Award winning TV presenter, author, wine expert and Celebrity Mastermind contestant, Helen McGinn, shares her top three holiday reads.
Here are her three must-pack holiday reads:
‘My go-to holiday read every year is anything by Jackie Collins. Her stories are outrageously entertaining and I am obsessed – obsessed! – with her writing. I even picked her Hollywood Series as my specialist subject on Celebrity Mastermind (don’t ask me how I did). She was such a trailblazer; her female leads aren’t always likeable at first but they don’t wait around for someone to rescue them and you’re always on their side in the end. Start with Hollywood Wives and you won’t be able to stop.  Â
‘I came to Lucinda Riley quite late in life when a friend lent me her copy of The Seven Sisters on holiday after she’d finished it. Normally I avoid doorstop-sized novels assuming I’ll get bored and want to move on before I’ve finished it, but Riley’s sagas are so rich with detail, with brilliant settings and adorable characters and so of course, I’m now addicted. I’ve read four of the seven and next on the list is Q, set in the Scottish Highlands and Grenada in Spain. That’ll be coming with me on my next holiday. Â
‘My taste in books can hardly be described as highbrow, but my book club often pushes me out of my comfort zone and makes me read something from the Booker Prize list. Normally it doesn’t end well for me, but reading Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo was quite the turning point. I’d never read anything like it. Every page was like unwrapping a present and I absolutely loved it.’
Helen’s latest fiction book Under A Riviera Moon is out now (Boldwood Books).
