If the perfect Christmas present is to lie back with a good book, then these two recommendations are my way of re-gifting in the best possible way.

Both are so different.

But in common- a glitter of fantasy.

If, like me as a child, you adored the Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton, then you’ll love The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, as a grown-up.

Just as you were transported to extraordinary lands above the clouds and treep-tops in the Faraway Tree, you’ll be taken to wondrous worlds in the Night Circus. But there’s nothing childish about it.

It’s the story of two magicians pitted against each other in a contest of illusion and inexplicable spells under the Big Top of a magical circus.

The characters are mysterious and likeable or macabre and loathsome, but it’s hard to tell in what combination, so you stay enchanted trying to work out how the author conjured up such imaginative scenarios, until the very end. It’s very different and I totally loved it.

I backed that book up with some ‘real’ fantasy.

Toute Allure by Karen Wheeler is a travel memoir with no smoke and mirrors.

A former British fashion editor, Karen swapped stilettos for walking boots and her designer handbag for a discarded dog to glam up her life in rural France.

As we all want to do!  Therein lies the fantasy.

Bedazzled by the detailed, yet easy-to-visualise descriptions of the countryside on her lengthy walks with Biff the bitzer breed, and her under-no-illusion take on the men and line-dancing locals and ex-pats she resides alongside, I totally loved this too.

A magical google search and what materialised is the information, that Toute Allure is Karen’s second of three books on her french adventure- Tout Sweet previously and Tout Soul to follow.

That means I have a few more presents to plough through reading the other two Tout(e)s.

Merry Christmas Reading to me and you!