3.5 stars rounded up to 4

Award-winning director Clover Phillips is riding high when she encounters Kit Foley; a surfer and snowboarder as well known for controversy as he is for winning championships. Involved in an accident that had devastating consequences for a bitter rival, Kit has never spoken about what really happened that day. Determined to find out the truth, Clover heads to the snowy wilderness of the Austrian Alps, sharing a romantic winter wonderland with a man who can't stand her.

Kit was a surfer turned snowboarder. Clover is a documentary filmmaker. Kit has led a checkered life. Kit is reluctant to tell Clover anything because of the bad press reports she's gave him in the past.

This is an intense read with plenty of twists. The main characters all have a backstory. The last 20% of the book was by far the last part. We find out what had actually caused the accident.

I would like to thank #NetGalley #PanMacMillan and the author #KarenSwan for my ARC of #MIdnightInTheSnow in exchange for an honest review.

A Karen swan book is an investment I look forward too. This did not disappoint clover is a highly ambitious woman with a heart of gold who became part of a family while making her documentary she won awards for. The way Karen Swan builds her characters makes me so happy, the descriptions are perfect and you get a real feel for the person behind the character that we need to know.

I guessed where the story would go, that it might happening but I was blown away with the circumstances. I did not predict how the relationship with Kit would get past the history but it did, but I had no idea how that was going to work. Her need to understand why he did what he did drove my reading and I did not put this book down all day and evening. The more we heard and learnt about Kit the more it seemed that we did not know everything and something more was coming. And it did certainly come, absolutely fantastic...I was almost appalling when Clover spoke to the press.

Karen Swan is skilled as building intrigued while keeping the story active, the little hints and foreshadowing while actively keeping other characters busy is so fabulous. Your brain is just constantly saying ooooo and OK....theorising what is next.

Karen Swan books give you an all encompassing story with depth and despair, with tears and laughter just everything you need along with a nice heap of chapter endings that mean you cannot stop reading there. Some sprinkles of sexy times to keep some spice in there. Wink

Another 5 star read, I will be recommending this book to anyone who enjoys a hearty book with a big story and lots of characters to meet and get to know.

Great story of Clover Phillips a award winning director who is determined to find out the truth about Kit Foley a former surfer turned snow boarder. Clover heads to the snowy wilderness of the Austrian Alps, sharing a romantic winter wonderland with a man who can’t stand her.
But as she delves deeper, Clover finds herself both drawn to Kit, and even more convinced he’s hiding something. Is Kit Foley really as cold as he seems?
Full of twists and turns this a must read.

Another great read by Karen Swan, this time set in world of competitive world of surfing and snowboarding but yet again filled with understated glamour and seduction with an excellent cast of characters, especially the smart and likeable main character. The only bug for me was her being called Clover which is so minor! This is a real winner of a bookand just the escapism needed on a rainy autumn and winter afternoon.

A fantastic read.
I love Karen Swan’s books. They are always heartwarming and the ideal book to snuggle up on the sofa with a hot chocolate and a few hours of escapism.
Deliciously romantic.

Review of Midnight in the Snow by Karen Swan

I do love a good Karen Swan book and this one didn't fail to delight. A lovely story perfect for the festive season and reading under a cosy blanket with a hot chocolate. The charcters were good and engaging and the story line dyanamic. Recommened

Clover Phillips’ documentary, Pipe Dreams, wins high acclaim and awards as it tells the story of Cory Allbright who was on the brink of winning a surfing championship when he was sabotaged by former best friend Kit Foley. It left Cory with head injuries so severe he is told he will never surf again and Kit is ostracised by everyone in the sport.
Kit is now training to be a snowboarder and his new sponsor wants Clover to make a documentary about Kit’s comeback. Kit is determined not to cooperate because he thinks that Clover has ruined his reputation with the doc she did on Cory.
Clover and her colleagues, Matty and Johnny, travel to the Austrian Alps to cover Kit’s training and hopefully to get an insight into what really happened between him and Cory.
Kit is moody, bad tempered and openly hostile to Clover. Determined to be professional, Clover won’t let him bully her but she knows he is hiding something. Can they cease hostilities and work together or will this documentary cost Clover everything.
Snow, intrigue, forbidden love what more could you want?

Another great read by Karen Swan, one of my favourite authors.

This book was set in the world of snowboarding, and to a lesser extent surfing, both of which use similar skills. The two main characters are Clover and Kit. Clover is an award winning documentary maker, currently riding high with her documentary about Cory, a champion surfer who had a terrible accident that ended his career and changed his whole life, due to the actions of fellow champion surfer, Kit.

Clover needs to choose another subject for her next documentary and, through a set of circumstances, ends up shadowing Kit for her next project, who is now staging a comeback in the snowboarding world after he became persona non grata in the surfing world after Cory's accident. Kit has been forced into it through his sponsorship deal, but doesn't want to help at all and is very antagonistic towards Clover, who he feels is partly to blame for everyone hating him. And to be fair Clover was definitely on 'team Cory' to start with. I did find probably the first half of the book quite frustrating, with Kit and his team, and Clover and her team, circling around each other, with lots of simmering tension.

But as the story went on I just got sucked into the book, as there had obviously been more going on than met the eye between Cory and Kit, which eventually (very slowly) revealed itself as Clover and her team investigated Kit and his side of the story, albeit with absolutely no help from Kit at all.

The setting itself, set mainly in the Austrian Alps, sounded beautiful, and even though I know nothing about snowboarding, I really enjoyed the storyline. Definitely a slow build up, with lots of underlying tensions, but the story just gathered pace as it went on and was one of those books that I just had to read one more page to find out what actually did happen. Highly recommended.

This was an exciting read, with many twists and turns. The 2 leading characters Clover Phillips and Kit Foley start at opposite ends of the spectrum - Clover high after the success of her documentary and Kit having given up surfing after being World Champion. But the story is developed from a slow burn to a creshendo. I can't wai for her next books although Karen Swan's Christmas books are always my favourites.

This is not a typical romance although you can feel the tension brewing between snowboarder Kit and documentary maker Clover.
It takes half the book to start the plot off, with an awful lot of the first couple of hundred pages being scene setting about the past, the accident and the reasons why Kit is a pariah. This meant it took a very long time to enter into the book and it seemed that there was a lot of scene filling info that didn't add to the plot at all.
The middle of the book was in the world of snow and ice and extreme sport and the research done by Karen Swan was excellent. I am not an expert and a lot of the description of the sport passed over my head and confused me. The tale has extracts of interviews that the film crew made as filler for the documentary that they are making; i confess to skipping these are they didn't add to the story and weren't compelling.
The last 20% is where the book actually starts and that is very good and unknots the issues that you have been waiting all book for. If the book was only the last few chapters it would have been excellent, the rest was too long as build up.

KAREN SWAN – MIDNIGHT IN THE SNOW ***

I read this novel in advance of publication through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Having never read a Karen Swan novel before and discovered that she has written twenty-one books which are sold all over the world and is one of the Sunday Times top three bestselling authors, I expected to be wowed. I wasn’t.

First, the positives. This is a romance set in the worlds of surfing and snowboarding, of which I know nothing, and obviously Karen Swan does, or has done extensive research. Though formulaic, in that every reader will know the outcome, the journey to that ending and its various twists makes for interesting reading. You have an able heroine who has just won a BAFTA for a documentary on a deceased surfer, and a grumpy unsmiling antihero surfer/snowboarder who caused the accident who she hates and pursues.

Unfortunately, it is the quality of the writing that lets it down. In a book full of descriptions of snow, there is a blizzard of adverbs. Adverbs being the no-no of good writing in that they detract the reader rather than enhance the story. One of the first lessons learned in any creative writing class. How they got through her editors I have no idea. There’s also a surfeit of ‘whispering back’ and ‘murmuring’ and ‘interrupting quietly’ and ‘breathing not moving her mouth’.

Fair enough if that’s what you want as a reader, but this all jumped out and for me spoiled the journey. Not that my comments will make any difference to her or her sales, as, I’m guessing, her other books must be written in similar fashion.

There are plenty of well-written romances out there to which I have awarded five stars. This could have been so very much better.

As always, this is a lovely book by an author whose novels and covers you just want to dive into!

I enjoyed the Austrian setting and the story which reads well, with fun characters to get to know.

The title and front cover of this book suggested to me a cosy, lighthearted, warming, festive Christmas book. What I ended up reading was most definitely not that. And whilst I was at first disappointed not to be reading said festive book, what I got instead was even better.

We follow Clover, an award-winning documentary maker, who off the back of her successful film about injured surfer Cory, tries to get to the bottom of the accident, and the man who caused it, Kit, now aiming to be a world renowned snowboarder.

This is, in no way, a slow paced book. Right from the off you are thrown into the deep end with accidents, illness, success, failure, heartbreak; you name it, it’s in here, and you end up smack bang in the middle of this journey with Clover.

I admit, I have less than zero knowledge of surfing and snowboarding, and whilst there is some technical bits in it, you don’t have to have any prior understanding of either sport to enjoy it. I certainly didn’t, but just took those scenes for what they were.

Throughout the book there’s this one great big unanswered question (not really a spoiler but some people may think it is if they haven’t read the blurb or anything so I’ll just put a little disclaimer here): did Kit mean to harm Cory, and if not, why was he willing to accept this narrative the press had written about him? You want to know the answer to this almost as much as Clover and her team, but throughout the 400 odd pages, each answered question throws up another, and soon you find yourself questioning everyone’s role in this tale, and whether the past can be believed.

I’ve not read any of Karen’s books before this, so had no preconceptions of what her writing was like or whether this was in the same genre as her previous books, but I think it was superb storytelling. Anyone who can make an almost 500 page book feel thrilling and exciting to read right to the very end has my praise, and I will now keep an eye out for her previous work.

The attraction of opposites. Having enjoyed Karen's books before, especially Christmas at Tiffany's and The Greek Escape, I was looking forward to this one. It was really slow to start with and the snowboarding terms were lost on me but the story picked up towards the end as the romance between and journalist Clover and snowboarder Kit blossomed.

A lovely well written enjoyable book. I didn’t want it to end, it made me want to keep reading. Well done on a lovely book.

I never repeat the blurb. Whilst I appreciated the descriptions of the resorts and atmosphere created, for some reasons the characters and the plot did not engage me and I found the whole book rather too long. Having read a number of books by this author I was rather disappointed by this one.

I just couldn’t get into this book even after persevering. It just wasn’t for me I’m afraid.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read this book.

Thanks to netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Not too sure about this book from Karen.
Took a long time to get my head into the book.

Clover Phillips is an award winning director who has won many awards for her film about one side of an accident that happened to Cory Allbright 4 years ago at a major surfing competition. Clover wants to find out the other side of the story from Cory’s rival Kit Foley. Kit has never spoken about what happened that day but will clover be able to persuade him to tell her what actually happened and put his side of the story out there.

This is a book to curl up with on a cold Sunday afternoon and indulge the senses of being in the snow and ice. The story itself is well told and the characters engaging and compelling.

A good wintry read.

I've read a few of Karen's books and really enjoyed them. Unfortunately I can't say the same for this one.
Clover Phillips is a documentary maker and has won awards. Her latest was on surfer Cory who was paralysed after an accident during a competition. Clover is now trying to make a documentary about Kit the surfer who caused the accident.
Kit is now a snowboarder and competing. Clover and her team shadow him trying to get an interview but he refuses.
There is definitely a love/hate relationship going on here.
For me the terms for the snowboarding were.lost on me. I didn't have a clue which makes it really hard to picture what is going on. Also I found the interviews they did with random people boring so I skimmed over them.
The last 20% picked up when we found out why Kit had caused the accident and the revelations that followed.
Thanks to Netgalley and Pan Macmillan for the ARC in return for an honest review