The Twelve Days of Not Just for Christmas by Alex Brown

Today I am very pleased to be part of the Not Just for Christmas blog tour to celebrate Alex Brown's latest visit to the beautiful village of Tindledale.

A seasonal delight from the No.1 best-selling author of The Great Christmas Knit Off and The Secret of Orchard Cottage.

Kitty, who runs the Spotted Pig Tea-rooms in the picturesque village of Tindledale, thinks she's come to terms with her husband Ed’s death on active duty. When she learns that Ed’s army dog, a black Labrador named Monty, is being retired and needs rehoming, it awakens her heartache once more.

Amber runs the pet parlour, but her love of dogs extends to rescuing abandoned pooches and now her tiny cottage is overflowing with homeless hounds. The only answer is to open a proper rescue centre but where will the money come from?

Kitty knows she could never take on Monty – it would be too painful, but with more than one dog needing a home this Christmas, is a miracle too much to hope for?

I really enjoy visiting Tindledale, it depicts a traditional English country village, and I would love to wander around, stopping for a cup of tea and slice of cake at the Spotted Pig Tearoom before visiting Hettie's House of Haberdashery and whiling away the hours at one of the craft sessions with the other villagers.

In 'Not Just for Christmas' Kitty, the Spotted Pig Tearoom's owner takes centre stage. She has recently lost her husband, Ed,, who died while serving the country at war, but is given the oppurtunity to rehome Ed's best friend, Monty the Labrador, when he is retired from the Army. She is, of course, of two minds whether she can take him on, however one of Ed's fellow comrades also visits, himself injured at war, and makes the decision even harder.

Amber, who works at the village's pet parlour also is heavily involved in this story, her love of abandoned pets sees her turning her mum's home into an animal sanctuary, something which sees her mum putting her foot down but her determination to rescue all the homeless pets, including Monty, a good home and she decides to look for other solutions.

I really enjoyed this novella and would recommend it to anyone who wants to take their first visit to Tindledale. Alex Brown's books are fantastic stories to loose yourself in on a long winter evening. There are a whole cast of characters who pop in throughout the stories, each book being the story of one or more characters and allowing the reader to find out their history and following their story. 

The author, Alex Brown and her publisher, Harper, have very kindly offered me the opportunity to allow one of my blog readers the chance to visit Tindledale themselves and I therefore have a competition to win Alex's back catalogue of books, which includes all the Tindledale books, aswell as Alex's series of books set in the beautiful Carrington store. To be in with the chance of winning this backlist please enter the Rafflecopter prize draw below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The competition ends at midnight on 23 November and I will draw the winner on 24th November. The prize will be sent direct from the publishers.