🎄 Festive Read ~ The Little Christmas House by Tracy Rees

🎄 Festive Read 2021 🎄

Bookouture
October2021

Hopley Village #2

My thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

In gorgeous Hopley village snow is falling and twinkly lights are going up but Holly Hanwell feels anything but Christmassy…

It’s meant to be the most wonderful time of the year but thirty-year-old Holly Hanwell doesn’t really feel like celebrating… not after the bombshell news her boyfriend is leaving her to have a baby with someone else. So Holly’s organised a quiet Christmas in her cosy little house and plans to avoid the traditional village festivities, and anything resembling a man, at all costs.

That is until she bumps into sexy newcomer Edward. He recently bought Christmas House, at the edge of Hopley, but the renovations on the crumbling building are more than he’d bargained for. Sheltering from the snowy weather in the warm village café, Edward makes Holly laugh over delicious mugs of hot chocolate, topped with cream and sprinkles. Despite the spark between them, Holly knows she needs to protect her already fragile heart and she’s determined NOT to fall in love this Christmas.

But holiday magic works in mysterious ways and they keep crossing paths – at the nativity show, the carols, gift shopping – and then a festive crisis at Christmas House unexpectedly brings them together. Yet just as Holly realises her feelings are growing for handsome but complicated Edward she discovers a secret from his past which makes her question everything she thought she knew about him…

Will Holly and Edward’s December romance be over before it’s begun? Or will this be a Christmas to remember?

🎄My thoughts..

There's something so magical about Hopley Village which makes you want to move there right away and become one of those lucky people who call the place home. Primary school teacher Holly Hanwell is facing a tough Christmas so she puts all her enthusiasm into creating the perfect festive pageant for her pupils. When her newest pupil arrives at the school, Holly soon develops a special rapport with eight year old Eliza Sutton, and is determined to help the little girl overcome her troubles. Edward Sutton, Eliza's dad, is juggling being a single dad in a new house which needs renovations and living a village where they know no-one. Gradually over the space of this lovely story, the lives of Holly, Eliza and Edward start to intertwine and that's when Hopley village starts sprinkling its magic.

Beautifully written with all the characteristic warmth and empathy which this talented author puts in her stories, I was quite captivated by the way everything just fitted perfectly into place. Never overly sentimental but with a huge smattering of ahhh... moments, I just loved everything about The Little Christmas House. It's a wonderful read for a wintery afternoon by the fire. 

About the Author

Tracy Rees was the winner of the Richard and Judy 'Search for a Bestseller' Competition and her books are paperback and kindle bestsellers. A Cambridge graduate, she had a successful eight-year career in nonfiction publishing and a second career practicing and teaching humanistic counselling before becoming a writer. She lives in Wales.

Twitter @AuthorTracyRees #TheLittleChristmasHouse

@bookouture

Sunday Brunch with Jaffareadstoo ~ Tracy Rees

On this quiet Sunday morning why don't you put the kettle on, make your favourite breakfast and settle down for Sunday Brunch with Jaffareadstoo

I'm delighted to welcome Tracy Rees to our Sunday Brunch today

Welcome, Tracy. What favourite food are you bringing to Sunday brunch?

It’s either Greek yoghurt with berries, nuts and honey… or banana pancakes with Nutella depending if I’m having an angelic or a devilish kind of a day!

 

Would you like a pot of English breakfast tea, a strong Americano, or a glass of Bucks Fizz?

I’m normally a green-tea-in-the-morning kind of person, but for a special brunch like this one, definitely a glass (or 3) of Buck’s Fizz!

 

Where shall we eat brunch – around the kitchen table, in the formal dining room, or outside on the patio?

Outside on the patio! If it’s cold, we can wrap up warm, if it’s wet, we can huddle under the canopy (is there a canopy?) and if it’s sunny – perfection!

 

Shall we have music playing in the background, and if so do you have a favourite piece of music?

It had better not be Tchaikovsky or I’ll end up twirling round the garden – especially after the Buck’s Fizz! How about Una Mattina by Ludovico Einaudi? Or else just the birdsong…

 

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

Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte and Taylor Jenkins Reid.

 

Which favourite book will you bring to Sunday Brunch?

I’ll bring Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid so that we can just have it on the table nearby to admire the beautiful cover. Oh and from time to time I might open the covers and sigh over the endpapers. You can too if you like.

Hutchinson
2021

 

When you are writing do you still find time to read for pleasure? And is there a book you would like to read but haven’t had time for …yet!

I always have to have a novel on the go, no matter how busy I am. Even if the only time I have for reading is ten minutes before bed, I need that brief storytime to help me unwind. Escapism is really important for the human psyche I think, especially when life is so full and pressured. I can’t think of one specific book – my tbr list usually hovers around 60 books or so and there are always more that I want. As fast as I read I replace… I suppose it’ll always be that way.

 

Where do you find the inspiration for your novels?

I’m very fortunate – ideas tumble into my head all the time from I don’t know where – that magical realm of story that hovers around us I think! They can be triggered by films, other books, music, conversations with friends, a shift in the weather, a beautiful piece of clothing or any number of things but often they really do seem to come out of nowhere. It’s a blessing (for obvious reasons) and a curse, because I can’t keep up with them. I can only write one at a time so they have to queue up!

 

Have you a favourite place to settle down to write and do you find it easier to write in winter or summer?

I write all year round. I love every season and am inspired by every season. It’s definitely easier to write on dark rainy days, however. When the sun’s shining I really find it hard to be deskbound – I love to be lazing in the garden in summer or out walking on crisp winter days. As for a favourite place… I love my study because it’s all set up for writing. I light a candle, settle down with a mug of tea and let the magic happen. I have a large desk and a stunning view of the estuary and hills… If I’m at the research stage of a project I have a favourite café by the sea that I go to for a couple of hours with the history books!

 

When writing to a deadline are you easily distracted and if so how do you bring back focus on your writing?

I don’t get easily distracted. I tend to have tunnel vision when I work, especially when a deadline looms. Then I tend to work and work to the exclusion of all else and end up feeling a bit weird – wobbly and light-headed – for a while afterwards!

 

Give us four essential items that a writer needs?

Kettle, teabag, water, mug!

 

What can you tell us about your latest novel or your current work in progress?

My current wip is a historical novel set in the late nineteenth century. It's about a very wealthy, spoiled society beauty who is thoughtless and bored. She falls in love with an utterly unsuitable man and it sets off a chain of events that change her forever. Those who have read my latest historical book The Rose Garden, which was published in the UK in September this year, will recognise the setting and some of the characters, but it's a complete, standalone story so readers don't need to have read The Rose Garden to enjoy it.

Pan Macmillan
2021

1895. Hampstead, London.

Olive Westallen lives a privileged, if rather lonely, life in her family’s grand Hampstead home. But she has radical plans for the future of her family – plans that will shock the high-society world she inhabits.

For her new neighbour, twelve-year-old Ottilie Finch, London is an exciting playground to explore. Her family have recently arrived from Durham, under a cloud of scandal that Otty is blissfully unaware of. The only shadow over her days is her mother’s mysterious illness, which keeps her to her room.

When Mabs is offered the chance to become Mrs Finch’s companion, it saves her from a desperate life on the canals. Little does she know that all is not as picture-perfect as it seems. Mabs is about to become tangled in the secrets that chased the Finches from their last home, and trapped in an impossible dilemma.

Tracy where can we follow you on social media?

Twitter @AuthorTracyRees

More about Tracy

Tracy Rees was born and grew up in Swansea, South Wales. An only child, she spent a great deal of time lost in books and always dreamed of being a writer. A graduate of Jesus College, Cambridge, she moved to London and worked in medical publishing for many years, before training and then working as a counsellor for people with cancer and their families. She has also been a waitress, bartender, shop assistant, estate agent, classroom assistant, university lecturer and workshop leader.

In 2014 her first novel, Amy Snow, won the Richard and Judy Search for a Bestseller competition and the Love Stories Best Historical Read award. She has published six historical novels and two contemporary novels. Her books have been published in twenty countries around the world.

She lives on the Gower Peninsula of South Wales where she enjoys walking, yoga, line dancing and endless cups of tea with friends.

Tracy, thank you for taking part in Sunday Brunch with Jaffareadstoo.

My pleasure!

Follow us on Twitter @jaffareadstoo #SundayBrunchwithJaffareadstoo

📖 Blog Tour ~ The Rose Garden by Tracy Rees

 

Thrilled to be one of the stops on the closing day of this blog tour 

Pan Macmillan
2 September 2021

Thanks to the publishers for my copy of this book

and to Random Things Tours for the invitation to the blog tour

1895. Hampstead, London.

Olive Westallen lives a privileged, if rather lonely, life in her family’s grand Hampstead home. But she has radical plans for the future of her family – plans that will shock the high-society world she inhabits. For her new neighbour, twelve-year-old Ottilie Finch, London is an exciting playground to explore. Her family have recently arrived from Durham, under a cloud of scandal that Otty is blissfully unaware of. The only shadow over her days is her mother’s mysterious illness, which keeps her to her room. When Mabs is offered the chance to become Mrs Finch’s companion, it saves her from a desperate life on the canals. Little does she know that all is not as picture-perfect as it seems. Mabs is about to become tangled in the secrets that chased the Finches from their last home, and trapped in an impossible dilemma .

📖 My thoughts..

Eighteen year old Mabs Daley finds working on the London Docks to be harsh but with her younger brothers and sisters to support Mabs has little choice but to continue with this back breaking work, that is, until her friend tells her of a job, in service, in the home of the Finch family who have newly arrived in London from Durham. Employed as a companion to the melancholic, Mrs Finch brings Mabs into contact with twelve year old Ottilie Finch, who, left to her own devices explores London with all the enthusiasm of a child breaking free of the restrictions placed upon her by society. Meanwhile, Olive Westallen, a rather unusual, twenty eight year old, uses her family wealth to do good deeds but in doing so shocks polite society.

What follows is a detailed novel which explores the boundaries that Victorian women had placed upon them, not just by a patriarchal society who viewed independent women as something of an anathema, but also even in families, sensibilities could so easily be troubled by the wrong actions. Social attitudes were often greatly offended by doing and saying the wrong things to the wrong people and yet all three of these quite unusual characters found that once their lives started to intertwine a connection between them was allowed to flourish in the most unlikeliest of circumstances. The three voices of Mabs, Ottilie and Olive come cross loud and clear, from the poverty and hardship of Mabs’s family, the opulence of Olive’s Hampstead mansion, to Ottilie, and her rather fractured family, especially her mother, coming somewhere in the middle.

Beautifully written, with an authentic feel for time and place, the late-Victorian era comes alive in The Rose Garden. The author does a great job of bringing everything together in a compelling story which cuts across the social divide and explores family secrets, social mobility and the tentative emergence of women battling to have their voices heard in a male dominated society.

About the Author

Tracy Rees was the first winner of the Richard and Judy Search for a Bestseller competition. She has also won the Love Stories Best Historical Read award and been shortlisted for the RNA Epic Romantic Novel of the Year. A Cambridge graduate, Tracy had a successful career in non-fiction publishing before retraining for a second career practising and teaching humanistic counselling. She has also been a waitress, bartender, shop assistant, estate agent, classroom assistant and workshop leader. Tracy divides her time between the Gower Peninsula of South Wales and London.

Twitter @AuthorTracyRees #TheRoseGarden

@panmacmillan

@RandomTTours

Review ~ Darling Blue by Tracy Rees

Quercus Publishing
1 November 2018

Blue lives a charmed life. From her family’s townhouse in Richmond, she lives a life of luxury and couldn't want for anything - well, on the surface at least.

Then on the night of her twenty-first birthday her father makes a startling toast: he will give his daughter’s hand to whichever man can capture her heart best in the form of a love letter. But Blue has other ideas and, unwilling to play at her father's bewildering games, she sets out on her own path to find her own destiny...

From the author of Amy Snow and The Hourglass, Darling Blue is both a sweeping tale of love in the 1920s and a powerful story of reinvention.

My thoughts about it..

When Ishbel Camberwell, affectionately known as 'Darling Blue' turns twenty-one, her father makes a surprise announcement, that he will give Blue's hand in marriage to the suitor who wins her affections by writing anonymous love letters to woo her heart. This causes Blue some consternation as she isn't actively searching for a partner, she would much rather pursue her ambitions as a writer. However, this in 1925, and getting an opportunity as a journalist isn't going to come easily and living a life of moneyed privilege could be something of an obstacle to Blue's ambition.

What then follows is a delightful family saga which perfectly encapsulates the long, hot summer of 1925, and of the trials and tribulations which seem to follow the Camberwell family. Their generous friendship, emphasises the kindness of their spirit, however, these kind gestures, so well meant, will see the family embroiled in some rather dangerous activity.

I really loved spending time with Blue and her erstwhile suitors, and yet, the strength of the novel lies in the authors ability to create such strong characters and to allow the history of the period to come alive in careful descriptions of both place and people. It's not all light-hearted froth and pretty dresses, as the novel touches on some quite serious issues, particularly post-natal depression and domestic abuse and puts them into the context of the time.

Darling Blue is quite a hefty read coming in at over 560 pages in the paperback so it needs a fair amount of investment in terms of time to read, but overall, I thought the journey was well worth it.

Darling Blue is my favourite of this author's historical novels to date.

About the Author

Tracy Rees was born in South Wales. A Cambridge graduate, she had a successful eight-year career in nonfiction publishing and a second career practising and teaching humanistic counselling. She was the winner of the Richard and Judy Search for a Bestseller Competition for Amy Snow (2015) and was shortlisted for the 2018 Epic Romantic Novel of the Year Award with her latest novel, The Hourglass. Darling Blue is her fourth novel.

Twitter @AuthorTracyRees #DarlingBlue


@QuercusBooks