This is being billed as a Falling In Love One Christmas story, but don’t be fooled. It’s actually a story which begins at Christmas with two people who are in no way ready for a relationship agreeing to Fake Date to help take the pressure off from their families. Over the course of a full year, they slowly get closer and it’s at the SECOND Christmas together the romance really comes to fruition. There’s a lot to like about this story; the author doesn’t shy away from some dif

Part of Erica Ridley’s 12 Dukes of Christmas series about a small town the residents have turned into a permanent Christmas-themed tourist attraction, you don’t need to have read the rest of the series to enjoy this rather charming novella. Sébastien le Duc, French aristocrat turned blacksmith, is the hero of this one, and Miss Eve Shelling his heroine. Eve and her father run the Cressmouth Gazette, more of a promotional pamphlet extolling the town’s virtues than an actual ne

When life goes downhill... head to the snow-capped Alps for roaring fires, apres-ski and festive romance. Lily Jackson loves Christmas. She also loves her childhood friend Jamie, but when her plan to kick-start their romance goes drastically wrong and her job gets her down, Lily decides it’s time to make changes. A job opens up in snowy Chamonix and egged on by her best friend Imogen, Lily decides to go for it. As Lily settles in with the eccentric Devereux family at their go

Struggling to find the perfect Christmas gift? Step into Romantic Daze … Daisy Kirk is a sucker for a love story, which is why she opened up her gift shop – because there’s nothing that makes Daisy happier than when she’s helped a customer achieve their own ‘happily ever after’ by finding the perfect Christmas gift for their loved one. And she absolutely does not just sell ‘soppy presents and frilly pants’ as her brother’s infuriating best friend, Eli, is so fond of suggestin

Two people. One chance meeting. Seven days to Christmas. Isobel Bennett is waiting for the number 11 bus when a man quite literally falls into her lap. Snow is falling, Christmas lights are twinkling, and a gorgeous man with dark brown hair has just slipped on ice and is now pressed against Isobel. Isobel knows she’s not imagining the chemistry between them. But then his ride arrives and, embarrassed, he beats a hasty retreat, murmuring apologies – and Isobel realises only to

Two long novellas make up this duology, both set in the same Cornish fishing village in the winter of 1822. In Marguerite Kaye’s The Captain’s Christmas Proposal, Treeve Penhaligon returns to the village of Porth Kerrick to take up the inheritance he never wanted. The only person in the village who seems to welcome him is an outsider, Miss Emily Faulkner, new tenant in one of his cottages, and obviously a genteel lady fallen on harder times. Treeve and Emily both have pasts t

It’s the most wonderful time of the year… Except for Daisy Christmas means another of Uncle T’s dreaded Christmas parties, complete with Christmas jumper and flashing antlers. And Oliver Cartwright. Gorgeous Oliver Cartwright. Who she hates. Every year Daisy has to face insufferable Ollie and hear all about how BRILLIANT he is. Whereas Daisy has no job, no man and no idea how to fix things. This Christmas however Daisy is determined things will be different. There will be

A Royal Christmas Wish is published by Hallmark, and it is, unashamedly and delightfully, a pure sugary fluffy candyfloss confection of a romance. I was mentally casting Kat Dennings as Jenny, a broke part-time waitress and dog-walker with dreams of being Something One Day, and Tom Hiddleston as the European prince she literally collides with one day in Central Park. There’s an actual fairy godmother, magical Christmas wishes, a romance that’s almost tooth-rottingly sweet and

Third in Erica Ridley’s charming The 12 Dukes Of Christmas series of novellas, Wish Upon A Duke follows Christopher Pringle, the younger brother of Nicholas who found his match in Kiss Of A Duke. After a life in his brother’s shadow, Christopher has fairly simple wants and needs, and the one thing he desperately wants is a wife. Honestly, he thinks his requirements are fairly broad - rational, logical, must love travel - so Gloria, the matchmaker whose help he engages, should

I’m actually going to start this review by talking about reading diversely, and how we all should be doing it. And by that, I mean that you don’t necessarily have to read out of your comfort zone. If you read light and fluffy romance and you get the cold shakes at reading something deep and painful and meaningful, you don’t have to go read The Color Purple or The Hate U Give just to read books by diverse authors. It’s okay. Trust me. You’re still covered. And if contemporary

Second in Erica Ridley’s Twelve Dukes of Christmas series set in the small town of Christmas, the hero of this one isn’t actually a duke. It’s a perfume, well technically a cologne for men, called Duke, invented by the heroine. And it’s taken London by storm; even Prinny is wearing the new cologne with the near-magical ability to make women take an interest in even the most unassuming of gentlemen. Our heroine Penelope knows there’s nothing magical about her perfume at all. J

First in Erica Ridley’s 12 Dukes of Christmas series (no, there aren’t 12 books - only 3, I believe) Once Upon A Duke introduces the village of Cressmouth, where a benevolent (but slightly bonkers) landowner has transformed a dying community into the embodiment of Christmas, year-round. Into this charming, if twee, Christmas paradise erupts Benjamin, Duke of Silkwood, a man who (actually with justification) hates Christmas and everything it stands for. All he wants is a famil

Sweet Christmas Romances 2017 is exactly what it says on the box... a collection of five Christmas romance books which are sweet - in more ways than one. All of the heroines are bakers, either amateur or professional, and the sweet Christmas treats they produce are in some way instrumental to their story. At the end of each book, the author shares a recipe which has been featured in the story - and they all look really yum. I've definitely planning to try out the Bourbon Baco

A charming novella, this story focuses on Christy and her daughter Jill, a little girl living with the life-threatening Type 1 diabetes. Despite the title I didn't feel that this was a 'Christmas' book specifically... it would have been so easy to have Joel discover that Christy and Jill had no money to celebrate Christmas and have him play Santa for them. A charmingly written 'sweet' romance, I have to say that the story felt a little thin on character development. The chara