We kick off this brand new year with some fantastic Chick Lit releases, including books from Carmen Reid, Harriet Evans, and Gemma Burgess!
A Girl Like You - Gemma Burgess - 6th January
“After breaking up with her boyfriend of, well, forever, Abigail Wood must learn how to be single from scratch.
Her dating skills are abysmal, and she ricochets from disaster to disaster – until Robert, one of London’s most notorious lotharios, agrees to coach her.
With his advice, she learns to navigate the bastard-infested waters of the bar scene and practices the art of being bulletproof.
The new Abigail is cocky, calm, composed…but what happens when she meets her match?”
Friends, Lies and Alibis - Debby Holt - 6th January
“Is there ever a right time to break up your oldest friend’s marriage? Fifteen years ago, Merrily disappeared from the lives of her two best friends, Alison and Leah. Now she’s back, with a husband who is sapping the life from her. Christopher is a bully who’s convinced he’s God’s gift to everyone, especially his wife. He is also unfaithful, a fact which Leah wished she had never discovered. Should Merrily’s friends stand by and watch their old friend sink ever further into drab submissiveness? Alison, happily married to Felix, thinks they should do something. Leah, divorced with two young children, is less convinced. Nevertheless, she joins Alison in a plan to liberate Merrily. As the campaign unfolds, it has dramatic repercussions on the lives of all three friends, and produces consequences that they could never have imagined …”
The Spellmans Strike Again - Lisa Lutz - 6th January
“At the ripe old age of thirty-two, former wild child Isabel “Izzy” Spellman has finally agreed to take over the family detective business. The transition won’t be smooth. First among her priorities as head of Spellman Investigations is to dig up some dirt on the competition, slippery ex-cop Rick Harkey. Next, faced with a puzzling missing-person’s case she recruits an actor friend, Len, to infiltrate the home of an ageing millionaire as an undercover butler. Meanwhile, Izzy is being blackmailed by her mother to commit to regular blind dates with promising professionals - an arrangement that doesn’t thrill Connor, Izzy’s soon to become Ex-boyfriend No. 12. At Spellman headquarters, it’s business as unusual. Doorknobs and light fixtures are disappearing every day, Mom’s been spotted crying in the pantry and just when it looks like things can’t go more haywire, little sister Rae’s internship researching pro bono legal cases leads the youngest Spellman to launch a campaign that could spring an innocent man from jail - or land Rae in it. It just goes to show, however many Spellman Family Rules are put in place in an attempt to hold the family together, Izzy will never be able to follow Rule No. 1: Act Normal.”
The Secret Lives of Dresses - Erin McKean - 6th January
“‘Every dress has a story.
Let me tell you mine…’
Dora is in love with a man who barely notices her, has a job she doesn’t care about, and dresses entirely for comfort, not style. All a far cry from her vivid, eccentric childhood, growing up with her beloved grandmother Mimi. However, when disaster strikes, Dora knows she has no choice but to return to her childhood home and take over running Mimi’s vintage clothing shop. And there she makes a surprising discovery – Mimi’s been writing stories to accompany every dress she sells. Romantic, heartbreaking tales about each one’s secret life before it got to her shop… Dora starts to matchmake these lonely frocks with new owners, but will the stories help her as well? Trading her boring high street clothes for vintage glamour is one thing. What she needs to know is whether she can trade her safe old life – and love – for something better too?”
Tweetie Pie - Veronica Henry - 6th January
“It’s Valentine’s Day and you don’t know where to start - should you go with a self-penned ode to my love munchkin,’ a handwritten Shakespearean sonnet, or a dirty limerick? Tweetie Pie brings together 140 creative ways to tell your special someone how much you love them. All short enough to tweet yet more than long enough to say I love you’ (twelve times over, in fact). From the poignant and affectionate to the quirky and amusing to the flirtatious and titillating for your lover’s eyes only, every shade of love is here. Beautifully designed and bound, this is the perfect Valentine - or any time- gift for the person you love.”
It Happened One Summer - Polly Williams - 6th January
“Nell Stockdale is in a pretty good place, managing to combine a full-on career with single motherhood, a lovely flat, great girlfriends, and a sexy younger man on the scene.
But her mother is very ill. Will she return to the family’s large, damp Cornish farmhouse to care for her?
Normally Nell keeps her family at arm’s length. Her sister is engaged to Nell’s ex big love, and she has never got on with her eccentric, distant mother. But something powerful is pulling her back to Cornwall…”
Talk to the Head Scarf - Emma Hannigan - 6th January
“Imagine you’re thirty-two, married, with two little children and you find out you’re carrying a deadly cancer gene?
That was me in August 2005. I discovered I had the gene Brca1, which means a 50% chance of developing ovarian and an 85% chance of developing breast cancer.
I had two options - wait for the big bad cancer wolf or have radical surgery. I chose the latter. Over the following year, I had a double mastectomy and both ovaries removed, which reduced my cancer risk to 5%.
I was just dressing in my victory dance outfit, when my worst fears were realised.
Cancer had struck anyway.
Between 2007 and 2010, I battled and slayed cancer six times.
This book takes you on my journey during that turbulent time in my life.
If you’ve just been diagnosed with cancer, I know you are scared.
I was too. But I want you to know you are not alone. More than that, I want you to know that I am still here.
The score so far is - Cancer 0 : Emma 6.
Even if my cancer returns, I will keep on crusading.
I can show you how being positive and a big dollop of black humour can go a very long way towards getting better.
So chin up, wig on and don’t forget, your skin can absorb an astonishing amount of make-up on those bad hair days!
Love Emma Hannigan
Prima Donna - Karen Swan - 7th January
“Breaking the rules was what she liked best. That was her sport. Renegade, rebel, bad girl. Getting away with it.
Pia Soto is the sexy and glamorous prima ballerina, the Brazilian bombshell who’s shaking up the ballet world with her outrageous behaviour. She’s wild and precocious, and she’s a survivor. She’s determined that no man will ever control her destiny. But ruthless financier Will Silk has Pia in his sights, and has other ideas …
Sophie O’Farrell is Pia’s hapless, gawky assistant, the girl-next-door to Pia’s Prima Donna, always either falling in love with the wrong man or just falling over. Sophie sets her own dreams aside to pick up the debris in Pia’s wake, but she’s no angel. When a devastating accident threatens to cut short Pia’s illustrious career, Sophie has to step out of the shadows and face up to the demons in her own life.”
Finding Mr Flood - Ciara Geraghty - 9th January
“Dara Flood always said that the most interesting thing about her life happened before she was born. Thirteen days before she came into the world, her father walked up the road to buy a packet of cigarettes and never came back. Now Dara lives an uncomplicated life. She goes to Melvin’s for pizza on a Wednesday night with her friends. She has salsa class with her sister Angel on a Friday. And Saturday nights are usually reserved for her boyfriend. People might say that Dara’s life is predictable. But it’s safe, which is exactly the way she likes it. And as for Mr Flood? Maybe Dara thinks about him from time to time. But not very often. She doesn’t see the point. Then Angel gets sick and suddenly everything changes. Now Dara urgently needs to find her father so she hires the scruffily handsome, failed-policeman-turned-private-investigator Stanley Flinter to help her. As Dara and Stanley set out in search of Mr Flood, Dara’s carefully ordered life begins to fall apart. But as she learns some truths about Mr Flood, and herself, she discovers that to let life in, sometimes you just have to let go …”
New York Valentine - Carmen Reid - 20th January
“Love is in the air! Personal shopper Annie Valentine has a dream job in the heart of fabulous Manhattan.
Daughter Lana is lost in the heat of first love, but has she fallen for a heart-breaker?
In London husband Ed faces a scandal at work and knows, in his heart, he needs Annie back.
What’s a girl to do when her true love is in London but her new love is New York?
Does it have to be fashion or family, or can Annie Valentine have it all?”
Beautiful Creatures - Lulu Taylor - 20th January
“Everyone has heard of the Beaufort twins, but few have ever seen them…
On the eve of their 21st birthday, at one of the most lavish parties society has ever seen, Octavia and Flora Beaufort are launched into the world.
For Octavia, it is one of the most thrilling nights of her life, an evening glittering with the promise of her future. But Flora shrinks from the limelight, fearful of what lies beyond the walls of her over-protective aunt’s house.
As Octavia is swept into a whirlwind of lavish spending and fashionable society, she grasps eagerly at whatever she wants: clothes, houses, men… even a department store. But Flora yearns for security – and when she is rescued from harm by a kind stranger, she seems to have found the love and protection she craves.
Prey to all kinds of dangers, the twins soon realise that without each other, they run the risk of losing everything. But is it already too late…?”
Postcards From The Heart - Ella Griffin - 20th January
“Life is looking up for Saffy. She has a great job, a gorgeous flat in the most desirable part of Dublin and - after six years - it looks like her boyfriend, Greg, is going to propose. Greg (just voted the 9th most eligible man in Ireland) is on a high, too - he’s about to swap his part as a heart-throb in an Irish soap for a break in Hollywood. His best mate Conor wakes up every morning with Jess, the most beautiful woman on the planet but, even after seven years and two kids, she won’t get married. He spends his days teaching teenagers and his nights writing the book he hopes will change everything, including Jess’s mind. But their happy endings are playing hard to get. It seems everyone’s keeping secrets - one night stands, heartbreak, grief and loss are all in the mix. It’s going to take some tough questions and even tougher answers before anyone’s being honest - even with themselves. POSTCARDS FROM THE HEART is a book about four friends in their thirties. It’s about love, lust, life, death, balloon rides and missing hamsters. But most of all it’s about figuring out how to stop saying ‘I don’t’ and how to start saying ‘I do’.”
A Valentine Kiss - Lucie Hart - 20th January
“This Valentine’s day Imogen is going to meet the man of her dreams. If only she can discover who he is…
At a gloriously over-the-top house party in the balmy South of France, British trainee chef Imogen finds herself playing blind man’s buff with a host of impossibly handsome men. And then one of them kisses her.
It’s the most perfect kiss she’s ever experienced in her short – and frankly, to date romantically disappointing – life. Sweet, sexy and full of promise. Imogen wants more, but by the time she recovers her wits sufficiently to remove her blindfold her mystery kisser has disappeared.
Could her Prince Charming be one of her fellow-chefs, Dimitri or Bastien? Both are clearly interested in her. But there’s also enigmatic Latino hunk Enzo, good-times-guy DJ Cheyenne, aristocratic Amaury, and the American visitors – Archer and Everett… So many men, so little time. And Imogen can’t just keep kissing men until she finds the right one… can she?”
Love, Always - Harriet Evans - 20th January
“Natasha Kapoor’s life is at a turning point. Leaving London for the magical Cornish coast to attend the funeral of her beloved grandmother, this trip will reunite her with her large and complicated family. As she and her family sort through her grandmother’s possessions and prepare to sell Summercove, the idyllic coastal home that has been in their family for decades, Natasha is given the long-lost diary of her aunt Cecily, who died in a tragic accident at the age of fifteen.
Returning to her home in London’s trendy Shoreditch, Natasha must get back to normality – to her job as a jewellery designer and to her soon-to-be ex-husband. But how can she forget the tragic tale of love, rivalry and heartbreak that emerged from the pages of Cecily’s diary? And will Cecily’s words, though written forty years ago, inspire Natasha to take a chance on love?”
