Amanda's old school friends can't believe it when the social-climbing queen of preen, Satan's very own PR girl, pulls off the ultimate publicity stunt in getting herself engaged to a Scottish laird. Who cares that Fraser McConnald has worn the same pair of Converse trainers for the last three years and that his castle is a pile of rubble with one calor gas heater - she'll be titled!

Polly Waterford is recovering from a toxic relationship. Unable to afford their flat, she has to move miles away from everyone, to a sleepy little seaside resort in Cornwall, where she lives alone above an abandoned shop. And so Polly takes out her frustrations on her favourite hobby: making bread. But what was previously a weekend diversion suddenly becomes far more important as she pours her emotions into kneading and pounding the dough, and each loaf becomes better and better.

Evie is desperate for a holiday - a good one. Not only because she's been working all hours as a receptionist for two high-powered plastic surgeons but also because every holiday she's ever been on has involved sunburn, arguments and projectile vomiting - sometimes all three at once. Why can't she have a normal holiday like everyone else? Peaceful beaches, glorious sunshine and (fingers crossed) some much-needed sex?

Given a backroom computer job when the beloved Birmingham library she works in turns into a downsized retail complex, Nina misses her old role terribly - dealing with people, greeting her regulars, making sure everyone gets the right books for their needs. Then a new business nobody else wants catches her eye: owning a tiny little bookshop bus up in the Scottish Highlands.

Carmen has always worked in her local department store. So, when the gorgeous old building closes its doors for good, she is more than a little lost. When her sister, Sofia, mentions an opportunity in Edinburgh - a cute little bookshop, the spare room in her house - Carmen is reluctant, she was never very good at accepting help. But, short on options, she soon finds herself pulling into the snowy city just a month before Christmas.

Includes mouth-watering recipes. Rosie Hopkins, newly engaged, is looking forward to an exciting year in the little sweetshop she owns and runs. But when fate strikes Rosie and her boyfriend, Stephen, a terrible blow, threatening everything they hold dear, it's going to take all their strength and the support of their families and their Lipton friends to hold them together. After all, don't they say it takes a village to raise a child? Treat yourself and your friends to Jenny Colgan's heartwarming new novel this Christmas.

The streets of London are the perfect place to discover your dreams.... They may be twin sisters, but Lizzie and Penny Berry are complete opposites - Penny is blonde, thin and outrageous; Lizzie is quiet, thoughtful and, well, definitely not thin. But they both share a desperate desire to DO something with their lives. When out of the blue they learn they have a grandmother living in Chelsea, who asks them to flat-sit her King's Road pad while she is in hospital, the girls' ambitions finally seem to be falling into place.

While Katie's glad it's not a man's world anymore, she'd be quite pleased if there were more men in it - or at least single ones, anyway. More likely to get murdered than married, according to gleeful media reports, Katie resigns herself to the fact there's no sex in the city and heads for the hills - or the Scottish Highlands, to be precise. Despite the fact she's never been a girl for wellies and Fairlish is in the middle of nowhere, the tiny town does have one major draw: men. Lots of them.

As her best friend, Tashy, cuts into her wedding cake, 32-year-old Flora realises she is disillusioned with life. Suddenly her well-paid job, cosy flat and stable relationship with sensible Olly don't amount to a whole lot. Flora wants to be 16 again. She closes her eyes and wishes. Her wish has come true. Waking up the next morning is a shock. But now Flora has the chance to right some wrongs.

Now, you obviously, would never, ever look up your exes on Facebook. Nooo. And even if you did, you most certainly wouldn't run off trying to track them down, risking your job, family and happiness in the process. Posy Fairweather, on the other hand...Posy is delighted when Matt proposes - on top of a mountain, in a gale, in full-on romantic mode. But a few days’ later disaster strikes: he backs out of the engagement. Crushed and humiliated, Posy starts thinking.

Ever dreamed of starting over? Issy Randall can bake. No, more than that - Issy can create stunning, mouth-wateringly divine cakes. After a childhood spent in her beloved Grampa Joe’s bakery she has undoubtedly inherited his talent. So when she’s made redundant from her safe but dull City job, Issy decides to seize the moment and open up her own café. It should be a piece of cake, right?

On the tiny Scottish island of Mure, Christmas preparations are even more hectic than usual.... Especially when their motley staff includes a temperamental French chef, a spoilt Norwegian kitchen boy who can't peel a potato without mutilating his own hand and a painfully shy kitchen assistant who blushes when anyone speaks to her. Can they pull it together in time for the big opening? And can Flora help her family find happiness this Christmas?

Sophie is a girl about town - living the party lifestyle with Daddy footing the bill. But when she gets embroiled in a scandalous affair, she is thrown out of home and left to fend for herself on the mean streets of London. Scraping a living as a cleaner in a photographic studio, living in a bedsit on the Old Kent Road, eating baked beans from the can - this is one spectacular fall from grace. On top of that, she is papped by photographers every time she leaves the flat, with her so-called friends laughing at her downfall.

For the first time, the girls caught sight of the turreted, castle-like building that would be home for the next nine months, the four towers of the main houses nestled in the hills, with the cliffs behind, leading down to the still turquoise sea. Maggie loves teaching English at beautiful Downey House but she is less keen on planning her wedding to dependable Stan. Instead, she's working on ignoring her crush on David McDonald, who teaches English at the local boys' school.

As dawn breaks over the Pont Neuf, and the cobbled alleyways of Paris come to life, Anna Trent is already awake and at work; mixing and stirring the finest, smoothest, richest chocolate; made entirely by hand, it is sold to the grandes dames of Paris. It's a huge shift from the chocolate factory she worked in at home in the north of England. But when an accident changed everything, Anna was thrown back in touch with her French teacher, Claire