Category Archives: Featured

THE BOOKS THAT CHANGED ME BY HÉLENE FERMONT 


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Ever since I was very young my parents instilled in me a love for literature. We had a big library room at the back of the house, with books by all kinds of authors, Swedish and international, filling the shelves. I distinctly recall my mother’s delight each time someone gave her a new book – she’d read and share it with the members of her book club. She went to great lengths preparing lovely delicious lunches and dressed up for the occasion. Back then, in the 80s, books were special and quite expensive. Some even impossible to get hold of. My parents queued up outside the biggest bookseller for hours on end one night in February every year to browse and buy new books by their favourite authors. They always bought new books for me and my brother and gave them to us on our birthdays. I still remember the excitement of reading a new book.
There are too many authors whose books I loved then, and regularly return to, to list here. My favourite books are the kind of books that linger in my heart and mind long after I’ve finished reading them. As the author of character driven Psychological Thrillers, and a huge fan of character focused books, the following books changed me and inspired me to write.

Loves Music Loves To Dance by Mary Higgins Clark
This book centres around personal ads, and was published before the Internet.
It highlights the dangers of meeting strangers and is a gripping story with great characters. I’ve read all her books and learn something new each time I return to them.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larson
After reading this intriguing and very graphic book, I became hooked on the sequels and, of course, the wonderful complex main character and storyline.

Small Town Girl by LaVyrle Spencer
The storyline centres around a famous singer who returns home to look after her mother. The characters are so vivid, complex and human I instantly felt and feel as if they could be part of my life. I always return to this author’s books to inspire me.

Hamilton Beach by Linda Olsson
This is a very sad book about grief and the grieving process, and how loss affects us when we least expect it. The book is written from the main character’s point of view and perspective of what happened years ago and the place they used to love. The characters and emotional journeys are wonderful as is the beautiful scenery. This is a hard book to read but very relatable for people in a similar situation. The author’s books centre around universal topics and unexpected life changing events.

Yes Of Course It Hurts When Buds Are Breaking by Karin Boye
Karin Boye’s one of Sweden’s most famous author and poet. This is my favourite poem as it touches my heart in numerous ways.The words and sentiments are beautiful, very relatable and sad. I think of my beloved parents and all the wonderful times we had together. This was their favourite poem as well.

 

 

20% Off On Look Fantastic: Luxury Teeth Whitening From Beverly Hills Formula

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Luxury dental brand Beverly Hills Formula are 20% off on Look Fantastic!

teeth whitening, beverly hills formula. look fantastic,

This includes the Perfect White and Professional White range so whether you’re stocking up on whitening toothpastes or whitening kits, head to lookfantastic.com to shop the sale! We have tried the products and they are brilliant. Get some now.

 

Oppo Brothers Ice Cream: Famous for Flavour, not Calorie | Frost Loves.

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We have fallen completely in love with this delicious ice cream which is healthy for you and the planet. It is all of the indulgence with 60% less calories and sugar (they use stevia and other natural ingredients) than regular ice cream. The warm weather is coming and there is no better way to celebrate it than with Oppo Brothers Ice cream. The ice cream has protein in it and lots of other natural ingredients that are good for you. I am a particular fan of the Double Chocolate Brownie flavour. 

Even my children love this ice-cream. If it pasts the kids test you know it is a winner. It tastes good and it does good. What more could you want?

Launched in 2014 by brothers Charlie and Harry Thuillier, Oppo’s mission is to create feel good indulgence, without compromising health or planet. Ice cream gives everyone a little lift, and with the sun shining and temperatures rising as we head into summer, Oppo delivers the most indulgent flavours, with up to 60% less calories and sugar than regular ice cream, and no compromise on taste. The first major ice cream brand in the UK to launch a nationwide ice cream delivery service, Oppo customers can get hold of exclusive flavours not available in the shops – arriving in perfect frozen condition. Furthermore, 10% of online profits go to the NHS, meaning #GoodTemptation has never felt better!

oppo brothers ice cream oppo brothers ice cream

Feel good

Ice cream sales exploded last year as Brits treated themselves at home, with an extra 54 million litres going through the tills in 2020₁. Whilst some sought out comfort in calories, others embraced healthier lifestyles during lockdowns and tucked into better-for-you treats like Oppo, with this healthier brand seeing a 40% global increase in sales, and 140% in the UK, more than any of its competitors in the marketplace. In the last 6 years Oppo has saved 5.23bn calories from people’s diet, or 600,000kg of fat, when they choose Oppo over standard ice cream, showing that feeling good can taste good too! 

Only the finest natural ingredients

Oppo brings indulgence without compromising health, using all-natural ingredients from all corners of the earth to provide an all round feel-good ice cream. Fresh meadow-grazed cow’s milk is sourced from a sustainable dairy local to the Oppo creamery. Hero ingredients, which keeps the % of sugar and calories at bay include organic Peruvian Lucuma fruit, known as the ‘Gold of the Incas’ which naturally provides a rich caramel flavour for the Double Salted Caramel. Pure Columbian Cacao Fino de Aroma is ethically sourced and used in chocolate ice cream flavours. Stevia leaf brings the sweetness, without the calories or any nasty additives, whilst Madagascan vanilla seeds, cinnamon from the jungles of Sumatra and fruit are bursting with flavour. 

Flavour is everything

Natural ingredients combine to create the ultimate frozen treat, whatever the weather. With combinations ranging from zingy lemon to crunchy buttery biscuits and mouth-wateringly rich chocolate, there is something for everyone, including a growing list of plant based vegan options:

  • Caramel Cookie Melt

  • Vanilla Pecan Praline Crunch

  • Colombian Chocolate & Hazelnut

  • Double Chocolate Brownie

  • Double Salted Caramel Swirl

  • Canadian Maple Walnut Crunch

  • Very AlmondBerry (vegan)

  • Simply the Zest (vegan)

  • Madagascan Vanilla & Roasted Almond Ice Cream Sticks

  • Salted Caramel Ice Cream Sticks

  • Colombian Chocolate & Hazelnut Ice Cream Sticks

The Oppo Ethos

Oppo believes in #GoodTemptation, doing right by people as well as the environment. Oppo sources their milk locally, from cows that are free to roam naturally, and where circular farming methods are used to control waste and secrete it into a local forest to reduce C02 impact. For every sustainably-managed tree cut down  for the packaging, Oppo plants five more, and their packaging plant runs on green energy. Removing the gold foil from Oppo packaging means that it is easier to recycle, and reduces the energy used in producing it. Cocoa farmers are paid above the market rate, and profits are invested into the local community to build schools and other infrastructure. 

About Oppo Brothers

Brothers Charlie and Harry Thuillier conceived the idea for ice cream that makes you feel-good (indulgence at no expense to health) in Brazil in 2011 whilst breaking the world record for the longest distance travelled by kite. It took 2.5 years to create their first recipe.

Entrepreneurs Charlie and Harry Thuillier pitched their idea on Dragons’ Den, asking for a £60,000 investment for a 7% share of the business. Despite failing to secure the investment, the brothers went on to quickly raise over £1.1m in funding through the Seedrs platform, of which investors have now sold for significant profit. In 2016 tennis champion Andy Murray tried Oppo and loved it so much he invested in the ice cream dream, helping to introduce Oppo to over 140k people. Since then they have become the only lower calorie ice cream brand to win Great Taste Awards, and refuse to compromise on health or taste. Charlie and Harry believe that their success is down to Oppo’s focus on quality of product and premium, natural ingredients, plus an understanding that consumers are unwilling to compromise on taste. 

Oppo is sold in 12 countries worldwide and is stocked in Tesco, Sainsburys, Waitrose, M&S, Booths, Ocado and more in the UK, as well as being available online for delivery. 

RRP is £4.50 for a 475ml tub 

www.oppobrothers.com

 This Summer they launch two new flavours – Double Chocolate Brownie and the UK’s first CBD ice cream – Choc ‘n Chill with CBD.

GEOX Kids’ new PLAYKIX Collection.

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We absolutely love these high-quality and innovative running shoes for kids. They are so stylish and they are waterproof. Win-win.

GEOX Kids’ new PLAYKIX COLLECTION that combines sustainability, technology and fashion to create a running shoe with a futuristic look.

Geox, trainers, children's kids,

  • The shoe cleverly captures foot movement and conveys this information via Bluetooth to the PLaykix App available on smartphones.
  • This sets in motion the adventures of GEOX Boy and GEOX Girl, encouraging them to play outside, while creating avatars who collect plastic waste, rid the air of pollution or repair vehicle that clean the environment.
  • By engaging in these digitised exciting activities, children are encouraged to actively interact with the environment in a responsible way, making walking more entertaining and fun.

 

GEOX PLAYKIX is available in a variety of bright vibrant colours and all  include the Geox-patented breathable waterproof outsole. https://www.geox.com/

 

Selling your home – DIY upgrade tips

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Selling your home typically means you’re done with the place and you’re ready to move on – yet this is the time you need to love your property more than any other time during your stay! Why? Because if your home doesn’t gleam with care and attention, what you are selling is not a home, but a property. And where you are selling four unloved walls, potential buyers are less likely to make an emotional connection with the place.

Making a sale that is as close to the asking price as possible isn’t about finding the most gullible buyer out there and convincing them of legendary treasure hidden in the walls. It’s about making people feel that the walls have value. It’s a tough sell. But it’s possible. 

Declutter now or forever regret it

Do you know how to properly get rid of your microwave when it breaks? Do you know if your local waste disposal plant will accept old mattresses? Or where to take large heavy stonework from garden designs gone by? Maybe you do know these things. But most people don’t know them. And that’s why yards and garages tend to be stacked high with cumbersome this-n-thats, collecting dust and costing you dearly in the home seller stakes.

Remember, people don’t want to walk around imagining what the place would look like if it weren’t for your piles of books and magazines, or what the hall and stairs might look like if you hadn’t covered the walls in an endless sea of chintzy photo frames (just think of all the damage to the walls – buyers notice that stuff). The bottom line is you must sort out your clutter. It’s that simple. 

Decorate. Every room. No excuses. 

When was the last time you decorated your spare bedroom? Are those tiles above your kitchen sink more than 10 years old? What about the carpets in your lounge? More than maybe five years old? 

Members of the general public may be foolish but they’re not stupid. You can’t pass off your ageing interiors for modern prices. By all means, try it. And when the only offer you get is something like half a year’s wages below the asking price because the buyer needs funds to remodel, you might want to go back to square one and consider those decorating plans after all.

The little things make up the big things 

Speaking from experience, a childhood friend’s house used to smell like soup. They didn’t eat a lot of soup. But the air was grungy and heavy, like a pan of bubbling soup was always on the go. Not only that, the stairs creaked like thunder and the backyard was filled with dog muck (they kept two dogs, who appeared to be in perpetual competition with one another to see who could produce the most dog muck in one day … it was pretty much always a tie).

You know your home. If you’re honest with yourself, from animal smells to creaking doors and knocking pipes, you know what you need to sort out.

 

Collaborative post with our brand partner.

 

My Writing Process: Marika Cobbold | How I write.

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monika cobbold, author. in hampstead heath. What you have written, past and present.

I’ve written eight novels, a number of short stories, and I also write for newspapers, here in the UK and in my native Sweden.

What you are promoting now.
We authors prefer to think that we’re not so much promoting as drawing your attention with cunning and stealth, but leaving that to one side, my new novel, On Hampstead Heath is just out so, of course, I want everyone to know about it. It’s a novel about Truth and its ugly stepsister, Fake News and it tells a news story written and filed, in haste and a haze of gin, by my otherwise principled journalist protagonist, Thorn Marsh. Written and deeply regretted the morning after, by which time the story of the Angel of the Heath has gone viral and it’s all Thorn can do to survive the fall-out. It’s a serious book, at heart, but also, I hope, fun to read.

monika cobbold, author. in hampstead heath.

A bit about your process of writing.

Slow, is the best way of describing it. On Hampstead Heath, at some 240 pages, is a relatively short novel, but it, or variations of it, took me the best part of ten years, and some several thousand discard pages, to write. Not all my books have proven so challenging to write but the process is similar with each one: I dream and think and make notes by longhand. (I’ve discovered a wonderful make of notebooks called Leuchtturm, they’re a bit like Moleskin but even nicer.) A filled notebook or two later, I sit down to write the book proper, always straight onto my laptop. My handwriting is too painfully bad to lend itself to long-form. I then go back over and over the same fifty or so pages, perfecting every last word. I eventually progress, only to realise that most of those preceding pages are now redundant to the story and have to be discarded. It’s not so much “kill your darlings” as the Texas Chain Massacre.

What About Word Count.

I think more in terms of pages, but on average, I suppose I write between six and eight hundred words a day.

How do you do your structure.

Part of it is intuitive; I build my structure as I go along. Then, with each ensuing draft (I do at least ten complete drafts before I get to a version that I feel I can send to my agent and editor), I cut and paste and shape and shift. Finally, I print out and go through the entire manuscript, notebook in hand, for a final shaping of the text.

What do you find hard about writing.
I think an easier question, in my case, would be, What don’t you find hard about writing? To which the answer would be, the point where I’ve worked myself into near insanity over a number of months, or even years, to find the story really is beginning to take on a life of its own. By then I know my characters as well, or better than I know myself, and subsequently, the writing flows.

What do you love about writing?
That final push, and the rare eureka moments when I look over a paragraph just written and think, “That’s not bad, not bad at all!”.

On Hampstead Heath by Marika Cobbold is out in hardback by Arcadia.

The Philip Kingsley Hero Range to tackle Fine, Flat Hair

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Philip Kingsley is a hero of the hair world. Their products are outstanding and innovative. The Body Building Range for fine hair is no exception. They are all great products that all work in sync with each other to give you your best possible hair.

Philip Kingsley’s best-selling hero range, The Body Building Range for fine hair, to create bigger bouncier beautiful hair.

Each product is layerable and designed to complement one another for a full proof care and styling regime, guaranteed to add enviable body and bounce. Using products with plumping ingredients is essential when choosing the right shampoo , conditioning and styling products for fine hair. Copolymers control flyaways and static, Natural Cellulose thickens the texture of fine strands, Keratin Proteins help strengthen, whilst Wheat Protein works to plump each individual strand.

Body Building Weightless Shampoo (250ml, £20)

Volumising Weightless shampoo for fine hair, adds volume and bounce from root to tip.

 

Body Building Weightless Conditioner (200ml, £20)

A hydrating weightless conditioner which adds moisture and volume to shorter, fine, flat, flyaway hair.

 

Maximizer Root Boosting Spray (125ml, £19)

A heat-activated spray that provides instant root lift, and helps with frizz control and flyaways.

 

Maximizer Strand Plumping Cream (75ml, £22)

Plumping cream that smoothes frizz and provides instant volume to fine limp locks.

The range is available here.

 

The Wish List by Sophia Money-Coutts | Book Review

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I need to start this review by admitting that I read every book written by Sophia Money-Coutts. I think she is a great writer. The Wish List is another triumph and my favourite book yet. It follows Florence Fairfax who writes a wish list of what she wants in a man, and then it seems like that man turns up. But will the course of love run smoothly?  Money-Coutts is a great writer, she is so perceptive about the little things in life, and in people. She writes in beautiful detail and really knows her characters. You can get lost in this book. I recommend reading it in the bath or in your comfiest chair with a good cup of tea. The Wish List is a fun and feel-good rom-com. It is perfect to unwind with. This is the perfect romance novel.

The Wish List, book, book review, Sophia Money-Coutts,

Florence Fairfax might have been single for quite a while – well, forever, actually – but she isn’t lonely. She loves her job at the little bookshop in Chelsea and her beloved cat Marmalade who keeps her company at night. She’s perfectly happy, thank you.

So when Florence meets an eccentric love coach who asks her to write a wish list describing her perfect man, she refuses to take it seriously. Until later that week, Rory, a handsome blond man with the sexual athleticism of James Bond she asked for just happens to walk into the bookshop…

Rory seems to tick all of the boxes on Florence’s list. But is she about to discover there’s more to love than being perfect on paper?

The Wish List is available here and is publishing in paperback on 24th June.