#Review by Lou of Best Summer Ever by Heidi Swain @Heidi_Swain @BookMinxSJV @TeamBATC #TeamBATC @simonschusterUK #Summer #SummerRead #BestSummerEver

Best Summer Ever
By Heidi Swain

Review written by Louise Cannon

Heidi Swain is celebrating 10 years being a published author, please join me in congratulating her in what is no mean feat. She’s published stand-alone books and 2 series over the years. She writes books that are primarily published for the summer and Christmas, each are feel-good, uplifting and pure escapism, whilst also tackling the challenges of individuals and society of the day.

Her latest is Best Summer Ever. I am incredibly surprised and proud that I have been quoted. Today, I am also very pleased to be returning to the community of Wynmouth on the blog tour.
Find out more in the blurb and my review below…

Blurb

Summer is in full swing when Daisy drives back into Wynmouth in her almost-clapped-out car, having left both her most recent job and the man her parents thought she was going to marry. Coming home could be just what she needs to move her life on.

At Wynbrook Manor, things are in disarray. Owner Algy isn’t getting any younger, and Daisy’s mum Janet, housekeeper at the manor, spends her days running around after him, while Daisy’s dad Robin, the gardener, has been let down by the person he had lined up to take care of the new cut-flower garden.

As Daisy tries to find her place at Wynbrook and in the village, she’s drawn to summer visitor Josh. But when he turns out to be not the person he appears to be, will the spark between them fizzle out? And with it, the chances of this turning into the best summer ever?

Review

Wynmouth is a community of people who I like very much to return to time and time again. There are always new people and new things to discover about it.

The opening lines instantly make you think of warm, summery days. Heidi Swain has a knack of placing you right there at the scene and making you feel everything. Whether you’ve had a great week or a week you’re pleased to see the end of, this book helps to ease the mind and take you to the warm, balmy carefree days of summer.

Daisy is looking to change her life and has returned to Wynmouth in the hope that this will help her to do so. There’s a realism in the carving out of the character Daisy that is relatable and other readers I am sure will find, either all or elements of relatability too. She’s never quite found her place in life, no matter what she does or how much she tries, whether its in employment or relationships. You get a sense of how challenging for the soul, life can be. Even at home, when she returns to Wynbrook Manor, she doesn’t slip in as she had hoped because there are many stressful factors occurring within her parents lives. It gives a real baseline of how trying to change life circumstances isn’t always as easy as you’d imagine.
Fortunately for Daisy, things do slowly turn around and you see her develop a sense of place and see old friends. It warms the heart as life begins to even out somewhat, until there’s more trouble. She meets Josh and there’s a spark, but there’s so much to find out about him that makes you wonder if things could go any further with this visitor because not all is what it seems, deep under the surface. It makes you wonder how it can be the best summer ever. You’ll need to read the book to find out.
The twists and turns of life appear compellingly well-written and immersive in Best Summer Ever.

Best Summer Ever lightens the heart with the warmth of sun, community and romance.

#Review By Lou of The Mother of all Christmases By Milly Johnson @millyjohnson @BookMinxSJV @#TheMotherofAllChristmases #Christmas #Books

The Mother of all Christmases
By Milly Johnson

Review written by Louise Cannon

This was my first Christmas present that arrived with a lovely card, opened because it was supposed to be before Christmas. It certainly got me in the mood for this special time of year. There’s lots of substance to discover within it, possibly one of her best… Here’s the blurb and my review:

Blurb

Eve Glace – co-owner of the theme park Winterworld – is having a baby and her due date is a perfectly timed 25th December. And she’s decided that she and her husband Jacques should renew their wedding vows with all the pomp that was missing the first time. But growing problems at Winterworld keep distracting them.

Annie Pandoro and her husband Joe own a small Christmas cracker factory, and are well set up and happy together despite life never blessing them with a much-wanted child. But when Annie finds that the changes happening to her body aren’t typical of the menopause but pregnancy, her joy is uncontainable.

Palma Collins has agreed to act as a surrogate, hoping the money will get her out of the gutter in which she finds herself. But when the couple she is helping split up, is she going to be left carrying a baby she never intended to keep?

Annie, Palma and Eve all meet at the ‘Christmas Pudding Club’, a new directive started by a forward-thinking young doctor to help mums-to-be mingle and share their pregnancy journeys. Will this group help each other to find love, contentment and peace as Christmas approaches?

Review

The Mother of All Christmases is moving and heart-warming, without being too saccharine. There’s friendship, pregnancy, relationships, good times, challenging times throughout this festive book, which is separated into trimesters.

The Christmas Pudding Club is set up where there’s plenty of humorous banter and hope within the mothers-to-be. Will the baby arrive on the 25th December as planned? Will Winterworld survive?

It’s great that there are plenty of highs and lows in Mother of All Christmases, from financial worries to new mother anxieties to grief, not forgetting the sheer joys and laughter of Christmas this time of year brings too. This book has it all. There’s something everyone can relate to and come to the end feeling satisfied from a good festive read.

It’s really easy to root for the characters and want the festive spirit to permeate through everyone and everything, such as the Christmas Pudding Club and the festivities of Winterworld.

#Review By Lou of In Bloom By Eva Verde @EvaKinder @BookMinxSJV #InBloom

In Bloom
By Eva Verde

It’s my stop on the blog tour for the paperback of In Bloom by Lives Like Mine author, Eva Verde. Find out about this new standalone novel below in the blurb and my review.

Blurb

A deeply affecting novel, In Bloom tells of strength, survival, forgiveness, resilience and determination, and the fierce love and unbreakable bonds between mothers and daughters.

Delph has kept herself small and quiet as a form of self-protection, ever since the love of her life Sol’s untimely death left her pregnant and alone at the age of twenty-four. Theirs was such a once-in-a-lifetime love, that the loss of her soulmate broke her heart ‒ and almost broke her, too.

Years on, Delph’s protective bubble bursts when her daughter Roche moves out of the flat Delph shares with her partner Itsy and in with her estranged nan, Moon. Now that it’s just the two of them, the cracks in Delph and Itsy’s relationship begin to grow. Feeling on the outside of the bond between her fierce-yet-flaky tarot-reading mother and volatile martial-arts-champion daughter, Delph begins questioning her own freedom.

Is her life with Itsy all it seems? And has keeping small and safe truly been her choice all these years…?

Review

Life, it can be full of challenges, even family life. In Bloom takes 3 generations of women in a family, there’s Delph the mum, Roche, the daughter and Moon, the grandma and shows how they evolve and want to discover their own life paths.

Roche is growing up and is searching for a bit of independence from her mum, even if it means moving in with her grandma. She also becomes interested in the family history and discovers quite a bit, which makes you wonder whether they’ll ever allow and set themselves totally free from the pattern that emerges so their life buds can bloom.
Moon is great, she’s got a bit of free-spirit that’s like between hippy-like and bohemian about her that you easily get caught up in, but you wouldn’t want to mess with her.
Delph has to learn how to “let go” of her daughter, Roche and let her once little bud, bloom. She also is trying to discover her own way in life as the family dynamics change so that she can bloom once again. Life has been tough on her in other ways and she has a fierce need to self-protect, so blooming is quite a challenge now for her.
Humour and emotion plays a big part in the family’s stories of threads of intertwining connections of past and present.

In Bloom is an absorbing story of a family that so many families will be able to relate to one way or another.

#Review By Lou of Preloved By Lauren Bravo @laurenbravo @simonschusterUK @simonschusterPR #Preloved

Preloved
By Lauren Bravo

Preloved is an uplifting book set within a charity shop. Thanks to Simon and Schuster, I have reviewed from the e-book. Find out more in the blurb and then my thoughts in the full review below.

Blurb

A love story about things…

Gwen’s life has stalled. She’s in her mid-thirties, perpetually single, her friends are busy procreating in the country and conversations with her parents seem to revolve entirely around herbaceous borders and the council’s wheelie-bin timetable. Above all she’s lonely. But then, isn’t everyone?

When Gwen’s made redundant from a job she drifted into a decade ago and never left, she realises it’s time to make a change. Over what might be the best – and most solitary – meal she’s ever eaten, Gwen vows to find something meaningful to do with her life, reconnect with her family and friends – and finally book herself a dentist appointment.

Her search for meaning soon leads her to volunteer in a local charity shop where she both literally and metaphorically unloads her emotional baggage. With the help of the weird and wonderful people she meets in the shop and the donated items bursting with untold stories that pass through its doors, Gwen must finally address the events and choices that led her to this point and find a way to move forward with bravery, humanity and more regular dental care.

Brimming with life, love and the stories bound up in even the most everyday items, Preloved is a tale about friendship, loss, being true to oneself no matter the expectations – and the enduring power and joy of charity shops.

Review

I’d connect with Gwen in a heartbeat. I relate to her, plus I volunteer, although, unlike her, I never offload any emotional baggage, but like her, happy for others to.

Gwen has discovered, come a certain age, the talk is often about babies and household chores. She’s also discovered that when you’re single, there’s also many other things that there are other things that also go on in your life, but can’t always be talked about because no one else understands anymore or friends are wrapped up with their own lives.
Gwen, after facing a series of this and winds up feeling very lonely and for the reader, you wind up feeling very sorry for her because you know she isn’t invisible, she does exist, but not necessarily enough for people to truly see her. Then to make matters worse, she’s made redundant.

As things change, Gwen decides volunteering would be a good road to go down and ends up in a charity shop. As she unloads all sorts of baggage from people, she also offloads emotional baggage and so do the people entering the shop.

It’s a somewhat thought-provoking book about how we treat single people, but its also an uplifting book about new-found friendship and turning your life around.

#Review of Goddesses By Nina Millns @ninamillns @simonschusterUK @jessbarratt88 @RandomTTours #BlogTour #Goddesses

Goddesses
By Nina Millns

I am excited to be on the blog tour for Goddesses. You may never view an invitation to a retreat or hen weekend in the same light again in this dark contemporary fiction book. Today it gives me great pleasure in closing the Blog Tour with a review, thanks to Random T. Tours and Simon and Schuster for a copy of the book and for the invite in-exchange for an honest review.

Blurb

Some friends have your back.
Some friends stab you in the back.

Ayesha is just about finding her feet on the London stand-up scene, but when her response to a sexist heckler goes viral, she finds herself drawn into an exclusive group of activists: a sacred circle of change makers, each woman with a specific gift to contribute to the cause.

The circle draws in her friend Yaz too and they are both invited to an intimate hen do, except it’s not a hen do – it’s a Goddess Retreat. While Ayesha, longing to find her tribe, tries desperately to fit herself into a shape that the women will accept, Yaz treats the entire ‘itinerary’ with open disdain. But the Goddess Retreat is no laughing matter. As the weekend descends into chaos, they’ll need to stick together if they want to get out alive.

Goddesses is a bitingly brilliant novel that explores the power dynamics of sisterhood and activism, the dark side of white feminism and the importance of making your voice heard.

Review

The book sweeps you along from the start. It welcomes reader into India’s Goddess Retreat. India and Clemmie are waiting for your arrival. Read the rules carefully and then swing into your itinerary for your stay… but will you feel better and all zingy, full of life and light and positive energy or will the dark, negative energy come across in your stay as not everyone is as expected… will you get out alive?
This is no ordinary retreat experience… Twisty stuff happens… Enter, if you dare…

Ayesha, Yaz, Frankie, Joni and of course India and Clemmie who will be Goddesses within the Goddess Retreat. You find out how and when they met each other. Readers first meet the characters in 2018. The timeline then jumps a year back, when in 2017 Yaz and Ayesha are on the stand-up circuit breaking through into the comedy club scene. The unfolding of how they met the other people then occurs, pulling readers with them into a house in North London.

There’s the socialite hen party of the year. All should be perfect and wonderful. The nightmare begins… Someone has an axe to grind and is out for revenge.

Nina Millns is great at changing the tone and vibe between the serene of a retreat to the buzz and adrenaline fuelled comedy club scenes to the intensity within situations. Your body (because it’s clever like this) absorbs each vibe, so you really travel with the characters (because the author is clever like that). The book makes societal, feminist, patriarchal and political points of view throughout in various ways and how things are and how things are viewed during the plot, with themes of retreats, friendship, sisterhood along with its togetherness and breakdowns, feminism, including its darker side, which is quite refreshing in a way, because no matter what your background, colour or creed, the darker side can pop up within certain people and this acknowledges a bit of that. There is also a smattering of humour and it creates an aura, a tension that makes you keep wanting to read on and on until the end of what is a twisty, sometimes surreal read with divine writing.

Goddesses is also optioned for TV and the rights sold to a company. It certainly has very good potential for a tv drama. Now, find out about the author below.

About the Author

Nina Millns has won several awards for her scripts, her work has been featured on BBC Radio 4, and she has recently written various episodes for the Dr Who audio drama, including an all-female International Women’s Day Special, as well as writing the BBC Sounds series Mortem.

Her second play Service was placed in the top 2% of the BBC Scriptroom Drama 2021 and has just won the 2021 ETPEP Award. She is also one of twelve writers on this year’s Channel 4 Screenwriting Course. Nina is a Londoner of mixed heritage who speaks four .languages. She comes from a musical family and was named after Nina Simone.

She also works with young people as a tutor and mentor and is passionate about helping them fulfil their potential.

#Review By Lou of Maybe Tomorrow by Penny Parkes @CotswoldPenny @BookMinxSJV @simonschusterUK #BlogTour

Maybe Tomorrow
By Penny Parkes

Having very much enjoyed Home by Penny Parkes, in an unputdownable, totally enthralling kind of way, I jumped at the chance of Maybe Tomorrow to see if I’d also enjoy that too… So, thanks to the publisher, Simon and Schuster for inviting me onto the blog tour, I got the opportunity to read and review.
So, follow on down to the blurb and my review below…

Blurb

A story of friendship, possibilities and hope that maybe tomorrow will be brighter than today . . .

Jamie Matson had once enjoyed a wonderful life working alongside her best friend, organising adventures for single-parent families, and her son Bo’s artistic flair a source of pride rather than concern.

She hadn’t been prepared to lose her business, her home and her friend. Not all in one dreadful year.

Jamie certainly hadn’t expected to find such hope and camaraderie in the queue at her local food bank. Thrown together with an unlikely and colourful group of people, their friendships flourish and, finding it easier to be objective about each other than about themselves, they decide that – when you’re all out of options – it’s okay to bend the rules a little and create your own.

What a difference a year could make . . .

Review

When things are tough, we all hope for a better tomorrow, don’t we? Well, even Jamie Matson hopes so. Life is great and when life is so great and running in a smooth line, we all know what can happen, right? Something changes and that line develops kinks, until it shatters.

Jamie had a life of working alongside her best friend, organising adventures for single-parent families. It all sounds amazing fun, amongst having a lot of work to pull each one off. She also has a comfortable roof over her head. This all abruptly changes as this comfort, and in some ways, privilege and one that many people take for granted, shatters and crumbles, fast. She loses her friend and their business as well as her home. It shows how one minute you can be sailing through life, and the next, what you knew, what you got so comfortable with, can come crashing down, causing immense impact. It a sad situation, but in a way I like the way this book goes because it may grab readers attention, to look around them, especially if they have a comfortable lifestyle and truly think how lucky they are, but also how there are times when the certainty of wealth and things, doesn’t necessarily always last forever.

Then, comes the hope. It comes in the form of friendships in places she never would have expected to find it, along with the element of when you’ve hit rock bottom and not many options left but to try and re-invent your life and find what’s next and confound all the rules.
I think this is brilliantly done, with the warmth and all sorts of people who find themselves using the food bank.

The book is more uplifting than you think, with the friendships formed and the hope that it provides. It is a compelling and highly satisfying read.