New books coming soon!

I'm thrilled to announce that I have a new series of books coming out this year. Called An English Village Mystery, they will be set in the quirky village of Raven's Edge, which first featured in Something Wicked.

The village of Raven’s Edge was surrounded by a dark, tangled

forest. The kind of forest that evoked the wrong sort of fairy

tale, where you should never stray far from the path...

The first two books will be out on the 7th May, with more to follow!

Murder at Raven's Edge

(An English Village Mystery #1)

When Milla Graham returns to her childhood home of Raven’s Edge after eighteen long years away, she finds the perfect English village looks much the same – all rose-covered cottages and quaint teashops full of scones and gossip.

But her nostalgic visit takes a dark turn when the body of a local woman is discovered in an abandoned manor house on the edge of the forest. The murder scene is chillingly close to that of Milla’s own mother, whose death was never solved. As she begins to investigate the connection, Milla realises this quirky village is guarding some dark secrets.

Handsome, grumpy local police detective Ben Taylor doesn’t believe in coincidences, and he doesn’t think mysterious newcomer Milla Graham is as innocent as she seems. Why is she really here in Raven’s Edge, and how come she keeps turning up at his crime scenes, causing trouble? Can he solve this murder case without losing himself – or his heart – to the rather distracting Miss Graham?

When another body is found, everyone becomes a suspect – from the barmaid at the local pub to Milla Graham herself. It seems that in Raven’s Edge, not everybody is as friendly, or as innocent, as they first seem...

**Murder at Raven's Edge was previously published as Trust Me I Lie**

Pre Order Here!

Murder at Ravenswood House

(An English Village Mystery #2)

A gruesome murder in charming Raven’s Edge sends Milla Graham sleuthing to catch a killer, win back her detective ex, and dig up a decades-old secret along the way...

When a shocking murder rocks the picture-perfect English village of Raven’s Edge, amateur detective Milla Graham finds herself right at the centre of the mystery. Still reeling from her recent breakup with local police officer Ben Taylor, Milla sets her sights on solving the case, hoping to win Ben back.

But when the evidence begins to point to Milla’s old friend and former boyfriend Lorcan Black, she must choose between her loyalties to the past and the possibilities of the future. Meanwhile, Ben is on a different trail – he’s begun to suspect that the murderer could be someone from his own family’s dark history.

Further complicating matters are Milla’s meddling grandmother, Ben’s no-nonsense police partner Harriet, and David the surprisingly young and sexy new vicar. With shocking twists around every cobblestone corner, the truth refuses to stay buried for long in this quaint village, whose picture-postcard façade hides decades of buried grudges, plots, and betrayal.

Will Milla solve the mystery in time to rescue her relationship with Ben? Can Ben face the skeletons in his family’s closet before one of his own relatives meets the same bloody end?

Pre Order Here!

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How to Declutter your Books (without getting the urge to run for the hills...)

It started when I spotted Mary Stewart's classic romantic suspense novels had been reduced to 99p in the Kindle Daily Deal. I promptly downloaded them all. Then it was Elly Griffiths's murder mysteries, then Georgette Heyer's historical romances. All my favourite authors, all books I already owned but was too lazy to unearth them from whatever crate in the garage I'd stored them in. It took a while but I eventually realised that if I kept doing this it was going to get really expensive. Had I finally reached the point where I would have to choose between ebooks and 'real' books?

Too many books?

No, no, no, no, no; that would be far too drastic! Throw away my favourite books, my vintage collections, and all those books I'd bought and not yet read? I just couldn't do it.

Perhaps instead of shoving books into crates, I could reduce their number and bring my favourites back into the house and onto my bookshelves?

Here's how I decided which ones to keep and which ones to donate to my local charity shop.

1. I kept all my favourites, obviously - mostly romance and crime, including my Agatha Christies with their amazing vintage covers. Some look even scarier than the stories.

My favourite crime novels!

2. Anything falling to bits went into the recycling bin. It was a wrench - but also a good excuse to buy again on Kindle! Although I'm already on my second copy of several Jilly Cooper books; they have literally been read to death, poor things.

3. I weeded out duplicates. I have a bad habit of accidentally purchasing books I already own but I do like to buy favourites again when they're on offer. Amazon will tell me if I've already bought a book from them but not if I've bought it from Waterstones. I can't think why.

4. I took out anything I was never likely to read, or read again because I hadn't enjoyed it or my tastes had changed. Goodbye contemporary romance and 80s bonkbusters. I also had a collection of vintage Mills and Boon (even older than me!), with some very dubious consent scenes between hero and heroine. I'm afraid they had to go, along with the erotica I bought after the success of Fifty Shades and thought 'Hey, that looks easy to write. Maybe I'll have a go?' (Note to self: Don't ever chase a trend that is so far out of your comfort zone!)

My 80s bonkbuster collection is now halved!

5. The books I had left (not quite half, more like two thirds) I sorted into genres and stacked them back into the crates, now labelled with the authors' names so I can find them again.

6. Everything I hadn't read but still wanted to read I sorted into smaller crates, creating possibly the biggest to-be-read pile ever. Or, as my daughter said, 'That's not a to-be-read pile, that's a small library!' I'm keeping them in my study, to shame me into reading them! I did toy with the idea of adding them all to my 'want to read' list on Goodreads - but I think it would be quicker to get on and read them!

So that's my book collection streamlined and waiting for me to buy another bookcase. Now all I have to do is start reading! 

And in the meantime, make sure I stay out of the bookshop, the library, Netgalley ...

Now THIS is a
to-be-read pile!

Related posts:

Ten Authors Who Influenced Me (or, you are what you read!)

Ten (Slightly Random) Ways to Choose a Book

Why I Love My Kindle

And if you want to know more about the books I love reading,

 visit my book blog!

Once More Unto The Bookstore

Image Copyright: Mine, except top and bottom: Shutterstock

Gladstone's Library, Hawarden

If you follow me on social media, you'll know that in addition to old houses and castles I also love book shops and libraries. Last week I finally got around to visiting somewhere I'd always wanted to go, Gladstone's Library in Hawarden, with two of my friends from Novelistas Ink: Valerie-Anne Baglietto and Sophie Claire.

Gladstone's Library, Hawarden

It's a beautiful old building, built in 1906 to replace the original one, and is Grade 1 listed. We arranged our trip on the pretext of calling it a business meeting but although there was lots of talking, and much coffee and cake consumed in the cafe, there wasn't a lot of 'business' discussion!

A statue of Gladstone in the grounds

I'm sorry that my photos are a little bit blurry. The library is a place of work and understandably expects visitors to maintain complete silence. I became a little self-conscious about using my camera, which emits a cheerful electronic trill every time I take a picture, so I switched to using my mobile instead!

The Reading Rooms

Gladstone's Library is named after William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898), who served four terms as Prime Minster - more than any other person. He was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, finally retiring at the age of 84. He had a large personal library and was keen to make it accessible to others not so fortunate, donating over 32,000 of his own books - mainly theology and history.

The Reading Rooms

Legend has it that he carried the books between the family home at Hawarden Castle and the library himself, with only the aid of a wheelbarrow, his valet and one of his daughters.

Some of Gladstone's personal possessions

The library is now home to more than 150,000 books, journals and pamphlets. Some are over 400 years old, some are first editions. Some still contain Gladstone's personal notes written in the margins!

The library is also a residential library and has 26 bedrooms available for anyone wanting to 'sleep' with the books! Anyone can visit but only residents and 'readers' can use the library (it is free to join). But there are short tours lasting about ten minutes, known as 'Glimpses', three times a day. The library also hosts various programmes and events, including their annual festival, Gladfest. There is a cafe, Food For Thought, open seven days a week, and conference rooms available for hire.

I think I feel another Novelistas' 'business meeting' coming on ...

Left to Right: Valerie-Anne Baglietto
Louise Marley and Sophie Claire
(in the cafe!)

Links:

The Gladstone Library

Novelistas Ink

Photo Credits:

All photos were taken by me, except the group shot © Sophie Claire.

When in Paris ...

In which I visit Paris - and still end up in a bookstore and a graveyard... 

I try not to talk about personal stuff on social media, so let's just say 2016 was not a great year for us and leave it at that. By the time it got to December, my husband and I decided we needed a holiday! Holiday destinations in December are pretty limited, but then we had the great idea to combine a visit to Disneyland Paris, where we'd taken the kids when they were (much!) younger, with a trip to the city of Paris.

My daughter and me - halfway up the Eiffel Tower!

We held a family conference about the 'must see' places to visit. We all voted for the Eiffel Tower. I wanted to go to the Louvre. I was not so bothered about the inside, I just wanted to see the glass pyramid that always features in all the movies. Or as my husband put it, 'You want to visit the Louvre because you once saw it in a Tom Hanks film?' My other vote was for Shakespeare and Company, a very famous bookshop close to Notre-Dame. Fortunately, because it was close to Notre-Dame, and my daughter also cast her vote for it, it was added to the list. My daughter also had a hankering to visit the Catacombs - basically one giant, underground ossuary, but none of us quite fancied being so close to real, er, 'live' bones, so we compromised by visiting Pere Lachaise Cemetery.

The Eiffel Tower was built by Gustave Eiffel in 1889 as part of the Exposition Universelle, to celebrate 100 years of the Revolution. You can buy tickets in advance, online, or just queue up on the day, which is what we did. It was the middle of December and we only waited in line for about 20 minutes. There is also a very good app for smart phones, which acts like a guidebook with lots of facts. We bought tickets for the 1st and 2nd floor, which was cheaper than going right to the top and quite high enough for us! And we took the glass elevator rather than the stairs - there is one in each pillar. Even though it was a misty day, there were great views of Paris. Definitely recommended!

You don't need me to tell you
what this is, do you?

I'd first visited Paris on a school trip, so one of the places I wanted to see again was Notre-Dame. We didn't go inside, just admired it from the outside - it's pretty impressive, as you can see! It's a gothic cathedral dating back to the 12th century, and was one of the first buildings to use flying buttresses (arched exterior supports) after cracks appeared in the walls.

Notre-Dame, cunningly angled to cut
the tourists' heads off

Shakespeare and Company is a quirky bookshop I'd first come across on Pinterest. It's an English language bookstore on the banks of the River Seine, just around the corner from Notre-Dame. Built in the early 1600s, the building was originally a monastery but opened as a bookstore in 1951 by an American, George Whitman. In 1964, the name was changed to Shakespeare and Company on the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's birth, and also in honour of another bookseller George admired,  Sylvia Beach, who had opened the first Shakespeare and Company in 1919.

Me!
(And my husband, wondering why I'm blocking the door)

I could have spent all day in that bookshop! There are several little rooms, all leading off each other, overflowing bookshelves from floor to ceiling, exposed brickwork and wooden beams, and signs saying things like 'You can find Agatha Christie under the stairs'. But you'll have to take my word for that because, understandably, they don't allow photos of the interior and my memory's not great! I bought my son a copy of The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu and my daughter a copy of In Search of Lost Time (vol 6) by Marcel Proust, because she's mad on him (more of that later!). Each book was stamped with the bookshop logo and came with a bookmark. What did I buy for me? I managed to restrain myself and settled for one of their tote bags (although I don't think George would have been impressed!).

Shopping!

We had lunch and then headed to Pere Lachaise Cemetery, where my daughter was keen to visit Marcel Proust's grave. The cemetery is absolutely huge, like a mini village, complete with little cobbled streets lined with trees. It is essential to have a map, which can be bought at one of the gates or surrounding kiosks. Unfortunately, when we arrived there were none available, probably because it was the middle of December! We got around this by using a smartphone to photograph one of the large maps by the entrance, along with a key to all the 'famous' graves. If you do this, make sure your photograph is not blurred before you set off or you will get lost!

Marcel Proust's grave

The cemetery is named after Pere Francois de la Chaise (1624-1709) (the confessor to King Louis XIV), who lived in a house on the site. The property was bought by the city in 1804 and the grounds turned into a cemetery. Napoleon, who had been declared Emperor three days previously, declared that 'Every citizen has the right to be buried regardless of race or religion'. Unfortunately, because the cemetery was situated so far from the city and had not been blessed by the church, it attracted few funerals. To encourage the purchase of burial plots, the administrators arranged for the remains of Jean de La Fontaine and Moliere to be re-interred here; suddenly everyone wanted to be buried alongside the rich and famous. Today there are over 1 million bodies buried, as well as very moving memorials to the victims of the Holocaust and both world wars.

One of the 'streets' at
the Pere Lachaise Cemetery

But the cemetery is mostly famous for being 'home' to celebrities, including Honore de Balzac, Sarah Bernhardt, Georges Bizet, Frederic Chopin, Colette, Isadora Duncan, Marcel Marceau, Yves Montand, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Camille Pissarro, Marcel Proust, Simone Signoret, Gertrude Stein and Oscar Wilde. It is sweet to see the fresh flowers and little notes that their fans have left at some of the graves. Not so sweet to see how some of the graves have been scrawled over with lipstick and felt tip pen. Oscar Wilde's grave has now been encased in glass - so his 'fans' write on that instead. Jim Morrison's grave has been so vandalised over the years, apparently it now has its own guard.

Oscar Wilde's grave

Most of the tombs are built like mini-mausoleums, with a door at the front, although the bodies (usually more than one) are buried beneath the ground. The idea is the mourner would go inside to pray and leave flowers on one of the shelves inside. The cemetery is definitely worth a visit, not just to see the famous graves. But if you do go, allow a good couple of hours and make sure you have a map!

Time to go home ...

Links:

The Eiffel Tower (official website)
Notre-Dame (official website)

Shakespeare and Company (bookshop) (official website)

Related Posts:

A Writer's Holiday (in which I visit Italy)
A Grave Obsession (why I love churchyards)
More Ramblings About Tombs (in which I visit an ancient Welsh burial chamber)


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5 Random Things From My Desk

For this week's blog post I thought I'd write something completely different.    

I should be writing my new novel but yesterday afternoon I ended up tidying my desk instead (expert procrastinator, remember?) and, along with a forgotten bar of chocolate (still within sell-by date: yay!), I found a selection of random objects that to anyone else might seem totally weird.

Reno from Final Fantasy

I won Reno in a competition organised by one of my favourite authors, Anne Stuart. Anne used Reno as inspiration for one of her own characters in a book called Fire and Ice. She's blogged about it here. He usually sits on my tub of paperclips. I love him.

I've also got a Ninja Minion, a glow-in-the-dark polar bear and a large pink frog wearing a crown, but we won't go into that.

Hotel Business Card

This is an advert for the Waterton Park Hotel, where my husband stayed about a year or so ago. He had the  idea the photo would appeal to me because it's of a Palladian house built on an island in the middle of a lake, and he thought I might want to put it in one of my books! It was one of those really strange coincidences because he was unaware I'd just created a similar house (Hartfell) in Trust Me Lie - although in my book the house is a very modern one.

Postcard of Marilyn Monroe

I found this old postcard when I was sorting through some old photographs. It was sent to me over 30 years ago by my school-friend Tracey. She had recently moved away and would write to me every week with a Marilyn Monroe postcard - one of my favourite actresses. I kept all the postcards but this one somehow came adrift from the others and now sits on my desk.



Packet of Forget-Me-Not Seeds

If my friend Sophie Claire is reading this, she will not be pleased with me! These seeds were part of a goody bag from the launch of her book, My Forget-Me-Not Ex. Part of the goody bag included a cute little terracotta pot to plant them in, so I had no excuse not to do so.

Sorry, Sophie! I'll sow them soon, honest!




The English Housewife in the Seventeenth Century

by Christina Hole (1953)

I have lots of modern paperbacks piled up on my desk but this is a book picked up on my most recent trip to a second-hand book fair. I love second-hand book fairs, particularly the really old books with interesting inscriptions and pretty bindings.

But I bought this book because I love history but I don't know much about the seventeenth century other than the events of the Civil War. Here's an extract:

"Cottage women could not afford many candles, and for all ordinary purposes they relied upon rushlights which they made themselves ... The rushes grew wild in the water-meadows and under hedges, and the grease in which they were coated came from the scourings of the frying pan and the cooking pot. They were gathered in summer while they were green and kept in water until the housewife was ready to make the lights. Then the green rind was peeled off, leaving a narrow strip along one side. The next step was  to bleach the reeds by putting them out of doors for two or three nights and letting them soak in the dew, and afterwards they were dried in the sun. Then they were laid in long iron pans filled with melted grease, and when they were thoroughly coated and dried, they were hung in bark containers on the wall."

All that trouble to go to when you consider all we do now is reach out and click on an electric light!

Now, what weird and wonderful things are lurking on your desk?

My desk: The tidy version
(for the untidy version you need to click here)

Related Posts: 

Where I Write (for Novelistas Ink)

A Room of One's Own

Never miss a post! See that little box in the left-hand column, near the top, that says 'Follow by Email'? If you add your email address, you'll receive my latest blog post almost as soon as I've written it.

Last Orders

The inspiration behind the pub in Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

Although I now live in Wales I grew up in Hampshire, where every village had a pub—or six! Nightclubs were expensive, so my friends and I would head to a different pub each Saturday night, taking it in turns to be the designated driver. There was The Swordfish (surrounded by pine trees and overlooking the sea) and The Belle Vu, which we loved for the long list of cocktails we never quite got to the end of. The Rising Sun, beside the River Hamble at Warsash, was handily within walking distance but my favourite was The Lone Barn at Bursledon.

As the name suggests, The Lone Barn was a real 19th century barn, which had been moved brick-by-brick from Winchester and relocated beside another pub called The Fox & Hounds. It was very rustic, with farming tools hanging up around the walls, a flagstone floor and a couple of stuffed owls perched up high on the exposed oak beams. At least, I hope they were stuffed—they certainly never moved! The seats were either hacked from wooden barrels or long wooden benches, and every Easter a hot cross bun would be nailed to one of the beams for good luck. Where The Belle Vu had fancy cocktails, with more piña than colada, The Lone Barn’s speciality was fruit wines, with every flavour you could imagine.

The Lone Barn made such an impression it eventually made it into Smoke Gets in Your Eyes as ‘The Stables’. Unlike The Swordfish and The Belle Vu, which were both turned into flats, The Lone Barn is still there, much smarter now, as part of a pub/restaurant chain.

I wonder if the stuffed owl is still there?

Ten Authors Who Influenced Me (or, You Are What You Read)

A year ago I wrote about five books that influenced me as a writer. So for this week's post I thought I'd expand on that and talk about the authors who influenced my writing style...

What makes a writer? A huge imagination, obviously, combined with life's experiences and the burning need to write, even with the knowledge that what you write might never be read by anyone other than yourself - or your mum/spouse/bestie. (OK, that sounds really sad, but it's A Writer's Thing. We're used to it, we're over it, and we still don't let it stop us doing it.)

Something else I believe makes a writer are the books we choose to read. I've never understood writers who say they don't read - anything. As a writer you can learn so much from reading other people's books, absorbing how to create plots and characters without even realising you're doing it. Stephen King said it best in his book, On Writing:

"If you don't have time to read,

you don't have the time (or the tools) to write.

Simple as that."

So, apart from Stephen King, which authors influenced me?

For as long as I can remember, I've loved to read. I was lucky, I came from a family of book addicts. I inherited my mother's Enid Blyton collection and a hefty Hans Christian Andersen omnibus from my father. I still own a copy of Enid Blyton's fairy tales, published in the 1930s and now falling to bits, for it was well-loved both by me and my mother. In contrast the Hans Christian Andersen book, while almost as old, is immaculate, possibly because many of the stories weren't exactly happy ever after.

From fairy tales I moved onto adventure stories; Enid Blyton's Famous Five and her Barney Mystery stories were my favourites. (The Ring O'Bells Mystery even made an appearance in Nemesis). In those days Enid Blyton was considered very unfashionable and I had to build my collection from second-hand stores and jumble sales.

Around the age of ten I had a short-lived obsession with wanting to be a ballerina/movie star/rock singer, and discovered Noel Streatfeild. I particularly loved Ballet Shoes and the sequels Curtain Up (also known as Theatre Shoes) and The Painted Garden (Movie Shoes). Thursday's Child also made a huge impression. The heroine is strong and not always likeable, it's set in the past and there is a mystery to solve. Without realising it, I'd found the type of book I love to read most.

When I hit my teens the fashion was for angsty teenage books, so I went straight onto fiction for adults. First I worked my way through my grandmother's collection of romantic suspense. Then, while on a rainy holiday to the Isle of Wight, I discovered Jilly Cooper, before moving on to those big fat glitzy books by Jackie Collins, Sally Beauman and Judith Krantz. It certainly was a big jump from Enid Blyton and Noel Streatfeild but oh, I loved those books! They were so glamorous; always set in exotic locations with sexy characters (male and female), high stakes and a mystery involving someone's parentage or murder attempts by a jealous rival. Reading those books definitely influenced the first novel I wrote, A Girl's Best Friend (which I've blogged about here).

By the tail end of the 1990s the fashion for books about strong, independent women waned and I found myself reading less romance and more crime/thrillers. I discovered Harlan Coben, loving his twisty plots that usually had some family secret at the heart, and also Kathy Reichs for her strong heroine and clever forensic clues that I always failed to spot. (I hate guessing the bad guy two chapters in!)

At the end of the 2000s I was given my first Kindle, which opened up a whole new world to me. Suddenly I had instant access to thousands of authors I'd never heard of - along with genres I'd never heard of either. I never really got to grips with steampunk or stories about shape-shifters,  but I rediscovered my love of romantic suspense - something I'd first discovered when I'd raided my grandmother's bookshelves way  back in my teens - and historical romance, which influenced Breathless and Something Wicked. My reading habits had turned full circle.

So the books I love to read (even though they're from vastly different genres) have all contributed to the kind of stories I like to write. I adore strong female characters who are either part of a loving family or a close group of friends. One character might be wealthy or a celebrity, because their 'problems' fascinate me. I like beautiful locations, particularly big old houses that have some kind of history or dubious past. And I love twisty-turny plots and mysteries.

If I'd read different books, would I be a different writer? Undoubtedly.

Maybe you should be careful what you read ...

Related Posts:

Five Books Which Influenced Me

Five Books Which Chilled Me

Five Books Which Romanced Me

Ten (Slightly Random) Ways to Choose a Book

Most Favourite Books in the World Ever (Pinterest Board)

Five Recommended Reads for Chocolate Lovers

I love reading books. (You may have already noticed this).

Do you know what goes well with books? Chocolate!

So here are five guaranteed calorie-free reads to melt your heart, not your diet.

Chocolat by Joanne Harris

When an exotic stranger, Vianne Rocher, arrives in the French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes and opens a chocolate boutique directly opposite the church, Father Reynaud denounces her as a serious moral danger to his flock - especially as it is the beginning of Lent, the traditional season of self-denial.

As passions flare and the conflict escalates, the whole community takes sides. Can the solemnity of the Church compare with the sinful pleasure of a chocolate truffle?

The book has a slightly darker edge than the famous film starring Johnny Depp. I love it for the range of eccentric characters that populate Lansquenet, as different to each other as the chocolates Vianne sells in her shop. A magical and deliciously decadent read. If you enjoy it, there is also a sequel: The Lollipop Shoes.

The Chocolate Run by Dorothy Koomson

Amber Salpone doesn't mean to keep ending up in bed with her friend Greg Walterson, but she can't help herself. And every time it 'just happens' their secret affair moves closer to being a real relationship, which is a big problem when he's a womaniser and she's a commitment-phobe.

While Amber struggles to accept her new feelings for Greg, she also realises that her closeness to Jen, her best friend, is slipping away and the two of them are becoming virtual strangers. Slowly but surely, as the stark truths of all their lives are revealed, Amber has to confront the fact that chocolate can't cure everything and sometimes running away isn't an option ...

The Chocolate Run is one of Dorothy's lighter novels, definitely romantic comedy, and I love the way Amber compares everyone she meets to a different chocolate. As well as the romance, this is also a novel about friendship. (And the cover is beautiful!)

Chocolate Wishes by Trisha Ashley

In the picture-perfect Lancashire village of Sticklepond, Confectioner Chloe dispenses inspirational sweet treats containing a prediction for each customer. If only her own life was as easy to forecast - perhaps Chloe could have foreseen being jilted at the altar…

But when a new Vicar arrives in the village, the rumour mill goes into overdrive. Not only is Raffy Sinclair the charismatic ex-front man of rock band 'Mortal Ruin', he's also the Chloe's first love and the man who broke her heart.

Try as she might, Chloe can't ignore this blast from her past. Could now be the time for her to make a wish - and dare to believe it can come true?

The thing I like best about Trisha's books is that she creates these wonderful little villages populated by lovable but completely eccentric characters. As well as Chloe and her chocolate wishes (like fortune cookies, with little messages inside), we meet her warlock grandfather who runs a museum about magic, her younger brother who's just growing out of an extreme Goth phase, and the new vicar who was once a rock star - and Chole's ex ... One of my all-time favourites!

If you enjoy this, you'll also love Chocolate Shoes and Wedding Blues. (Both books are now available in a box set called The Chocolate Collection.)

The Chocolate Lovers' Club by Carole Matthews

For Lucy Lombard, there's nothing that chocolate can't cure. From heartache to headaches, it's the one thing she knows that she can rely on - and she's not alone. Fellow chocolate addicts Autumn, Nadia and Chantal share her passion and together they form a select group known as The Chocolate Lovers' Club. Whenever there's a crisis, they meet in their sanctuary, a cafe called Chocolate Heaven. And with a cheating boyfriend, a flirtatious boss, a gambling husband and a loveless marriage, there's always plenty to discuss ...

This is another book about friendship as much as romance. Although there are some absolutely hilarious bits, Carole has a gift for mixing humour with life's more serious moments. I just wish there was a Chocolate Heaven near me ...

If you enjoy this, there's also a sequel, The Chocolate Lovers' Diet, and The Chocolate Lovers' Christmas is on its way ...

The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris by Jenny Colgan

As dawn breaks over the Pont Neuf, and the cobbled alleyways of Paris come to life, Anna Trent is already awake and at work; mixing and stirring the finest, smoothest, richest chocolate; made entirely by hand, it is sold to the grandes dames of Paris.

It's a huge shift from the chocolate factory she worked in at home in the north of England. But when an accident changed everything, Anna was thrown back in touch with her French teacher, Claire, who offered her the chance of a lifetime - to work in Paris with her former sweetheart, Thierry, a master chocolatier.

With old wounds about to be uncovered and healed, Anna is set to discover more about real chocolate - and herself - than she ever dreamed.

How can you resist a book about chocolate and Paris? A delicious treat of a book and the descriptions of chocolate-making will certainly make you hungry - but a word of warning, have a box of tissues to hand!

Related Posts:

Five Books Which Romanced Me
Five Books Which Chilled Me

Five Books Which Influenced Me
Ten (Slightly Random) Ways to Choose a Book
Most Favourite Books in the World Ever (Pinterest board)

(Book covers and blurbs copyright the individual publishers)