Book Review: Make Do and Mend a Broken Heart by Katey Lovell
When you know how, you can make anything from scratch, including a new life after love…
When Leanne and Richard bought a dilapidated old seaside cottage to renovate together as their forever home, their future was full of hope and promise.
But heartbreak was just around the corner: fast forward a few months and Richard is gone. With his death, Leanne finds herself stony broke, faced with an uninhabitable home and lacking even the basic skills to do it up herself.
With the help of the friendly woman who runs the library and the reluctant assistance of the man who works in the local hardware shop, the cottage is lovingly restored. But broken hearts aren’t so easy to fix… are they?
I was so excited to be part of the blog blast for Make Do and Mend a Broken Heart by Katey Lovell.
When Leanne and Richard buy Sea Glass Cottage, they can’t wait to begin the new chapter of their lives and start renovating their new house by the seaside. When Richard dies before they have a chance to realise their dream, Leanne decides to go it alone.
She soon finds that the residents of Rockgate Bay pull together for her, especially the handsome, Harry. Can they help mend her broken heart?
First of all, can I move to Rockgate Bay please? Having grown up near the sea, this book really made me miss it so much.
The town sounds so wonderful (the setting is described so well,) as does most of the residents. There are a couple of them I didn’t care for. If you read it, you’ll see what I mean.
I loved Mary and Harry. Oh Harry Also, can I steal Milo?
Leanne was very easy to love. She’s been through a lot. I wanted to reach into the page and give her a hug.
She shows such strength as a character. She is well-developed and to me, she jumped off the page.
Katey Lovell’s style of writing made this novel hard to put down for me.
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Book Review: Snowflakes and Sparks by Sophie-Leigh Robbins
One small town. One swoon-worthy neighbor. One second chance at love.
Old Pine Cove is the one place on earth Suzie swore she’d never return to, but then her boss asks her to manage one of their bookstores there. Since it’s only temporary, she agrees. Besides, what could possibly go wrong?
Gosh, how naïve of her.
Alex Denverton opening the door with that smoldering look of his, that’s what could go wrong. It’s been ten years since she broke his car and his heart. How is she supposed to focus on work knowing he’s right next door? And why did she even agree to organize the annual Winter Walk with him?
One thing is certain, though. If Suzie wants to have a magical Christmas, she can’t ask Santa to make it happen. It’s up to her to decide: go big or go home.
Snowflakes and Sparks focuses on Suzie. Living in LA, working in a bookshop and hoping for promotion, she didn’t think she would ever return to the small town of Old Pine Cove but it’s where she finds herself, just before Christmas, managing the bookshop there.
She has not been in town long when she sees Alex. She’s not seen him since she left and broke his heart ten years earlier. He’s as gorgeous as she remembers and seems to have no anger toward her.
How was she supposed to concentrate with him next door? She has even said she’d help organise the winter walk with Alex. What could go wrong?
Snowflakes and Sparks was my introduction to Sophie-Leigh Robbins but it won’t be the last book of hers I read.
I read this at the beginning of December and it immediately put me in the festive mood.
I loved Suzie from the beginning. She is a very open, friendly and relatable character. I want to be her friend.
by Book Review: The Afternoon Tea Club by Jane Gilley
I am pleased to be welcoming Jane Gilley and the blog tour for her latest book, The Afternoon Tea Club.
Marjorie, Stacy, Raymond and Dora each hold a different story to their chest – lost loves, abandoned dreams, crippling self-confidence issues, and simply feeling invisible. For each of them, the thought of letting those stories out is almost as terrifying as letting strangers in, and that makes for a very lonely life indeed.
But when these four strangers who have struggled to “fit in” end up on the same table for an event at their local community centre, little do they know that their lives are about to be entwined and changed forever because of an Afternoon Tea club.
Cue an unexpected journey of self-discovery, some unlikely new companions, and plenty of tea and biscuits along the way…
This novel had me at the title. Tea is one of my favourite things. There’s a lot more to it than that though.
The Afternoon Tea Club focuses on Marjorie, Dora, Raymond and Stacy.
All vary in ages but all are harbouring their own secrets and insecurities. These four characters are also lonely in their own ways.
When The Afternoon Tea Club is announced in their local area, each of our main characters goes although some are more reluctant than others. Dora, Raymond, Marjorie and Stacy are four unique characters who have more in common than they realise. I don’t want to say too much about the plot because, as normal, I hope you will decide to discover this book.
Marjorie carries a lot of learned behaviour and has much emotional baggage tied into the relationship with her husband.
Dora also has a lot of hurt from her past and it’s been something she’s been running from for a long time.
Raymond is probably one of the sweetest fictional characters I have come across. He’s a simple man who is still in love with his wife ever after her death.
Stacy is missing so many aspects of love from her life and she almost has to hit rock bottom to find herself again.
I think out of all of the characters, I related to Stacy the most. She and I don’t share life experiences but there was just something about her. Although, I think she may be a little braver than me.
by Book Review: Eve’s Christmas by Julie Butterfield
Working for a department store where Christmas arrives in August, Eve prefers her own festivities to be low key with nothing more complicated than an oven ready turkey and frozen peas while she spends the day in her pyjamas. Unfortunately, this year her husband has invited his best friend to visit, the glamorous and sophisticated Abby, and Eve reluctantly decides that she needs to inject a little sparkle into their laid back and slightly shabby Christmas.
So the celebrations are upgraded to include champagne and canapes along with homemade gravy and organic turkey and plans are made for a Christmas that looks as though it has emerged from the pages of a glossy magazine.
But even the best laid plans can go wrong and as Eve struggles with her mini Yorkshire puddings and an interfering cat, she is suddenly faced with an unexpected guest and an explosive secret that threatens to put her vision of a perfect Christmas in jeopardy.
Eve prefers the quiet life at Christmas especially as working in a department store means that the festive season arrives in summer.
This year though, she has to trade her PJ’s and minimum efforts for all out glamour and perfection when her husband announces that his best friend, Abby is coming to stay for twelve days over Christmas.
Her home is soon covered with pages ripped out of magazines, pages of notes and failed cooking attempts as Eve becomes slightly obsessed with making everything perfect. She is surrounded by an excited youngest daughter, an eldest daughter who doesn’t waste a chance to remind her of the amount of waste generated over Christmas and a confused husband but she gets tunnel vision and is soon even redecorating the spare room in anticipation of Abby’s arrival.
I had a mixture of sympathy and annoyance toward Eve at the beginning of the book as I had a feeling it was not going to go as planned.
by Audiobook Review: Murders of Old China by Paul French
One country rich in history, 12 unsolved murders. Reopening the archives on China’s long forgotten past.
Why did a remote police station, built to combat pirates, find itself at the centre of a murder-suicide after a constable went on the rampage? How did Chinese gangsters avoid conviction after serving a deadly dinner to Frenchtown’s elite? And why is the Foreign Office still withholding a key document to solving a murder that took place in the Gobi desert in 1935?
By delving deep into 12 of China’s most fascinating murder cases, Murders of Old China delivers a fast-paced journey through China’s early 20th-century history – including its criminal underbelly.
Uncovering previously unknown connections and exposing the lies, Paul French queries the verdict of some of China’s most controversial cases, interweaving true crime with China’s chaotic and complicated history of foreign occupation and Chinese rival factions.
I rarely feature non-fiction on Novel Kicks but when I was asked if I wanted to take part in the blog tour for Murders of Old China and read about the premise, I jumped at the chance.
Murders of Old China is an Audible original and is narrated by the author, Paul French. He looks at twelve murder cases that happened in China in the early 20th century.
Each chapter focuses on a different case and even though it’s non-fiction, it felt that I could have been reading a fictional murder mystery novel. Some of it was almost unbelievable.
The mystery and the twists and turns in these cases appealed to my love of puzzles and history.
This has made me want to know as much as possible about this era that I have previously not known anything about.
by Book Club
