And *snap*! That's how quick the first month of 2014 seems to have flown past, if you ask me! It's still cold and grey outside most of the time, so I can't help but look forward to those moments when I can curl up in my comfy reading chair with a blanket, a cup of cinnamon tea and a lovely book. February is of course the month of Valentine's Day, and sticking to the theme of hearts and love, the upcoming few weeks have some great chick lit releases in store to keep us company!
Harriet Evans - 'Rules for Dating a Romantic Hero' (3rd of February)
Do you believe in happy endings?
Laura Foster used to be a hopeless romantic. She was obsessed with meeting her own Prince Charming until she grew up and realised real life doesn’t work like that. Then she met Nick. A romantic hero straight from a fairytale, with a grand country estate and a family tree to match.
They’ve been together four years now and Laura knows that what really matters is the two of them, not everything else around them. She can’t imagine ever loving anyone the way she loves Nick. Now, though, people are openly asking when they’ll hear wedding bells, and Nick is keeping secrets from Laura. She’s starting to feel she might not be ‘good enough’ for his family.
Can an ordinary girl like Laura make it work with one of the most eligible men in the country?
Sarah Addison Allen - 'Lost Lake' (13th of February)
It happens one morning - Kate finally wakes up from the slumber she's been in since her husband's death a year ago. Feeling a fresh sense of desire to take control of her and her young daughter's life, she decides to visit Suley, Georgia - home to Lost Lake. It's where Kate spent one of the happiest summers of her life as a child. She's not sure what she expects to find there, but it's not a rundown place full of ghosts and other curious oddities. Kate's Aunt Eby, Lost Lake's owner, wants to sell the old place and move on. Lost Lake's magic is gone. As Kate discovers that time has a way of standing still at Lost Lake, can she bring the cottages - as well as her heart and the hearts of all the guests - back to life? Because sometimes lost loves aren't really lost. They're just waiting for you to find them again.
Adele Parks - 'Spare Brides' (13th of February)
New Year's Eve, 1920. The Great War is over and it's a new decade of glamorous promise. But a generation of men and women who survived the extreme trauma and tragedy will never be the same.
With countless men lost, it seems that only wealth and beauty will secure a husband from the few who returned, but lonely Beatrice has neither attribute. Ava has both, although she sees marriage as a restrictive cage after the freedom war allowed. Sarah paid the war's ultimate price: her husband's life. Lydia should be grateful that her own husband's desk job kept him safe, but she sees only his cowardice.
A chance encounter for one of these women with a striking yet haunted officer changes everything. In a world altered beyond recognition, where not all scars are visible, this damaged and beautiful group must grasp any happiness they can find - whatever the cost.
Laura Ziepe - 'Made in Essex' (13th of February)
Champagne, cat-fights and a very tricky love triangle …
Life is pretty good for Jade. She’s happily settled with her gorgeous boyfriend Sam and the bikini business she’s set up with her best friend Kelly is going from strength to strength.
You could say that Jade’s life is almost too good to be true – at least that’s what her old acquaintance Adele thinks and Adele is sick of Jade getting all the attention. But Adele’s not too worried – she has a secret – a powerful secret – one that could pull Sam and Jade apart and destroy everything that Jade has worked so hard for.
With friendships and relationships falling apart, just how far will Adele go to get what she wants?
Clare Dowling - 'A Special Delivery' (13th of February)
Every family has its ups and downs ...
Aisling Brady is miserable. So is her husband Mossy. The three kids are too. Yet nobody dares say a thing. Instead the Bradys keep their heads down and grimly look forward to another miserable Christmas in Dublin.
What Aisling doesn't know is that this year, they will get the most unexpected gift of all. One that will bring joy and heartbreak, hope and a string of sleepless nights.
As their world is turned upside down, questions have to be asked. But are the Bradys ready to face the truth about themselves? And what each of them has done?
Polly James - 'Diary of an Unsmug Married' (13th of February)
What happens to love when life gets in the way? A funny and perceptive book about real relationships. Perfect for fans of Dawn French, Sue Townsend and Bridget Jones’ Diary.
Meet Molly Bennett. Married to Max and mother to two warring teenagers, she’s just ‘celebrated’ a significant birthday. Bridget Jones would call Molly a “smug married”. So why doesn’t she feel it?
Is it because everyone seems to be having a better time of it than her? Or is it that Max has started showing more interest in ‘business trips’ and less interest in their sex life? Molly begins to despair. And then an old school friend starts flirting with her through Facebook …
Hannah Beckerman - 'The Dead Wife's Handbook' (13th of February)
'Today is my death anniversary. A year ago today I was still alive.'
Rachel, Max and their daughter Ellie had the perfect life - until the night Rachel's heart stopped beating.
Now Max and Ellie are doing their best to adapt to life without Rachel, and just as her family can't forget her, Rachel can't quite let go of them either. Caught in a place between worlds, Rachel watches helplessly as she begins to fade from their lives. And when Max is persuaded by family and friends to start dating again, Rachel starts to understand that dying was just the beginning of her problems.
As Rachel grieves for the life she's lost and the life she'll never lead, she learns that sometimes the thing that breaks your heart might be the very thing you hope for.
Various authors - 'Truly, Madly, Deeply' (21st of February)
From wedding days to special anniversaries, steamy one-night encounters to everlasting loves, Truly, Madly, Deeply takes you on an unforgettable romantic adventure where love really is all you need.
This collection brings together all-new specially selected stories from star authors from the Romantic Novelists’ Association, including international bestsellers Adele Parks, Katie Fforde, Carole Matthews and Miranda Dickinson, and many, many more and is edited by Sue Moorcroft.
The perfect indulgence to curl up with, Truly, Madly, Deeply is the ultimate romantic treat!
Gemma Burgess - 'Love and Chaos' (A Brooklyn Girls Novel) (25th of February)
Wild child and secret romantic Angie wakes up in a hotel room with $3,000 and no memories of the night before. Her best friends aren’t talking to her, she can’t get a job in fashion, her parents are divorcing, and she’s about to turn twenty-three. And life is about to get much worse.
'Brooklyn Girls: Love and Chaos' continues the story of our five favorite grads sharing a brownstone and starting out in New York City through Angie’s eyes. On a journey from private jets and yacht parties to dirty subways and hipster bars via crazy storms, flash floods, and retail jobs from hell, Angie discovers who she is, what she wants, how she’s going to get it —and a crazy little thing called true love.
Meanwhile, her roommates lives are imploding, too. Coco’s self-medicating and self-loathing, Pia’s breaking up and cracking up, Madeleine’s finding her voice and Julia might—just might—have met someone she can actually date.
Louise Walters - 'Mrs. Sinclair's Suitcase' (27th of February)
Forgive me, Dorothea, for I cannot forgive you. What you do, to this child, to this child's mother, it is wrong...
Roberta likes to collect the letters and postcards she finds in second-hand books. When her father gives her some of her grandmother's belongings, she finds a baffling letter from the grandfather she never knew - dated after he supposedly died in the war.
Dorothy is unhappily married to Albert, who is away at war. When an aeroplane crashes in the field behind her house she meets Squadron Leader Jan Pietrykowski, and as their bond deepens she dares to hope she might find happiness. But fate has other plans for them both, and soon she is hiding a secret so momentous that its shockwaves will touch her granddaughter many years later...
Karen Ross - 'Mother of the Year' (27th of February)
Despite giving birth at the age of fifteen, Beth Jackson’s professional life has gone from strength to strength. A successful TV journalist, she is celebrated for her parenting column and has won no less than three Mother of the Year awards.
Her daughter JJ is less inclined to agree. Underneath the surface, her relationship with her mother is far from award-winning, and as Beth misses yet another Mother’s Day to jet-set around the globe, JJ decides it’s time to persuade her into some good quality mother-daughter bonding.
But as unexpected events force JJ from her London flatshare back to her childhood home, she is unprepared for what she is about to learn about the true meaning of family…
