Madeleine

Song for Whoever - The Beautiful South

I think my issue with Laura Purcell is that her books start off really well, and then fizzle out. I enjoyed this one but it's not her best.

Bit early but Happy New Year everyone!

Rockin around the Christmas Tree - Brenda Lee (probably had this one already🎄)

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Hope everyone's having a great Christmas

The Winter Garden by Heidi Swain - another book by this author which didn't really do it for me, at times I felt like skim reading it as it got a bit repetitive (similar to Jo Thomas who constantly repeats the main theme of her books). Anyway it follows Freya, a gardener who has been living and working happily at BroadMeadows, an estate in Suffolk where she has designed and worked on the garden with the owner Eloise. However Eloise has now died and her nephew from the US comes over with big ideas for the estate, none of which Freya approves, plus she dislikes him intently and he does sound like a bit of a boor, so she hands in her notice and almost immediately lands another job at Prospect Place, another estate, this time in Norfolk, where the owner, Luke, wants to establish a winter garden to help people through the long dark days of winter. She gets a house rent free and of course there's a hunky sculptor who has his studio nearby and is working on sculptures for the garden, no prizes for guessing what happens after the usual hiccups, and apart from a few brief bumpy moments which are dealt with pretty quickly there's nothing really to trouble anyone. It all seemed a bit too neat and everyone is so nice, or maybe I'm too cynical! But I did find Freya rather annoying and it was all too perfect. 5/10

Merry Christmas everyone, enjoy the day, however you celebrate.🎄

Went into the supermarket today and thought I'd time travelled forwards,as they were selling hot cross buns😝

Daddy's Home - Cliff Richard

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Looks like being a nice day here for once, it's finally stopped raining for a couple of days so will probably do a bit more of a garden tidy up. Hope you're all enjoying your weekend.

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Murder on the Ile Sordou by M L Longworth- this is the fourth book in the Provencal murder mystery series, and while I've enjoyed the others that I've read in this series, this one took a long time to get going, probably because it takes the two main characters, Judge Antoine Verlaque and his girlfriend, Marine Bonnet, a university lecturer, out of their usual setting of Aix-en-Provence, which means that, apart from the police investigator Paulik, most of the usual characters don't appear. The couple are on holiday on the titular island, which is just off the coast near Marseille, and are staying at an exclusive hotel, which is re-opening after several years of inactivity. There is a select band of guests also staying, and we are introduced to them, rather slowly, one by one, as they each get a whole chapter dedicated to their back story, ditto the hotel staff. This dragged things somewhat and I think a lot of the back stories could have been explained in a couple of pages, instead of several pages. Anyway eventually someone gets murdered and we're back to the usual format of a criminal investigation, with the island sealed off and the police brought over from the mainland. Naturally everyone on the island is a suspect, and it soon becomes apparent that the answer lies in someone's past, the question is, who's past? The book did pick up at this point but it took a long time to do so, so not bad once it finally got going with an actual story. 6/10

Only the Lonely - Roy Orbison

Driving home for Christmas - Chris Rea

Here comes the Sun - The Beatles

Santa Claus is coming to Town - Bruce Springsteen, many others

Rockin around the Christmas Tree - various

Oh Carol - Neil Sedaka

I like this series although it does get a bit far-fetched at times, with too many coincidences, but I agree about the sense of humour and Ruth is a great character. I think this was one of the books I wasn't too keen on, one of the weaker ones in the series.

Merry Christmas Everyone - Shakin' Stevens

Rockin' all over the world - Status Quo

Last Christmas - Wham!

I heard it through the grapevine - Marvin Gaye