BLOG TOUR: The Bookshop Ladies - Faith Hogan

Bestselling Irish writer, Faith Hogan, has created another gripping saga of friendship, betrayal and secrets in this story of a widow in search of answers to a shocking confession by her dying husband.

Joy Blackwood has no idea why her French art dealer husband has left a valuable painting to a woman called Robyn Tessier in Ballycove, a small town on the west coast of Ireland, but she is determined to find out.

She arrives in Ballycove to find that Robyn runs a rather chaotic and unprofitable bookshop. She is shy, suffering from unrequited love for dashing Kian, and badly in need of advice on how to make the bookshop successful.

As Joy becomes entangled in the daily dramas of Ballycove, uncovering the secrets behind her husband's painting grows increasingly challenging. When she finally musters the courage to confront the truth, her revelation sends shockwaves through the tight-knit community she's grown to love.

 

What did I think?

Faith Hogan is one of my favourite authors and I didn't think I could love one of her Ballycove books more than I already do and then she goes and writes one set in a bookshop.  As well as books, it is of course filled with drama, secrets and the wonderful Ballycove community spirit.

I had tears in my eyes before I had even finished the dramatic prologue as Joy's life changed forever in the blink of an eye.  Not only does Joy have her own grief to deal with, she is rocked by a confession her husband made with his final breath.  Joy leaves her home in Paris and sets of to Ballycove in Ireland to hand deliver a painting that her husband has bequeathed in his will.

Joy is rightfully angry but her anger vanishes almost instantly the moment she steps inside the bookshop owned by Robyn Tessier.  Robyn assumes that Joy has come to volunteer for work and Joy is too polite (and a little shellshocked) to set Robyn straight.  It's not ideal to start a friendship with secrets and it gets harder to find the right time to be honest as time goes on, but I could tell that Joy's heart was in the right place and that Ballycove had a firm grip of Joy's heart.

The wonderful community of Ballycove once again plays a huge part in the story and it was lovely to see some old faces that I have come to know and love over the years.  The Bookshop Ladies is a standalone novel though, so you don't need to have read any of the other books to enjoy it.

A book set in a bookshop is a book lover's dream and The Bookshop Ladies is a wonderfully heartwarming and engaging read.  There are books aplenty to delight the bookworms among us but it's the characters who leave a lasting impression on the reader in this very highly recommended read.

I received an ARC to read and review for the blog tour and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

Buy it from:

UK.Bookshop.org

Amazon

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BLOG TOUR: The Book-Lovers' Retreat - Heidi Swain

One long summer. One perfect setting. Can fiction inspire real life…?

Sometimes a book grabs you by the heart and grows to mean everything to you. That’s what Hope Falls is to friends Emily, Rachel and Tori. So, when they get the chance to spend a whole summer at the cottage in Lakeside where the film adaptation was located, they know it is going to be the holiday of a lifetime.

Spending six weeks away will give them a chance to re-evaluate their life choices. For Emily to decide which way her career will go – the safe route, or the more risky creative option? And for Rachel to decide whether to move in with her partner Jeremy. Then Tori has to drop out at the last moment, and her space is offered to another Hope Falls afficionado, Alex. 

But when Alex turns out not to be who they expected, the holiday takes an unforeseen turn. And as the summer develops, so does their friendship. Could this be where they uncover their future selves, find love in all its forms and where their lives will change course forever…?

 

What did I think?

I love Heidi Swain books and I absolutely adored The Book-Lovers' Retreat - all her books are fabulous but I think this one is my favourite so far.  The characters, the setting, the writing and the plot are all perfect and I thoroughly enjoyed my virtual visit to the Lake District.

It's such a wonderful story of three friends who have been planning to visit the film location from the screenplay of their favourite book: Hope Falls.  I can just imagine their excitement as their dream trip to the idyllic cottage in the Lake District becomes a reality.  When one of the friends drops out the whole trip is thrown into jeopardy, but luckily there's a lot of Hope Falls fans waiting in reserve...all Emily and Rachel have to do is pick one of them.

I loved everything about this novel and I feel like a Hope Falls fan myself as The Book-Lovers' Retreat is a book I want to read over and over again.  All the characters have so much depth and there's a lot to discover about each of them, as well as a fabulous storyline as they live their dream in Lakeside.

Hugely entertaining, incredibly compelling and absolutely wonderful, The Book-Lovers' Retreat is a book-lover's dream: I don't think you'll find a reader who won't love a book about a book.  Very highly recommended - I'm putting it on my favourites shelf and I can't wait to read it again.

I received an ARC to read and review for the blog tour and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

Buy it from:

UK.Bookshop.org

Amazon

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BLOG TOUR: The Beach Reads Book Club - Kathryn Freeman

Welcome to the Beach Reads Book Club. Where love is just a page away…

When Lottie Watt is unceremoniously booted out of her uptight book club for not following the rules, she decides to throw the rulebook out the window and start her own club – one where conversation, gin and cake take precedent over actually having read the book!

The Beach Reads Book Club soon finds a home for its meetings at Books by the Bay, a charming bookshop and café owned by gorgeous, brooding Matthew Steele, and as the book club picks heat up, so too does the attraction between Matt and Lottie.

If there’s anything Lottie has learned from the romances she’s been reading, it’s that the greatest loves are the ones hardest earned. 

A love letter to chicklit, romance, romcoms, whatever you want to call them!

What did I think?

Well this book turned out to be a breath of fresh air and as it's about a book club set in a book shop it's the perfect read for book lovers.  I loved it and read pretty much the whole book with a smile on my face so I must say a huge thank you to Kathryn Freeman.

Lottie's experience of the book club in her local library is precisely what puts me off book clubs: reading a book that somebody else has chosen and then having to discuss it.  I love books but speaking about them in front of people is my idea of hell.  Lottie isn't the only book club member to find that they're not having as much fun as they'd hoped so when Lottie decides to set up her own book club she already has a couple of founding members.

A book shop café is the perfect location for Lottie's book club and owner Matthew Steele provides the sexual tension as a brooding Mr Darcy style love interest.  Lottie is an electrician (and her surname is Watt which is rather amusing) so there's more than a few sparks as she is drawn to Matt but both of them have been hurt in the past so they're each reluctant to make the first move.

If all book clubs were like this one, I wouldn't mind joining!  Although I'd be the size of house with so much gin and cake!  I loved every single character as each one is brought to life through Kathryn Freeman's wonderful writing.  I have to say that my favourite character was Lottie's dog Chewie and it just shows the depth of character portrayed that he is so multidimensional without having the ability to speak.

You're always guaranteed a smile with a Kathryn Freeman book and The Beach Reads Book Club is no exception.  It's perfect escapism and I picked up one or two book recommendations along the way so it's a book lover's dream.  So cut a slice of cake, pour yourself a (large) gin and tonic and pick up a copy of The Beach Reads Book Club - you won't be disappointed.

I received a digital ARC to read and review for the blog tour and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

Buy it from:

Amazon UK

Amazon US

UK.Bookshop.org

About the author:

A former pharmacist, I'm now a medical writer who also writes romance. Some days a racing heart is a medical condition, others it's the reaction to a sexy hero. 

With a husband who asks every Valentine's Day whether he has to buy a card (yes, he does), any romance is all in my head. Then again, his unstinting support of my career change proves love isn't always about hearts and flowers - and heroes come in many disguises.

Social Media Links – 

Website:  http://kathrynfreeman.co.uk

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/kathrynfreeman

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/KathrynFreeman1

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BLOG TOUR: The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep - H. G. Parry

For his entire life, Charley Sutherland has concealed a magical ability he can't quite control: he can bring characters from books into the real world. His older brother, Rob - a young lawyer with an utterly normal life - hopes that this strange family secret will disappear with disuse, and he will be discharged from his duty of protecting Charley and the real world from each other.

But then, literary characters start causing trouble in their city, making threats about destroying the world, and for once, it isn't Charley's doing. There's someone else out there who shares his powers and it's up to Charley and a reluctant Rob to stop them - before anyone gets to The End.

What did I think?

Now this is one book that I couldn't wait to get my hands on; being a book magnet, a book about books is just my kind of thing!  I think H. G. Parry should be crowned Queen of Booklovers; she clearly loves books so much that she has brought the characters to life in her astonishing debut, The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep.

So many readers remark that well-written characters often pop out of books when they're reading; of course they mean metaphorically not literally, which is not the case for Charley Sutherland.  Charley has the amazing ability to be able to conjure a literary character from within the pages of a book, often by accident when he is so immersed in his reading.  The only trouble is, once the character has been released from their literary prison, they don't always want to go back.  As the literary community grows, Charley and his brother, Rob, face an epic battle of good versus evil before the world as they know it is destroyed forever.

What a wonderful character H. G. Parry has created in Charley; his love of books and words is simply breathtaking.  When I say 'books', I mean physical paper books and I'm totally with Charley on that.  There is an extract from his notebook where he says: 

'Words aren't the same to me on a screen.  I can see them but I can't connect with them.  They're too hard and bright; I float on top of them, like a leaf on the surface of a pond.  Words on paper are quiet, and porous; in the right mood, I sink down between the gaps in the letters and they close over my head.'

How beautiful is that?  Although I read digitally when I absolutely have to, I have struggled to explain why I prefer books to ebooks and H. G. Parry has described this feeling so eloquently and exquisitely.

Who hasn't read Pride & Prejudice and imagined Mr Darcy so vividly that you expect him to materialise in the room with you?  Obviously quite a few people have done so as numerous Mr Darcys have been brought to life in this book and, after the 1995 TV adaptation, unsurprisingly one of them bears a striking resemblance to Colin Firth.  If ever you wanted to bring a literary character to life, what a one to choose, eh?  <<swoon>>

Wonderfully imaginative, The Escape of Uriah Heep is a dream come true for bibliophiles who believe in magic.  There certainly is magic within these pages and it's most definitely best kept there!

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

My rating:

Buy it from Amazon



About the author:

H. G. Parry has a PhD in English literature and teaches at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. She has published a number of short stories; The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep is her debut novel.

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Bookmagnet Best Bookish Buys: The Library Book Cushion

This month's best bookish buy comes from a surprising place: homeware store, The Range.  I saw this posted on one of my many Facebook groups and thought it was perfect for my reading chair.  So I sent my personal shopper (my Mam) along to The Range at the MetroCentre to pick one up for me.

Measuring approximately 43cm long by 33cm wide, it's a lovely plump cushion around 10cm deep.  Currently priced at £8.99, I think it's an absolute bargain and you could often expect to pay that for just the cover but you get both the cover and the cushion.  It's perfectly sized for lower back support whilst reading and despite repeated use, it still bounces back into its lovely plump shape.

The only thing I don't like about it is the plain brown back.  I would have much preferred to pay a bit more for the tapestry style print to cover both sides.  Not that it matters, as you can't see the back of the cushion, but I know it's there and I don't like brown!

Front

Back

Here's a close up of the tapestry style texture of the front of the cushion.  It really is beautiful, although you can't read the book spines no matter how hard you try!

The Range also have foam seat pads for kitchen or patio chairs at £6.99 each.  Delivery is £3.95 if your local The Range doesn't have one in stock.

The Library Book Cushion from The Range is a Bookmagnet Best Bookish Buy and a really unusual gift for any book lover.

Bookmagnet Best Bookish Buys: Klevercase Magic Reading Lamp

So I've been thinking for a while about starting a new feature on the blog for all of those amazing gifts out there for book lovers.  It's actually harder than you think to buy a gift for a book lover as the one thing you can't really buy them is a book!  So what do you buy the book lover who has everything?  That's where the Bookmagnet Best Bookish Buys comes in, where I plan to share reviews of bookish products I have bought and also to look at some other great gift ideas for bookworms available online.

First up, is the Book of Spells Magic Reading Lamp from Klevercase.  This is an absolute MUST BUY for any Harry Potter fan.  It's available in purple or Hogwarts house colours, either all four together, red Gryffindor, black Hufflepuff, blue Ravenclaw or green Slytherin, but I went for the purple as it's my favourite colour.  It can even be personalised for an extra £5.  Priced at £70 full price but Klevercase have many promotions throughout the year where you will be able to pick one up for around £35 or £40.  Klevercase ship internationally and offer free tracked delivery to most countries.

Klevercase have expanded the reading lamp range to include vintage personalisable penguin covers and classic books.  The penguin covers come in orange, pink, blue, lilac, green, turquoise, yellow-geo print and cat print, so there's something for every decor.  The current classic books range includes: Pride and Prejudice, Jungle Book, Sherlock Holmes, Secret Garden and Alice in Wonderland.

*Note the lamp doesn't actually play music when opened or we wouldn't be able to concentrate on reading 😃

The lamp is rechargeable via USB and arrives already charged so it lights up straight out of the box.  It's the size of a large book measuring 21.5cm high by 17.5cm wide and 2.5cm deep.  Both the front and the back of the lamp are beautifully illustrated so it looks good from all angles, whether standing up or lying flat.

You can open the lamp either flat like you're reading a book or standing up on its edge - either look stunning and give a good burst of light.

There's also the amazing full 360 degree light by folding the book back on itself (I cringe just thinking about doing this to a real book).  The cover is magnetic so the cover sticks to itself and creates a breathtaking circle of light.

Some careful consideration has also gone into the charging port as it blends in nicely with the edge of the cover and you wouldn't even know it was there if you weren't looking for it.  I had to draw a big red arrow on my photo to point it out!  The lamp comes with full instructions for charging along with a Harry Potter thank you leaflet and a flyer showing other fabulous items that Klevercase make.

The Klevercase Magic Reading Lamp is a Bookmagnet Best Bookish Buy and a recommended gift for any book lover.

Click here to visit Klevercase and buy one today!