Archive for June 3rd, 2010

Chick Lit Classics is a new feature on Chick Lit Reviews where we highlight the books we feel are classics of the chick lit genre. Feel free to discuss our choices in the comments section!

This week I’ve picked one of Katie Fforde’s book for our Classic choice this week. I’m a huge fan of Katie’s work and have read - and enjoyed - the majority of her books and I’m eagerly awaiting her new one. One of my absolute favourite’s of Katie’s though is Paradise Fields. It’s one of the first I read of Katie’s and since reading it the first time, I’ve since re-read it and I enjoyed it just as much. It has humour and has life and most importantly it has romance!

It’s not as if Nel hadn’t enough on her plate already: organising a farmers’ market in the picturesque Paradise Fields and keeping track of her unnervingly beautiful teenage daughter - plus sorting out a houseful of animals - are quite enough to keep her busy. The last thing she needs is another complication in her life, but when her old friend Sir Gerald dies and his son, Pierce - accompanied by his glamorous American wife - takes possession of The Big House, it seems that preserving the Fields is not on his list of priorities.

Nel takes up arms, determined to fight for the meadow and the market she loves. But whom can she trust? She’s pretty sure her friends Sacha and Vivian are on her side, but her sensible boyfriend Simon, an estate agent, is less encouraging. And then there’s Jake, the exasperating yet attractive stranger who kissed her under the mistletoe. Maybe she’s been a not-so-merry widow for far too long…

Author Talli Roland has her debut novel out in early 2011 called The Hating Game. The purple front cover is quite eye catching, and it sounds like a great read. Here’s the synopsis:

“When man-eater Mattie Johns agrees to star on a dating game show to save her ailing recruitment business, she’s confident she’ll sail through to the end without letting down the perma-guard she’s perfected from years of her love ‘em and leave ‘em dating strategy.

After all, what can go wrong with dating a few losers and hanging out long enough to pick up a juicy £50,000 prize? Plenty, Mattie discovers, when it’s revealed that the contestants are four of her very unhappy exes.

Can Mattie confront her past to get the prize money she so desperately needs, or will her exes finally wreak their long-awaited revenge? And what about the ambitious TV producer whose career depends on stopping her from making it to the end?

Who will win The Hating Game?”

A couple of months ago we interviewed Carole Matthews and one thing I wanted to ask was what it was like to have been with the same publisher, Headline, since her first ever book. It’s unique for an author to be with a publisher so long, and very few authors seem to live out their career with the same one! However, there was a surprising nugget of information in Carole’s latest newsletter telling us that after 14 happy years at Headline, she will be moving to Little, Brown after the release of The Only Way Is Up (out in September)!

There’s no details about the deal and there’s been no official announcement yet! It also appears that Carole’s book after The Only Way Is Up, Could This Be Love? has now disappeared from Amazon, it was due out in February 2011 but I assume with Carole changing publishers, that may now change. We will of course keep you all updated about that, and I do look forward to seeing the new look Little, Brown are planning for Carole’s books as I am a HUGE fan of her newest batch of covers! It will also be interesting to see if Carole sticks with her two books a year schedule, I’ll be sorely disappointed if not, I love two Carole Matthews’s books a year!