Taken from RED magazine UK
Baby it’s cold outside, but these books will warm you right up…
One moment we’re still braving a bare leg and a light cardigan, then all of a sudden the clocks go back and the temperature plummets. There’s nothing for it but to get into our cosies, crank up the heating, make toast and the hot beverage of your choosing and curl up in your comfiest chair with a book that warms your heart and your soul. (Even if it might give your tear ducts a workout too.)
1
It’s 1921 and Britain is still mourning the men they lost in the Great War. Edie’s husband, Francis, never came home, but she hopes desperately that he’s still alive. And Harry, Francis’s brother, fought alongside him and finds himself back at the Western Front photographing graves for grieving families. But will the truth about Francis be harder for Harry and Edie to find? A gripping, devastating novel about the lost and the ones they left behind.
(Simon & Schuster, out now)
2
You can always expect an exotic location and a tugging at your heartstrings from Isabelle Broom and One Winter Morning is no exception. It’s Christmas time and a heartbroken, grieving Evangeline swaps frost and freezing toes for the sunnier climes of New Zealand where she hopes to confront her birth mother. But is Evangeline setting herself up for more sorrow or will she find the connection that she craves?
(Michael Joseph, out now)
3
Not a new book but newly reissued with a gorgeous cover and, full disclosure, I wrote the introduction because The Morning Gift is one of my very favourite novels. To escape Vienna and the Nazis, eighteen year old Ruth marries family friend and dashing young English professor and explorer, Quin, so she can be reunited with her parents in a shabby boarding house in London’s Belsize Park. Ruth and Quin plan to keep their marriage secret so it can be annulled but if only they weren’t so drawn to each other. Honestly, I adore this book so much and if you haven’t read any Eva Ibbotson before then you are in for such a treat.
(Macmillan, out now)
4
Becky Brandon nee Bloomwood is back in this Christmas-set romp, which is sure to bring good cheer and laughs a plenty to Shopaholic fans. Becky’s hosting Christmas this year and in between the demands of her family, she has to deal with the return of an old boyfriend and his annoying new girlfriend.
(Bantam Press, out now)
5
A nostalgic slice of Up-Lit sure to warm the cockles of even the coldest of hearts. Set in the nineties, elderly churchwarden Arthur’s life is very small and consists of the churchyard where he lives in a draughty old chapel and tends to his wife’s grave. But when someone else leaves flowers on Molly’s grave an unlikely friendship blossoms between Arthur and four teenage girls who help his track down the mystery visitor.
(Trapeze, out November 14th)
6
My ultimate comfort read will always be a Regency romance and if it’s got some smut in it, all the better! I love Tessa Dare who writes sassy, salty heroines with plenty of backbone and heroes who aren’t identikit alpha males. In The Wallflower Wager, animal-loving Lady Penelope Campion goes head to head with her ruthless neighbour Gabriel Duke and sparks fly.
(Mills & Boon, out now)
7
I’m a sucker for a good romance novel, especially when the weather is cold and all I want to do is curl up under my IKEA throw. A Gift In December was just the ticket. Heartbroken journalist, Jane Brook, gets a press trip to Norway to cover the annual Queen Of The Forest event, when a Christmas tree is selected to be sent to London as thanks from the Norwegians to the British people for their help during the war. It’s all snowy vistas, luxury hotels, parties and the attentions of foxy TV action hero, Philip Donnelly. But Jane also uncovers the story of a long ago love affair and a daring mission to get King Haakon, who’d defied the Nazis, to safety. This novel warmed my soul more than a mug of tea and a round of hot buttered toast.
(Hodder & Stoughton, out now)
8
Forget Tinder, forget swiping left, Caitlin Carter brings people together in the old-fashioned way. She’s a matchmaker with a huge client list and success rate. After all, her husband Harry is proof that Caitlin knows how to pick a good one. But beneath the polish and the perfect Instagram pics, Caitlin’s life is not what it seems in this sparky and heart-wrenching debut novel.
(Trapeze, out 28th November)
9
ITV”s latest bonnet drama, Sanditon, (based on a “fragment” of a novel that Jane Austen began before her death,) may be gone from our screens but the novelisation has just been published. Written by acclaimed author and based on Andrew Davies’s screenplay, revisit the fledgling seaside resort of Sanditon and the travails of our heroine, Charlotte Heywood, as she hopes for romance but realises that everyone in Sanditon has a secret.
(Trapeze, out now)
10
I don’t know what it is about homing pigeons but even the idea that they exist makes me want to cry a little bit. So, get your tissues ready for this wartime romance about a young woman volunteering with the National Pigeon Service (which really existed) and an American pilot working for the RAF. Pigeons, derring-do and love amid adversity – what more do you want from a novel?
(Hodder & Stoughton, out now)
Taken from RED magazine UK
