Secure A Winter's Tale Formulated By Trisha Ashley Manuscript

charming and easy Winter read A charming romantic comedy about a hardup single mum inheriting a stately home and a host of headaches The perfect novel for curling up with during the long winter nights.
Sophy Winter is not your typical Lady of the Manor!, When she unexpectedly inherits Winter's End a crumbling mansion in the beautiful Lancashire countryside it seems like all Sophy's prayers have been answered, She eagerly swaps life as an impoverished housekeeper in favour of her own team of staff, But Sophy quickly realises the challenge on her hands the house is decrepit and its eccentric inhabitants are a nightmare, And once it is discovered that Winter's End played host to a young Shakespeare, the entire village of Sticklepond becomes curious about Sophy's plans, especially charming Jack Lewis.
But is he really smitten by Sophy!or her newlyacquired cash Meanwhile, Sophy's gorgeous head gardener Seth is the strong and silent type, But does his passion bloom for anything beyond the horticulturalAs Sophy gets to grips with squabbling relatives, collapsing buildings and the ghostly presence of one of her ancestors, she wonders if Winter's End is not so much a gift from the gods as a mixed blessing.
. . A charming romantic comedy for fans of Katie Fforde and Jill Mansell guaranteed to thaw the coldest of hearts!

This was so crap, I got bored of reading it after the first page.
Just don't torture yourself with it, I even flicked through to see if there was any good bits, Nope. This wintery novel is an excellent example of the best kind of chick lit, All the required elements are there a heroine undergoing a transformation be it in life, appearance, location, . . , an ounce of mystery, an unlikely love interest, some crazy family members, and a plot that offers something unique and different to the thousands of other chick lit novels out there.
Trisha Ashley's tale of Sophy Winter and her sudden inheritance of a stately home in the English countryside is a fantastic read, especially if you're looking to ease your way into the world of chick lit!

Trisha Ashley A Winter's TaleI really loved this book.
Set in the English countryside, Sophy unexpectedly inherits the family home she left so long ago, Amongst mystery, the debts and the dusty rooms of Winter's End, Sophy rediscovers her passions and embarks on a largescale restoration of the manor house so it can reopen to the public.
Along the way, she faces her demons, reacquaints herself with the family ghost, and finds love,

This may sound like a fairly typical chicklit novel, Perhaps it's my love of novels where they make over something dreary that had swayed me, or maybe my preference for English chick lit authors over American ones trust me, there IS a difference!, that influenced my opinion of the book.
Either way, it was a very enjoyable read, The characters were unique, and quirky, and the plot wasn't trite, In fact, the comparably longer length of this chicklit novel managed to fit in more than many others do, without making it a heavy or overlong read.


"A Winter's Tale" is a mustread for people looking for something a little different within the chicklit genre, and a love of swoonworthy gardeners.
Check it out! This book was exactly what my mind needed! I've been workinghours at work and coming off of several dark, gritty books, and I really needed something HAPPY and endearing.
This was basically an adult fairytale, Who DOESN'T want to suddenly have a beautiful manor fall into their lap It was great and completely transported me into the story, Comecei este livro quase no fim de, e terminei agora, no início de, Vendo as datas, são imensos dias, mas sei que peguei no livro no Kobo, na verdade apenasvezes, portanto até li rápido.
Confesso que inicialmente foi um pouco difícil embrenharme na história, mas sei que na, ª vez que peguei no livro passei delido para, e na, ª vez em que peguei nele, hoje, terminei a leitura :

Não me desiludiu porque sabia bem o que ia encontrar, As histórias da Trisha Ashley são simples, queridinhas, e previsíveis, São mesmo boas histórias para ler no quente, com uma caneca de chá e umas bolachinhas, O bom é que as suas personagens não precisam de ser maravilhosas, o cenário que ela nos dá faz tudo pela história.
De repente, parece que não só vemos a vila como os espaços em que a história se desenrola, Este é o. º livro passado em Sticklepond, e foi um pouco estranho não ver personagens que já acompanhei noutras obras referidos, Por outro lado, o bom desta história foi que se concentrou quase por completo em Winter's End, e eu gostei tanto disso! Podia perfeitamente passear naqueles jardins, dormir naquela mansão, ajudar nas limpezas maníacas da Sophy, discutir com o Seth, passear o gorducho do Charlie.


Pensando com clareza, sei que não se passa nada quase o livro todo, Mas gostei imediatamente da Sophy, gostei de ver um lado diferente e mais doce da tia Hebe, adorei conhecer um pouco melhor a Ottie, e o Seth é o verdadeiro Mr.
Darcy sem o ser. Mas isso já era o que esperava, não me desiludiu, e confesso até que achei que a autora deu demasiado protagonismo ao palerma do Jack, e à insuportável da Mel.
. . mas eram exatamente esses os seus papeis, por isso nem disso me posso queixar,

Contudo, tenho de admitir que desta vez o que verdadeiramente me entusiasmou na história foi o passado, não o presente.
Cada bocadinho do diário da Alys, no início de cada capítulo, deixava mil interrogações, Umas adivinhei, claro, outras nem vi respondidas, mas se escrevessem um livro inteiro só com o diário da Alys, acho que lia contente :p

Sem revelar nada mais de uma história já de si bastante óbvia, resta dizer que as obras desta autora são ótimas para nos distrairmos um pouco das nossas vidas, e que só por isso já valem a pena.
Terminamos sempre de sorriso nos lábios :



Loved this book! I truly enjoyed the locale, the characters, the story, and the entire book.
I definitely plan to read more Trisha Ashley books too!

Sophy Winter unexpectedly inherits Winter's End a crumbling mansion in the beautiful Lancashire countryside.
It seemed fortuitous as she had just lost her job and a place to live, The house needs many renovations and is inhabited by some family members and other connections, many of whom were more than slightly eccentric,

This is complicated by cousin Jack, who inherited the title but nothing else who felt cheated, He was an egotistical bloke who though Sophy would just fall at this feet and marry him so he could have the rest of his inheritance.


Trisha Ashley writes about women who don't always follow someone else's expectations or orders, Her characters are refreshing, interesting, and dynamic, Sophy handles the renovations, her devious cousin Jack, the conflict with Seth the head gardener who thinks the planned garden restoration is more important than the house, the aunt who favors Jack, and the jealous woman who wants Jack and Seth for herself.
She also juggles the complicated finances and the entire plan for a grand opening of the restored Winter's End house and gardens,

This charming story also acts as a counterpoint to excerpts from an ancestor's diary which eventually holds the key to making a success of the house and the gardens.

Special Content only on my blog, sitelinkStrange and Random Happenstance during Downton Denial February

Sophy Winter spent her formative years living in her family's stately home, Winter's End, until she was one day whisked away by her hippie mother without a backward glance.
Her life then took on an itinerant feel, never really settling down until she got married and got pregnant, The pregnancy scared the husband off and she made do as a single mother working in great estates like the one she grew up in.
Her daughter is now all grown up and teaching in Japan and Sophy is at loose ends, having lost her job and her home in a matter of minutes.
That's when the miracle happens she inherits Winter's End, A cousin she never knew about, Jack, has come to tell her of her good fortune and to offer to buy the house from her.
He explains that Winter's End isn't in the best of shape, her grandfather funneled all the money into the restoration of the gardens at the expense of the house.
Therefore Jack's solution would solve Sophy's money problems and sooth the wounds inflicted on Jack when he found out he only inherited the title.
It's win win. But when Sophy arrives home she realizes she could never sell Winter's End, even to family, She doesn't care how desperately she needs to find money for it's upkeep or how upset Jack will be or how cantankerous the gardener Seth is, she only knows that she will find a way to do what is in the best interest of the house.
Her home.

Several people over the years have recommended A Winter's Tale to me knowing of my love of grand English estates and chick lit.
So the book had made it's way onto my shelves and languished, until this past December when it sounded like just the right read for a cold Christmas day.
The thing is, there's not much Christmas in it, . . yes, Christmas is there, but it's almost an afterthought, the book actually getting it's title from Shakespeare not from being all yule, Yet for my love of country estates this was perfect, It's not so much a fairy tale as other books I've read go, though it would be a dream come true to inherit such a house, it's more a realistic fairy tale if that makes sense.
We are given insight into the nuts and bolts of the day to day struggles to keep a grand house running, Basically the more down and dirty reality of owning Downton Abbey, Keeping the staff happy, keeping the house repaired, finding money to keep the restoration of the garden underway, Finding a happy balance between wants and needs, Prioritizing that which must get done, And cleaning. Seriously, the amount of cleaning a place like this takes, well, if you hadn't thought about it before in your fantasies about becoming on heiress, you will now.
And not that that's a bad thing, In fact reading all about this minutiae, it gives you a stronger connection to this way of life than if you were to the manor born.


The minutiae is where this book lives, In the purchase of special beeswax for banisters and brushes for paintings, There's a languid feel that makes this book the perfect bedtime read, You slip into bed and you sink into the story that lulls you into a safe world of hard work with wonderful rewards, The pacing for most of the book continues on in this vein, Hundreds of pages of day by day tasks to have it abruptly changed, As Christmas nears the pace is picked up, soon we aren't spending languid days seeing the house brought back to life slowly, we're zooming along until it's later the next year at the happily ever after is thrust upon us.
This is where the book kind of lost me, It's weird when the pace is abandoned in favor of some new narrative style, The book lost some of it's charm by changing tempo, I didn't feel as connected to these characters I had spent so much time forging a bond with, I felt like the bond was severed and I was left on the outside looking in as everything came together, but without me, Yes, if Trisha Ashley had continued the narrative style throughout A Winter's Tale might have been a doorstop of a book, but as I've said before and I'll say again, I don't care how long or how short a book is, it should be exactly as long as it takes to tell the story and do it justice.
This book needs a little of the justice that came Jack's way,

Speaking of Jack, He is the major thorn in my side in this book, He is sleazy and scheming yet everyone thinks he's God's gift and why not let Jack have the house He couldn't possibly do something underhanded, insert ominous music here.
I give credit to Sophy that she stays the course, but there is too much of her waffling, Too many times she questions herself and doesn't stand up to Jack,

So while Jack is the villain of the piece, with his dirty deals and his desperate ways, the main problem I have is that he illuminates the flaws of our heroine.
Sophy is so strong of will and motivated by hard work I find it hard to believe that she'd buy any line coming out of Jack's mouth, no matter how seductive and silken.
I mean, how can she be so naive She just lost her job and her home because of a scheming relative of her employer and here she is in a similar situation and yet she's all, oh Jack, you're so pretty, you could never love frumpy me with my frizzy hair.
Gaw. Just no. I know it's a staple of chick lit to have the to go to be true bad boy and the brooding good boy with the befuddled heroine in the middle not knowing what to do, but seriously Sophy is so much stronger than the average Bridget Jones that I am baffled that she didn't call shenanigans sooner.


What sets this book apart from the run of the mill chick lit or Downtonesque book is the olde thyme stuff, IE Shakespeare! I admit about a few pages in I should have gotten that the title was from Shakespeare, given all the references in the text, but sometimes I'm not quite on the ball and as I mentioned before I seriously thought this was a Christmas book.
This Shakespearean element also elevates the book to a kind of historical fiction chick lit fusion that is fun for fans of both genres.
But the downside is that I think you'd have to be somewhat to fairly knowledgeable about Shakespeare and his life to get the personal references peppered throughout the story.
The extracts from Alys Blezzard's journal are purposefully very cryptic and written for those with knowledge of the Bard, Therefore this book can be read on two levels, the plain old chick lit HEA, and the fusion level, Personally, if I was only reading it on the chick lit level without my knowledge of Shakespeare, I'm not sure I would have been as drawn into the book.
It's the mystery woven throughout about Alys being dark of complexion, that connects with Shakespeare's sonnets to "The Dark Lady, " The Shakespeare angle adds so much that without it I just don't know if it would work,

Yet that "Dark Lady" Alys is still a questionable addition to the book in my mind, Not her connection with Shakespeare, nothing like that, It's her "other" qualities. IE, the magic of it all, By bringing in a paranormal aspect I think it might be stretching the narrative's credulity to it's breaking point, The Shakespeare secret, the history of the family and the house, that's all well and good, but the magic I could see it if there were just ghosts and Alys having been condemned as a witch, because well, any smart woman was a witch back then, but that magic.
. . That tangible real magic that gives Sophy insight and visions, It's just a step too far, It's almost like this book so wanted to be everything that it threw in everything and the kitchen sink and sometimes enough is enough.
Sometimes being descended from Shakespeare is a big enough twist, Sometimes getting your HEA is enough, And sometimes just saving your family estate is enough, There doesn't need to be "real" magic too, Because isn't everything else magical enough Apparently not according to Trisha Ashley, But then again, some people just don't know where to draw the line, like Sophy with her "relationship" with Jack, .