Managed two out of three of last month’s picks and caught up on two from the month before. So I’m feeling optimistic about September. Having said that, I’m back to work and the Little Monster’s back to after school activities so we shall have to see.

Sweet Temptation by Lucy Diamond

I was looking for something that would tick off the body positivity prompt and these seems a perfect fit.

What it’s about?

Maddie’s getting it from all sides. Her bitchy new boss at the radio station humiliates her live on air about her figure, her glamour-puss mum keeps dropping not-so-subtle hints that Maddie should lose weight and her kids are embarrassed to be seen with her after the disastrous Mums’ race at their school sports day. Something’s got to change…

The Rose Garden by Tracy Rees

I’m on the blog tour for this one and really enjoying it. It’s the Waterstones Welsh Book of the Month so except to see a lot of people reading this one.

What it’s about?

1895. Hampstead, London.

Olive Westallen lives a privileged, if rather lonely, life in her family’s grand Hampstead home. But she has radical plans for the future of her family – plans that will shock the high-society world she inhabits.

For her new neighbour, twelve-year-old Ottilie Finch, London is an exciting playground to explore. Her family have recently arrived from Durham, under a cloud of scandal that Otty is blissfully unaware of. The only shadow over her days is her mother’s mysterious illness, which keeps her to her room.

When Mabs is offered the chance to become Mrs Finch’s companion, it saves her from a desperate life on the canals. Little does she know that all is not as picture-perfect as it seems. Mabs is about to become tangled in the secrets that chased the Finches from their last home, and trapped in an impossible dilemma . . .

The Rose Garden is an absorbing and moving novel, perfect for fans of Dinah Jefferies and Rachel Hore.

The House Beneath the Cliffs by Sharon Gosling

This was sent to me in this month’s My Book Moment and it sounds great so I’m going to give up a go.

What it’s about?

A remote yet beautiful village. A tiny kitchen lunch club. The perfect place to start again.

Anna moves to Crovie, a tiny fishing village on the Moray Firth, for a fresh start. But when she arrives, she realises her new home is really no more than a shed, and the village itself sits beneath a cliff right on the edge of the sea, in constant danger of storms and landslides. Has she made a terrible mistake?

Yet as she begins to learn about the Scottish coast and its people, something she thought she’d lost reawakens in her. She rediscovers her love of cooking, and turns her kitchen into a pop-up lunch club. But not all the locals are delighted about her arrival, and some are keen to see her plans fail.

Will Anna really be able to put down roots in this remote and wild village? Or will her fragile new beginning start to crumble with the cliffs . . . ?

Beautiful, moving and utterly absorbing, The House Beneath the Cliffs is a novel of friendship and food, storms and secrets, and the beauty of second chances

I’m on a couple.of other blog tours and have a few things started that I need ti finish so it’s shaping up to be a good month of reading.

Happy Reading!