Review: Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop of Dreams - Jenny Colgan

Were you a sherbet lemon or chocolate lime fan? Soft chewy ones or hard boiled sweeties (you do get more for your money that way)? The jangle of your pocket money . . . the rustle of the pink and green striped paper bag . . . 

Rosie Hopkins thinks leaving her busy London life, and her boyfriend Gerard, to sort out her elderly Aunt Lilian s sweetshop in a small country village is going to be dull. Boy, is she wrong. 

Lilian Hopkins has spent her life running Lipton s sweetshop, through wartime and family feuds. As she struggles with the idea that it might finally be time to settle up, she also wrestles with the secret history hidden behind the jars of beautifully coloured sweets.

Welcome to Rosie Hopkins Sweetshop of Dreams, a novel, with recipes.

Warning: Do not read this novel if you are on any sort of diet or health kick. Seriously.

Back in May Welcome to Rosie Hopkins' Sweet Shop of Dreams (let's just call it Sweet Shop for short) won the Romance Novelists' Association's Romantic Novel of the Year, 2013, and with an accolade like that you can't not pick up this calorie packed indulgence.

Review: What the Bride Wore (Bridal Favours #3) - Jade Lee*

Jade Lee's hot Bridal Favors series is set in a daring, high-energy Regency world where deep longings, secret scandals, and the competition for social stature are all set against the glittering weddings of the season.

Grant Benton, Earl of Crowle, finally has the funds he always pretended to have, and what he wants now is a woman. That woman is Lady Irene Knopp, who spends her days helping debutantes plan their weddings. A recent widow, Irene longs for love again, but she's afraid to risk her heart, especially to the notorious Grant Benton

What the Bride Wore was a book that managed to get me through a very long, very uncomfortable train journey.

Review: Me Before You - Jojo Moyes

Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick. 

What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane. 

Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that. 

What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time

I thought that Me Before You was decidedly not my type of book. I had avoided it during it's huge success last year only to have it thrust at me last week by sister with the words, "You must read this. You have to." I had to? So I did.

Review: The Rogue Steals a Bride (The Rogues' Dynasty #6) - Amelia Grey*

Matson Brentwood has finally met the woman of his dreams. The lovely, red-haired Sophia Hart heats his blood like no other lady. Her alluring countenance has stopped him dead in his tracks. But no matter how attracted he is to her, he can’t give into his desire to possess her in every way because she is the ward of the man he’s sworn to hate. 

Newly arrived in London, Miss Sophia Hart is in need of a husband, but not for herself. She has twin, spinster aunts and one of them has decided she wants a man. Sophia agrees to help her aunt by allowing older gentlemen to call on her and then make sure Auntie spends more time in the gentleman’s company than Sophia does. But when Sophia meets the darkly handsome and intriguing Mr. Matson Brentwood, she knows that for the first time, she in danger of losing her heart.  

But there’s more than just an adversarial guardian and a long list of beaus standing between Sophia and Matson. Sophia promised her dying father she would honor his lifelong plan for her as an heiress and marry a titled gentleman. Matson isn’t titled so she must deny her love for him and make up to her father for costing him the love of his life.

Ameila Grey is yet another new author to me, where have I been?  Rogue Steals a Bride was a promotional book given to me by NetGalley and I jumped in on the first day of my holiday full of excitement.

Review: Don't Look Down - Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer

SHE is a director of dog food commercials who's just been recruited to finish a four-day movie shoot. But as soon as Lucy Armstrong arrives on set, she discovers that the staff is in chaos, the make-up artist is suicidal, and the stunt director just happens to be her ex-husband. That, and the temperamental lead actor has just acquired as an advisor a Green Beret who has the aggravating habit of always being right. HE thought that hiring on as a military consultant for a movie star was a to-die-for deal: easy work, easy money, easier starlets. But his first day on the job, Captain J.T. Wilder ends up babysitting a bumbling comedian, dodging low-flying helicopters, and trying to find out who's taking "shooting a movie" much too literally

I'm decided to brave a book I've been putting off for a while. Mistake? I'm still unsure...

Hiatus

Apologies for my extended absence everyone, I've been visiting my father in the wilds of nowhere and he shuns all this new fangled modern technology, including the internet! I know, I was shocked too. However he does get beautiful scenery, so I suppose it's ok.

Review: The Boy Next Door (Boy #1) - Meg Cabot

Gossip columnist and single New York City girl Mel lives lives in the most exciting place in the world, yet she's bored with her lovelife. But things get interesting fast when the old lady next door is nearly murdered. Mel starts paying closer attention to her neighbors—what exactly is going on with the cute boy next door? Has Mel found the love of her life—or a killer?

Time for me to review another one of my favourite romance reads, I love doing this - what an excuse to go back and re-read an old favourite. Meg Cabot is a name that most people associate with YA fiction, with her hugely successful Princess Diaries series, but she has, in fact, written several 'adult' series including the 'boy' series, the Heather Wells mysteries and the 'Queen of Babble' books.