Anita Hughes

Cozy, holiday reads are excellent - cozy, romantic, holiday reads are even better!

Anita Hughes has crafted a lovely, heart warming story about two women finding their loves during Christmastime.

Louisa works in a bakery, when suddenly Noah shows up needing Christmas desserts for a reality television show he is working on. When those desserts make the lead dangerously ill, Louisa is hired to take her place!! Meanwhile, the assistant Kate finds love again with a man from her past... Oh, and Noah and Louisa get along quite well.

I found this book to be very sweet. It's your typical holiday romance with a bit more description than romance. The beautiful displays at expensive stores take the forefront with Anita painting beautiful pictures in my head of these designer stores. I wish there would have been more fluffy romance throughout the pages, but this book was more contemporary fiction with a hint of romance than full on holiday romance.

The romance itself is quite bland at the beginning. Lots of cheek kisses to establish the leads might like each other. Also throwbacks to the relationship failures, instead of the current love that should be occurring on the page. Again, this book is more contemporary than romance. The men are also... weird. They aren't normal men (or even romance novel men), they all act very strange and have very aggressive or manipulative behaviour. It was still an okay read if you get over the fact that they are kinda weird.

If anything, I found this book to be the perfect feel good book. While I was reading it, I just wanted something to escape and feel nice and fluffy. This book fit the bill. It doesn't need to be the romance book I hoped it to be, it was perfectly nice to escape from the insanity of the real world. Thank you Anita Hughes for giving me an escape. If you're looking for descriptions of Christmas displays and beautiful Christmas desserts, this book is perfect!

Three out of five stars.… (more)

Rebecca’s fiancé leaves her hours before their Christmas Eve wedding. She goes on their planned honeymoon anyway, to Christmas Cove Inn. Zach, an old college friend, is at the inn as well and when they run into each other a misunderstanding leads him to believe Rebecca is married and her to believe he’s there with an older woman. Will the truth surface so they can have a second chance to find love?

I’m a sucker for Christmas books. I loved the cozy atmosphere Hughes created. This was great for a quick and easy read that I’d be likely to revisit during the holiday season. There wasn’t a lot of depth to the characters and the plot was cheesy at times, but CHRISTMAS AT THE LAKE had all the vibes of a holiday Hallmark movie which worked perfectly. There is a reason why Hughes’ books have been adapted for Hallmark and Lifetime movies.

CHRISTMAS AT THE LAKE was a great Christmas romance book that I’d recommend.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Griffin for the giveaway ARC.… (more)

This had some fun twists of romance to it, and definitely had a love story I wanted to support. I actually really enjoyed the setting in that I love hearing about rich people things and hating on what they do. The premise, also, was delicious--what a terrifically awful situation!
 
The characters could have come from any novel and I was never left wondering how the ending would ultimately play our, yet none the less, this was enjoyable. This isn't the most poignant, but was a lovely beach read.
 
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.… (more)

While I normally adore this type of book with all of its details about baking, this one fell supremely flat for me in various ways.
 
Firstly, the misogyny was too much for me. The two main characters are both female but seem to have absolutely no idea of their worth. Male characters fight over one with no ever visible connections and another suggests that a famous chef is only interested in the other for her looks, and not her talents. Regardless of ultimate results, it was really frustrating to see the girls rarely standing up for themselves and instead letting the guys drag them in every which direction.
 
The speech in this book was the other killer for me. Barely any of the dialogue written was lines that people would actually say. All of the speech was incredibly stilted, with characters speaking for a good paragraph or two before allowing someone else a turn. They gave far more details than would ever be interesting and relevant, and blurted out stuff that people just wouldn't say naturally. With every set of quotation marks, I found myself pulled completely out of the story.
 
There were two plots going on in this book, and quite honestly, we could lose Kate's entire story. It reads as a subplot--it's not until chapter four that we read from her perspective or learn anything about her--and doesn't contribute anything to the other side of the book. I also wish that there had been more offered in the beginning; Louisa is picked to be in a cooking show because the other girl had an allergic reaction and her lips were swollen up… I don't buy it. Get some allergy medication. It works wonders.
 
I did, however, enjoy all of the details about pastries, though I wish that there had been more variety and that we'd seen Louisa learning more new recipes. One strong scene was when she got distracted from her agenda by buying ingredients and that was probably one of the only real scenes in the novel.
 
This book just wasn't a success for me, and I'll be reading other novels this Christmas.
 
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
 … (more)