Curl up with a good book written by a local author.

THE LOST UMBRELLA By Nicole Naylor

This is the first book by cancer survivor, Nicole, who lives in Enfield and consulted four-year-old daughter Isabelle on the storyline about Teddy the Toad, Lizzy the Lizard, Henry the Hedgehog and Spike the Spider, which helps pre-schoolers understand the importance of being kind and helping others.

Nicole, wrote the original concept in 1985, but it was becoming a mother that encouraged her to collaborate with local illustrator Chris Hewitt to finish it and self-publish it.

She says: “Sometimes authors and publishers forget that parents read stories in the half light of a bedroom when parents are tired and struggling to see straight after a day of childcare. So I really worked hard at making the text clear and easy to read for sleepy parents in night-lit bedrooms.”

Its publication also marked two years since Nicole, 43, was diagnosed and successfully treated for breast cancer and ten per cent of any profits will be donated to Cancer Research UK.

Available from Amazon

MEN I HAVE KNOWN By Eileen Younghusband

Not many people can say they’ve met John Barrowman, Maurice Sendak, Kenneth Horne, Rex Harrison and Dudley Moore. But 92-year-old Eileen Younghusband can and in her book the former Southgate County grammar school pupil charts these extraordinary encounters. Eileen, who won The People’s Book Prize for her previous book One Woman’s War, says: “There are the men I loved, men I have loathed, men I have despised and men I have admired. There are ones who taught me, shocked me and amused me. There were some that I was able to teach. But among these men, it is for me to know and you to wonder how many I slept with!”

Published by Candy Jar and available from Amazon

MY BIG GREEK FAMILY By Maria Constantine

Growing up in a bountiful Greek family in Muswell Hill gave Marie plenty of inspiration for her début novel.

Just like the three sisters in her novel, she has a strong bond with her own siblings and together they endured a journey of learning how to balance two cultures and reconcile them in the search for romance, happiness and fulfilment.

In the book things come to a head when 30-year-old Georgina, who still lives at home with her parents, goes on holiday with middle sister Katherina, who has fallen for an unlikely suitor at work and has to face a buried secret, and rebellious youngest sister Sophia.

But back in London, they face opposition from their parents who find it hard to understand the cultural challenges their children face.

Available from Amazon or visit www.mariaconstantineauthor.com

NO DOUBTING THOMAS By Paul Dargan

Young footballer Thomas Clark, seemingly has the world at his feet, but has to deal with depression, homophobia and the murky world of bribes and is left toiling with the very fabric of what made him want to play football in the first place.

Writer, freelance journalist and broadcaster Paul Dargan has worked for Everton Football Club, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, Sky Sports, National Geographic, BBC Radio Merseyside and Radio City 96.7. Now he has penned this fictional, spicy and intense thriller that sees him reflect on the incredible riches and harsh realities of the modern game.

Available from Amazon

WITCH FINDER By Ruth Warburton

London,1880. In the slums of Spitalfields apprentice blacksmith Luke is facing initiation into the Malleus Maleficorum, the fearsome brotherhood dedicated to hunting and killing witches. The girl he picks to kill, to avoid death himself, is 16-year-old Rosa Greenwood, who is about to be married off to the cruel Sebastian Knyvet. But instead they fall in love and both face an impossible choice between love and death. The first in a new series from the Haringey author, based in the same world as her popular Winter Trilogy.

Available from hachettechildrens.co.uk