Tilly Tennant

Favorite Quotes:

Fliss often looked as if she’d got up with two minutes to spare for work to discover someone had burned all her hairbrushes during the night.

Corrine lifted her eyebrows so high in disbelief they might have left her head entirely,

if Lucifer himself had wandered in wearing a pair of Speedos and asking for a bag of ice to cool down, she wouldn’t have been a bit surprised.

The only time I see all the heathens in church is today when there’s mulled wine afterwards.

My Review:

I show more have enjoyed this perceptively written and heartfelt series, populated with quirky and original villagers for the midwife and the clinic staff to serve. Ms. Tennant deftly traverses multiple family dramas, workplace tension, weather snafus, holiday complications, addictions, and competition pettiness, all with an easy-to-read, amusing, and engaging writing style. show less

In a Nutshell: I did NOT have “the time of my life” reading this. But to those who like their romcoms to be on the sillier side of fluff, this will be a good choice.

Story Synopsis:

Bonnie, thirty-five year old single mum to fifteen year old Paige. Her long-time partner (and Paige’s dad) walked out on them two years back and she’s been struggling to make ends meet. This doesn’t stop her from dreaming about a hot boy-band singer. When she actually gets the chance to meet her crush,

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she is on cloud nine. Will things work out as per her dreams? There are many more aspects to the plot but this is where it all begins.
The story comes to us in the first person pov of Bonnie.

Where the book worked for me: show less

Dodie Bright has accepted that her friends see her weird, that she spends more time in clothing the same age as her gran, and that her boyfriend doesn't really fit in with her world. She focuses her time on making her vintage clothing business a success, the sentimental value of everything meaning so much to her. When she discovers a letter in a coat's pocket she finds herself caught up on a quest to discover the letters owner. She instead finds Ed, the house's current owner, and together show more they get caught up in the love-letter. The romance of the letter seeps into everyone's lives, making Ryan more interested in Dodie and Ed newly interested in Dodie and Dodie confused and a bit lonely. The cold weather and joyous singing brings about a change though and she ends the holidays with the one she's meant to be with and an answer to the letter's mystery.

What a sweet story, the kind that's a great read for anytime of the year not just the holidays. I wanted to read Tilly Tennant's A Very Vintage Christmas after being attracted first by the cover, and then by the blurb. I love books about finding old letters, about past and present mixing together, and about anything vintage. Dodie Bright comes from a different era, better suited in vintage fashion amongst her store's treasures. I loved her outlook on life, her friendship with Isla and her gran, and more than that, I loved her slow recognition of wanting something more out of romance and in the person she doesn't expect. Ryan, her somewhat boyfriend, just didn't fit in, but that seemed to be the point. Ed, on the other hand, was fantastic. I wanted him to myself. Then there's the love letter, a story that tugs at your heart string, and really could have been fleshed out even further. It has all the romance readers could want from a sweet romance, with a bit of a backbone from its vintage connected adventure.

A Very Vintage Christmas flows in a natural way, it's not too long, but does cover a lot of ground with its story about finding the family of a letter from the 1940's. Its a tale that's cozy and warm, more Women's Lit than holiday romance though. I really liked this charming story and can't wait for a chance to read Isla's story, A Cosy Candlelit Christmas.


ARC provided in exchange for an honest review. show less

Sometimes life calls for a light and easy read that is a guaranteed happily ever after. Tilly Tennant’s The Break Up is just that kind of book even if there are some frustrations as the story moves forward.

The story opens with Lara at a jazz club with Lucien, her boyfriend of a year. Lara hates jazz but listening to music she doesn’t like is not the worst part of the night. The worst part is finding out that Lucien is breaking up with her and then turning to her best friend Siobhan for show more sympathy only to discover that she and Lucien have been cheating on Lara together. The only good thing to come of the night is a small, hungry, bedraggled stray cat who walks out of the storm into her kitchen and into her heart. One year later, Lara is running a successful wedding planning business out of her back garden. She has a cheerful assistant named Betsy and she loves the cat she’s named Fluffy. He is a bit of a wanderer though and one night while she is searching for Fluffy, she runs into a neighbor, Theo, out looking for his own missing cat, Satchmo. Except Satchmo and Fluffy turn out to be the same cat. Lara and Theo dislike each other immediately. And then they start running into each other everywhere. Lara is a wedding planner. Theo is a jazz musician whose band is in high demand at weddings. Can they work together? Can they become something more?

This is very much an enemies to lovers story, and the switch from the one to the other is quite fast but it’s easy to want Lara to have a far better boyfriend than Lucien turned out to be. She and Theo have some fun banter and all of the misunderstandings that could tank a fledgling relationship that serious contemporary romance readers could want. There is, however, a bit of a distance between the reader and the characters, and the misunderstandings are so clearly of the hysterical (not funny hysterical, but imaginary, jump to conclusions hysterical) variety that the reading can be frustrating. Fluffy/Satchmo is a major driver of the plot but he disappears for major portions of the story and it seems as if his presence should be a little more consistent given his hand (paw?) in the entire wobbly arc of Lara and Theo. This is over all a breezy, easy romance but not a particularly memorable one. show less