#BucketLists – Bookmarks and Stages by Lou

Blurb

The most life-affirming and uplifting debut you will read this year. Perfect for fans of Jill Mansell, Fiona Gibson and Clare Pooley.

What would Lily Bennett do?

This is the question Lydia Grey finds herself asking when she discovers Lily’s bucket list at the bottom of her shopping trolley. Having just run into her ex – and his supermodel gorgeous new girlfriend – while doing the walk of shame, Lydia’s discovery takes her down an unexpected path…and into the company of Jake Jones.

Jake mistakes Lydia for Lily when he offers to help her complete the list, but tempted to be someone – anyone – other than plain old Lydia Grey for once in her life, Lydia doesn’t correct him.

Now, as each new adventure brings Lydia and Jake closer, her lie threatens everything. To complete the list she’ll need to tackle #9: ‘do the scariest thing you can think of’, but how can she do that when the scariest thing she can think of is telling Jake the truth…which could mean losing him forever?

Review

So many people have a bucket list, including me, either one for later or like me, working through it bit by bit as when something can be ticked off.
Lydia Grey’s life is often dull, as dull as the colour grey when there’s no light and shade and atmosphere to it, say like you would see in a painting. It’s just plain dull! Even her husband, since left, even though after so many years together, because she had become drab and boring.
Then life spices up quite significantly and brightness shines through, along with a whole array of colours and experiences when she discovers Lily Bennett’s bucket list at the bottom of a shopping trolley. Lily is a complete stranger to Lydia, but this list looks adventurous, so she gets brave and decides to make her way down it doing all the activities on it. Then the excitement and wonderful adventures begin!
Jake assumes Lydia is Lily and she doesn’t put him right, which later causes a bit of trepidation and wonder about what she is going to do when it comes to it, as they embark on the adventures together.

It’s a sweet, uplifting read with an edge of bittersweetness. It’s a really nice debut novel for readers to settle down and relax into, with its warmth, romance and humour.

Adventure Caravanning With Dogs
It Never Rains But It Paws
By Jacqueline Lambert

Adventures and human and dog interest abound in Adventure Caravanning With Dogs. Thanks to Random T. Tours for inviting me to review this travelogue. Join these pooches on an adventure like no other… (a pic of cute dogs is included in this review).
Discover more in the synopsis and my review below.

Synopsis:

Five years after giving up work to travel full time, Jackie and Mark race against time to leave the UK before Britain leaves the EU. If Brexit happens, their four precious pups may lose their pet passports, and will be unable to travel. But Brexit isn’t their only obstacle. A few months into their trip, the pandemic leaves them trapped in Europe’s No.1 coronavirus hotspot…

Review

This, in many ways is a trip of our times and in years to come, will serve as a reminder of how things were during the pandemic. In all of its fun and hilarity it reminds, in someways, that trips, however long or short an adventure people go on, should not be taken for granted because anything can happen…
This is perfect for armchair travelling and perhaps inspiring bucketlists or for giving a picture of some hometruths when worldwide events happen and you have adorable pooches in tow.
The locations that feature are France and Italy.

It all starts rather well on a journey across to France by ferry, as the memoir turns into quite the interesting travel-logue, with some historic facts here and there, adding extra interest to the places, Jacqueline and her furry, pawed friends go to. Not everything is plain-sailing as she and Mark runs into some issues and the rainy weather doesn’t help matters.

Mixed in with intrpid travels, are some politics about Brexit, although for a short spell, it gets a little heavy, it nonetheless doesn’t detract from the rest of the book as it then proceeds into the consequences to what had been unlimited travel around the European countries that are (at time of writing), still part of the EU, so for the main part, there is a point to bringing this up, as she navigates this.

It also documents some of the huge diseases the world had encountered, whilst travelling, including the global pandemic, brought by Covid-19, which Jacqueline encounters and ends up in a hotspot of in Italy, on her own, since Mark had to go back home to sort out a different sort of problem, beforehand, meaning they are separated more than what they may have been otherwise.

Even through, what was, at the time, unexpectedly hard times, there are snippets of some humour and some things that this couple have learnt along the way.

It goes to show that travelling, however well planned, isn’t always quite as smooth as it first seems, in this adventrous human story that is interesting and entertaining and emotional on many different levels. So, this is a book I recommend, so hop into this caravan from your armchair and join these pooches on their adventure of a lifetime.