There are some books that are like a warm, comforting blanket when you read them. They wrap themselves around you and immerse you in their world. It’s a happy place, somewhere that you like and want to be. These are the books that we want to take on holiday or recover with, the books that we might end up remembering because of how they made us feel rather than due to incredible plot twists or brilliant prose. I’m not going to pretend for a second that The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman isn’t chick lit, but it really does feel like something more to me and that’s why you should read it.

Readers of my blog will know that I recently read Other People’s Houses by Waxman. Whilst this had been a thoroughly satisfactory story and one which I really enjoyed, I don’t think that in and of itself it would have driven me to go and immediately buy another Waxman novel. I was however on Amazon for my kids, when this flashed up in my recommendations and so, I succumbed, bought it online (the shame!) and wrapped myself in that metaphorical blanket.

Nina Hill loves books and reading, even more than I do. She lives in a space populated by books, works in a bookshop and has a great social life, which includes membership of a trivia team (yes, she has an immense knowledge of trivia fueled through, yes you’ve guessed it, books!). She has friends, but likes her own space, so when she finds out that the father she never knew she had, has died, she is ill prepared for the giant family that she is about to become a part of. Furthermore, there’s the handsome trivia chap that she has a soft spot for, but whom she is doing her best to ignore. All in all, just as her life is seemingly coming together, it appears to be falling apart.

I really could not have loved the character of Nina Hill more and this book was just so much what I needed, that next week’s book review will actually be The Garden of Small Beginnings also by Waxman. Yes, she’s hitting the spot or scratching the itch or something like that for me, so I’m on an Abbi Waxman kick and I’m taking you with me.