Covent Garden in the Snow by Jules Wake

I knew after the first chapter that I was going to simply love this book.  The setting, a fictional Opera House in Covent Garden, a main protagonist who is very definitely a scatter-brained, technology hating "creative" and a supporting cast of very unusual people - as you would hope to find in a theatre.  Sadly, I suspect fiction is much better than fact in this regard - as it is with the amount of snowfall London seems to get in December.

Okay, so it is pretty clear exactly who Tilly's mystery e-mail man is and what some of the romantic twists and turns of the story are going to be.  They are pretty standard chic lit fair.  However, it is the telling of the tale that is all and whether or not you can believe in the characters, care about the characters and ultimately be rooting for them to either get their comeuppance or their happy ending.

This is world that is fully formed and even without seemingly trying to you have a firm grasp of who these people are, how their actions are shaped by previous trials and tribulations of life and even why they have made some disastrous assumptions about people.  The writing here is terribly good and definitely made this reader keep turning the pages - so much so I nearly missed the start of the one programme I am watching at the moment and made me wake up to a Kindle firmly on the pillow on it's save screen midway through a chapter.

The connection of the romantic leads through football and books was charming.  Especially as I had read many of the same books and think that I may just have to pick up a couple of the ones I haven't read that were mentioned.  Obviously, just to see if I concur with their assessments (to be fair if they loved the Kathy Reichs Tempe Brennan books then I think I will).  It was frustrating not to be able to join in the conversation though - especially when it turned film adaptations.

The perfect book to curl up with and become absorbed in the setting and the people that populate it.  All the little insights to getting a show on the stage night after night and preparing for a new one were so well drawn I could smell the pancake.  Even the aside in to wig making was enjoyable and did not halt the "action" as it could have done in lesser hands.  I genuinely hope that there will be other novels set in this lush environment - personally I'm holding out for the wardrobe department but I'm not holding my breath.

Jules Wake is definitely going to be an addition to my "got to buy more of these" authors list.

**Review originally published December 8th, 2017**