#Review By Lou of An Ideal Husband By Erica James @TheEricaJames @HQstories #AnIdealHusband #ContemporaryFiction #FamilyDrama #SummerRead #Summer

An Ideal Husband
By Erica James

It is exciting when I get accepted to review a book by Erica James, but every book is different, so there’s no preconceptions as to whether it’ll be a good one or not, so find out in the blurb what it’s about and my opinions in my review below…
Thanks to Ms Pickard at HQ for sending me a copy of the book to review.

Blurb

After a long and seemingly happy marriage, and a wonderful family Christmas, Louisa is stunned when husband Kip asks for a divorce on Boxing Day. He’d never seemed unhappy – and they’ve raised three children together.

For months, Kip has been secretly seeing a younger woman – and if that wasn’t bad enough – it’s the woman who broke their youngest son’s heart.

Now Kip is moving out and embarking on a new life with Zoe, and Louisa is left to pick up the pieces. Their beloved family home, Charity Cottage, is up for sale, and tensions are running high.

Yet, despite the betrayal and anger, when Louisa lays eyes on what might be a unique and welcoming new home, she feels a first glimmer of hope that life might be taking a turn for the better.

And while Louisa is making exciting plans, Kip finds himself facing challenges of his own and begins to learn that living the dream may not be as simple as he thought…

Sunday Times bestseller Erica James returns with an uplifting, wryly humorous new family drama.

Review

Well, I just couldn’t put it down. In a couple of sittings, I suddenly found myself at the last page, rather quickly than I was planning.

An Ideal Husband shows that everything can seem just fine and could well last forever, but sometimes secrets can be concealed very well. As with Erica James’ previous book, ‘Secret Garden Affair’, she deftly shows a part of relationships that aren’t often known about and perhaps what happens to Louisa, with her husband just deciding to up and leave doesn’t occur very often, but it does and this book highlights this.

Beyond the heartache comes hope and new life and in comes heart-warming aspects of the plot, but that doesn’t happen like a flicker of light switch. There are many challenges and how to deal with the way Kip behaved and divorce, which everyone deals with differently. It becomes quite thought-provoking and insightful into family life when not all is well. There are the complexities that are shown and, like in life, all isn’t straight-forward, making it a twisty plot, some parts of which are unexpected.

An Ideal Husband is a great family drama that, even through some of the most darkest, challenging times of relationships brings positivity, warmth and even a bit of humour.

#Review By Lou of Love In Provence By Jo Thomas @jo_thomas01 @RandomTTours #LoveInProvence #ContemporaryFiction #RomFic #SummerRead

Love In Provence
By Jo Thomas

Having got some family in France, although not in Provence, it’s a country I like to sometimes read in fiction. Having read and reviewed books by Jo Thomas before, I am pleased to again, on the Random T. Tours blog tour. It may make you feel all rather summery with notes of lavender.

Blurb

Escape to the beautiful lavender fields of Provence this summer

Del moved to the south of France three years ago and hasn’t looked back. She’s found new friends, new purpose, and new love with gorgeous Fabien.

But just as harvest on her little lavender farm is due to begin, Del gets some shocking news. With no time to dwell as she welcomes a new crew of lavender pickers, she unexpectedly waves goodbye to Fabien for the summer.

Usually cooking – the thing she loves best – would help soothe her troubles, but Del doesn’t remember how . . . And then chef Zacharie comes to town, dropping another bombshell!

Over one summer in Provence that’s full of surprises, friends old and new rally round. Can they complete the harvest and pull the community back together? And if Fabien returns, will Del finally get her happy-ever-after?

Review

If books had smell/scratch parts, you’d get the delightful, calming scent of lavender gently emitting from this book from the farm which Del has. There’s also a group of seasonal pickers and within this friendship buds. There’s a real sense of community spirit as people rally round to ensure the harvest is picked in time. After all the challenging times that Del is left to face, this is truly heart-warming to read. Fabian also has hard times as someone has died, so he has to rush off, which is why Del has so much to tend to on the farm.
Provence delights and has some interesting people within this books, which may make readers feel a bit peckish with all the food.

Love in Provence has a warm glow of sunshine around it for readers to soak up in their hearts.

#Review By Lou of Janet Jackson Superhost By Becky Papworth #BeckyPapworth @rararesources #CanCanPress #HolidayRead #SummerRead

Janet Jackson Superhost
By Becky Papworth

Get ready for holiday time and check in with Janet Jackson Superhost for your accomodation.

Blurb

Lavender Cottage, Yorkshire’s finest B&B, is owner Janet Jackson’s pride and joy. Now, after a year of running it and coming out alive, she’s set her heart on becoming a Superhost. For that Janet will need a blooming great tsunami of 5-star reviews- despite the many obstacles that stand in her way.

Number one, of course is the guests themselves. their strange requests, habits and lasting damage to her garden, the cottage and her sanity are a non-stop challenge.

Add in the piles of laundry, sleepless nights and scary spreadsheets, sneaky neighbours, and sex with no strings…and her goal seems far away.

Yet despite an endless run of dramas, and thanks to her passion for hospitality and home baking, Janet may find she is just a lemon drizzle cake or two away from a 5- star life.

Review

Yorkshire is a lovely place to go on holiday to. Lavender Cottage is Yorkshire’s finest B&B to check into and belongs to Janet Jackson (not that one). She is ambitious in the dog eat dog world of hospitality and wants that coveted spot of being named a Superhost.

The book, although fiction, feels like it gives a bit of an insight into what it takes to be a B&B owner and how you have to be at everyone’s beck and call, no matter how strange a request is. The guests are eclectic and some are most definitely eccentric with their rituals in the gardens and desires in the bedroom, Janet knows its going to take a lot to get a plethora of 5 star reviews to prove she can be a Superhost. There’s only her and her personal life and the guests standing in her way, so she knows she has to up her game, but anything can go wrong.

Janet Jackson Superhost is warm-hearted, witty full of mayhem.

#Review By Lou of The Holiday Bookshop #LucyDickens @PenguinRandom #SummerRead #BeachRead #TheHolidayBookshop

The Holiday Bookshop
By Lucy Dickens

A quick look at the blurb that reads like an ad for a job as a bookseller in a beautiful location and I am hooked. I also would like the job….

The Holiday Bookshop

Blurb

Are you looking to start a new chapter?
Role: Bookseller wanted! (3-month fixed-term contract) Location: A luxury resort on the island of Bounty Cove Cay.
Skills required: The ideal candidate will have experience in a retail environment, preferably within the book industry.
Desired qualities: This role will appeal to a book lover with an adventurous streak who is looking for an escape from their everyday life.
What to expect: Sun, sea, and a bookshop that is far from thriving. No one said it would be smooth sailing.
Please note: You may fall in love with more than just our island along the way…
Looking for your next beach read? Look no further! Escape with The Holiday Bookshop, perfect for fans of Jo Thomas, Phillipa Ashley and Jenny Colgan.

Review

Okay, so I would love the job and maybe I could be somehow spared for 3 months from normal life. I am just about all those things and I could easily get around not working in a bookshop before due to retail and other book experience.

Okay, I’m obviously not the candidate. Jen is the successful candidate and is off for a new life in the Maldives to run the bookshop.

Jen and Marianne were once best friends, but something happened that caused cracks, that becomes a bit of a rift. They ran and co-owned a bookshop called:
The Book Nook, so you really feel for them that things aren’t working out quite as well as they might and both end up leaving Marianne’s brother to run it. Jen, as said, goes off to the Maldives and Mari, along with her boyfriend, plan a trip of a lifetime.

The book is part adventure as it takes you from your cosy reading nook to various places by page. It’s adventure by location and life as, especially Jen, when she meets different people, discovers something quite special, but just needed a nudge to see it.

It’s a lovely read, just when it’s that time of year of planning holidays or lazing around on a beach for a day or even in the garden on a warm day. Even on a rainy day, this brings guaranteed sunshine and joy.

#BookReview By Lou of The Beach Party By Nikki Smith @Mrssmithmunday @EllieeHud @VikingBooksUK #TheBeachParty

The Beach Party
By Nikki Smith

The Beach Party kept me up all night. My fingers danced the night away as they turned page after page, until they reached the end!

Six friends.

The holiday of their dreams.

One night that changed it all . . .

1989: The tunes are loud and the clothes are louder when a group of friends arrives in Mallorca for a post-graduation holiday of decadence and debauchery at a luxury villa.

A beach party marks the pinnacle of their fun, until it isn’t fun any longer. Because amidst the wild partying, sand flying from dancing feet and revellers leaping from yachts, an accident happens. Suddenly, the night of a lifetime becomes a living nightmare.

Now: The truth about that summer has been collectively buried. But someone knows what happened that night.

And they want the friends to pay for what they did.

Review

The book caught my attention as soon as I saw it in its proof state. Finally, I’ve had the time to review it. Certain other life things took me away from my blog for a bit. The book is available now! Thanks Viking Books for an e-book copy.

Roll back the years to the 1980’s. Mallorca is one of the places to be to party hard with loud tunes and the brightest ever beachwear. Get ready to holiday with sun, sea and sand, with full-on nostalgia, “yuppies” and even some tech is in here with some early computer games.

The fun doesn’t last on this holiday. The party on a yacht is not only full tunes, but also fuelled by drugs and alcohol consumption. In short, sharp chapters, you see tragedy strike. What started off as a post-graduate party of excess and much debauchery becomes an intriguing, sit-on-the-edge-of-you-seat, psychological thriller. It turns out the place is quickly washed with secrets.

The book easily sweeps you away into its aura and mystique and takes you into some dark places.

#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.