Why I want to 'Take a Break' with 'Woman's Weekly' and 'People's Friend'.

I want to take a break with these magazines because I love the stories! Of course a novel is lovely to curl up with and lose yourself in for a few hours, but there isn't always time to spare. That's where the excellent fiction in magazines comes in. For a few minutes, you can whisk yourself away wherever the author wants to take you. For example, in this month's Take a Break's Fiction Feast you're transported to the Mediterranean, Cornwall, and the world of TV!
I've grown to love all the authors too. Some are regulars like Geraldine Ryan and Teresa Ashby who has three stories in the current issue of Woman's Weekly Fiction Special! Others are short story experts like Della Galton (How to Write and Sell Short Stories) who has stories in both Fiction Feast and People's Friend Fiction Special, and Paula Williams who has an Inspiration column in Writers' Forum where, amongst other ideas for would-be writers, she wrote about the inspiration for an unusual story published in Woman's Weekly about a man and an eleven-year-old boy climbing a mountain.
So I'm really enjoying them, the only problem is the growing pile of magazines beside my bed!

Have you read Dot Scribbles' reviews?

Hello, have you read Dot Scribbles' reviews?
http://dot-scribbles.blogspot.com/
I was surfing the net, looking for something else, when I came across her blog, and in my photo are just some of the books she's covered. She's trying the Book Chick City Reading Challenge to read 100 books in a year.
http://www.bookchickcity.com/2010/12/sign-up-100-books-in-year-reading.html
To prove she's doing it, she blogs a review for each one. It's well worth a visit.
I wish that I had the time to read like that, but perhaps she reads very fast! I always have a pile to read, and have to stop myself from buying more, but it's very hard!
At the moment, I'm reading The Distant Hours by Kate Morton which I think will take some time as it has 600 pages! However, I'm getting into the story of Edie and Milderhurst Castle, and the secrets of the three sisters who live there and who took Edie's mother in as an evacuee in the war.
I've also just read a story by Kathleen Conlon in the current Women's Weekly Fiction special (Issue 4: 2011), called Serenity and Solicitude about Isabel who moved to the country after the war and was befriended by the two elderly women who lived next door as a refuge from her arguing parents. The story tells how these two ladies came to live together under very surprising circumstances, and how their mutual understanding helped Isabel see her own life in a new light. I loved this story and will look out for some more work by this author.

I Loved Getting Away With It by Julie Cohen!

I really loved Julie Cohen's new book Getting Away With It! If you remember, in my earlier blog, I went to the book launch in Reading Library.
Ok, at first, I didn't like Liza very much, but I don't think I was meant to as a contrast to her hardworking, charitable twin, Lee. But as I read on, I found myself rooting for her as she tried so hard to pretend to be her sister and cover up for her disappearance. And the finale in the final pages was straight out of Hollywood!
I know Wiltshire quite well, and it was fun to guess where Stoneguard might actually be.
It was also interesting to watch Exile this week on BBC One with the excellent John Simm and Jim Broadbent. Although the story went in a completely different direction and was more of a tragedy, the elements were the same although in that case it was the long lost brother returning, and the father who had Alzheimer's.
And the beetroot and horseradish in the photograph? You'll have to read Julie's book to find out!