My True Love Gave To Me - ed. Stephanie Perkins

This book of 'twelve winter romances' was a (slightly surprising) present which turned out to be the perfect collection of quick, easy & comforting reads during a rather exhausting period of looking after poorly children... The stories themselves are mostly teenage wish-fulfilment, with the mandatory supernatural elements thrown in (one of my favourites involved a wished-into-existence imaginary boyfriend with real hooves!) but I was impressed by the lack of passivity of most of the heroines, who tend to get their happy endings through hard work and creativity - in fact that same story ends with the girl resolving to "imagine greater things" and "exert my will on the world".

The Carriage House - Louisa Hall

I found this tale of a family of disappointed narcissists struggling to come to terms with their diminished identities fairly enjoyable but I wasn't captivated by it. It was only after reading it that I realised that I might have got more out of it if I'd ever read Jane Austen's "Persuasion"... I found most of the characters hard to like, but did warm towards the middle daughter as she attempted to rekindle her relationship with her first love.