Claridges at Christmas - Karen Swan

'This was where her dreams drifted to if she didn't blot her nights out with drink; this was where her thoughts settled if she didn't fill her days with chat. She remembered this tiny, remote foreign village on a molecular level and the sight of it soaked into her like water into sand, because this was where her old life had ended and her new one had begun.'

Portobello - home to the world-famous street market, Notting Hill Carnival and Clem Alderton. She's the queen of the scene, the girl everyone wants to be or be with. But beneath the morning-after makeup, Clem is keeping a secret, and when she goes too far one reckless night she endangers everything - her home, her job and even her adored brother's love.

Portofino - a place of wild beauty and old-school glamour. Clem has been here once before and vowed never to return. But when a hansome stranger asks Clem to restore a neglected villa, it seems like the answer to her problems - if she can just face up to her past.

Claridge's - at Christmas. Clem is back in London working on a special commission for London's grandest hotel. But is this really where her heart lies?

This is a book from my own personal shelf which I'm reviewing.

I've read a few Karen Swan books and really liked them and I have others on my shelf to read.
I was initially drawn to this book by the cover - and bought it in paperback rather than a kindle download so I could look at it all over Christmas as I read it. There the association with Christmas and Claridges ends for most of the book! So disappointed in that aspect of it, as I like a nice Christmas read once a year. I should have known better based on her book "Christmas at Tiffany's" but you know you can't stay in Tiffany's LOL!

Putting all that aside, this is a great story. Lots of intrigue and real life drama which you can easily visualise happening. Great characters that you feel you know by the end of the book. Until the Portofino part of the book - when it travels to the realms of another world, so a nice bit of escapism.
There's lots of meaningful glances and comments that go unexplained, setting a mystery trail and one I was very surprised at when it was revealed.
I particularly liked the fashion and business elements of the book and the London references.

One niggle for me and I know I am being picky - but you do not hit "send" when you sent a tweet. Surely the author must have tweeted before.

I'm aiming to read 50 books this year so look out for lots of reviews.

The Dress Shop of Dreams - Menna Van Praag

Since her parents’ mysterious deaths many years ago, scientist Cora Sparks has spent her days in the safety of her university lab or at her grandmother Etta’s dress shop. Tucked away on a winding Cambridge street, Etta’s charming tiny store appears quite ordinary to passersby, but the colorfully vibrant racks of beaded silks, delicate laces, and jewel-toned velvets hold bewitching secrets: With just a few stitches from Etta’s needle, these gorgeous gowns have the power to free a woman’s deepest desires.

Etta’s dearest wish is to work her magic on her granddaughter. Cora’s studious, unromantic eye has overlooked Walt, the shy bookseller who has been in love with her forever. Determined not to allow Cora to miss her chance at happiness, Etta sews a tiny stitch into Walt’s collar, hoping to give him the courage to confess his feelings to Cora. But magic spells—like true love—can go awry. After Walt is spurred into action, Etta realizes she’s set in motion a series of astonishing events that will transform Cora’s life in extraordinary and unexpected ways.

I admit the title of this book had me at "dress". I love fashion and sewing, for me this book didn't deliver quite enough of either. It's not really all about the dress shop but more about her Granddaughter Cora. There is also a heavy dose of magic and not much realism so be prepared to suspend your disbelief and enter a little part of wonderland. Misunderstandings also feature strongly in the book, I had to keep reminding myself that this would surely all work out ok in the end.  Around two thirds of the way through the book takes more of a whodunnit turn and I began to enjoy it for that element.
It's probably just me but I kept thinking the book was set in America, maybe the names and the fact that I don't know of any bookshops that serve Cherry pie! Each time Oxford or Cambridge was mentioned I got a reminder that this was indeed set in England.
I would love to visit a Street that had this wonderful dress shop and a bookshop serving Cherry pie.
I'm giving this book a maybe, only because it won't be to everyone's taste due to the "magical" elements.

I'd like to thank Random House Publsihing and Netgalley for letting me have a copy of this kindle book to review.

The Woman Who Stole My Life - Marian Keyes

'Name: Stella Sweeney.

Height: average.

Recent life events: dramatic.'

One day, sitting in traffic, married Dublin mum Stella Sweeney attempts a good deed. The resulting car crash changes her life.

For she meets a man who wants her telephone number (for the insurance, it turns out). That's okay. She doesn't really like him much anyway (his Range Rover totally banjaxed her car).

But in this meeting is born the seed of something which will take Stella thousands of miles from her old life, turning an ordinary woman into a superstar, and, along the way, wrenching her whole family apart.

Is this all because of one ill-advised act of goodwill? Was meeting Mr Range Rover destiny or karma? Should she be grateful or hopping mad?

For the first time real, honest-to-goodness happiness is just within her reach. But is Stella Sweeney, Dublin housewife, ready to grasp it?

Never having read a Marian Keys book before I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’m so glad I chose this book to review – it’s brilliant. I’ve never read anything quite like it before. I was initially intrigued by the title of the book and it’s quoted by Stella’s ex-husband very early on, so I thought that was it. How wrong was I and fell hook line and sinker into the plot, never guessing what was going to happen, other than Gilda seemed like she was up to no good.

It begins with Stella – having an accident, and then from there we learn she is a writer – but what unfolds is told with such depth I got completely lost in the pages.

The book weaves between the past and present, which seems to be a style of most books I read at the moment. However, in this book it enabled me to meet the characters and then when I got the back story form a completely different opinion of them.

My thanks go to Penguin UK and Net Galley for providing me with a copy of the book to review, I’ve really enjoyed it.

The Face Transplant - R Arundel

Dr. Matthew MacAulay is a facial transplant surgeon working in a prestigious New York hospital. He is forced at gunpoint to perform a facial transplant in the middle of the night. The surgical team includes Dr. Sarah Larsson the anesthetist and his scrub nurse Marcia Lopez. They work under intense pressure but unfortunately the patient dies. The next day Matthew learns that Dr. Tom Grabowski, leader of the facial transplant program in Palo Alto, also died last night. The death is initially classified as a heart attack. Matthew is suspicious since the facial transplant centers are being funded by the government in secret.

The Secretary of Defense is very concerned by the death of Dr. Tom Grabowski; he was the world leader in transplant research and possessed a great deal of highly valuable intellectual property. Quentin Taylor assigns Jonathan to investigate Tom’s death and ensure no vital secrets have gone missing. Clues seem to just fall into Jonathan’s lap. Within no time Jonathan is convinced Matthew is behind the death of Tom Grabowski. Later nurse Marcia Lopez is found dead. Someone has skillfully framed Matthew for these murders and destroyed his professional reputation. Jonathan believes Matthew is responsible for both murders. Jonathan convinces the Secretary of Defense that Matthew may be selling secrets about the transplant program to a foreign power. Matthew must go underground and evade the relentless pursuit of Jonathan. Matthew continues to investigate the murder of Tom with the help of his friends.

The plot is well designed and sophisticated, it may be impossible to stop. Matthew and Sarah begin a frantic race to prevent a catastrophe of epic scale. The final conclusion makes Matthew re-examine demons hidden in his life, some he never knew existed.

I won’t go into the details of the plot of the book, as the synopsis above is clear on that. I did like the premise of the book – what I didn't like was the author’s habit of every so often putting the dialogue almost like lines in a play, with the character’s name and what they said. I’ve never seen that in a book before, and for a quick reader like myself I found it confusing and had to re-read sections.

I’m no expert on medical procedures, but some of it did seem a little implausible at times. That aside, the actual action in this book was terrifying at times. The part where an avalanche occurs really had my heart racing. Anyone going undercover needs good intelligence, which was supplied in the form of the robot Alice, without her it would have been hard to believe how the action could have occurred.  It did have the makings of a good thriller and towards the end that is more to the front of the writing, but overall I thought it had too much detail around the medical procedures.

I stuck with it as I wanted to know the ending – I wasn’t disappointed.

My thanks go to Netgalley for supplying me with a copy of the book to review. 

Allegra Biscotti - Olivia Bennett

She doesn't want her turn on the catwalk-she'd rather be behind the scenes creating fabulous outfits! So when a famous fashionista discovers Emma's designs and offers her the opportunity of a lifetime-a feature in Madison magazine (squeal!)-Emma sort of, well, panics. She has only one option: to create a secret identity.

And so Allegra Biscotti is born.

Allegra is worldly, sophisticated, and bold-everything Emma is not. But the pressure is on. And Emma quickly discovers juggling school, a new crush, friends, and a secret identity might not be as glamorous as she thought.

Something a little different from me - this is a book I downloaded as it was (and still is) on offer at 1p on Amazon. It's a teen book but after reading some of the reviews I decided to give it a go. 

The book is based on Emma - who has to invent an alter go Allegra to pass off her fashion designs to a magazine - she is after all only a teenager.

I love fashion and used to sew all my own clothes, and when I was younger did have a desire to be a dress designer- so this book took me back to those days. Except for Allegra (Emma) she actually does get to do it. There is some texting but other than that there is a lack of actual "teen speak" and so it is an easy book to read and a little escapism. I loved all the descriptive writing about the actual sewing, less so the "Bees" who are reminicient of "Mean Girls" and "The Heathers".

The Silkworm - Robert Galbraith

When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, she just thinks he has gone off by himself for a few days - as he has done before - and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home.

But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine's disappearance than his wife realises. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel were published it would ruin lives - so there are a lot of people who might want to silence him.

And when Quine is found brutally murdered in bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any he has encountered before . . .

I’m a JK Rowling fan but to put this review into context I actually hated The Casual Vacancy. So it was with trepidation I first read her alter ego Galbraith.

However, I loved the first book featuring Cormoran Strike “The Cuckoo’s Calling” and was eager to read the sequel “The Silkworm”.  I have to say it did not disappoint. It was wonderful to be riding shotgun with Cormoran again as he traipsed around London. So much so that I am sad it is over and I now await hopefully a third book. I liked the way that in this book Cormoran called in favours from his connected family, giving a different dimension to the plot.

I see that other reviewers think this is not a crime novel. I read a lot of crime and to me the development of the characters adds more to the book than a basic whodunit. It’s almost starting to feel like the TV series Moonlighting for those who can remember that, with the chemistry developing between Cormoran and his PA now decidedly sidekick. Also the writing is so evocative, really transporting you to the scene, especially the snowy setting.

I didn't guess “whodunit” but without giving away the plot I did guess part of the mechanism, but it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the book.

The Great Christmas Knit Off - Alexandra Brown

Heartbroken after being jilted at the altar, Sybil has been saved from despair by her knitting obsession and now her home is filled to bursting with tea cosies, bobble hats, and jumpers. But, after discovering that she may have perpetrated the cock-up of the century at work, Sybil decides to make a hasty exit and, just weeks before Christmas, runs away to the picturesque village of Tindledale.

There, Sybil discovers Hettie’s House of Haberdashery, an emporium dedicated to the world of knitting and needle craft. But Hettie, the outspoken octogenarian owner, is struggling and now the shop is due for closure. And when Hettie decides that Sybil’s wonderfully wacky Christmas jumpers are just the thing to add a bit of excitement to her window display, something miraculous starts to happen…

I love all crafts, I love the idea of an idyllic haberdashery shop in a quaint village with a fab pub and a lovely tearoom serving mouth-watering delicacies. So, when I stepped into The Great Christmas Knit Off and the village of Tindledale I felt right at home immediately. I was instantly transported into the village and could see it all vividly including the all the lovely finds in Hettie’s Haberdashery shop, all the glorious balls of wool waiting to be oohed and aahed over.

We get to explore all of the above with Sybs who has been jilted at the altar and might be out of a job. She’s also got the cutest loveliest Scottie dog and I could just imagine him so clearly through Alex’s writing. He’s got the fab name of Basil too. I used to have a westie dog and the traits are very similar.

Now I loved the book and can’t wait to return to Tindledale (and hear more about Basil). However, a true knitter would need to do a tension square before several people all started sharing knitting a garment! And I felt it ended a little abruptly, but perhaps that’s to leave me wanting more………

My thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK for the supplying me with the advance copy of this book to review.