Review: The Christmas Tree Murders

The Christmas Tree Murders by Andrea Hicks
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

DNF at 9%.

I know, I know, how can I DNF at 9%? I'm sorry but this is supposed to be the first book in a series but it harks back to a previous investigation. By page 29 we have been told TWICE that Camille's husband Henry is known as Harry. The book screams anachronisms, for example Camille, the former Lady Divine, lends her servant clothes and takes her to the theatre with her daughter FFS. The characters are caricatures. Camille says she loved Harry until he dumped her for his mistress, but frankly he seems to be a chauvinist pig (even for the unenlightened 1920s) so it is difficult to understand what she ever saw in him.

Anyway, I didn't like the writing style, I didn't warm to the characters so I DNF.

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Review: The Last Sun

The Last Sun by K.D. Edwards
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wow!

Imagine if you will a modern-day America, however part of it contains a New Atlantis, created by magic after the original was destroyed in a war. Aristocratic houses based on the tarot deck rule, and wield magic imbued sigils, often in the shape of jewellery. Rune only has a handful of sigils, rescued from his father's property over the last twenty years. Scions of the Arcane houses can have many sigils, each of which is worth upwards of $100,000.

Rune was the scion of the Sun family, until forces unknown came in and massacred everyone. As the sole survivor and victim of a terrible assault, Rune is a cautionary tale for other scions of the great houses. Rune and his companion (think bonded servant/bodyguard) Brand make a living investigating and dealing with problems (think blowing up or killing) for The Tower, one of the Arcane leaders of New Atlantis.

The Tower has engaged Rune to find his godson Addam, he has a tendency to wander off to go to music festivals or travel without telling anyone where he is going. Although his business colleagues and family aren't concerned The Tower thinks there is something else going on.

Impressive world-building, magic, magical creatures, tarot there's just so much to love about this new series. I can't wait to see where it goes - can I wait until my upcoming twelve hour flight to start reading the next in the series?


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Review: Hop Scot

Hop Scot by Catriona McPherson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lexy and the residents of the Last Ditch motel go to Dundee to celebrate Christmas with her parents, but no sooner have they landed than Lexy's parents drop bombshell after bombshell on the group and Lexy finds a skeleton walled up behind the storeroom in her parents' new home.

This is a funny series in both meanings of the word. There is a lot of humour derived from the differences in language between Brits/Scots and Americans which can become grating. I received an ARC of the fourth book, really enjoyed and went back and read the first two books, then kind of overdosed on the humour and found the ending a bit confusing. Then I seem to have totally missed the fifth book but saw this on NetGalley and requested it. Then it sat on my TBR pile for six weeks because I remembered the humour.

Anyway, this was a laugh-riot. There was still a lot of humour derived from the different vocabularies of the Americans and the Scots but it felt gentler, less manic. I understood the ending as well.

If the thought of two gay doctors, a germophobe, a family with an extremely loud baby, twitchers (as in bird fanciers), a mistletoe thief, a small Scottish village, and a big Tesco shop on Christmas Eve eve sounds like your idea of fun then this could be the book for you.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

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Review: Woke Up Like This

Woke Up Like This by Amy Lea
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Charlotte Wu is a planner and an obsessive list-writer. She's created a 17 page PowerPoint presentation of her ideas for the prom theme, but her ideas are shot down by the senior class president, her nemesis JT Renner who seems to go out of his way to thwart her, eg by running for president when he knew she wanted the role.

When Charlotte and JT are decorating the gym early one morning she falls off the ladder and lands on him, but when she comes to its to find that she has been transported 13 years into the future and apparently she and JT are engaged. JT is similarly perplexed and its fun to see these two high school teens trying to adult whilst also trying to recreate the accident which catapulted them into the future.

This is a sweet riff on that Jennifer Garner film 13 going on 30, except this time two characters go forward in time.

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Review: The Merchant's Daughter: An enchanting historical mystery from the author of THE HOUSE OF LOST WIVES

The Merchant's Daughter: An enchanting historical mystery from the author of THE HOUSE OF LOST WIVES by Rebecca Hardy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Jenny's life is irreparably altered when her beloved father dies suddenly. When his will is read she discovers that his import/export business partnership contract stipulates his shares revert to his business partners unless Jenny's husband chooses to join the business. Accordingly, she and her mother will be practically penniless unless she can convince his business partners that she is getting married and find a willing patsy within a week.

Enter Erasmus Black, a handsome charming merchant with a roguish twinkle in his eye. But Erasmus is not what he seems and he has his own reasons for wanting to get close to Jenny's father's business partners.

This had a lot going for it, but maybe too much. Pirates, murder, brothels, attempted rape, slavery, the Ottoman Empire, kidnapping, an uncanny ability to detect lies - it felt like there was so much going on that nothing really got developed properly and some things were unnecessary. With all these things going on we really don't get much of a feel for who Erasmus really is under all the pretence. I understand that Jenny is a character from one of the author's previous novels, which may explain why there is some extraneous detail that really isn't needed for the plot.

Overall, I liked it but I didn't love it.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: Heartless

Heartless by Elsie Silver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Cade is the oldest Eaton boy. He had to step up to the plate when his mother died and his father fell apart, raising his siblings, cooking dinner, etc. He takes on responsibility for everything and has a permanent frown on his face. He is a single father to five-year-old Luke and runs the family farm. When the regular nanny declares she's too old to run around after Luke anymore, he knows he needs to find a new live-in nanny, the trouble is everyone who applies seems to be auditioning to become Mrs Cade Eaton the second.

After sitting through several fruitless interviews with Cade, Summer takes it upon herself to appoint her BFF Willa as the new nanny. She might not have any childcare experience but after managing rowdy guys at her brother's bar she can handle a small child.

So this is an older (38) man, younger woman (25) romance. Allegedly Cade got drunk and succumbed to the lures of a small-town seductress who then got pregnant. Being the noble self-sacrificing man he is Cade married her, only for her to leave him when Luke was still very small. Now maybe I skim-read this too quickly, but Cade would have been thirty-two (ish) when he was seduced, so not exactly a naïve young man, also did they only sleep together once?

I enjoyed the romance with this one, grumpy single dad and fun-loving younger woman but I have to say I wasn't as keen on the mildly domineering smexy times and the bit with her panties (bleurgh).

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Review: Flawless

Flawless by Elsie Silver
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Summer is interning for her father, a sports agent. One of her father's clients, Rhett, is a bull rider who has made some poor choices, bad-mouthing one of the sponsor's products and hitting a journalist. As a consequence, and as damage control, Summer's father has decided Rhett needs a baby-sitter to keep him out of mischief until the championships in Vegas.

Summer's family life is very complicated, but basically she doesn't have anyone other than her dad. Rhett on the other hand has two older brothers and a little sister, but his family don't support his bull-riding. They want him to return to the family farm in Chestnut Springs.

This is your typical city girl meets cowboy, enemies to love, forced proximity romance. I really enjoyed it and it reminded me strongly of the American Extreme Bull Riders Tour series in a good way.

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Review: Secrets of Starshine Cove

Secrets of Starshine Cove by Debbie Johnson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Cally is a divorced single mother of one teenager. A hairdresser in Liverpool, she basically looked after her mother ever since her father (Cally's father) died when Cally was just a child herself. Now, having looked after her son and her mother for all these years her son is on the brink of going to university and her mother has fallen in love and is moving to Scotland.

Feeling alone, and a bit lonely, after the ceiling at the shop where she works collapses, Cally has a few too many glasses of Baileys and decides to spend Christmas somewhere else, and where better than the seaside village she vaguely remembers from the last family holiday before her father got sick. After following her mother's rather cryptic directions Cally and her son Sam arrive at Starshine Cove and are enthusiastically welcomed by the locals.

I felt that the first book in this series leaned a bit too heavily on the woo-woo factor (the fact that Starshine Cove isn't on any maps and you can only find it by accident, like Brigadoon). This book toned down the woo-woo but I was left feeling a bit like nothing much happened. Cally didn't have a strong enough personality to be the lead character in the novel for me.

I received an ARC from the publisher Storm Publishing via NetGalley for an honest review.

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Review: Christmas at Embthwaite Farm

Christmas at Embthwaite Farm by Kate Hewitt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This second book concerns Harriet Mowbray, Rachels' younger sister, the sister that never left the farm.

Harriet's mother left Embthwaite Farm when Harriet was just seventeen. The shock and hurt led her to make a hash of her exams and so she never got to go to university or leave Embthwaite like her older sister.

Following their father's diagnosis of a terminal brain tumour Rachel and Harriet have had something of a rapprochement, although Harriet still feels like the loser with no qualifications. Their father, a typical taciturn Yorkshireman, has never been affectionate but he seems to actively dislike Harriet and she has no idea why. She is attempting to set up her own bread/ cakes /scones /cookies business but it has been hard going. Her latest idea is to approach the mysterious millionaire who has bought the nearby derelict manor house and is restoring it into a hotel and ask if he wants to place an order some of her cookies.

Quinn Tyler was a gaming entrepreneur on the brink of selling his business for millions of dollars until he hit the self-destruct button (yet again) and wiped half the value off his shares. Now he's left California and invested in an ideal of a country house hotel. He's keeping a low profile because he really doesn't want the YouTube footage of his meltdown following him to Yorkshire or affecting the hotel launch. Quinn comes from a traditionally wealthy family, the sort that play tennis and polo and drift round the world on their yachts. Quinn has never conformed to their ideals, being dyslexic and nerdy, interested in computer games and comics rather than designer watches and banking.

Little do they know, but Quinn and Harriet have already met at the ceilidh where they briefly danced together. When they meet again its an instant attraction, but can these two lost souls, both desperately seeking recognition/love from their fathers, overcome their insecurities?

I liked this much better than the first one. Ben still seems to be a bit of a mansplainer in this book but I can at least see that his comments are coming from a place of love. Quinn is just adorable (I might even say adorbs) and Harriet has some much stuff to deal with but she keeps going.

It will be interesting where the third book goes.

I received an ARC from the publisher Tule for an honest review.

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Review: Dredemere Castle

Dredemere Castle by G.J. Bellamy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

I read this five days ago, yet when I read the blurb I could not recall a single thing that happened!

Sophie Burgoyne is a minor aristocrat, daughter of an impoverished vicar, who has set up rather an unusual business as both a typing and employment agency. Through a cousin, she has also become a police spy working for the Foreign Office and some of her most trusted friends/employees assist her.

At a pivotal moment in Egyptian history, an Egyptian statesman is in England, he is due to meet with British politicians at Dredemere Castle to broker Egyptian independence, however there is a strong risk that he will be assassinated. Security is heavy, with police surrounding the castle, and Sophie and her team are undercover. But as always, there are so many people undercover or playing a part that it is difficult to determine allegiances.

This was probably my favourite of the series (out of the four I have read).

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Review: Chertsey Park: A 1920s historical mystery of drama and suspense

Chertsey Park: A 1920s historical mystery of drama and suspense by G J Bellamy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

News about Burgoyne's Employment Bureau has spread fast and the team are asked to provide additional servants for Lady Stokely's dinner party in honour of her son. following on from that, the team are asked to visit Lord Stokely's home, Chertsey Park, to assist the skeleton staff in catering for four days of meetings and entertainment for Stokely and his cohort. It's an ideal opportunity for the gang to dig up some dirt about the dastardly Stokely and the police are on standby nearby.

Meanwhile Stokely's plotting is coming to a head, he's inciting riots, strikes, and financing acts of terrorism.

These books are very much in the same theme as Buchan's The 39 Steps, by which I mean that there are wealthy men plotting the downfall of the government and the rise of a new power. Of course the 1920s were a hotbed of political extremism, the fascists were rising to power in Italy, many former soldiers embraced the communist ideals of equality and a classless society. After WW1 people wanted to change the world for the better and many young people were sick of old men leading them into catastrophic wars for their own aggrandisement.

Having said that, this was only okay. It felt like Sophie created all the mayhem because she couldn't/wouldn't act like a servant and ended up putting everyone in danger. Also, towards the end I felt like Sophie got captured about six times in one evening. There were at least three different layers of henchmen, and it stopped making sense a little bit.

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Review: The Body in Seven Dials

The Body in Seven Dials by H.L. Marsay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Set at the outbreak of WW1, this novel is inspired by the remarkable life of Dorothy Peto, the Metropolitan Police’s first female superintendent.

Dorothy wants to be a writer and has moved to London to live with her brother Raymond. She is active in the women's rights movement, although she doesn't ascribe to the violent protests of Mrs Pankhurst's group.

When war breaks out many men join the army, this combined with the influx of Belgian refugees, means that the police force is woefully under-resourced so Dorothy and a group of similar minded women offer to create a volunteer force to assist the police. They have no powers to arrest people but can advise refugees on where to get assistance, or encourage prostitutes to move elsewhere etc.

Then Dorothy learns that an actress starring in a West End show has died, mere hours after Dorothy herself saw her backstage. Dorothy finds it hard to believe that a young woman who seemed so happy and vivacious when she signed Dorothy's programme could have committed suicide shortly afterwards.

During a Zeppelin raid on the capital Dorothy finds a little Belgian girl apparently begging on the streets, when she takes her back to her home in Seven Dials, where they find the little girl's mother's body. The circumstances of her death bear a striking similarity to those of the actress and Dorothy is convinced that they are linked, but the police seem to be focusing on Dorothy's brother as a suspect.

I have read one of this author's contemporary romances so this was a different genre for me. While I enjoyed it, I did find some of the logic to be a bit convoluted, and surely there shouldn't what felt like five different suspects.

Overall, historically interesting, and an easy read but I'm ambivalent about reading any more in the series.

I received an ARC from the publisher Tule for an honest review.

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Review: Lady Holme

Lady Holme by G.J. Bellamy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Sophie Burgoyne's employment and typing agency is doing well, as is her secret work for the police. She and her team go undercover at a London casino to gather more information about the drug dealing on the premises (funny to think that opium and cocaine weren't illegal until 1920) and suspicions of passing of counterfeit money. When Sophie picks up a matchbox left by one of the guests it references an establishment in Lymington, which ties into information the police have received about potential smuggling along the Hampshire coast and an explosion out at sea.

Deducing that anyone involved in wholesale smuggling is probably using local caves or inlets and would need an area of isolation with access to large storage facilities Sophie suspects that the smugglers are using a country house in the area and highlights Lady Holme, a beautiful Tudor mansion home to Lord and Lady Hazlett, as a likely suspect.

Lord Hazlett hasn't left Lady Holme for nearly forty years, despite his wife's protests. When he refuses yet again to go to London for a society event he placates Lady Hazlett by offering to throw a house party for friends and family. Of course Burgoyne's Agency would be ideally placed to provide additional maids to help out at the party.

The party has barely started when one of the guests is murdered, but with so many secrets flying around will Sophie and her team ever be able to solve the crime?

This felt more disjointed than the first book. The counterfeit currency was mentioned at the start of the book and then never mentioned again until the very end when it conveniently tied into the other plots. There was a secret society which Lord Hazlett had crossed (hence being forced to stay at Lady Holme for forty years), but I don't think we ever found out why.

Also the epilogue seemed to tie off lots of loose plot strands (like HEAs) as if it was the final book in the series, but then things were left wide open for Sophie on a personal front.

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Review: Christmas at the Inn on Bluebell Lane

Christmas at the Inn on Bluebell Lane by Kate Hewitt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Apparently this is the second book in a series.

In the previous book Ellie and Matthew and their two children left the US to come to Wales and help Matthew's mother Gwen run his family's inn. After some tensions Gwen and Ellie are getting on well, until Gwen's daughter Sarah informs them that the inn is running at a loss and unless they do something drastic they will have to close. Meanwhile Matthew has a secret.

Sarah has her own problems, her husband seems to be working longer and longer hours, he pays her and the children no attention and when she asks for his help, or asks him to call when he is going to be late he accuses her of nagging. Added to which her highly intelligent daughter is stressing about her GCSEs.

Finally, after being widowed for longer than she was married, Gwen has met up with an old friend of her husband's that she hasn't seen since her husband died. Newly retired and also widowed, he has moved to the area to be closer to his daughter who is expecting a baby.

Can Ellie, Gwen and Sarah find a new income stream to save the inn?

I'll be honest, this just didn't grab me and I have to say I didn't really see the point when I had finished it, unless of course there is a triumphant third book in the offing. Otherwise it was a bit ... so what? Also, all the male characters were not portrayed in a particularly positive way.

I received an ARC from the publisher for an honest review.

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Review: Secret Agency

Secret Agency by G.J. Bellamy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sophie Burgoyne is a minor aristocrat, daughter of an impoverished vicar. She has set up an employment and typing agency in London but is struggling to make ends meet. Then a cousin who works at the Foreign Office stops by with a proposition. There is to be a meeting between representatives of the Greek government and the British government to discuss Britain providing a fleet of submarines. The meeting will be hosted at a stately home over the weekend and the government has just learned that one of the Greek delegate is actually a spy, there to steal the submarine plans and sell them to the highest bidder. Her cousin has persuaded his girlfriend to attend the meeting, as representative of her father's steel business, and wants Sophie to accompany her in disguise as her servant. Sophie's job will be to observe what happens at the meeting and, once the spy has taken photographs of the plans, replace them with photos of much older and imperfect plans. In return, the British government will pay Sophie a considerable sum, enough to eep her business afloat.

Separately, Frank Wright, an architect has been murdered and his father, Sir Ephraim Wright, majority shareholder in Frobisher Bank is being blackmailed; unless he sells the majority of his shares to a middle man for a fraction of their true value his children will be killed. One of Sir Ephraim's other sons Alfred Wright is the designer of the submarine which forms the basis of the negotiations over the weekend.

I love this between the wars spying caper, country houses, aristocracy, blackmail, murder, enterprising young women, mysterious gentlemen, secret societies. can't wait to read the next one.

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Review: Only Good Enemies

Only Good Enemies by Jennifer Estep
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Vesper Quill has convinced Lord Callus Holloway, the Imperium ruler, and Kyrion Caldaren, the leader of the Arrows, the Imperium’s elite fighting force, that she and Kyrion are not a bonded pair using a pair of gloves that mimic human skin (when one member of a bonded pair is injured the other immediately manifests a similar mark on their bodies).

With Callus no longer taking an interest in them, Kyrion and Vesper have gone their separate ways, with Vesper taking Kent Corp over and improving profitability drastically by making things that actually work properly. However, it seems as though more of her inventions have been sold to Techwave which plans to use them to mount an offense against a neutral planet.

The truth about Vesper's father is revealed and Kyrion and Vesper learn more about the powers of a bonded pair.

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that I just don't like space opera. As I said in my review of the previous book, I'm a bit underwhelmed. I've read all this before, one way or another. Poor, downtrodden, no magic, drone suddenly finds out she does have magic, its just of the super special variety and really she's more powerful than everyone else. Blah, blah, blah.

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Review: Throwback

Throwback by Maurene Goo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Three and a half stars.

Samantha Kang has always had more in common with her grandmother (Halmoni) than with her own mother, she feels like nothing she does is ever right for her mother, Priscilla. Priscilla is a first generation Korean-American and she seems to have obliterated everything Korean from her life, they don't eat Korean food at home, she doesn't speak Korean, even to her mother, and seems to have a similarly fraught relationship with her own mother which apparently dates back to when Priscilla failed to be voted Prom Queen.

After Halmoni has a heart attack Priscilla and Samantha have a massive argument, culminating in Sam saying she hated her mother. Sam downloads and books a taxi app ,but instead of taking her home it takes her back to 1995 when her mother was at high school and running for Prom Queen. It seems that Sam has been sent back in time to help Priscilla win the vote for Prom Queen (and thereby fix the problems between Priscilla and Halmoni) and she can't return to her own time until her task has been completed.

At first Sam finds it a shock to the system, in her reality their school is a veritable melting pot of diversity and she finds it hard to negotiate the 1990s high school cliques of jocks and goths and the Asian kids etc.

If you loved Back to the Future, or Freaky Friday, or maybe Thirteen Going on Thirty like I did then I think you'll enjoy this.

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Review: Weight Expectations

Weight Expectations by M.E. Carter
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Rian is a plus-sized woman working as an account manager for a media company. After her annual physical check-up she has been advised to exercise more and eat more healthily, hence she has joined Weight Expectations, a local gym.

Carlos is the COO of Cipher Security. He loves and respects women but has no desire for a relationship of any description, he doesn't even want to date. But he tells himself he is honest with the women he sleeps with. Carlos also has a type, blonde, skinny, fit, and shallow. Carlos also has a few hang-ups about his physical appearance. Working with ex Special Forces operatives is almost guaranteed to make a desk jockey feel inadequate, which is why he has started going to the gym religiously and eating healthily.

The smoothie bar tender at Weight Expectations Tabitha invites a few of the regulars out for drinks and dinner. In the event only four people turn up, Tabitha, Carlos, Rian and an older guy. The older guy and Tabitha have a strong flirting game going and Carlos and Rian get talking. But just as Rian is sure than someone as devastatingly handsome and fit as Carlos could never be interested in a woman like her, Carlos knows that he isn't good enough for an intelligent, driven woman like Rian.

This was quite a slow burn. Rian is immediately attracted to Carlos whereas Carlos, being unused to having any deep feelings, takes a while to realise that he is thinking about Rian all the time.

I liked it, but I didn't love it.

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Review: Playing it Safe

Playing it Safe by Ashley Weaver
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's the height of the Blitz, but as the bombs rain down on London might after night, Major Ramsay informs Electra (Ellie) McDonnell that she must travel to Sunderland for purposes as yet unknown, but while she waits for further instructions she should start to make friends with the other residents of the guest house where she will be staying.

Ellie hasn't even arrived at the guesthouse when she is roughly shoved into the path of an oncoming vehicle, luckily a passer-by rescues her, so she is horrified when the same man dies in the street outside her guesthouse, clutching a cryptic note in his hand. Could his death be related to her mission?

I think others have commented that these books seem to have settled into a holding pattern. Major Ramsay never tells Ellie what is going on, they have a moment, Major Ramsay pulls away, Ellie finds the clue that cracks the case wide open but doesn't share/forgets about it. Also, and I have just checked, at 267 pages this isn't much shorter than the first book (300 pages) but it just feels like less happened, or maybe it was all more superficial? Also, there seemed to be a lot of things which happened off-page, eg they get an anonymous tip that X is happening.

The mystery over whether Ellie's mother really murdered her father is also proceeding at a glacial pace, although there is a development right at the end of the book.

I just don't feel after three books the same attraction to the characters as I did with Amory and Milo (although I do recall being very irritated by the on-again, off-again nature of their relationship). Nevertheless, I have pre-ordered the fourth book.

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Review: Check & Mate

Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mallory Greenleaf was chess-mad as a child, then something happened, something to do with her father, and she hasn't played or competed since. Her father is no longer in the picture, her mother has a serious medical condition and no health insurance, and she has two younger sisters who need guinea pigs and skates for roller derby. All of which means, while her friends are leaving to go to college Mallory is working as many jobs as she can to keep the family afloat (as an aside, maybe its the exorbitant cost of housing in the South-East of England, but I can't see any eighteen year old being able to make enough money to cover my mortgage payments).

Anyhoo, Mallory's BFF Easton ropes her into being part of a four person team competing in a charity chess tournament. Her first game is against notorious Kingkiller Nolan Sawyer, the world's number one rated player, and she manages to beat him. Now Mallory has been offered a one-year fellowship by a chess club to help her develop as a player. It could be the answer to all her financial woes, not only by paying her a salary but also with the potential for big winnings, but it will mean reading about chess and playing chess eight hours a day.

Also, rumour has it that Nolan is bad-tempered and holds a grudge, being beaten by a nobody must have been excruciating, how can Mallory avoid him when he seems to pop up everywhere she goes.

I watched The Queen's Gambit on TV and this is obviously playing to that audience. I don't play chess so I have no idea of how likely/feasible any of the game outlines are. There were plenty of gambits thrown about. True chess aficionados would be better able to opine on whether it makes sense.

Ali Hazelwood writes about YA/NA (I always put that because I can never remember which is which) FMC who are clever, hard-working, generally breadline poor, with sad/tragic backstories. In contrast her MMCs are usually very successful and wealthy, albeit with some lack of self-confidence. This book is no different, However, I think Ali Hazelwood may have taken onboard some of the criticisms that were levelled against her previous books, because those aspects were turned right down in this book. Yes, Nolan is large and loomed a lot, but I don't recall Mallory being described as particularly petite or delicate. Similarly, Mallory doesn't feel the need to use big words to show the reader how smart she is and the right-on eco message is there but muted.

Which is all a long-winded way of saying, I liked it, I really liked it.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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Review: Change of Heart: An uplifting and escapist love story

Change of Heart: An uplifting and escapist love story by T.A. Williams
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Alice is working as an assistant manager in a stately home when cutbacks mean her job is made redundant. Rather than accept a lower hob (and salary) she starts looking for alternate work and the former owners of the stately home find her an opportunity through friends. An aristocratic Italian family intends to open its castle to the public for the first time and is looking for someone to manage the process. With her Italian language skills, honed from several years working in an Italian ski resort, and her estate management training Alice would be perfect for the job.

When Alice gets the job she discovers that the family who own the castle have a long-standing feud with one of their neighbours, who also happens to be the mayor of the town. Will the animosity hinder their plans to restore the castle?

Since a tragic accident four years earlier, Alice hasn't been romantically involved with anyone, but a handsome stranger she sees in the local restaurant awakens an interest she thought was long gone. But with star-crossed lovers and feuding families this seems more like a Shakespeare play than modern Italy.

This is the first romance I have read by this author, although I have read some of his detective stories (also set in Italy) and I would describe this as a cosy romance. It is a pleasant read, its all very PG, and its very likely to induce an urge to eat antipasto and buy a bottle of Italian wine.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley for an honest review.

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