Tea – word of the month for March

I was introduced to tea by my grandma when I was around seven years old and I’ve been a tea Jenny ever since. It’s my go to drink at breakfast time and whenever some soothing timeout is required. I also like a mug of tea – and yes, I much prefer a mug to a cup – at my side when I’m writing and when I’m reading. And of course it has to made in a teapot – no teabag dunking.

Literally spilling the tea is, of course something I do my best to avoid. But I am going to be doing some literary spilling of the tea here – because the #spillingthetea challenge involves bloggers spilling, as in sharing, three books that for them best represent the letters T,E and A. So:

T has to be a book that TAUGHT you something

E is a book you didn’t want to END

A is an AUTHOR you can’t get enough of

And so, without further ado here are my TEA books

For the book that taught me something, and there are many, I’ve chosen On Writing by Stephen King. I read this more than ten years ago and it’s the book that made me believe I could be a writer. Although it’s a memoir – an excellent one – it’s also full of tips for aspiring writers. And I still dip into it to this day.

A book I didn’t want to end… That was a hard one to choose. There have been many over the years. So I decided to pick the most recent one and that is, An Autumn Hideaway by Margaret Amatt. It’s a contemporary romance set on the Scottish island of Mull and when it was one of those reads that where I was desperate to see how it all ended but also didn’t want to get to the end because I knew I was going to miss the main characters, Richard and Autumn so much.

And the author I can’t get enough of … as for the above categories it was a difficult choice. But from a list of six or so British, American and Australian authors, I chose Sue Moorcroft. She writes, entertaining, engaging and thought-provoking contemporary romances and the most recent one of her that I’ve read is A White Christmas on Winter Street.

Book of the Month

Still on the theme of books – regular readers of the blog will know that in each of my monthly posts, I like to share my most recent favourite read. And for March’s post that book is:

Finding Love at Hedgehog Hollow by Jessica Redland. This is a contemporary romance (I know, who’d have guessed?) and I loved it.

From the back cover:

Can love really be found when you stop looking for it…?

As Samantha Wishaw watches the love of her life marry another woman, she’s ready to give up hope of finding her happy ever after.

But when a chance encounter leads Sam to find friendship in Thomas – a lonely, grumpy elderly widower living at derelict Hedgehog Hollow – her life is about to change forever.

Glad to have a distraction from family feuds and match-making, Sam vows to fulfil Thomas and his wife, Gwendoline’s, dreams of restoring Hedgehog Hollow to its former glory, and to open a hedgehog rescue centre.

Throwing herself into the task at hand, little does Sam realise that the keys to love and happiness may also be found at Hedgehog Hollow, when she least expects it…

And that’s it for this month. You can consider yourself officially challenged to #spillthetea and share below the three books you’d choose.

Thank you for reading!

PS MY NEWSLETTER

And don’t forget, if you want a more intimate round up of my current writing such as updates on the work-in-progress, sneak peeks, early notification of publication dates, giveaways and lots more do sign up for my author newsletter. And when you do you’ll receive A FREE BOOK of FOUR of my romantic short stories as a thank you. Just click HERE and fill in your email address. 

PPS MY LATEST BOOK

My latest novel is contemporary romance Baby Steps.

It’s available as an ebook and as a paperback and you can buy it HERE

To find out more about all of my books just go to the BOOKS page HERE on the website.