BLOG TOUR: The Chocolate Lovers' Wedding by Carole Matthews - Book Review & Giveaway!

The Chocolate Lovers' Wedding is the latest installment in the Chocolate Lovers' series by Carole Matthews (author of many novels including A Place to Call Home, The Only Way is Up and Wrapped Up in You). To celebrate this new release, you can win a set of Chocolate Lovers' books on each of the blogs taking part in the tour! Read on for the review and how to win.

The ladies of The Chocolate Lovers' Club should be gearing up for the wedding of the year but life keeps getting in the way...

Lucy is worried about her financial situation and it keeps distracting her. Should she accept an offer of help from an untrustworthy source? 

Nadia may have a real chance at finding love but other areas of her life aren't so rosy. Something needs to change - but what?

Autumn can't wait to meet someone she hasn't seen in a very long time. She's full of hope for the future but then things don't exactly go to plan...

Chantal has been through so much and she's finally starting to feel settled. The last thing she needs is the kind of bad news that could change her life all over again.

 And yet, despite all the ups and downs, the Chocolate Lovers' ladies know they can get through it all as long as they have each other. They're not going to let anything get in the way of their happy-ever-afters in...The Chocolate Lovers' Wedding.

The Chocolate Lovers' Wedding follows on from previous novel The Chocolate Lovers' Christmas, in which Lucy finally gets with the man of her dreams, Aidan Holby, aka Crush. After finally setting her sights on a wedding with the man she utterly loves, things take a slightly unfortunate turn when she loses her temp job. On the other hand, there IS an offer of employment, at Chocolate Heaven - the cafe and chocolate shop that she used to manage. Which was bought out by none other than Lucy's obsessive ex, Marcus. But with the wedding on the horizon and a need of cash, it's an offer that Lucy doesn't want to refuse.

Meanwhile, the other ladies of the Chocolate Lovers' Club are dealing with issues that life keeps throwing their way. There's Autumn, who, after reluctantly giving up her daughter for adoption years ago, is ready to meet the girl that she never watched grow up. But it's proving difficult to see the teenager. Will she ever get to the chance to meet her? And Chantal,  who is finally starting to become settled in life, receives some unwanted news - the kind that could change her life.

Nadia just might have fallen for lovely single father James, even though he lives miles away in the country, managing his farm. After being mugged, Nadia contemplates leaving London behind to be with James. But is it the right decision? It's a tough time for all four women, with choices that could change things for the better...or for worse. However, the four friends still remain united by their love for all things chocolate, and will do whatever it takes to help each other.

After reading The Chocolate Lovers' Christmas I really enjoyed getting to know the characters, and even though I hadn't read the other books in the series before Christmas, I felt that I already knew them - their stories were easy to pick up on, so I could always go back and read the previous books. Chocolate Lovers' Wedding is no different. The book is written in first person by Lucy, and third person for the other ladies. It provides a bit of backstory on each of the characters, and I couldn't help but like all of them. Lucy's voice is very witty, though all of Carole's books that I've read so far are extremely fun, with great characters. Lucy immediately feels like a friend, and I couldn't help hoping that the other girls' get the good news that they need.

The Chocolate Lovers' Wedding is a brilliant read and, although it is rather emotional with certain events, it just showed the friendship of Lucy, Nadia, Chantal and Autumn grow even stronger. Who knew that chocolate could be so powerful?

Rating: 5/5

GIVEAWAY! 

Publishers Little Brown have provided four Chocolate Lovers' books to give away to one lucky reader. The series includes The Chocolate Lovers' Club, The Chocoate Lovers' Diet, The Chocolate Lovers' Christmas and of course, new novel The Chocolate Lovers' Wedding.

To be in with a chance of winning, simply leave a comment with your name and a winner will be chosen at random. The competition ends on May 2nd.

Also, be sure to check out the other blog stops on the Chocolate Lovers' tour!

Blog Break - back soon!

Hello! Hope everyone is having a fantastic Easter break.

Just to let you know that Chick Lit Uncovered is taking a short blog break, and will be back in April with plenty of news and reviews. See you soon!

UNCOVERED PICKS: Five March Releases

March is here and with it comes new books from Anna Bell, Fiona Walker, Sarah Morgan and more. Here's our pick of five romantic reads for the upcoming month.

The Bucket List to Mend a Broken Heart by Anna Bell
Abi's barely left her bed since Joseph, the love of her life, dumped her, saying they were incompatible. When Joseph leaves a box of her possessions on her doorstep, she finds a bucket list of ten things she never knew he wanted to do. What better way to win him back than by completing the list, and proving they're a perfect match? But there's just one problem - or rather, ten. Abi's not exactly the outdoorsy type, and she's absolutely terrified of heights - not ideal for a list that includes climbing a mountain, cycling around the Isle of Wight and, last but not least, abseiling down the tallest building in town ...

Completing the list is going to need all Abi's courage - and a lot of help from her friends. But as she heals her broken heart one task at a time, the newly confident Abi might just have a surprise in store... 

The Weekends of You and Me by Fiona Walker
Can your final fling become your Happy Ever After? When Jo Coulson finds herself single again in her late thirties, she finally resigns her membership to Last of the Hopeless Romantics, fully intending to tackle midlife and motherhood alone. First, she plans one legendary last fling...In walks Harry Inchbold, and the connection is electric. Passionate, unpredictable and messily divorced, Harry is the perfect antidote to cosy coupledom. Known as The Sinner, drama follows him around with a clapper board. Harry's favourite holiday hideaway in the wilds of South Shropshire puts the mud and fun into the perfect dirty weekend. But at the cottage Harry reveals a very different side, melting Jo's resolve. What better combination to face an uncertain future than two cynics who have learned from their mistakes?

Together they make a pact; 'same time next year'; they can promise no more than that. Through life's most stressful decade, Harry and Jo return to the Shropshire hills for one weekend each year to rediscover passion and make peace. As career, family and home crises all threaten to bring them unstuck, the cottage is their glue. Here, different rules apply: the day to day world is not allowed to intrude.With Harry and Jo, however, it's only a matter of time before rules get broken. As real life gets increasingly complicated, can they keep renewing their promise? 

If the Dress Fits by Daisy James
She might be the most famous person in the country…but no one knows her name!

Celebrity actress Lilac Verbois is holding a competition to design her dress for the Wedding of the Year…and Callie’s exquisite, glittering silk gown has been shortlisted. But just as all her dreams are coming true, disaster strikes and she rushes home – forgetting to submit the forms!

Years ago, when Callie left sleepy Althorpe for the bright lights of London, she never expected to return. And there’s one man in particular she’d hoped never to see again, Theo, the childhood-sweetheart-turned-rock-God who turned her life upside down. But now she’s back, she realises it’s finally time to stop running…and face her past.

Yet, little does Callie know, Lilac Verbois has begun a Cinderella-like hunt for that perfect, pearl-embroidered wedding dress, mysteriously submitted without a name…

Sleepless in Manhattan by Sarah Morgan
What if the person who broke your heart, is the only one who can help you find your future? What if the person who broke your heart, is the only one who can help you find your future? 

Great friends. Amazing Apartment. An incredible job. Paige has ticked off every box on perfect New York life checklist. Until disaster strikes and instead of shimming further up the career ladder, Paige is packing up her desk. Her brother's best friend Jake might be the only person who can help her put her life back together. He also happens to be the boy she spent her teen years pining after, and Paige is determined not repeat her past mistakes. But the more time she spends with Jake, the more Paige realises the one thing that was missing from her world all along. The perfect New York love story... 

Nice Work (If You Can Get It) by Celia Imrie
Somewhere on the French Riviera, tucked between glitzy Monte Carlo and Cannes' red carpets, lies the pretty town of Bellevue-Sur-Mer. Sheltered from the glittering melee, it is home to many an expat – including an enterprising team who plan to open a new restaurant.

Snapping up a local property and throwing themselves into preparations, Theresa, Carol, William and Benjamin's plans are proceeding unnervingly well. But when Theresa encounters a mysterious intruder, she begins to wonder what secrets the building is concealing.

Meanwhile Sally, an actress who gave up the stage to live in quiet anonymity, has decided not to be involved. The famous Cannes Film Festival is on and she is far too busy entertaining unexpected visitors from her past, and an intriguingly handsome Russian.

As the razzmatazz of the festival begins to spill over into Bellevue-Sur-Mer, its inhabitants become entangled in complex love triangles and conflicting business interests. With the race on to get the restaurant open in time, the gang find themselves knee-deep in skulduggery, and realise they can no longer tell who's nasty...and who's nice.

GUEST POST: Elle Turner on writing and perseverance

This week, Elle Turner, author of short story collection Tapestry, joins us with a guest post about patience and rejection in the life of a writer...

When I was eight years old I started to write my first book. I didn’t get any further than chapter headings, but I knew then that it was something I wanted to do. In my teens I set myself age related goals – I’ll write a book by the time I’m 21! or I’ll write a book by the time I’m 30! Both these milestones passed without me having written a book. I turned my attention to doing something “more sensible”, assuming that I just wasn’t the sort of person who could produce a book. It wasn’t until my children were born that I allowed the possibility to enter my head again and, instead of plucking age related goals from thin air, I decided it would be better to work at writing in the same way as any other job by learning, practicing and working hard. To help me with this I simultaneously joined the Romantic Novelists Association New Writers’ Scheme and took a short story course by distance learning with the London School of Journalism, two things that gave me the focus I needed to start me down this route.

Since then I’ve written four books. I would love to find an agent and/or traditional publisher interested in them, so that’s one of the things I’m working on at the moment (please keep your fingers crossed for me!). I’ve also written Tapestry, a collection of twelve short stories, which I self-published in September. Over my writing years I’ve learned a lot about patience, rejection and perseverance, so when Elle kindly allowed me a spot on Chick Lit Uncovered for a guest post, we thought that was one subject (or three subjects) it might be useful to talk about.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t find it easy to be patient. There’s no two ways about it, though, if you want to submit your writing for consideration by an agent or publisher, patient is something I’ve found you just have to be. I mean, no one is sitting about waiting for me to land in their lap, are they? As someone who’ll buy hair extensions rather than wait for their hair to grow, or who’ll walk between stops rather than stand ten minutes waiting for a bus, I would class this need for patience as NOT FUN, but it’s part of the process. I've found the best way to deal with it for me is to have several different projects on the go at once so I never feel like I’m “waiting” for something to happen.

The variety helps with rejection too, another inevitable part of the writing for publication process.  No one is sitting around waiting for me, but equally I know no one’s out to get at me either and rejection isn’t personal. I try not to get upset, although it’s definitely easy to feel discouraged, which I do from time to time. I try, though, to look upon rejection as something to be expected and see what I can learn from it. If I have several things on the go, I always have something else I can turn to while I’m rethinking whatever’s been rejected. I think the frustrating part is not always knowing exactly why something’s been rejected, because there can be so many variables. It really helps, therefore, to have a source of feedback to help gauge writing ability. For me primarily this is the RNA NWS although, more recently, it’s helped to have feedback about Tapestry too. I’ve been so chuffed with the reviews so far. They are something to (patiently) hold on to whilst being rejected, I guess…

If you’ve got the patience and can cope with the rejection, chances are you’ll be happy to persevere! This is probably my only natural ‘win’. I like to think I’m determined (shush now to whoever said stubborn) and, although I do feel discouraged sometimes, I believe the best things that happen in life are hard won. So actually having to work hard and persevere are GOOD THINGS…

That’s the way I try to look at it, anyway, but I’d love to know what others think!

Tapestry 

In hope, in pain,

we lose, we gain,

but always and forever

the human heart braves life

in light and in shade

A collection of twelve short stories exploring the complexities of life and love. Tapestry - Available now from Amazon.

Elle dedicated Tapestry to her mum so, to celebrate Mother’s Day weekend in the UK, Tapestry is free from 4-6 March 2016.

Elle Turner writes contemporary women’s fiction and lives in beautiful Scotland with her husband and two children. She loves scones, Coronation Street, all songs by Sara Bareilles and will happily admit to having little or no sense of direction. If you offer her a 50:50 she will ALWAYS get it wrong and, despite living in Scotland, she rarely manages to wear shoes that don’t leak.

  

If you would like to find out more about Elle or her writing, she’d love to see you at www.elleturnerwriter.com on Twitter @ElleTWriter, Instagram elletwriter or she’s on Facebook as elleturnerwriter.

UNCOVERED PICKS: Three New Thrillers

With so many new thrillers due to be hitting the shelves over the coming months, it's going to be a busy year of reading. For those fans of gripping psychological reads, here are three to add to the to-read list, including two debuts from Aga Lesiewicz and Melanie Raabe.

Re-Bound by Aga Lesiewicz (newly released)
I'm not a bad person, but maybe I did a bad thing...

Life is good for Anna Wright. She's a successful media executive working for one of the UK's largest TV corporations. She's got a great boyfriend, some close friends and a lovely home. She adores her dog, Wispa, and she loves to run to help her de-stress.

But Anna's perfect life starts to crumble from the moment when, out jogging on the Heath one day, she meets a handsome stranger. She takes a route into unfamiliar territory, and then she has to face the consequences.

There's a dark, growing creepiness as the atmosphere becomes unsettled and, as Anna's professional life becomes increasingly pressured and poisonous, her obsession with the intriguing stranger intensifies.

A startlingly addictive thriller from author Aga Lesiewicz, Rebound is an unputdownable debut.

The Trap by Melanie Raabe (published in May)
He knows what happened that night and she wrote a book about it but, when the doorbell rings, neither of them can be sure how the story will end.

Twelve years ago, Linda's sister Anna was murdered. Her killer was never caught, but Linda saw him. Now, all these years on, she's just seen him again. On TV.

He has since become a well-known reporter, and Linda - a famous novelist and infamous recluse - knows no one will believe her if she accuses him. So Linda does the only thing she can think of: she writes a thriller about a woman who is murdered, her killer never caught. When the book is published, she agrees to give just one media interview.

At home.

To the one person who knows more about the case than she does.

When She Was Bad by Tammy Cohen (published in April)
YOU SEE THE PEOPLE YOU WORK WITH EVERY DAY.

BUT WHAT CAN'T YOU SEE?

Amira, Sarah, Paula, Ewan and Charlie have worked together for years - they know how each one likes their coffee, whose love life is a mess, whose children keep them up at night. But their comfortable routine life is suddenly shattered when an aggressive new boss walks in...

Now, there's something chilling in the air.

Who secretly hates everyone?

Who is tortured by their past?

Who is capable of murder? 

NEW RELEASE: Short story collection 'Tapestry' by Elle Turner

Tapestry is a new collection of short stories by author Elle Turner, containing twelve stories each focusing on relationships. The stories explore the complexities between life and love. Tapestry is available now, and you can find out more about Elle Turner and her writing over at her blog.

Never-ending
Imogen is unhappy in her brief marriage. She feels guilty because there is no “acceptable” reason to leave her husband, but she still wants to go. One day when Neil leaves for work she resolves to make her decision once and for all. Can she break free or are the ties of her marriage too strong?

Crush
Gemma’s love for Nicky is unrequited, but everything she does, she does with him in mind. Her feelings for him have ruled her life for years, any happiness she feels is short-lived because she recognises and is ashamed of her predicament. What will it mean for Gemma when Nicky finds out how strongly she feels?

The Letter
Maggie's life collapsed when her daughter, Mia, was sent to prison. Her marriage crumbled under the strain, she was unable to face Mia or deal with her guilt. But when she receives a letter from Mia explaining she is due for parole, Maggie cannot hide from her daughter any longer.

Fifty pence for the first step
Gemma turns to her boss, Andrew, for advice when she needs direction. Despite much soul-searching she finds that, sometimes, the most insignificant event can be the catalyst for positive action.

Never Let Go
Andrew may have given Gemma good advice, but he is unable to recognise the obsessive love his ex, Leanna, feels for him. Leanna is determined to get Andrew back from his new girlfriend, Merin, but what lengths will she go to?

Not Everybody Hurts
Nilbreaks is a fast acting wonder pill that cures and prevents broken hearts. Violet despairs that, as a result of taking the pill, no one actually cares about anyone anymore. She resolves to get Nilbreaks taken off the market but meets resistance from her friends and colleagues.

Again
After the end of her marriage, Freya finds love unexpectedly with Aidan and feels her life has begun anew. Everything is perfect until Aidan’s ex-girlfriend, Melody, returns to his life leaving Freya’s future uncertain. Again.

I hope you get your rabbit
A teenage mother makes a heart-breaking decision about her new born baby. This is her opportunity to tell him why.

Meeting Eric
After years of waiting, Kate nervously prepares for the day she will finally meet Eric.

Lost
Gerry is the love of Chrissie’s life, but they didn’t stay together. She thinks of him a lot, her past is always in her present and she expects it to stay that way. That is until her friend turns up with news of Gerry. What happens to the future when your past isn’t there anymore?

Living Without
Claudia starts to become her own person after years of living in her parents’, then husband’s and children’s shadows. She has her own flat; her professional life is going well, but is her newfound independence all that she expected it to be?

The Beginning
No matter how hard life gets, there is always hope and the memory of what love can be like, especially what it’s like in the beginning.

COMING SOON: So Now You're Back by Heidi Rice

What if your ex was about to expose your deepest secrets in a tell-all book? In So Now You're Back by romance author Heidi Rice, which is due for release this month, Halle is about to face this very predicament...

‘Domestic Diva’ Halle Best is world as Queen of the Kitchen, and for making a successful career in TV despite having a baby at sixteen. Now 38 and happy with her success, Halle panics when she discovers that her ex is writing a book that could expose all of her secrets. In order to stop him, she’ll have to speak to him face to face, which could also mean falling infuriatingly in love with him all over again!