Dicey is in a bad place when we first meet her. She's recently separated, lost her pyjama business and only has her giant Irish wolfhound Fergus to keep her company. She is forced to extricate herself from her sleepless, pistachio-eating rut when her sister turns up at her front door needing help. Add to this a call from her friend in hospital needing a lift and the three girls decide to leave their troubles behind and retreat to their home town of Moo. Moo is a quirky town filled with cows (everything is painted black and white or has a name that relates to cows) and while it's fantastic to be back in their childhood house they are confronted with small-town gossip and family secrets. It's a great lil Aussie book, with some down-to-earth girls and honest, open humour thrown in. I love that the three central characters are so different but have their hometown as their common link. Great read to kick up your feet and get some sunshine with. (This book was also released under the author's real name, Allison Rushby, as The Dairy Queen and Mad About Moo.) (VF)
What happens when a London soccer club wants its star striker to clean up his act so it can cash in on his sponsorship dollars and charity kudos? It hires The Inner Gentleman, an etiquette company run by the aristocratic Sebastian Clementine. He in turn calls his cousin Mia away from her father's deathbed in Tasmania to deal with the £150 million player Josh Watkins. After looking through his tabloid clippings - with details of his drunken nights out, sexual escapades and arrests - she meets him for afternoon tea at the Savoy - and finds that underneath it all he may not be such a bad boy at heart. But rather than being focused on the sportsman being taught to mind his Ps and Qs, the story centres on Mia's attempts to save her ancestral home - Clementine Castle. And as personal and family secrets are revealed, can Mia and Josh bring out the best in each other?
