Movie Review: Did Air Blow Me Away?

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Guest Review: One Enchanted Evening by Katie Fforde

Ever since she can remember, Meg has wanted to be a professional cook.

But it's 1966, and in restaurant kitchens all over England it is still a man's world.

Then she gets a call from her mother who is running a small hotel in Dorset.

There's an important banqueting event coming up. She needs help and she needs it now!

When Meg arrives, the hotel seems stuck in the past. But she loves a challenge, and sets to work.

Then Justin, the son of the hotel owner, appears, determined to take over the running of the kitchen.

Infuriated, Meg is determined to keep cooking - and soon sparks between them begin to fly.

Will their differences be a recipe for disaster? After all, the course of true love never did run smooth...

Review: As soon as I became aware that this new title from Katie Fforde was on its way, I preordered the audiobook and began listening on publication day. This story is linked to some of her previous books featuring a group of friends who met through a cookery course, but I feel that it can still be read as a standalone; although there are many returning characters, the relationships to each other and to the central characters in this book are well established. This story is set in Dorset in the 1960s when attitudes towards women working as chefs were different from those held today. 

The story concerns 22-year-old Meg, a trainee chef who has ambitions to become an accomplished pastry chef. When her mother asks her to come and help in the country house hotel she is running, Meg arrives to find a charming but rundown establishment in dire need of someone to cater an impending formal lunch for a large group of local people. Despite interference from Justin, son of the hotel’s absentee owner, Meg uses her initiative in producing a meal that is well received using the available resources. She then begins to come up with ideas for modernisation of the hotel’s practices and facilities without sacrificing its charm. Initially, she has to fight Justin at every turn, but he begins to appreciate her abilities. If the two can work together, could the ailing hotel be saved after all and could they become friends, and more?

I found this an entertaining read full of friendship and romance. Having read the other books featuring some of the main characters, it was nice to catch up with them while meeting some new faces. I loved the setting of the story. The rather tired hotel sounded so cosy and the staff so welcoming, at least once a rather temperamental chef had left. Meg was a gentle character until roused, when she was a formidable force. I really enjoyed the interactions between her and Justin; he found more than he bargained for from this female interloper. I would recommend this book to fans of this author and newcomers to her work alike. It’s not necessary to have read the previous titles featuring Meg and her friends, but you may want to go back and read them if you enjoy this story. 

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Movie Review: How To Blow Up a Pipeline!

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Blog Tour: Review of The Book Lovers' Retreat by Heidi Swain

Today is my stop on the blog tour for The Book Lovers' Retreat by Heidi Swain. I have a review for you today and the book just came out on Thursday so you can order it by clicking here. Don't forget to check out the other stops on the tour for more reviews and other content. Here's what this new novel is all about:

One long summer. One perfect setting. Can fiction inspire real life…?
 
Sometimes a book grabs you by the heart and grows to mean everything to you. That’s what Hope Falls is to friends Emily, Rachel and Tori. So, when they get the chance to spend a whole summer at the cottage in Lakeside where the film adaptation was located, they know it is going to be the holiday of a lifetime.

Spending six weeks away will give them a chance to re-evaluate their life choices. For Emily to decide which way her career will go – the safe route, or the more risky creative option? And for Rachel to decide whether to move in with her partner Jeremy. Then Tori has to drop out at the last moment, and her space is offered to another Hope Falls afficionado, Alex. 

But when Alex turns out not to be who they expected, the holiday takes an unforeseen turn. And as the summer develops, so does their friendship. Could this be where they uncover their future selves, find love in all its forms and where their lives will change course forever…?

Review: A book about book lovers set in the lake district? Yes please! Even before I knew the setting of this one I knew it was going to be special. Heidi Swain is an autobuy author for me but I was extra excited about this book because this is her first standalone. Her Wynbridge series and her Nightingale Square series as well as her Wynmouth series all tie in together in some way and so I was excited what she would do with all new characters, a new setting and it doesn’;t hurt that one of those characters was named after me!

I loved getting to meet Emily, Rachel, Tori and Alex. They were all such well-rounded characters in themselves, I really hope we get to hear more from them in the future. I need a spin off to find out what happens next for Tori for sure! Emily is our main character and so we get to find out about her thoughts and feelings about her retreat as things progress and we get to see the other characters through her eyes too. Her best friends are Rachel and Tori and I had a special connection with Rachel because she is a tired teacher just starting her summer holidays. I will admit that I was jealous because it was already summer for her and just Easter holidays for me. Heidi always writes about people who work in education so well and as an educator I always appreciate that!

Tori was a really interesting character for me because I think she is the character who is hardest to empathise with because she comes from money. She reminded me a little of Sophie Kinsella’s Becky Bloomwood because she might like to spend but she always has her friends' best interests at heart. Then the wildcard in the group is Alex. Part of the story is getting to know Alex and finding out how this new person adds to the dynamic and mixes things up with the plot of the book. Now the premise behind this onel, going away for the summer to retrace the steps of a famous book and its movie adaptation might sound a little on the slow side but believe me there is plenty of action in this book, plenty to laugh at and plenty to keep you turning the pages.

The best thing about this book is that it takes our characters out of their routine, out of their comfort zones and places them somewhere with no wifi, somewhere that demands introspection and reflection and what better place to do that than the lake district? I adored the setting. It made for some wild weather, some unpredictable moments and of course some beautiful evernings around a fire with a glass of wine. I defy anyone to pick up this book and not come away wanting to jump right into the pages and snuggle up with their own book or watch a movie under a cosy blanket-such hygge vibes! I loved the story, I loved the characters and most of all I loved the setting. I flew through this latest release from Heidi Swain and I know you’re going to love it too!

To order your copy now, just click here!

Review: Losing Hope by Colleen Hoover

#1 Sunday Times bestselling author of It Ends with Us held readers spellbound with her novel Hopeless, the story of what happened when a troubled girl named Sky encountered a long-lost childhood friend, Dean. Now, in Losing Hope, we finally learn the truth about Dean Holder.

Haunted by the little girl he couldn’t save from imminent danger, Holder’s life has been overshadowed by feelings of guilt and remorse. He has never stopped searching for her, believing that finding her would bring him the peace he needs to move on. However, Holder could not have anticipated that he would be faced with even greater pain the moment they reconnected.

In Losing Hope, Holder reveals the way in which the events of Sky’s youth affected him and his family, leading him to seek his own redemption in the act of saving her. But it is only in loving Sky that he can finally begin to heal himself.

Review: The Losing Hope/Hopeless series is the first Colleen Hoover I have read and I have been meaning to read it for ages. I’m not going to lie-it took me a little while to get into the previous book, Hopeless, because I thought it was just another YA romance with a little too much silliness and not enough substance. Now I will say that it was a slow start to the book and I was ready to give up hope until the twist that I didn’t see coming happened. Now I might have been naive not to have seen this twist coming but I was in  the car listening to the audio and I gasped and I had to the listen to the rest of the book in one big chunk after that just to try and find out what was going to happen. 

I didn’t know, going into book 2 that it was going to be the same story but from the male point of view and when I started listening, I was so here for it. We get to go even deeper into the story and really see the other side of it and the pain that Holder (Dean) has to go through when he loses hope and when he loses others close to him too. It is here that we really get to bond with him and find out what makes him tick and we get to meet his best friend the same way we get to meet Skye's best friend in book one. I really appreciated seeing the other side of the first story and although we didn’t get to find out what happened next for these two, we did get to find out more and go deeper into their story. 

I appreciated hearing this story from Dean’s point of view and really going behind the rumours that we hear about him in book one, especially those surrounding the kind of person that he is. One thing that I had heard that this author does well, but hadn’t seen first hand until now was the way she handles consent in relationships. We get to hear Dean thinking that he wants to take things further with Skye but knowing that it isn’t the right time, or getting carried away but reassuring us that he will stop if he feels it is too much for her or if she tells him too. I think this is so important to read about in any romantic fiction but especially YA romance and especially one that deals with young people who have been through so much! I really enjoyed this book and I can’t wait to read more of the novellas and finally read more Colleen Hoover!

To order your copy now, just click here!

March 2023 Reading Wrap Up: an Audiobook, an eBook and a Paperback Walk Into a Bar...

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Guest Review: Date with Evil by Julia Chapman

Evil is stalking the streets of Bruncliffe . . .

From stolen washing to inheritance investigations, Bruncliffe’s Dales Detective Agency is being inundated with cases.

But with Samson O’Brien still in London helping the Met Police clear his name, and the newly appointed member of the investigations team, Ida Capstick, distracted by her brother George’s insistence that their farm is haunted, Delilah Metcalfe is struggling to meet the mounting demands for the agency’s services.

So when the mother of a local estate agent arrives at the offices insisting her son is missing, Delilah is relieved to have Samson return to help.

Little do the detective duo know that several of their cases are about to collide, as what appears to be a simple matter of identifying the whereabouts of the missing man becomes something far more sinister.

Something that will finally expose the network of evil which has been infiltrating the Dales town over the past decade, and in doing so place Delilah in the utmost danger.

Review: This is the eighth book in the Dales Detective series of books by Julia Chapman. The stories are all set in the Yorkshire Dales, in and around the fictional town of Bruncliffe. They feature the activities of detective Samson O’Brien and his business partner Delilah Metcalfe, who also runs the Dales Dating Agency. There is an ongoing storyline running through the series, but each book can still be read as a stand-alone. However, they do make a great story if read in sequence. This book also features a map of Bruncliffe at the beginning, which makes a great reference point while reading the text. In common with the rest of the books in the series, this one has an eye-catching cover featuring a scene connected with the story within.

The story picks up where the previous one in the series, Date with Betrayal, ended. Both the detective agency and the dating agency have more than enough business, and they are in dire need of some extra staff. Friend and cleaner Ida Capstick has stepped up to the mark and is showing herself to be a budding detective. However, she is worried about her brother, George, who is acting strangely, even for him. One of their new cases involves the disappearance of a young local estate agent - did he go of his own accord or is there something more sinister going on? When Delilah realises that most of their cases are in fact linked, the detectives begin to worry that their peaceful little town may be a hub for something serious, even downright dangerous.

It was so good to be back in the lives of Samson and Delilah, and, of course, Tolpuddle the Weimaraner. This story was filled with danger and intrigue, offset by witty interludes, mainly from the elderly residents of the local care home. There was also the promise that, after some false starts, romance may just be blossoming for the detective duo. The story deals in part with the very serious issue of human trafficking, something that is all too present, even in apparently isolated locations such as Bruncliffe. I was pleased to find that the great sense of community was still present in the town, everyone pulling together when it mattered. I can recommend this book and the series to other readers who enjoy a mystery and I am already looking forward to the next title.

To order your copy now, just click here!