Scarlett Bailey is a new author and The Night before Christmas is her first novel. For a début, it really is very good and is a lovely seasonal read in the run up to Christmas. I pretty much loved all of it and it had an absorbing storyline that grabbed my attention and kept it from start to finish.

As the title would suggest, the story takes place over the Christmas period, culminating in all sorts of things going on during Christmas Eve. The central character is Lydia who, with her boyfriend Stephen, is heading to the Lake District ready to spend Christmas with her closest friends, Katy, Alex and Joanna.

Scarlett Bailey

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A few years ago I was an avid reader of John Grisham books but recently seemed to lose interest in them. However, when I saw his latest book, The Litigators, it caught my interest and I decided to give him another go. I am really glad that I did as I really enjoyed this book and it has rekindled my interest in John Grisham so much so that he is now firmly back on my ‘must read’ list!

The Litigators seems to be a typical John Grisham legal thriller and courtroom drama where the little man takes on the big guns. In this case the little men are the ’boutique’ firm of Finley and Figg and the big guns are a pharmaceutical company called Arrick which has a drug on the market called Krayoxx that is designed to reduce cholesterol levels in overweight people.

John Grisham

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I have just finished reading Don’t Let Me Go by Catherine Ryan Hyde and feel quite emotionally drained because of this wonderful book. It is thought-provoking and poignant and makes subtle observations about the state of twenty first century living. It’s also most uplifting and to me felt like a testament to the power of human kindness.

In Don’t Let Me Go we meet Grace who is a small girl with big problems. She lives with her mother in a small apartment block in LA but her main problem is that her mother is a drug addict and if she does not clean up her act very soon, Grace could very likely be taken away by the ‘woman from the county’.

Catherine Ryan Hyde

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Out of My Depth, by Emily Barr, tells the story of four former school friends who meet up years later for a reunion. Right from the start the reader is aware that something dark and sinister occurred in their past which means that this reunion is never going to be easy – but this is at first only hinted at and gradually through the book the truth comes out. This really had me hooked right from the start!

All the women are now thirty two. Suzy, a successful artist is the one who instigates the reunion by inviting the others to her luxurious farmhouse in France. She is very surprised and also more than a bit nervous when everyone agrees to come. The others are Amanda, Isabelle and Tamsin. All have changed greatly since their school days and because of this they are like strangers to each other.

Emily Barr

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Jane Fallon is already the very successful author of three great novels and she has just written her fourth – The Ugly Sister. I had high expectations of this book, having already really enjoyed her first three, and I was not disappointed. However, I’m not quite sure why but it did take me a little while to get into it.

Sisters, Abi and Caroline (now calling herself Cleo), were very close when they were growing up despite being quite different. Caroline was the attractive one whereas Abi was more plain and studious. However, everything changed overnight when, at the age of sixteen, Caroline was spotted and offered a lucrative modelling contract.

Jane Fallon

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I’m not quite sure why I have not read any of Milly Johnson’s books before, as she is definitely my kind of author, but when I picked up An Autumn Crush, it was the first I had read. I was not too sure what to expect as the title sounds a bit light and airy, but as soon as I started reading I knew that I was going to enjoy it and it was also going to be a bit more thought provoking than the title would suggest. Having read this book though, I will definitely start reading more from Milly Johnson.

I had noticed that Milly Johnson’s last book was called ‘A Summer Fling’ so I was slightly concerned that An Autumn Crush might be a sequel and that I would be reading them in the wrong order. However, that is not the case as An Autumn Crush seems to feature an entirely different set of characters.

Milly Johnson

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I have read most of Emily Barr’s novels and each one is fresh and enjoyable and you think they can’t get any better. However, having just read Plan B, they do get better and I was totally absorbed in this story from the moment I picked the book up! Emily Barr is such a good storyteller and she hooks you from the very start so that you don’t want to stop reading. I found myself snatching odd moments in the day to pick this book up, and now that I’ve finished it I’m almost disappointed as I didn’t want to stop reading.

The main character in the book is Emma and over half of the story is told from her point of view and is written in the first person.

Emily Barr

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I am a huge fan of the writer Emily Barr and have pretty much read all of her books. Her latest book, The First Wife, is another great read, with lots of intrigue and mystery. However, some of her earlier books such as ‘The Sisterhood’ and ‘Out of My Depth’ are brilliant and take a lot of living up to! I don’t think that The First Wife ranks as highly as these but it is another top book all the same.

The First Wife is about a young woman called Lily who has not had the easiest of starts in life. Abandoned by her selfish parents as a child, she spent her teenage years looking after her ailing grandparents who die within a few months of each other when she is eighteen. Unfortunately, she is left with very little and having had a sheltered upbringing struggles to deal with life on her own in the big wide world.

Emily Barr

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What do you do after eighteen years of selflessly bringing up your children when they suddenly leave home? Do you see it as a huge opportunity to do the things that you have always wanted or is there just a vast empty hole in your home and in your heart? This is the question that Nina Bell poses in her fabulous new book, ‘The Empty Nesters‘.

Laura, Clover and Alice have been friends ever since their children started school together. Now they have all left for university and the mothers are feeling slightly adrift. Having no children at home feels very strange for Clover and she worries what is left for her and her husband George, especially as they don’t seem to have anything to talk about these days. Laura still wants to mother her son Jamie and cannot come to terms with the fact that he wants his independence.

Nina Bell

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I love reading Jodi Picoult’s books and they never fail to make me think as well as make me feel a huge range of different emotions. Her characters are often faced with moral dilemmas and the choices they have to make are never easy. This is the case with ‘Harvesting the Heart‘ which was one of her earliest books, published in 1993, but has recently been republished.

‘Harvesting the Heart‘ centres on a young woman called Paige who’s life has never been easy. Her mother left home when she was five, she had an abortion just before she graduated high school and ran away from her home at age eighteen rather than face her father’s daily disappointment in her. She arrives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and fortunately finds waitressing work in a diner, where she becomes quite well known for the drawings she creates of all the customers.

Jodi Picoult

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I used to read quite a few of Deborah Moggach’s books a few years ago and loved such ones as See Saw and Final Demand. Some of her later titles did not appeal so much though so I sort of forgot about her books – that is until I was given The Ex-Wives for Christmas. I enjoyed being reacquainted with this author and although I wouldn’t rank it as one of my favourites it is an absorbing and tantalising read. Strangely, the accolades on the cover claim that this book is a comedy but, although there were some funny moments, I did not really agree with this description although I would find it hard to describe exactly what type of book it is. I would suggest that it is part mystery with a touch of the sinister about it with the odd element of humour added in!

Deborah Moggach

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