Happy Valentines day💛! I hope you’re all having fun, whether you’re in a relationship, or single like me. This feels the perfect day for me to introduce you to my all time favourite romance author, in face the only romance author I read, Jill Mansell.

You may have seen me mention Jill in some of my previous posts such as the ABC book challenge. Romance was never really a genre I was interested in, and I would avidly steer away from anything within that category. However, when I was in my 2nd year of University I went through a massive reading slump. With my Uni workload and my job on the weekends I found very little time to read, and it was a pretty depressing time.

One of my room mates noticed and gave me a book she said she thought I would enjoy. It was Sheer Mischief by Jill Mansell. I laughed her off saying that it wasn’t really my kind of book, but she told me to give it a try and I figured it couldn’t hurt. Cut to 4 hours later, I had breezed through the book and was knocking on my room mates door to see if she had any more, thank god she did!

The best way I can describe Jill’s books is “a Rom-Com in book form.” They range from hilarious, to heartbreaking and everything in between. As a plus sized girl, one of the things I love is that Jill writes women of all shapes and sizes, something which I hadn’t seen before. They range from the main characters to part of the sub-plot, but they are always described in a positive way. She also writes the most divine looking men for the love interests.

Even though all her books have happy endings, things don’t always start off so easy, and some of the characters can go through massive hardships along the way, Three amazing things about you is a newer novel of Jill’s and a perfect example of this. These real life problems just makes the stories seem more realistic to me. Not everything in life is perfect, and I love that Jill fully embraces this in her books, making the characters easier to bond with and their stories much more believable.

All her books are set in gorgeous parts of southern England; Cornwall, Devon etc, and the settings definitely make the story all that much more magical. If you have ever visited the areas mentioned in the books, you can see the amount of effort Jill goes into when researching the places.

Well, that’s enough of me talking more about how much I love these books, I think you should go off and start reading them, so here are my top 5.

Sheer Mischief – This has to go first as it was the first book I read, and still my favourite to this day. The characters are fantastically written and the ending still gives me Butterfly’s, no matter how many times I read it

It’s not that Janey Sinclair isn’t pleased to see her sister. It’s just that being woken at seven by Maxine, complete with police escort, isn’t quite how she’d planned to spend her Sunday. Even so Janey, who’s just rebuilding her life after her husband disappeared, is delighted that her sister’s back in the Cornish town where they grew up. When Maxine sets her sights on Guy Cassidy, an impossibly glamorous fashion photographer, Janey knows there’s no limit to the mischief her sister will get up to in order to dispatch her rivals. But little do they know that the competition is a lot closer to home than they think…

Rumour has it – This book literally had me laughing out loud! On a train, which was slightly embarrassing but I just couldn’t help it. I don’t want to spoil it but there’s this one scene with a dog and a phone, and I can guarantee you will be howling along with me (pardon the pun).

Newly single, Tilly Cole impulsively accepts a job offer in a small town as a “Girl Friday.” Fun job, country house, fresh start, why not? But soon she finds herself in a hotbed of gossip, intrigue, and rampant rivalry for the town’s most desirable bachelor-Jack Lucas.

Rumors of Jack’s “love ’em and leave ’em” escapes abound, and Tilly decides to do the mature, sensible thing… avoid Jack at all cost. But the more time Tilly spends with Jack, the more the rumors just don’t make sense. Tilly doesn’t know what to believe… and Jack’s not telling.

Staying at Daisy’s – A rugby player, an absolutely bonkers father and a husband with secrets. I love this book and I would die to stay at The Country House Hotel.

Daisy MacLean runs the country house hotel owned by her flamboyant father, Hector. When she hears who’s about to get married there, she isn’t worried at all – her friend Tara absolutely promises there won’t be any trouble between her and ex-boyfriend Dominic, whom she hasn’t seen for years. But Daisy should be worried. Dominic has other ideas. And seeing Tara again sets in motion a chaotic train of events with far-reaching consequences for all concerned.

While Daisy spends the ensuing months doing battle with Dev Tyzack (Dominic’s so-called best man), Tara battles with her conscience. Meanwhile, Hector’s getting up to all sorts with…well, that’s the village’s best kept secret. And then Barney turns up, with a little something belonging to the husband Daisy’s been doing her best to forget. That’s the thing about hotels, you never know who you’re going to meet. Or whether they’re going to stay…

Miranda’s Big Mistake – I love this one! Jill has a habit of including really quirky older characters, and Florence is one of my favourites. With masses of deception and more than enough suitors Miranda has a few decisions to make.

Miranda is thrilled when she meets Greg at a cocktail party. He’s gorgeous, he’s funny – and he’s very keen. Just what a girl needs to put some sparkle in her life. Heavens, he’s practically perfect! Greg likes Miranda a lot. She’s young, she’s pretty, and she never talks about babies. Of course he hasn’t told her everything about himself – even the sweetest girls can be a bit funny about a man who’s just left his newly pregnant wife. But there’s no way she’s going to find out – or is there?

Luckily for Miranda men are like buses – you don’t see any for ages then three come along at once. She just needs to catch the right one…

Good at Games – This one definitely falls under the hilarious and heartbreaking banner. Suzy is a fab character and so easy to relate to. One of the things I love about Jill’s novels is that, even though you know who will end up with who from early on in the book, you still get dragged into the story needing to know the outcome and this one was no exception.

Suzy fell for Harry the moment she showed him her husband’s sperm sample. It didn’t really belong to her husband, though, because she wasn’t married. It wasn’t a sperm sample either, it was a drinks carton containing the dregs of her milkshake. But when you’re trying to get off a speeding charge you just have to improvise, don’t you? And it wasn’t actually love at first sight. Still, it was undeniably a healthy attack of lust…

So that’s my top 5. This was ridiculously hard to narrow down, pretty much because I love all of her books. Let me know who your favourite romance writers are, if you have any.

Head over to my twitter @beckyc_89, where you can enter for the chance to win a book of your choice written by Jill Mansell.