Archive for April, 2009

Jessica Wilde isn’t too interested in relationships, so when her elderly and ill friend Grace keeps pestering her about finding a man, Jessica decides to make one up, to the point where she marries him!

The only problem is she pretended to Grace that she married her boss Anthony Milton, and in Grace’s will, she has left everything to Mrs Jessica Milton.

Jess realises if she wants her inheritance, she has to marry Anthony for real - but she only has 5 weeks to do so. Can she make Anthony fall in love in just a few weeks? And is it really what she wants?

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Well, we’re nearly in May already and that means a whole new set of books being released! One that I am looking forward to is the new release from chick-lit author Zoe Barnes, called Return to Sender. It’s due for publication on May 7th, so look out for it in the shops. Here’s the synopsis:

“The double christening of her sisters’ two kids gets Holly Bennett thinking. She would seriously love to have a baby one day, but for the first time in ages being adopted has become a stumbling block for her. Does she want to start a family of her own when she doesn’t even know who she really is or where she’s come from?

With an on-off boyfriend who she’s swiftly falling out of lust with, Holly decides to move back to her home town to be near her adoptive family. Who knows, it may be the change she needs to get her life back on track - and the place to be if she wants to begin tracing her roots.

But these roots prove trickier to trace than Holly has expected. That is, until she hires her own oh-so-sexy private investigator to take charge… “

I’ve read a lot of Zoe Barnes’ previous books, and they’ve all been really good, so hopefully this will live up to expectation!

Photographer Alice is plodding along in her career and with live-in boyfriend Tom, but all that is about to change. When she goes on a photoshoot to LA, she meets TV presenter turned model Gretchen and is quickly swept up in the whirlwind that is Gretchen’s life.

The pair become close very quickly, but soon things start to change and Alice isn’t too happy. Gretchen’s secret is becoming more of a problem and she knows it isn’t going to stay secret for much longer.

How far will the pair go before there are devastating results that affect not only them but their loved ones too? And is Alice going to be able to stop Gretchen before its too late?

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Dan Begley has his debut novel, Ms Taken Identity out on June 22nd and it sounds hilarious. The synopsis reads:

Student Mitch Samuel’s life isn’t going to plan: his girlfriend has just walked out on him (to be fair, he did forget to pick her up from the airport); his estranged father has landed in the hospital and his literary ambitions are dashed once and for all after his umpteenth rejection letter. However, when he meets Katharine Longwell, the queen of women’s fiction and she seems to like him, he senses an opportunity for literary riches, if not reputation. He tells her that his female cousin is an aspiring chick-lit author and secures a promise that she’ll help said cousin get published. The only problem is, he needs to come up with a manuscript - fast. He buys every woman’s magazine and watches Oprah endlessly on DVD but he still can’t quite get inside a woman’s head. Then his roommate suggests that Mitch sign up for sister’s dance class. Mitch attends the first class as an alter ego, “Jason.” Problem is, after a class or two, Mitch/Jason is hooked - both on dancing and the charming Marie, who has no idea that he knows her brother or the real reason he’s come to the class. Suddenly, his novel-writing project is becoming a lot more than he bargained for …

It sounds in the same vein as Mike Gayle and Matt Dunn. To read more about Dan, visit his website.

BOOK REVIEW BY CHLOE (bookwormchloe)

Millie thought she had found her perfect man in the way of her husband Andrew, but when she doesn’t get pregnant after a while of trying, Millie begins to get desperate. Unfortunately, Andrew is scared off by her desperation and leaves Millie, moving away for work and from Millie.

But Millie still wants to be a mum, and will do anything to get there. She decides to look into being a single mum, and finds out about clinics in Spain where she can get a baby all by herself. Is Millie about to get pregnant for the wrong reasons? And is her way of going about it the right or wrong way?
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Karen Quinn, author of The Ivy Chronicles, Wife in the Fast Lane and Holly Would Dream has a new novel out on July 6th called The Sister Diaries. The synopsis reads:

Although they couldn’t be more different, Amanda, Serena and Laura Moon have always been there for one another. Amanda sizzles in the high stakes arena of New York City real estate - but drags herself home each night to a cold, empty bed. From top executive at Prada, Serena is now an over-the-top stay-at-home Mum, plunging her marriage into crisis and her four-year-old into therapy. Laura spent the last six years caring for their dying mother. Now she is trying to breathe new life into her abandoned music career. Emotions explode when the sisters learn that their mother left everything - the multi-million dollar family home and a priceless painting - to Serena. But why? In an effort to make sense of the bequest, the girls journey to glamorous East Hampton to unravel the mystery behind their mother’s past, setting off a chain of events that threatens the very core of their sisterhood.

It sounds an interesting read and I enjoyed Karen’s first two novels.

Second up, The Accidental Family.

Six months ago, city girl Sophie Mills gave up everything to move to Cornwall. All to be with the man she thinks she loves, and his two daughters who she knows she loves. But adjusting to life as a semi-permanent mother in the countryside isn’t quite as easy as Sophie imagined it would be. Designer shoes aren’t nearly so readily available - not that she ever has any occasion to wear them - and her best pair of vintage Manolo’s have already found their way into the girls’ dressing-up box.Sometimes Sophie doesn’t recognise herself; which most of the time makes her happy but every now and then scares her to death. The hardest thing of all is making that final commitment to actually move in with Louis and the girls - she’s been the longest paying guest of the Avalon B&B, St Ives in the history of the establishment. And as she tries to adapt to country life, her newly adopted family and discovering more about Louis’ past, she begins to wonder if she’s got what it takes to make it all work…

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A double review today: The Accidental Mother & The Accidental Family by Rowan Coleman, the first book and then the sequel. First The Accidental Mother.

Sophie Mills has worked her Manolo Blahniks off to reach the near-top of her profession. And she’s very happy with her priorities in life - her job, her neurotic cat Artemis and her passion for shoes. After all, relationships only get in the way. And as for children - She hasn’t even begun to think about them yet. Until one day an unexpected visitor brings news of a strange inheritance and Sophie is suddenly, out of the blue, in sole charge of two children under the age of six. But motherhood can’t be all that hard, can it? Within twenty-four hours, her make-up smeared all over the bathroom, Artemis has taken up residence on top of her wardrobe, and Sophie is in despair. And all her unconventional mother can suggest is “Dr. Roberts’ Complete Dog Training and Care Manual”. Determined to rise to the challenge, Sophie soon realises that she’ll need more than a business plan to cope with all this … Read my review underneath

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