It is a rare day indeed that I find myself chucking a book into a shopping basket full of sausages and pomegranates, but occasionally the book fairy taps me on the shoulder in the most unlikely of places and whispers, Psssst, there! That one is for you! And I tell you, my little fluttery literary advisor is very rarely wrong… Because though Julia Williams book is blessed with the kind of cover that would usually conjure up nightmares of the sanitized country-life chick(en) lit kind, I was seduced m’dears by the double whammy that is a) adding another little book to my Christmas novel pile, and b) happening across a story that features a woman who makes her living peddling domestic advice on the internet! You see, Catherine Tinsall (gedditt??) the heroine of Last Christmas is otherwise known as The Happy Homemaker, the internet Goddess of all things Domestic and this is the tale of the Christmas her carefully stitched up life begins to come undone. Featuring a cast of characters rather cheesily named Noel, Gabriel and Marianne all of whom are muddling their way through the festive season in a village called Hope, I can’t say I’ve got high hopes for great literary shakes but methinks there is a time and a place for the cosiest of Christmas stories and that time, my Darling Housekeepers is now when nothing, but nothing, sounds snugglier than climbing into bed early with a cup of piping hot spiced chai, a Lindt reindeer and a hop and a skip into a festive tale guaranteed to have a fairy lit happy ending. Night Night Sweethearts.x
Create your own Brocante Life Book, plan Christmas, set up routines and rituals or live life the BrocanteHome way with my guided workbooks and planners.
British Vogue. Finley’s curly hair. My curly hair. Clarins Beauty Flash. Jude Law. Mum finally recovering from a nightmarish bout of flu. My dishwasher. Cheese: I love it, I know I shouldn’t but I do. John Galliano. Clean windows courtesy of the…
While I am loathe to recommend a book I haven’t yet read, as your resident Vintage Housekeeping, Hollywood worshipping, book reading, boudoir dweller, I feel obliged to pint you in the direction of Susie Boyt’s apparently spellbinding tale of what it is…
People I am all of a quiver. As you may have guessed Mark hasn’t come home and by all accounts is never coming home again, though he would still like the odd bowl of pasta and the occasional evening where he will…
Never let it be said that I am not the most dramatic person you know. If I can turn a calamity into a catastrophe I will do it with glee. It is quite frankly, an abhorrent trait. Serve it up with nails…
Drafty Door Stopper. From the ever so clever Not Martha. Other Things To Do At BrocanteHome Browse the Bookstore Discover a curated list of books to enhance and support life the BrocanteHome way Browse the Bookstore Life Love & Vintage Housekeeping the…
Oh it’s a funny old life. Two month’s after Mark left, Kath’s husband packed up his little suitcase and disappeared off into the yonder after him. All of a sudden we were single Mummies, and I went from feeling like the most…
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