Blog Tour - Coming Home to Maple Cottage

Publication date 28th September 2018

Amazon: http://geni.us/B07G2TCVTLSocial

iBookstore: http://ow.ly/z1xW30lZzDo

Kobo: http://ow.ly/gVZ930lZzES

Googleplay: http://ow.ly/HSgD30lZzFs

About the book

This utterly addictive new novel from bestselling author Holly Martin will make you smile until your cheeks hurt, sob tears of pure joy and fall head over heels in love with a totally unforgettable romance…
Isla Rosewood is creating a new life for herself and her sweet nephew Elliot in their cosy, yellow-brick family cottage, brimming with special memories. Living in Sandcastle Bay was never part of Isla’s plan but, after her brother Matthew’s tragic accident, her whole world changed as she unexpectedly became a mother to the little boy she adores so much.

Leo Jackson was always known as Matthew’s fun-loving and wild best friend. But now Matthew is gone, it’s time to put his colourful past behind him. His role as Elliot’s godfather is the most important thing to him. And even though Leo and Isla are two very different people, they both want to give Elliot the childhood he deserves.

As the three of them enjoy time together watching fireworks, baking cakes and collecting conkers, Isla begins to see a softer side to charming Leo, with his twinkling eyes and mischievous sense of humour. And, despite herself, she begins to fall for him.

But does Leo feel the same way? Isla knows their situation is complicated but is it too complicated for true love… or will the year end with a happy new beginning for them all?

A glorious, feel-good romance that will make you want to snuggle up under a warm blanket with a hot chocolate and the one you love. If you enjoy reading Sarah Morgan, Jenny Oliver and Lucy Diamond this book is for you.

My Review

After reading the previous books I was looking forward to reading more about Isla and Leo so I was so thrilled when I seen that this was their story. It was great to hear more about their relationship.  They are just the most perfect of characters and the chemistry they have is so hot! I was desperate to find out if they would finally take the plunge and get together.  

I love picking up the latest book from Holly, her books are so easy to read and once you start reading you wont be able to put it down until you hit that last page.

A really beautiful romantic read that is sure to put a smile on your face! 

Blog Tour - Dinner Party

Publication date 26th September 2018

Amazon UK

About the book

Never has an unexpected guest caused such chaos!
Three couples take it in turns to host a monthly dinner party.

Beth, Sarah and Marie have been friends forever. Now they are grown up, with busy lives, busy husbands, busy kids… but they still find time to meet up over dinner once a month. A cosy, comfortable gathering of happy couples – or so they thought.

Until one night, someone brings along a last-minute guest whose wife has just left him. 

Simon is standing on the doorstep in floods of tears. While the women do their best to console him, their husbands feel the need to mark their territory.

And as Simon becomes more involved with the group, his presence changes everything these three couples thought they knew about each other, leading to a final dinner party that no-one will ever forget.

From Amazon chart bestseller Tracy Bloom, Dinner Party is a funny and moving read that will make you see your marriage and friendships in a whole new light… and make you think twice about inviting your best mates round for dinner. Perfect for fans of Marian Keyes, Nick Spalding and Gill Sims.

About the author

Tracy started writing when her cruel, heartless husband ripped her away from her dream job shopping for rollercoasters for the UK's leading theme parks, to live in America with a brand new baby and no mates. In a cunning plan to avoid domestic duties and people who didn't understand her Derbyshire accent, she wrote her romantic comedy, NO-ONE EVER HAS SEX ON A TUESDAY. This debut novel went on to be successfully published internationally and became a #1 Best Seller.

You can follow Tracy on Twitter at @TracyBBloom, like her Facebook page on www.facebook.com/tracybloomwrites or get in touch via her website at www.tracybloom.com

My Review

When I read the blurb for this I knew I had to read it, it sounded so fun and different to the normal sort of stories that I read and I am so glad I read it! It is absolutely fantastic! This is one of the very few books I just didn't want to end! 

The characters where fabulous, each of the couples were so different and I enjoyed getting to know each of them - especially Chris! Oh my what a character he was he was obsessed with his dips! Everytime I see dips now I am reminded of him and this story.

I devoured this book, I couldn't put it down, there is so much drama and absolutely hilarious moments that you will just laugh your head off. Oh and it doesn't end the way you would expect it too so I loved that - I got a bit of a shock at how it ended I didn't see it coming at all. I had a little tear in my eye! 

This is definitely a feel good hilarious read that will definitely put a smile on your face!

Blog Tour - Love at the Northern Lights

Publication date 17th September 2018

Amazon UK

About the book

‘Climbing out the window in her dress and tiara wasn’t exactly how Frankie imagined her wedding day…’
Runaway bride Frankie Ashford hops a plane to Norway with one goal in mind - find her estranged mother and make peace with the past. But when a slip on the ice in Oslo lands her directly in Jonas Thorsen’s viking-strong arms, her single-minded focus drifts away in the winter winds.
When it comes to romance Jonas knows that anything he and Frankie share has an expiration date - the British heiress has a life to return to in London that’s a world away from his own. But family is everything to Jonas and, as the one man who can help Frankie find the answers she’s seeking, he’ll do whatever it takes to help her reunite with her mother.
Now, as Christmas draws closer and the northern lights work their magic Frankie and Jonas will have to make a choice...play it safe or risk heartbreak to take a chance on love.

About the author

Darcie Boleyn has a huge heart and is a real softy. She never fails to cry at books and movies, whether the ending is happy or not. Darcie is in possession of an overactive imagination that often keeps her awake at night. Her childhood dream was to become a Jedi but she hasn’t yet found suitable transport to take her to a galaxy far, far away. She also has reservations about how she’d look in a gold bikini, as she rather enjoys red wine, cheese and loves anything with ginger or cherries in it – especially chocolate. Darcie fell in love in New York, got married in the snow, rescues uncoordinated greyhounds and can usually be found reading or typing away on her laptop.

Author Social Media Links
Twitter: ‎@DarcieBoleyn
Website: https://darcieboleyn.wordpress.com/

My Review

Firstly how magical is that cover! It has got to be one of the most stunning covers I have ever seen! The colours are gorgeous! So after seeing that I was so so excited to get stuck in and read it! 

Love at the Northern Lights is the best book I have read it has got to be my favourite. I absolutely loved it! Every single page was a pure joy to read and it made me so happy. I had tears in my eyes so many times - a mixture of happy and sad ones so prepare the tissues! 

Frankie was a fantastic character you just love her from the first page, she is a girl I would love to be friends with, she is so kind and friendly and I just wanted her to find her happy ever after and she so desperately needs it! Oh and Jona's! Hubba Hubba he is amazing! I think I have fallen in love with him! 

The Northern Lights is something I would love to visit and see and I absolutely loved hearing about them in this book and I thought it was the perfect location for this book - So Romantic! 

Such a magical romantic book!

Extract

Just as Frankie was heading down the drive, she heard the crunching of gravel behind her. She turned around and her heart plummeted.
Grandma!
In hot pursuit.
She thought about speeding up but knew that would only delay the inevitable showdown, so she’d just as well grit her teeth and take it on the chin here and now.
She let go of the handle of her suitcase, pushed her shoulders back and watched as Grandma approached, surprisingly fast in her three-inch heels and lavender two piece, her antique pearl and peacock feather fascinator bobbing on the side of her head.
‘Frances!’ Grandma’s chest heaved as she reached her. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m… I’m leaving.’
‘Don’t be so beastly! You can’t leave… this is your wedding day. Oh blazes! What have you done to your beautiful, beautiful dress?’ Grandma pressed her veiny hands to her mouth in horror, and Frankie saw that her long nails matched the colour of her suit.
‘Grandma, I can’t do this. It was a mistake. I thought I could, but marrying Rolo isn’t what I want.’
‘What you want?’ Her grandmother chuckled. ‘Jolly good, Frances.’
‘Why is that amusing?’ Frankie put her hands on her hips.
Her grandmother’s slate-grey eyes bored into hers. ‘This wedding is a union of two families. It is a demonstration of our wealth and a joining together of two names that mean something in this country! It is not about a spoilt little girl and her foolish dreams. Wake up, Frances, and stop acting like some seedy romantic.’
Frankie’s legs were trembling as she stood there trying to be brave in the face of her grandmother’s wrath. Throughout her entire life, she’d given in to this woman, allowed the matriarch to bully her into doing whatever she wanted, even allowed her to destroy her own dreams of becoming a fashion designer. Grandma’s word had been law and Frankie had rarely questioned it. And where had that got her? She was twenty-nine, in a career that had been a compromise because she’d needed something outside the home and family, and she’d agreed to marry a man she didn’t love. She didn’t know her own mother and had even allowed Grandma to prevent her from trying to find out more about her.
Frankie was, she had to admit it now, terribly unhappy.
‘I’m sorry. I just can’t.’
Grandma’s face turned red right up to the roots of her white hair – that sat in a style she’d copied from the Queen, and that she’d had for as long as Frankie had known her – and she raised her hand. Frankie instinctively stepped back, fearing a physical blow or that Grandma might grab her arm and drag her back to the house, but instead it was a barrage of words that hit her full force, and a shaking finger that cut through the air between them, the lacquered nail at the end like some sort of blade.
‘If you go now, Frances Ashford, you will be leaving everything behind. If you embarrass me by walking down that drive and putting me in the awful position of having to explain where you have gone, then I will never forgive you. I will cut you from my will, throw you out of my house and you will be penniless. Do you hear me?’
Frankie glanced down the driveway to where freedom beckoned, then she glanced up towards the stately home where a lifetime of unhappiness awaited, then, finally, she met her grandmother’s cold gaze again.
‘You can do what you like with your money. I truly am sorry that you will be embarrassed but I can’t see another way of dealing with this situation. If you like, I’ll stay and face people. I’ll tell them why I can’t marry Rolo and let them see me… like this.’ She gestured at her stained gown. ‘Is that what you want?’
Grandma’s lip curled and she bared her teeth.
‘Get out of my sight! I should’ve known you’d end up being as much of a disgrace as your mother!’
Frankie opened her mouth, a thousand recriminations on the tip of her tongue, but she knew that venting them would make nothing better. Grandma had never listened to what she had to say; why would she start now?
So she pulled the handle of her suitcase up again, lifted her chin then set off down the driveway, trying to ignore the insults that Grandma muttered in her wake, and trying to ignore the ache in her heart.

Blog Tour - I Will Survive

Publication date 19th September 2018

Amazon UK

About the book

Frankie is a single mother. She’s bold. She’s brave. And she’s winning at life… isn’t she?

Underneath her big smile and daring outfits, Frankie’s hiding a secret. Her five-year-old son Liam is awesome. But life as a solo parent is tough. Her job as a barmaid sucks, her meddlesome mother is taking over and she’s far from living her best life.

She’s lost her way and she’s starting to feel… lonely.

So when Frankie’s overbearing mother breaks her leg and has to go and live with her saintly sister, it’s time for Frankie to shake things up. Because she wants to turn things around for the little boy who holds the keys to her broken heart.

Surrounded by perfect mothers, Frankie quickly realises she needs some real mum friends to get her through repetitive school runs and red-faced dating disasters. The kind of people who don’t judge your shop bought cakes and bring wine to your door, just because.

So Frankie sweeps up anxious Kate and organised Alison in her whirlwind. As the unlikely trio face the trials and tantrums of motherhood, they learn that parenting is about surviving one day at a time.
And together they can wing it through anything, can’t they?

A hilarious, feel-good story for every parent who has ever struggled bleary-eyed through toddler tantrums, school fancy dress fails and found friendship over wine and cake. Perfect for fans of The UnMumsy Mum, Why Mummy Drinks and Fiona Gibson.

About the Author
Growing up in Birmingham, Pippa James was never without at least one book on the go and therefore lived several different lives concurrently. As an adult, she would like to spend much of her time the same way, but she now lives a chaotic life in a small Derbyshire town with her husband and two children. Her writing is frequently interrupted by parenting duties and her day job as a teacher and the only way she can find a quiet space to think, is by taking her laptop to the pub to drink tea and write, which she does at every opportunity.

https://twitter.com/PippaJamesbooks

https://www.facebook.com/PippaJamesAuthor

My Review

I love reading this sort of book as it makes you feel so much better about parenthood, but I have to say this is the best book in this field that I have read! 

It is completely feel good and oh my goodness this book is so so funny! It will have you laughing until you cry! 

I enjoyed the fact that this is such a realistic read, each of the mothers make it so real, they are so different - never the same just like real life.  When you look around at the parents they are all different!  I just loved how they became friends as they were so different to each other and how they got through parenthood together! 

A fantastically funny read! If you pick this up you will be sure to enjoy it! 

Blog Tour - Because Mummy Said So!

Amazon UK

About the book

The era of the yummy mummy has finally gone.

To celebrate this, Shari Low has taken a baby wipe to the glossy veneer of the school of perfect parenting and written Because I Said So to show us the truth about motherhood in all of its sleep-deprived, frazzled glory.

This is a book that every experienced, new or soon-to-be parent will relate to – well, hallelujah and praise be those who worship at the temple of Febreze. For over a decade, Shari wrote a hugely popular weekly newspaper column documenting the ups, downs and bio-hazardous laundry baskets of family life.

Because Mummy Said So is a collection of her favourite stories of parenting, featuring superheroes in pull up pants, embarrassing mistakes, disastrous summer holidays, childhood milestones, tear-jerking nativity plays, eight bouts of chickenpox and many, many discussions that were finished with the ultimate parental sticky situation get-out clause… 

Buy links:

Kobo: http://bit.ly/2x7ctIK

iBooks: https://apple.co/2x7x27T
Google play: http://bit.ly/2p0LdYZ
Amazon: mybook.to/MummySaidSo 

Follow Aria

Website: www.ariafiction.com

Twitter: @aria_fiction
Facebook: @ariafiction
Instagram: @ariafiction

About the Author

Shari Low has published eighteen books under her own name and pseudonyms Millie Conway and Ronni Cooper. She is also one half of the writing duo, Shari King. She lives near Glasgow with her husband, two teenagers and a labradoodle. www.sharilow.com

Follow the Author 

Twitter: @sharilow

Facebook: @sharilowbooks

My Review

This book really put a smile on my face when I read certain parts. I loved hearing all the wee stories so many I could relate to!  

If you are looking for a fun, easy to read book then this is your one!

Extract

Just Call Me Flo…

If I were on the nightshift in the medical tent during the Crimean War, history would read very differently. Instead of Florence Nightingale, the Lady of the Lamp, it would be Shari Low, lady of the dodgy diagnostic skills, who trotted up and down the ranks, bellowing, ‘Look, if you don’t stop that moaning you’re getting nothing for your tea.’
There’s as much chance of me winning a Carer of the Year award as there is of Victoria Beckham popping into Primark for her spring/summer wardrobe.
On Monday, I noticed a large spot on Callan’s head. Now, at three, he’s ten years too young for puberty so I was a wee bit concerned. I showed it to assorted family members. Opinion was split between, ‘och, it’s just a plook,’ and long inhalations through pursed lips, accompanied by, ‘it looks like chickenpox.’
Absolutely not! Callan has already had chickenpox twice so I knew it couldn’t be that.
However, by next morning he looked like one of those cartoons, where a small child doesn’t want to go to school so he draws hundreds of spots all over his face and body with red felt-tip. The horror of it was that I knew Cal didn’t have a red felt-tip (confiscated after Bob the Builder, Scoop and Dizzy were drawn on our freshly painted bedroom wall).
I screamed for the husband. ‘What do you think?’ I gasped in an anguished screech that suitably reflected my usual tendency towards the overdramatic. I was already imagining wild, exotic infections (ignoring the fact that the furthest afield we’ve been in the last year is Penrith) that would require at least six months of quarantine for the whole family.
‘Chickenpox?’ he replied with a shrug.
‘Absolutely not, he’s already had it twice,’ I said fretfully.
I whisked Callan up – at arm’s length – to the doctors’ surgery, where the spotty wee soul was thoroughly examined.
‘Chickenpox’ was the diagnosis.
‘But it can’t be, he’s already had it twice,’ I protested yet again, before running him through every other possibility I could think of. There was I, every shred of medical knowledge I possessed gained from watching ER and Casualty, and I was arguing with a man of thirty years’ experience in general practice.
‘My dear, this is definitely chickenpox,’ he replied dryly, as he scribbled a note on Cal’s file – probably along the lines of ‘Mother is argumentative, neurotic and please put her on that special list of people we’re trying to bump to another practice.’
So there it was. Chickenpox.
Now, being fully aware that I was behind a steel-plated, time-alarmed, impenetrable door when God gave out the ‘empathy and sympathy for itchy ailments’ genes, I made a very special effort to summon my nursing skills.
For the first twenty-four hours I was a model of care and concern. I cuddled him close when he cried because his friends couldn’t come to play. I patiently mashed up fruit when he couldn’t swallow anything hard because the spots were in his throat. I got up every few hours during the night to dab calamine lotion on his skin. I even slept in his arthritis-inducing-if-you’re-over-the-age-of-eight bed all night so that I was near him on the 106 occasions that he woke up moaning about the discomfort.
On day two I cracked.
My faulty genes and chronic sleep deprivation kicked in and I realised that I couldn’t do another day of soothing words, gentle rubs and reading How Much Do I Love You on a repetitive loop.
I dispatched the husband to the shops for emergency rations: ten bags of chocolate buttons, Monsters Inc., Toy Story 2, Shrek, and a balaclava so that I could take Cal for walks without scaring the neighbours.
And so we established McSpotty’s daily pattern for the rest of the week: unlimited bribery with chocolate, more television than the average couch potato gets through in a month, and a nightly walk with him dressed like an armed robber.
Medical input from mummy? Limited to regular hugs, sympathetic smiles and a wee rub of the head every time I passed him en route to change the video.
Last night in bed, inspired by our current situation, I told Cal the story of Florence Nightingale, explaining what a gentle and kind nurse she was, how she instinctively knew what was wrong with the sick and how best to comfort them.
He pondered this for a few moments.
Eventually, he spoke.
‘Mummy, you’re a rubbish nurse.’
It’s the best diagnosis that’s been made in this house all week.