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Book Review: The Importance of Being A Bachelor by Mike Gayle

Posted By Leah on May 16th, 2011

Despite the example of their own parents’ enduring marriage, the three Bachelor brothers show no signs of settling down. Adam has a string of glamorous girlfriends, but they aren’t suitable wife material. Luke has just proposed to Cassie but his refusal to consider having children looks like an insurmountable barrier. And baby of the family Russell is in love with the one woman he can’t have. Then their father announces he has been thrown out of the family home and this proves a dramatic catalyst for lots of soul-searching. Are all three Bachelor brothers totally hopeless cases or just late starters?

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Royal Wedding Week: There’s Cake In My Future by Kim Gruenenfelder

Posted By Leah on April 27th, 2011

After listening to her closest friends’ latest travails in love, parenting, and careers, superstitious bride-to-be Nicole (Nic) believes she has the perfect recipe for everyone’s happiness: a bridal shower “cake pull” in which each ribboned silver charm planted in her cake will bring its recipient the magical assistance she needs to change her destiny. Melissa (Mel), still ringless after dating the same man for six years, deserves the engagement ring charm. The red hot chili pepper would be perfect for Seema, who is in love with her best male friend Scott, but can’t seem to make their relationship more than platonic. And recently laid off journalist Nic wants the shovel, which symbolizes hard work, to help her get her career back on track. Nic does everything she can to control who gets which silver keepsake – as well as the future it represents. But when the charmed cake is mysteriously shifted from the place settings Nic arranged around it, no one gets the charm she chose for them. And when the other party guests’ fortunes begin coming true, Mel, Seema, and Nic can’t help but wonder…. Is the cake trying to tell them something?

*There’s Cake In My Future was published as Wedding Fever in the UK!

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Royal Wedding Week: Mother of the Bride by Kate Lawson

Posted By Leah on April 25th, 2011

Molly Foster’s daughter Jess is getting married… To Molly’s delight - and surprise. And with Molly’s show featuring a wedding countdown, the whole town of Wells-next-the Sea is ecstatic - even as Molly worries that groom-to-be Max’s commitment may not be all it seems… Meanwhile, Jess’s control freak step-mother Marnie is determined to turn the event into a chi-chi society bash - a world away from the day that Jess envisaged. But does Jess really know what she wants? Especially when she meets the gorgeous Oliver… Though there’s no going back now - is there? Can Jess take back control of her wedding - or will the mothers of the bride run the show?

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Book Review: Inheritance by Tara Palmer-Tomkinson

Posted By Leah on April 7th, 2011

Notorious party-loving ‘It Girl’ Lyric Charlton has it all – the lineage, the looks and the lifestyle. A moneyed upbringing at the heart of one of the upper class’s most well-connected families, a finishing school education and an address book bursting with the world’s most powerful and high-profile people has crowned her the glamorous poster girl for the aristocratic glitterati.

But when her doomed relationship with suave boy-about-town Ralph Conway means she takes the good times too far, she is packed off to rehab by her worried parents, and the public shame and private humiliation that follow means Lyric’s only option seems to be to retreat into sober obscurity. But what no one can predict is the dramatic chain of events her exile sets in motion. For Lyric’s treatment is the start of much more than a life as an ex-addict. It’s the catalyst that exposes a complex web of deceit and betrayal – and leads Lyric on an increasingly dangerous quest to find the final missing piece of the jigsaw of her life…

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Book Review: The Happy Home for Broken Hearts by Rowan Coleman

Posted By Leah on March 30th, 2011

Ellen Woods spends her days immersed in the escapist pages of the romantic novels she lovingly edits. But her reality is somewhat less rose-tinted. Once upon a time, Ellen had her ‘happily ever after’ moment when she married her beloved Nick, but fifteen years later her husband’s tragic death leaves her alone with their soon-to-become-a-teenager son, faced with a mountain of debt, and on the verge of losing the family home. On the brink of bankruptcy, Ellen finally succumbs to her sister’s well-meant bullying and decides to rent out some rooms. And all too soon the indomitable Allegra with her love for all things lavender, Sabine on secondment from Berlin and estranged from her two-timing husband, and unreconstructed lads’ mag aficionado Matt enter her ordered but fragile existence – each with their own messy life in tow. And Ellen finds herself forced to step out of the pages of the romantic novels she hides behind, and learn to live – and love – again. Maybe a new chapter is about to begin for them all…

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AW Do Judge A Book By Its Cover: Magnolia Wednesdays by Wendy Wax

Posted By Danielle on March 25th, 2011

Colours & Fonts:

Graphics/Pictures used:

Overall design:

Why we like/dislike it: This cover is simply adorable! I love the purple color tie in from the shoes to the graphics with the magnolias. If there was anything I wish was different I’d perhaps make it a bit lighter because it seems a little bit too dark. Other than that it’s gorgeous, and I am not always a huge fan of “picture” covers, but this one is just so pretty.

Overall mark out of 10:

Would we buy this book based on its cover? Yes!



Do Judge A Book By Its Cover is a new feature on Chick Lit Reviews, where we take a look at some of the best (and worst) Chick Lit covers in existence. No synopsis, no hint of the story, just plain old book cover judging, with marks out of 10!

AW Book Review: Life From Scratch by Melissa Ford

Posted By Danielle on March 13th, 2011

Her life’s a mess. And so is her kitchen.

Divorced, heartbroken and living in a lonely New York apartment with a tiny kitchen, Rachel Goldman realizes she doesn’t even know how to cook the simplest meal for herself. Can learning to fry an egg help her understand where her life went wrong?

She dives into the culinary basics.

Then she launches a blog to vent her misery about life, love and her goal of an unburnt casserole.To her amazement, the blog’s a hit. She becomes a minor celebrity. Next, a sexy Spaniard enters her life.

Will her souffles stop falling? Will she finally forget about the husband she still loves? And how can she explain to her readers that she still hasn’t learned how to cook up a happy life from scratch?

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AW Book Review: Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman

Posted By Danielle on March 12th, 2011

Twelve-year-old CeeCee Honeycutt is in trouble. For years, she has been the caretaker of her psychotic mother, Camille-the tiara-toting, lipstick-smeared laughingstock of an entire town-a woman trapped in her long-ago moment of glory as the 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen. But when Camille is hit by a truck and killed, CeeCee is left to fend for herself. To the rescue comes her previously unknown great-aunt, Tootie Caldwell.

In her vintage Packard convertible, Tootie whisks CeeCee away to Savannah’s perfumed world of prosperity and Southern eccentricity, a world that seems to be run entirely by women. From the exotic Miz Thelma Rae Goodpepper, who bathes in her backyard bathtub and uses garden slugs as her secret weapons, to Tootie’s all-knowing housekeeper, Oletta Jones, to Violene Hobbs, who entertains a local police officer in her canary-yellow peignoir, the women of Gaston Street keep CeeCee entertained and enthralled for an entire summer.

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