Christmas Under a Cranberry Sky - Holly Martin

About the book...

Piper Chesterfield lives a glamorous life travelling the world and reviewing the finest hotels. She calls nowhere home, she works alone and that’s how she likes it. For long ago Piper decided that to protect her heart she should lock it away.

So when Piper’s next assignment brings her to the newly opened Stardust Lake Hotel for the festive season, the last person she expects to face is Gabe Whitaker, the man who broke her heart so completely she could never love again.

But Piper isn’t the only one who has been frozen in time by heartbreak. Gabe hasn’t forgotten the golden-eyed girl who disappeared from his world without a trace.

Now fate has reunited them on Juniper island, can the magic of Christmas heal old wounds? And can this enchanting town be the one place Piper can finally call home? 

Curl up with this gorgeously romantic tale and let the glistening snow and the roaring fires of Stardust Lake Hotel get you in the festive spirit this Christmas.

About the author...

I studied media at university which led to a very glitzy career as a hotel receptionist followed by a even more glamorous two years working in a bank. The moment that one of my colleagues received the much coveted carriage clock for fifteen years service was the moment when I knew I had to escape. I quit my job and returned to university to train to be a teacher. Three years later, I emerged wide eyed and terrified that I now had responsibility for the development of thirty young minds. I taught for four years before History Off The Page came to my school to do a Tudor day. I now drive round the country in my little white van, dressing up as a Viking one day and an Egyptian High Priestess the next. 

I love to write. The characters do exactly what I want them to do, most of the time. Sometimes they do seem to go off and do their own thing without my permission. It is complete escapism into a world where I have full control.I've been writing for four years now, every spare second I have, I'm scribbling ideas in a notebook or typing a scene on my laptop. I have written three romantic fiction books. Changing Casanova and The Chainsaw Masquerade were recently shortlisted for the Festival of Romance New Talent Award. My short story, One Hundred Proposals, won the Belinda Jones Travel Club short story competition and was published in the Sunlounger anthology

My thoughts...

I was given an ecopy of this book by Bookouture, Holly's publisher in exchange for an honest review, something I'm more than happy to do.

From the very first page I knew I was going to love this book.  Piper, the main female character in Christmas Under a Cranberry Sky is a hotel Inspector - traveling the world, writing reviews about the hotels she visits; both good and bad.  She'd already decided after her assignment to the Stardust Lake Hotel on Juniper Island that she would be taking a sabbatical - having some time out to re-think her life and re-charge her batteries. 

Imagine her surprise when she arrives and finds that the hotel and resort is owned by her first love Gabe Whittaker.  A relationship that ended because of misunderstandings and things both said and unsaid.  Pip is there as an undercover reporter to review this new hotel and business.  She has some hard decisions to make as she feels her position as undercover reviewer will compromise the tentative new friendship/relationship she and Gabe easily fall into - it's like the years in-between have never happened.  He of course doesn't know she is an under cover reporter. 

I really don't know how Holly has done but I feel she has crawled into my mind and stolen my dreams.  If I could have any job in the world I'd be a hotel inspector and my dream holiday destination would be a log cabin, in the woods, surrounded by snow, drinking hot chocolate or mulled wine in front of a roaring log fire.  Add christmas - my favourite time of the year, twinkly lights, a christmas village and beautiful glass igloos and I was totally sold!

Holly's descriptions are so vivid I was sucked straight into the setting and love story (both old and new) of Gabe and Pip.  From the journey to Juniper Island, the location and the preparations for the resort opening, the time of year, the characters.  I loved it all. This truly is a perfect slice of deliciousness - a dream like book that totally melted my heart. I oohed and ahed with every chapter. I've told everybody who will listen, this book is not just a nice christmas book - it's special, perfect in every way possible christmas book and to top it all there is a second follow on book available later this month.

I'm hoping that Holly will tell me this place is real and not just fictional - I'm totally sold and would book a visit in a heart beat.  

Thank you Holly - I can't wait for Christmas Under a Starlit Sky where some of the secondary characters in this book come to the fore to tell their story, still set in this dream location.

All fall Down - Tom Bale

About the book...

You tried to save a life. Now you’re fighting to save your own.

It’s the perfect Sunday. Summer sunshine, a barbecue with the kids.
But a knock on the garden gate and two words, ‘HELP ME’, changes everything.

When loving parents Rob and Wendy Turner let a dying man into their home, and do their best to help him, they think pure chance led him to their house. But soon their lives are threatened in ways they could never have imagined … and then the first anonymous letter arrives, forcing them to question all they know.

Someone is watching.
Someone is waiting.
They will stop at nothing.

Rob and Wendy will do anything to keep their family safe, but their children Georgia, Josh and Evan are teenagers now, with their own hidden lives.

Everyone has secrets, but how can you save your family, if you don’t really know them? 

Buy Links:

UK: http://amzn.to/1UjqDJf

US: http://amzn.to/25BFYN7 

About the author...

Tom Bale decided that he wanted to be an author from the age of seven but, after another career got in the way, it wasn’t until much later that his dream was fulfilled.  After several books with Random House, Tom signed with Bookouture for two stunning ‘everyman’ thrillers.

Read more about the author: www.tombale.net

My thoughts...

I am hugely, honoured to be part of the blog tour for this book, All Fall Down by Tom Bale.  I received an ecopy from Bookouture Tom's publisher in exchange for an honest review which I'm more than happy to give.

All Fall Down is the second novel I have read by Tom Bale and most definitely won't be the last.  I don't know how he does it - he's a family man and he has managed to manifest every parents worst nightmares onto paper, almost like if they are out there and shared they could never happen - could they?  His graphic attention to detail is stomach churning and heart attack inducing.  Once again he has feared me half to death, made me sick with suspense and still I kept turning the pages - although I have to admit I started this book whilst eating my salad one lunchtime at work and had to switch to a christmas story I felt so ill and all within the first few pages.

Sunday is the archetypical day, a day for families, a summer bbq in the garden.  But, for the Turners it's the day when their lives as they know them implodes. A knocking on the garden gate and a whispered plea for help reveals a brutally attacked man - why is he at their gate and who attacked him?  Surely nothing to do with their family and his arrival just a random circumstance of chance.  Think again!

This was an incredible book that I found myself compulsively reading. I read faster and slower as the pace of the story ebbed and flowed.  As Tom peels back the layers of the story, me as well as the Turner family get more than a little jumpy with the thought, then knowledge that somebody is watching them, someone has lit the touch paper and is sitting back waiting for the explosion.  Tom builds the tension as the family question first themselves, then each other it becomes apparent that there is more to each of the characters than was originally portrayed.  Rob and Wendy are keeping secrets from each other and their children and their three teenage children Georgia, Josh and Evan are no different. 

I'm not quite sure how he does it but reading a book by Tom Bale makes me sick to the stomach, the adrenalin pumping around my veins and still I go back for more. He knows how to pack a punch and doesn't hold back - All Fall Down was every bit as good as See How They Run.  Another book that left me physically drained, feeling like I'd run the race of my live.  I can only thank God it was 'just a book' and not my life really!