The Overflowing Library

I can't quite believe we are at the end of the year again and I'm picking my favourite books again but here we are.

I can't make this a top 10 list and don't particularly want to. This list features all of the books I've rated 5 stars this year. This list very much shows off the type of reader I've become over the past 10 years of fiction focusing particularly on contemporary fiction (both YA and adult) although I am surprised that there isn't more historical fiction on the list as I love that just as much.

Women's fiction

The Cornish Cream Tea Bus by Cressida McLaughlin


I loved this book because the story was lovely and featured all the cakes and I basically want to be Charlie. There's a sequel(ish) coming next year and I'm already beyond excited for it.

Messy wonderful us by Catherine Isaac


One of those books that transport you to the setting and make you desperate to visit. I loved it.

Living my best life by Claire Frost


I loved what this book…

I am delighted today to be part f the blog tour for Christina Pishrirs's brilliant book love songs for sceptics. I was lucky enough to read a copy a while back and found myself hooked to every page as I rooted for the main character from the outset.

I have been asked today to share my favourite sceptical love songs and after lots of deliberating I've picked one song that I think fits the bill from Striking Matches a band I am currently obsessed with after seeing them live in London over half term. The song I've picked is Make a Liar out of me which I really think fits the bill of a sceptical love song and the video I've picked is an acoustic recording of them which shows off how brilliant the duo are.




When she was thirteen, Zoë Frixos fell in love with Simon, her best friend and the boy next door. Though they’ve been friends for over twenty years, she’s never found a way to tell him how she feels. Now Simon is returning to London, newly divorced and as devastatingly ch…

Welcome to the Larkford Surgery in the Cotswolds, the heart of a tightknit community as well as a hotbed of drama, rivalry, resentment and romance - and that's just the doctors …

Dr Holly Graham is finding life with two sets of twins exhausting. Even with husband Dr Taffy Jones and devoted friend Elsie by her side, she is completely outnumbered. Making the transition back to work will be no easy feat but a regular slot on Radio Larkford as their on-air doctor might be the perfect stepping stone, until an unexpected job offer changes everything.

Dr Alice Walker’s new canine clinic at Larkford Surgery with Coco, her assistance dog, has been a storming success. If only shipping her best friend, Dr Tilly Grainger, in from South America to cover for Holly had been such a smooth transition. It seems that Tilly isn’t finding life in the peaceful Cotswolds valley as rewarding as she’d hoped, and she is causing chaos ..

I discovered The Larkford Series about a year ago and read the three book…

After being let go from her job in a swanky hotel just weeks before Christmas, Hattie is feeling lost. Even more so when her high-flying boyfriend announces he’s landed his dream job in Abu Dhabi and asks her to move with him. Luckily, Hattie’s long-time friend Dolly is on hand to help and invites Hattie to spend one last holiday in the small, festive town of Wynbridge, determined to give her a Christmas to remember . . .

Upon Hattie’s arrival, holiday preparations are in full swing. But for Hattie, whose Christmas cheer has long since run out, it’ll take more than mince pies and mistletoe to open her heart to the season once more. Relishing the task of reigniting Hattie’s Christmas spirit, Dolly suggests they create a wish list of all the things the season can offer, and with the helpful hands of Wynbridge’s resident handyman, Beamish, Hattie finds her frosty exterior is starting to thaw.

As Wynbridge prepares for its most spectacular Christmas yet, will Hattie leave snowy England behi…

 Until she knows her husband’s fate, she cannot decide her own...
An epic debut novel of forbidden love, loss, and the shattered hearts left behind in the wake of World War I

1921. Families are desperately trying to piece together the fragments of their broken lives. While many survivors of the Great War have been reunited with their loved ones, Edie’s husband Francis has not come home. He is considered ‘missing in action’, but when Edie receives a mysterious photograph taken by Francis in the post, hope flares. And so she beings to search.

Harry, Francis’s brother, fought alongside him. He too longs for Francis to be alive, so they can forgive each other for the last things they ever said. Both brothers shared a love of photography and it is that which brings Harry back to the Western Front. Hired by grieving families to photograph gravesites, as he travels through battle-scarred France gathering news for British wives and mothers, Harry also searches for evidence of his …