(courtesy Secret Garden Press) The idea that you can reinvent yourself if you just find the right inciting incident is a seductive one. It defies the idea that who we are at any one point in time is the only person we will ever be, and encourages us to dream Continue Reading
Books
Conquering the TBR like a mountaineer: My top 25 books of 2025
(via Shutterstock) I can overstate how much reading means to me. It makes commutes feel fleeting and full of characters and events and excitement it would otherwise meaningfully lack. It fills my stressy moments with such a profound sense of escapist release. And it dials down my anxiety and sense Continue Reading
Merry Christmas in books and movies and on streaming platforms and in song … may all your pop culture festive dreams come true
(courtesy Pinterest (c) Disney) In honour of Winnie the Pooh’s first appearance in a story by A. A. Milne and the 75th anniversary of Peanuts first cartoon, this year’s Christmas greeting centres on these two groups of characters. I have loved both of them ever since I was a child Continue Reading
Festive kids book review: Bah! Humbug! by Michael Rosen
(courtesy Scholastic Children’s Books) It’s a big thing to say, given how thick on the ground A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, are on the ground, but Bah! Humbug! by Michael Rosen is quite simply one of the best retellings of the Christmas classic I have ever come a cross. Continue Reading
Festive book review: The Christmas Market by Linda McEvoy
(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia) One of the kinds of festive romcoms I love the most are where someone’s life falls apart – no, that’s not the movable; I’m not a sadist, thank you – and they flee back to their hometown in England or Ireland (this happens in U.S. Continue Reading
Festive book review: Ghosted at Christmas by Holly Whitmore
(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) On the top ten list of things that would wreck your Christmas, absolutely and completely and without a hint of celebratory salvation, surely having your ex turn up would be very high on the list? That’s certainly the way Mia Robinson feels when, after braving a Continue Reading
On 12th day of Christmas … I added another 10 new pop culture ornaments to my tree incl. Scooby-Doo, Peanuts’ Spike, Miffy + more
(via Shutterstock) Forget decking the halls … at least for right now! With Christmas almost upon us, adding more pop culture ornaments to my tree is the order of the day, and yes, while I buy far too many new ones every year – is there such a thing? I Continue Reading
Festive novella review: The Austen Christmas Murders by Jessica Bull
(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) With 2025 being the 250th birthday of one Jane Austen, it seems entirely fitting that this delightful The Austen Christmas Murders by Jessica Bull find pride of place in the festive reviews section of SparklyPrettyBriiiightmas. Now, as far as we know, and primary evidence is not Continue Reading
On 11th day of Christmas … I read Christmas People by Iva-Marie Palmer
(courtesy St. Martin’s Griffin) This seems to be the Christmas for festive romcoms with cleverly out-there premises and one of the best so far has to be Christmas People by Iva-Marie Palmer. In this sparklingly fun but emotionally grounded novel, Jill Jacobs, a wannabe screenwriter based in L.A. who’s had Continue Reading
Festive graphic novel review: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
It has to be the famous story ever told about Christmas … apart from the obvious other one, of course, where the Son of God born in a manger kicks the whole idea of Christmas off. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall Continue Reading