmas! 

Lucy meets Ross on the doorstep who is none too pleased that a total stranger has come to his family home and when Lucy tries to leave out of pure embarrassement, she takes a tumble in the snow and breaks her ankle!

Ross Miller has two siblings. Alice is a Doctor in a hospital and has just been proposed to by her boyfriend Nico, but she is such an overthinker, that she can 't say yes straight away and that puts pressure on their relationship because Nico doesn't know whether Alice really loves him or not. 

Clemmie is the youngest and is a nanny in London. She has decided to move back to Scotland as she has made a lifechanging decision, but will her family like it? and also, the fact that her childhood friend Fergus still lives in the village and she wants nothing more than for them to be more than friends, but she is sure that he doesn't feel the same. 

Nanna Jean is the Grandmother who says it like it is. She is just hilarious and had me snorting with laughter on more than one occasion and mum Glenda is so anxious that Christmas is going to be a disaster and always overthinks things and is adamant she is a bad mother.

I thoroughly enjoyed the mix of characters in this book and it gives a good insight into all the characters personal lives and how even the craziest of families can come together in a crisis!

I'm going to own up to something now - this is the first book by Sarah Morgan I have read (I know!), but I can honestly say, it won't be my last! I already have some from my very good friend Julie to read and I can't wait for her new one to come out in May!

 Meet Me Under the Mistletoe

by

Jenny Bayliss

A winter wedding of school friends should be the highlight of Nory Noel’s festive calendar. But that group has long since drifted apart, and Nory is dreading the lavish, week-long affair. Still, she supposes, being the only single person means she gets a king-size bed in the idyllic castle venue all to herself.

As the champagne flows, the years roll back and soon the air is alive with old sparks and old tensions. Desperate for a moment of peace, Nory escapes and crashes into Isaac, the castle’s gardener – and her former school rival.

Nory and Isaac have more in common these days than they could ever have imagined. But as she steals more time away to spend with him, Isaac reveals an astonishing secret about his past. Nory is in a unique position to help right this wrong – but uncovering the truth might mean pushing Isaac away once more . . .

Review

Nory is attending the wedding of her school friend which happens to be near the boarding school where they all attended. She is not relishing the thought of spending a week as the only single one of her friends until she meets Isaac, who is head gardener at the country estate and who she remembers being an annoying teenager, but now he has certainly changed and Nory is smitten and finds any opportunity to run into him.

The story unfolds over the coming week in the build up towards the wedding. It has a great mix of characters who are all fully relatable and some actual laugh out loud moments that had me roaring!

This was the first book I have read by this author, but I have promptly bought the other two christmassy ones as I really enjoyed this one and really didn't want it to end!

 

The Empire by Michael Ball

The Empire

by

Michael Ball

I'm delighted to be a part of the Blog Tour for Michael's first book. I hope to review this one as soon as I can, but with the postal strikes, i'm afraid it didn't come in time!

1922. When Jack Treadwell arrives at The Empire, in the middle of a rehearsal, he is instantly mesmerised. But amid the glitz and glamour, he soon learns that the true magic of the theatre lies in its cast of characters - both on stage and behind the scenes.

There's stunning starlet Stella Stanmore and Hollywood heartthrob Lancelot Drake; and Ruby Rowntree, who keeps the music playing, while Lady Lillian Lassiter, theatre owner and former showgirl, is determined to take on a bigger role. And then there's cool, competent Grace Hawkins, without whom the show would never go on . . . could she be the leading lady Jack is looking for?

When long-held rivalries threaten The Empire's future, tensions rise along with the curtain. There is treachery at the heart of the company and a shocking secret waiting in the wings. Can Jack discover the truth before it's too late, and the theatre he loves goes dark?

It my turn on the blog tour for Michael Ball’s very first novel. I am hoping to review soon, but I didn’t get the book in time unfortunately. Good luck Michael!

The Winter Dress

by

Lauren Chater

BLOG BLAST

I'm delighted to be a part of the Blog Blast for The Winter Dress by Lauren Chater which is published today. You can read my review below. 

Blurb

Jo Baaker, a textiles historian and Dutch ex-pat is drawn back to the island where she was born to investigate the provenance of a 17th century silk dress. Retrieved by local divers from a sunken shipwreck, the dress offers tantalising clues about the way people lived and died during Holland's famous Golden Age.
 
Jo's research leads her to Anna Tesseltje, a poor Amsterdam laundress turned ladies’ companion who served the enigmatic artist Catharina van Shurman. The two women were said to share a powerful bond, so why did Anna abandon Catharina at the height of her misfortune?
 
Jo is convinced the truth lies hidden between the folds of this extraordinary dress. But as she delves deeper into Anna’s history, troubling details about her own past begin to emerge.
 
On the small Dutch island of Texel where fortunes are lost and secrets lie buried for centuries, Jo will finally discover the truth about herself and the woman who wore the Winter Dress.

Review

Jo Baaker lives in Sydney, Australia, having moved there as a child when her parents died to live with her aunt. She originally came from a Dutch island called Texel.

She is a historian with a special interest in textiles and when she was headhunted to look at a dress from the 17th century that was brought to the surface from a shipwreck near her birthplace, she had to pack her bags and get on a flight back to Texel.

The dress belonged to a girl called Anna Tesseltje who came from Amsterdam, but what was she doing on the ship in the first place? this is what Jo needs to find out and also to find out more about the exquisite gown.

This is a dual timeline story (which I love) and the attention to detail and research the author did was very thorough and based on the real discovery of a shipwreck in 2014 in Texel.

A good read for historical fiction fans. 

 Keeping a Christmas Promise

by

Jo Thomas

Review

by

Julie Williams

What a day for Christmas publications! And congratulations to Jo Thomas for Keeping a Christmas Promise and once again, to Julie Williams for reviewing. She does love a Christmas book!

Review

Keeping a Christmas Promise is a delightful festive fun read. It immediately transported me to snowy Iceland with its beautiful scenery and community.

When a group of friends honour their deceased friend Laura’s wish to see the spectacular Northern Lights, they embark on a mini trip to Iceland. None of them can really spare the money or time with their own hectic lives at this time of year but are determined to keep their promise to her. 

They start off in high spirits but soon encounter an avalanche as the Northern Lights evade them and are forced to stay in a remote area in the middle of nowhere but its' community are so welcoming that they soon begin to realise just where their lives have taken them and not always for the better.

I really enjoyed this Christmas story with its unique characters and I learned some Icelandic traditions.

My thanks to NetGalley and Transworld Publishers for the advanced digital copy of this gorgeous book.