British

Review: The Traveling Tea Shop by Belinda Jones

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Here’s the premise: Ex-pat Laurie takes British pastry chef Pamela on a food tour of New England. On a red London double decker. Driven by Pamela’s mom… and then later by Pamela’s true love… who has a really good-looking and nice son about Laurie’s age. Sigh.  

Oh sorry I got carried away with the romance part. 

Most of the book brings you to bakeries in the New England states. You read about gorgeous kitchens and quality ingredients, talented chefs and scrumptious treats. And then you get back on the bus with Laurie et al, check the itinerary, and go on to the next one. And maybe you watch some people fall a little bit in love. 

I loved the food, the traveling, the allusions to quirky state stereotypes, the Newport, R.I. scenery, and the cathartic hotel stays.  The Traveling Tea Shop gives you a cozy, family feeling, like you’re home on holiday, eating cakes and baking for friends. If I were going to take a road-trip with some friends, this very well might be our guidebook. 

-calliope

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Review: It Started at Sunset Cottage by Bella Osborne

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Fun fun fun British rom-com! Author Kate stays a while at Sunset Cottage to help translate her novel into a screenplay. While she’s there, lead actor Timothy comes to hide out from the paparazzi. They form a friendship and wend it among the challenges of celebrity: a diva lead actress, script changes, personal fears, a maniacal dog, and breaking down emotional walls.

To add to the antics, Kate’s best friend Sarah must deal with the criminal father of her young daughter. Kate’s ex-mother-in-law cracked me up… and made me grateful for my own in-laws. I was pleasantly surprised to see Sarah finding love…

Overall, I enjoyed the comedic ride, the look into making a film, the British bits, and the tender falling-in-love moments. Those melty scenes are the best. Sigh.

-calliope

buy IT STARTED AT SUNSET COTTAGE

Review: The Kiss Before Midnight by Sophie Pembroke

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Molly is the baby of the family, and her siblings always took her for a flake. So the year she finally moved out and got a job in London on her own merit was supposed to be the year of her dreams.

Instead, Molly spent the year thinking about family friend Jake, and the kiss he shared with her last New Year’s Eve. Jake spent the year thinking about it too.

It was so much fun to watch Molly and Jake dance around the kiss they shared the year before. Sophie Pembroke wrote in the perfect amount of flirting, holding back, candor, humor, and misunderstanding.

This was a lovely story around Christmas time… Joyful, uplifting, romantic, full of family love, and ending happily ever after. 🎁🍷🎄❄️
-calliope

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Review: Confessions of a Bad Bridesmaid by Jennifer Rae

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Confessions of a Bad Bridesmaid saved me from book slump!

Olivia flies from Australia to England to be a bridesmaid in her best friend’s wedding. Since she has always felt less pretty and less appealing than her friends and sister, Olivia expects very little in the way of quality male attention. She puts on a party girl act to hide her low self-esteem.

When she meets Edward, all that begins to change. Olivia questions her insecurities and her reality…. As does Edward.

I’ll be honest. This was a nice bit of fluff. It’s a romance novel, a light one at that, predictable and a little bit repetitive, and not totally creative or original. The characters could’ve used more depth, blah blah blah.

But it was fun… Fun, and funny, and entertaining. Prior to COABB I had just finished two disappointing reads. I didn’t read for a week, and I was afraid to pick up another book in case it was as bad as the other two.

So I needed a rebound read. Badly. I needed a party girl and a handsome guy living in a castle. I needed an Of Course They Did happily-ever-after.

Confessions of a Bad Bridesmaid was THE PERFECT REBOUND READ. I’m so happy! I’m no longer dwelling on those silly disappointments. I can move on! Thank you Bad Bridesmaid, thank you.

-calliope
buy this $1.99 DEAL Confessions of a Bad Bridesmaid

Review: Summer of Love by Sophie Pembroke

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The nice thing about most romance novels is there’s a happily-ever-after…predictable, but appreciation-worthy.

The nice thing about Summer of Love is the unpredictable happily-ever after. Lily and her boyfriend have ups and downs, believable and authentic. And by the second to the last chapter I still wasn’t sure what was to become of Lily’s love life. And even though it was unexpected, it was happy and quite satisfying.

Sophie Pembroke wrote a terrific friendship sub-plot between Lily and Cora. They interacted like true best friends: with exasperation and candor, assertiveness and love. I really enjoyed seeing them support each others’ dreams, and encourage each other to be honest with themselves.

The guys in the story were loveable and handsome Everymen. They treated women with respect as far as they knew how, and they were honest about their feelings without being far-fetched.

Summer of Love is a great beach read or relax-after-a-long-day read. I love my British chick lit, especially when it ends with true love and a big smooch.

-Calliope

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Review: The Last Word by A. L. Michael

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Tabitha was playing it safe, blogging from home in her pajamas, going out occasionally with her roommates, and avoiding romantic relationships… Until editor Harry Shulman offered her a job at the newspaper doing real journalism. Tabby did everything she could to avoid the opportunity, remembering the disaster that landed on her the last time she worked for a major news outlet.

The conversations in this book are snappy! Tabitha’s convos with her roommates and Harry are quick-witted, and so are the times she’s just talking to herself… Useful characteristic for a blogger, but a little annoying when your editor is trying to ask you out on a date. 🙂

And oh how I enjoyed Harry and Tabby’s dates. Her head on his shoulder. Flirting on car rides. Restaurant debacles. The beach. Holding hands. Staring with affection and sometimes confusion. Kissing. Sigh. I was totally brought back to being in my twenties and going on fun dates and bantering and falling in love.

Every facet of The Last Word was done well. The characters were developed appropriately for their roles (Tabby’s mom was hilarious!), and, for the most part, they were likeable. (Ex-boyfriend/ex-editor was hate-able in a wonderful way.) The plot drove forward at a respectable speed. Everyone’s relationships made sense. Natural dialogue and excellent writing made for easy reading. I’m impressed, especially knowing that Carina UK, an imprint of the publisher Harlequin, is only a year old! Well done, A.L. Michael and editors.

The only interruptions to the flow of this terrific read were the drinking and weed-smoking binges. They aren’t really my scene, but I see how it could make sense if you’re in your twenties, living in the city with roommates also in their twenties.

Honestly, I know it’s a good book when at the end I shut the kindle cover and sigh with contentment. The Last Word totally did it for me. Tabitha was a spitfire sweetheart, and Harry was so awesome I could read ten books about the man! (A.L. Michael, does Harry have a doppelgänger?)

–Calliope

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Review: This Holey Life by Sophie Duffy

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20131030-090623.jpg This Holey Life is ostensibly about an ordinary British family making their way through the mountains and valleys of life. But it’s actually about the holes … the missing pieces that are carved out of us by disappointments and pain and death of our loved ones. And it’s about the love that fills those holes, the love that comes in the form of a loyal husband, a baby’s chubby fingers, a child’s craft all sticky with too much glue, and a hug or a smile from a teenager.

Even though this novel isn’t about clinical depression, and even though I stay far away from books about depression, Duffy gives us Vicky — a mom, a preacher’s wife, a sister, a daughter — who has so much responsibility in life that she cannot push through the mud of depression due to her son’s death. And vice-versa. Vicky is so mired in sadness over her son’s death that she cannot appreciate the blessings in her responsibilities as a mom, wife, sister and daughter.

I feel for Vicky. I know what it’s like to lose someone you love, and then still be expected to carry on, as if that hole shouldn’t affect your ability to love others and take care of them with a joyful heart. I felt Vicky’s need to be alone or cry or scream — a need that went unmet because she had to fulfill her responsibilities. I empathized with Vicky the numerous times she thought she might break because she had nothing left to give — and then her brother Martin would come strolling in, taking, taking, taking more. Martin was the perfect symbol of “the last straw” in anyone’s life.

The book was just as much about Vicky’s husband Steve: his burdens, his turning point from depression to joyful living, and the steadfast love he has for his family.

This Holey Life had its light and happy moments, and I smiled often while reading. But just as often, I cried. I cried for Steve who was so loving in all the right ways, for Vicky who was so strong even though she felt her head was barely above water, for the parents and sisters and brothers and cousins, who all found their place, filling Vicky’s holes, filling her heart.

–Calliope

Buy it now This Holey Life

Review: The Perfect Match by Kristan Higgins

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5 stars for this October 29 release!

I’m a romance junkie, and after reading so many, I’m hard to impress. The Perfect Match totally impressed me. This novel has it all – sweetness, complications, misunderstandings, true love, misgivings, honesty, and family loyalty. Higgins writes a complex, well-thought-out story with multi-layered characters and relevant subplots. I’m telling you, this is one of my favorite romances of 2013!

So now that you know the writing is awesome, here’s a little bit about the story line and characters:

Honor is a hard-working woman who takes care of her immediate family’s needs before her own. She also has had a 15-year crush on an old friend that she hooks up with once in a while. When he rebuffs taking the relationship seriously, Honor shifts her focus to finding pretty much anyone to marry – so she can settle down and have a family of her own.

Enter the meddling grandparents setting up a date for Honor and a visiting Brit named Tom. Unbeknownst to the matchmakers, Honor and Tom have already, embarrassingly, met. They do end up in a relationship, albeit an unconventional one. And then the reader is on the journey with Honor and Tom to see if love will grow and thrive.

Higgins masterfully weaves Honor’s low self-confidence into the story without making her seem pitiful. She writes Tom’s character as sweetly, appealingly arrogant in some ways, and sad and lonely in others. The brothers, sisters, friends and children are all real – whether we see jealousy, sullenness, anger, reluctance or joy.

When I opened The Perfect Match, I expected a typical, light, enjoyable romance. What I got was so much more. The Perfect Match is brilliantly written, complex, and emotional. And the bits of Brit-speak were lots of fun, too.
Love, love, love it!

-Calliope

Buy it now (preorder before 29Oct) The Perfect Match

Review: The Reunion by Amy Silver

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20130912-165921.jpg4.5 stars

The Reunion is so much more than a story of old friends — Conor, Jen and Dan, Andrew and Lilah and Nat — coming together.

It’s about all the ways we think we love one another – freely, unconditionally, conditionally, out of guilt, with pity. It’s about memories that scar us, change us, move us forward, and hold us back. It’s about guilt, sorrow, forgiveness, and asking for forgiveness.

The Reunion shows how people find their way out of the past and into a new future while remaining part of the old group. Jen holds on to old love and loneliness. Andrew punishes himself for the past. Natalie represses anger. Dan burrows into his own little world. Lilah lives in denial. They all feel guilty and feel the haunt of Conor in the French house.

Death knocks several times on the door in this novel. But that’s what makes it so realistic- life demands death at some point or another. So the friends come to terms with the deaths within their group, and then they are able to allow the death of their guilt.

I was impressed with this novel despite the fact that it isn’t my usual cup of tea. The Reunion isn’t written chronologically. It throws the reader back and forth in time across the chapters and in excerpts of letters written between friends. The novel isn’t upbeat or light. Any romance is bittersweet at best. There’s even a sliver tainting the happily-ever-after.

And I loved it. I cried with real pain at the loss of life and love. I laughed with Lilah at her crazy antics. I sympathized with Jen — who I thought got the short end of the stick in every instance. I wanted to rescue Dan, and shoot Cupid’s arrow toward Nat and Andrew.

The Reunion is well-written, thoughtful and thought-provoking. It’s substantial enough for book club discussions and literary analysis. Its authenticity takes a crack at your emotions. It asks what we internally live with that needs riddance. It asks you to face your own truth. Most importantly, The Reunion asks you to love yourself and others without condition.

-Calliope

Buy It Now The Reunion (U.S.)
Buy It Now The Reunion (UK)