Novelicious.com | The Women's Fiction Blog for Readers and Writers

Friday Book Giveaway! Appleby Farm by Cathy Bramley

We’ve been banging on about this lovely little book all week, so here’s your chance to win a copy of Appleby Farm by Cathy Bramley (you might want to try your luck at winning an accompanying afternoon tea hamper, too).

Freya Moorcroft has wild red hair, mischievous green eyes, a warm smile and a heart of gold. She’s been happy working at the café round the corner from Ivy Lane allotments and her romance with her new boyfriend is going well, she thinks, but a part of her still misses the beautiful rolling hills of her Cumbrian childhood home: Appleby Farm.

Then a phone call out of the blue and a desperate plea for help change everything…

Friday Book Giveaway! Win a Bookouture Bundle!

Happy Friday, book nerds! We hope you have lots of lovely weekend plans and plenty of books to fill those not-so-planned moments, too. In today’s giveaway, we have a whopping great bundle of books from our friends at Bookouture up for grabs.

One lucky winner will receive a package containing paperback copies of Recipes for Melissa by Teresa Driscoll, The Secret Daughter by Kelly Rimmer, Fairytale Beginnings by Holly Martin, Secrets of the Tower by Debbie Rix, Truly Madly Greekly by Mandy Baggot and Scandalous Lies by Nigel May. Also included, signed copies of Evil Games by Angela Marsons and Summer Flings and Dancing Dreams by the lovely Sue Watson.

Friday Book Giveaway! A Very Big House in the Country by Claire Sandy

If you read Claire Sandy’s last novel, What Would Mary Berry Do?, you know you’re in for a treat with her latest, A Very Big House in the Country. And what better time to win and read a book about three families sharing a summer holiday home than during these long, hot, lazy summer days?

For one long hot summer in Devon, three families are sharing one very big house in the country. The Herreras: made up of two tired parents, three grumbling children and one promiscuous dog; the Littles: he's loaded (despite two divorces and five kids), she's gorgeous, but maybe the equation for a truly happy marriage is a bit more complicated than that; and the Browns, who seem oddly jumpy around people, but especially each other.

By the pool, new friendships blossom; at the aga door, resentments begin to simmer. Secret crushes are formed and secret cigarettes cadged by the teens, as the adults loosen their inhibitions with litres of white wine and start to get perhaps a little too honest ...

Friday Book Giveaway! Win 1 of 5 Copies of The Heavenly Italian Ice Cream Shop by Abby Clements

Zarina reviewed The Heavenly Italian Ice Cream Shop by Abby Clements earlier this week and said it was "filled with sublime characters, picturesque descriptions of sunny Sorrento, and scrumptious sorbets". Sold. You too? Enter this week's giveaway and you might win one of five copies.

Anna and her husband Matteo are ready to embark a delicious Italian adventure. After a year and a half running their ice cream shop on Brighton beach and raising their baby Isabella, Matteo is starting to miss Italy. A shared passion for ices means it's easy to settle on a new business idea – they'll open a shop in the town's cobbled square, a short walk from the sparkling blue sea. For a while, life is sweet; but then Matteo's overbearing family get involved...

Friday Book Giveaway! We Are All Made of Stars by Rowan Coleman

Happy Friday, book nerds! Before you all head off for the weekend, we have one copy of We Are All Made of Stars by Rowan Coleman up for grabs …

Stella Carey exists in a world of night. Married to a soldier who has returned from Afghanistan injured in body and mind, she leaves the house every evening as Vincent locks himself away, along with the secrets he brought home from the war.

During her nursing shifts, Stella writes letters for her patients to their loved ones – some full of humour, love and practical advice, others steeped in regret or pain – and promises to post these messages after their deaths.

Friday Book Giveaway! Coming Up Roses by Rachael Lucas

We loved Sealed with a Kiss by Rachael Lucas and can’t wait to get stuck in to her second novel, Coming Up Roses. We have one copy to give away to one of you lucky lot, too! 

Country air, cowslips and a charismatic rogue…

Would-be gardener Daisy can't believe her luck when her parents announce they're off on a midlife-crisis gap year, leaving her in charge of their gorgeous garden. After a turbulent few months, a spell of quiet in the countryside is just what she needs. A shoulder to cry on wouldn't go amiss either – so when Daisy comes across Elaine and Jo, she breathes a sigh of relief. But her new friends are dealing with dramas of their own...

Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction Giveaway: 5 Copies of The Bees by Laline Paull

Those generous book geeks at the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction were kind enough to send out a copy of The Bees to Novelicious HQ last week. We're reading it right now and it is completely living up to the hype. We're pleased to be giving away five copies to you lot.

THE BLURB

Born into the lowest class of her society, Flora 717 is a sanitation bee, only fit to clean her orchard hive. Living to accept, obey and serve, she is prepared to sacrifice everything for her beloved holy mother, the Queen.

Yet Flora has talents that are not typical of her kin. And while mutant bees are usually instantly destroyed, Flora is reassigned to feed the newborns, before becoming a forager, collecting pollen on the wing. Then she finds her way into the Queen’s inner sanctum, where she discovers secrets both sublime and ominous.

Enemies roam everywhere, from the fearsome fertility police to the high priestesses who jealously guard the Hive Mind. But Flora cannot help but break the most sacred law of all, and her instinct to serve is overshadowed by a desire, as overwhelming as it is forbidden…

TO ENTER

Please leave a comment letting us know which of the Baileys Prize Shortlist you are most looking forward to reading, or have most enjoyed reading.

We will pick a winner at 12pm (UK Time) on May 4th 2015. This competition is open to UK and Ireland entrants only.

Good luck!

Friday Book Giveaway! The Doris Day Vintage Film Club by Fiona Harper

If you're planning on heading out into the spring sunshine this week with a good book and a bottle of pear cider, we have just the thing to send you on your merry way – The Doris Day Vintage Film Club by Fiona Harper. Read on to find out how you can win a copy!

Claire Bixby grew up watching Doris Day films at her grandmother’s house and yearned to live in a world like the one on the screen – sunny, colourful and where happy endings with chiselled leading men were guaranteed. But recently Claire’s opportunities for a little ‘pillow talk’ have been thin on the ground.

Friday Book Giveaway! The Day We Disappeared by Lucy Robinson

We read The Day We Disappeared by Lucy Robinson this week (in a single afternoon no less) and couldn’t wait to tell you about it. Before the official review is published, however, we have one copy to give away. It’s so good, it’d be rude not to.

Annie has a secret. But if she's not going to tell, we won't either. It's a heart-breaking secret she wishes she didn't have – yet Annie isn't broken, not quite yet. Especially now there's someone out there who seems determined to fix her.

Kate has run away. But she's not going to tell us why – that would defeat the point of running, wouldn't it? It's proving difficult to reinvent herself, however, with one person always on her mind.

Friday Book Giveaway! The Vintage Summer Wedding by Jenny Oliver!

The Vintage Summer Wedding by Jenny Oliver – published digitally last May – finally hits the shelves in paperback next week, and we have one copy to give away! If Helen’s homemade Vintage Summer Wedding gingernuts haven’t given you a taste for the book, the synopsis certainly will. Good luck!

A Vera Wang dress, the reception at a sophisticated London venue, and a guest list that reads like a society gossip column are all the ingredients of Anna Whitehall’s perfect wedding that never was …

Spending the summer uncovering hidden treasures in a vintage shop, Anna can still vividly remember both her childhood dreams; the first was that she’d become a Prima Ballerina, and dance on stage resplendent in a jewel-encrusted tutu. The second was that at her wedding she would walk down the aisle wearing a collective-gasp-from-the-congregation dress.

Friday Book Giveaway! The Vintage Wedding by Katie Fforde!

Happy Friday, book nerds! You made it to the end of the week which, in our opinion, means you have every right to treat yo’ self to a new book. Go on – you deserve it! That novel that’s been sitting in your Amazon cart for ages? Treat yo’ self. The shiny bestseller you eye in the window of your local bookshop every time you walk past? Treat yo’ self. This competition to win a lovely copy of The Vintage Wedding by Katie Fforde? You know what to do …

In a small Cotswold country town, Beth, Lindy and Rachel are looking for new beginnings.

So they set up in business, organising stylish and perfectly affordable vintage weddings.

Soon they are busy arranging other people's Big Days.

Friday Book Giveaway! A Copy of Summer at the Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan!

You know what this week needs? A hint of summer. In a lovely little Cornish town. With a sea breeze. And some baked goods, too. You know what has all of those things? Summer at the Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan. It’s just as well we have one copy to give away!

 

Summer has arrived in the Cornish town of Mount Polbearne and Polly Waterford couldn't be happier. Because Polly is in love: she's in love with the beautiful seaside town she calls home, she's in love with running the bakery on Beach Street, and she's in love with her boyfriend, Huckle.

And yet there's something unsettling about the gentle summer breeze that's floating through town. Selina, recently widowed, hopes that moving to Mount Polbearne will ease her grief, but Polly has a secret that could destroy her friend's fragile recovery. Responsibilities that Huckle thought he'd left behind are back and Polly finds it hard to cope with his increasingly long periods of absence.

Friday Book Giveaway! Win a Signed Copy of Lost and Found by Brooke Davis!

Happy Friday, book nerds! Before you all head off for the weekend, we have one signed copy of Lost and Found by Brooke Davis up for grabs ...

Millie Bird is a seven-year-old girl who always wears red wellington boots to match her red, curly hair. But one day, Millie’s mum leaves her alone beneath the Ginormous Women’s underwear rack in a department store, and doesn’t come back.

Agatha Pantha is an eighty-two-year-old woman who hasn’t left her home since her husband died. Instead, she fills the silence by yelling at passers-by, watching loud static on TV, and maintaining a strict daily schedule. Until the day Agatha spies a little girl across the street.

Win! A Gorgeous Garden-Themed Bundle with The Novelicious Book Club’s February Pick – Ivy Lane by Cathy Bramley!

If this month’s Novelicious Book Club pick, Ivy Lane by Cathy Bramley, has you longing for green-fingered days of bulb planting, vegetable tending and seedling swapping in your own garden or allotment, we have a pretty little bundle of prizes that’ll help you on your way.

Hand-selected by Hintons Home, a lovely family business based in Dorset, which sells designer homewares that are perfect for the quintessentially British lifestyle, one lucky winner will receive a pair of vintage gardening gloves, a fresh blackcurrent-scented candle, a gorgeous I Garden Therefore I Am mug and a signed copy of Ivy Lane (for reading during well-deserved tea breaks).