Discover Iceland’s heartwarming Christmas tradition of gifting books on Christmas Eve – cozy evenings, hot drinks, and the joy of reading.

Curl up with the ultimate cosy combination this Christmas - books and festive magic! Discover why bookshop romances make the perfect winter read and find your next feel-good festive favourite.

Author reflections on old books, Christmas writing, and a knitting project gone wrong - nostalgia and creativity in equal measure.

Pub gossip, market-day smiles, and maybe a hint of matchmaking... I’m often asked where I get the ideas for my characters from, and to be honest, I find them everywhere. Behind every pub counter, every market stall, and every cottage door, there’s a little romance waiting to happen - everyday people who could belong in a romance novel.   Whenever I’m out and about, especially when I visit the little villages and small market towns that feature in my stories, it doesn’t take m

Discover your next feel-good read with this roundup of romantic novels set in bookshops, from cosy seaside stores to festive village shops. Perfect for anyone craving heartwarming love stories and cosy bookshop vibes.

Many villages in Wales have community and friendship at their heart, and I especially love the little market towns in the Welsh Marches (that's what the land along the border between England and Wales is called). The Tanglewood Village series is loosely based on one of them - Crickhowell. Set in a green valley with a river running through it and mountains on either side, it’s a place I would love to live. It has a couple of cafes, a pub or two, a florist and a bookshop. The

Let’s Get Physical: Why Readers Love Sports Romance Novels

Romance readers adore novels set in cosy tea shops! There's something quintessentially British about a cup of tea, a slice of cake and a good book. Any one of these on its own is pretty darned good, but together they are a perfect combination - which may be why I wanted to set a novel in a tea shop. The Tanglewood Tea Shop follows the story of London patisserie chef Stevie, who moves to a sleepy village on the English/Welsh border to open a tea shop after receiving an inherit

I had a lovely online chat with the gorgeous ladies of the Tanglewood Book Club in Illinois. They live in a place called Tanglewood and are reading The Tanglewood Bookshop as their December 2024 book pick. How cool is that!! And look at the fantastic poster they made.  They also have a monthly newsletter, and they kindly featured me in that, too! You can purchase your own copy of The Tanglewood Bookshop from all good bookshops. View all Lilac Mills books Want to be notified

Elephant and Pinky Moon was picked up back in 2018 by my publisher Canelo, who gave it a new title and a new cover ( Summer on the Turquoise Coast ) , and I've been left with an old copy that I didn't know what to do with. I had annotated it quite a bit (proofreading and so on) which meant that I couldn't give it away. New things created out of old books So I used the cover to make a coaster and the spine to make a bookmark. I painted on a couple of the pages, made bunting fo

Tucked away in a hidden corner of the stunning Welsh countryside, Foxmore nestles in the bottom of a pretty valley with a river flowing through it, and is surrounded by tree-clad hillsides with dramatic mountains rising above. I usually do some research before I start writing, which also gives me some inspiration, and I based Foxmore loosely on these places. The high street is Usk in South Wales, and the valley is Dinas Mawddwy, at the lower end of the Snowdonia National Park

Yesterday I had a lovely email from a reader who wanted to thank me for "bringing some happiness and fun into an old man's life". Charlie Horner is 87 years young, and yesterday was the anniversary of his wife's death. This is what he wrote: "The mourning period went on and on until one day , a friend gave me a "chick lit" to read , I remember thinking ," that's not my type of reading material ". The friend was a close friend of my wife's and she thought I needed some happine

I've been chatting to Ліра from lirabooksli. She discovered my Tanglewood series after it was translated into Russian by Snowdrop Publishing who is a Ukrainian publisher. They very kindly sent me the box set which were the cutest little hardbacks ever! Here's what we talked about... "Hello, Lilac! Russian readers know you by The Tanglewood Tea Shop , but we know very little about you." Tell us a bit about yourself, please. Where did you study? Who do you work for? I went to u

This is the question Women Writers, Women Books asked me - and this is my answer... Happy Ever After… It’s such an evocative phrase, isn’t it? We are brought up on a diet of it from an early age, usually with the words “once upon a time” at the beginning, and it’s woven into the very fabric of our society. But is it really possible to have a happy ever after? I certainly think so, which is why I write romance. I draw my inspiration from the wonderful women in my family and t