Christmas In Winter Hill by Melody Carlson

Dec13

All That Is Good

Christmas In Winter Hill by Melody Carlson is a delightful Christmas book that will leave you smiling. Every year Melody Carlson releases a Christmas book and I look forward to reading it, and this year’s offering does not disappoint.

Christmas is a time for love and family but if you have never had one, it can be hard. One may feel isolated and lonely as it looks like the whole world is having fun.

Winter Hill is a place of community. A warm welcome awaits as strangers are taken under its wings. New beginnings are made easier with a greeting from smiling faces.

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A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Dec13

God Bless Us Every One

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is a classic tale that I have never read until now – and it did not disappoint. Charles Dickens draws Scrooge perfectly as a bad tempered mean old miser. “No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him.” There seems nothing to recommend him.

As the book progresses, a gradual change in tone occurs as Scrooge realises his life really is at stake. The cold and gloom of the start contrasts with the brightness and light of the end of the novel. The reader gets caught up in the gaiety.

As a fan of various films of A Christmas Carol the story was familiar. I was pleasantly surprised and pleased at how closely the Alastair Sim version is to the book. Whole sections of the narrative were familiar to me.

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I’ll Be Home For Christmas by Abbey Clancy

Dec13

There’s No Place Like Home

I’ll Be Home For Christmas by Abbey Clancy is a fun-filled contemporary novel that will delight the reader from the start.

The story concerns the world of show biz. It all looks very glamourous but underneath it is hard work and difficult being apart from loved ones. Temptations lie all around. Characters need to keep focused on what is really important and not live for the moment.

Long distance relationships are stretched to breaking point. Will they bounce back? Or is it the end of the road?

True love awaits a character. True love is found in surprizing places and beautiful to watch it bud and blossom.

There are themes of hurt and forgiveness as a character wakes up to realise what is worth fighting for.

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The Vanished Bride by Bella Ellis

Dec12

Perfect For Bronte Fans

The Vanished Bride by Bella Ellis is a cleverly thought out historical mystery and the first book in The Bronte Mysteries series. As the name suggests the action revolves around the Bronte sisters. As fact meets fiction, the reader is in for a real treat.

I am a huge Bronte fan and adore Haworth and the surrounding area. Therefore the locations were familiar to me and helped the book to come alive as I ‘lived’ through the action.

Within the novel, the Bronte sisters take on amateur sleuthing. They are three well educated, highly intelligent young women, trying to exert their presence at a time when women were seen as inferior to men. It is ironic that they need the help of Branwell Bronte to gain access to certain places. He is clearly inferior to them with his drug and alcohol dependence and yet he is accepted just because he is a male. His weak character is in contrast to his far stronger sisters.

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