Books

Christmas has been long revered for its capacity to bring about new beginnings. Well, imagined new beginnings, anyway; while we might want it to fix reality and reshape our lives in the festive buoyancy and hopeful possibility of the season, the truth is that it often doesn’t do that outside Continue Reading

(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) If you have ever wondered, and if not, why not, what might happen if Agatha Christie suddenly turn into a self aware meta murder solving detective, then you need to run, not walk, avoiding pools of blood from the victims, to the wonderfully funny but immensely Continue Reading

(Simon & Schuster Australia) There’s a host of Christmas romcom novels out there, all predicated on the same deliciously alluring idea the the most wonderful time of the year is the perfect time for miracles to happen and lives to be remade. But not all of these festively restorative delights Continue Reading

(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers) There is a lot of pain baked into The December Market by RaeAnne Thayne. The two main characters, soap shop owner Amanda Taylor, and the man who might, and likely will (because this is a festive romcom and not falling in love in not an option) Continue Reading

(courtesy Pan Macmillan Australia) In this postmodern, mash-up obsessed, creatively synergistic digital age of ours, it’s fun to see what really imaginative people will do when they mix their own highly original ideas with an existing, much-loved story. Case in point is The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland by Carys Continue Reading

(courtesy Hachette Australia) Christmas is popularly thought of as a magical time of second chances. It often doesn’t feel that with all the rush and busyness and the general furious exhaustion and angst of life seeming to reach a tinsel-draped fever pitch, but in The Nine Lives of Christmas by Continue Reading

(courtesy Penguin Books Australia) We’ve all been there. A great job presents itself, we know we can do it so we throw everything into landing it, only to discover that maybe it wasn’t the right fit after all. But is that the end of the story always? Not necessarily; sometimes Continue Reading

(courtesy Hachette Australia) Jenny Colgan’s books always feel like you’re falling into the embrace of an old and trusted friend, whose very presence makes all the terrors and troubles of the world dim, and then go away. That’s especially so when you return to one of the many series she Continue Reading

(courtesy Boldwood Books) Enemies-to-friends is a fairly standard trope in romantic comedies, festive or otherwise. So, the fact that Christmas Ever After by Jamie Admans features it should not as an almighty Santa-loving surprise; what is interesting is how effectively the author this well-worn genre element to give her rom-com Continue Reading