Fiction Reviews

Cleo Quinn doesn't have the greatest track record when it comes to men, but now Will's come along she has every reason to be optimistic. Handsome, attentive and an absolute gentleman when it comes to her questionable cooking skills, he could be her Mr Right. Things are definitely looking up for Cleo... apart from one small problem with a rather large ego. Johnny LaVenture, sculptor extraordinaire and her personal childhood nemesis, is back in Channing's Hill and tormenting her as if he'd never been away.

Meanwhile Cleo's sister Abbie has a problem of her own - husband Tom has become distant and withdrawn, and she's determined to find out why. But will the shocking truth mean the end of their idyllically happy marriage?

The sisters are about to discover that the past can come back to haunt you, and that love can flourish in the unlikeliest of places...

Buy Take a Chance on Me from Amazon.co.uk

Hot Brands Verdict
Jill Mansell’s books always have a pace to them that makes them very difficult to put down, her characters are always very believable, and you care about what happens to them. This is another very readable novel, with twists and unexpected turns until you get to a very satisfying feel good ending. Perfect for weekend reading. We loved it!

Synopsis
Ever felt that it's time to turn your life around?
When twins Annie and Lauren attend their older sister Chelsea’s fortieth birthday party at the Dorchester Hotel, they wonder why their lives are so different. Why is Chelsea's devoted husband twirling her round the dance floor, while Annie's husband has gone fishing and Lauren's lover is at home with his wife and children?

There and then, they decide it's time to turn things around. To go all out for what they want, to start living again. The question is: have they left it too late?

Hot Brands Verdict
We always look forward to the latest Carole Matthews, and It’s Now or Never is another fabulous read. We never want to tell you too much about the storyline, but as ever it is a contemporary story of real situations, human dilemmas and a wonderful feel good ending. Utterly absorbing, satisfying, the absolute perfect weekend read! Highly Recommended!

http://www.amazon.co.uk

Series concept and editor Lucas Dietrich
Research and text by Alice Twemlow

Synopsis

StyleCity New York takes visitors right there, to hip-hop bars, private art collections, sexy restaurants and funky shops. There are surprises around every corner in Gotham – StyleCity leads the way.

This revised and updated edition guides the reader through the total city experience: where to sleep, eat, drink, shop, retreat, explore, or just hang out in stimulating surroundings.

• Exquisitely designed and produced, yet ingeniously practical, with lavish use of specially commissioned photography
• Discerningly selects the trend-setting restaurants, off-beat coffee houses, stylish stores, hip hotels, hot districts and neighbourhoods – all the special places where locals as well as travellers will find a vibrant urban experience.

Inside the book,
Streetwise organizes NewYork into seven neighbourhoods and presents the most stylish and stimulating places to visit within each district.
Style Traveller identifies the most original and most pleasurable places in NewYork, from one-of-a-kind hotels to exclusive private boutiques.

http://www.thamesandhudson.com/9780500210246.html

Hot Brands Verdict
We love the StyleCity™ Series and this revised StyleCity New York is a great updated addition to this collection. If you are fortunate enough to be heading to New York for some pre-Christmas shopping, this is an essential guide. For the rest of us, it is a delightful sofa escape ! Divided into two main sections Style Traveller which features the city’s best locations to sleep, eat, drink, shop and retreat and Street Wise which is arranged by neighbourhood and captures the flavour of the destination. We love the way the guide is cross-referenced and there is also a really useful Contacts section including, name, address, telephone number, and email and web addresses where available. With stunning photography that captures the spirit of the city, this is an essential and fabulous guide to New York!

Synopsis: In THE RETURN JOURNEY, Maeve Binchy creates powerful compelling stories of love, loss, revelation, and reconciliation. A secretary's silent passion for her boss meets the acid test on a business trip; a man and a woman's mutual disdain at first sight shows how deceptive appearances can be; an insecure wife clings to the illusion of order, only to discover chaos at the hands of a house-sitter who opens the wrong doors; a pair of star-crossed travellers pick up each other's bags, and then learn when you unlock a stranger's suitcase, you enter a stranger's life.
These and many more poignant, ironic, often humorous stories - unforgettable slices of life - make THE RETURN JOURNEY a spellbinding read.

http://www.orionbooks.co.uk/HB-39320/The-Return-Journey.htm
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Return-Journey-Maeve-Binchy/dp/0752876279/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255021700&sr=1-1

Hot Brands Verdict
Maeve Binchy quickly builds the characters and manages to complete enough of the story for you to feel satisfied after a few pages, she also has the ability to end the story with an intriguing ending. There is something quite special about short stories and this is a delightful collection, like a box of chocolates each one has a different flavour, but is delicious in its own right. Perfect for those quiet few moments when you want to read something in its entirety, a great weekend read! We loved it !

Juliet Joyce has been happily married for twenty-five years. But with two grown-up children who treat the house like a hotel, a seventy-year-old mother who's just moved in and a father who's announced that he's gay, it's hardly surprising that Juliet's relationship with her husband Rick is beginning to suffer.

Juliet's resigned to the fact that the only romance she's going to get is from the pages of her library books, so nothing prepares her for the unexpected return of Steven Aubrey. Last seen twenty-six years ago, when he jilted Juliet on their wedding day, he ignites a passion in her that she thought was long gone. But will Steven sweep her off her feet or can Rick remind her of the loving feeling that they've lost? There's only one way to find out... '

Buy That Loving Feeling from Amazon.co.uk

Hot Brands Verdict
Carole Matthews is one of our favourite authors here at Hot Brands, and this story is full of twists and turns, a roller coaster of emotions, laugh out loud cringing moments as well as a more tender and poignant storyline. Absorbing and captivating and a book you won’t want to put down. This is a perfect weekend read!

Synopsis
The Caribbean. Warm tropical days. Hot Sultry nights. A luxury cruise catering for your every whim. It has to be the perfect romantic holiday.
But for Britt and Mia McDonagh-two sisters surrounded by lovers celebrating Valentine’s Day-it’s something else entirely.

Britt knows she’s on the trip under false pretences, she’s the Aphrodite’s guest speaker, on board to talk about her best selling novel The Perfect Man. She’s supposed to be an expert on love, but since the break-up of her ill-fated marriage she’s certain that the perfect man is just a myth. It’s single mum Mia who believes in soul mates. Mia’s still secretly in love with her old flame and barely aware of other men, no matter how perfect they might be. There’s a danger that interfering in each other’s lives will push the two very different sisters apart forever. The Caribbean can work magic though and getting to know each other again is a revelation for them both. Back home, the last thing they expect is to encounter that elusive perfect man at last. Yet time has come to risk everything to change the future.

Hot Brands Verdict
Reading this book it's easy to understand why Sheila O’ Flanagan is a Sunday Times top ten paperback bestseller. She is a sublime storyteller, taking a number of sub-plots and weaving them into a very satisfying and full book about relationships and discovering yourself, with a wonderful feel-good ending. If you are looking for a book for a late summer holiday, or autumn break, or just want to prolong that holiday feeling this is absolutely perfect! Highly Recommended!

Buy The Perfect Man from Amazon.co.uk

Synopsis: Name: Sally Marshall

Status: single mother

Age: 32

Nationality: ten years in France, yet still English through and through

I like: Living in Paris, playing with my daughter Lila (four years old), the company of good friends, the smell of baking bread…

So reads Sally's ad, posted on a French online dating site called Rendez-Vous. Sally left Nicolas, her French boyfriend of ten years and Lila's father, after she discovered that he was having an affair with his secretary. Six months have now passed, and although most of the time she feels as if she's just dashing around like a headless chicken, she's beginning to bounce back. But making a new start is fraught with complications. As she meets freshly single Frédéric for a drink, spends the night with charmer Manu and runs away from ex-pat Marcus, she wonders: can she find a way to reconcile motherhood with single womanhood? To what extent can she keep Lila and her love life separate? And is she truly ready to turn her back on Nicolas?

Buy French Kissing from Amazon.co.uk

Hot Brands Verdict
We loved Catherine’s previous book Petit Anglaise, and this book is equally charming, what we like is Catherine’s ability to make you feel that you are living in Paris. Her descriptions of Sally’s walks with her daughter on the way to school, the bars, the soirees, the way she drops French phrases into the text creates a perfect atmospheric feel to the novel. If you are looking for a fabulous weekend read, stock up on French macarons, curl up on your sofa and indulge in a wonderful, heart warming romantic read. Amuse-toi bien!

Synopsis: Most break-up bibles are full of the same old stories of woe, wrack and ruin…

1. Crying into large glasses of Chardonnay

2. A huge amount of retail therapy and some unwise ‘break-up’ haircuts 3. Dividing up meaningful CD’s and shoving photo frames face down in drawers But what if ending your relationship was actually the best thing that ever happened to you? What if…

1. You only got together because he was your ‘...’ Transitional Man’

2. You dumped him because you just don’t fancy him any more and a syndrome commonly known as ‘The Repulsion’ had set in

3. His mother hates you and never stops reminding him about ‘all the other lovely single girls’ he went to playgroup with?

It’s Not Me, It’s You is the perfect post-break-up companion on the road to recovery. Charlotte Ward takes us on an exhilarating journey, packed full of real-life stories (including the worst of her own) Witty, touching and always honest, this book is the ultimate runaway guide.

Buy It's Not Me, It's You from Amazon.co.uk

Hot Brands Verdict
Most of us have been there, or are still there, and Charlotte’s take on the trials and tribulations of a break-up is very funny. Using real-life stories as examples she takes the reader through first loves, knowing your enemy, including potential parents-in-law, how to survive the ‘I hate you so much right now’ stage, the road to recovery, mixed with a little revenge, and how to move on, including the perils of re-bound loves, and the joy of single life. In her final chapters she gives the view from the boys and how to set yourself up again for the merry-go-round. As well as the humour, there is also good advice which might save you from doing something you might regret!

Synopsis: 1+1= 288 Find out how in this brilliantly funny book following two rabbits and their rapidly expanding family through a whole calendar year. Full of novelty elements from a baby-bunny record book to a rabbit newspaper (complete with problem page and horoscopes) plus a surprise pop-up ending.

Winner of the 2005 Kate Greenaway Medal, Nestle Children’s Book Prize Bronze Award, Booktrust's Early Years Award in the Emerging Illustrator category and numerous other prizes Emily Gravett is an author-illustrator of exceptional talent and skill. She has written and illustrated the following for Macmillan: Wolves, Meerkat Mail, Orange Pear Apple Bear, Monkey and Me, Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears, The Odd Egg and Spells.

Buy The Rabbit Problem from Amazon.co.uk

Hot Brands Verdict
Once in a while a book comes along that brings sheer delight, this is one such book! Designed for children it will have adults smiling as you look more closely at the different pages. There are so many innovative and inspired additions, the detail is delightful, we loved the newspaper with the horoscopes, and Ask Angora the Field’s Agony Aunt! The Carrot Cookery book is great fun too. We loved Emily’s The Odd Egg and our junior reviewers love this too! A perfect book for parents and children to share. Highly Recommended!