🎄Fabulously Festive Sunday Brunch with Jaffareadstoo ~ Cathy Lake

 

It's time to light the fire, twinkle the fairy lights and mull the wine

🎄Come and join us for a Fabulously Festive Boxing Day Sunday Brunch🎄

I am delighted to welcome author, Cathy Lake

to our Fabulously Festive Brunch today

🎄Welcome, Cathy. What festive food are you bringing to this Christmas Sunday brunch?

Smoked salmon and scrambled eggs.

🎄What would you like to drink; we have buck’s fizz, mulled wine, egg nog, gingerbread latte or a cup of spiced tea?

Mulled wine, please.

🎄Where shall we eat our festive brunch, around the kitchen table, by the fire in the formal dining room, or outside on the patio?

Can we wrap up warm and eat outside while gazing at the glorious view?

🎄Shall we have festive music playing in the background? If so will you share with us a favourite piece of music or Christmas carol.

Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want for Christmas is You!’ is my festive favourite.

🎄Which of your literary heroes (dead or alive) are joining us for our festive Sunday Brunch today?

Let’s invite Charles Dickens because it is Christmas, after all…

🎄Which favourite Christmas book will you bring to Sunday Brunch?

‘A Christmas Carol’

🎄Do you have any special Christmas Traditions?

I watch Christmas movies like ‘National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation’ and make festive goodies like a Christmas cake and mince pies.

🎄Are you tinsel or glitter?

Glitter!

🎄Are you real tree or artificial?

Real trees smell wonderful!

🎄Are you mince pie or yule log?

Can I have both? ;-)

🎄Are you Christmas crackers or party poppers?

Christmas crackers

🎄After brunch shall we play party games, or collapse in front of the television with a huge box of chocolates?

The latter sounds good to me!

🎄What can you tell us about your fabulously festive read that won’t give too much away?

It’s a story about the importance of friendship in healing a broken heart, about forgiveness and moving on, about learning to trust again after a devastating betrayal. Throw in a festive setting, rescue dogs and familiar characters from Little Bramble and readers have everything they need for a heartwarming Christmas read!

Zaffre 
2021

Clare Greene and Sam Wilson are getting married and everyone in Little Bramble is excited for the event of the year. But Clare and Sam are busy people and have left organising their wedding to the last minute.

Luckily, wedding planner Hazel Campbell has recently moved to the village. She had what she thought was a wonderful life in Edinburgh with a successful business, a loving fiance and her own wedding coming up. But when she caught her groom-to-be in bed with her best friend she fled, leaving everyone and everything behind.

Little Bramble seems like the ideal place for Hazel to start over. As she throws herself into planning the perfect country village winter wedding, she starts to find herself again. And soon she realises that a second chance at happiness might just be on the cards

 

More about Cathy 

Cathy Lake is a women's fiction writer who lives with her family and three dogs in beautiful South Wales. She writes uplifting stories about strong women, family, friendship, love, community and overcoming obstacles

Twitter @LakeAuthor

Facebook 

Instagram - @darcieboleynauthor

Website 

Cathy, thank you for sharing your fabulously festive brunch today.

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🎄Festive Read~ The Country Village Winter Wedding by Cathy Lake

 

Zaffre
28 October 2021

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

Clare Greene and Sam Wilson are getting married and everyone in Little Bramble is excited for the event of the year. But Clare and Sam are busy people and have left organising their wedding to the last minute.

Luckily, wedding planner Hazel Campbell has recently moved to the village. She had what she thought was a wonderful life in Edinburgh with a successful business, a loving fiance and her own wedding coming up. But when she caught her groom-to-be in bed with her best friend she fled, leaving everyone and everything behind.

Little Bramble seems like the ideal place for Hazel to start over. As she throws herself into planning the perfect country village winter wedding, she starts to find herself again. And soon she realises that a second chance at happiness might just be on the cards.

🎄 My thoughts..

It's been so lovely to return to Little Bramble in this story of a sparkly winter wedding. I've quite fallen in love with this quintessential English village where everyone seems so supportive of each other and for Hazel Campbell starting over in a safe place is just what is needed to mend her broken heart. Newly arrived from Scotland, Hazel is keen to get her fledgling wedding planning business off to a good start and what better way than to help villagers Clare Greene and Sam Wilson have their perfect Christmas wedding.

As always the village, and its inhabitants, come beautifully to life and by cleverly intertwining a couple of story threads we get to learn more not just about Hazel, and the joys and pitfalls of organising a last minute winter wedding, but also about another new arrival whose reasons for being in the village are just as poignant as Hazel's. The run up to Christmas is done really well and both the chaos, and the joy, of meeting deadlines, and getting involved in all the Christmas activities, is what makes this story so special.

The Country Village Winter Wedding is now the third book in the Country Village series of cosy romances and each one brings something quite special. I enjoy how the villagers we have grown to love make little appearances in each novel and whilst the main focus of the story is on someone new to the village, it's really great to catch up with those characters we have met before in previous novels.

Beautifully written, and charmingly romantic, there is no doubt that this cosy series has captured the hearts of its readers. I am certainly looking forward to reading book #4, The Country Village Allotment, which is planned for 2022.

About the Author

Cathy Lake is a women's fiction writer who lives with her family and three dogs in beautiful South Wales. She writes uplifting stories about strong women, family, friendship, love, community and overcoming obstacles.

Twitter @LakeAuthor #TheCountryVillageWinterWedding

@ZaffreBooks

📖 Book Review ~ The Country Village Summer Fête by Cathy Lake

 

Zaffre
10 June 2021

My thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book

Emma Patrick's life is spiralling out of control. On the cusp of her 50th birthday, she suddenly realises that she doesn't have many meaningful relationships in her life. She's single, successful, living alone and thinks she's loving it, but being so focussed on work and always online means she's lost any real connection to people.

When Emma gets a call to say her ageing father is becoming increasingly confused, she decides that she should go back home to the countryside to spend some time with him. But returning to Little Bramble, the village she grew up in, after all these years, is filled with complications of its own and people she'd rather avoid.

As Emma starts to settle in to her childhood home, she finds herself loving village life - much to her surprise. When the opportunity to get involved in the running of the summer fete comes her way, before she knows it she's embracing jam making, cake baking and bunting. And with romance brewing, Emma begins to doubt the glamorous life in London that she worked so hard to build.

📖 My thoughts..

If you imagine the quintessential chocolate box English village then Little Bramble would be right up there with the best of them. When Emma Patrick receives a call to say that her elderly father is ill she makes the decision to leave London and head back to her childhood home in Little Bramble. However, once back in the place where she grew up painful memories from her past start to emerge but as Emma is drawn back into village life so she starts to look towards a different sort of future.

I loved my first visit to Little Bramble in The Country Village Christmas Show so I was especially excited to return to this lovely place again, not just to meet up with old friends but also to make new friends, especially Emma, and the lovely Connor.

There's a real summery feel to this story especially as Little Bramble is gearing up to its annual summer fete so some of the story is taken up with the preparation and all the little niggles which go with putting on an event in a small village but also it's about the people who live there, some are more likeable than others but they all add their own individual charm. There are some lovely thoughtful moments between Emma and her father which make the story all the more heartwarming but it is in the will they, won't they relationship between Emma and Connor where the heart of the story lies.

The Country Village Summer Fête is every bit as good as I wanted it to be, light, lovely and deliciously summery. It's the perfect escapist read for a blue sky, fluffy cloud sort of day.

About the Author

Cathy Lake is a women's fiction writer who lives with her family and three dogs in beautiful South Wales. She writes uplifting stories about strong women, family, friendship, love, community and overcoming obstacles.

Twitter @LakeAuthor

@ZaffreBooks