New Book Covers from Belinda Jones with GIVEAWAY

This is a very exciting post, I can reveal to you that Belinda Jones has 're released her books with some fab New covers. 3 of her books have also been given new names.

Out of the Blue is now Summer in Greece 
Living La Vida Loca is now Dancing Girls
California Dreamers is now Hollywood Calling. 





These e-books will be released today with Random House so grab yourself these fab covers!

To celebrate Belinda is offering one lucky reader the chance to win a signed postcard with a California postmark. All you need to do is fill in the raffle copter below to be entered. Good luck!



  a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Travelling Tea Shop - Belinda Jones

The Travelling Tea Shop by Belinda Jones
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

'A delectable tale of love, friendship and cake...

Laurie loves a challenge. Especially if it involves tea-time and travel. So when British baking treasure Pamela Lambert-Leigh needs a guide on a research trip for her new cookbook, she jumps at the chance.

The brief:

Laurie and Pamela Ð along with Pamela's sassy mother and stroppy daughter Ð will board a vintage London bus for a deliciously unusual tour of the USA's East Coast, cruising from New York to Vermont.

Their mission:

To trade recipes for home-grown classics like Victoria Sponge and Battenburg for American favourites like Red Velvet Cake and Whoopie Pie.

All the women have their secrets and heartaches to heal. As well cupcakes galore, there's also the chance for romance...

But will making Whoopie lead to love?'


I could not wait to read this book, it sounded right up my street. I love travel and I love recipes and cakes so this had to be the book for me.

Well known baker Pamela Lambert – Leigh wants to bring out a new cook book based on cakes from the US. She wants to visit different states, identify the traditional cakes from these areas, research them and create a book based on them, using traditional English recipes. She hires Laurie (I found out after reading the book that she had previously appeared in Winter Wonderland.) to plan her trip for her and accompany her along the way.

They are set for their trip and coming along for the trip is Pamela’s mum Gracie and her daughter Ravenna. Although they are primarily the secondary characters in the story, I really enjoyed reading about Ravenna and she became my favourite character, you could see a stroppy teen develop through the story and I enjoyed reading how her relationship developed with Laurie, like I wrote, a stroppy teen – she is actually twenty but behaves in a way a lot younger. Gracie is a wonderful grandma and she holds no prisoners when it comes to her granddaughter Ravenna, and tells her like it is.

I loved the idea of this story and enjoyed reading about Pamela trading recipes with other chefs from around the states of America. One thing that I think could have made the book better would be to have included these recipes that Pamela had received. I would have loved to try to recreate the perfect Red Velvet cake in my own kitchen.

The story did take some turns in the book, which I was not expecting. This made it a more enjoyable read for me. I enjoyed reading the romances that developed through the story. The way Jones’ writes is really descriptive and this allowed to me to feel I was with them on the trip as I could easily picture where the characters were and what the setting was like. It is clear that Jones’ spent a long time researching this book before writing it, clearing having an awesome time doing so!

I did enjoy this book; however I found it a little difficult to initially get into it. I feel there were a lot of characters to get to know – some I felt we know a lot better than others. I think that if you have time to spend to get into the book to begin with, it will become a smooth and easy read. For me getting into the story was the main issue I had with the story and it spoilt my enjoyment of it somewhat.

I would recommend anyone to read this who loves stories about travel and cooking oh and course Belinda Jones!

I would like to thank the publishers for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Sunlounger - Belinda Jones

Sunlounger by Belinda Jones
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

'Take a trip around the world with 44 of the hottest writers in Women's Fiction!

This collection of sun-kissed short stories will have you boarding a millionaire's yacht in St Tropez, exploring a sheik's palace in Dubai, swimming with dolphins in Australia, partying in Ibiza, surfing in Hawaii, exploring ancient ruins in Turkey and Cambodia and sipping Limoncello in Italy! 


Whether you read it on your favourite beach (Sunlounger features golden sands from Greece to Thailand) or on your daily commute or coffee break you will be spirited away on a variety of adventures - some will make you chuckle, some will make your heart pang, others will inspire you to live your life to the max.'




When I was chatting to Belinda on Twitter and she offered me a copy of Sunlounger to review, I jumped at the chance. I was going away and what could be more perfect than read stories set abroad?

All I can say is that Belinda Jones I am so sorry it has taken me so long to review, why? Well I didn't want the fabulous collection of short stories to end so I have been stringing them out. (Sorry!)

Well what can I say? This is a brilliant book which contains many well established authors and some not so which have written short stories based in different destinations across the world. Yes there are some a lot better than others, but this is expected in a collection book. What I love about it is that you can get a quick reading fix of a whole story in a short amount of time and feel you have accomplished reading a whole book.

What else I love about short story collections is that I regularly come across authors I have not read before. This happened on this occasion. I read a short story by Katie Agnew set in St Barts and absolutely loved it. I then went out and bought her story Too Hot to Handle on the strength of reading that short story. So thank you Belinda Jones for introducing me to her.

I find it really hard to write a review for a book of short stories as I find it unnecessary to go through each story, I feel that you have just got to read it to see how good it is. I didn't finish the collection while I was away, I savored it and treated myself to a short story over a few nights, this helped me get away for my busy life and just dream about being away on a beach somewhere, or troweling through a busy souk looking for a bargain under the sun.

This is a short story collection that I would recommend everyone to own. It is brilliant, it just makes me happy thinking about it. Thank you so much Belinda Jones for making this book happen and offering it to me to review. I do hope this is continued perhaps a Christmas collection?

I would like to thank Belinda Jones for sending me this copy to review.