As we approach the end of the year, it’s the perfect time to reflect on slowing down, resting and perhaps organising yourself for the year ahead. Fortunately, the Socially Shared Online Bookshop is bursting at the seams with titles to help you relax and plan!
The Socially Shared team has chosen the books they’ll add to their Christmas list this winter. Here are their recommendations.
The Approval of Sheep by Karen Storey
Gordon Slee fears he was never meant to be born. Anxious since childhood after hearing he was an accident, the forty-two-year-old is still struggling to escape the shadow of his high-achieving family.
But a glimmer of hope is on the horizon – a huge promotion within his hotel group is up for grabs, and he is sure that his time has come to make a mark on the world.
However, within his own department, redundancies are afoot. He may lose his job before he gets the chance. Until he learns of a historic covenant that preserves the right for sheep to run through the company’s top London hotel. Could he convince his boss that he’s the man to save the hotel from catastrophe?
Up in Bryn Nefyn, North Wales, live the descendants of the covenant owner. The elderly sheep farmer and his ageing hippy brother could use the money the hotel might offer. But along with their strong-willed American shepherdess, they laugh at Gordon’s attempts to negotiate a deal. Surely, they couldn’t use a covenant that’s been forgotten about for over a hundred years.
Or could they?
For lovers of upmarket commercial fiction with a touch of romance and comedy, The Approval of Sheep is an uplifting story about family and love, overcoming adversity and discovering our reason for our place in this world.
Buy your copy HERE.
Paranormal Gloucestershire by S. C. Skillman
Gloucestershire is a county rich in beauty, history and a high level of spiritual, mysterious and paranormal activity. With a profusion of haunted inns, castles, houses and landscape features, the presence of the past is absorbed into the fabric of places as diverse as the Neolithic burial chamber of Belas Knap Long Barrow, the prisons at Gloucester and Littledean and the twelfth-century Ancient Ram Inn at Wotton-under-Edge. Hauntings have been reported at Sudeley Castle, Chavenage House, St Briavels Castle, Woodchester Mansion and Owlpen Manor, and many report unsettling experiences at the abbeys in Gloucester and
Tewkesbury, the villages of Prestbury and Arlingham, and in the Montpelier and Pittville areas of Cheltenham. In this book author S. C. Skillman visits eerie locations around Gloucestershire to unearth a selection of chilling tales about them and explores the strangeness of the hauntings of this fascinating county.
Paranormal Gloucestershire takes the reader into the world of ghosts and spirits in the county, following their footsteps into the unknown. These tales of haunted places, supernatural happenings and weird phenomena will delight the ghost hunters and fascinate and intrigue everybody who knows Gloucestershire.
Buy your copy HERE.
Recipes From a Gujarati Kitchen by Taruna Chauhan
Recipes from a Gujarati Kitchen contains recipes that have been passed down to Taruna Chauhan from her mother, mother-in-law, and other family members.
For Taruna, food was an important part of growing up. Whenever her family had visitors, they never left without eating, and even as a low-income family, there was always food on the table.
Taruna’s love for food and cooking has never left her, and learning to cook at school gave her the skills to cook European foods, along with the Indian dishes she learnt from her mother.
She began writing after the passing of her mother, to capture in print the traditional recipes that have only been passed between her family orally, and so anyone who wants to learn to cook can give them a try.
Buy your copy HERE.
Do I Love Him? by Sophie Milburn
In a house built on control, trust is the most dangerous weapon.
When twenty-three-year-old Delilah Jenkins is abducted from a nightclub, all her worst fears are realised.
From the confines of her captor’s house, her only comfort lies in her diary, where she documents her experience as a young woman growing ever enchanted by the very man who took everything from her.
A haunting insight into the mind of a captive, as once-clear hatred begins to shift into something she could have never imagined.
Tense, gripping, and deeply unsettling, Do I Love Him? is a psychological thriller that explores the blurred line between fear and fascination.
For readers who enjoy Lisa Jewell’s Then She Was Gone and Freida McFadden’s The Housemaid, Do I Love Him? delivers a dark, thrilling psychological ride.
Buy your copy HERE.
Brilliantly Bouncy: Discover Positive Resilience by Laura Chamberlain
Are you spinning too many plates while a bubble of overwhelm rises in your chest? Taking deep breaths in the bathroom between meetings? Wondering how everyone else seems to have it all figured out when you’re just trying to make it through the day?
You’re not alone—and contrary to what you might think, you don’t need more resilience training that tells you to “toughen up” or “push through.”
Forget everything you thought you knew about resilience.
Forget bouncing back from adversity, weathering storms, or bouncing forward with exhausting momentum. Bouncing brilliantly is about finding your unique bounce where you build your resilience, positivity, and happiness in a way that suits you and fits your life. It’s discovering your way to become more confidently, comfortably you.
Professor Laura Chamberlain’s revolutionary “positive resilience” approach transforms conventional wisdom, showing how resilience is a vibrant process you can build every day, not just a crisis response.
“Brilliantly Bouncy” is more than a book – it’s a blueprint for finding joy in growth, for understanding that resilience can be fun, energising, and completely transformative. It’s showing people they can build strength in their daily lives, creating a reservoir of resilience they can tap into when they need it most.
This isn’t just another self-help manual. It’s a revolution in how we think about our own capacity to grow, adapt, and thrive.
Buy your copy HERE.
Love Me Till Christmas by Suzanne Lissaman
The sequel to the Romantic Novelists’ Association Romantic Comedy Novel of 2025, Love Me Till Wednesday
Catch up with Lisa and her friends in this festive, heartwarming, later-in-life romantic comedy.
When Lisa’s friend, Jules, is abandoned by her husband for a younger woman, she finds herself planning for a lonely Christmas with her rescue dog, Max. But Lisa has other ideas and insists Jules and Max join her family for a Christmas in a castle deep in the English Cotswolds.
Jules’ quiet Christmas becomes considerably more interesting, especially after several embarrassing encounters with handsome pub owner, Rufus. Younger, charming and funny, Jules soon discovers he’s not who he seems. Despite a series of chaotic family gatherings and Max’s naughty behaviour, a spark ignites. Can Jules overcome her fears to take a chance on a future she never imagined? And will Father Christmas bring Jules everything on her wishlist?
Love Me Till Christmas is a heartwarming romcom that depicts life with all its highs and lows. With an ensemble cast, it’s perfect for readers who love found family, festive fun, and dogs with excellent comedic timing.
Buy Your Copy HERE.
2026 Dates For Your Diary
Join us for our annual author insights and book events. Learn more about the writing and publishing industry at our Author Insights Day, and meet local female authors from our business network and the wider region who showcase their books in the Socially Shared Online Bookshop at our Meet the Author Day.
Our Author Insights Event
Date: Saturday 21st March 2026
Venue: TBC
Our Meet the Author Booksale and Tearoom
Date: Saturday 17th October 2026
Venue: TBC
Are you a female author in the Midlands or surrounding areas?
Raise your author profile and meet like-minded creatives in the Socially Shared community. Submit your book for FREE entry on our Online Bookshop, and get in touch if you are interested in booking an exhibition stand at our main event. Contact Shelley at books@sociallyshared.co.uk
